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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR
+
+by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+
+T H E   P R O F E S S O R
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+This little book was written before either “Jane Eyre” or “Shirley,”
+ and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first
+attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it
+had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had
+not indeed published anything before I commenced “The Professor,” but
+in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had
+got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and
+redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.
+At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of
+incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the
+result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an
+author more surprise than pleasure.
+
+I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had
+seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shilling
+he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to
+wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain,
+should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so
+much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the
+ascent of “the Hill of Difficulty;” that he should not even marry a
+beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s
+doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+
+In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
+approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative
+and poetical--something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with
+a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly.
+Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this
+kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie
+hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such
+treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on
+trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference
+for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and
+harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
+
+Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached
+him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone
+through some struggles--which indeed it has. And after all, its
+worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes
+comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a moderate expectation--and
+mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,
+
+“He that is low need fear no fall.”
+
+CURRER BELL.
+
+The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+publication of “The Professor,” shortly after the appearance of
+“Shirley.” Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some
+use of the materials in a subsequent work--“Villette.” As, however,
+these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented
+to me that I ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public. I
+have therefore consented to its publication.
+
+A. B. NICHOLLS
+
+Haworth Parsonage,
+
+September 22nd, 1856.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+T H E    P R O F E S S O R
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the
+following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school
+acquaintance:--
+
+“DEAR CHARLES,
+
+“I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of
+us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic,
+observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will
+not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly
+attractive one--can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together
+I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and
+Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on
+your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still,
+out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the
+theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood
+each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some
+vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or
+inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself
+superior to that check THEN as I do NOW.
+
+“It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since
+I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day,
+my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over
+the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down
+and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you
+shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+
+“First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
+Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
+the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
+which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
+hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
+be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one
+of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+
+“I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
+thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh how
+like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of
+my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
+accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom.
+To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of
+Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and
+well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such
+circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
+
+“When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me ‘what I intended
+to do?’ I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune,
+and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord
+Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my
+father’s steps and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the
+sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good
+tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was
+the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced
+the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I was
+instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did
+not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered
+then, with haste and warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in
+my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not
+remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this
+transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of
+Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
+reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and
+which certainly was yet untried.
+
+“I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten
+years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now
+possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he
+failed. You are aware that my father--once reckoned a Croesus of
+wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my
+mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by
+her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union
+with Crimsworth, the----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months
+she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I
+should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
+her.
+
+“My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
+was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
+an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for
+it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity
+of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
+Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
+sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
+against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
+enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race;
+they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X----; and,
+making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of
+my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during
+which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered
+into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and
+success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune.
+Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from
+him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded
+without some expression of determined enmity against the house of
+Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty
+of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand
+why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale
+and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of
+the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against
+my father--of the sufferings of my mother--of all the wrongs, in short,
+of our house--then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I
+lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had
+refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by
+these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe,
+and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
+
+“An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself,
+I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my
+intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if
+he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my
+conduct, but he said I might come down to ----shire, if I liked, and he
+would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.’
+I repressed all--even mental comment on his note--packed my trunk and
+carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+
+“After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I
+arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X----. I had always
+understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that
+it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in
+the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his RESIDENCE lay four miles out,
+in the country.
+
+“It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the
+habitation designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the
+avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy
+mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the
+grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the
+lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the
+centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+
+“Edward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing
+well--but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting
+short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the
+front door and rang. A man-servant opened it--I announced myself--he
+relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a
+room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles
+burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet
+returned from X----market, but that he would certainly be at home in the
+course of half an hour.
+
+“Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red
+morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the
+flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on
+the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting
+about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of
+these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no
+danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation
+of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of
+fraternal tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to
+prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still,
+as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I cannot tell
+you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand,
+clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain
+have shaken it.
+
+“I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether
+Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always
+experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached
+the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some
+minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the
+hall, his tread drew near the library door--that tread alone announced
+the master of the house.
+
+“I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten
+years ago--a tall, wiry, raw youth; NOW, as I rose from my seat and
+turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man,
+light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first
+glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown
+as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general
+expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment
+of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the
+morocco covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.
+
+“‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’
+said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably
+habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which
+sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the
+South.
+
+“‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’
+said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being
+aware that you had such a residence as this.’
+
+“‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind
+time, waiting for you--that is all. I thought you must be coming by the
+eight o’clock coach.’
+
+“I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but
+stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he
+scanned me again.
+
+“I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of
+meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this
+man with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+
+“‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily.
+
+“‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my
+refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against
+all future intercourse.’
+
+“‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our
+connection, that “no man can serve two masters.” Acquaintance with Lord
+Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind
+of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this
+observation.
+
+“Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an
+inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution
+of men’s minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from
+my silence--whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an
+evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and
+hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat.
+
+“‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other
+points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably
+waiting; will you come?’
+
+“He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I
+wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien
+to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe--as the
+affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than
+these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of
+my real nature; or--’ Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance
+into the dining-room.
+
+“A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the
+fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady;
+she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and
+fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay
+salutation passed between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half
+playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take
+voices into the account in judging of character) was lively--it
+indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked
+her animated scolding with a kiss--a kiss that still told of the
+bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat
+at the supper-table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged
+my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as
+ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to
+all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further
+obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently
+marked but agreeable; her hair was red--quite red. She and Edward
+talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or
+pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in
+the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
+
+“‘Now, Mr. William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he
+will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice
+already.
+
+“She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I
+soon saw also that there was more than girlish--a somewhat infantine
+expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression
+were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to
+those of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous
+to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face
+or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw
+vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in
+vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips
+and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that
+Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded,
+the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers
+are very well; but how many wet days are there in life--November seasons
+of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without
+the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+
+“Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth’s face, a deep,
+involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to
+her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome
+young wife, threw on me a glance--half ridicule, half ire.
+
+“I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two
+pictures set in the oak panelling--one on each side the mantel-piece.
+Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on
+between Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination
+of these pictures. They were portraits--a lady and a gentleman, both
+costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the
+shade. I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam
+from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this
+picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion
+picture being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father’s
+property.
+
+“The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not
+understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in the world,
+and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression. The
+serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines
+in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry
+it was only a picture.
+
+“I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant
+conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all
+intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest.
+
+“Good-bye for the present,
+
+“WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH.”
+
+To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it,
+he had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was
+already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become
+of him since, I know not.
+
+The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ
+for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at
+large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous;
+but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same
+vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections
+of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now
+proceed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed
+my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in
+the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising
+over the ----shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and
+mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried;
+a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat
+cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the
+banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender
+round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed;
+here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable
+sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful,
+active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from
+it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
+opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----.
+A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay Edward’s
+“Concern.”
+
+I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell
+on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
+emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought
+to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s career--I
+said to myself, “William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are
+a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall
+be a tradesman. Look!” I continued mentally--“Look at the sooty smoke in
+that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and work!”
+
+Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
+breakfast-room. I met him collectedly--I could not meet him cheerfully;
+he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how much did I read in
+the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced
+to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature!
+He said “Good morning” abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather
+than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air
+of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with
+an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time,
+or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust
+I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his
+robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the
+mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with comparing the two
+pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so handsome; my
+features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader brow--in
+form I was greatly inferior--thinner, slighter, not so tall. As an
+animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind
+as in person I must be a slave--for I must expect from him no lion-like
+generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye, his
+stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force of
+mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
+
+Mrs. Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked
+well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning
+and bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last
+night’s careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness
+and restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too
+familiar with his clerk.
+
+As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they
+were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he
+should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X----. I did not
+keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the
+road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs.
+Crimsworth had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice
+Jack seemed disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined
+application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon
+compelled him to submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his
+triumph in the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the
+whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his
+horse.
+
+X---- was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the clean
+streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and public
+buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills and
+warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great
+paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us,
+vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick
+brick walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were
+passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth
+looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all
+that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the
+care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me
+follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place
+from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall--a place for business, with a bare,
+planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A
+person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when
+Mr. Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his
+occupation of writing or calculating--I know not which.
+
+Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I
+remained standing near the hearth; he said presently--
+
+“Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact
+with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.”
+
+The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he
+went out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat
+a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to
+do but to watch him--how well his features were cut! what a handsome man
+he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction--that narrow and hard
+aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
+
+Turning to me he began abruptly:
+
+“You are come down to ----shire to learn to be a tradesman?”
+
+“Yes, I am.”
+
+“Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if
+you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do
+you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning--Greek,
+Latin, and so forth?”
+
+“I have studied mathematics.”
+
+“Stuff! I dare say you have.”
+
+“I can read and write French and German.”
+
+“Hum!” He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him
+took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+
+“Can you read that?” he asked.
+
+It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell
+whether he was gratified or not--his countenance remained fixed.
+
+“It is well,” he said, after a pause, “that you are acquainted with
+something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and
+lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second
+clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give
+you a good salary--90l. a year--and now,” he continued, raising his
+voice, “hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and
+all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it
+would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my
+brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed
+of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss
+you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and
+I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember,
+too, that things are on a practical footing in my
+establishment--business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best.
+Do you understand?”
+
+“Partly,” I replied. “I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my
+wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any
+help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will
+consent to be your clerk.”
+
+I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not
+consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor
+did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:--
+
+“You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth
+Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be
+aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I
+like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for
+business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so.
+You will seek out lodgings in X----.”
+
+Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+
+“Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X----,” I answered. “It would
+not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.”
+
+My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth’s blue eye
+became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said
+bluntly--
+
+“You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your
+quarter’s salary becomes due?”
+
+“I shall get on,” said I.
+
+“How do you expect to live?” he repeated in a louder voice.
+
+“As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.”
+
+“Get into debt at your peril! that’s all,” he answered. “For aught I
+know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop
+them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a
+shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur--mind that.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.”
+
+I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I
+had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper
+effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, “I will
+place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still
+and steady; when full, it will run over of itself--meantime patience.
+Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr.
+Crimsworth has set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those
+wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother
+assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is
+his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once
+aside from the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will
+advance far enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only
+pressing in at the entrance--a strait gate enough; it ought to have a
+good terminus.” While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his
+first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference,
+re-entered.
+
+“Mr. Steighton,” said he, “show Mr. William the letters from Voss,
+Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate
+them.”
+
+Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and
+heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the
+desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English
+answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first
+effort to earn my own living--a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened
+by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some
+time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I
+felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the
+visor down--or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence
+that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might
+see lines, and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them; my
+nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of
+an unknown tongue. Ere long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and
+left the counting-house; he returned to it but twice in the course of
+that day; each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water,
+the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side
+of the fireplace; having glanced at my translations--he could read both
+French and German--he went out again in silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.
+What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do
+well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set
+Timothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was
+baffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made
+inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts
+with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which
+I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings of
+my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to
+ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying
+economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to
+obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency,
+to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time,
+and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to be
+misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward;
+I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of
+them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note, which I was able to
+leave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided
+for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had
+any complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she
+believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he
+thought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she
+said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing
+equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was “a religious man”
+ himself; indeed, he was “a joined Methodist,” which did not (be it
+understood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal,
+and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having
+imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented
+no place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information
+into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He
+commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first
+perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation
+she had had with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came
+to the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s
+blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of
+impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunition
+on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he only kept them
+quiet in his quiver.
+
+Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it
+was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s
+birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar
+anniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept
+strictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin
+and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice
+than was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never
+spoke to me; I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,
+enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in array
+against me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I was
+fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from afar,
+and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to the
+consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the
+rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about him
+a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily--Mr.
+Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept
+down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.
+
+Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some
+pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity
+to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social
+intercourse--that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,
+but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful
+figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the
+figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized,
+left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No
+fibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked
+for and found my mother’s picture. I took a wax taper from a stand,
+and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image.
+My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and
+countenance--her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty
+pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined
+likeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacency
+the lineaments of their daughters’ faces, where frequently their own
+similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and
+delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so
+interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice close
+behind me pronounced the words--
+
+“Humph! there’s some sense in that face.”
+
+I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or
+six years older than I--in other respects of an appearance the opposite
+to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his
+portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I
+have just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I
+did not investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either;
+I saw his stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his
+fastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in number,
+and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled
+me to recognize him.
+
+“Good evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a
+shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why? Simply because Mr.
+Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and
+my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden
+in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with
+Mr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed
+him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the
+tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction
+that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now
+went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already
+noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I
+perversely said to myself--
+
+“He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,
+perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not
+at all.”
+
+I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and
+continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
+
+“Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,
+you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.”
+
+He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not addressed
+me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool
+dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way
+of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well
+enough to oblige; I stayed.
+
+“That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait.
+
+“Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked.
+
+“Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?
+but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that
+woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and
+compliments.”
+
+I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
+
+“Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;
+there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling
+his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat
+written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.”
+
+“You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a
+distinctive cast of form and features?”
+
+“Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have
+their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we----shire
+tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As
+to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from
+childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain
+degree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques.
+Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame
+with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?”
+
+I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr
+Hunsden.”
+
+“Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a
+straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages--if
+they are advantages--he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician,
+but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was as
+veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal
+the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who are
+the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your
+plebeian brother by long chalk.”
+
+There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which
+rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I
+continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
+
+“How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought
+you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor
+clerk.”
+
+“Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
+Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are, too.”
+
+I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still
+his manner did not offend me in the least--it only piqued my curiosity;
+I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
+
+“This world is an absurd one,” said he.
+
+“Why so, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the
+absurdity I allude to.”
+
+I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my
+pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.
+
+“Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently.
+
+“It was my serious intention three months ago.”
+
+“Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a practical
+business-like face you have!”
+
+“My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.”
+
+“The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good can
+your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness,
+do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it’s your own
+affair, not mine.”
+
+“Perhaps I have no choice.”
+
+“Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to me what
+you do or where you go; but I’m cool now--I want to dance again; and
+I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by
+her mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s
+Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?”
+
+And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open
+folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the
+fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made,
+full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E.
+Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he kept
+at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her
+animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself
+perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs.
+Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably
+flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful
+as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name) professed to be of
+the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully
+appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred
+on him in a mushroom-place like X----, concerning whose inhabitants
+it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own
+grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent;
+and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business,
+to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his
+house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton’s broad face might
+well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden
+Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I,
+however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more
+accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation
+were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous of
+making, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it
+was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do),
+suggested to me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In form
+and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one
+caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had
+learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease,
+and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between
+him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet
+vulgar he could not be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled
+no one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated
+complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an
+indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and
+seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of
+himself, his words and actions an energetic discontent at his life or
+his social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments--I
+know not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of
+his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against
+wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and
+submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my
+residence in X---- I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself--the
+work of copying and translating business-letters--was a dry and tedious
+task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the
+nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double
+desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the
+resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured
+in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not have
+whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have pent
+in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its
+distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of
+Bigben Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I
+should have set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my
+small bedroom at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been
+my household gods, from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret,
+Imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by softness
+or strength, have severed me. But this was not all; the antipathy which
+had sprung up between myself and my employer striking deeper root and
+spreading denser shade daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the
+sunshine of life; and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid
+darkness out of the slimy walls of a well.
+
+Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward
+Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and
+which was liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement,
+look, or word of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree
+of education evinced in my language irritated him; my punctuality,
+industry, and accuracy, fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour
+and poignant relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a
+successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would
+not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what
+was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental
+wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a
+ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I
+was guarded by three faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and
+prowling and prying as was Edward’s malignity, it could never baffle
+the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice
+watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like
+on its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.
+
+I had received my first quarter’s wages, and was returning to my
+lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that
+the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned
+pittance--(I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother--he
+was a hard, grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that
+was all). Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices
+spoke within me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous
+phrases. One said: “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What
+can you do to alter it?” I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night
+in January; as I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of
+my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be
+out; looking towards the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering
+red gleam.
+
+“That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual,” said I, “and I shall
+see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night--I
+will walk a little farther.”
+
+It WAS a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for X----;
+there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church
+tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the
+sky.
+
+Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into
+Grove-street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the
+extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron
+gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in
+this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past.
+
+“What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he
+expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds.”
+
+I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance,
+and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent
+towards me over the wicket.
+
+“You see I am meditating in the field at eventide,” continued this
+shade. “God knows it’s cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on
+a camel’s hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate
+sends me only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper.” The
+voice was familiar to me--its second utterance enabled me to seize the
+speaker’s identity.
+
+“Mr. Hunsden! good evening.”
+
+“Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first.”
+
+“I did not know you.”
+
+“A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you
+were going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?”
+
+“It wouldn’t be worth their while; I’m not of consequence enough to
+attract them.”
+
+“Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and
+how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice!
+But since you’re not running from the police, from whom are you running?
+the devil?”
+
+“On the contrary, I am going post to him.”
+
+“That is well--you’re just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there are
+scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and he,
+or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in
+and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he
+passes without much trouble. I think though you’d better let him alone
+to-night, he’ll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day
+in X---- and Dinneford; come in at all events.”
+
+He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+
+“Do you really wish me to go in?” I asked.
+
+“As you please--I’m alone; your company for an hour or two would be
+agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour me so far, I’ll not
+press the point. I hate to bore any one.”
+
+It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it.
+I passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he
+opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door
+being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and
+glanced round me.
+
+It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate
+was filled with a genuine ----shire fire, red, clear, and generous, no
+penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On
+the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal
+light; the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor,
+comprising a couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the
+recesses on each side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and
+arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste;
+I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that
+Hunsden’s ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed
+from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals,
+I ran my eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and
+German works predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern
+authors, Thiers, Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in
+German--Goethe, Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there
+were works on Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden
+himself recalled my attention.
+
+“You shall have something,” said he, “for you ought to feel disposed for
+refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night
+as this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be
+a bottle of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have
+Rhein-wein for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and
+coffee.”
+
+Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received
+practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of
+spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German
+nectar, but I liked coffee, so I responded--
+
+“Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.”
+
+I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a
+chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give
+me neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my
+face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint
+of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I
+honoured his conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he
+seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently
+brought; for himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something
+sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the
+shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not
+answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of
+those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face,
+extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated
+look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed
+the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had
+never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had
+gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised
+now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his
+lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general
+bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and
+massive; not at all:--my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer
+mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his
+inward and outward man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul
+had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle.
+Perhaps, in these incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,”
+ lay the secret of that fitful gloom; he WOULD but COULD not, and the
+athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his
+good looks, I should have liked to have a woman’s opinion on that
+subject; it seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect
+on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though scarcely pretty,
+female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks--they were
+brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead; his
+cheek had a rather hectic freshness; his features might have done well
+on canvas, but indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character
+had set a stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and
+strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose
+bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more frequently,
+the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite countenance they
+made.
+
+Starting from his silent fit, he began:--
+
+“William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
+King’s, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a
+garden like me!”
+
+“I should be too far from the mill.”
+
+“What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
+times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
+flower or a green leaf?”
+
+“I am no fossil.”
+
+“What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth’s counting-house
+day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
+automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
+for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to
+no excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in
+strong drink.”
+
+“Do you, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“Don’t think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine
+are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a
+parallel. I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be
+unendurable, he is a fossil.”
+
+“Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?”
+
+“Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
+surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find
+subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do
+with my eyes and ears? I’ve been in your counting-house more than once
+when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for
+instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to
+consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you
+to shut or open the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing
+of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither
+place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and
+how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances!”
+
+“Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?”
+
+“I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to
+your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide
+your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make something
+eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by
+means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary,
+but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a
+duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in
+no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature is
+phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch
+of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all
+means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you.”
+
+Mr. Hunsden’s eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and
+oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him
+one of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly
+relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he
+was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I
+suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in
+the urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the
+oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still
+more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a
+resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might
+often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over
+these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved
+thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man.
+It was as I thought: Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his
+incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and
+himself was chafed by a laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+
+His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+
+“Yes,” he began, “I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but
+an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look?
+A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony,
+patrician resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William
+Crimsworth! You are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature!
+Look at the features, figure, even to the hands--distinction all
+over--ugly distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion,
+and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the
+rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
+peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support
+your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in
+churls’ blood; as it is, you’ve no power; you can do nothing; you’re
+wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce; forced into collision
+with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for YOU’LL NEVER BE A
+TRADESMAN.”
+
+The first part of Hunsden’s speech moved me not at all, or, if it did,
+it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted
+his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
+moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
+wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+
+Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+
+“You’ll make nothing by trade,” continued he; “nothing more than the
+crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live;
+your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow,
+or running away with an heiress.”
+
+“I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,”
+ said I, rising.
+
+“And even that is hopeless,” he went on coolly. “What widow would have
+you? Much less, what heiress? You’re not bold and venturesome enough for
+the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
+perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
+refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid
+for them.”
+
+Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was
+out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
+enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence
+and solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+
+“What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you’ll find the door.” And
+he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house.
+I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that
+I was walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were
+almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were
+set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and
+jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
+my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why
+did I enter Hunsden’s house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must
+I repair to Crimsworth’s mill? All that night did I ask myself these
+questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I
+got no sleep; my head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells
+rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
+every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
+frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now
+icy street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory
+workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all
+lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my
+post in the counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as
+yet only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat
+down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were
+still numb; I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I
+went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.”
+ Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+
+“Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that
+within ourselves takes ourselves to task--“come, get a clear notion of
+what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
+pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
+What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
+Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading
+you are likely to make of it! How well you like X----! Just at this
+moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
+its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers
+you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
+letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure
+in Brown’s, nor Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as
+to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his
+society--he! he! how did you like the taste you had of him last night?
+was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even
+he does not like you; your self-respect defies you to like him; he has
+always seen you to disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage;
+your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your
+minds could not assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of
+friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are
+your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee
+would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager
+wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight--in
+X---- daylight--you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those
+three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of
+just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will
+never be made perfect. Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get
+to work!”
+
+“Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I
+toil like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may
+work, it will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a
+packet of letters and commenced my task--task thankless and bitter as
+that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in
+search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+
+About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and
+in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to
+glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand
+a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did
+not deviate from his usual habits; the only difference was that when
+he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his
+eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two
+longer than usual, but went out in silence.
+
+Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
+workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
+me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I
+was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place,
+preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door,
+and entering closed it behind him.
+
+“You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
+nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
+
+Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
+forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful
+forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+
+“It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk.
+
+“You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key!
+leave it in the lock!”
+
+“Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?”
+
+“Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant,
+obey me! What have you been about--?” He was going on in the same
+breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
+the better of articulation.
+
+“You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk,
+there are the papers.”
+
+“Confound your insolence! What have you been about?”
+
+“Your work, and have done it well.”
+
+“Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This
+last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to the horn of
+black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels,
+and employed for greasing the same.)
+
+“Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
+accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find
+it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay
+no longer.”
+
+“What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He
+took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
+
+I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
+temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
+vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
+continued:
+
+“I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X---- about me? answer
+me that!”
+
+“You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.”
+
+“You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant
+habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands.
+You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and
+knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this
+minute, and never stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh
+from your bones with this whip.”
+
+He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead.
+A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a
+bound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly,
+came round to where he stood, and faced him.
+
+“Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.”
+
+“Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?”
+
+“To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
+calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give
+your grounds for these assertions.”
+
+Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation,
+he gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+
+“Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
+brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and
+a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
+pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
+question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
+about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such
+trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy
+mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the
+quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I
+saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you
+in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know
+that you were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
+
+“Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
+you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse
+man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom
+existed.”
+
+“Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
+he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+
+A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and
+throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded,
+and said--
+
+“Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
+
+Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate
+something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought
+before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After
+an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed
+to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient
+superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer
+and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of
+personal chastisement.
+
+“Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at
+that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
+transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into
+my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground
+belonging to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
+
+“It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what
+temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
+tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so
+no fear of my coming back.”
+
+“Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
+
+I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were
+my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the
+key on the top.
+
+“What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner.
+“Leave all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search
+you.”
+
+“Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
+gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house--walked out of it
+to enter it no more.
+
+I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
+Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
+rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to
+hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images
+of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and
+tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I
+only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize
+with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could
+I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and
+liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of
+resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced
+circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me;
+no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding
+Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far
+subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer
+boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo!
+straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles
+out of X----. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined
+sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising
+from the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I
+had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy
+blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the
+time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
+within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being
+yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for
+the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow.
+I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current:
+I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear
+and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
+Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of
+that day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some
+very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and
+characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the
+sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear,
+eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my
+face towards X----.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred
+seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp
+appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was
+dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered
+how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the
+prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise,
+I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth.
+I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another
+subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was
+already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest,
+and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful
+as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to
+recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of
+course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had
+parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred
+the fire, and said coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as
+little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had
+brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to
+interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared,
+that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to
+ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to
+explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary
+one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it.
+
+“You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words.
+
+“Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to
+charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.”
+
+“Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton
+weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit
+again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with
+the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘Thank you!’”
+
+“Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so
+famished.”
+
+I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+
+“Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a
+glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.”
+
+“No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting
+him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and
+irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
+
+“It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he.
+
+“How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical
+opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the
+case; I have had no dinner.”
+
+What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied
+by looking in my face and laughing.
+
+“Poor thing!” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it?
+What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth
+order you to fast by way of punishment, William!”
+
+“No, Mr. Hunsden.” Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought
+in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly.
+Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to
+Mr. Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the
+table and do as I did, if he liked.
+
+“But I don’t like in the least,” said he, and therewith he summoned the
+servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to
+have a glass of toast-and-water. “And some more coal,” he added; “Mr.
+Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay.”
+
+His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so
+as to be opposite me.
+
+“Well,” he proceeded. “You are out of work, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes,” said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this
+point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as
+though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had
+been done. “Yes--thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at
+a minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public
+meeting, I understand.”
+
+“Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did
+he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden--anything sweet?”
+
+“He called you a treacherous villain.”
+
+“Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come
+out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance,
+but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities--excellent ones! The Hunsdens
+were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable
+villain is their natural prey--they could not keep off him wherever
+they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now--that word is the
+property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile
+off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for
+me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact
+with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally
+I care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he
+violated your natural claim to equality)--I say it was impossible for
+me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race
+at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a
+chain.”
+
+Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out
+Hunsden’s character, and because it explained his motives; it interested
+me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over
+a throng of ideas it had suggested.
+
+“Are you grateful to me?” he asked, presently.
+
+In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at
+the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not
+out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer
+his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency
+to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his
+championship, to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely
+to meet with it here. In reply he termed me “a dry-hearted aristocratic
+scamp,” whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of
+my mouth.
+
+“Your bread was dirty, man!” cried Hunsden--“dirty and unwholesome!
+It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a
+tyrant,--a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will
+some day be a tyrant to his wife.”
+
+“Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and
+through your means.”
+
+“There’s sense in what you say, after all,” rejoined Hunsden. “I must
+say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical
+an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous
+observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would
+have taken in your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least,
+have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of
+you for looking steadily to the needful.”
+
+“Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live,
+and to live I must have what you call ‘the needful,’ which I can only
+get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.”
+
+“What do you mean to do?” pursued Hunsden coolly. “You have influential
+relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.”
+
+“Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.”
+
+“The Seacombes.”
+
+“Stuff! I have cut them.”
+
+Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+
+“I have,” said I, “and that definitively.”
+
+“You must mean they have cut you, William.”
+
+“As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my
+entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I
+withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my
+elder brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by
+the cruel intermeddling of a stranger--of yourself, in short.”
+
+I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s
+lips.
+
+“Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did
+see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin
+resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my
+countenance, he went on:
+
+“Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?”
+
+“Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands
+stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of
+a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with
+aristocratic palms?”
+
+“There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete
+Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they
+should disown you.”
+
+“They have disowned me; so talk no more about it.”
+
+“Do you regret it, William?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why not, lad?”
+
+“Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+sympathy.”
+
+“I say you are one of them.”
+
+“That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my
+mother’s son, but not my uncles’ nephew.”
+
+“Still--one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and not a
+very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should consider
+worldly interest.”
+
+“Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to
+be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough
+grace ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own
+comfort and not have gained their patronage in return.”
+
+“Very likely--so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your own
+devices at once?”
+
+“Exactly. I must follow my own devices--I must, till the day of my
+death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of
+other people.”
+
+Hunsden yawned. “Well,” said he, “in all this, I see but one thing
+clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine.” He
+stretched himself and again yawned. “I wonder what time it is,” he went
+on: “I have an appointment for seven o’clock.”
+
+“Three quarters past six by my watch.”
+
+“Well, then I’ll go.” He got up. “You’ll not meddle with trade again?”
+ said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+
+“No; I think not.”
+
+“You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you’ll think
+better of your uncles’ proposal and go into the Church.”
+
+“A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man
+before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men.”
+
+“Indeed! Do you think so?” interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+
+“I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to
+make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I
+have no vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty.”
+
+“You’re a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won’t be a tradesman
+or a parson; you can’t be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because
+you’ve no money. I’d recommend you to travel.”
+
+“What! without money?”
+
+“You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French--with
+a vile English accent, no doubt--still, you can speak it. Go on to the
+Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.”
+
+“God knows I should like to go!” exclaimed I with involuntary ardour.
+
+“Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance,
+for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.”
+
+“Necessity would teach me if I didn’t.”
+
+“Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I
+know Brussels almost as well as I know X----, and I am sure it would
+suit such a one as you better than London.”
+
+“But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had;
+and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at
+Brussels?”
+
+“There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before
+you know every inch of the way. You haven’t a sheet of paper and a
+pen-and-ink?”
+
+“I hope so,” and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I
+guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded,
+sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to me.
+
+“There, Prudence, there’s a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of
+those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they
+are to get it out again, and you’re right there. A reckless man is
+my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the
+concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are
+generally ten times more so for their friends.”
+
+“This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?” said I, taking the
+epistle.
+
+“Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself
+in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a
+degradation--so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you will
+present it generally has two or three respectable places depending upon
+his recommendation.”
+
+“That will just suit me,” said I.
+
+“Well, and where’s your gratitude?” demanded Mr. Hunsden; “don’t you
+know how to say ‘Thank you?’”
+
+“I’ve fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw,
+gave me eighteen years ago,” was my rather irrelevant answer; and I
+further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any
+being in Christendom.
+
+“But your gratitude?”
+
+“I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden--to-morrow, if all be well: I’ll
+not stay a day longer in X---- than I’m obliged.”
+
+“Very good--but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the
+assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike
+seven: I’m waiting to be thanked.”
+
+“Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is
+on the corner of the mantelpiece. I’ll pack my portmanteau before I go
+to bed.”
+
+The house clock struck seven.
+
+“The lad is a heathen,” said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a
+sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an
+inclination to follow him: I really intended to leave X---- the next
+morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding
+him good-bye. The front door banged to.
+
+“Let him go,” said I, “we shall meet again some day.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don’t know the
+physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon
+your memory, as I have them on mine?
+
+Three--nay four--pictures line the four-walled cell where are stored for
+me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far
+perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green, dewy,
+with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my
+childhood was not all sunshine--it had its overcast, its cold, its
+stormy hours. Second, X----, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked;
+a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs
+blighted and sullied--a very dreary scene.
+
+Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the
+fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not,
+as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it
+must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name
+that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such
+as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can
+produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight.
+It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves
+unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept,
+are seen by me ascending from the clouds--haloed most of them--but while
+I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their
+outline, the sound which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all,
+like a light wreath of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns,
+resealed in monuments. Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+
+This is Belgium, reader. Look! don’t call the picture a flat or a dull
+one--it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I
+left Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road
+to Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment
+possessed an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite.
+I was young; I had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no
+indulgence of hers had enervated or sated one faculty of my nature.
+Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of
+her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.
+Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that
+from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise; what
+if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not; his eyes are
+fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having
+gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will
+face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon,
+and that the herald breeze he feels on his cheek is opening for the
+god’s career a clear, vast path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl
+and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained
+by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot
+no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there were pebbles,
+inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the crimson
+peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament beyond, and
+I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of the thorns
+scratching my face and hands.
+
+I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence
+(these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads).
+Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy
+swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them
+look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as
+pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by
+the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a
+gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful,
+scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to
+me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. It continued fair
+so long as daylight lasted, though the moisture of many preceding damp
+days had sodden the whole country; as it grew dark, however, the rain
+recommenced, and it was through streaming and starless darkness my eye
+caught the first gleam of the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the
+city but its lights that night. Having alighted from the diligence, a
+fiacre conveyed me to the Hotel de ----, where I had been advised by a
+fellow-traveller to put up; having eaten a traveller’s supper, I retired
+to bed, and slept a traveller’s sleep.
+
+Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression
+that I was yet in X----, and perceiving it to be broad daylight I
+started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind
+time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint
+vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as,
+throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide,
+lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though
+not uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a
+respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet!
+Yet far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room!
+It, too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness,
+I first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was
+midnight, and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full
+charged with colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window
+of that room, I first saw THE dome, looming through a London mist. I
+suppose the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are
+felt but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them
+in safe niches! Well--I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in
+foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber
+looked stately and cheerful. It had such large windows--CROISEES that
+opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a great
+looking-glass stood on my dressing-table--such a fine mirror glittered
+over the mantelpiece--the painted floor looked so clean and glossy;
+when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble steps
+almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.
+On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a
+short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad,
+her physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she
+answered me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought
+her charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived,
+very picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch
+paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall.
+
+I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty,
+and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and
+most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer
+sense of exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table
+(covered, however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered
+breakfast, began to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot.
+The stove might be dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it
+was indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by
+it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or
+comprehend much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the
+mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
+of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen
+presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt from the fashion in
+which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in
+my execrable South-of-England style, though the man understood English.
+The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted
+me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
+French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for
+the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the
+capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living
+languages I afterwards found to be so general in Brussels.
+
+I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there
+on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a
+free, independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the
+two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
+business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
+one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
+the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
+without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek
+another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
+never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
+impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived
+the morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden’s
+letter of introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new
+situation. Wrenching my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat,
+and forced my reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign
+street.
+
+It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
+stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out “Mr.
+Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint
+of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked,
+asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+
+Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the
+presence of an elderly gentleman--very grave, business-like, and
+respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter; he received me
+very civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there
+was anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said,
+“Yes,” and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of
+fortune, travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who
+wanted employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied
+that as a friend of Mr. Hunsden’s he would be willing to assist me as
+well as he could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile
+house at Liege, and another in a bookseller’s shop at Louvain.
+
+“Clerk and shopman!” murmured I to myself. “No.” I shook my head. I
+had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other
+occupations that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave
+Brussels.
+
+“I know of no place in Brussels,” answered Mr. Brown, “unless indeed you
+were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with
+the director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of
+English and Latin.”
+
+I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+
+“The very thing, sir!” said I.
+
+“But,” asked he, “do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian
+boys English?”
+
+Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative;
+having studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language
+intelligibly though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write
+it decently.
+
+“Then,” pursued Mr. Brown, “I think I can promise you the place, for
+Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come
+here again at five o’clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to
+him.”
+
+The word “professor” struck me. “I am not a professor,” said I.
+
+“Oh,” returned Mr. Brown, “professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher,
+that is all.”
+
+My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present,
+withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart;
+the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now
+take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time
+I remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky,
+the gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what
+a fine street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades,
+the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a
+new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to
+contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the
+top of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow
+back street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle.
+I well recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large
+house opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, “Pensionnat de
+Demoiselles.” Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in
+my mind; it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles,
+externats no doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door--I looked
+for a pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets
+hid their features; in a moment they were gone.
+
+I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o’clock arrived,
+but punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale.
+Re-admitted to Mr. Brown’s breakfast-room, I found him, as before,
+seated at the table, and he was not alone--a gentleman stood by the
+hearth. Two words of introduction designated him as my future master.
+“M. Pelet, Mr. Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet,” a bow on each
+side finished the ceremony. I don’t know what sort of a bow I made; an
+ordinary one, I suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of
+mind; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first interview
+with Edward Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not
+theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to
+each other. In a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my
+foreign ears, very distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he
+had just been receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my
+attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as to
+the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and Latin in
+his establishment; nevertheless, for form’s sake, he would put a few
+questions to test my powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms
+his satisfaction at my answers. The subject of salary next came on; it
+was fixed at one thousand francs per annum, besides board and lodging.
+“And in addition,” suggested M. Pelet, “as there will be some hours
+in each day during which your services will not be required in my
+establishment, you may, in time, obtain employment in other seminaries,
+and thus turn your vacant moments to profitable account.”
+
+I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms
+on which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels;
+instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of
+teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new
+post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted.
+
+Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him?
+He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather
+emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes
+hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French
+turn (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth
+and parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic
+lineaments was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a
+melancholy, almost suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy
+was “fine et spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define
+better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his
+features were imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing
+personage. I wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary
+characteristics of his profession, and almost feared he could not be
+stern and resolute enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least
+M. Pelet presented an absolute contrast to my late master, Edward
+Crimsworth.
+
+Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a
+good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer’s
+house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the
+sphere of my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted
+schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course,
+whose collective appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing,
+and well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company
+with M. Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance
+a murmur or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this
+most gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I
+thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual. When I had
+perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and
+said to me--
+
+“Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their
+proficiency in English?”
+
+The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at
+least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career
+by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we
+stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect
+my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I
+proposed to open business. I made it as short as possible:--
+
+“Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture.”
+
+“Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?” demanded a thickset, moon-faced young
+Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:--
+
+“Anglais.”
+
+I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this
+lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the
+delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the
+criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt
+already it would be necessary at once to take up an advantageous
+position, and I proceeded to employ means accordingly.
+
+“Commencez!” cried I, when they had all produced their books. The
+moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt)
+took the first sentence. The “livre de lecture” was the “Vicar of
+Wakefield,” much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to
+contain prime samples of conversational English; it might, however,
+have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by
+Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great
+Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was
+said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but
+I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of
+correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced,
+no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred
+“Anglais.” In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in
+rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and
+mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+
+“Arretez!” said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all
+with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough
+and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length
+did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me
+were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my
+hands, and ejaculated in a deep “voix de poitrine”--
+
+“Comme c’est affreux!”
+
+They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they
+were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way
+I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their
+self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation; not
+a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of
+betraying my own deficiencies.
+
+“Ecoutez, messieurs!” said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my
+accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the
+extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn,
+deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of
+the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some
+twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed
+attention; by the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then
+rose and said:--
+
+“C’est assez pour aujourd’hui, messieurs; demain nous recommencerons, et
+j’espere que tout ira bien.”
+
+With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet
+quitted the school-room.
+
+“C’est bien! c’est tres bien!” said my principal as we entered his
+parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans
+l’instruction, l’adresse fait tout autant que le savoir.”
+
+From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my “chambre,”
+ as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small
+room, with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand
+that I was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great
+comfort. Yet, though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light
+not being taxed in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into
+their houses; just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS,
+for one of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into
+the boys’ playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect
+it would present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I
+suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:--
+
+“La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat
+de demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances exigent--enfin, vous
+comprenez--n’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+
+“Oui, oui,” was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but
+when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing
+I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find
+some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the
+consecrated ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well
+joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I
+thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a
+garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the
+demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety
+of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin
+curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old
+duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare
+gravelled court, with an enormous “pas de geant” in the middle, and the
+monotonous walls and windows of a boys’ school-house round. Not only
+then, but many a time after, especially in moments of weariness and
+low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing
+board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region
+which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the
+window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often heard
+at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the daytime,
+when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the boards, the
+voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and, to speak
+the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a trifle
+disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen
+sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated
+clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to
+me a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter’s girls or those
+of M. Pelet’s boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking
+the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by,
+that Reuter was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded
+up. I say old, for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from
+her cautious, chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of
+her as young. I remember I was very much amused when I first heard her
+Christian name; it was Zoraide--Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter. But the
+continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names,
+such as we sober English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too
+limited a list to choose from.
+
+Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a
+few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the
+commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much
+facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and
+as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
+continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
+never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
+acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the
+relation in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards
+each other in those establishments, will consider an important and
+uncommon one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
+system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may possibly
+be of use to others.
+
+It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
+youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one’s
+measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
+weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
+impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull,
+but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead,
+most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly
+absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having
+short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
+recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study
+or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by
+injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they
+would have resisted as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine;
+and though not brave singly, they were relentless acting EN MASSE.
+
+I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet’s establishment, the
+combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of
+more than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the
+most moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply--to
+assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
+contracted--to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
+point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
+that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
+root it in rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
+step--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
+gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs
+of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and
+handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of
+learning, remove every pebble from the track; but then you must finally
+insist with decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself
+to be led quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my
+lesson to the lowest level of my dullest pupil’s capacity--when I
+had shown myself the mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of
+impertinence, a movement of disobedience, changed me at once into
+a despot. I offered then but one alternative--submission and
+acknowledgment of error, or ignominious expulsion. This system answered,
+and my influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. “The
+boy is father to the man,” it is said; and so I often thought when
+looked at my boys and remembered the political history of their
+ancestors. Pelet’s school was merely an epitome of the Belgian nation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well!
+Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than
+his demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect,
+irritating interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I
+fear, however, two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment
+could not have said as much; to them the director’s manner was
+invariably dry, stern, and cool. I believe he perceived once or twice
+that I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and
+me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile--
+
+“Ce ne sont que des Flamands--allez!”
+
+And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted
+floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they
+were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual
+inferiority is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men,
+and, in the main, honest men; and I could not see why their being
+aboriginals of the flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for
+treating them with perpetual severity and contempt. This idea, of
+injustice somewhat poisoned the pleasure I might otherwise have derived
+from Pelet’s soft affable manner to myself. Certainly it was agreeable,
+when the day’s work was over, to find one’s employer an intelligent
+and cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic
+and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover that
+his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of reality--if I did
+occasionally suspect the existence of flint or steel under an external
+covering of velvet--still we are none of us perfect; and weary as I was
+of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence in which I had constantly
+lived at X----, I had no inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer
+regions, to institute at once a prying search after defects that were
+scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was willing
+to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him benevolent and friendly
+until some untoward event should prove him otherwise. He was not
+married, and I soon perceived he had all a Frenchman’s, all a Parisian’s
+notions about matrimony and women. I suspected a degree of laxity in
+his code of morals, there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone
+whenever he alluded to what he called “le beau sexe;” but he was too
+gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was really
+intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of discourse, he
+and I always found enough to talk about, without seeking themes in the
+mire. I hated his fashion of mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul,
+mere licentiousness. He felt the difference of our notions, and, by
+mutual consent, we kept off ground debateable.
+
+Pelet’s house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real
+old Frenchwoman; she had been handsome--at least she told me so, and I
+strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women
+can be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than
+she really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair
+strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown--only
+a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in
+lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On
+the other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on
+Sundays and fete-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured
+dress, usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers,
+and a very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old
+woman, but an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly
+in and about the kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son’s august
+presence; of him, indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved
+her, his reproofs were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself
+that trouble.
+
+Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors,
+whom, however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what
+she called her “cabinet,” a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen,
+and descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by,
+I have not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on
+her knee, engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner,
+gossiping with her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her
+antagonist, the cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal
+with her son; and as to showing her face at the boys’ table, that was
+quite out of the question. These details will sound very odd in English
+ears, but Belgium is not England, and its ways are not our ways.
+
+Madame Pelet’s habits of life, then, being taken into consideration,
+I was a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was
+always a half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment,
+correcting a huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant
+tapped at the door, and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet’s
+compliments, and she would be happy to see me to take my “gouter” (a
+meal which answers to our English “tea”) with her in the dining-room.
+
+“Plait-il?” said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the
+message and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I
+accepted, of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what
+whim had entered the old lady’s brain; her son was out--gone to pass the
+evening at the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which
+he was a member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room
+door, a queer idea glanced across my mind.
+
+“Surely she’s not going to make love to me,” said I. “I’ve heard of
+old Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the gouter? They
+generally begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe.”
+
+There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination,
+and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt
+have cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself
+in; but whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty,
+the primary wish of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth,
+reserving the expedient of flight for the moment when its dread
+anticipation shall be realized. I turned the door-handle, and in an
+instant had crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and
+stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+
+Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst
+apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown,
+on her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her
+table was carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a
+bottle of something--I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started
+on my brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed
+door, when, to my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the
+direction of the stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large
+fauteuil beside it. This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman,
+and as fat and as rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her
+attire was likewise very fine, and spring flowers of different hues
+circled in a bright wreath the crown of her violet-coloured velvet
+bonnet.
+
+I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet,
+coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic
+step, thus accosted me:
+
+“Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the
+request of an insignificant person like me--will Monsieur complete his
+kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame Reuter,
+who resides in the neighbouring house--the young ladies’ school.”
+
+“Ah!” thought I, “I knew she was old,” and I bowed and took my seat.
+Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+
+“How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?” asked she, in an accent of the
+broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between
+the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and
+the guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then
+wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me
+should be at the head of a ladies’ seminary, which I had always heard
+spoken of in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something
+to wonder at. Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old
+Flemish fermiere, or even a maitresse d’auberge, than a staid, grave,
+rigid directrice de pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least
+the Belgian old women permit themselves a licence of manners, speech,
+and aspect, such as our venerable granddames would recoil from as
+absolutely disreputable, and Madame Reuter’s jolly face bore evidence
+that she was no exception to the rule of her country; there was a
+twinkle and leer in her left eye; her right she kept habitually half
+shut, which I thought very odd indeed. After several vain attempts to
+comprehend the motives of these two droll old creatures for inviting me
+to join them at their gouter, I at last fairly gave it up, and resigning
+myself to inevitable mystification, I sat and looked first at one, then
+at the other, taking care meantime to do justice to the confitures,
+cakes, and coffee, with which they amply supplied me. They, too, ate,
+and that with no delicate appetite, and having demolished a large
+portion of the solids, they proposed a “petit verre.” I declined. Not
+so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought rather
+a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near the stove, they
+drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited me to do the same.
+I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was thus addressed
+first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter.
+
+“We will now speak of business,” said Madame Pelet, and she went on to
+make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect
+that she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in
+order to give her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an
+important proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage.
+
+“Pourvu que vous soyez sage,” said Madame Reuter, “et a vrai dire,
+vous en avez bien l’air. Take one drop of the punch” (or ponche, as she
+pronounced it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full
+meal.”
+
+I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
+
+“I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip--“I feel profoundly the
+importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted
+me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the
+establishment in the next house?”
+
+“Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment
+I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s
+pensionnat.
+
+“I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend
+Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more. Ah! you thought I
+gave lessons in class--did you?”
+
+And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy
+amazingly.
+
+“Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give
+lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a
+white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my
+nose, bowing at the same time.
+
+“Quel charmant jeune homme!” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice.
+Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not
+French, only laughed again.
+
+“You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge
+compliments at that rate, Zoraide will positively be afraid of you; but
+if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you
+can flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She
+has heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get
+the very best masters for her school (car Zoraide fait tout comme une
+reine, c’est une veritable maitresse-femme), she has commissioned me to
+step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility
+of engaging you. Zoraide is a wary general; she never advances without
+first examining well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased
+if she knew I had already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not
+order me to go so far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting
+you into the secret, and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take
+care, however, you don’t betray either of us to Zoraide--to my
+daughter, I mean; she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot
+understand that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little--”
+
+“C’est absolument comme mon fils!” cried Madame Pelet.
+
+“All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other:
+“young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame
+Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s
+establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow,
+you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you
+will introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached
+you from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I
+would not displease Zoraide on any account.”
+
+“Bien! bien!” interrupted I--for all this chatter and circumlocution
+began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing
+shall be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames--I am infinitely
+obliged to you.”
+
+“Comment! vous vous en allez deja?” exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+
+“Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits,
+encore une tasse de cafe?”
+
+“Merci, merci, madame--au revoir.” And I backed at last out of the
+apartment.
+
+Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind
+the incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and
+queerly managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate
+mess of it; still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the
+subject was one of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change
+to give lessons in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies
+would be an occupation so interesting--to be admitted at all into a
+ladies’ boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life. Besides,
+thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see
+the mysterious garden: I shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle.
+Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment, should it
+offer, having formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me.
+It was, therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should
+be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four
+afternoons in every week.
+
+When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference
+with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the
+visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember
+very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with
+myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something
+smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,”
+ thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of
+Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if
+it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome,
+and no dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off
+I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table,
+surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk,
+dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom
+or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a
+lady’s love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid.
+
+I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled
+the bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a
+passage paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were
+painted in imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass
+door, through which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in
+the sunshine of the mild spring evening--for it was now the middle of
+April.
+
+This, then, was my first glimpse of the garden; but I had not time to
+look long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative
+my question as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the
+folding-doors of a room to the left, and having ushered me in, closed
+them behind me. I found myself in a salon with a very well-painted,
+highly varnished floor; chairs and sofas covered with white draperies,
+a green porcelain stove, walls hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt
+pendule and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent
+from the centre of the ceiling, mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and
+a handsome centre table completed the inventory of furniture. All looked
+extremely clean and glittering, but the general effect would have been
+somewhat chilling had not a second large pair of folding-doors, standing
+wide open, and disclosing another and smaller salon, more snugly
+furnished, offered some relief to the eye. This room was carpeted, and
+therein was a piano, a couch, a chiffonniere--above all, it contained
+a lofty window with a crimson curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded
+another glimpse of the garden, through the large, clear panes, round
+which some leaves of ivy, some tendrils of vine were trained.
+
+“Monsieur Creemsvort, n’est ce pas?” said a voice behind me; and,
+starting involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the
+contemplation of the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the
+entrance of a person into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle.
+Reuter who now addressed me, and stood close beside me; and when I had
+bowed with instantaneously recovered sang-froid--for I am not easily
+embarrassed--I commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant
+aspect of her little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in
+possessing a garden.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “she often thought so;” and added, “it is my garden,
+monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably
+have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you
+see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one
+so large and pleasant anywhere else in town.”
+
+I approved her judgment.
+
+“But you have not seen it yet,” said she, rising; “come to the window
+and take a better view.” I followed her; she opened the sash, and
+leaning out I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been
+to me an unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured
+ground, with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the
+middle; there was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some
+flower-borders, and, on the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs,
+laburnums, and acacias. It looked pleasant, to me--very pleasant, so
+long a time had elapsed since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it
+was not only on Mdlle. Reuter’s garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had
+taken a view of her well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed
+my glance to come back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it.
+
+I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black,
+with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun’s head-gear;
+whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might
+indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought,
+be more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair
+Englishwoman; she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it
+in curls; pretty her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular,
+but neither were they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause
+to deem them expressive. What was their predominant cast? Was it
+sagacity?--sense? Yes, I thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be
+sure. I discovered, however, that there was a certain serenity of eye,
+and freshness of complexion, most pleasing to behold. The colour on her
+cheek was like the bloom on a good apple, which is as sound at the core
+as it is red on the rind.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not
+absolutely certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take,
+because I was so young, and parents might possibly object to a professor
+like me for their daughters: “But it is often well to act on one’s own
+judgment,” said she, “and to lead parents, rather than be led by them.
+The fitness of a professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have
+heard, and from what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you
+than M. Ledru, the music-master, who is a married man of near fifty.”
+
+I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion;
+that if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence
+reposed in me. “Du reste,” said she, “the surveillance will be strictly
+attended to.” And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms.
+She was very cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely
+bargain, but she warily sounded me to find out what my expectations
+might be; and when she could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and
+reasoned with a fluent yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last
+nailed me down to five hundred francs per annum--not too much, but I
+agreed. Before the negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little
+dusk. I did not hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear
+her talk; I was amused with the sort of business talent she displayed.
+Edward could not have shown himself more practical, though he might have
+evinced more coarseness and urgency; and then she had so many reasons,
+so many explanations; and, after all, she succeeded in proving herself
+quite disinterested and even liberal. At last she concluded, she could
+say no more, because, as I acquiesced in all things, there was no
+further ground for the exercise of her parts of speech. I was obliged to
+rise. I would rather have sat a little longer; what had I to return to
+but my small empty room? And my eyes had a pleasure in looking at
+Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the twilight softened her features a
+little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I could fancy her forehead as open
+as it was really elevated, her mouth touched with turns of sweetness
+as well as defined in lines of sense. When I rose to go, I held out
+my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was contrary to the etiquette of
+foreign habits; she smiled, and said--
+
+“Ah! c’est comme tous les Anglais,” but gave me her hand very kindly.
+
+“It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle,” said I; “and,
+remember, I shall always claim it.”
+
+She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+tranquillity obvious in all she did--a tranquillity which soothed and
+suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels
+seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street,
+and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career
+were even then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night.
+So impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in
+those days.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet’s; I
+wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring
+pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for
+pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at
+one o’clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule’s
+deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been
+waiting.
+
+At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met
+M. Pelet.
+
+“Comme vous avez l’air rayonnant!” said he. “Je ne vous ai jamais vu
+aussi gai. Que s’est-il donc passe?”
+
+“Apparemment que j’aime les changements,” replied I.
+
+“Ah! je comprends--c’est cela--soyez sage seulement. Vous etes bien
+jeune--trop jeune pour le role que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre
+garde--savez-vous?”
+
+“Mais quel danger y a-t-il?”
+
+“Je n’en sais rien--ne vous laissez pas aller a de vives
+impressions--voila tout.”
+
+I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at
+the thought that “vives impressions” were likely to be created; it was
+the deadness, the sameness of life’s daily ongoings that had hitherto
+been my bane; my blouse-clad “eleves” in the boys’ seminary never
+stirred in me any “vives impressions” except it might be occasionally
+some of anger. I broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage
+he followed me with one of his laughs--a very French, rakish, mocking
+sound.
+
+Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into
+the cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls.
+I followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I
+found myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter’s
+little figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see
+her dress in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted
+her compact round shape to perfection--delicate little collar and
+manchettes of lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists,
+and feet, to complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she
+came suddenly upon me! Solicitude and business were in her eye--on her
+forehead; she looked almost stern. Her “Bon jour, monsieur,” was quite
+polite, but so orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp
+towel over my “vives impressions.” The servant turned back when her
+mistress appeared, and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side
+with Mdlle. Reuter.
+
+“Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day,” said she;
+“dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for
+those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign
+language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little
+unsettled.”
+
+She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained
+for me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor
+terminated in a hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side
+showed within a long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and
+two lamps; it was empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the
+playground and garden; a broad staircase ascended spirally on the
+opposite side; the remaining wall showed a pair of great folding-doors,
+now closed, and admitting, doubtless, to the classes.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably,
+whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum.
+I suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government,
+for she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of
+uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I
+walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks,
+and took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an
+estrade, of one step high, so as to command one division; the other
+division being under the surveillance of a maitresse similarly elevated.
+At the back of the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition
+dividing this schoolroom from another beyond, was a large tableau of
+wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on
+my desk for the convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal
+obscurity which might occur in my lessons by writing it upon the
+tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the chalk, to enable me to efface
+the marks when they had served the purpose intended.
+
+I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing
+myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the
+crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to
+ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool
+enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me.
+
+And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she
+was nowhere visible; a maitresse or teacher, the one who occupied the
+corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me;
+she was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only
+see that she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion,
+and that her attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and
+affectation. More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of
+the large window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of
+whom some were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women
+from eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest
+attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all;
+and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant
+eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear
+the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice
+somewhat too low I murmured--
+
+“Prenez vos cahiers de dictee, mesdemoiselles.”
+
+Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet’s take their reading-books. A
+rustle followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which
+momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I
+heard tittering and whispers.
+
+“Eulalie, je suis prete a pleuer de rire,” observed one.
+
+“Comme il a rougi en parlant!”
+
+“Oui, c’est un veritable blanc-bec.”
+
+“Tais-toi, Hortense--il nous ecoute.”
+
+And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the
+whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as
+they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease
+and courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by
+which I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their
+dark nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels.
+The light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure
+relieved my mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+
+The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my
+estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names
+I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie,
+Hortense, Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was
+fair, and her features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a
+“figure de Vierge” have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling
+hers; there were no angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve
+and roundness--neither thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line
+or flush the equality of her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved
+with her regular breathing, her eyes moved a little--by these evidences
+of life alone could I have distinguished her from some large handsome
+figure moulded in wax. Hortense was of middle size and stout, her
+form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and brilliant than
+Eulalie’s, her hair was dark brown, her complexion richly coloured;
+there were frolic and mischief in her eye: consistency and good sense
+she might possess, but none of her features betokened those qualities.
+
+Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair,
+very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
+complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in
+her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
+perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
+classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
+don’t know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between
+them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder’s mind. She was
+sensual now, and in ten years’ time she would be coarse--promise plain
+was written in her face of much future folly.
+
+If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me
+with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to
+expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic
+charms. Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while
+she said, with an air of impudent freedom--
+
+“Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur.”
+
+Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
+over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
+hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between
+them, and treated me at the same time to a smile “de sa facon.”
+ Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer
+than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her
+lady-mother’s character afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the
+precocious accomplishments of the daughter. These three, I at once saw,
+deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their
+splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five
+minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than
+five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and
+let down a visor of impassible austerity.
+
+“Take your pens and commence writing,” said I, in as dry and trite a
+voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.
+
+The dictee now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually
+with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I
+made no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. “Comment
+dit-on point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?”
+
+“Semi-colon, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Semi-collong? Ah, comme c’est drole!” (giggle.)
+
+“J’ai une si mauvaise plume--impossible d’ecrire!”
+
+“Mais, monsieur--je ne sais pas suivre--vous allez si vite.”
+
+“Je n’ai rien compris, moi!”
+
+Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the
+first time, ejaculated--
+
+“Silence, mesdemoiselles!”
+
+No silence followed--on the contrary, the three ladies in front began to
+talk more loudly.
+
+“C’est si difficile, l’Anglais!”
+
+“Je deteste la dictee.”
+
+“Quel ennui d’ecrire quelquechose que l’on ne comprend pas!”
+
+Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the
+class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+
+“Donnez-moi votre cahier,” said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and
+bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+
+“Et vous, mademoiselle--donnez-moi le votre,” continued I, more mildly,
+addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of
+the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest
+and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and
+delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the
+two dictations; Eulalie’s was slurred, blotted, and full of silly
+mistakes--Sylvie’s (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was
+clearly written, it contained no error against sense, and but few
+faults of orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the
+faults--then I looked at Eulalie:
+
+“C’est honteux!” said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four
+parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book
+with a smile, saying--
+
+“C’est bien--je suis content de vous.”
+
+Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey,
+but the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation
+of the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more
+convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption.
+
+A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation
+of school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a
+certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up
+started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maitresse,
+and quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the
+inner class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising
+tumult I already heard.
+
+I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle.
+Reuter came again upon me.
+
+“Step in here a moment,” said she, and she held open the door of
+the side room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitree,
+filled with glass and china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she
+had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled
+with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from
+the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a
+maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some
+sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough
+ranks, and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in
+Brussels.
+
+“Well, you have given your first lesson,” began Mdlle. Reuter in the
+most calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from
+which we were separated only by a single wall.
+
+“Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their
+conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in
+me entire confidence.”
+
+Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without
+aid; the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity
+at first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined
+or downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de
+demoiselles presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was
+only enlightened and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to
+complain to Mdlle. Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to
+confidence with a smile.
+
+“A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly.”
+
+She looked more than doubtful.
+
+“Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?” said she.
+
+“Ah! tout va au mieux!” was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to
+question me; but her eye--not large, not brilliant, not melting, or
+kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with
+me; it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, “Be as close as
+you like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I
+already know.”
+
+By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress’s
+manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she
+began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly
+wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she
+prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she
+sat so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse,
+that it was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus
+detaining me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this
+aim, but her countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable
+commonplaces, her eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were
+not given in full, but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily,
+yet I think I lost not one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me;
+I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was
+searching for salient points, and weak points, and eccentric points;
+she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some
+chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand
+upon my neck--mistress of my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was
+no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it was only the
+power of the politician to which she aspired; I was now installed as a
+professor in her establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind
+was superior to mine--by what feeling or opinion she could lead me.
+
+I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I
+gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye
+would light up--she thought she had me; having led her a little way, I
+delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her
+countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner;
+the conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having
+gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given
+me an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to
+baffle her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I
+again held out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a
+small and white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full--obliging
+her to give me a straightforward look; this last test went against
+me: it left her as it found her--moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it
+disappointed.
+
+“I am growing wiser,” thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet’s. “Look
+at this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers?
+To read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would
+think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad--here is
+a specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose
+staple ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more
+passionless than Zoraide Reuter!” So I thought then; I found
+afterwards that blunt susceptibilities are very consistent with strong
+propensities.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and
+on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late
+at meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it
+been one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the
+soup and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably
+have greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted
+him both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial
+gentleman only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my
+napkin, and said my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a
+servant to the kitchen, to bring me a plate of “puree aux carottes”
+ (for this was a maigre-day), and before sending away the first course,
+reserved for me a portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted.
+Dinner being over, the boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and
+Vandam (the two ushers) of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they
+had not looked so very heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to
+all things in heaven above or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied
+them greatly for the obligation they were under to trail after those
+rough lads everywhere and at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed
+to scout myself as a privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my
+chamber, sure to find there, if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but
+this evening (as had often happened before) I was to be still farther
+distinguished.
+
+“Eh bien, mauvais sujet!” said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I
+set my foot on the first step of the stair, “ou allez-vous? Venez a la
+salle-a-manger, que je vous gronde un peu.”
+
+“I beg pardon, monsieur,” said I, as I followed him to his private
+sitting-room, “for having returned so late--it was not my fault.”
+
+“That is just what I want to know,” rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me
+into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire--for the stove had
+now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered “Coffee
+for two,” and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort,
+one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with
+a coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While
+M. Pelet employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts
+reverted to the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now
+crying hoarsely for order in the playground.
+
+“C’est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance,” observed I.
+
+“Plait-il?” dit M. Pelet.
+
+I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a
+little fatigued with their labours.
+
+“Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme,” murmured scornfully the
+director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+
+“Servez-vous mon garcon,” said he blandly, when I had put a couple of
+huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup. “And now tell me why you
+stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter’s. I know that lessons conclude, in her
+establishment as in mine, at four o’clock, and when you returned it was
+past five.”
+
+“Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur.”
+
+“Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask.”
+
+“Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur.”
+
+“A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom,
+before the pupils?”
+
+“No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour.”
+
+“And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother’s gossip, was there, of
+course?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle.”
+
+“C’est joli--cela,” observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into the
+fire.
+
+“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” murmured I, significantly.
+
+“Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous.”
+
+“In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was
+mademoiselle’s reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour,
+listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest
+frivolities.”
+
+“She was sounding your character.”
+
+“I thought so, monsieur.”
+
+“Did she find out your weak point?”
+
+“What is my weak point?”
+
+“Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will
+at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast,
+Crimsworth.”
+
+I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+
+“Some women might, monsieur.”
+
+“Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est
+encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste assey pour unir
+la tendresse d’une petite maman a l’amour d’une epouse devouee; n’est-ce
+pas que cela t’irait superieurement?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my
+mother.”
+
+“She is then a little too old for you?”
+
+“No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things.”
+
+“In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is
+she not?”
+
+“Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of
+form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace.”
+
+“Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?”
+
+“A little harsh, especially her mouth.”
+
+“Ah, yes! her mouth,” said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. “There is
+character about her mouth--firmness--but she has a very pleasant smile;
+don’t you think so?”
+
+“Rather crafty.”
+
+“True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you
+remarked her eyebrows?”
+
+I answered that I had not.
+
+“You have not seen her looking down then?” said he.
+
+“No.”
+
+“It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting,
+or some other woman’s work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly
+intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on
+around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being
+developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it;
+her humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her
+features move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown
+disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending
+task; if she can only get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec
+completed, it is enough for her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a
+deeper quiescence, a meeker modesty settles on her features, and clothes
+her general mien; observe then her eyebrows, et dites-moi s’il n’y a pas
+du chat dans l’un et du renard dans l’autre.”
+
+“I will take careful notice the first opportunity,” said I.
+
+“And then,” continued M. Pelet, “the eyelid will flicker, the
+light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out
+from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and
+retreat again.”
+
+I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes’ silence, I asked:
+
+“Will she ever marry, do you think?”
+
+“Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and
+resolution to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is
+better aware than herself of the sort of impression she is capable
+of producing; no one likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am
+mistaken if she will not yet leave the print of her stealing steps on
+thy heart, Crimsworth.”
+
+“Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked
+on.”
+
+“But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm.”
+
+“She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with
+me.”
+
+“That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first
+floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect.”
+
+“And interest, M. Pelet--interest. Will not mademoiselle consider that
+point?”
+
+“Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now
+we have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N’y a-t-il pas de
+belles etudes parmi ces jeunes tetes?”
+
+“Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one
+cannot divine much from a first interview.”
+
+“Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little
+abashed before these blooming young creatures?”
+
+“At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid.”
+
+“I don’t believe you.”
+
+“It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they
+did not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and
+handsomest undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed
+so cleverly that in five minutes I knew them, at least, for what they
+were--three arrant coquettes.”
+
+“Je les connais!” exclaimed M. Pelet. “Elles sont toujours au premier
+rang a l’eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie
+espiegle, une belle brune.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group they
+would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her
+smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut
+locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know
+how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask
+cheek, and roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is
+beauty! beauty in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face
+of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron
+would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid islander!--you
+played the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so
+exquisite?”
+
+I might have laughed at the director’s enthusiasm had I believed
+it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up
+raptures. I felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my
+guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He
+went on:
+
+“Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraide Reuter appear
+dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of
+her pupils?”
+
+The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal
+was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at that time I
+could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to
+what was right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved
+its antidote, and when he further added:--
+
+“Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
+with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like
+you might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one
+of the trio.”
+
+I replied by a look and an interrogative “Monsieur?” which startled him.
+
+He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
+demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
+the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M.
+Pelet was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles
+lettres to his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left
+the room, humming as he went some gay strain of Beranger’s.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter,
+did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What
+had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels?
+Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight,
+gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be
+a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy;
+there was metal in it, both lead and iron.
+
+Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
+just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or
+two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
+schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred
+specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a
+fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were,
+differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced
+over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English,
+Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class
+bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of
+two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES;
+these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be
+demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of
+the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was
+small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the
+majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
+boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards
+each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her
+own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest
+and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity
+when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of
+speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate
+skill and at a moment’s notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
+civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took
+place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close
+friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl
+seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to
+secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each
+and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
+The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
+innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having
+attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty
+and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly
+leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye.
+I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I
+am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this
+precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to
+be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
+I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the
+respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up,
+yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general
+view: now for one or two selected specimens.
+
+The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
+or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
+of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is
+of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed
+but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an
+inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured
+into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and
+gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
+grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek
+bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion.
+So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed:
+incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native
+tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere
+farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably
+gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and
+reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
+that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s
+daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of
+observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her
+desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty;
+her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing
+behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of
+washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as
+one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers
+through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
+something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence.
+The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges
+in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
+fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
+monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
+languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
+against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly
+offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
+she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for
+which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass
+near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
+happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
+brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter;
+if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in
+sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
+with an intolerable Low German accent.
+
+Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele
+Dronsart: this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy,
+with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion,
+features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown
+colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as
+full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives
+the idea of a somewhat dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well,
+when I looked along the row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at
+this of Adele’s; her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently
+succeeded in arresting it. She was an unnatural-looking being--so young,
+fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were
+on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like
+deceit about her mouth. In general she sat very still; her massive shape
+looked as if it could not bend much, nor did her large head--so broad
+at the base, so narrow towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her
+short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one
+a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious
+and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as
+many of them were, few were as bad as she.
+
+Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class; the
+second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
+girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was
+dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the ---- Isles,
+where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
+educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and
+countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
+the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs
+of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were
+singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness,
+combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse
+shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she
+had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was
+fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black,
+form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen.
+
+Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard”
+ was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough
+for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of
+her other lineaments I think the eye--cowardice had also its distinct
+cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
+coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like
+a horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
+and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
+Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of person
+and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would
+seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy
+of the human mind and body; these, I soon found, were completely under
+her influence, and with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish
+tumult, which I was constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two
+of her tools to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing
+five minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices
+into a large place adjoining called the grands salle; the principal
+into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and pocketed the key. This
+judgment I executed in the presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much
+aghast at beholding so decided a proceeding--the most severe that had
+ever been ventured on in her establishment. Her look of affright I
+answered with one of composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps
+flattered, and certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe
+long enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
+done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the----
+Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have slaves, whom,
+as she said, she could kick and strike at will.
+
+These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and
+as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
+
+Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to
+show something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo,
+some sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to
+her bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray
+it. The pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was
+a young girl from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently
+benevolent and obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered;
+moreover, the plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
+principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their names. The
+least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned
+once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners, intelligent in mind; she was
+even sincere, as far as her religion would permit her to be so, but her
+physical organization was defective; weak health stunted her growth and
+chilled her spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister,
+her whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained
+subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself
+for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought
+and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted
+herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment;
+in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton
+air, she went about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she
+liked, or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
+poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the dictates
+of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to the will of
+her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of Mdlle. Reuter’s
+establishment; pale, blighted image, where life lingered feebly, but
+whence the soul had been conjured by Romish wizard-craft!
+
+A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be
+divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English--the daughters
+chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from
+their own country. These poor girls had never known the advantages
+of settled homes, decorous example, or honest Protestant education;
+resident a few months now in one Catholic school, now in another, as
+their parents wandered from land to land--from France to Germany, from
+Germany to Belgium--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad
+habits, losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
+morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment that
+can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an habitual look
+of sullen dejection, the result of crushed self-respect and constant
+browbeating from their Popish fellow-pupils, who hated them as English,
+and scorned them as heretics.
+
+The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half
+a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
+characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair
+(compared with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible
+figures, white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more
+intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances,
+a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
+alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE
+of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once
+envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off
+insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they
+eschewed company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell
+isolated.
+
+The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number,
+all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and Suzette; the two
+last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary,
+their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts,
+feelings, and views were all ordinary--were I to write a chapter on the
+subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more
+distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette,
+but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
+to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy
+art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in
+the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her,
+consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
+observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English
+air for a maitresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I
+should think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly
+“en revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her
+name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+
+Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
+that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
+described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
+British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
+steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware
+of her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
+which sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable
+from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner
+tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on entering the school-room,
+to feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and
+quiet which all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings
+frequently failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or
+rather--contrast, with those who surrounded her, and to know that in
+personal as well as mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed
+palm of preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
+managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on herself the
+office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns
+every invidious task of blame and punishment, that they all regarded her
+with deference, if not with affection; her teachers did not love her,
+but they submitted because they were her inferiors in everything; the
+various masters who attended her school were each and all in some way
+or other under her influence; over one she had acquired power by her
+skilful management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
+to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a fourth--a
+timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me,
+she still watched, still tried by the most ingenious tests--she roved
+round me, baffled, yet persevering; I believe she thought I was like
+a smooth and bare precipice, which offered neither jutting stone nor
+tree-root, nor tuft of grass to aid the climber. Now she flattered
+with exquisite tact, now she moralized, now she tried how far I was
+accessible to mercenary motives, then she disported on the brink of
+affection--knowing that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked
+excellent sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment.
+I found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it was
+sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to smile in
+her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her scarcely veiled,
+though mute mortification. Still she persevered, and at last, I am bound
+to confess it, her finger, essaying, proving every atom of the casket,
+touched its secret spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she
+laid her hand on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or
+whether the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
+shall know.
+
+It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed;
+I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very
+hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
+corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that
+I looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then,
+with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you
+have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour,
+and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
+still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
+closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
+earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me
+her hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
+pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
+modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance;
+I thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my
+mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive,
+that I might see her again.
+
+I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
+subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
+o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
+after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
+gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
+the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
+very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked
+at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began
+to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+
+“Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are
+gone?”
+
+I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
+say--
+
+“You will come with me?”
+
+In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down
+the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in
+full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the
+air still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance.
+Released from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage,
+with a pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side--how did I feel? Why,
+very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
+suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
+the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s
+mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
+amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
+and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
+down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
+ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned
+in my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell
+rang, both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I
+detained her a moment as she was moving away.
+
+“I want something,” said I.
+
+“What?” asked Zoraide naively.
+
+“Only a flower.”
+
+“Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like.”
+
+“No--one will do--but you must gather it, and give it to me.”
+
+“What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
+and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace.
+I took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
+future.
+
+Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight
+night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having
+sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and
+a little oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
+often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded
+old Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of
+professor in the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it
+was no longer “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their
+sports. I sat down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill,
+and leaned out: above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless
+night sky--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the
+stars--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep shade,
+and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from the closed
+blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the night was
+breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a certain walk of Mdlle.
+Reuter’s garden, called “l’allee defendue,” so named because the pupils
+were forbidden to enter it on account of its proximity to the boys’
+school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick;
+this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened
+the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
+directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her as
+I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks and
+borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
+which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part
+of the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
+through the persiennes of one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.
+
+“She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She
+is a fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her
+image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the
+world calls pretty--no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I
+like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the
+whiteness of her neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent;
+the idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know
+that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon;
+but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood
+laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that
+I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know that I must pass the
+rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what
+I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I
+felt! “Now, Zoraide Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, CARACTERE, judgment,
+discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played
+about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her
+crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much
+that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only
+the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing
+difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the
+world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient
+in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She
+has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and
+reared a Protestant, might she not have added straight integrity to
+all her other excellences? Supposing she were to marry an English and
+Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is, quickly
+acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over
+policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try the experiment; to-morrow
+I will renew my observations. She knows that I watch her: how calm she
+is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than annoy her.” Here a
+strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and suspended it; it was
+a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I
+thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones, so subduing
+their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the
+quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon
+gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once
+more. No. What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching
+nearer, frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
+conversing--yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in
+the garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was
+that of a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw
+coming slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I
+could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met
+them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose,
+and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter,
+arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal,
+confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying--
+
+“A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?”
+
+And Mdlle. Reuter answered--
+
+“Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier
+avant les vacances.”
+
+“June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can
+I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
+impatience!”
+
+“Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
+about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight
+mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial
+trousseau.”
+
+“Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch
+my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain
+you have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
+presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
+given him room to hope.”
+
+“What do you say, Francois? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?”
+
+“Over head and ears.”
+
+“Has he told you so?”
+
+“No--but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
+mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle.
+Reuter’s gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie,
+by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet
+proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty
+plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think
+of taking such a “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least
+ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have
+thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject--the
+director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer.
+
+“Francois,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as
+if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
+character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded,
+in a demure voice: “Truly, my dear Francois, I will not deny that this
+young Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with
+me; but, so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated
+him with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility;
+affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me,
+dear friend.” Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust--so I judged, at
+least, from her reply.
+
+“What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And
+then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear comparison
+with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all;
+some may call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my
+part--”
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
+from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
+return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that
+they had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was
+perfectly still; I listened more than an hour--at last I heard M. Pelet
+come in and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long
+front of the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was
+at length extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and
+friendship. I went to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into
+my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood
+half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what
+means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness,
+to their ordinary tone--for I had no intention of getting up a scene
+with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or
+performing other gambadoes of the sort--I hit at last on the
+expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring
+establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge.
+The remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o’clock
+steadied and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he
+entered to breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even
+a cordial offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of “mon
+fils,” pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of
+late days especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any
+external sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at
+my heart. Not that I nursed vengeance--no; but the sense of insult and
+treachery lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God
+knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I
+can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings
+are of the vacillating order--they are not of that sand-like sort where
+impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my
+friend’s disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he
+is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles,
+and I dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the
+discovery was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I
+placed before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet
+(we never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid
+face looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye
+turned, now sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me.
+
+“Circumstances must guide me,” said I; and meeting Pelet’s false glance
+and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened
+my window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that
+guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of
+his nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his
+soul lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases
+a voice interpreting their treacherous import.
+
+But Zoraide Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick?
+That stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy
+to be available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over,
+I looked about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home
+than at Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the
+prize I had missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically,
+Zoraide might have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in
+harmony, and that discord must have resulted from the union of her mind
+with mine. She then insisted on the suppression of all repining,
+and commanded me rather to rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her
+medicament did me good. I felt its strengthening effect when I met the
+directress the next day; its stringent operation on the nerves suffered
+no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me to face her with firmness,
+to pass her with ease. She had held out her hand to me--that I did not
+choose to see. She had greeted me with a charming smile--it fell on my
+heart like light on stone. I passed on to the estrade, she followed me;
+her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of every feature the meaning of
+my changed and careless manner. “I will give her an answer,” thought I;
+and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing her glance, I shot into
+her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no respect, no love,
+no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest analysis could detect
+nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear it, and feel it;
+her steady countenance did not change, but her colour rose, and she
+approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the estrade, and
+stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not relieve her
+embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a book.
+
+“I hope you feel quite recovered to-day,” at last she said, in a low
+tone.
+
+“And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in
+consequence of your late walk in the garden.”
+
+Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face
+became a little blanched--a very little--but no muscle in her rather
+marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from
+the estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying
+herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a
+“Composition,” i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the
+pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being
+forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &c., were pondering
+over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I had
+propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further
+observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing
+fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she
+sat netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole
+person were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and
+repose--a rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been
+before, to offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute
+of involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her
+my esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who
+coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal
+good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had
+witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused
+to vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered
+her composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side,
+sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere
+forehead!
+
+“There is metal there,” I said, as I gazed. “Would that there were fire
+also, living ardour to make the steel glow--then I could love her.”
+
+Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred
+not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her
+netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple
+merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a
+bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round
+the wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head,
+causing her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs
+I read that the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure
+back the game she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity
+of addressing me again.
+
+While all was silence in the class--silence, but for the rustling of
+copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages--a leaf of the
+large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a
+pupil who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some
+appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so
+late, in a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she
+proceeded, still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her
+cabas, to take out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look
+up, in order to make out her identity--for, shortsighted as I was, I had
+not recognized her at her entrance--Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair,
+approached the estrade.
+
+“Monsieur Creemsvort,” said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms
+were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke
+in the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much
+by example as precept: “Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has
+just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in
+English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense,
+a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to
+qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has asked
+permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge
+of English, in which language she has, I believe, already made
+some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in an effort
+so praiseworthy; you will permit her then to benefit by your
+instruction--n’est ce pas, monsieur?” And Mdlle. Reuter’s eyes were
+raised to mine with a look at once naive, benign, and beseeching.
+
+I replied, “Of course,” very laconically, almost abruptly.
+
+“Another word,” she said, with softness: “Mdlle. Henri has not received
+a regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest
+order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and
+even of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am
+sure, have the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not
+expose her backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young
+ladies, who, in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour
+me by attending to this hint?” I nodded. She continued with subdued
+earnestness--
+
+“Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is
+of importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty
+in impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference
+for her authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new
+discoveries of her incapacity, she might find her position in my
+establishment too painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much
+regret for her sake, as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her
+occupation here.”
+
+Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive,
+unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on
+this occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being
+indulgent to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I
+listened. I discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a
+wish to aid the dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one
+was no other than a design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted
+goodness and tender considerateness; so having again hastily nodded
+assent to her remarks, I obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding
+the compositions, in a sharp accent, and stepping from the estrade, I
+proceeded to collect them. As I passed the governess-pupil, I said to
+her--
+
+“You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more
+punctual next time.”
+
+I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not
+very civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so,
+had I been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began
+to slip her books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had
+returned to the estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions,
+I heard the folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I
+perceived her place vacant. I thought to myself, “She will consider her
+first attempt at taking a lesson in English something of a failure;” and
+I wondered whether she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity
+had induced her to take my words too literally, or, finally, whether
+my irritable tone had wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed
+almost as soon as I had conceived it, for not having seen any appearance
+of sensitiveness in any human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had
+begun to regard it almost as a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy
+announced it I could not tell, for her speedy exit had allowed me no
+time to ascertain the circumstance. I had, indeed, on two or three
+previous occasions, caught a passing view of her (as I believe has been
+mentioned before); but I had never stopped to scrutinize either her face
+or person, and had but the most vague idea of her general appearance.
+Just as I had finished rolling up the compositions, the four o’clock
+bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in obeying that signal, I
+grasped my hat and evacuated the premises.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter’s domicile, I was at least
+equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes
+before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I
+heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the “priere du midi”
+ was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have
+been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How
+the repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or
+since heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. “Notre Pere
+qui etes au ciel” went off like a shot; then followed an address to
+Marie “vierge celeste, reine des anges, maison d’or, tour d’ivoire!” and
+then an invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat,
+and the solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide
+and striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found
+that in entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis,
+consisted the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The
+folding-doors between the two classes, opened for the prayer, were
+instantly closed; a maitresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her
+appropriate desk; the pupils sat still with their pens and books before
+them; my three beauties in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of
+consistent coolness, sat erect with their hands folded quietly on their
+knees; they had given up giggling and whispering to each other, and no
+longer ventured to utter pert speeches in my presence; they now only
+talked to me occasionally with their eyes, by means of which organs
+they could still, however, say very audacious and coquettish things. Had
+affection, goodness, modesty, real talent, ever employed those bright
+orbs as interpreters, I do not think I could have refrained from giving
+a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent reply now and then; but as it
+was, I found pleasure in answering the glance of vanity with the gaze
+of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as were many of my pupils, I can
+truly say that in me they never saw any other bearing than such as an
+austere, though just guardian, might have observed towards them. If any
+doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as inferring more conscientious
+self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than they feel disposed to
+give me credit for, let them take into consideration the following
+circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit, justify my
+veracity.
+
+Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different
+relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to
+that occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade.
+A professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and
+muslin, with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial
+lace, round white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the
+gliding dance. It is not his business to whirl her through the waltz,
+to feed her with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of
+gratified vanity. Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled,
+tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs
+clad in her becoming walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her
+shoulders, her little bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose
+under its brim adding a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her
+face and eyes, too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the
+sunshine of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his
+office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her
+parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon
+her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the
+schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books before her. Owing to her
+education or her nature books are to her a nuisance, and she opens them
+with aversion, yet her teacher must instil into her mind the contents
+of these books; that mind resists the admission of grave information, it
+recoils, it grows restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns
+spoil the symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace
+from the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native and
+ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the
+temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable
+dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but
+not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks
+are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the
+tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which
+the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees
+the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long
+stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to
+admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general
+view.
+
+Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a
+hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because
+it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine
+woman”--she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the
+fashionable young lady--she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged,
+probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and
+graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love
+of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness,
+are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard. These he
+seeks, but seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain
+retain for ever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if
+some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being
+the case, and the case it is, my readers will agree with me that there
+was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous in the
+integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter’s pensionnat de
+demoiselles.
+
+My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of
+places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the
+compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual,
+by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described
+before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment;
+the second place had fallen to the lot of a certain Leonie Ledru, a
+diminutive, sharp-featured, and parchment-skinned creature of quick
+wits, frail conscience, and indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of
+whom I used to say that, had she been a boy, she would have made a
+model of an unprincipled, clever attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud
+beauty, the Juno of the school, whom six long years of drilling in the
+simple grammar of the English language had compelled, despite the stiff
+phlegm of her intellect, to acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most
+of its rules. No smile, no trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in
+Sylvie’s nun-like and passive face as she heard her name read first.
+I always felt saddened by the sight of that poor girl’s absolute
+quiescence on all occasions, and it was my custom to look at her, to
+address her, as seldom as possible; her extreme docility, her assiduous
+perseverance, would have recommended her warmly to my good opinion;
+her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to feel most
+kindly--most affectionately towards her, notwithstanding the almost
+ghastly plainness of her features, the disproportion of her form, the
+corpse-like lack of animation in her countenance, had I not been aware
+that every friendly word, every kindly action, would be reported by her
+to her confessor, and by him misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my
+hand on her head, in token of approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to
+smile, her dim eye almost kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me;
+I was a man and a heretic; she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted
+Catholic: thus a four-fold wall of separation divided her mind from
+mine. A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie’s method of
+testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious--she had
+hoped to be first. Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on
+hearing their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the
+brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their
+hopes for the future being based solely on their personal attractions.
+
+This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief
+interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging
+carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the
+farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually vacant--was
+again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously
+recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her
+appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to
+puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her
+exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her
+figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied
+expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was
+dressed, like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her
+features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet
+scarcely regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior
+part more developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured,
+at first sight, that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her
+countenance, her lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs,
+and, evidently, the type of another race--of a race less gifted with
+fullness of flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material,
+unthinking. When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly
+down, her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude
+till I commenced the lesson. None of the Belgian girls would have
+retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the same length of
+time. Yet, having intimated that her appearance was peculiar, as
+being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I have little more to say
+respecting it; I can pronounce no encomiums on her beauty, for she was
+not beautiful; nor offer condolence on her plainness, for neither
+was she plain; a careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding
+moulding of the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise,
+but these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less
+crotchety observer.
+
+Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle.
+Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind’s eye no
+distinct picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her
+eyes, nor her hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot
+tell whether her nose was aquiline or retrousse, whether her chin was
+long or short, her face square or oval; nor could I the first day,
+and it is not my intention to communicate to you at once a knowledge I
+myself gained by little and little.
+
+I gave a short exercise: which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil
+was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once
+or twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not
+comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the
+others were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I
+would not help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye
+said most plainly, “I cannot follow you.” I disregarded the appeal, and,
+carelessly leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+NONCHALANT air out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking
+towards her again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but
+she was still writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she
+employed the interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and
+shame and discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently
+found she had made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the
+dictation was complete, and, having allowed a brief space in which to
+correct it, I took their books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle.
+Henri gave up hers, but, having once yielded it to my possession, she
+composed her anxious face, as if, for the present she had resolved to
+dismiss regret, and had made up her mind to be thought unprecedentedly
+stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I found that several lines had been
+omitted, but what was written contained very few faults; I instantly
+inscribed “Bon” at the bottom of the page, and returned it to her; she
+smiled, at first incredulously, then as if reassured, but did not
+lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed, when perplexed and
+bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that scarcely fair.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the
+holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the
+turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made
+the transit of the CARRE, I observed, as usual, the band of sewers
+surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but
+they made as much noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed
+very little under her control; three or four at once assailed her with
+importunate requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but
+in vain. She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger should
+witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to entreat
+order--her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she compressed
+her lips and contracted her brow; and her countenance, if I read
+it correctly, said--“I have done my best; I seem to merit blame
+notwithstanding; blame me then who will.” I passed on; as I closed the
+school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and sharply, addressing one
+of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot--
+
+“Amelie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance,
+for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to
+you nor help you.”
+
+The words were uttered with emphasis--nay, with vehemence--and a
+comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know
+not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE.
+
+Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the
+directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and
+before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to
+me) of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and
+talking at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was
+easy so to speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person
+alone, and it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face
+of the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was
+vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked
+very placid indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers,
+and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her
+discourse had been of the most friendly tendency, for I heard the
+closing words--
+
+“C’est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous retenir
+davantage.”
+
+Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
+evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
+distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
+place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but
+a second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one
+of attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to
+take their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it
+was such a torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of
+my native tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever
+seemed to effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day,
+each in her appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as
+usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was
+expecting with resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full,
+though low voice, read out, in clear correct English.
+
+“On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
+herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
+about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, ‘My lord the
+king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!’”--(VIDE
+the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND).
+
+I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent
+was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
+counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
+have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
+in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
+performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
+Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at
+the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured
+me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
+teacher’s style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not
+that of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my
+visage with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+
+When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by
+breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window
+and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did
+not imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her
+exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed
+her:--
+
+“You have had lessons in English before?” I asked.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“No! you read it well; you have been in England?”
+
+“Oh, no!” with some animation.
+
+“You have been in English families?”
+
+Still the answer was “No.” Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the
+book, saw written, “Frances Evan Henri.”
+
+“Your name?” I asked
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me,
+and close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the
+interior of a desk.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, “Will
+you have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young
+ladies are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?”
+
+Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+
+“What splendid weather!” observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at
+the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. “What of
+your new pupil, monsieur?” continued she, following my retreating steps.
+“Is she likely to make progress in English?”
+
+“Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of
+her real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of
+forming an opinion.”
+
+“And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can
+you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?”
+
+“I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really
+I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her
+capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon.”
+
+She still pursued me. “You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you
+think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women
+cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity,
+monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor
+little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own
+efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole
+fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is
+then but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see
+the difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined.
+I doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but,
+monsieur, she wants tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the
+subject, but I am not fluent, and probably did not express myself
+with clearness; she never appears to comprehend me. Now, would you
+occasionally, when you see an opportunity, slip in a word of advice
+to her on the subject; men have so much more influence than women
+have--they argue so much more logically than we do; and you, monsieur,
+in particular, have so paramount a power of making yourself obeyed;
+a word of advice from you could not but do her good; even if she were
+sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is not), she would scarcely
+refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can truly say that I never
+attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit from witnessing your
+management of the pupils. The other masters are a constant source of
+anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies with sentiments of
+respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in you, monsieur, I
+feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this poor child
+into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited Brabantoises.
+But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don’t alarm her AMOUR PROPRE;
+beware of inflicting a wound there. I reluctantly admit that in that
+particular she is blameably--some would say ridiculously--susceptible.
+I fear I have touched this sore point inadvertently, and she cannot get
+over it.”
+
+During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the
+outer door; I now turned it.
+
+“Au revoir, mademoiselle,” said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress’s
+stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she
+would fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had
+been altered ever since I had begun to treat her with hardness and
+indifference: she almost cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted
+my countenance incessantly, and beset me with innumerable little
+officious attentions. Servility creates despotism. This slavish homage,
+instead of softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and
+exacting in its mood. The very circumstance of her hovering round me
+like a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of
+stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments confirmed
+my reserve. At times I wondered what she meant by giving herself such
+trouble to win me, when the more profitable Pelet was already in her
+nets, and when, too, she was aware that I possessed her secret, for I
+had not scrupled to tell her as much: but the fact is that as it was
+her nature to doubt the reality and under-value the worth of modesty,
+affection, disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of
+character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride, hardness,
+selfishness, as proofs of strength. She would trample on the neck
+of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain; she would meet
+tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with
+ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were
+her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a
+preference--they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical
+degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
+indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
+set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
+succumbed--they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate,
+no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in some
+hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false and
+selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
+the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
+benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be
+considered one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension
+wore off, the real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a
+deception.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances
+Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her
+character. I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at
+least two good points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I
+found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with
+difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always
+found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for
+her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded
+by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud
+impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve
+alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with
+serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour, eagerly
+demanded more. So much for her perseverance; as to her sense of duty,
+it evinced itself thus: she liked to learn, but hated to teach; her
+progress as a pupil depended upon herself, and I saw that on herself she
+could calculate with certainty; her success as a teacher rested partly,
+perhaps chiefly, upon the will of others; it cost her a most painful
+effort to enter into conflict with this foreign will, to endeavour
+to bend it into subjection to her own; for in what regarded people in
+general the action of her will was impeded by many scruples; it was as
+unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were concerned, and to it
+she could at any time subject her inclination, if that inclination went
+counter to her convictions of right; yet when called upon to wrestle
+with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others, of children
+especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part, insensate to
+persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then came in the
+sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A wasteful
+expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence; Frances
+toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere her
+conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on their
+part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by
+resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control--by
+forcing her to the employment of coercive measures--they could
+inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings--human children
+especially--seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power
+which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist
+only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are
+duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and
+his bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that
+instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very
+young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize
+nor how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight
+seemed to oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the
+house, and whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore
+the same preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always
+shaded her features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+
+One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending
+cakes in the herdsman’s hut, to be related with amplifications. A
+singular affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they
+had chiefly studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly
+unintelligible; those of Sylvie and Leonie Ledru alone pretended to
+anything like sense and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a
+clever expedient for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she
+had obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and had
+copied the anecdote out fair. I wrote on the margin of her production
+“Stupid and deceitful,” and then tore it down the middle.
+
+Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several
+sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and
+scarcely needed the evidence of the signature “Frances Evans Henri” to
+confirm my conjecture as to the writer’s identity.
+
+Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the
+usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed
+strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest,
+as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
+teacher’s manuscript.
+
+“Now,” thought I, “I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
+get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
+expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
+has any mind, here will be a reflection of it.”
+
+The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant’s hut,
+situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
+represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and
+the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
+collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
+Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
+is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening
+meal; but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and
+flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger
+who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him
+mind the bread till her return.
+
+“Take care, young man,” she continues, “that you fasten the door well
+after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound
+you hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this
+forest is most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein
+after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the
+country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it
+were, a child cry, and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great
+black bull, or a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold;
+or, more awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the
+lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on the
+hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to the house;
+therefore, heed my advice, and lift the latchet for nothing.”
+
+Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone,
+listens awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of
+the river, and then he speaks.
+
+“It is Christmas Eve,” says he, “I mark the date; here I sit alone on
+a rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman’s hut;
+I, whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night’s harbourage to a poor
+serf; my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I
+have no friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless
+robbers spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts
+crushed by the heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst,
+and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade.
+Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I
+still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot
+succumb to thy power. My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him
+the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls
+thy hand, and without His behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God
+is sinless, eternal, all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped
+and crushed by thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not
+despair, I cannot despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my
+blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah,
+in his own time, will aid.”
+
+I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same
+strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms,
+there were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular
+transformed into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above
+example shows, of short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood
+in great need of polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I
+had hitherto seen nothing like it in the course of my professorial
+experience. The girl’s mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the
+two peasants, of the crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest,
+she had recalled the old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated
+Alfred’s courage under calamity, she had remembered his Christian
+education, and had shown him, with the rooted confidence of those
+primitive days, relying on the scriptural Jehovah for aid against the
+mythological Destiny. This she had done without a hint from me: I had
+given the subject, but not said a word about the manner of treating it.
+
+“I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her,” I said to
+myself as I rolled the devoir up; “I will learn what she has of English
+in her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the
+language, that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in
+England, nor taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families.”
+
+In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs,
+dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to
+my custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums
+were rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri’s exercise, and,
+spectacles on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her
+sentiments at the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed
+a consciousness of her own talents. “If she thinks she did a clever
+thing in composing that devoir, she will now look mortified,” thought
+I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were
+fastened on the cahier open before her; there was something, I thought,
+of expectation in her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the
+last devoir, and when, casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade
+them take their grammars, some slight change did pass over her air
+and mien, as though she now relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant
+excitement; she had been waiting for something to be discussed in which
+she had a degree of interest; the discussion was not to come on, so
+expectation sank back, shrunk and sad, but attention, promptly filling
+up the void, repaired in a moment the transient collapse of feature;
+still, I felt, rather than saw, during the whole course of the lesson,
+that a hope had been wrenched from her, and that if she did not show
+distress, it was because she would not.
+
+At four o’clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate
+tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat
+still a moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her
+cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my
+eye, she made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon,
+and was turning to depart:--
+
+“Come here,” said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated;
+she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both
+school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused
+within half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful
+whether she had mistaken my meaning.
+
+“Step up,” I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing
+with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight
+manual aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be,
+that is, between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the
+rush of the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to
+listen.
+
+“Take a seat,” I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I
+knew what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and,
+what was more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an
+appearance of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from
+my pocket the rolled-up devoir.
+
+“This is yours, I suppose?” said I, addressing her in English, for I now
+felt sure she could speak English.
+
+“Yes,” she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out
+flat on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that
+hand, I saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed
+as a cloud might behind which the sun is burning.
+
+“This devoir has numerous faults,” said I. “It will take you some years
+of careful study before you are in a condition to write English with
+absolute correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects.”
+ And I went through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating
+why they were errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been
+written. In the course of this sobering process she became calm. I now
+went on:
+
+“As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me;
+I perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and
+fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but
+such as they are you possess them--not probably in a paramount degree,
+but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then take
+courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on
+you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of
+their strength and rarity.”
+
+“Strength and rarity!” I repeated to myself; “ay, the words are probably
+true,” for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening
+cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes--a
+smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say--
+
+“I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you
+need not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a
+stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known
+fully from a child.”
+
+She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but
+in a moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect,
+had subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally
+conscious of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these
+obliterated for a single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once
+subdued the too vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had
+been expressed. So quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to
+check her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown
+she had become serious and almost mournful-looking.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her
+voice and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time,
+indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around,
+behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated
+within a yard or two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths
+wide open; the three maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner,
+and, close at my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair,
+calmly clipping the tassels of her finished purse.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so
+boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask
+her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances
+and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived
+her good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy
+had been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward;
+moreover, I had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I
+had drawn from her in that language were the words “Yes,” and “Thank
+you, sir.” “No matter,” I reflected. “What has been left incomplete now,
+shall be finished another day.” Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus
+made to myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular
+conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old
+proverb, “Where there is a will, there is a way;” and again and again
+I managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle.
+Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I
+approached her.
+
+“Your book an instant.” Such was the mode in which I often began these
+brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the
+lesson; and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place,
+allowing her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise
+and right in her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in
+use between master and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in
+proportion as my manner grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy
+and self-possessed--an odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary
+effect in such cases; but so it was.
+
+“A pencil,” said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am
+now about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.)
+She gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical
+exercise she had written, I observed--
+
+“You are not a native of Belgium?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor of France?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Where, then, is your birthplace?”
+
+“I was born at Geneva.”
+
+“You don’t call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?”
+
+“No, sir; they are English names.”
+
+“Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children
+English appellatives?”
+
+“Non, Monsieur; mais--”
+
+“Speak English, if you please.”
+
+“Mais--”
+
+“English--”
+
+“But” (slowly and with embarrassment) “my parents were not all the two
+Genevese.”
+
+“Say BOTH, instead of ‘all the two,’ mademoiselle.”
+
+“Not BOTH Swiss: my mother was English.”
+
+“Ah! and of English extraction?”
+
+“Yes--her ancestors were all English.”
+
+“And your father?”
+
+“He was Swiss.”
+
+“What besides? What was his profession?”
+
+“Ecclesiastic--pastor--he had a church.”
+
+“Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with
+more facility?”
+
+“Maman est morte, il y a dix ans.”
+
+“And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the
+goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with
+you--keep to English.”
+
+“C’est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n’en a plus l’habitude.”
+
+“You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother
+tongue.”
+
+“Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child.”
+
+“Why do you not speak it now?”
+
+“Because I have no English friends.”
+
+“You live with your father, I suppose?”
+
+“My father is dead.”
+
+“You have brothers and sisters?”
+
+“Not one.”
+
+“Do you live alone?”
+
+“No--I have an aunt--ma tante Julienne.”
+
+“Your father’s sister?”
+
+“Justement, monsieur.”
+
+“Is that English?”
+
+“No--but I forget--”
+
+“For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise
+some slight punishment; at your age--you must be two or three and
+twenty, I should think?”
+
+“Pas encore, monsieur--en un mois j’aurai dix-neuf ans.”
+
+“Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to
+be so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful
+for a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking
+English whenever practicable.”
+
+To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my
+pupil was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile;
+it seemed to say, “He talks of he knows not what:” it said this
+so plainly, that I determined to request information on the point
+concerning which my ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed.
+
+“Are you solicitous for your own improvement?”
+
+“Rather.”
+
+“How do you prove it, mademoiselle?”
+
+An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+
+“Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive--am I? I learn my lessons well--”
+
+“Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?”
+
+“What more can I do?”
+
+“Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as
+a pupil?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You teach lace-mending?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?”
+
+“No--it is tedious.”
+
+“Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography,
+grammar, even arithmetic?”
+
+“Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these
+studies?”
+
+“I don’t know; you ought to be at your age.”
+
+“But I never was at school, monsieur--”
+
+“Indeed! What then were your friends--what was your aunt about? She is
+very much to blame.”
+
+“No monsieur, no--my aunt is good--she is not to blame--she does what
+she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s phrases
+literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She is not
+rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be
+impossible for her to send me to school.”
+
+“Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the
+dogmatical tone I had adopted:--
+
+“It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the
+most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history
+and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending
+drudgery, and risen in the world.”
+
+“It is what I mean to do.”
+
+“How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no
+respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of
+knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.”
+
+“Monsieur, I know other things.”
+
+“Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs
+and collars--that will do little for you.”
+
+Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself,
+as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained
+silent.
+
+“Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of
+acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction
+at your tongue’s end.”
+
+“Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography,
+and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.”
+
+“Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to
+send you to school?”
+
+“By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.”
+
+“Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to
+explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.”
+
+“Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after
+we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was
+easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt
+it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies
+have old lace--very precious--which must be mended all the times it is
+washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons
+in the studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books,
+English books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess,
+or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will
+be difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will
+despise me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,”
+ she added in a lower tone.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.”
+
+The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might
+suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan.
+
+“Have you a wish to see England?”
+
+“Yes, and an intention.”
+
+And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+
+“Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma
+bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.”
+
+In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle.
+Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to
+move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her
+head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.
+
+Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the
+composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than
+discourage. Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble
+of giving that intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction
+was falsified by the event--it did not rain that evening). At the close
+of the next lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost
+her:--
+
+“What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go
+there?”
+
+Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no
+longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so
+much of hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she
+experienced in improvising the translation of her thoughts from French
+to English.
+
+“England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is
+vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.”
+
+“Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there
+in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting
+a clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great
+Britain would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two
+private dwellings.”
+
+“It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.”
+
+“Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations
+made on a scale so narrow?”
+
+“Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy?
+An--echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole;
+besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not? All my
+life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes--all the life of a--that
+little animal subterranean--une taupe--comment dit-on?”
+
+“Mole.”
+
+“Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.”
+
+“Well, mademoiselle--what then? Proceed.”
+
+“Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.”
+
+“Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.”
+
+“Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little,
+learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle;
+I walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I
+rested--remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged
+it, because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements;
+when I was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to
+Brussels; my existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or
+higher; I walk in as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would
+change again if I went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of
+Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to
+London, I would know something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make
+any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?”
+
+“I see, I see--now let us advert to another subject; you propose to
+devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher;
+you cannot keep your pupils in order.”
+
+A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she
+bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied--
+
+“Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice
+improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing,
+I can show no power in sewing, no superiority--it is a subordinate
+art; then I have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a
+heretic, which deprives me of influence.”
+
+“And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you
+of influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in
+England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you
+have here.”
+
+“But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably
+difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and
+perhaps be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to
+Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur--”
+
+She stopped--not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to
+express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said
+enough.”
+
+“Finish your phrase,” I urged.
+
+“Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are
+more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous
+walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house,
+monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the
+inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell
+lies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel
+hatred.”
+
+“All?” said I; “you mean the pupils--the mere children--inexperienced,
+giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
+right and wrong?”
+
+“On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere; they have
+not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
+lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but
+the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive
+each other--”
+
+A servant here entered:--
+
+“Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
+petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet
+de Rosalie la portiere--c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la
+chercher--voyez-vous.”
+
+“Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri; then
+smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
+once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from
+the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course,
+confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in
+English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a
+course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a
+few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had
+purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all
+these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of
+each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in.
+Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her
+improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in
+her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated
+judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual
+in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile
+my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she
+did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me
+with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched
+over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the
+margin of her book.
+
+“Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+returning.
+
+“But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too
+cool?”
+
+She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
+thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had
+it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of
+my admiration--not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little
+affection--ever so little--pleased her better than all the panegyrics in
+the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on
+the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my
+occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near
+hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an
+illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took
+occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so
+disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to
+go. Distasteful effort--to leave what we most prefer!
+
+Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
+employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
+counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed,
+indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When
+I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless;
+she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss
+anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving
+space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a
+clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been
+pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they
+with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by
+a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright
+hazel--irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils
+instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low
+spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than
+round, having vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom,
+and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of
+her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became
+rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of
+the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not
+regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight,
+though compact, elegant, flexible--the exquisite turning of waist,
+wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my notions of
+symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of movement which
+corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+
+Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a
+new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but
+steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when
+the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily,
+move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood
+of youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+
+To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the
+growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the
+said gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it
+was not difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish
+her starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that
+inward vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto
+forbidden to expand. Constancy of attention--a kindness as mute
+as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of
+austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of
+interest, or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming
+imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and
+that with devoted care: these were the means I used, for these means
+best suited Frances’ feelings, as susceptible as deep vibrating--her
+nature at once proud and shy.
+
+The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour
+as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air
+of spirit and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be
+obeyed--and obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over
+her. If any girl had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her
+rebellion to heart; she possessed a source of comfort they could not
+drain, a pillar of support they could not overthrow: formerly, when
+insulted, she wept; now, she smiled.
+
+The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her
+talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject--it was an emigrant’s
+letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural
+and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest
+and great, New-World river--barren of sail and flag--amidst which the
+epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that
+attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on
+that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him
+from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible
+independence, indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past
+days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were
+touched upon; feeling, forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every
+period. At the close, consolation was suggested; religious faith became
+there the speaker, and she spoke well.
+
+The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice,
+in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to
+understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could
+neither speak nor write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir,
+she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation
+of a “riviere” or open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she
+said nothing, and her face and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely
+negative expression, were as blank of comment as her lips. As neither
+surprise, pleasure, approbation, nor interest were evinced in her
+countenance, so no more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if
+that inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this--
+
+“The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an
+opinion.”
+
+As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round
+Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of
+the directress was now heard:--
+
+“Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten
+to return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a
+little), “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive
+to fetch them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock.
+
+“Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and
+signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish,
+for an instant, the castor I had clutched.
+
+“Mademoiselle, I am at your service.”
+
+“Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in
+young people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly
+industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance,
+Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other
+pupils? She is older than most of them, and has had advantages of an
+exclusive nature for acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other
+hand, her sphere of life is somewhat beneath theirs; under these
+circumstances, a public distinction, conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be
+the means of suggesting comparisons, and exciting feelings such as would
+be far from advantageous to the individual forming their object. The
+interest I take in Mdlle. Henri’s real welfare makes me desirous of
+screening her from annoyances of this sort; besides, monsieur, as I
+have before hinted to you, the sentiment of AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat
+marked preponderance in her character; celebrity has a tendency to
+foster this sentiment, and in her it should be rather repressed--she
+rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think,
+monsieur--it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially,
+is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not
+Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the
+quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if
+stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity? She may never marry;
+scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connections, uncertain
+as is her health (for I think her consumptive, her mother died of that
+complaint), it is more than probable she never will. I do not see how
+she can rise to a position, whence such a step would be possible; but
+even in celibacy it would be better for her to retain the character and
+habits of a respectable decorous female.”
+
+“Indisputably, mademoiselle,” was my answer. “Your opinion admits of no
+doubt;” and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under
+cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+
+At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find
+it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri’s usually
+regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her
+absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed
+some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information
+I wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles
+and gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and
+the seat at the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when
+no allusion was made to the circumstance by any individual of the
+class--when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence
+on the point--I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to break the ice of this
+silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I
+knew that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by
+wriggle, titter, or other flourish of folly.
+
+“Ou donc est Mdlle. Henri?” I said one day as I returned an
+exercise-book I had been examining.
+
+“Elle est partie, monsieur.”
+
+“Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?”
+
+“Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus.”
+
+“Ah!” was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:--
+
+“En etes-vous bien sure, Sylvie?”
+
+“Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l’a dit elle-meme
+il y a deux ou trois jours.”
+
+And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and
+circumstances forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on
+what had been said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the
+reason of the teacher’s departure, as to whether it had been voluntary
+or otherwise, was indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it--there were
+listeners all round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as
+she was putting on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:--
+
+“Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri’s address? I have some books of hers,”
+ I added carelessly, “and I should wish to send them to her.”
+
+“No, monsieur,” replied Sylvie; “but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will
+be able to give it you.”
+
+Rosalie’s cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the
+inquiry. Rosalie--a smart French grisette--looked up from her work with
+a knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to
+avoid exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever
+of Mdlle. Henri’s address--had never known it. Turning from her with
+impatience--for I believed she lied and was hired to lie--I almost
+knocked down some one who had been standing at my back; it was the
+directress. My abrupt movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was
+obliged to apologize, which I did more concisely than politely. No man
+likes to be dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then
+was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I
+turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes
+were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had
+scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a
+bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received with
+good-humoured facility.
+
+“Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your
+elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back,
+and passing her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more
+numerous and flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:
+
+“Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows
+of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be
+covered with dust.”
+
+Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter
+thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising
+a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more
+transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust
+the flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or
+two of plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery
+ground,” thought I; so I began:
+
+“Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment--been dismissed, I
+presume?”
+
+“Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied
+the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world;
+“but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a
+minute?” And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have
+before mentioned.
+
+“There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley,
+and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride,
+closing behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus
+imparted a sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the
+very core of a capital.
+
+“There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and
+rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes
+tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces
+always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in
+your ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole
+month in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien
+propre, tout entouree de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la
+vie champetre! N’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+
+“Cela depend, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was
+right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat
+in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my
+temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper
+than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of
+Mdlle. Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing
+the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue:--
+
+“I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?”
+
+“Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but
+my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish:
+have you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too
+short by twelve hours for your numerous duties?”
+
+“Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it
+had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being
+my pupil.”
+
+“Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never
+thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to
+attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary
+importance.”
+
+“You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant
+event?”
+
+“Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur,
+that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher
+has ever been dismissed from it.”
+
+“Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently--a change of
+instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives
+life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests
+to the parents the idea of exertion and progress.”
+
+“Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple to
+dismiss them?”
+
+“No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you.
+Allons, monsieur le professeur--asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une
+petite lecon dans votre etat d’instituteur.” (I wish I might write
+all she said to me in French--it loses sadly by being translated into
+English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair; the directress sat down,
+and signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat,
+and stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a
+huge laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves
+of a lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the
+retreat. Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were
+evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her
+astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D’OEUVRE of policy. Convinced
+by several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did
+not possess was unavailing to ensnare me--aware that I had read her real
+nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being
+hers--she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock
+of my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a
+glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then
+her blue eye glittered upon me--it did not flash--nothing of flame ever
+kindled in its temperate gleam.
+
+“Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully.
+
+“I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the
+habit of speaking to her bluntly--a habit begun in anger, but continued
+because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She cast
+down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she turned
+with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird that
+flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and
+seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.
+
+“Well--and your lesson?” I demanded briefly.
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank
+and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of
+vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done
+in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew
+that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your
+character--policy, as well as pride?”
+
+“Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so
+piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I
+passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and again she made room for
+me to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to
+my senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.
+
+“Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment,
+dismiss nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak
+truth), I despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending
+off one to the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying
+circumstances. I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?”
+ She looked up again; she had compounded her glance well this time--much
+archness, more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled
+consciousness of capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great
+Mogul; so I became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+
+“I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly
+down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so
+long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I
+don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract
+the attention and envy of my neighbours--I am merely passive; but when
+events fall out ill--when circumstances become adverse--I watch very
+vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now
+and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out--so--and give the rebellious
+circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends it the way
+I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my expedient.
+So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and inefficient--when,
+in short, the interests of the school would suffer from their retaining
+their places--I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide
+past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render
+untenable the post I wish to have vacated--the deed is done--the
+stumbling-block removed--and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I
+am rid of an incumbrance.”
+
+A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I
+looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer.
+“And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office,
+therefore you rendered it intolerable to her?”
+
+“Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health;
+no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed
+to discover the truth. I took--I have always taken a real interest in
+Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers;
+I thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent
+situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more
+than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself;
+she saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.”
+
+“Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me
+her address.”
+
+“Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of
+the directress. “Her address? Ah?--well--I wish I could oblige you,
+monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked
+her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought--I may
+be wrong--but I THOUGHT her motive for doing so, was a natural, though
+mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor
+abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere,
+doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’”
+
+“I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were
+born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to
+make a bugbear of her origin to me--I happen to know that she was a
+Swiss pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow
+means, I care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart
+overflows with affluence.”
+
+“Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress,
+affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her
+temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking
+pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was
+furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung
+low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the
+TETE-A-TETE and departed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real
+life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us
+fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade;
+they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of
+rapture--still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we
+rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour
+the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have
+plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained,
+stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties
+for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support,
+robbed of hope. Our agony is great, and how can it end? We have broken
+the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering--too feeble to
+conceive faith--death must be darkness--God, spirits, religion can have
+no place in our collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting
+recollections of vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave,
+and dissolution flings us in--a rag eaten through and through with
+disease, wrung together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by
+the inexorable heel of despair.
+
+But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses
+his property--it is a blow--he staggers a moment; then, his energies,
+roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon
+mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience--endures what
+he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where
+to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what
+he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his
+affections were twined--a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but
+some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and
+says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred
+again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that
+life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens
+her consolation by connecting with it two ideas--which mortals cannot
+comprehend, but on which they love to repose--Eternity, Immortality; and
+the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious,
+of heavenly hills all light and peace--of a spirit resting there in
+bliss--of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and
+disembodied--of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he
+takes courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the
+duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his
+mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+
+Well--and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be drawn
+therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil--my
+treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach;
+the inference to be drawn from it is--that, being a steady, reasonable
+man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief,
+engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any
+monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my
+heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In
+the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent
+system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber
+at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose
+nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in
+revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with
+their long, midnight cry.
+
+A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm
+in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at
+her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew
+had consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an
+instrument--the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday
+evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where
+she was sitting alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with
+the same tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the
+question for the first time--
+
+“Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of
+Frances Evans Henri?”
+
+A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any
+knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that
+I explained all about that circumstance before--a week ago?”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing
+me to that young person’s abode.”
+
+She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably
+counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am
+telling an untruth?”
+
+Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your
+intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?”
+
+“But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?”
+
+“Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have
+only two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in
+another month the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail
+yourself of the leisure it will afford you to look out for another
+English master--at the close of August, I shall be under the necessity
+of resigning my post in your establishment.”
+
+I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and
+immediately withdrew.
+
+That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small
+packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to
+see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to
+prevent my immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces,
+and a note in English.
+
+“MONSIEUR,
+
+“I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you
+would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go
+into the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said
+you were already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must
+be mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the
+same errand. In one sense a note will do as well--it will wrap up the
+20 francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it
+will not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition--if it will not
+bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done--if it will not tell you,
+as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you
+more--why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task. Had
+I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and
+unsatisfactory--something belying my feelings rather than explaining
+them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your
+presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great
+deal on fortitude in bearing grief--you said I introduced that theme too
+often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty
+than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a
+reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur--very kind;
+I am afflicted--I am heart-broken to be quite separated from you; soon
+I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you with my
+distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then say no
+more.
+
+“Farewell, Monsieur.
+
+“F. E. HENRI.”
+
+I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces
+into my purse--then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.
+
+“Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor;
+yet she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s
+lessons, and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she
+deprived herself to scrape together the twenty francs--I wonder what
+sort of a place she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt
+is, and whether she is likely to get employment to supply the place she
+has lost. No doubt she will have to trudge about long enough from school
+to school, to inquire here, and apply there--be rejected in this place,
+disappointed in that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired
+and unsuccessful. And the directress would not let her in to bid me
+good-bye? I might not have the chance of standing with her for a few
+minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of
+sentences--getting to know where she lived--putting matters in train
+for having all things arranged to my mind? No address on the note”--I
+continued, drawing it again from the pocket-book and examining it on
+each side of the two leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and
+always do business like women; men mechanically put a date and address
+to their communications. And these five-franc pieces?”--(I hauled them
+forth from my purse)--“if she had offered me them herself instead of
+tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of Lilliputian
+packet, I could have thrust them back into her little hand, and shut
+up the small, taper fingers over them--so--and compelled her shame, her
+pride, her shyness, all to yield to a little bit of determined Will--now
+where is she? How can I get at her?”
+
+Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+
+“Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to
+me.
+
+“Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.”
+
+“Did he say anything?”
+
+“Rien.”
+
+And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my
+inquiries.
+
+“No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No
+matter--I’ll seek her through Brussels.”
+
+And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure,
+for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on
+the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste.
+Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I
+attended these latter at the German, French, and English services, not
+doubting that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were
+absolutely fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the
+event to be equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood
+at the door of each chapel after the service, and waited till every
+individual had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form,
+peering under every bonnet covering a young head. In vain; I saw
+girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their sloping
+shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of Mdlle.
+Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces “encadrees” in bands of brown
+hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes, her eyebrows. All the
+features of all the faces I met seemed frittered away, because my eye
+failed to recognize the peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space
+of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line
+of eyebrow traced above.
+
+“She has probably left Brussels--perhaps is gone to England, as she
+said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth
+Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper
+had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the
+congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had
+soon outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious
+goodness! why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions
+of the high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and
+satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut
+coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the
+English service, filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it,
+issuing forth into the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with
+freshly and trimly attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut
+at the church of Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and
+the groups of pretty British children, and the British footmen and
+waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the Rue
+Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain--an old and quiet
+street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to
+go back and take my share of the “gouter,” now on the refectory-table
+at Pelet’s--to wit, pistolets and water--I stepped into a baker’s and
+refreshed myself on a COUC(?)--it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how
+to spell it--A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun--and a cup of coffee; and
+then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of
+the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I
+took my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and not
+a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels
+need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league
+from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over
+the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and
+trackless round the capital of Brabant. Having gained the summit of the
+hill, and having stood and looked long over the cultured but lifeless
+campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high road, which I had hitherto
+followed, and get in among those tilled grounds--fertile as the beds
+of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden--spreading far and wide even to the
+boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance changed
+them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with those of the livid
+and thunderous-looking sky. Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the
+right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into
+the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty
+white wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some
+thickly planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were
+the branches resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a
+massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its
+arms, which seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister
+trees. I approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden
+appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some
+stately residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a
+hut serving for a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the
+key--the gates were open; I pushed one leaf back--rain had rusted
+its hinges, for it groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting
+embowered the entrance. Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on
+each hand which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign,
+explained clearly to what abode I had made my way. This was the
+house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands of
+everlastings announced, “The Protestant Cemetery, outside the gate of
+Louvain.”
+
+The place was large enough to afford half an hour’s strolling without
+the monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who
+love to peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription
+enough to occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time.
+Hither people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their
+dead for interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of
+brass, were written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in
+English, in French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had
+erected a marble monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane
+Brown, and inscribed it only with her name. There the French widower had
+shaded the grave of his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket
+of roses, amidst which a little tablet rising, bore an equally bright
+testimony to her countless virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred,
+mourned after its own fashion; and how soundless was the mourning of
+all! My own tread, though slow and upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to
+startle, because it formed the sole break to a silence otherwise total.
+Not only the winds, but the very fitful, wandering airs, were that
+afternoon, as by common consent, all fallen asleep in their various
+quarters; the north was hushed, the south silent, the east sobbed not,
+nor did the west whisper. The clouds in heaven were condensed and
+dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the trees of this cemetery
+nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the cypresses stood up
+straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and still; where
+the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night dew or
+thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible to
+sun or shadow, to rain or drought.
+
+Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf,
+and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the
+stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted
+vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade
+passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I
+soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing
+nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and
+evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat
+which I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight
+of her before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was
+the white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall,
+and, at the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned
+up, a new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close
+behind her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, “Julienne
+Henri, died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18--.” Having perused
+the inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful
+just under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it
+was a slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black
+stuff, with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as
+saw, who it was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments
+enjoying the security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and
+had never discovered one of her traces--never met a hope, or seized
+a chance of encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my
+grasp on expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under
+the discouraging thought that the current of life, and the impulse
+of destiny, had swept her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while
+bending suddenly earthward beneath the pressure of despondency--while
+following with my eyes the track of sorrow on the turf of a
+graveyard--here was my lost jewel dropped on the tear-fed herbage,
+nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of yew-trees.
+
+Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand.
+I knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change;
+at last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the
+stone before her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those
+constrictions with which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are,
+at times, so sorely oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped
+away, again and again, with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs
+escaped her, and then, the paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put
+my hand gently on her shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for
+she was neither hysterical nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push,
+indeed, might have startled her, but the contact of my quiet touch
+merely woke attention as I wished; and, though she turned quickly, yet
+so lightning-swift is thought--in some minds especially--I believe the
+wonder of what--the consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares
+on her solitude, had passed through her brain, and flashed into her
+heart, even before she had effected that hasty movement; at least,
+Amazement had hardly opened her eyes and raised them to mine, ere
+Recognition informed their irids with most speaking brightness. Nervous
+surprise had hardly discomposed her features ere a sentiment of most
+vivid joy shone clear and warm on her whole countenance. I had hardly
+time to observe that she was wasted and pale, ere called to feel a
+responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most full and exquisite
+pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in the expansive
+light, now diffused over my pupil’s face. It was the summer sun flashing
+out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more rapidly than
+that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour?
+
+I hate boldness--that boldness which is of the brassy brow and insensate
+nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour of the
+generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans’ clear
+hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved the
+tones with which she uttered the words--
+
+“Mon maitre! mon maitre!”
+
+I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I
+loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist
+charmless, for me a treasure--my best object of sympathy on earth,
+thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my
+ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification
+of discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of
+self-denial and self-control--those guardians, those trusty keepers of
+the gift I longed to confer on her--the gift of all my affections;
+model of truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness--those
+refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well
+of tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless,
+of natural feeling, natural passion--those sources of refreshment and
+comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the
+well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned
+safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a
+moment high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life’s current
+in its channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its
+blaze to embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect
+for her, and as I drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the
+cemetery, I felt I had another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as
+firm as respect, more fervid than either--that of love.
+
+“Well, my pupil,” said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind
+us--“Well, I have found you again: a month’s search has seemed long,
+and I little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst
+graves.”
+
+Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, and to speak
+thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised
+me that this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in
+her heart:
+
+“Mon maitre,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little
+imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to
+be taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier
+troubles ought to have made me forget it.”
+
+“Your aunt is dead?”
+
+“Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not
+chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night
+of her existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone,
+so friendless:’ she wished too that she could have been buried in
+Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the
+banks of Lake Leman, and to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat
+region of Flanders. Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and
+taken her remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I
+was forced to lay her here.”
+
+“She was ill but a short time, I presume?”
+
+“But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter’s leave
+to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.”
+
+“Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily.
+
+“Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one
+evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room
+to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is;
+afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to
+go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your
+departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have
+taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished
+in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest
+need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply
+your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can,
+though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will
+be your part now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure
+you will everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your
+talents.’ And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary. I asked, as
+mademoiselle would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to
+discharge me from the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of
+speech, and answered that ‘our connection as employer and employed was
+certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of
+my acquaintance; she should always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and
+then she said something about the excellent condition of the streets,
+and the long continuance of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful.”
+
+I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress--so like what I
+had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof
+of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:--“She had frequently
+applied for Mdlle. Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle. Henri had always
+evaded giving it,” &c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very
+house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+
+Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication,
+were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the
+path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning
+obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take
+the road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and
+those of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly.
+There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before
+heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de
+Louvain, and were again in the city.
+
+“Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home.”
+
+“Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances.
+
+It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps
+of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and
+shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent,
+heavy, prone, and broad.
+
+“Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house,
+I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the
+threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and
+followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a
+projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood;
+none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute
+more and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
+
+Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room
+with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the
+articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean;
+order reigned through its narrow limits--such order as it soothed my
+punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode,
+because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter’s hint about its
+extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the
+lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be;
+poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had
+but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have
+deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and
+no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself
+that indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole
+relative, she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances
+went into an inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a
+model of frugal neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so
+accurately defining her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless
+white collar turned back from a fair and shapely neck, with her
+plenteous brown hair arranged in smooth bands on her temples, and in
+a large Grecian plait behind: ornaments she had none--neither brooch,
+ring, nor ribbon; she did well enough without them--perfection of fit,
+proportion of form, grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place.
+Her eye, as she re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought
+mine, which was just then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at
+once the sort of inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of
+that hearth stirred in my soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine,
+and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron
+round her waist; then she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket;
+it had a cover; she opened it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and
+compactly she arranged them in the grate.
+
+“It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,”
+ thought I.
+
+“What are you going to do?” I asked: “not surely to light a fire this
+hot evening? I shall be smothered.”
+
+“Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides,
+I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
+obliged to try and bear the heat.”
+
+She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
+contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without,
+that peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth,
+seemed very cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced
+that another being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a
+black cat, roused by the light from its sleep on a little cushioned
+foot-stool, came and rubbed its head against Frances’ gown as she knelt;
+she caressed it, saying it had been a favourite with her “pauvre tante
+Julienne.”
+
+The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very
+antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old
+farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands
+were washed, and her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a
+cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a
+china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote
+antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each
+saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid
+on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy
+silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these
+preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes,
+she smiled and asked--
+
+“Is this like England, monsieur?”
+
+“Like the England of a hundred years ago,” I replied.
+
+“Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred
+years old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
+great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my
+mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them
+to me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like
+to carry them back to England, whence they came.”
+
+She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do
+make tea--i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups;
+she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of
+exaltation--
+
+“Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?”
+
+“If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,” I
+answered; and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the
+fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal,
+and speaking in the English language.
+
+“You have then no home?” was her remark.
+
+“None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own
+making, and the task is yet to begin.” And, as I spoke, a pang, new to
+me, shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility
+of my position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was
+born a strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more;
+and in the increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to
+include the home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+
+Frances’ tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her
+pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my
+palate as manna.
+
+The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and
+put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, “le chat de ma tante
+Julienne” also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for
+its special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too,
+being swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she
+took a chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little
+embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched
+her rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements
+a little too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by
+the grace and alertness of her action--by the deft, cleanly, and even
+decorative effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine
+fingers; and when, at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence
+of her face seemed beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her
+colour, however, rising, rather than settling with repose, and her eyes
+remaining downcast, though I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that
+I might drink a ray of the light I loved--a light where fire dissolved
+in softness, where affection tempered penetration, where, just now
+at least, pleasure played with thought--this expectation not being
+gratified, I began at last to suspect that I had probably myself to
+blame for the disappointment; I must cease gazing, and begin talking,
+if I wished to break the spell under which she now sat motionless; so
+recollecting the composing effect which an authoritative tone and manner
+had ever been wont to produce on her, I said--
+
+“Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls
+heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer.”
+
+Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at
+once the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected “Paradise
+Lost” from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious
+character of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at
+the beginning, and while she read Milton’s invocation to that heavenly
+muse, who on the “secret top of Oreb or Sinai” had taught the Hebrew
+shepherd how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had
+originated and ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of
+having her near me, hearing the sound of her voice--a sound sweet and
+satisfying in my ear--and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this
+last privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an
+intonation, a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might
+also gaze, without exciting too warm a flush.
+
+“Enough,” said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a
+work of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and
+receive information)--“enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must
+soon go.” For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I
+saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the
+setting August sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through
+the lattice. I got up; I drew on my gloves.
+
+“You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that
+from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me
+for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the
+directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably
+towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and
+thereby render me unhappy while I held my place in her establishment,
+and she eventually deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical
+manoeuvre, pretending that she was acting for my good, but really
+snatching from me my chief means of subsistence, at a crisis when not
+only my own life, but that of another, depended on my exertions: of her
+I will never more ask a favour.”
+
+“How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?”
+
+“I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from
+starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment
+yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes
+are by no means worn out yet.”
+
+“And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?”
+
+“To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my
+Canaan.”
+
+“Well, well--ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening now,”
+ and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong inward
+impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so
+natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one
+kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable--that was all I
+wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason
+denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and
+my steps from her apartment--to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would
+have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be
+avenged one day. “I’ll earn a right to do as I please in this matter,
+or I’ll die in the contest. I have one object before me now--to get that
+Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be--that is, provided
+she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has
+for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my
+instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate
+or correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?” for I had ever
+remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when
+I entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few
+words, given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she
+would, all at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene
+and revived. The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she
+would chip away with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a
+little, pouting a little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I
+deprived her of the pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away,
+and when I interdicted even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose
+of working up the subdued excitement a little higher, she would at last
+raise her eyes and give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and
+pointed with defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had
+ever done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know
+it), her subject, if not her slave. After such little scenes her spirits
+would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, as I remarked
+before, her health therefrom took a sustenance and vigour which,
+previously to the event of her aunt’s death and her dismissal, had
+almost recreated her whole frame.
+
+It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had
+thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the
+stairs from Frances’ room. Just as I was opening the outer door,
+I remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused:
+impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back
+on their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode,
+witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious
+care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her
+little home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused
+paying her debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be
+accepted from no hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four
+five-franc pieces were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get
+rid of them. An expedient--a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I
+could devise-suggested itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked,
+re-entered the room as if in haste:--
+
+“Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it
+here.”
+
+She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I--being now
+at the hearth--noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of china
+ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups--slipped the money under it,
+then saying--“Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within the fender;
+good evening, mademoiselle,” I made my second exit.
+
+Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick
+up a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red
+embers of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate
+every item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure
+retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+
+“I am glad it is not yet winter,” thought I; “but in two months more
+come the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I
+could earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate AD
+LIBITUM!”
+
+Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the
+air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a
+sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious
+in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward,
+I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an
+evening rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked long;
+my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed
+it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time,
+watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
+retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell
+asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of
+clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned
+over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not
+fathom, but hearing an endless dash of waves, I believed it to be the
+sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense
+blue: all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold
+glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, approached,
+enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth,
+under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused behind.
+It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air streamed like
+raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured what seemed
+face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an angel’s
+forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed to the
+bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered--
+
+“Hope smiles on Effort!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and
+resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With
+August the school-year (l’annee scolaire) closed, the examinations
+concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of
+all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till
+the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand,
+and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement
+of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing
+my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had
+voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l.
+per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very precarious
+tenure.
+
+It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight
+walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where
+that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that
+event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed,
+ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice,
+had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship,
+would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as
+a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile
+for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to
+take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and
+very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the
+directress (which he still continued) were heard with a grim calm very
+different from the petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite.
+For a long time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently;
+he even increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing
+politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in
+his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance became
+suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet brooding aspect
+of his brow, a constant examination and comparison of premises, and an
+anxious endeavour to draw thence some explanatory inference. Ere long,
+I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not without penetration; perhaps, too,
+Mdlle. Zoraide might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at
+any rate I soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from
+his manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he
+adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite deportment.
+This was the point to which I had wished to bring him, and I was now
+again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it is true, like my position
+in his house; but being freed from the annoyance of false professions
+and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as no heroic sentiment
+of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my philosophical soul;
+he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so
+soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for
+the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting
+mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in the
+dark.
+
+This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
+there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
+usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous
+with him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen,
+he had also one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk,
+however, was he upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole
+establishment (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes
+in a building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the
+reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering
+lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas
+the city bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated
+the servants for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise
+his poor old mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving
+dreadfully about “le maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired;
+some German books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the
+uproar below, and could distinguish the director’s voice exalted in
+a manner as appalling as it was unusual. Opening my door a little, I
+became aware of a demand on his part for “Creemsvort” to be brought
+down to him that he might cut his throat on the hall-table and wash
+his honour, which he affirmed to be in a dirty condition, in infernal
+British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,” thought I, “and in either
+case the old woman and the servants will be the better of a man’s
+assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I found him staggering
+about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just
+medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+
+“Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of
+his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
+of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
+struggled and struck with fury--but a drunken man is no match for a
+sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could
+not have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in
+process of time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to
+utter comminations which, though broken, had a sense in them; while
+stigmatizing me as the treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he,
+in the same breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her “femme
+sotte et vicieuse,” who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself
+away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the last
+appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the
+act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him;
+but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me,
+I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning,
+and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just
+witnessed.
+
+Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by
+my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
+suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her
+own laying--was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
+which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in
+that quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my
+employer, that his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her
+affections--inclinations, rather, I would say; affection is a word at
+once too warm and too pure for the subject--had let him see that the
+cavity of her hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by
+that of his usher. It was not without some surprise that I found
+myself obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with
+his old-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a
+match--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered
+mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment
+over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that,
+not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
+partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the
+jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
+deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality--and your pure
+morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!” Hers, I
+thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural
+tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
+sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of
+a prosperous CHEF D’INSTITUTION. I smiled inwardly; and strange to say,
+though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited not disagreeably by the conquest, my
+better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
+and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
+notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could
+not love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly
+some interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern
+bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some
+time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they
+sealed up all that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature;
+sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart.
+I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the
+change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a
+slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred!
+There was at once a sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious
+incense from an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating
+sense of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she
+stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once barbarous
+and sensual as a pasha. I endured her homage sometimes; sometimes I
+rebuked it. My indifference or harshness served equally to increase the
+evil I desired to check.
+
+“Que le dedain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother:
+“il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.”
+
+And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
+bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
+straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait
+tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses besicles.”
+
+Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
+little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful
+words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her
+daughter.
+
+When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
+recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
+fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
+been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to
+wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed
+that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough
+Frenchman, the national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted
+by nature in compounding the ingredients of his character; it had
+appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
+demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
+character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
+contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light
+blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely
+avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his
+politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled
+sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and
+discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
+constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise
+each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau
+under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when
+I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice
+in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective,
+yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud
+and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a
+certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure
+and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I
+longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the
+rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot
+in the light of a Spartan virtue.
+
+But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
+and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
+teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
+interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil,
+and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
+resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
+Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment
+that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
+difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain
+highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
+When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
+the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
+she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both
+in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon
+proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed
+to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his,
+for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding
+graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting
+self-complacency, more ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s
+life had been passed in proper French style with due disregard to moral
+restraint, and I thought his married life promised to be very French
+also. He often boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain
+husbands of his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult
+to pay him back in his own coin.
+
+The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
+preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises
+of Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set
+to work, and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de
+Madame.” Not deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced
+with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm
+of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her
+use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the
+kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be
+the tenant of these gay chambers.
+
+Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
+another week’s time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraide
+Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of
+matrimony. Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating
+his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
+continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend;
+and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs
+per annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and,
+when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out
+on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to
+cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some
+order. In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal.
+I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the
+conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to
+become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller
+in the house which was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards
+me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former
+feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
+Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would
+shiver their restraints.
+
+I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I stayed,
+the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical modern
+French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of
+the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my
+taste, either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my
+experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating,
+near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of
+interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction
+was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very
+loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by
+the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious
+influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced
+and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now
+regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote
+to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that
+unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and
+envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison
+cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.
+
+From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and
+that instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how
+to live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri
+seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her
+hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not
+relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from
+hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with
+heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle
+bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and
+sometimes waken pleasurable dread. My hopes to will and possess, my
+resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was
+about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; “and all this,”
+ suggested an inward voice, “because you fear an evil which may never
+happen!” “It will happen; you KNOW it will,” answered that stubborn
+monitor, Conscience. “Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in
+the sloughs of want I will plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I
+walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea
+of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence
+desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil
+in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in
+the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which
+His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil--sought to lead me astray.
+Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and
+declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but
+whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists,
+would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself
+to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the
+velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the
+man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
+retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought
+him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner
+proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my
+decision. After twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room,
+self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present
+home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my
+thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some
+of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and
+with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out
+of the question; the postman’s arrival had never yet been an event of
+interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on
+the documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to
+break the seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited
+me, as if I had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover
+a blank page: on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a
+lady’s clear, fine autograph; the last I opened first:--
+
+“MONSIEUR,
+
+“I FOUND out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me;
+you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but
+you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current
+in Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the
+chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping
+to look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should
+imagine it had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money
+is not mine, and I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note
+because it might be lost--besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it
+to you the first time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about
+taking it; because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can
+understand that one likes to pay one’s debts; that it is satisfactory
+to owe no man anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well
+afford to be honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last
+circumstance is, indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is
+pleasant to communicate good news; and, in these days, I have only my
+master to whom I can tell anything.
+
+“A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English
+lady; her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich
+relation having made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old
+lace, as precious, they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by
+time, I was commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the
+house; they gave me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly
+a week elapsed before I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss
+Wharton often came into the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs.
+Wharton; they made me talk English; asked how I had learned to speak it
+so well; then they inquired what I knew besides--what books I had read;
+soon they seemed to make a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt
+as a learned grisette. One afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian
+lady to test the accuracy of my knowledge of French; the result of
+it was that, owing probably in a great degree to the mother’s and
+daughter’s good humour about the marriage, which inclined them to
+do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think, because they are naturally
+benevolent people, they decided that the wish I had expressed to do
+something more than mend lace was a very legitimate one; and the same
+day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.’s, who is the directress
+of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she happened to be in
+want of a French lady to give lessons in geography, history, grammar,
+and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton recommended me
+very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are pupils in the
+house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was settled that I
+am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not required that
+I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to leave my
+lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred francs per
+annum.
+
+“You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than
+I ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
+beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
+getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
+able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should
+fall ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great
+measure, removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for
+the relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness
+to some one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others
+joyful. I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you;
+I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will
+not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to
+read. Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of
+expression, and, believe me
+
+“Your attached pupil,
+
+“F. E. HENRI.”
+
+Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few
+moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will
+hereafter note--and then took up the other. It was directed in a hand
+to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly
+feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which I could only
+decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe family, consequently the
+epistle could be from none of my almost forgotten, and certainly quite
+forgetting patrician relations. From whom, then, was it? I removed the
+envelope; the note folded within ran as follows:
+
+“I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
+Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like
+a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots
+of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
+sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
+drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
+fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any
+one in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy
+of my recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in
+clover, and yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have
+you ever offered in return; but I am coming to see you, and small
+conception can you, with your addled aristocratic brains, form of the
+sort of moral kicking I have, ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to
+be presented to you immediately on my arrival.
+
+“Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information,
+by Brown’s last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming
+an advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress--a
+Mdlle. Zenobie, or some such name. Won’t I have a look at her when I
+come over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I
+think it worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I’ll pounce on your
+prize and bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don’t
+like dumpies either, and Brown says she is little and stout--the better
+fitted for a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. “Be on the look-out,
+for you know neither the day nor hour when your ----” (I don’t wish to
+blaspheme, so I’ll leave a blank)--cometh.
+
+“Yours truly,
+
+“HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN.”
+
+“Humph!” said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the
+small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor,
+indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities
+between the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here?
+I recalled the writer’s peculiar face and certain traits I suspected,
+rather than knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, “A great
+deal.”
+
+Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when;
+coming charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of
+prosperity, about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie
+comfortably down by the side of a snug, well-fed little mate.
+
+“I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,” thought
+I. “What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves,
+billing and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean
+cormorant, standing mateless and shelterless on poverty’s bleak cliff?
+Oh, confound him! Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast
+between rumour and fact. Were he the devil himself, instead of being
+merely very like him, I’d not condescend to get out of his way, or to
+forge a smile or a cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm.”
+
+Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I
+could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated
+within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a
+groan.
+
+That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of
+excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her
+first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing
+it with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her
+letter were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying
+my lips for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with
+vinegar and gall.
+
+Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels
+on an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for
+one in London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so
+much dearer in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the
+former, but because the English surpass in folly all the nations on
+God’s earth, and are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to
+the desire to keep up a certain appearance, than the Italians are to
+priestcraft, the French to vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or
+the Germans to black beer. I have seen a degree of sense in the modest
+arrangement of one homely Belgian household, that might put to shame the
+elegance, the superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of
+a hundred genteel English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can
+make money, you may save it; this is scarcely possible in England;
+ostentation there lavishes in a month what industry has earned in a
+year. More shame to all classes in that most bountiful and beggarly
+country for their servile following of Fashion; I could write a chapter
+or two on this subject, but must forbear, at least for the present. Had
+I retained my 60l. per annum I could, now that Frances was in possession
+of 50l., have gone straight to her this very evening, and spoken out the
+words which, repressed, kept fretting my heart with fever; our united
+income would, as we should have managed it, have sufficed well for
+our mutual support; since we lived in a country where economy was not
+confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress, food, and furniture,
+was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various points. But the
+placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by connections, must
+not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word as marriage,
+were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the first time did
+I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice I had made
+in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect; instead of
+a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light and
+fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading influence
+of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the wall to
+the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at the
+wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:--
+
+“Down, stupid tormenters!” cried she; “the man has done his duty;
+you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he
+relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and
+certain evil he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding
+dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path.”
+
+I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and
+thought an hour--two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a
+subterranean vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured
+by yard-thick stone walls around, and by piles of building above,
+expecting light to penetrate through granite, and through cement firm
+as granite. But there are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the
+best adjusted masonry; there was a chink in my cavernous cell; for,
+eventually, I saw, or seemed to see, a ray--pallid, indeed, and cold,
+and doubtful, but still a ray, for it showed that narrow path which
+conscience had promised after two, three hours’ torturing research in
+brain and memory, I disinterred certain remains of circumstances, and
+conceived a hope that by putting them together an expedient might be
+framed, and a resource discovered. The circumstances were briefly these:
+
+Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his fete, given
+the boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a
+certain place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which
+I do not at this moment remember the name, but near it were several of
+those lakelets called etangs; and there was one etang, larger than the
+rest, where on holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by
+rowing round it in little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited
+quantity of “gaufres,” and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid
+the shades of a garden made and provided for such crams, petitioned
+the director for leave to take a row on the etang. Half a dozen of the
+eldest succeeded in obtaining leave, and I was commissioned to accompany
+them as surveillant. Among the half dozen happened to be a certain Jean
+Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but
+even now, at the early age of sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of
+personal development truly national. It chanced that Jean was the first
+lad to step into the boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat
+revolted at his weight and capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose,
+sank again. My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been
+brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten long years
+for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue.
+The lads and the boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths
+by drowning instead of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched
+him by one leg and the collar, and in three minutes more both he and I
+were safe landed. To speak heaven’s truth, my merit in the action was
+small indeed, for I had run no risk, and subsequently did not even catch
+cold from the wetting; but when M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean
+Baptiste was the sole hope, came to hear of the exploit, they seemed
+to think I had evinced a bravery and devotion which no thanks could
+sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular, was “certain I must have
+dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus have hazarded my own
+life to save his.” Monsieur, an honest-looking, though phlegmatic man,
+said very little, but he would not suffer me to leave the room, till
+I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of help I would, by
+applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the obligation under
+which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were my glimmer of
+light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth, though the cold
+light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem such as I
+should like to pass through. Right I had none to M. Vandenhuten’s good
+offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could apply to him; no, I
+must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I wanted work; my best
+chance of obtaining it lay in securing his recommendation. This I knew
+could be had by asking for it; not to ask, because the request revolted
+my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of
+false and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my
+life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+
+That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and
+adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the
+great door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the
+town); a manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten
+and family were all out of town--gone to Ostend--did not know when they
+would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized
+at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in
+about an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers
+phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous
+arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the
+pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon
+transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In
+half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf,
+and the “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day
+had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame
+aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid
+that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my
+prospects.
+
+It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had nothing
+to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
+occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I
+knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers,
+infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
+
+“You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your
+seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement;
+you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as
+you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads;
+chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you
+know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused;
+you have the secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can
+choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as
+long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent
+spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her
+lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know,
+she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of
+strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic
+claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few
+could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under
+the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide
+her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go--they are not passions; you
+may handle them safely.”
+
+“I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master
+of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances
+to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her
+only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
+
+“No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
+now controlled me.
+
+Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but
+I thought the hands were paralyzed.
+
+“What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
+had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair,
+I wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were
+as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the
+calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings.
+What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in
+inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY door; a
+smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over
+the threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
+
+“And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
+language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
+put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing
+the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
+tranquilly therein.
+
+“Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether
+I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to
+my good friends “les besicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of
+my visitor--for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
+how he looked--to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance.
+I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
+deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose
+or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
+window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a
+position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he
+preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no
+mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude;
+with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray
+pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature
+ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could
+be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no
+use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry
+to address him, I sat and stared at my ease.
+
+“Oh, that’s your game--is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see which
+is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one
+to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand,
+then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he
+had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X---shire, England. I knew
+he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
+conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I
+said,--
+
+“You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
+
+“It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the
+spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went
+there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in
+a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had
+departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though,
+which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution
+than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
+
+“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
+assigned to me as my wife.”
+
+“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both
+your wife and your place?”
+
+“Precisely so.”
+
+I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
+narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended
+the state of matters--had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
+curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
+certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour,
+lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he
+would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case
+have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have
+come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on
+its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless
+solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what
+softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke
+again.
+
+“You have got another place?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You are in the way of getting one?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
+in such matters.”
+
+“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
+humour to bother him again.”
+
+“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”
+
+“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me
+an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a den where I
+was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
+positively adding another item to the account.”
+
+“If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled
+generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
+duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it
+shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right,
+lad--make much of me--I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the
+common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for
+a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what
+is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that
+offers it.”
+
+“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+something else. What news from X----?”
+
+“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
+before we get to X----. Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraide, interposed
+I)--“well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?”
+
+“I tell you yes--and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St.
+Jacques.”
+
+“And your heart is broken?”
+
+“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual.”
+
+“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must
+be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
+under it.”
+
+“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
+circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
+The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their
+look-out--not mine.”
+
+“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
+
+“Who said so?”
+
+“Brown.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip.”
+
+“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than
+fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide--why, O
+youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her
+becoming Madame Pelet?”
+
+“Because--” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because--in short, Mr.
+Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands
+deep in my breeches pocket.
+
+Hunsden triumphed: his eyes--his laugh announced victory.
+
+“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how
+it is: Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer, as any sensible
+woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
+
+I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into
+an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
+false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
+instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render
+him doubtful about it; he went on:--
+
+“I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always
+are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your
+talents--such as they are--in exchange for her position and money: I
+don’t suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the
+account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather
+sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making
+a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but
+Pelet--the head of a flourishing school--stepped in with a higher bid;
+she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction--perfectly
+so--business-like and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
+
+“Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to
+have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed, I had
+baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
+his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
+idea.
+
+“You want to hear news from X----? And what interest can you have in
+X----? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks
+after you--neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company,
+the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer
+covertly. Our X---- belles must have disliked you. How did you excite
+their displeasure?”
+
+“I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me. I
+considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance;
+their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but
+I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their
+countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never
+make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at
+all.”
+
+“That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as
+handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to,
+and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
+address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
+remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
+hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
+frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
+the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do
+you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if
+you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
+
+“Content!” I ejaculated.
+
+“No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on
+you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
+desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will for ever to you be
+the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they will
+tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
+have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them
+sour.”
+
+Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they
+drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied
+since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
+in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk--a dependant amongst wealthy
+strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial
+and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure
+would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would
+be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and
+loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
+leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under
+the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he
+was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar
+sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well
+enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences,
+powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under
+other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me,
+because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant
+the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him
+and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her
+blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were
+they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD
+impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of
+tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden’s
+sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all
+this I could say nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed
+my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
+Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged
+by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard
+upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to
+re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at
+the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without
+sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
+
+Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
+minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved,
+however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:--
+
+“Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he
+was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as
+to say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone
+in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m
+independent of both Fate and Fortune.’”
+
+“Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better
+than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing wild, which I
+have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no
+use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with
+death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the
+hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the
+exhausting.”
+
+“For how long?”
+
+“Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will
+be a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the
+struggle.”
+
+“Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
+dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on
+it.”
+
+“I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
+people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a
+wooden spoon will shovel up broth.”
+
+Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who
+develop best unwatched, and act best unaided--work your own way. Now,
+I’ll go.” And, without another word, he was going; at the door he
+turned:--
+
+“Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he.
+
+“Sold!” was my echo.
+
+“Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?”
+
+“What! Edward Crimsworth?”
+
+“Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went
+awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
+would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--”
+
+“Ay, as to him--what is become of him?”
+
+“Nothing extraordinary--don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the
+protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in
+the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
+flourishing like a green bay-tree.”
+
+“And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?”
+
+“Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.”
+
+“And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?”
+
+“Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
+sacred than those of any other?”
+
+“And the pictures?”
+
+“What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he
+did not profess to be an amateur.”
+
+“There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
+have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--”
+
+“Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
+things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember
+you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a
+sou.”
+
+I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so
+poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who purchased it? do
+you know?” I asked.
+
+“How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
+the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what
+interests himself! Now, good night--I’m off for Germany to-morrow
+morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call
+and see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!”
+ he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so
+laughing, vanished.
+
+Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
+space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just
+at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a
+draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially
+harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely
+knew.
+
+A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night
+after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my
+slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in
+my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of
+furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing
+of the door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I
+had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my
+apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor
+the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
+rise, about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
+thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed
+in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a
+wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter
+had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had
+left it at the entrance.
+
+“That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for
+somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:--
+
+“Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels.”
+
+I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information
+was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize
+enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the
+pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses
+of gilding appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize
+being at length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a
+magnificent frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the
+light from the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I
+had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and
+threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of
+hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed
+with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds;
+large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested
+on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half
+showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard
+me, after ten minutes’ silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might
+have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy
+rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to
+themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
+I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the
+intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine,
+grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility
+of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a
+narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
+the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent this picture? Who thought of
+me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to
+the care of its natural keeper?” I took the note from its niche; thus it
+spoke:--
+
+“There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
+bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
+with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of
+him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone.
+In giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets,
+bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold
+the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the
+auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.
+
+“H. Y. H.
+
+“P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item
+to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that trouble?”
+
+I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
+case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it
+out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain;
+I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden
+had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you
+nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself
+in taunts!”
+
+Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
+than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find
+him at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but
+fancying I might be able to glean information as to the time when his
+return was expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated,
+for though the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over
+to Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet
+kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat five
+minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware of a sense
+of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced with strangers.
+I was surprised at my own composure, for, after all, I had come on
+business to me exceedingly painful--that of soliciting a favour. I asked
+on what basis the calm rested--I feared it might be deceptive. Ere long
+I caught a glimpse of the ground, and at once I felt assured of its
+solidity; I knew where it was.
+
+M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised
+and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the
+world’s society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our
+positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure
+Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound
+and accurate judgment; the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker
+both to plan and to practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman
+was benevolent, the Englishman susceptible; in short our characters
+dovetailed, but my mind having more fire and action than his,
+instinctively assumed and kept the predominance.
+
+This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him
+on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
+confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
+to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
+exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not
+so much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself;
+of him I did not want exertion--that was to be my part--but only
+information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
+hand at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners
+than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
+benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
+own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
+of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+
+The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence
+during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which
+are specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
+expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
+zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
+each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
+on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure
+them for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were
+vain--the door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in,
+or another candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance
+useless. Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat
+following fast on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot
+fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I
+persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced
+into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My
+perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was
+inquired about; my former pupils’ parents, gathering the reports of
+their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the
+word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which,
+but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at the very
+crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew not what to do, Fortune
+looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate
+deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old
+acquaintance--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a
+prize into my lap.
+
+In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of English
+professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels, with a salary
+of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being able, by
+dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position, to make
+as much more by private means. The official notice, which communicated
+this information, mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation
+of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in my
+favour.
+
+No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s
+bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused
+it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity.
+My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted
+sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had
+done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only
+scratched a few words on a sheet of paper.
+
+Again I repeated to him--
+
+“You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not
+feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel
+disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day
+you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall
+hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.”
+
+“Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
+content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just
+brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down
+thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken
+glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more
+signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food
+which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then
+demanded, “What shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would
+be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me
+it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the
+streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o’clock
+till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my
+chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and
+feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson,
+my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and
+calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see
+Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful
+screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from
+the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold
+to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men
+had their coats buttoned close.
+
+When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
+worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
+tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had
+seen her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered
+her letter by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of
+continued correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my
+bark hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what
+shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then
+attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split
+on the rock, or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other
+vessel should share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and
+could it be that she was still well and doing well? Were not all sages
+agreed in declaring that happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared
+I think that but half a street now divided me from the full cup of
+contentment--the draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+
+I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
+lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
+green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+
+“Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer;
+I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly
+staying my eager step, I paused on the mat.
+
+“What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to
+myself. A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied;
+a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life
+continuing, a step paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and
+forwards, in the apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated
+when a voice rewarded the attention of my strained ear--so low, so
+self-addressed, I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone;
+solitude might speak thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken
+house.
+
+
+    “‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said,
+      ‘Was yon dark cavern trod;
+      In persecution’s iron days,
+       When the land was left by God.
+      From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red,
+       A wanderer hither drew;
+      And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head,
+       As by fits the night-winds blew.
+      For trampling round by Cheviot-edge
+       Were heard the troopers keen;
+      And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge
+       The death-shot flash’d between.’” etc. etc.
+
+The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued;
+then another strain followed, in French, of which the purport,
+translated, ran as follows:--
+
+
+     I gave, at first, attention close;
+      Then interest warm ensued;
+     From interest, as improvement rose,
+      Succeeded gratitude.
+
+     Obedience was no effort soon,
+      And labour was no pain;
+     If tired, a word, a glance alone
+      Would give me strength again.
+
+     From others of the studious band,
+      Ere long he singled me;
+     But only by more close demand,
+      And sterner urgency.
+
+     The task he from another took,
+      From me he did reject;
+     He would no slight omission brook,
+      And suffer no defect.
+
+     If my companions went astray,
+      He scarce their wanderings blam’d;
+     If I but falter’d in the way,
+      His anger fiercely flam’d.
+
+Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be
+surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered.
+Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly in her room,
+and her step was checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and
+tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark,
+she had been speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s
+voice, to her a foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered
+itself in the first stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and
+the substance, was the language of her own heart. Her face was grave,
+its expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye
+just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged
+was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room;
+but what--with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her
+bent to meditation and haply inspiration--what had she to do with love?
+“Nothing,” was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it
+seemed to say, “I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is
+to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections
+do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me.” Other women have such
+thoughts. Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not
+have been worse off than thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and
+formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed
+themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.
+Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so
+continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last
+it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and
+they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment
+and much bone. Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the
+withered old maid’s carcass--the same as in that of any cherished wife
+or proud mother in the land. Can this be so? I really don’t know; but
+feel inclined to doubt it.
+
+I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair
+I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little
+table where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had
+fully recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft
+but quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took
+her cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met,
+as master and pupil--nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
+Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought
+a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the
+lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright
+fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat down at my right
+hand, a little removed. The paper on the top was a translation of
+some grave French author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with
+stanzas; on this I laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to
+recover the captured spoil, saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of
+verses. I put by resistance with the decision I knew she never long
+opposed; but on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I
+had quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand
+shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the present I
+forbade such impulse. The first page of the sheet was occupied with
+the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not exactly the writer’s own
+experience, but a composition by portions of that experience suggested.
+Thus while egotism was avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart
+satisfied. I translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal;
+it continued thus:--
+
+
+     When sickness stay’d awhile my course,
+      He seem’d impatient still,
+     Because his pupil’s flagging force
+      Could not obey his will.
+
+     One day when summoned to the bed
+      Where pain and I did strive,
+     I heard him, as he bent his head,
+      Say, “God, she must revive!”
+
+     I felt his hand, with gentle stress,
+      A moment laid on mine,
+     And wished to mark my consciousness
+      By some responsive sign.
+
+     But pow’rless then to speak or move,
+      I only felt, within,
+     The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,
+      Their healing work begin.
+
+     And as he from the room withdrew,
+      My heart his steps pursued;
+     I long’d to prove, by efforts new;
+      My speechless gratitude.
+
+     When once again I took my place,
+      Long vacant, in the class,
+     Th’ unfrequent smile across his face
+      Did for one moment pass.
+
+     The lessons done; the signal made
+      Of glad release and play,
+     He, as he passed, an instant stay’d,
+      One kindly word to say.
+
+    “Jane, till to-morrow you are free
+      From tedious task and rule;
+     This afternoon I must not see
+      That yet pale face in school.
+
+    “Seek in the garden-shades a seat,
+      Far from the play-ground din;
+     The sun is warm, the air is sweet:
+      Stay till I call you in.”
+
+     A long and pleasant afternoon
+      I passed in those green bowers;
+     All silent, tranquil, and alone
+      With birds, and bees, and flowers.
+
+     Yet, when my master’s voice I heard
+      Call, from the window, “Jane!”
+      I entered, joyful, at the word,
+      The busy house again.
+
+     He, in the hall, paced up and down;
+      He paused as I passed by;
+     His forehead stern relaxed its frown:
+      He raised his deep-set eye.
+
+    “Not quite so pale,” he murmured low.
+      “Now Jane, go rest awhile.”
+      And as I smiled, his smoothened brow
+      Returned as glad a smile.
+
+     My perfect health restored, he took
+      His mien austere again;
+     And, as before, he would not brook
+      The slightest fault from Jane.
+
+     The longest task, the hardest theme
+      Fell to my share as erst,
+     And still I toiled to place my name
+      In every study first.
+
+     He yet begrudged and stinted praise,
+      But I had learnt to read
+     The secret meaning of his face,
+      And that was my best meed.
+
+     Even when his hasty temper spoke
+      In tones that sorrow stirred,
+     My grief was lulled as soon as woke
+      By some relenting word.
+
+     And when he lent some precious book,
+      Or gave some fragrant flower,
+     I did not quail to Envy’s look,
+      Upheld by Pleasure’s power.
+
+     At last our school ranks took their ground,
+      The hard-fought field I won;
+     The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound
+      My throbbing forehead on.
+
+     Low at my master’s knee I bent,
+      The offered crown to meet;
+     Its green leaves through my temples sent
+      A thrill as wild as sweet.
+
+     The strong pulse of Ambition struck
+      In every vein I owned;
+     At the same instant, bleeding broke
+      A secret, inward wound.
+
+     The hour of triumph was to me
+      The hour of sorrow sore;
+     A day hence I must cross the sea,
+      Ne’er to recross it more.
+
+     An hour hence, in my master’s room
+      I with him sat alone,
+     And told him what a dreary gloom
+      O’er joy had parting thrown.
+
+     He little said; the time was brief,
+      The ship was soon to sail,
+     And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
+      My master but looked pale.
+
+     They called in haste; he bade me go,
+      Then snatched me back again;
+     He held me fast and murmured low,
+     “Why will they part us, Jane?”
+
+    “Were you not happy in my care?
+      Did I not faithful prove?
+     Will others to my darling bear
+      As true, as deep a love?
+
+    “O God, watch o’er my foster child!
+      O guard her gentle head!
+     When minds are high and tempests wild
+      Protection round her spread!
+
+    “They call again; leave then my breast;
+      Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
+     But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
+      Come home to me again!”
+
+I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking
+all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my side;
+no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
+affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were
+far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the
+Master’s manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would
+or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the
+brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted
+to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand,
+elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass
+on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my
+feelings drank the bliss of this hour.
+
+Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire,
+which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little
+ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me;
+slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
+
+There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control
+us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere
+we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether
+bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that
+is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct
+meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is
+performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet,
+whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table,
+the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and
+decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity.
+
+“Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
+lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
+moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
+fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
+before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
+have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
+resistance was useless.
+
+“Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer;
+the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
+consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
+silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
+question--probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my
+face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
+tranquillity.
+
+“Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice
+said--
+
+“Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main droite.”
+
+In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in
+a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time,
+asked more gently--
+
+“Frances, how much regard have you for me?”
+
+“Mon maitre, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder.
+
+“Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to accept
+me as your husband?”
+
+I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast
+its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult
+the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+
+“Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,--“Monsieur desire savoir si je
+consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?”
+
+“Justement.”
+
+“Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a ete bon maitre?”
+
+“I will try, Frances.”
+
+A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice--an
+inflexion which provoked while it pleased me--accompanied, too, by a
+“sourire a la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:--
+
+“C’est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
+volontaire--?”
+
+“Have I been so, Frances?”
+
+“Mais oui; vous le savez bien.”
+
+“Have I been nothing else?”
+
+“Mais oui; vous avez ete mon meilleur ami.”
+
+“And what, Frances, are you to me?”
+
+“Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”
+
+“Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
+Frances.”
+
+Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly,
+ran thus:--
+
+“You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to
+see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
+superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but
+you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they
+are not clever. Master, I should be GLAD to live with you always;”
+ and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
+restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis--“Master, I
+consent to pass my life with you.”
+
+“Very well, Frances.”
+
+I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her
+lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she
+and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during
+this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not
+occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her
+composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true,
+still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long
+as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was
+measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth
+fathomless.
+
+“Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
+happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely
+lifted her head.
+
+“Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
+overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
+importunate caresses.
+
+“Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?”
+
+“Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do
+you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
+tranquil enough?”
+
+“Ce n’est pas cela--” began Frances.
+
+“English!” I reminded her.
+
+“Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course,
+to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
+monsieur?”
+
+“Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.”
+
+“Bon!--I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like
+that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours--will
+they not, monsieur?”
+
+“You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I.
+
+“Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any way.”
+
+“But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have
+left M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another
+place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily
+double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless
+for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand
+francs you and I can live, and live well.”
+
+Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s
+strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
+becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and clothing it, as
+God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
+on:--
+
+“Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
+require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
+important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
+it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
+happiness of giving you rest.”
+
+I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
+instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
+sighed and said,--
+
+“How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my
+arms. “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve
+hundred!” She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present;
+and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my
+place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically
+tightened on mine.
+
+“Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do
+it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close,
+noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering
+at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and
+you would soon tire of me.”
+
+“Frances, you could read and study--two things you like so well.”
+
+“Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an
+active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have
+taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company
+for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each
+other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer
+together.”
+
+“You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own
+way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent,
+give me a voluntary kiss.”
+
+After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
+brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I
+took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
+interest.
+
+I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
+I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
+singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected
+and joyless countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite
+gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and
+rosy tint rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been
+accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her
+proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome,
+she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s
+treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes
+opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my
+tastes which were unique, not my power of discovering and appreciating
+the superiority of moral worth over physical charms. For me Frances
+had physical charms: in her there was no deformity to get over; none of
+those prominent defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at
+bay the admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for
+women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she been
+either “edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,” my feelings towards
+her might still have been kindly, but they could never have been
+impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen Sylvie, but
+for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’ mental points
+had been the first to interest me, and they still retained the strongest
+hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person too. I
+derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the clearness
+of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her
+well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
+I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
+sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+
+Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey
+fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious;
+taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of change.
+
+At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
+forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
+drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all
+day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a
+fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few
+hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long
+after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed.
+At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke,
+and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face,
+and like him, “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the
+parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly
+brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was
+silence, and I heard a voice,” saying--“In the midst of life we are in
+death.”
+
+That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many
+would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the
+effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was
+my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an
+aim, had overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great
+darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known
+formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to
+hypochondria.
+
+She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I
+had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time
+I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she
+walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where
+we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me,
+and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her
+death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would
+tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she
+would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again
+promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink
+of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal
+with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary
+than moonlight. “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale
+piles, and add, “It contains a mansion prepared for you.”
+
+But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister;
+and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress,
+finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few
+objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and
+slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance,
+and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells
+THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect
+brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires,
+folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap
+of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
+hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
+
+I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
+embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
+sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
+Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
+returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all
+the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad
+when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances,
+and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
+made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
+being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
+under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary.
+Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her;
+and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her
+tongue, when she stopped and remarked--
+
+“Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”
+
+I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
+features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden;
+he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
+grimace at me, and passed on.
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“A person I knew in England.”
+
+“Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”
+
+“Yes, he does know you, in his way.”
+
+“How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade
+her to adopt any more familiar term.)
+
+“Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”
+
+“Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”
+
+“To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So
+you have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of
+your kind!’”
+
+“Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon
+gone.”
+
+“I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me
+this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt
+he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your
+rooms?”
+
+“If you please, monsieur--I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should
+rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”
+
+As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he
+said was:--
+
+“You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your
+appointment to ---- College, and all that; Brown has told me.” Then
+he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since;
+afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter
+with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a
+rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and,
+seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?
+
+“As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I
+see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with
+another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up
+in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.”
+
+“But the lady?”
+
+“She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better
+than you--no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to
+see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These
+foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She
+has not been married to him three months--he must be a spoon!”
+
+I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+
+“Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always
+talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraide
+yourself!”
+
+“Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?”
+
+“No; nor Madame Zoraide either.”
+
+“Why did you tell a lie, then?”
+
+“I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine--a
+Swiss girl.”
+
+“And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”
+
+“Married! I think I shall--if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That
+is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless
+of your hothouse grapes.”
+
+“Stop! No boasting--no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To what
+caste does she belong?”
+
+I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste, and, in
+fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old
+----shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and
+respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of
+his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have
+thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley
+would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I should
+give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and leaning
+over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed glee, I
+said concisely--
+
+“She is a lace-mender.”
+
+Hunsden examined me. He did not SAY he was surprised, but surprised he
+was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he suspected I
+was going to take some very rash step; but repressing declamation or
+remonstrance, he only answered--
+
+“Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may
+make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care
+to ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or
+station, she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think
+most likely to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?”
+
+“None in Brussels.”
+
+“That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I
+cannot but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a
+bore to you to your life’s end.”
+
+After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was
+quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which
+he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me
+that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined
+and thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or
+indeed for anything but indulgence and forbearance.
+
+“Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face
+looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your
+future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious
+soul.”
+
+I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity
+of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:--
+
+“I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?”
+
+“Oh, that is the name! Yes--if it would be convenient, I should like to
+see her--but----.” He hesitated.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I should on no account wish to intrude.”
+
+“Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a
+rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart,
+in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real
+gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the
+harsh husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked
+affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been
+so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the
+stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair
+which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+
+“Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He
+turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at
+having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said
+nothing.
+
+We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive
+us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but
+withal very distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing
+to beauty, but much to dignity; the finish of the white collar and
+manchettes sufficed for a relief to the merino gown of solemn black;
+ornament was forsworn. Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as
+she always did, when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect
+than to love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness
+at making his acquaintance in French. The pure and polished accent, the
+low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their effect immediately;
+Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not heard him speak that language
+before; he managed it very well. I retired to the window-seat; Mr.
+Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth;
+from my position I could see them both, and the room too, at a glance.
+The room was so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished
+cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a
+fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE.
+Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually polite;
+they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed
+with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models
+of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign
+tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences,
+with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
+mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
+she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach
+of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
+glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
+complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
+before, she had only looked ladylike.
+
+She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
+ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
+this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
+snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
+before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
+interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at
+once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself;
+as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now
+address her.
+
+“You understand English?” was the prefatory question.
+
+“A little.”
+
+“Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not
+much more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me
+with his thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little
+country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in
+your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible
+that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a
+mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five
+minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort
+of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!”
+
+“England is your country?” asked Frances.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you don’t like it?”
+
+“I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
+nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ----shire), and helpless
+pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!”
+
+“You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices
+everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.”
+
+“Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St.
+Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works.
+Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk
+in blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English
+cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black
+hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of
+Infamy wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her
+favourite paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched
+hovels----”
+
+“I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was
+thinking of the good side--of what is elevated in your character as a
+nation.”
+
+“There is no good side--none at least of which you can have any
+knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness
+of education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you
+from understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical
+associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you
+alluded to such humbug.”
+
+“But I did partly.”
+
+Hunsden laughed--his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+
+“I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such
+associations give no pleasure?”
+
+“Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its
+length, breadth, weight, value--ay, VALUE? What price will it bring in
+the market?”
+
+“Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+association, be without price.”
+
+That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely,
+too, somewhere; for he coloured--a thing not unusual with him, when hit
+unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened
+his eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his
+antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as
+he would like to be loved--some one whose love he could unreservedly
+return.
+
+The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+
+“If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer
+wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is,
+and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can
+conceive, and angels the most elevated existences--if one of them--if
+Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly
+stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth
+from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned ‘with retorted scorn.’”
+
+Frances’ tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it
+was when the word “hell” twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat
+startling emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of
+admiration. He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked
+whatever dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard
+a lady say “hell” with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound
+pleased him from a lady’s lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike
+the string again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric
+vigour never gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or
+flashed in her countenance when extraordinary circumstances--and those
+generally painful--forced it out of the depths where it burned latent.
+To me, once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered
+venturous thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such
+manifestation was past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of
+itself departed. Hunsden’s excitations she put by soon with a smile, and
+recurring to the theme of disputation, said--
+
+“Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her
+so?”
+
+“I should have thought no child would have asked that question,” replied
+Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for
+stupidity those who asked it of him. “If you had been my pupil, as I
+suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character
+not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a
+confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can’t you see that it is
+our GOLD which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss
+servility?” And he sneered diabolically.
+
+“Swiss?” said Frances, catching the word “servility.” “Do you call my
+countrymen servile?” and she started up. I could not suppress a low
+laugh; there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. “Do
+you abuse Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no
+associations? Do you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what
+vice and degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave
+quite out of my heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our
+blood-earned freedom, and the natural glories of our mountains? You’re
+mistaken--you’re mistaken.”
+
+“Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible
+fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract
+idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their
+blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings.”
+
+“You never were in Switzerland?”
+
+“Yes--I have been there twice.”
+
+“You know nothing of it.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says ‘Poor Poll,’ or
+as the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French
+accuse them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums.”
+
+“There is truth.”
+
+“I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an
+unpractical woman, for you don’t acknowledge what really exists; you
+want to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as
+an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their
+existence.”
+
+“Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent--I thought we were
+talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss.”
+
+“We were--and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary to-morrow
+(which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still.”
+
+“You would be mad, then--mad as a March hare--to indulge in a passion
+for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice.”
+
+“Not so mad as you who love nothing.”
+
+“There’s a method in my madness; there’s none in yours.”
+
+“Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of
+the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use.”
+
+“You cannot reason at all,” said Hunsden; “there is no logic in you.”
+
+“Better to be without logic than without feeling,” retorted Frances, who
+was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table,
+intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for
+she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+
+“Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without
+feeling?”
+
+“I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those
+of other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that,
+and the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because
+you imagine it to be inconsistent with logic.”
+
+“I do right.”
+
+Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon
+reappeared.
+
+“You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just
+be so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something
+to cook.” (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire;
+then, while she stirred its contents:) “Right! as if it were right to
+crush any pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially
+any sentiment that, like patriotism, spreads man’s selfishness in wider
+circles” (fire stirred, dish put down before it).
+
+“Were you born in Switzerland?”
+
+“I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?”
+
+“And where did you get your English features and figure?”
+
+“I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have
+a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two
+noble, free, and fortunate countries.”
+
+“You had an English mother?”
+
+“Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from
+Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?”
+
+“On the contrary, I’m a universal patriot, if you could understand me
+rightly: my country is the world.”
+
+“Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have
+the goodness to come to table. Monsieur” (to me who appeared to be now
+absorbed in reading by moonlight)--“Monsieur, supper is served.”
+
+This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been
+bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden--not so short, graver and softer.
+
+“Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of
+staying.”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have
+only the alternative of eating it.”
+
+The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but
+tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad
+and “fromage francais,” completed it. The business of eating interposed
+a brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper
+disposed of than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute
+ran on the spirit of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to
+exist strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment
+of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it,
+not only because she was unskilled to argue, but because her own real
+opinions on the point in question happened to coincide pretty nearly
+with Mr. Hunsden’s, and she only contradicted him out of opposition. At
+last she gave in, confessing that she thought as he thought, but bidding
+him take notice that she did not consider herself beaten.
+
+“No more did the French at Waterloo,” said Hunsden.
+
+“There is no comparison between the cases,” rejoined Frances; “mine was
+a sham fight.”
+
+“Sham or real, it’s up with you.”
+
+“No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case
+where my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when
+I had not another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by
+dumb determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have
+been conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite
+of the laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics.
+I would do as he did.”
+
+“I’ll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort
+of stubborn stuff in you.”
+
+“I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I’d
+scorn the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature
+of our heroic William in his soul.”
+
+“If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass.”
+
+“Does not ASS mean BAUDET?” asked Frances, turning to me.
+
+“No, no,” replied I, “it means an ESPRIT-FORT; and now,” I continued, as
+I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between these two, “it
+is high time to go.”
+
+Hunsden rose. “Good bye,” said he to Frances; “I shall be off for this
+glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before
+I come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I’ll seek you out, and
+you shall see if I don’t find means to make you fiercer than a dragon.
+You’ve done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall
+challenge me outright. Meantime you’re doomed to become Mrs. William
+Crimsworth, I suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit;
+cherish it, and give the Professor the full benefit thereof.”
+
+“Are you married. Mr. Hunsden?” asked Frances, suddenly.
+
+“No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my
+look.”
+
+“Well, whenever you marry don’t take a wife out of Switzerland; for if
+you begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons--above all, if
+you mention the word ASS in the same breath with the name Tell (for
+ass IS baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to translate
+it ESPRIT-FORT) your mountain maid will some night smother her
+Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare’s Othello smothered
+Desdemona.”
+
+“I am warned,” said Hunsden; “and so are you, lad,” (nodding to me). “I
+hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which
+the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched--you,
+however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!” He bowed on her
+hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron;
+adding--“Death from such fingers would not be without charms.”
+
+“Mon Dieu!” murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her
+distinctly arched brows; “c’est qu’il fait des compliments! je ne m’y
+suis pas attendu.” She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with
+foreign grace, and so they parted.
+
+No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+
+“And that is your lace-mender?” said he; “and you reckon you have done
+a fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of
+Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up
+with an ouvriere! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his feelings had
+misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low match!”
+
+“Just let go my collar, Hunsden.”
+
+On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the
+waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a
+tug for it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with
+difficulty picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly.
+
+“Yes, that’s my lace-mender,” said I; “and she is to be mine for
+life--God willing.”
+
+“God is not willing--you can’t suppose it; what business have you to
+be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of
+respect, too, and says, ‘Monsieur’ and modulates her tone in addressing
+you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince
+more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the
+supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours.”
+
+“Hunsden, you’re a puppy. But you’ve only seen the title-page of my
+happiness; you don’t know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the
+interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.”
+
+Hunsden--speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+street--desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till
+my sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he
+said--
+
+“Don’t be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not
+good enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up
+to my ideal of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that
+pale-faced, excitable little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely
+more of the nervous, mobile Parisienne in her than of the the robust
+‘jungfrau’). Your Mdlle. Henri is in person “chetive”, in mind “sans
+caractere”, compared with the queen of my visions. You, indeed, may put
+up with that “minois chiffone”; but when I marry I must have straighter
+and more harmonious features, to say nothing of a nobler and better
+developed shape than that perverse, ill-thriven child can boast.”
+
+“Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,”
+ said I, “and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless,
+fullest-blooded of Ruben’s painted women--leave me only my Alpine peri,
+and I’ll not envy you.”
+
+With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither
+said “God bless you;” yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her
+aunt. One January morning--the first of the new year holidays--I went in
+a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre Dame aux
+Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found Frances
+apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate to
+that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in
+any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her
+array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal
+because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head,
+and hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it
+to her thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each
+side of her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when
+I asked her if she were ready, she said “Yes, monsieur,” with something
+very like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the
+table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear course
+unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration like a reed.
+I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits, and requested to
+be allowed an insight into the origin thereof. She only said, “It was
+impossible to help it,” and then voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting
+her hand into mine, accompanied me out of the room, and ran downstairs
+with a quick, uncertain step, like one who was eager to get some
+formidable piece of business over. I put her into the fiacre. M.
+Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside himself; we drove all
+together to the Protestant chapel, went through a certain service in the
+Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married. M. Vandenhuten had
+given the bride away.
+
+We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity
+of our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not
+exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house
+I had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the
+scene of our avocations lay.
+
+Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her
+bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials,
+a piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing
+decoration of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly
+furnished though not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a
+chiffoniere some books, which I handed to her from the table. It was
+snowing fast out of doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and
+cold; the leaden sky seemed full of drifts, and the street was already
+ankle-deep in the white downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new
+habitation looked brilliantly clean and fresh, the furniture was all
+arranged, and there were but some articles of glass, china, books,
+&c., to put in order. Frances found in this business occupation till
+tea-time, and then, after I had distinctly instructed her how to make
+a cup of tea in rational English style, and after she had got over the
+dismay occasioned by seeing such an extravagant amount of material put
+into the pot, she administered to me a proper British repast, at which
+there wanted neither candles nor urn, firelight nor comfort.
+
+Our week’s holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour.
+Both my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were
+working people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the
+most assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part
+every morning at eight o’clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but
+into what sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking
+down the vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little
+parlour like a long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past.
+Unvaried were they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and
+burning.
+
+A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a FETE, and we had the day
+to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness peculiar to her when
+she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last, having come to
+a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the touchstone of my
+judgment:--
+
+“I don’t work enough.”
+
+“What now?” demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been
+deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed
+to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain
+farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. “What now?” and I
+saw at once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital
+importance.
+
+“I am not satisfied,” returned she: “you are now earning eight thousand
+francs a year” (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my
+pupils’ progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me
+on), “while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I CAN do
+better, and I WILL.”
+
+“You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am
+convinced of it.”
+
+“You wish to change--you have a plan for progress in your mind; go and
+put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of
+it.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+She went--as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious mixture
+of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and wondering
+what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+
+“Monsieur, I have given Minnie” (our bonne) “leave to go out too, as it
+is so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take
+the key with you?”
+
+“Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth,” was my not very apposite reply; but she
+looked so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet,
+and her manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly
+and suavely respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and
+a kiss seemed necessary to content its importunity.
+
+“There, monsieur.”
+
+“Why do you always call me ‘Monsieur’? Say, ‘William.’”
+
+“I cannot pronounce your W; besides, ‘Monsieur’ belongs to you; I like
+it best.”
+
+Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out,
+leaving the house solitary and silent--silent, at least, but for
+the ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields
+received us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding
+CHAUSSEES. Ere long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded,
+it might have been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of
+short and mossy grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting
+to be declined; we took it, and when we had admired and examined some
+English-looking wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances’
+attention and my own to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+
+“What was her plan?” A natural one--the next step to be mounted by
+us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She
+proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on
+a careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed,
+too, by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense
+advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting
+acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in
+schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan,
+she intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If
+we only had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure,
+in time realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too
+old to enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder
+us from going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land.
+
+I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was
+not one who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively
+inactive. Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to
+do--and exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred
+in her frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine
+was not the hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in
+offering them sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+
+“You have conceived a plan, Frances,” said I, “and a good plan; execute
+it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is
+wanted, ask and you shall have.”
+
+Frances’ eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon
+brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for
+some time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than
+“Thank you, monsieur.”
+
+We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer
+moon.
+
+Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings;
+years of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and
+my wife, having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as
+progress whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were
+strangers to amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as
+our course ran side by side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither
+murmured, repented, nor faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us
+up; harmony of thought and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally,
+success bestowed every now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our
+school became one of the most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees
+we raised our terms and elevated our system of education, our choice of
+pupils grew more select, and at length included the children of the
+best families in Belgium. We had too an excellent connection in England,
+first opened by the unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who
+having been over, and having abused me for my prosperity in set terms,
+went back, and soon after sent a leash of young ----shire heiresses--his
+cousins; as he said “to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth.”
+
+As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another
+woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was
+she under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The
+faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained
+fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out
+broad, and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness,
+activity, and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling
+and fervour; but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy
+under the umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in
+the world knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever
+ready to yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as
+radiant.
+
+In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the
+directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on
+her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately
+after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college,
+she to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day,
+I found her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry,
+observance, attending on her presence. When not actually teaching,
+she was overlooking and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared
+vigilant and solicitous. When communicating instruction, her aspect was
+more animated; she seemed to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation.
+The language in which she addressed her pupils, though simple and
+unpretending, was never trite or dry; she did not speak from routine
+formulas--she made her own phrases as she went on, and very nervous
+and impressive phrases they frequently were; often, when elucidating
+favourite points of history, or geography, she would wax genuinely
+eloquent in her earnestness. Her pupils, or at least the elder and more
+intelligent amongst them, recognized well the language of a superior
+mind; they felt too, and some of them received the impression of
+elevated sentiments; there was little fondling between mistress and
+girls, but some of Frances’ pupils in time learnt to love her sincerely,
+all of them beheld her with respect; her general demeanour towards
+them was serious; sometimes benignant when they pleased her with their
+progress and attention, always scrupulously refined and considerate.
+In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she was usually
+forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that forbearance, which
+sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like severity taught
+the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes a gleam of
+tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare; only when
+a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of some
+little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions,
+whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt
+of the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble
+fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was
+to their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after
+them she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat
+by the stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to
+receive some little dole of cake or fruit--to sit on a footstool at
+the fireside--to enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for
+an evening together--to be spoken to gently and softly, comforted,
+encouraged, cherished--and when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss
+of true tenderness. As to Julia and Georgiana G----, daughters of an
+English baronet, as to Mdlle. Mathilde de ----, heiress of a Belgian
+count, and sundry other children of patrician race, the directress was
+careful of them as of the others, anxious for their progress, as for
+that of the rest--but it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish
+them by a mark of preference; one girl of noble blood she loved
+dearly--a young Irish baroness--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her
+enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius,
+the title and rank went for nothing.
+
+My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
+that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which
+she would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
+pupils to learn their characters, to be AU COURANT with everything that
+was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her,
+to be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it,
+and this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils
+to fall asleep, and never making any change of importance without
+my cognizance and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my
+lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most
+fixedly attentive of any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when
+she did it was with an air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her
+joy to make me still the master in all things.
+
+At six o’clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for
+my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private
+sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and
+Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my
+arms; much disappointed she would have been if her master had not been
+as constant to the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not
+been prompt to answer her soft, “Bon soir, monsieur.”
+
+Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for
+her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been
+injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage
+its renewal. Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to
+refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we
+spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was
+thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved
+him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so
+unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him
+than subjects for communion with her own heart. In those moments, happy
+as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of
+mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature. She would show, too,
+some stores of raillery, of “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me
+sometimes about what she called my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices
+insulaires,” with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect white
+demon of her while it lasted. This was rare, however, and the elfish
+freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war
+of words--for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the
+delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked
+me--I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the
+sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm
+than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive
+brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its
+place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and
+supplicating little mortal woman in my arms. Then I made her get a book,
+and read English to me for an hour by way of penance. I frequently dosed
+her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she
+had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his
+language, too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue
+for explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge
+me as her senior and director. Her instinct instantly penetrated and
+possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers. Byron
+excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled at, wondered
+over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+
+But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me
+in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit,
+or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with
+attention; whether she smiled at me or on me, always at nine o’clock I
+was left abandoned. She would extricate herself from my arms, quit
+my side, take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have
+followed her sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the
+dortoir (the pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room
+between the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any
+were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed
+them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil;
+trimmed the watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then
+withdrew, closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided
+to our own chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought;
+there, too, appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face
+(the night I followed and observed her) changed as she approached this
+tiny couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand
+the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and hung
+over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and usually,
+I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever
+heated its round cheek; no ill dream discomposed its budding features.
+Frances gazed, she did not smile, and yet the deepest delight filled,
+flushed her face; feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole
+frame, which still was motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her
+lips were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child
+smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy,
+“God bless my little son!” She stooped closer over him, breathed the
+softest of kisses on his brow, covered his minute hand with hers, and
+at last started up and came away. I regained the parlour before her.
+Entering it two minutes later she said quietly as she put down her
+extinguished lamp--
+
+“Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile,
+monsieur.”
+
+The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of
+our marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.
+Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.
+
+Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a
+good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she
+married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a prodigal,
+a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one which I once
+propounded to her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was--
+
+“I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when
+I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer
+suddenly and silently.”
+
+“And if law or might had forced you back again?”
+
+“What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust
+fool?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice
+and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.”
+
+“And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she said, hastily. “Why do you ask me, monsieur?”
+
+I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her
+eye, whose voice I determined to waken.
+
+“Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to,
+marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and
+though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though
+the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates
+must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would
+resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I
+should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from
+bad laws and their consequences.”
+
+“Voluntary death, Frances?”
+
+“No, monsieur. I’d have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate
+assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the
+last.”
+
+“I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate
+had merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you
+have liked celibacy?”
+
+“Not much, certainly. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and
+vapid--her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should
+have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I
+should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised
+and of no account, like other single women. But I’m not an old maid,”
+ she added quickly. “I should have been, though, but for my master. I
+should never have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth--no other
+gentleman, French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or
+handsome; and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation
+of many others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor
+Crimsworth’s wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he
+honourable, beloved ----?” She stopped, her voice was cut off, her eyes
+suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she threw her
+arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate earnestness:
+the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then dilated
+eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were like
+inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a power.
+Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where all
+that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+her glance so thrilling and ardent--her action so rapid and strong. She
+looked down, smiling softly and passively:--
+
+“I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur,” said she, “but I know that,
+whenever it is wanted, it will come back again.”
+
+Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an
+independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its
+origin in three reasons:-- Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly,
+we had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had
+capital to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in
+England, viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice
+as to the sort of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was
+judicious; and, being promptly acted on, the result proved gainful--I
+need not say how gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten
+and Hunsden; nobody else can be interested in hearing them.
+
+Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we
+both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in
+which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and
+our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on--abundance to
+leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which,
+properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might
+help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of
+charity.
+
+To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely;
+Frances realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer
+and autumn in travelling from end to end of the British islands, and
+afterwards passed a winter in London. Then we thought it high time
+to fix our residence. My heart yearned towards my native county of
+----shire; and it is in ----shire I now live; it is in the library of my
+own home I am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather
+hilly region, thirty miles removed from X----; a region whose verdure
+the smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure,
+whose swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between
+them the very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her
+blue-bells, her scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes.
+My house is a picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and
+long windows, a trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door,
+just now, on this summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy.
+The garden is chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills,
+with herbage short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers,
+tiny and starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine
+foliage. At the bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which
+opens upon a lane as green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little
+frequented; on the turf of this lane generally appear the first daisies
+of spring--whence its name--Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to
+the house.
+
+It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+wood--chiefly oak and beech--spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a
+very old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as
+well as more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of
+an individual familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden
+Wood--for so are those glades and that grey building, with many gables
+and more chimneys, named--abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never,
+I suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score
+of young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to
+assist him in the search.
+
+The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he
+has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some
+incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides
+here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the
+twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each
+winter in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to
+----shire, and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has
+a German metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a
+dissatisfied and savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played,
+and of whom Frances affirmed that he had “tout l’air d’un conspirateur.”
+
+What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or
+Manchester--hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is
+of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a
+wider theme--European progress--the spread of liberal sentiments over
+the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria,
+and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk
+vigorous sense--yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in the
+old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight
+was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old
+northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard
+much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.
+Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical
+men he seemed leagued hand and heart.
+
+When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he
+generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has
+a philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on
+summer evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the
+roses, with which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he
+intimates we should certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are
+almost sure to see him; according to him, it gets on time to work
+me into lunacy by treading on my mental corns, or to force from Mrs.
+Crimsworth revelations of the dragon within her, by insulting the memory
+of Hofer and Tell.
+
+We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a
+visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are
+an interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the
+absence of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society
+gives a metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the
+talk. Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he
+chooses to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his
+very mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the
+passages legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of
+diamond-paned lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels
+he has collected stores of articles of VERTU, which are well and
+tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen
+there one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many
+an aristocratic connoisseur might have envied.
+
+When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he
+often walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber
+is old and of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued
+through glade and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat
+long one. Many a time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon,
+and when the night has been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain
+nightingale has been singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has
+lent the song a soft accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one
+hamlet in a district of ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of
+the wood left us at our porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours,
+and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers.
+He would then forget politics and discussion, and would dwell on the
+past times of his house, on his family history, on himself and his own
+feelings--subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they
+were each and all unique. One glorious night in June, after I had been
+taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she would
+come and graft her foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak, he answered
+suddenly--
+
+“You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a
+shadow without a substance.”
+
+He had led us from the depth of the “winding way” into a glade from
+whence the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded
+moon poured her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her
+beam an ivory miniature.
+
+Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to
+me--still, however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking
+in my eyes what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a
+very handsome and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had
+once said, “straight and harmonious features.” It was dark; the hair,
+raven-black, swept not only from the brow, but from the temples--seemed
+thrust away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay,
+despised arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an
+independent, determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the
+chin ditto. On the back of the miniature was gilded “Lucia.”
+
+“That is a real head,” was my conclusion.
+
+Hunsden smiled.
+
+“I think so,” he replied. “All was real in Lucia.”
+
+“And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could not?”
+
+“I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not done so
+is a proof that I COULD not.”
+
+He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances’ hand, and
+put it away.
+
+“What do YOU think of it?” he asked of my wife, as he buttoned his coat
+over it.
+
+“I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them,” was the strange
+answer. “I do not mean matrimonial chains,” she added, correcting
+herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, “but social chains of some
+sort. The face is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful
+and triumphant effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from
+insupportable constraint; and when Lucia’s faculty got free, I am
+certain it spread wide pinions and carried her higher than--” she
+hesitated.
+
+“Than what?” demanded Hunsden.
+
+“Than ‘les convenances’ permitted you to follow.”
+
+“I think you grow spiteful--impertinent.”
+
+“Lucia has trodden the stage,” continued Frances. “You never seriously
+thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness,
+her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that
+was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her
+beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she
+filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a
+wife.”
+
+“Ingenious,” remarked Hunsden; “whether true or not is another question.
+Meantime, don’t you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale,
+beside such a girandole as Lucia’s?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the
+dim light you give?”
+
+“Will you, monsieur?”
+
+“My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances,” and we had
+now reached the wicket.
+
+I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it
+is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest;
+the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the
+air. Frances proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out
+on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded with china, placed under a
+certain beech; Hunsden is expected--nay, I hear he is come--there is his
+voice, laying down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances
+replies; she opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor,
+of whom Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs.
+Crimsworth retaliates:--
+
+“Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden,
+calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become
+a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and
+going, no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy
+till she had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off;
+for that with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin
+a score of children.”
+
+I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my
+desk--but it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on
+porcelain.
+
+Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his
+mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark
+as those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical
+enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less
+than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over
+a book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure,
+peril, or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But
+though still, he is not unhappy--though serious, not morose; he has a
+susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts
+to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a
+spelling-book at his mother’s knee, and as he got on without driving by
+that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to
+try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable.
+When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still.
+His toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he
+possesses, he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to
+affection; this feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of
+the house, strengthens almost to a passion.
+
+Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the
+donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much
+modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would
+go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he
+learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in
+the lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his
+own hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left
+at night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X----, and was bitten
+in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had brought
+him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the yard
+and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an instant;
+he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had scarcely
+been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds of
+anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence.
+Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its
+bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me.
+
+“Oh, papa, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive you!” was his
+exclamation. “You shot Yorke--I saw it from the window. I never believed
+you could be so cruel--I can love you no more!”
+
+I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern
+necessity of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter
+accent which I cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated--
+
+“He might have been cured--you should have tried--you should have burnt
+the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave no time;
+and now it is too late--he is dead!”
+
+He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long
+while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him
+in my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort
+him best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not
+come out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she
+was ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on
+to her gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft
+embrace, for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him
+that Yorke had felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to
+expire naturally, his end would have been most horrible; above all, she
+told him that I was not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite
+pain to poor Victor), that it was my affection for Yorke and him which
+had made me act so, and that I was now almost heart-broken to see him
+weep thus bitterly.
+
+Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a
+tone--married to caresses so benign, so tender--to looks so inspired
+with pitying sympathy--produced no effect on him. They did produce an
+effect: he grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still
+in her arms. Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over
+again what she had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not
+being cruel; the balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek
+on her breast, and was again tranquil.
+
+Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him,
+and desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I
+kept him a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of
+which he disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in
+my son. I found, it is true, few elements of the “good fellow” or the
+“fine fellow” in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash
+over the wine cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying
+fire; but I saw in the soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs
+of compassion, affection, fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his
+intellect a rich growth of wholesome principles--reason, justice, moral
+courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on
+his large forehead, and on his cheek--still pale with tears--a proud and
+contented kiss, and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day
+laid on the mound under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered
+with his hands; he was melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year
+elapsed before he would listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+
+Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first
+year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his
+home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not
+suit him--but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of success,
+will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a strong
+repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and
+transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject,
+I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some
+fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her
+fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be
+taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of
+her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance,
+a congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as
+I also see, a something in Victor’s temper--a kind of electrical ardour
+and power--which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it
+his spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of
+the offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not WHIPPED out
+of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of
+any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him
+radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this something in
+her son’s marked character no name; but when it appears in the grinding
+of his teeth, in the glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of
+feeling against disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed
+injustice, she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her
+alone in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and
+to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of
+love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason
+or love be the weapons with which in future the world will meet his
+violence? Oh, no! for that flash in his black eye--for that cloud on
+his bony brow--for that compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will
+some day get blows instead of blandishments--kicks instead of kisses;
+then for the fit of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden
+his soul; then for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of
+which he will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man.
+
+I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the
+beech; Hunsden’s hand rests on the boy’s collar, and he is instilling
+God knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for
+he listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his
+mother as when he smiles--pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor
+has a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever
+entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a
+sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden’s knee, or
+rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round,
+like a dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes
+Hunsden had children of his own, for then he would better know the
+danger of inciting their pride end indulging their foibles.
+
+Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which
+half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy
+she enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+“Monsieur est trop applique.”
+
+“I shall soon have done.”
+
+She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her
+presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and
+spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the
+midsummer eve are to my senses.
+
+But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the
+lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand,
+disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+
+“Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress,
+and make him lift up his head.”
+
+“Well, Hunsden? I hear you--”
+
+“I was at X---- yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer than
+Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a stag
+of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and Jean
+Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets
+too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but
+in business they are doing ‘on ne peut mieux,’ which circumstance
+he concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little
+crosses in the affections. Why don’t you invite the Pelets to ----shire,
+Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide. Mistress,
+don’t be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a
+fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you’ve
+lost, Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea,
+Victor and I will begin without you.”
+
+“Papa, come!”
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***
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+        } .xhtml_big {font-size: larger;}</style><title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Professor, by (aka Charlotte Brontë) Currer Bell</title>
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***</div>
+<h1>
+      THE PROFESSOR
+    </h1>
+<p class="author">
+    by (AKA Charlotte Brontë) Currer Bell
+    </p>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<hr>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<blockquote><div>
+<p class="toc">
+<span class="xhtml_big"><b>CONTENTS</b></span>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2H_PREF" class="pginternal"> PREFACE. </a>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2H_4_0002" class="pginternal">
+<span class="xhtml_big"><b>T H E   P R O F E S S O R</b></span>
+</a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0001" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0002" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0003" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0004" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0005" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0006" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0007" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0008" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0009" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0010" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0011" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0012" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0013" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0014" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0015" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0016" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0017" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0018" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0019" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0020" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0021" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0022" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0023" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0024" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0025" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+</p>
+</div></blockquote>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<hr>
+<p>
+<br> <br> <a id="link2H_PREF">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2>
+      PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      This little book was written before either “Jane Eyre” or “Shirley,” and
+      yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt.
+      A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been
+      previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed
+      published anything before I commenced “The Professor,” but in many a crude
+      effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such
+      taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition,
+      and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had
+      adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, &amp;c., such as
+      would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when
+      carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than
+      pleasure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had
+      seen real living men work theirs—that he should never get a shilling
+      he had not earned—that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment
+      to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain,
+      should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much
+      as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of
+      “the Hill of Difficulty;” that he should not even marry a beautiful girl
+      or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s doom, and drain
+      throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
+      approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative
+      and poetical—something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy,
+      with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly.
+      Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind,
+      he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in
+      breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in
+      business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the idea will be
+      often found fallacious: a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful,
+      and thrilling—the strange, startling, and harrowing—agitates
+      divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him
+      in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through
+      some struggles—which indeed it has. And after all, its worst
+      struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort—subdues
+      fear—leans on the staff of a moderate expectation—and mutters
+      under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He that is low need fear no fall.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      CURRER BELL.
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+      publication of “The Professor,” shortly after the appearance of “Shirley.”
+       Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some use of the
+      materials in a subsequent work—“Villette.” As, however, these two
+      stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented to me that I
+      ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public. I have therefore
+      consented to its publication.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A. B. NICHOLLS
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Haworth Parsonage,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      September 22nd, 1856.
+    </p>
+<div class="chapter no-break">
+<p>
+<a id="link2H_4_0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+     </p>
+<h2 class="topspace">
+      T H E    P R O F E S S O R
+    </h2>
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0001">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+     </p>
+<h2 class="topspace no-break">
+      CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following
+      copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “DEAR CHARLES,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what
+      could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic, observant,
+      shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw,
+      but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one—can
+      you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly
+      I never experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you,
+      and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free
+      from all romantic regard to me. Still, out of school hours we walked and
+      talked continually together; when the theme of conversation was our
+      companions or our masters we understood each other, and when I recurred to
+      some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful
+      object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did
+      not move me. I felt myself superior to that check <em>then</em> as I do
+      <em>now</em>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I
+      saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my
+      eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the
+      events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and
+      commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you shall
+      hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
+      Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
+      the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
+      which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
+      hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
+      be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of
+      my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
+      thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife—oh how
+      like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my
+      cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
+      accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To
+      think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe
+      Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and
+      well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under
+      such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me ‘what I intended to
+      do?’ I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and
+      no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale
+      demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my father’s steps
+      and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not
+      think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my
+      taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn
+      expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced the word
+      <em>trade</em>—such
+      the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone—that I was instantly decided.
+      My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear
+      mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and
+      warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in my father’s steps; yes, I will
+      be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted with
+      mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite
+      right to shake off the burden of Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer
+      my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden—one which
+      might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I wrote instantly to Edward—you know Edward—my only brother,
+      ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now
+      possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he failed.
+      You are aware that my father—once reckoned a Croesus of wealth—became
+      bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in
+      destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical
+      brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth,
+      the ——shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into
+      the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret,
+      as it contained little hope or comfort for her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
+      was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
+      an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for it.
+      My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of
+      writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
+      Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
+      sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+      conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
+      against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
+      enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they
+      knew also that they had influence in the borough of X——; and,
+      making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my
+      education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which
+      space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into
+      trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success,
+      that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I
+      was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some
+      three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without
+      some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and
+      some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house.
+      At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no
+      parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for
+      my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering
+      hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father—of
+      the sufferings of my mother—of all the wrongs, in short, of our
+      house—then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived,
+      and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused
+      to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these
+      feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the
+      union with one of my patrician cousins.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I
+      wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my
+      intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he
+      could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my
+      conduct, but he said I might come down to ——shire, if I liked,
+      and he would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with
+      work.’ I repressed all—even <em>mental</em> comment on his note—packed
+      my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I
+      arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X——. I had
+      always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found
+      that it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated
+      in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his <em>residence</em> lay four
+      miles out, in the country.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation
+      designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see
+      through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened
+      those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it
+      sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning
+      my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with
+      interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Edward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing
+      well—but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting
+      short all marvelling, speculation, conjecture, &amp;c., I advanced to the
+      front door and rang. A man-servant opened it—I announced myself—he
+      relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room
+      furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning
+      on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from
+      X—— market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half
+      an hour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red
+      morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames
+      dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the
+      hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about
+      to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these
+      conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain—I was in no
+      danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of
+      my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal
+      tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to prevent the
+      engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat
+      awaiting his arrival, I felt eager—very eager—I cannot tell
+      you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand,
+      clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain
+      have shaken it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether
+      Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always
+      experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached
+      the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some
+      minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall,
+      his tread drew near the library door—that tread alone announced the
+      master of the house.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years
+      ago—a tall, wiry, raw youth; <em>now</em>, as I rose from my seat and
+      turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man,
+      light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first
+      glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown as well
+      in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general expression of
+      his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands,
+      scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco covered
+      arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’
+      said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably habitual
+      to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh
+      in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the South.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’
+      said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being
+      aware that you had such a residence as this.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind
+      time, waiting for you—that is all. I thought you must be coming by
+      the eight o’clock coach.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but
+      stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he scanned
+      me again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of
+      meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this man
+      with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my
+      refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against all
+      future intercourse.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our
+      connection, that “no man can serve two masters.” Acquaintance with Lord
+      Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind
+      of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this
+      observation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an inward
+      speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution of men’s
+      minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from my
+      silence—whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an evidence
+      of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and hard stare at
+      me, he rose sharply from his seat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other points;
+      but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably waiting; will
+      you come?’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I wondered
+      what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien to what I
+      like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe—as the affectionate
+      relative now striding before me? or is she better than these? Shall I, in
+      conversing with her, feel free to show something of my real nature; or—’
+      Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+      apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the
+      fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady; she was
+      young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and fashionable: so
+      much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay salutation passed
+      between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half playfully, half
+      poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take voices into the
+      account in judging of character) was lively—it indicated, I thought,
+      good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked her animated scolding
+      with a kiss—a kiss that still told of the bridegroom (they had not
+      yet been married a year); she took her seat at the supper-table in
+      first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged my pardon for not noticing
+      me before, and then shook hands with me, as ladies do when a flow of
+      good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to all, even the most indifferent
+      of their acquaintance. It was now further obvious to me that she had a
+      good complexion, and features sufficiently marked but agreeable; her hair
+      was red—quite red. She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of
+      playful contention; she was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that he had
+      that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made light of her
+      fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Now, Mr. William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he will
+      drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice
+      already.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I soon saw
+      also that there was more than girlish—a somewhat infantine
+      expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression
+      were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to those
+      of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous to read
+      there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in
+      her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw vivacity,
+      vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in vain for a
+      glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips and cheeks,
+      clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that Promethean
+      spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished
+      hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well;
+      but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of
+      disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the
+      clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth’s face, a deep,
+      involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to
+      her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome
+      young wife, threw on me a glance—half ridicule, half ire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two
+      pictures set in the oak panelling—one on each side the mantel-piece.
+      Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on between
+      Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination of these
+      pictures. They were portraits—a lady and a gentleman, both costumed
+      in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the shade. I
+      could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam from the
+      softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this picture
+      before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion picture
+      being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father’s property.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but <em>then</em> I did
+      not understand it; <em>now</em> I knew how rare that class of face is in
+      the world, and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression.
+      The serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines
+      in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry it
+      was only a picture.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant conducted me
+      to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all intruders—you,
+      Charles, as well as the rest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good-bye for the present,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it, he
+      had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was
+      already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become
+      of him since, I know not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ for his
+      private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at large. My
+      narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous; but it may
+      interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same vocation as
+      myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections of their own. The
+      above letter will serve as an introduction. I now proceed.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed
+      my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in
+      the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising
+      over the ——shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods
+      brown and mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately
+      carried; a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the
+      somewhat cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals
+      along the banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like
+      slender round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half
+      concealed; here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied
+      agreeable sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a
+      cheerful, active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished
+      from it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
+      opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X——.
+      A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality—there lay
+      Edward’s “Concern.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell on
+      it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
+      emotion to my heart—that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man
+      ought to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s
+      career—I said to myself, “William, you are a rebel against circumstances;
+      you are a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you
+      shall be a tradesman. Look!” I continued mentally—“Look at the sooty smoke
+      in that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+      you cannot speculate and theorize—there you shall out and work!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
+      breakfast-room. I met him collectedly—I could not meet him
+      cheerfully; he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire—how
+      much did I read in the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his,
+      when I advanced to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory
+      to my nature! He said “Good morning” abruptly and nodded, and then he
+      snatched, rather than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read
+      it with the air of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of
+      conversing with an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to
+      endure for a time, or his manner would have gone far to render
+      insupportable the disgust I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked
+      at him: I measured his robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own
+      reflection in the mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with
+      comparing the two pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so
+      handsome; my features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader
+      brow—in form I was greatly inferior—thinner, slighter, not so
+      tall. As an animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount
+      in mind as in person I must be a slave—for I must expect from him no
+      lion-like generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye,
+      his stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force
+      of mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mrs. Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked
+      well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning and
+      bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last night’s
+      careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness and
+      restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too familiar
+      with his clerk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they
+      were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he
+      should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X——. I did
+      not keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the road.
+      The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs. Crimsworth
+      had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice Jack seemed
+      disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined application of the
+      whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon compelled him to
+      submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his triumph in the
+      result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the whole of the
+      brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his horse.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      X—— was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the
+      clean streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and
+      public buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills
+      and warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great
+      paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us,
+      vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick brick
+      walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were passing to
+      and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth looked from
+      side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all that was going
+      on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the care of a man who
+      hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me follow him to the
+      counting-house. We entered it; a very different place from the parlours of
+      Crimsworth Hall—a place for business, with a bare, planked floor, a
+      safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A person was seated at
+      one of the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr. Crimsworth entered,
+      and in an instant was again absorbed in his occupation of writing or
+      calculating—I know not which.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I
+      remained standing near the hearth; he said presently—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact with
+      this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he went
+      out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat a
+      moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to do
+      but to watch him—how well his features were cut! what a handsome man
+      he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction—that narrow and
+      hard aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Turning to me he began abruptly:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are come down to ——shire to learn to be a tradesman?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, I am.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if you
+      are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do you
+      know anything besides that useless trash of college learning—Greek,
+      Latin, and so forth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have studied mathematics.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stuff! I dare say you have.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I can read and write French and German.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hum!” He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him
+      took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Can you read that?” he asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell
+      whether he was gratified or not—his countenance remained fixed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is well,” he said, after a pause, “that you are acquainted with
+      something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and
+      lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second clerk
+      to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give you a good
+      salary—£90 a year—and now,” he continued, raising his voice,
+      “hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and all that
+      sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it would never suit
+      me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother; if I find
+      you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults
+      detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as I would
+      any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and I expect to have
+      the full value of my money out of you; remember, too, that things are on a
+      practical footing in my establishment—business-like habits,
+      feelings, and ideas, suit me best. Do you understand?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Partly,” I replied. “I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my
+      wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any
+      help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will
+      consent to be your clerk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not consult
+      his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor did I then
+      care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth Hall,
+      and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be aware
+      that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I like to have
+      the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for business reasons
+      I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. You will seek out
+      lodgings in X——.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X——,” I answered. “It
+      would not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth’s blue eye
+      became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said
+      bluntly—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your
+      quarter’s salary becomes due?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall get on,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you expect to live?” he repeated in a louder voice.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Get into debt at your peril! that’s all,” he answered. “For aught I know
+      you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop them; I
+      tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a shilling
+      extra, whatever liabilities you may incur—mind that.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I had
+      an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper
+      effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, “I will
+      place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still and
+      steady; when full, it will run over of itself—meantime patience. Two
+      things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr. Crimsworth has
+      set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those wages are
+      sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother assuming
+      towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is his, not
+      mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once aside from
+      the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will advance far
+      enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only pressing in at the
+      entrance—a strait gate enough; it ought to have a good terminus.”
+       While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his first clerk, the
+      individual dismissed previously to our conference, re-entered.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mr. Steighton,” said he, “show Mr. William the letters from Voss,
+      Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate
+      them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and
+      heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the desk,
+      and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English answers
+      into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first effort to
+      earn my own living—a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened by the
+      presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some time as I
+      wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I felt as secure
+      against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the visor down—or
+      rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence that one would show
+      an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might see lines, and trace
+      characters, but he could make nothing of them; my nature was not his
+      nature, and its signs were to him like the words of an unknown tongue. Ere
+      long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and left the counting-house;
+      he returned to it but twice in the course of that day; each time he mixed
+      and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water, the materials for making which
+      he extracted from a cupboard on one side of the fireplace; having glanced
+      at my translations—he could read both French and German—he
+      went out again in silence.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0003">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.
+      What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do well.
+      Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set Timothy
+      Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was baffled; I
+      was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to
+      how I lived, whether I got into debt—no, my accounts with my
+      landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which I
+      contrived to pay for out of a slender fund—the accumulated savings
+      of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to
+      ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying
+      economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to
+      obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to
+      beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time, and I
+      used to couple the reproach with this consolation—better to be
+      misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward; I
+      had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of them
+      threw down on the table before me a £5 note, which I was able to leave
+      there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided for. Mr.
+      Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had any complaint
+      to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she believed I was a
+      very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I had any
+      intention of going into the Church some day; for, she said, she had had
+      young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing equal to me for
+      steadiness and quietness. Tim was “a religious man” himself; indeed, he
+      was “a joined Methodist,” which did not (be it understood) prevent him
+      from being at the same time an engrained rascal, and he came away much
+      posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr.
+      Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship,
+      and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of
+      attack against the equability of my temper. He commenced a series of
+      covert sneers, of which I did not at first perceive the drift, till my
+      landlady happened to relate the conversation she had had with Mr.
+      Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to the counting-house
+      prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s blasphemous sarcasms,
+      when next levelled at me, on a buckler of impenetrable indifference. Ere
+      long he tired of wasting his ammunition on a statue, but he did not throw
+      away the shafts—he only kept them quiet in his quiver.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it was on
+      the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s birthday; he
+      had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar anniversaries,
+      and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept strictly in the
+      background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming
+      in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressed by a
+      distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never spoke to me; I was introduced
+      to none of the band of young ladies, who, enveloped in silvery clouds of
+      white gauze and muslin, sat in array against me on the opposite side of a
+      long and large room; in fact, I was fairly isolated, and could but
+      contemplate the shining ones from afar, and when weary of such a dazzling
+      scene, turn for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr.
+      Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by the marble
+      mantelpiece, and about him a group of very pretty girls, with whom he
+      conversed gaily—Mr. Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked
+      weary, solitary, kept down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was
+      satisfied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some
+      pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity to show
+      that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social
+      intercourse—that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,
+      but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful
+      figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the
+      figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, left
+      the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No fibre of
+      sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked for and
+      found my mother’s picture. I took a wax taper from a stand, and held it
+      up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image. My mother, I
+      perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and countenance—her
+      forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty pleases egotistical
+      human beings so much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves; for
+      this reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments of their
+      daughters’ faces, where frequently their own similitude is found
+      flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacy of outline. I
+      was just wondering how that picture, to me so interesting, would strike an
+      impartial spectator, when a voice close behind me pronounced the words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Humph! there’s some sense in that face.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or six
+      years older than I—in other respects of an appearance the opposite
+      to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his
+      portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I have
+      just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I did not
+      investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either; I saw his
+      stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his fastidious-looking
+      <i lang="fr">retroussé</i> nose; these observations, few in number, and
+      general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled me to
+      recognize       him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy
+      noodle as I was, I began moving away—and why? Simply because Mr.
+      Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and my
+      instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in
+      Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr.
+      Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him a
+      sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the tacit
+      witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction that he
+      could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about
+      to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already
+      noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I
+      perversely said to myself—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,
+      perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not at
+      all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and continued
+      to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,
+      you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+      displeased me; my <i lang="fr">amour-propre</i> was propitiated; he had
+      not addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the
+      cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by
+      way of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well
+      enough to oblige; I stayed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pretty! no—how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?
+      but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that
+      woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and
+      compliments.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;
+      there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling his lip
+      at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat written on
+      the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a
+      distinctive cast of form and features?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have
+      their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we ——shire
+      tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As to
+      their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from
+      childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain degree
+      of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques. Yet even
+      this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs.
+      Edward Crimsworth—which is the finer animal?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr
+      Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a
+      straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages—if
+      they are advantages—he did not inherit from his mother, the
+      patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, <em>my</em> father
+      says, was as veritable a ——shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat
+      yet withal the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William,
+      who are the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as
+      your plebeian brother by long chalk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which
+      rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I continued
+      the conversation with a degree of interest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought
+      you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor clerk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
+      Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages—shabby wages they are,
+      too.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still
+      his manner did not offend me in the least—it only piqued my
+      curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This world is an absurd one,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Why so, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the absurdity
+      I allude to.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my
+      pressing him so to do—so I resumed my silence.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It was my serious intention three months ago.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Humph! the more fool you—you look like a tradesman! What a
+      practical business-like face you have!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “The Lord never made either your face or head for X—— What
+      good can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem,
+      conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there;
+      it’s your own affair, not mine.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Perhaps I have no choice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, I care nought about it—it will make little difference to me
+      what you do or where you go; but I’m cool now—I want to dance again;
+      and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by her
+      mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s Waddy—Sam
+      Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open folding-doors;
+      he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the fine girl, and led her
+      off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made, full-formed, dashingly-dressed
+      young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her
+      through the waltz with spirit; he kept at her side during the remainder of
+      the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance that he
+      succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout
+      person in a turban—Mrs. Lupton by name) looked well pleased;
+      prophetic visions probably flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of
+      an old stem; and scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name)
+      professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well
+      knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high
+      lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X——,
+      concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a
+      thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were
+      still independent; and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his
+      success in business, to restore to pristine prosperity the partially
+      decayed fortunes of his house. These circumstances considered, Mrs.
+      Lupton’s broad face might well wear a smile of complacency as she
+      contemplated the heir of Hunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court
+      to her darling Sarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less
+      anxious, were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds for
+      maternal self-congratulation were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to
+      me much more desirous of making, than susceptible of receiving an
+      impression. I know not what it was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him
+      (I had nothing better to do), suggested to me, every now and then, the
+      idea of a foreigner. In form and features he might be pronounced English,
+      though even there one caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no
+      English shyness: he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting
+      himself quite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity to
+      intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or pleasure.
+      Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could not be called; he was
+      not odd—no quiz—yet he resembled no one else I had ever seen
+      before; his general bearing intimated complete, sovereign satisfaction
+      with himself; yet, at times, an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse
+      over his countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and
+      strong inward doubt of himself, his words and actions an energetic
+      discontent at his life or his social position, his future prospects or his
+      mental attainments—I know not which; perhaps after all it might only
+      be a bilious caprice.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0004">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of
+      his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against
+      wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and
+      submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my
+      residence in X—— I felt my occupation irksome. The thing
+      itself—the work of copying and translating business-letters—was
+      a dry and tedious task enough, but had that been all, I should long have
+      borne with the nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced
+      by the double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and
+      others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have
+      endured in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not
+      have whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have
+      pent in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its
+      distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of Bigben
+      Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I should have
+      set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my small bedroom
+      at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been my household gods,
+      from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret, Imagination, the tender and
+      the mighty, should never, either by softness or strength, have severed me.
+      But this was not all; the antipathy which had sprung up between myself and
+      my employer striking deeper root and spreading denser shade daily,
+      excluded me from every glimpse of the sunshine of life; and I began to
+      feel like a plant growing in humid darkness out of the slimy walls of a
+      well.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward Crimsworth
+      had for me—a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and which was
+      liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement, look, or word
+      of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree of education evinced
+      in my language irritated him; my punctuality, industry, and accuracy,
+      fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant relish of
+      envy; he feared that I too should one day make a successful tradesman. Had
+      I been in anything inferior to him, he would not have hated me so
+      thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what was worse, he suspected
+      that I kept the padlock of silence on mental wealth in which he was no
+      sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying
+      position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three
+      faculties—Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as was
+      Edward’s malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of these, my
+      natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my tact, hoping it
+      would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on its slumber; but tact, if
+      it be genuine, never sleeps.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had received my first quarter’s wages, and was returning to my lodgings,
+      possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that the master who had
+      paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned pittance—(I had long
+      ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother—he was a hard,
+      grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that was all).
+      Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices spoke within
+      me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous phrases. One said:
+      “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What can you do to alter
+      it?” I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night in January; as I
+      approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of my affairs to the
+      particular speculation as to whether my fire would be out; looking towards
+      the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering red gleam.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual,” said I, “and I shall
+      see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night—I
+      will walk a little farther.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      It <em>was</em> a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for
+      X——; there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish
+      church tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of
+      the sky.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into
+      Grove Street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the
+      extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron
+      gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in
+      this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he
+      expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance,
+      and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent
+      towards me over the wicket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You see I am meditating in the field at eventide,” continued this shade.
+      “God knows it’s cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on a camel’s
+      hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate sends me
+      only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper.” The voice was
+      familiar to me—its second utterance enabled me to seize the
+      speaker’s identity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mr. Hunsden! good evening.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+      recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I did not know you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you were
+      going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It wouldn’t be worth their while; I’m not of consequence enough to
+      attract them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and
+      how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice!
+      But since you’re not running from the police, from whom are you running?
+      the devil?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, I am going post to him.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is well—you’re just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there
+      are scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and
+      he, or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in
+      and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he
+      passes without much trouble. I think though you’d better let him alone
+      to-night, he’ll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day
+      in X—— and Dinneford; come in at all events.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you really wish me to go in?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As you please—I’m alone; your company for an hour or two would be
+      agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour me so far, I’ll not
+      press the point. I hate to bore any one.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it. I
+      passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he
+      opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door
+      being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and
+      glanced round me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate was
+      filled with a genuine ——shire fire, red, clear, and generous,
+      no penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On
+      the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal light;
+      the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor, comprising a
+      couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the recesses on each
+      side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and arranged with
+      perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste; I hate irregular
+      and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that Hunsden’s ideas on
+      that point corresponded with my own. While he removed from the
+      centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals, I ran my
+      eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and German works
+      predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern authors, Thiers,
+      Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in German—Goëthe,
+      Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there were works on
+      Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden himself recalled
+      my attention.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You shall have something,” said he, “for you ought to feel disposed for
+      refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night as
+      this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be a bottle
+      of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have Rhein-wein for
+      my own drinking, and you may choose between that and coffee.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received practice
+      I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of spirits and
+      strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German nectar, but I
+      liked coffee, so I responded—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a
+      chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give me
+      neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my face to
+      ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint of politeness.
+      I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I honoured his
+      conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he seemed satisfied,
+      rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently brought; for
+      himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something sour sufficed. My
+      coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the shuddering pity
+      with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not answer, and I
+      scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of those momentary
+      eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, extinguishing his
+      smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily
+      shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed the interval of silence in
+      a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had never observed him closely
+      before; and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague,
+      general idea of his appearance; I was surprised now, on examination, to
+      perceive how small, and even feminine, were his lineaments; his tall
+      figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general bearing, had impressed
+      me with the notion of something powerful and massive; not at all:—my
+      own features were cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his. I
+      discerned that there would be contrasts between his inward and outward
+      man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul had more of will and
+      ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. Perhaps, in these
+      incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,” lay the secret of
+      that fitful gloom; he <em>would</em> but <em>could</em> not, and the
+      athletic mind scowled
+      scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his good looks, I should have
+      liked to have a woman’s opinion on that subject; it seemed to me that his
+      face might produce the same effect on a lady that a very piquant and
+      interesting, though scarcely pretty, female face would on a man. I have
+      mentioned his dark locks—they were brushed sideways above a white
+      and sufficiently expansive forehead; his cheek had a rather hectic
+      freshness; his features might have done well on canvas, but indifferently
+      in marble: they were plastic; character had set a stamp upon each;
+      expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphoses she
+      wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose bull, and anon that of an
+      arch and mischievous girl; more frequently, the two semblances were blent,
+      and a queer, composite countenance they made.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Starting from his silent fit, he began:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
+      King’s, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a garden
+      like me!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should be too far from the mill.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
+      times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
+      flower or a green leaf?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am no fossil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth’s counting-house
+      day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
+      automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
+      for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to no
+      excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in strong
+      drink.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Don’t think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine are
+      diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a parallel.
+      I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be unendurable, he
+      is a fossil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
+      surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find subject
+      for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do with my
+      eyes and ears? I’ve been in your counting-house more than once when
+      Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for instance,
+      and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the
+      wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you to shut or open
+      the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing of your position
+      at the party about a month ago, where you had neither place nor partner,
+      but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and how patient you were
+      under each and all of these circumstances!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to your
+      character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide your conduct;
+      if you are patient because you expect to make something eventually out of
+      Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you
+      are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very
+      wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult
+      with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my
+      money; if you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic, flat,
+      inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why,
+      God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and
+      let Juggernaut ride well over you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden’s eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and
+      oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him one
+      of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly
+      relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he was
+      neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I
+      suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in the
+      urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the oppressed
+      into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly
+      than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to
+      arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on
+      the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over these thoughts, and
+      then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved thereto by a slight
+      inward revelation of the inconsistency of man. It was as I thought:
+      Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his incorrect and offensive
+      surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and himself was chafed by a
+      laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” he began, “I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but an
+      aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look? A laugh
+      frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony, patrician
+      resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William Crimsworth! You
+      are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature! Look at the
+      features, figure, even to the hands—distinction all over—ugly
+      distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a
+      title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of your
+      class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the peerage, oppose at
+      every step the advancing power of the people, support your rotten order,
+      and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in churls’ blood; as it is,
+      you’ve no power; you can do nothing; you’re wrecked and stranded on the
+      shores of commerce; forced into collision with practical men, with whom
+      you cannot cope, for <em>you’ll never be a tradesman</em>.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The first part of Hunsden’s speech moved me not at all, or, if it did, it
+      was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted his
+      judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
+      moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
+      wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll make nothing by trade,” continued he; “nothing more than the crust
+      of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live; your
+      only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow, or
+      running away with an heiress.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,” said
+      I, rising.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And even that is hopeless,” he went on coolly. “What widow would have
+      you? Much less, what heiress? You’re not bold and venturesome enough for
+      the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
+      perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
+      refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid for
+      them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was out
+      of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
+      enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence and
+      solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you’ll find the door.” And he
+      sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house. I had
+      got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that I was
+      walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost
+      stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set
+      fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws,
+      but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind
+      to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter
+      Hunsden’s house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must I repair to
+      Crimsworth’s mill? All that night did I ask myself these questions, and
+      all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep; my
+      head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells rang, and I sprang
+      from my bed with other slaves.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0005">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
+      every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
+      frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now icy
+      street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory
+      workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted
+      up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my post in the
+      counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as yet only smoked;
+      Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat down at the desk;
+      my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were still numb; I could
+      not write till they had regained vitality, so I went on thinking, and
+      still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.” Self-dissatisfaction
+      troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that
+      within ourselves takes ourselves to task—“come, get a clear notion
+      of what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
+      pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
+      What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
+      Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading you
+      are likely to make of it! How well you like X——! Just at this
+      moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
+      its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers you!
+      Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings, letter-copying
+      till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure in Brown’s, nor
+      Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as to Hunsden, you
+      fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his society—he! he!
+      how did you like the taste you had of him last night? was it sweet? Yet he
+      is a talented, an original-minded man, and even he does not like you; your
+      self-respect defies you to like him; he has always seen you to
+      disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage; your positions are
+      unequal, and were they on the same level your minds could not assimilate;
+      never hope, then, to gather the honey of friendship out of that
+      thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are your thoughts tending?
+      You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee would a rock, as a bird a
+      desert; and your aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions
+      where, now in advancing daylight—in X—— daylight—you
+      dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those three you will never
+      meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of just men made perfect
+      may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will never be made perfect.
+      Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get to work!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I toil
+      like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may work, it
+      will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a packet of
+      letters and commenced my task—task thankless and bitter as that of
+      the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in search of
+      straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and in
+      a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to glance
+      his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand a minute
+      with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did not deviate
+      from his usual habits; the only difference was that when he looked at me,
+      his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his eye, instead of
+      being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two longer than usual,
+      but went out in silence.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
+      workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
+      me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I was tying
+      up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place, preparatory to
+      closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door, and entering
+      closed it behind him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
+      nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
+      forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful forms
+      of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key! leave
+      it in the lock!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant,
+      obey me! What have you been about—?” He was going on in the same
+      breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
+      the better of articulation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk,
+      there are the papers.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Confound your insolence! What have you been about?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your work, and have done it well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This last
+      term is, I believe, purely ——shire, and alludes to the horn of
+      black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels, and
+      employed for greasing the same.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
+      accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find it
+      the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay no
+      longer.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He
+      took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
+      temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
+      vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
+      continued:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+      lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X—— about me?
+      answer me that!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant habit
+      to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands. You
+      have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and knock you
+      about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this minute, and never
+      stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh from your bones with
+      this whip.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead. A
+      warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a bound,
+      and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly, came
+      round to where he stood, and faced him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
+      calumniating you—complaining of your low wages and bad treatment.
+      Give your grounds for these assertions.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation, he
+      gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
+      brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and a
+      hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
+      pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
+      question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
+      about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such trash;
+      and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy mob, where
+      the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which
+      this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I saw that
+      treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you in close
+      conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know that you
+      were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
+      you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse man,
+      a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom existed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
+      he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and throw
+      it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, and
+      said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something
+      of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought before a
+      magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and
+      long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bethink
+      himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient superiority over a
+      beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer and more dignified
+      mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at that
+      door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
+      transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into my
+      sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground belonging
+      to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what
+      temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
+      tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so no
+      fear of my coming back.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were my
+      own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the key
+      on the top.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner. “Leave
+      all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
+      gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house—walked out of
+      it to enter it no more.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
+      Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
+      rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to hear
+      the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images of
+      potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and tumult
+      which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I only
+      thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize with the
+      action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could I do
+      otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and liberated. I
+      had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of resolution; without
+      injury to my self-respect. I had not forced circumstances; circumstances
+      had freed me. Life was again open to me; no longer was its horizon limited
+      by the high black wall surrounding Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had
+      elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm
+      enough to remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged
+      that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay
+      Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of X——.
+      The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was
+      already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising from the
+      river on which X—— stands, and along whose banks the road I
+      had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy blue
+      of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the time of
+      the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
+      within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being yet
+      arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the
+      river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I
+      stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current: I
+      watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and
+      permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
+      Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of that
+      day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak
+      trees surrounding the church—its light coloured and characterized
+      the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound
+      of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear, eye and feeling
+      satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my face towards X——.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0006">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred
+      seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp
+      appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was dark
+      when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered how my
+      fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a
+      grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found, on
+      entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly
+      noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject for
+      wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was already
+      filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, and his legs
+      stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful as was the gleam
+      of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to recognize in this
+      person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of course be much pleased
+      to see him, considering the manner in which I had parted from him the
+      night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred the fire, and said
+      coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as little cordiality as I
+      felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had brought him there; and I
+      wondered, also, what motives had induced him to interfere so actively
+      between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared, that I owed my welcome
+      dismissal; still I could not bring myself to ask him questions, to show
+      any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to explain, he might, but the
+      explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part; I thought he
+      was entering upon it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to
+      charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton
+      weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit
+      again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with the
+      bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘Thank you!’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so
+      famished.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a
+      glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting him;
+      I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and
+      irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical
+      opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the
+      case; I have had no dinner.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied by
+      looking in my face and laughing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Poor thing!” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it?
+      What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth
+      order you to fast by way of punishment, William!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, Mr. Hunsden.” Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought
+      in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly.
+      Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to Mr.
+      Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the table
+      and do as I did, if he liked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But I don’t like in the least,” said he, and therewith he summoned the
+      servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to have a
+      glass of toast-and-water. “And some more coal,” he added; “Mr. Crimsworth
+      shall keep a good fire while I stay.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so as
+      to be opposite me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well,” he proceeded. “You are out of work, I suppose.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this
+      point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as
+      though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had
+      been done. “Yes—thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at a
+      minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public meeting,
+      I understand.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did he?
+      What had he to say about his friend Hunsden—anything sweet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He called you a treacherous villain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come
+      out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance,
+      but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities—excellent ones! The Hunsdens
+      were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable
+      villain is their natural prey—they could not keep off him wherever
+      they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now—that word is
+      the property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+      generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile
+      off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for
+      me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact
+      with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally I
+      care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he violated
+      your natural claim to equality)—I say it was impossible for me to be
+      thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work
+      within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out Hunsden’s
+      character, and because it explained his motives; it interested me so much
+      that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over a throng of
+      ideas it had suggested.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you grateful to me?” he asked, presently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at
+      the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not out
+      of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer his
+      blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency to
+      gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his championship,
+      to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely to meet with it
+      here. In reply he termed me “a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp,” whereupon
+      I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your bread was dirty, man!” cried Hunsden—“dirty and unwholesome!
+      It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a
+      tyrant,—a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will
+      some day be a tyrant to his wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and
+      through your means.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There’s sense in what you say, after all,” rejoined Hunsden. “I must say
+      I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical an
+      observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous observation
+      of your character, that the sentimental delight you would have taken in
+      your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least, have effaced all
+      ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of you for looking
+      steadily to the needful.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live, and
+      to live I must have what you call ‘the needful,’ which I can only get by
+      working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What do you mean to do?” pursued Hunsden coolly. “You have influential
+      relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “The Seacombes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stuff! I have cut them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I have,” said I, “and that definitively.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You must mean they have cut you, William.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my
+      entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I
+      withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my elder
+      brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel
+      intermeddling of a stranger—of yourself, in short.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+      demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s
+      lips.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he
+      <em>did</em> see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with
+      his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal
+      of my countenance, he went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands
+      stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of a
+      wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with
+      aristocratic palms?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete
+      Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they
+      should disown you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “They have disowned me; so talk no more about it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you regret it, William?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why not, lad?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+      sympathy.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I say you are one of them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my
+      mother’s son, but not my uncles’ nephew.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Still—one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and
+      not a very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should
+      consider worldly interest.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to be
+      submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough grace
+      ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own comfort and
+      not have gained their patronage in return.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very likely—so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your
+      own devices at once?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Exactly. I must follow my own devices—I must, till the day of my
+      death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of
+      other people.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden yawned. “Well,” said he, “in all this, I see but one thing
+      clearly—that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine.” He
+      stretched himself and again yawned. “I wonder what time it is,” he went
+      on: “I have an appointment for seven o’clock.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Three quarters past six by my watch.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then I’ll go.” He got up. “You’ll not meddle with trade again?”
+       said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No; I think not.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you’ll think better
+      of your uncles’ proposal and go into the Church.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man
+      before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! Do you think so?” interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to make
+      a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I have no
+      vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You’re a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won’t be a tradesman or a
+      parson; you can’t be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because you’ve
+      no money. I’d recommend you to travel.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! without money?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French—with
+      a vile English accent, no doubt—still, you can speak it. Go on to
+      the Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “God knows I should like to go!” exclaimed I with involuntary ardour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance,
+      for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Necessity would teach me if I didn’t.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I know
+      Brussels almost as well as I know X——, and I am sure it would
+      suit such a one as you better than London.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had; and
+      how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at
+      Brussels?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before you
+      know every inch of the way. You haven’t a sheet of paper and a
+      pen-and-ink?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I hope so,” and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I guessed
+      what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded, sealed,
+      and addressed a letter, and held it out to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, Prudence, there’s a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+      difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of
+      those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they are to
+      get it out again, and you’re right there. A reckless man is my aversion,
+      and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the concerns of such a
+      one. Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so
+      for their friends.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?” said I, taking the epistle.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself in
+      a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a
+      degradation—so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you
+      will present it generally has two or three respectable places depending
+      upon his recommendation.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That will just suit me,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, and where’s your gratitude?” demanded Mr. Hunsden; “don’t you know
+      how to say ‘Thank you?’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ve fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw,
+      gave me eighteen years ago,” was my rather irrelevant answer; and I
+      further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any
+      being in Christendom.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But your gratitude?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden—to-morrow, if all be well:
+      I’ll not stay a day longer in X—— than I’m obliged.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very good—but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the
+      assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike seven:
+      I’m waiting to be thanked.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is
+      on the corner of the mantelpiece. I’ll pack my portmanteau before I go to
+      bed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The house clock struck seven.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The lad is a heathen,” said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a sideboard,
+      he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an inclination to follow
+      him: I really intended to leave X—— the next morning, and
+      should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding him good-bye. The
+      front door banged to.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Let him go,” said I, “we shall meet again some day.”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0007">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don’t know the
+      physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon your
+      memory, as I have them on mine?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Three—nay four—pictures line the four-walled cell where are
+      stored for me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is
+      in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green,
+      dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my
+      childhood was not all sunshine—it had its overcast, its cold, its
+      stormy hours. Second, X——, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and
+      smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the
+      suburbs blighted and sullied—a very dreary scene.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the fourth,
+      a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not, as suits
+      my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it must hang
+      undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name that whenever
+      uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other
+      assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium! I
+      repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. It stirs my world of
+      the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves unclose, the dead are
+      raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept, are seen by me ascending
+      from the clods—haloed most of them—but while I gaze on their
+      vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their outline, the sound
+      which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all, like a light wreath
+      of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, resealed in monuments.
+      Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This is Belgium, reader. Look! don’t call the picture a flat or a dull
+      one—it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I left
+      Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road to
+      Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment possessed
+      an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite. I was young; I
+      had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no indulgence of hers had
+      enervated or sated one faculty of my nature. Liberty I clasped in my arms
+      for the first time, and the influence of her smile and embrace revived my
+      life like the sun and the west wind. Yes, at that epoch I felt like a
+      morning traveller who doubts not that from the hill he is ascending he
+      shall behold a glorious sunrise; what if the track be strait, steep, and
+      stony? he sees it not; his eyes are fixed on that summit, flushed already,
+      flushed and gilded, and having gained it he is certain of the scene
+      beyond. He knows that the sun will face him, that his chariot is even now
+      coming over the eastern horizon, and that the herald breeze he feels on
+      his cheek is opening for the god’s career a clear, vast path of azure,
+      amidst clouds soft as pearl and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to
+      be my lot, but sustained by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague,
+      I deemed such a lot no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there
+      were pebbles, inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on
+      the crimson peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament
+      beyond, and I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of
+      the thorns scratching my face and hands.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence
+      (these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads).
+      Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy swamps;
+      fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them look like
+      magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as pollard willows,
+      skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by the road-side;
+      painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a gray, dead sky; wet
+      road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque
+      object met my eye along the whole route; yet to me, all was beautiful, all
+      was more than picturesque. It continued fair so long as daylight lasted,
+      though the moisture of many preceding damp days had sodden the whole
+      country; as it grew dark, however, the rain recommenced, and it was
+      through streaming and starless darkness my eye caught the first gleam of
+      the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the city but its lights that
+      night. Having alighted from the diligence, a fiacre conveyed me to the
+      Hotel de ——, where I had been advised by a fellow-traveller to
+      put up; having eaten a traveller’s supper, I retired to bed, and slept a
+      traveller’s sleep.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression
+      that I was yet in X——, and perceiving it to be broad daylight
+      I started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind
+      time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint
+      vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as,
+      throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide,
+      lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though not
+      uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a
+      respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet! Yet
+      far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room! It,
+      too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness, I
+      first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was midnight,
+      and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full charged with
+      colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window of that room, I
+      first saw <em>the</em> dome, looming through a London mist. I suppose the
+      sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt but
+      once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them in safe
+      niches! Well—I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in foreign
+      dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber looked
+      stately and cheerful. It had such large windows—<i lang="fr">croisées</i>
+      that opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a
+      great looking-glass stood on my dressing-table—such a fine mirror
+      glittered over the mantelpiece—the painted floor looked so clean and
+      glossy; when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble
+      steps almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.
+      On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a
+      short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad, her
+      physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she answered
+      me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought her
+      charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived, very
+      picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch
+      paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty,
+      and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and
+      most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer sense of
+      exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table (covered,
+      however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered breakfast, began
+      to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot. The stove might be
+      dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it was indisputably very
+      warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by it talking in French;
+      impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or comprehend much of the
+      purport of what they said—yet French, in the mouths of Frenchmen, or
+      Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors of the Belgian accent)
+      was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen presently discerned me to
+      be an Englishman—no doubt from the fashion in which I addressed the
+      waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in my execrable
+      South-of-England style, though the man understood English. The gentleman,
+      after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted me in very good
+      English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak French as well; his
+      fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for the first time with a
+      due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the capital I was in; it was
+      my first experience of that skill in living languages I afterwards found
+      to be so general in Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there on the
+      table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a free,
+      independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the two
+      gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
+      business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
+      one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
+      the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
+      without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek
+      another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
+      never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
+      impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived the
+      morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter of
+      introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new situation. Wrenching
+      my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat, and forced my reluctant
+      body out of the Hotel de —— into the foreign street.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the stately
+      houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out “Mr. Brown,
+      Numero —, Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint of
+      inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked, asked
+      for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the presence of
+      an elderly gentleman—very grave, business-like, and
+      respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter; he received me very
+      civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there was
+      anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said, “Yes,”
+       and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of fortune,
+      travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who wanted
+      employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied that as a
+      friend of Mr. Hunsden’s he would be willing to assist me as well as he
+      could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile house at
+      Liege, and another in a bookseller’s shop at Louvain.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Clerk and shopman!” murmured I to myself. “No.” I shook my head. I had
+      tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other occupations
+      that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I know of no place in Brussels,” answered Mr. Brown, “unless indeed you
+      were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with the
+      director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of English
+      and Latin.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The very thing, sir!” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But,” asked he, “do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian
+      boys English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative; having
+      studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language intelligibly
+      though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write it decently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Then,” pursued Mr. Brown, “I think I can promise you the place, for
+      Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come
+      here again at five o’clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to
+      him.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The word “professor” struck me. “I am not a professor,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh,” returned Mr. Brown, “professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher,
+      that is all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present,
+      withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart;
+      the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now
+      take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time I
+      remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky, the
+      gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what a fine
+      street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+      pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades,
+      the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a
+      new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to
+      contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the top
+      of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back
+      street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle. I well
+      recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large house
+      opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, “Pensionnat de
+      Demoiselles.” Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in my mind;
+      it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles, externats no
+      doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door—I looked for a
+      pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets hid their
+      features; in a moment they were gone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o’clock arrived, but
+      punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale. Re-admitted
+      to Mr. Brown’s breakfast-room, I found him, as before, seated at the
+      table, and he was not alone—a gentleman stood by the hearth. Two
+      words of introduction designated him as my future master. “M. Pelet, Mr.
+      Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet,” a bow on each side finished the
+      ceremony. I don’t know what sort of a bow I made; an ordinary one, I
+      suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of mind; I felt none
+      of the agitation which had troubled my first interview with Edward
+      Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not theatrical,
+      scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to each other. In
+      a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my foreign ears, very
+      distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he had just been
+      receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my attainments and
+      character, which relieved him from all scruple as to the propriety of
+      engaging me as professor of English and Latin in his establishment;
+      nevertheless, for form’s sake, he would put a few questions to test my
+      powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms his satisfaction at my
+      answers. The subject of salary next came on; it was fixed at one thousand
+      francs per annum, besides board and lodging. “And in addition,” suggested
+      M. Pelet, “as there will be some hours in each day during which your
+      services will not be required in my establishment, you may, in time,
+      obtain employment in other seminaries, and thus turn your vacant moments
+      to profitable account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms on
+      which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels;
+      instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of
+      teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new
+      post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him?
+      He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather
+      emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes
+      hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French turn
+      (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth and
+      parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic lineaments
+      was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a melancholy, almost
+      suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy was “fine et
+      spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define better than any
+      English terms the species of intelligence with which his features were
+      imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing personage. I
+      wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary characteristics of
+      his profession, and almost feared he could not be stern and resolute
+      enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least M. Pelet presented an
+      absolute contrast to my late master, Edward Crimsworth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a
+      good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer’s
+      house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the sphere of
+      my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted schoolrooms,
+      I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course, whose collective
+      appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, and
+      well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company with M.
+      Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance a murmur
+      or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this most gentle
+      pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I thought, how so mild
+      a check could prove so effectual. When I had perambulated the length and
+      breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and said to me—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their
+      proficiency in English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at
+      least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career
+      by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we
+      stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect my
+      thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I proposed
+      to open business. I made it as short as possible:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Anglais ou Français, monsieur?” demanded a thickset, moon-faced young
+      Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Anglais.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this lesson;
+      it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the delivery of
+      explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the criticisms of
+      the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt already it would be
+      necessary at once to take up an advantageous position, and I proceeded to
+      employ means accordingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Commencez!” cried I, when they had all produced their books. The
+      moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt) took
+      the first sentence. The “livre de lecture” was the “Vicar of Wakefield,”
+       much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to contain prime
+      samples of conversational English; it might, however, have been a Runic
+      scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the
+      language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how
+      he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat and
+      nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but I heard him to the end of his
+      paragraph without proffering a word of correction, whereat he looked
+      vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself
+      like a real born and bred “Anglais.” In the same unmoved silence I
+      listened to a dozen in rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with
+      splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Arrêtez!” said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all
+      with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough and
+      long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my
+      bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me were
+      beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands,
+      and ejaculated in a deep “voix de poitrine”—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme c’est affreux!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they were
+      not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way I wished them
+      to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next
+      step was to raise myself in their estimation; not a very easy thing,
+      considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of betraying my own
+      deficiencies.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ecoutez, messieurs!” said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my accents
+      the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the extremity
+      of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at
+      length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of the “Vicar of
+      Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some twenty pages, they
+      all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed attention; by the time
+      I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est assez pour aujourd’hui, messieurs; demain nous recommençerons, et
+      j’espère que tout ira bien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet quitted
+      the school-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est bien! c’est très bien!” said my principal as we entered his
+      parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans
+      l’instruction, l’adresse fait tout autant que le savoir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my “chambre,” as
+      Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small room,
+      with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand that I
+      was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great comfort. Yet,
+      though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light not being taxed
+      in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into their houses; just
+      here, however, this observation is not very <em>apropos</em>, for one of
+      these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into the boys’
+      playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect it would
+      present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I suppose, the
+      expression of my eye; he explained:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “La fenêtre fermée donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat de
+      demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances exigent—enfin, vous
+      comprenez—n’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, oui,” was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but when
+      M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing I did
+      was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find some chink or
+      crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the consecrated
+      ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well joined and
+      strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I thought it
+      would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with
+      flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at their
+      play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the
+      while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing
+      doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, I had
+      now only the option of looking at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous
+      “pas de geant” in the middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a
+      boys’ school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after, especially
+      in moments of weariness and low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes
+      on that most tantalizing board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse
+      of the green region which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew
+      close up to the window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle,
+      I often heard at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the
+      daytime, when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the
+      boards, the voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and,
+      to speak the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a
+      trifle disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen
+      sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated
+      clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to me
+      a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter’s girls or those of M.
+      Pelet’s boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking the girls
+      indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by, that Reuter
+      was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded up. I say old,
+      for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from her cautious,
+      chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of her as young. I
+      remember I was very much amused when I first heard her Christian name; it
+      was Zoraïde—Mademoiselle Zoraïde Reuter. But the continental nations
+      do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names, such as we sober
+      English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too limited a list to
+      choose from.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a few
+      weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the
+      commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much
+      facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and as I
+      had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
+      continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
+      never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
+      acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the relation
+      in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards each other in
+      those establishments, will consider an important and uncommon one. Before
+      concluding this chapter I will say a word on the system I pursued with
+      regard to my classes: my experience may possibly be of use to others.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
+      youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one’s
+      measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
+      weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
+      impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull, but
+      they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, most
+      difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly absurd to
+      exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having short memories,
+      dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they recoiled with
+      repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study or deep thought.
+      Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by injudicious and
+      arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they would have resisted
+      as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine; and though not brave
+      singly, they were relentless acting <i lang="fr">en masse</i>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet’s establishment, the
+      combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of more
+      than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the most
+      moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply—to
+      assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
+      contracted—to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
+      point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
+      that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
+      root it in rock—become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
+      step—but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the gulf
+      of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs of Flemish
+      gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and handfuls of Low
+      Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of learning, remove
+      every pebble from the track; but then you must finally insist with
+      decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself to be led
+      quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my lesson to the
+      lowest level of my dullest pupil’s capacity—when I had shown myself
+      the mildest, the most tolerant of masters—a word of impertinence, a
+      movement of disobedience, changed me at once into a despot. I offered then
+      but one alternative—submission and acknowledgment of error, or
+      ignominious expulsion. This system answered, and my influence, by degrees,
+      became established on a firm basis. “The boy is father to the man,” it is
+      said; and so I often thought when I looked at my boys and remembered the
+      political history of their ancestors. Pelet’s school was merely an epitome
+      of the Belgian nation.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0008">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well!
+      Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than his
+      demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect, irritating
+      interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I fear, however,
+      two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment could not have
+      said as much; to them the director’s manner was invariably dry, stern, and
+      cool. I believe he perceived once or twice that I was a little shocked at
+      the difference he made between them and me, and accounted for it by
+      saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ce ne sont que des Flamands—allez!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted
+      floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they were,
+      and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual inferiority
+      is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men, and, in the
+      main, honest men; and I could not see why their being aboriginals of the
+      flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for treating them with perpetual
+      severity and contempt. This idea of injustice somewhat poisoned the
+      pleasure I might otherwise have derived from Pelet’s soft affable manner
+      to myself. Certainly it was agreeable, when the day’s work was over, to
+      find one’s employer an intelligent and cheerful companion; and if he was
+      sometimes a little sarcastic and sometimes a little too insinuating, and
+      if I did discover that his mildness was more a matter of appearance than
+      of reality—if I did occasionally suspect the existence of flint or
+      steel under an external covering of velvet—still we are none of us
+      perfect; and weary as I was of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence
+      in which I had constantly lived at X——, I had no inclination
+      now, on casting anchor in calmer regions, to institute at once a prying
+      search after defects that were scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled
+      from my view. I was willing to take Pelet for what he seemed—to
+      believe him benevolent and friendly until some untoward event should prove
+      him otherwise. He was not married, and I soon perceived he had all a
+      Frenchman’s, all a Parisian’s notions about matrimony and women. I
+      suspected a degree of laxity in his code of morals, there was something so
+      cold and <i lang="fr">blasé</I> in his tone whenever he alluded to what he
+      called “le beau sexe;” but he was too gentlemanlike to intrude topics I
+      did not invite, and as he was really intelligent and really fond of
+      intellectual subjects of discourse, he and I always found enough to talk
+      about, without seeking themes in the mire. I hated his fashion of
+      mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul, mere licentiousness. He felt
+      the difference of our notions, and, by mutual consent, we kept off ground
+      debateable.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Pelet’s house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real old
+      Frenchwoman; she had been handsome—at least she told me so, and I
+      strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women can
+      be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than she
+      really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair
+      strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown—only
+      a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in
+      lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On the
+      other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on Sundays
+      and fête-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured dress,
+      usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers, and a
+      very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old woman, but
+      an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly in and about the
+      kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son’s august presence; of him,
+      indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved her, his reproofs
+      were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself that trouble.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors, whom,
+      however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what she
+      called her “cabinet,” a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen, and
+      descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by, I have
+      not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on her knee,
+      engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner, gossiping with
+      her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her antagonist, the
+      cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal with her son; and
+      as to showing her face at the boys’ table, that was quite out of the
+      question. These details will sound very odd in English ears, but Belgium
+      is not England, and its ways are not our ways.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Madame Pelet’s habits of life, then, being taken into consideration, I was
+      a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was always a
+      half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment, correcting a
+      huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant tapped at the door,
+      and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet’s compliments, and she
+      would be happy to see me to take my “goûter” (a meal which answers to our
+      English “tea”) with her in the dining-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Plait-il?” said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the message
+      and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I accepted,
+      of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what whim had entered
+      the old lady’s brain; her son was out—gone to pass the evening at
+      the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which he was a
+      member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room door, a
+      queer idea glanced across my mind.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Surely she’s not going to make love to me,” said I. “I’ve heard of old
+      Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the goûter? They generally
+      begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination,
+      and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt have
+      cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself in; but
+      whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty, the primary wish
+      of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth, reserving the expedient
+      of flight for the moment when its dread anticipation shall be realized. I
+      turned the door-handle, and in an instant had crossed the fatal threshold,
+      closed the door behind me, and stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst
+      apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown, on
+      her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her table was
+      carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a bottle of
+      something—I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started on my
+      brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed door, when, to
+      my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the direction of the
+      stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large fauteuil beside it.
+      This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman, and as fat and as
+      rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her attire was likewise
+      very fine, and spring flowers of different hues circled in a bright wreath
+      the crown of her violet-coloured velvet bonnet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet,
+      coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic
+      step, thus accosted me:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the
+      request of an insignificant person like me—will Monsieur complete
+      his kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame
+      Reuter, who resides in the neighbouring house—the young ladies’
+      school.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” thought I, “I knew she was old,” and I bowed and took my seat.
+      Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?” asked she, in an accent of the
+      broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between
+      the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and the
+      guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then
+      wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me should
+      be at the head of a ladies’ seminary, which I had always heard spoken of
+      in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something to wonder at.
+      Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old Flemish fermière,
+      or even a maîtresse d’auberge, than a staid, grave, rigid directrice de
+      pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least the Belgian old women
+      permit themselves a licence of manners, speech, and aspect, such as our
+      venerable granddames would recoil from as absolutely disreputable, and
+      Madame Reuter’s jolly face bore evidence that she was no exception to the
+      rule of her country; there was a twinkle and leer in her left eye; her
+      right she kept habitually half shut, which I thought very odd indeed.
+      After several vain attempts to comprehend the motives of these two droll
+      old creatures for inviting me to join them at their goûter, I at last
+      fairly gave it up, and resigning myself to inevitable mystification, I sat
+      and looked first at one, then at the other, taking care meantime to do
+      justice to the confitures, cakes, and coffee, with which they amply
+      supplied me. They, too, ate, and that with no delicate appetite, and
+      having demolished a large portion of the solids, they proposed a “petit
+      verre.” I declined. Not so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself
+      what I thought rather a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand
+      near the stove, they drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited
+      me to do the same. I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was
+      thus addressed first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “We will now speak of business,” said Madame Pelet, and she went on to
+      make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect that
+      she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in order to give
+      her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an important
+      proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pourvu que vous soyez sage,” said Madame Reuter, “et à vrai dire, vous en
+      avez bien l’air. Take one drop of the punch” (or ponche, as she pronounced
+      it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full meal.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip—“I feel profoundly the
+      importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted me,
+      for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the
+      establishment in the next house?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment I
+      recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s
+      pensionnat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend
+      Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son—nothing more. Ah! you thought
+      I gave lessons in class—did you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy
+      amazingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give
+      lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a
+      white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my
+      nose, bowing at the same time.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Quel charmant jeune homme!” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice. Madame
+      Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not French, only
+      laughed again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge
+      compliments at that rate, Zoraïde will positively be afraid of you; but if
+      you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you can
+      flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She has
+      heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get the
+      very best masters for her school (car Zoraïde fait tout comme une reine,
+      c’est une véritable maîtresse-femme), she has commissioned me to step over
+      this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility of engaging
+      you. Zoraïde is a wary general; she never advances without first examining
+      well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased if she knew I had
+      already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not order me to go so
+      far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting you into the secret,
+      and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take care, however, you don’t
+      betray either of us to Zoraïde—to my daughter, I mean; she is so
+      discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot understand that one should
+      find a pleasure in gossiping a little—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est absolument comme mon fils!” cried Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other:
+      “young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame
+      Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s
+      establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow,
+      you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you will
+      introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached you
+      from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I would
+      not displease Zoraïde on any account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bien! bien!” interrupted I—for all this chatter and circumlocution
+      began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing shall
+      be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames—I am infinitely
+      obliged to you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Comment! vous vous en allez déjà?” exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits,
+      encore une tasse de café?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Merci, merci, madame—au revoir.” And I backed at last out of the
+      apartment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind the
+      incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and queerly
+      managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate mess of it;
+      still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the subject was one
+      of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change to give lessons
+      in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies would be an occupation
+      so interesting—to be admitted at all into a ladies’ boarding-school
+      would be an incident so new in my life. Besides, thought I, as I glanced
+      at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see the mysterious garden: I
+      shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0009">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle. Reuter;
+      permission to accept such additional employment, should it offer, having
+      formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me. It was,
+      therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should be at liberty
+      to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four afternoons in every
+      week.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference
+      with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the
+      visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember
+      very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with
+      myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something
+      smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,”
+       thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of Madame
+      Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if it were
+      otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, and no
+      dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off I started,
+      cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a
+      looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a
+      large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction;
+      something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady’s love, no butt
+      for the shafts of Cupid.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled the
+      bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a passage
+      paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were painted in
+      imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass door, through
+      which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in the sunshine of
+      the mild spring evening—for it was now the middle of April.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This, then, was my first glimpse of <em>the</em> garden;
+      but I had not time to look
+      long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative my question
+      as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the folding-doors of a room
+      to the left, and having ushered me in, closed them behind me. I found
+      myself in a salon with a very well-painted, highly varnished floor; chairs
+      and sofas covered with white draperies, a green porcelain stove, walls
+      hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt pendule and other ornaments on
+      the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent from the centre of the ceiling,
+      mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and a handsome centre table completed
+      the inventory of furniture. All looked extremely clean and glittering, but
+      the general effect would have been somewhat chilling had not a second
+      large pair of folding-doors, standing wide open, and disclosing another
+      and smaller salon, more snugly furnished, offered some relief to the eye.
+      This room was carpeted, and therein was a piano, a couch, a
+      chiffonniere—above all, it contained a lofty window with a crimson
+      curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded another glimpse of the garden,
+      through the large, clear panes, round which some leaves of ivy, some
+      tendrils of vine were trained.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur Creemsvort, n’est ce pas?” said a voice behind me; and, starting
+      involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the contemplation of
+      the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the entrance of a person
+      into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle. Reuter who now addressed me,
+      and stood close beside me; and when I had bowed with instantaneously
+      recovered <i lang="fr">sang froid</i>—for I am not easily embarrassed—I
+      commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant aspect of her
+      little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in possessing a
+      garden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” she said, “she often thought so;” and added, “it is my garden,
+      monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably
+      have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you
+      see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one so
+      large and pleasant anywhere else in town.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I approved her judgment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But you have not seen it yet,” said she, rising; “come to the window and
+      take a better view.” I followed her; she opened the sash, and leaning out
+      I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been to me an
+      unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured ground,
+      with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the middle; there
+      was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some flower-borders, and, on
+      the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs, laburnums, and acacias.
+      It looked pleasant, to me—very pleasant, so long a time had elapsed
+      since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it was not only on Mdlle.
+      Reuter’s garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had taken a view of her
+      well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed my glance to come
+      back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black,
+      with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun’s head-gear;
+      whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might
+      indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought, be
+      more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair Englishwoman;
+      she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it in curls; pretty
+      her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular, but neither were
+      they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause to deem them expressive.
+      What was their predominant cast? Was it sagacity?—sense? Yes, I
+      thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be sure. I discovered, however,
+      that there was a certain serenity of eye, and freshness of complexion,
+      most pleasing to behold. The colour on her cheek was like the bloom on a
+      good apple, which is as sound at the core as it is red on the rind.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not absolutely
+      certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take, because I was so
+      young, and parents might possibly object to a professor like me for their
+      daughters: “But it is often well to act on one’s own judgment,” said she,
+      “and to lead parents, rather than be led by them. The fitness of a
+      professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have heard, and from
+      what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you than M. Ledru, the
+      music-master, who is a married man of near fifty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion; that
+      if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence reposed in
+      me. “Du reste,” said she, “the surveillance will be strictly attended to.”
+       And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms. She was very
+      cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely bargain, but she
+      warily sounded me to find out what my expectations might be; and when she
+      could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and reasoned with a fluent
+      yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last nailed me down to five
+      hundred francs per annum—not too much, but I agreed. Before the
+      negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little dusk. I did not
+      hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear her talk; I was amused
+      with the sort of business talent she displayed. Edward could not have
+      shown himself more practical, though he might have evinced more coarseness
+      and urgency; and then she had so many reasons, so many explanations; and,
+      after all, she succeeded in proving herself quite disinterested and even
+      liberal. At last she concluded, she could say no more, because, as I
+      acquiesced in all things, there was no further ground for the exercise of
+      her parts of speech. I was obliged to rise. I would rather have sat a
+      little longer; what had I to return to but my small empty room? And my
+      eyes had a pleasure in looking at Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the
+      twilight softened her features a little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I
+      could fancy her forehead as open as it was really elevated, her mouth
+      touched with turns of sweetness as well as defined in lines of sense. When
+      I rose to go, I held out my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was
+      contrary to the etiquette of foreign habits; she smiled, and said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! c’est comme tous les Anglais,” but gave me her hand very kindly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle,” said I; “and, remember,
+      I shall always claim it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+      tranquillity obvious in all she did—a tranquillity which soothed and
+      suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels seemed
+      a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street, and it
+      appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career were even
+      then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night. So
+      impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in those
+      days.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0010">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet’s; I
+      wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring
+      pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for
+      pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at
+      one o’clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule’s
+      deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been
+      waiting.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met
+      M. Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme vous avez l’air rayonnant!” said he. “Je ne vous ai jamais vu aussi
+      gai. Que s’est-il donc passé?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Apparemment que j’aime les changements,” replied I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! je comprends—c’est cela—soyez sage seulement. Vous êtes bien
+      jeune—trop jeune pour le rôle que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre
+      garde—savez-vous?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais quel danger y a-t-il?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je n’en sais rien—ne vous laissez pas aller à de vives impressions—voila
+      tout.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at the
+      thought that “vives impressions” were likely to be created; it was the
+      deadness, the sameness of life’s daily ongoings that had hitherto been my
+      bane; my blouse-clad “élèves” in the boys’ seminary never stirred in me
+      any “vives impressions” except it might be occasionally some of anger. I
+      broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage he followed me with
+      one of his laughs—a very French, rakish, mocking sound.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into the
+      cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls. I
+      followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I found
+      myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter’s little
+      figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see her dress
+      in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted her compact
+      round shape to perfection—delicate little collar and manchettes of
+      lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists, and feet, to
+      complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she came suddenly upon
+      me! Solicitude and business were in her eye—on her forehead; she
+      looked almost stern. Her “Bon jour, monsieur,” was quite polite, but so
+      orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp towel over my
+      “vives impressions.” The servant turned back when her mistress appeared,
+      and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side with Mdlle. Reuter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day,” said she;
+      “dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for
+      those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign
+      language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little unsettled.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained for
+      me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor terminated in a
+      hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side showed within a
+      long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and two lamps; it was
+      empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the playground and garden; a
+      broad staircase ascended spirally on the opposite side; the remaining wall
+      showed a pair of great folding-doors, now closed, and admitting,
+      doubtless, to the classes.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably,
+      whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum. I
+      suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government, for
+      she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of
+      uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I
+      walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks, and
+      took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an estrade,
+      of one step high, so as to command one division; the other division being
+      under the surveillance of a maîtresse similarly elevated. At the back of
+      the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition dividing this schoolroom
+      from another beyond, was a large tableau of wood painted black and
+      varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on my desk for the
+      convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal obscurity which might
+      occur in my lessons by writing it upon the tableau; a wet sponge appeared
+      beside the chalk, to enable me to efface the marks when they had served
+      the purpose intended.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing
+      myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the
+      crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to
+      ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool
+      enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she was
+      nowhere visible; a maîtresse or teacher, the one who occupied the
+      corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me; she
+      was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only see that
+      she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion, and that her
+      attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and affectation.
+      More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of the large
+      window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of whom some
+      were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women from eighteen
+      (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest attire, the simplest
+      fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all; and good features,
+      ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant eyes, forms full, even to
+      solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear the first view like a stoic; I
+      was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice somewhat too low I murmured—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Prenez vos cahiers de dictée, mesdemoiselles.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet’s take their reading-books. A rustle
+      followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which
+      momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I
+      heard tittering and whispers.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Eulalie, je suis prête à pâmer de rire,” observed one.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme il a rougi en parlant!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, c’est un véritable blanc-bec.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Tais-toi, Hortense—il nous écoute.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the
+      whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as
+      they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease and
+      courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by which
+      I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their dark
+      nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels. The
+      light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure relieved my
+      mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my
+      estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names I
+      knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie, Hortense,
+      Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was fair, and her
+      features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a “figure de Vierge”
+       have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling hers; there were no
+      angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve and roundness—neither
+      thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line or flush the equality of
+      her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved with her regular breathing,
+      her eyes moved a little—by these evidences of life alone could I
+      have distinguished her from some large handsome figure moulded in wax.
+      Hortense was of middle size and stout, her form was ungraceful, her face
+      striking, more alive and brilliant than Eulalie’s, her hair was dark
+      brown, her complexion richly coloured; there were frolic and mischief in
+      her eye: consistency and good sense she might possess, but none of her
+      features betokened those qualities.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair, very
+      dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
+      complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in her
+      that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
+      perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
+      classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
+      don’t know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between them,
+      and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder’s mind. She was sensual
+      now, and in ten years’ time she would be coarse—promise plain was
+      written in her face of much future folly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me with
+      still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to expect,
+      passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic charms.
+      Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while she said,
+      with an air of impudent freedom—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commençer, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
+      over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
+      hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between them,
+      and treated me at the same time to a smile “de sa façon.” Beautiful as
+      Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer than Lucrece de
+      Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her lady-mother’s character
+      afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the precocious accomplishments
+      of the daughter. These three, I at once saw, deemed themselves the queens
+      of the school, and conceived that by their splendour they threw all the
+      rest into the shade. In less than five minutes they had thus revealed to
+      me their characters, and in less than five minutes I had buckled on a
+      breast-plate of steely indifference, and let down a visor of impassible
+      austerity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take your pens and commence writing,” said I, in as dry and trite a voice
+      as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The dictée now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually with
+      little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I made
+      no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. “Comment dit-on
+      point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Semi-colon, mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Semi-collong? Ah, comme c’est drôle!” (giggle.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “J’ai une si mauvaise plume—impossible d’écrire!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, monsieur—je ne sais pas suivre—vous allez si vîte.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je n’ai rien compris, moi!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the
+      first time, ejaculated—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Silence, mesdemoiselles!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      No silence followed—on the contrary, the three ladies in front began
+      to talk more loudly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est si difficile, l’Anglais!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je déteste la dictée.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Quel ennui d’écrire quelquechose que l’on ne comprend pas!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the
+      class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Donnez-moi vôtre cahier,” said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and
+      bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Et vous, mademoiselle—donnez-moi le vôtre,” continued I, more mildly,
+      addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of
+      the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest
+      and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and
+      delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the two
+      dictations; Eulalie’s was slurred, blotted, and full of silly
+      mistakes—Sylvie’s (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was clearly
+      written, it contained no error against sense, and but few faults of
+      orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the faults—then
+      I looked at Eulalie:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est honteux!” said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four
+      parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book
+      with a smile, saying—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est bien—je suis content de vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey, but
+      the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation of
+      the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more
+      convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation of
+      school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a
+      certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up
+      started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maîtresse, and
+      quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the inner
+      class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising tumult
+      I already heard.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle.
+      Reuter came again upon me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Step in here a moment,” said she, and she held open the door of the side
+      room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+      <i lang="fr">salle-à-manger</i>, as
+      appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitrée, filled with glass and
+      china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she had closed the door on
+      me and herself, the corridor was already filled with day-pupils, tearing
+      down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from the wooden pegs on which they
+      were suspended; the shrill voice of a maîtresse was heard at intervals
+      vainly endeavouring to enforce some sort of order; vainly, I say:
+      discipline there was none in these rough ranks, and yet this was
+      considered one of the best-conducted schools in Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, you have given your first lesson,” began Mdlle. Reuter in the most
+      calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from which
+      we were separated only by a single wall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their
+      conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in
+      me entire confidence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without aid;
+      the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity at
+      first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined or
+      downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de demoiselles
+      presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was only enlightened
+      and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to complain to Mdlle.
+      Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to confidence with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She looked more than doubtful.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?” said she.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! tout va au mieux!” was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to
+      question me; but her eye—not large, not brilliant, not melting, or
+      kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with me;
+      it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, “Be as close as you
+      like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I already
+      know.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress’s
+      manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she
+      began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly
+      wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she
+      prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she sat
+      so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse, that it
+      was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus detaining
+      me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this aim, but her
+      countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable commonplaces, her
+      eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were not given in full,
+      but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily, yet I think I lost not
+      one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me; I perceived soon that she
+      was feeling after my real character; she was searching for salient points,
+      and weak points, and eccentric points; she was applying now this test,
+      now that, hoping in the end to find some chink, some niche, where she
+      could put in her little firm foot and stand upon my neck—mistress of
+      my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was no amorous influence she
+      wished to gain—at that time it was only the power of the politician
+      to which she aspired; I was now installed as a professor in her
+      establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind was superior to
+      mine—by what feeling or opinion she could lead me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I
+      gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye
+      would light up—she thought she had me; having led her a little way,
+      I delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her
+      countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner; the
+      conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having
+      gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given me
+      an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to baffle
+      her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I again held
+      out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a small and
+      white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full—obliging her to
+      give me a straightforward look; this last test went against me: it left
+      her as it found her—moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it
+      disappointed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am growing wiser,” thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet’s. “Look at
+      this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers? To
+      read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would
+      think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad—here is a
+      specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose staple
+      ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more passionless
+      than Zoraïde Reuter!” So I thought then; I found afterwards that blunt
+      susceptibilities are very consistent with strong propensities.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0011">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and
+      on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late at
+      meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it been
+      one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the soup
+      and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably have
+      greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted him
+      both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial gentleman
+      only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my napkin, and said
+      my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a servant to the
+      kitchen, to bring me a plate of “purée aux carrottes” (for this was a
+      maigre-day), and before sending away the first course, reserved for me a
+      portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted. Dinner being over, the
+      boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and Vandam (the two ushers)
+      of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they had not looked so very
+      heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to all things in heaven above
+      or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied them greatly for the
+      obligation they were under to trail after those rough lads everywhere and
+      at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed to scout myself as a
+      privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my chamber, sure to find there,
+      if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but this evening (as had often
+      happened before) I was to be still farther distinguished.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Eh bien, mauvais sujet!” said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I set
+      my foot on the first step of the stair. “Où allez-vous? Venez à la
+      salle-à-manger, que je vous gronde un peu.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I beg pardon, monsieur,” said I, as I followed him to his private
+      sitting-room, “for having returned so late—it was not my fault.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is just what I want to know,” rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me
+      into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire—for the stove had
+      now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered “Coffee
+      for two,” and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort,
+      one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with a
+      coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While M. Pelet
+      employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts reverted to
+      the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now crying hoarsely
+      for order in the playground.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est une grande responsabilité, que la surveillance,” observed I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Plait-il?” dit M. Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a
+      little fatigued with their labours.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Des bêtes de somme—des bêtes de somme,” murmured scornfully the
+      director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Servez-vous mon garçon,” said he blandly, when I had put a couple of huge
+      lumps of continental sugar into his cup. “And now tell me why you stayed
+      so long at Mdlle. Reuter’s. I know that lessons conclude, in her
+      establishment as in mine, at four o’clock, and when you returned it was
+      past five.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom, before
+      the pupils?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And Madame Reuter—the old duenna—my mother’s gossip, was
+      there, of course?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est joli—cela,” observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into
+      the fire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” murmured I, significantly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Je connais un peu ma petite voisine—voyez-vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was
+      mademoiselle’s reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour,
+      listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest
+      frivolities.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She was sounding your character.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought so, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Did she find out your weak point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What is my weak point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will at
+      last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast, Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Some women might, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est
+      encore jeune, plus agée que toi peut-être, mais juste assez pour unir la
+      tendresse d’une petite maman à l’amour d’une epouse dévouée; n’est-ce pas
+      que cela t’irait supérieurement?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my
+      mother.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She is then a little too old for you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is
+      she not?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of
+      form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A little harsh, especially her mouth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, yes! her mouth,” said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. “There is
+      character about her mouth—firmness—but she has a very pleasant
+      smile; don’t you think so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather crafty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you
+      remarked her eyebrows?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I answered that I had not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have not seen her looking down then?” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting,
+      or some other woman’s work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly
+      intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on
+      around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being
+      developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it; her
+      humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her features
+      move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown disapprobation;
+      her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending task; if she can only
+      get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec completed, it is enough for
+      her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a deeper quiescence, a meeker
+      modesty settles on her features, and clothes her general mien; observe
+      then her eyebrows, et dîtes-moi s’il n’y a pas du chat dans l’un et du
+      renard dans l’autre.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will take careful notice the first opportunity,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And then,” continued M. Pelet, “the eyelid will flicker, the
+      light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out
+      from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and
+      retreat again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes’ silence, I asked:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will she ever marry, do you think?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and resolution
+      to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is better aware than
+      herself of the sort of impression she is capable of producing; no one
+      likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am mistaken if she will not
+      yet leave the print of her stealing steps on thy heart, Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked on.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first
+      floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And interest, M. Pelet—interest. Will not mademoiselle consider
+      that point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now we
+      have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N’y a-t-il pas de
+      belles études parmi ces jeunes têtes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one
+      cannot divine much from a first interview.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little abashed
+      before these blooming young creatures?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t believe you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they did
+      not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and handsomest
+      undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed so cleverly that
+      in five minutes I knew <em>them</em>, at least, for what they were—three
+      arrant coquettes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je les connais!” exclaimed M. Pelet. “Elles sont toujours au premier rang
+      à l’eglise et à la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie espiègle, une
+      belle brune.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Exactly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Lovely creatures all of them—heads for artists; what a group they
+      would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her smooth
+      braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut locks so
+      luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know how to
+      dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask cheek, and
+      roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is beauty! beauty
+      in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face of a houri! What
+      fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron would have
+      worshipped her, and you—you cold, frigid islander!—you played
+      the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so exquisite?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I might have laughed at the director’s enthusiasm had I believed it real,
+      but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up raptures. I
+      felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my guard, to
+      induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraïde Reuter appear
+      dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of her
+      pupils?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal was
+      endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself—at that time I could
+      not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to what was
+      right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved its antidote,
+      and when he further added:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
+      with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like you
+      might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one of the
+      trio.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I replied by a look and an interrogative “Monsieur?” which startled him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
+      demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
+      the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M. Pelet
+      was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles lettres to
+      his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left the room,
+      humming as he went some gay strain of Béranger’s.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0012">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter, did
+      I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What had I
+      known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels? Precious
+      little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight, gauzy,
+      glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be a palpable
+      substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy; there was
+      metal in it, both lead and iron.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
+      just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or two,
+      pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
+      schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred
+      specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a fertile
+      variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were, differing both
+      in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced over the long
+      range of desks, I had under my eye French, English, Belgians, Austrians,
+      and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class bourgeois; but there
+      were many countesses, there were the daughters of two generals and of
+      several colonels, captains, and government <i lang="fr">employés</i>:
+      these ladies sat side
+      by side with young females destined to be demoiselles de magasins, and
+      with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of the country. In dress all were
+      nearly similar, and in manners there was small difference; exceptions
+      there were to the general rule, but the majority gave the tone to the
+      establishment, and that tone was rough, boisterous, masked by a
+      point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards each other or their
+      teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her own interest and
+      convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest and convenience of
+      every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity when it appeared
+      advantageous to do so. All understood the art of speaking fair when a
+      point was to be gained, and could with consummate skill and at a moment’s
+      notice turn the cold shoulder the instant civility ceased to be
+      profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took place amongst them; but
+      backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close friendships were
+      forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl seemed to cultivate
+      more regard for another than was just necessary to secure a companion when
+      solitude would have been irksome. They were each and all supposed to have
+      been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice. The precautions used to keep
+      them ignorant, if not innocent, were innumerable. How was it, then, that
+      scarcely one of those girls having attained the age of fourteen could look
+      a man in the face with modesty and propriety? An air of bold, impudent
+      flirtation, or a loose, silly leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary
+      glance from a masculine eye. I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman
+      Catholic religion, and I am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I
+      suspect the root of this precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in
+      Popish countries, is to be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines
+      of the Church of Rome. I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to
+      what are called the respectable ranks of society; they had all been
+      carefully brought up, yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much
+      for the general view: now for one or two selected specimens.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
+      or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
+      of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is of
+      middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed but
+      not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an inhumanly
+      braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured into small
+      bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and gummed to
+      perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive grey eyes,
+      somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek bones, yet
+      the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion. So much for
+      person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed: incapable of
+      writing or speaking correctly even German, her native tongue, a dunce in
+      French, and her attempts at learning English a mere farce, yet she has
+      been at school twelve years; but as she invariably gets her exercises, of
+      every description, done by a fellow pupil, and reads her lessons off a
+      book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful that her progress has been
+      so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s daily habits of life are,
+      because I have not the opportunity of observing her at all times; but from
+      what I see of the state of her desk, books, and papers, I should say she
+      is slovenly and even dirty; her outward dress, as I have said, is well
+      attended to, but in passing behind her bench, I have remarked that her
+      neck is gray for want of washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and
+      grease, is not such as one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less
+      to run the fingers through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am
+      present, is something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish
+      innocence. The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and
+      indulges in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
+      fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
+      monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
+      languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
+      against this sort of artillery—for we scorn what, unasked, is
+      lavishly offered—she has recourse to the expedient of making noises;
+      sometimes she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate
+      sounds, for which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom,
+      I pass near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
+      happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
+      brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter; if
+      I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in sullen
+      muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced with an
+      intolerable Low German accent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adèle Dronsart:
+      this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy, with broad waist,
+      short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion, features well
+      chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown colour, light brown
+      hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as full-grown as a stout
+      young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives the idea of a somewhat
+      dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well, when I looked along the
+      row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at this of Adèle’s; her gaze
+      was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently succeeded in arresting it.
+      She was an unnatural-looking being—so young, fresh, blooming, yet so
+      Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were on her forehead, vicious
+      propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like deceit about her mouth. In
+      general she sat very still; her massive shape looked as if it could not
+      bend much, nor did her large head—so broad at the base, so narrow
+      towards the top—seem made to turn readily on her short neck. She had
+      but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one a forbidding,
+      dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious and perfidious
+      smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as many of them
+      were, few were as bad as she.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Aurelia and Adèle were in the first division of the second class; the
+      second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
+      girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was dead,
+      her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the —— Isles,
+      where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
+      educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and
+      countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
+      the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs of
+      benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were singularly
+      small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness, combativeness,
+      preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse shape, was
+      contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she had rather good,
+      though large and marked features; her temperament was fibrous and bilious,
+      her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black, form angular and rigid
+      but proportionate, age fifteen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard” was
+      fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough for
+      the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of her
+      other lineaments—I think the eye—cowardice had also its distinct
+      cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
+      coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like a
+      horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind and
+      below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking Flamandes,
+      including two or three examples of that deformity of person and imbecility
+      of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would seem to furnish
+      proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy of the human mind
+      and body; these, I soon found, were completely under her influence, and
+      with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish tumult, which I was
+      constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two of her tools to rise
+      from their seats, and, having kept them standing five minutes, turning
+      them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices into a large place
+      adjoining called the grands salle; the principal into a cabinet, of which
+      I closed the door and pocketed the key. This judgment I executed in the
+      presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much aghast at beholding so decided
+      a proceeding—the most severe that had ever been ventured on in her
+      establishment. Her look of affright I answered with one of composure, and
+      finally with a smile, which perhaps flattered, and certainly soothed her.
+      Juanna Trista remained in Europe long enough to repay, by malevolence and
+      ingratitude, all who had ever done her a good turn; and she then went to
+      join her father in the —— Isles, exulting in the thought that
+      she should there have slaves, whom, as she said, she could kick and strike
+      at will.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and as
+      little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to show
+      something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo, some
+      sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to her
+      bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray it. The
+      pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was a young girl
+      from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently benevolent and
+      obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered; moreover, the plague-spot
+      of dissimulation was in her also; honour and principle were unknown to
+      her, she had scarcely heard their names. The least exceptionable pupil was
+      the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned once before. Sylvie was gentle in
+      manners, intelligent in mind; she was even sincere, as far as her religion
+      would permit her to be so, but her physical organization was defective;
+      weak health stunted her growth and chilled her spirits, and then, destined
+      as she was for the cloister, her whole soul was warped to a conventual
+      bias, and in the tame, trained subjection of her manner, one read that she
+      had already prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up
+      her independence of thought and action into the hands of some despotic
+      confessor. She permitted herself no original opinion, no preference of
+      companion or employment; in everything she was guided by another. With a
+      pale, passive, automaton air, she went about all day long doing what she
+      was bid; never what she liked, or what, from innate conviction, she
+      thought it right to do. The poor little future religieuse had been early
+      taught to make the dictates of her own reason and conscience quite
+      subordinate to the will of her spiritual director. She was the model pupil
+      of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment; pale, blighted image, where life
+      lingered feebly, but whence the soul had been conjured by Romish
+      wizard-craft!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be divided
+      into two classes. 1st. The continental English—the daughters chiefly
+      of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from their own
+      country. These poor girls had never known the advantages of settled homes,
+      decorous example, or honest Protestant education; resident a few months
+      now in one Catholic school, now in another, as their parents wandered from
+      land to land—from France to Germany, from Germany to Belgium—they
+      had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad habits, losing every
+      notion even of the first elements of religion and morals, and acquiring an
+      imbecile indifference to every sentiment that can elevate humanity; they
+      were distinguishable by an habitual look of sullen dejection, the result
+      of crushed self-respect and constant browbeating from their Popish
+      fellow-pupils, who hated them as English, and scorned them as heretics.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half a
+      dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
+      characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair (compared
+      with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible figures,
+      white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more intellectual
+      than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, a general air
+      of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance alone I could
+      at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and nursling of
+      Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the <i lang="fr">protégé</i>
+      of Jesuistry:
+      proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once envied and
+      ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off insult with
+      austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they eschewed
+      company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell isolated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number, all
+      French—their names Mdlles. Zéphyrine, Pélagie, and Suzette; the two
+      last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary, their
+      manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts, feelings,
+      and views were all ordinary—were I to write a chapter on the subject
+      I could not elucidate it further. Zéphyrine was somewhat more
+      distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pélagie and Suzette, but
+      in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+      dry-hearted. A fourth maîtresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
+      to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy art;
+      but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in the
+      <i lang="fr">carré</i>, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils
+      about her,
+      consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
+      observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English air
+      for a maîtresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I should
+      think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly “en
+      revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her name,
+      I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
+      that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
+      described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
+      British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
+      steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware of
+      her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness which
+      sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable from her
+      position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner tranquil.
+      She liked—as who would not?—on entering the school-room, to
+      feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and quiet which
+      all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings frequently
+      failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or rather—contrast,
+      with those who surrounded her, and to know that in personal as well as
+      mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed palm of preference—(the
+      three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she managed with such
+      indulgence and address, taking always on herself the office of recompenser
+      and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns every invidious task of
+      blame and punishment, that they all regarded her with deference, if not
+      with affection; her teachers did not love her, but they submitted because
+      they were her inferiors in everything; the various masters who attended
+      her school were each and all in some way or other under her influence;
+      over one she had acquired power by her skilful management of his bad
+      temper; over another by little attentions to his petty caprices; a third
+      she had subdued by flattery; a fourth—a timid man—she kept in
+      awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me, she still watched, still
+      tried by the most ingenious tests—she roved round me, baffled, yet
+      persevering; I believe she thought I was like a smooth and bare precipice,
+      which offered neither jutting stone nor tree-root, nor tuft of grass to
+      aid the climber. Now she flattered with exquisite tact, now she moralized,
+      now she tried how far I was accessible to mercenary motives, then she
+      disported on the brink of affection—knowing that some men are won by
+      weakness—anon, she talked excellent sense, aware that others have
+      the folly to admire judgment. I found it at once pleasant and easy to
+      evade all these efforts; it was sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to
+      turn round and to smile in her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to
+      witness her scarcely veiled, though mute mortification. Still she
+      persevered, and at last, I am bound to confess it, her finger, essaying,
+      proving every atom of the casket, touched its secret spring, and for a
+      moment the lid sprung open; she laid her hand on the jewel within; whether
+      she stole and broke it, or whether the lid shut again with a snap on her
+      fingers, read on, and you shall know.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed; I
+      had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very
+      hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
+      corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that I
+      looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then,
+      with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you
+      have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour, and
+      was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
+      still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
+      closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
+      earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me her
+      hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
+      pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
+      modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance; I
+      thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my mind
+      was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive, that I
+      might see her again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
+      subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
+      o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
+      after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
+      gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
+      the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
+      very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked at
+      the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began to
+      pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are
+      gone?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
+      say—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You will come with me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down the
+      alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in full
+      blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the air
+      still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance. Released
+      from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage, with a
+      pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side—how did I feel? Why,
+      very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
+      suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+      boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
+      the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s mansion,
+      and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
+      amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
+      and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
+      down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
+      ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned in
+      my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell rang,
+      both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I detained her
+      a moment as she was moving away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I want something,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What?” asked Zoraïde naively.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Only a flower.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Gather it then—or two, or twenty, if you like.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—one will do—but you must gather it, and give it to me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
+      and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace. I
+      took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
+      future.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight night
+      of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having sat up
+      late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and a little
+      oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
+      often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded old
+      Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of professor in
+      the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it was no longer
+      “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their sports. I sat
+      down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill, and leaned out: above
+      me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless night sky—splendid moonlight
+      subdued the tremulous sparkle of the stars—below lay the garden,
+      varied with silvery lustre and deep shade, and all fresh with dew—a
+      grateful perfume exhaled from the closed blossoms of the fruit-trees—not
+      a leaf stirred, the night was breezeless. My window looked directly down
+      upon a certain walk of Mdlle. Reuter’s garden, called “l’allée défendue,”
+      so named because the pupils were forbidden to enter it on account of its
+      proximity to the boys’ school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums
+      grew especially thick; this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure,
+      its shrubs screened the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with
+      the young directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with
+      her as I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks
+      and borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
+      which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part of
+      the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
+      through the persiennes of one croisée, seemed to direct me to it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She is a
+      fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her image
+      forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the world calls
+      pretty—no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I like it; her
+      brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the whiteness of her
+      neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent; the idea of marrying a
+      doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know that a pretty doll, a
+      fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion
+      cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a
+      half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my
+      equal—nay, my idol—to know that I must pass the rest of my
+      dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of
+      appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I felt! “Now,
+      Zoraïde Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, <i lang="fr">caractère</i>,
+      judgment, discretion;
+      has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played about her lips when
+      she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her crafty, dissembling,
+      interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much that looks like cunning
+      and dissimulation in her conduct be only the efforts made by a bland
+      temper to traverse quietly perplexing difficulties? And as to interest,
+      she wishes to make her way in the world, no doubt, and who can blame her?
+      Even if she be truly deficient in sound principle, is it not rather her
+      misfortune than her fault? She has been brought up a Catholic: had she
+      been born an Englishwoman, and reared a Protestant, might she not have
+      added straight integrity to all her other excellences? Supposing she were
+      to marry an English and Protestant husband, would she not, rational,
+      sensible as she is, quickly acknowledge the superiority of right over
+      expediency, honesty over policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try
+      the experiment; to-morrow I will renew my observations. She knows that I
+      watch her: how calm she is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than
+      annoy her.” Here a strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and
+      suspended it; it was a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood
+      of the park, I thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones,
+      so subduing their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under
+      the quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+      intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon gone;
+      my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once more. No.
+      What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching nearer,
+      frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
+      conversing—yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in the
+      garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was that of
+      a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw coming
+      slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I could but
+      discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met them at the
+      termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose, and revealed
+      very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraïde Reuter, arm-in-arm, or
+      hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal, confidant, and
+      counsellor, M. François Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimée?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And Mdlle. Reuter answered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, François, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier
+      avant les vacances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can I
+      wait so long?—I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
+      impatience!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
+      about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight mourning
+      dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial trousseau.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Cruel Zoraïde! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+      devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch my
+      soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain you
+      have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
+      presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
+      given him room to hope.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What do you say, François? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Over head and ears.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Has he told you so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
+      mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle. Reuter’s
+      gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie, by-the-by—I
+      had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet proceeded to ask
+      what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty plainly, and not very
+      gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think of taking such a
+      “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least ten years older than
+      I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have thought it). I heard her
+      disclaim any intentions on the subject—the director, however, still
+      pressed her to give a definite answer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “François,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as
+      if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
+      character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded, in a
+      demure voice: “Truly, my dear François, I will not deny that this young
+      Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with me; but,
+      so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated him with
+      as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility; affianced as
+      I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me, dear friend.”
+       Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust—so I judged, at least, from
+      her reply.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And then—not
+      to flatter your vanity—Crimsworth could not bear comparison with you
+      either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all; some may
+      call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my part—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
+      from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
+      return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that they
+      had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was perfectly
+      still; I listened more than an hour—at last I heard M. Pelet come in
+      and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long front of
+      the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was at length
+      extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and friendship. I went
+      to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into my veins which
+      prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0013">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood
+      half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what
+      means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness, to
+      their ordinary tone—for I had no intention of getting up a scene
+      with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or
+      performing other gambadoes of the sort—I hit at last on the
+      expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring
+      establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge. The
+      remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o’clock steadied
+      and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he entered to
+      breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even a cordial
+      offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of “mon fils,”
+       pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of late days
+      especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any external
+      sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at my heart. Not
+      that I nursed vengeance—no; but the sense of insult and treachery
+      lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God knows I am
+      not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I can no longer
+      trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings are of the
+      vacillating order—they are not of that sand-like sort where
+      impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my
+      friend’s disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he is
+      indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles, and I
+      dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the discovery
+      was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I placed
+      before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet (we
+      never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid face
+      looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye turned, now
+      sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Circumstances must guide me,” said I; and meeting Pelet’s false glance
+      and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened my
+      window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that
+      guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of his
+      nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his soul
+      lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases a
+      voice interpreting their treacherous import.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Zoraïde Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick? That
+      stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy to be
+      available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over, I looked
+      about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home than at
+      Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the prize I had
+      missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically, Zoraïde might
+      have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in harmony, and that
+      discord must have resulted from the union of her mind with mine. She then
+      insisted on the suppression of all repining, and commanded me rather to
+      rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her medicament did me good. I felt its
+      strengthening effect when I met the directress the next day; its stringent
+      operation on the nerves suffered no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me
+      to face her with firmness, to pass her with ease. She had held out her
+      hand to me—that I did not choose to see. She had greeted me with a
+      charming smile—it fell on my heart like light on stone. I passed on
+      to the estrade, she followed me; her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of
+      every feature the meaning of my changed and careless manner. “I will give
+      her an answer,” thought I; and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing
+      her glance, I shot into her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no
+      respect, no love, no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest
+      analysis could detect nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear
+      it, and feel it; her steady countenance did not change, but her colour
+      rose, and she approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the
+      estrade, and stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not
+      relieve her embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a
+      book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I hope you feel quite recovered to-day,” at last she said, in a low tone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in consequence
+      of your late walk in the garden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face became
+      a little blanched—a very little—but no muscle in her rather
+      marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from the
+      estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying
+      herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a
+      “Composition,” i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the
+      pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being
+      forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &amp;c., were
+      pondering over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I
+      had propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further
+      observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing
+      fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she sat
+      netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole person
+      were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and repose—a
+      rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been before, to
+      offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute of
+      involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her my
+      esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who
+      coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal
+      good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had
+      witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused to
+      vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered her
+      composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side,
+      sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+      lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere
+      forehead!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There is metal there,” I said, as I gazed. “Would that there were fire
+      also, living ardour to make the steel glow—then I could love her.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred
+      not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her
+      netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple
+      merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a
+      bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round the
+      wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head, causing
+      her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs I read that
+      the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure back the game
+      she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity of addressing
+      me again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      While all was silence in the class—silence, but for the rustling of
+      copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages—a leaf of the
+      large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a pupil
+      who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some
+      appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so late, in
+      a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she proceeded,
+      still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her cabas, to take
+      out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look up, in order to
+      make out her identity—for, shortsighted as I was, I had not
+      recognized her at her entrance—Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair,
+      approached the estrade.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur Creemsvort,” said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms
+      were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke in
+      the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much by
+      example as precept: “Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has just
+      entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in
+      English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, a
+      teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+      varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to qualify
+      herself for a higher department of education, and has asked permission to
+      attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge of English, in
+      which language she has, I believe, already made some progress; of course
+      it is my wish to aid her in an effort so praiseworthy; you will permit her
+      then to benefit by your instruction—n’est ce pas, monsieur?” And
+      Mdlle. Reuter’s eyes were raised to mine with a look at once naive,
+      benign, and beseeching.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I replied, “Of course,” very laconically, almost abruptly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Another word,” she said, with softness: “Mdlle. Henri has not received a
+      regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest
+      order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and even
+      of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am sure, have
+      the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not expose her
+      backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young ladies, who,
+      in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour me by
+      attending to this hint?” I nodded. She continued with subdued earnestness—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is of
+      importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty in
+      impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference for her
+      authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new discoveries of
+      her incapacity, she might find her position in my establishment too
+      painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much regret for her sake,
+      as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her occupation here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive,
+      unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on this
+      occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being indulgent
+      to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I listened. I
+      discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a wish to aid the
+      dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one was no other than a
+      design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted goodness and tender
+      considerateness; so having again hastily nodded assent to her remarks, I
+      obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding the compositions, in a sharp
+      accent, and stepping from the estrade, I proceeded to collect them. As I
+      passed the governess-pupil, I said to her—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more
+      punctual next time.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not very
+      civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so, had I
+      been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began to slip her
+      books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had returned to the
+      estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions, I heard the
+      folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I perceived her
+      place vacant. I thought to myself, “She will consider her first attempt at
+      taking a lesson in English something of a failure;” and I wondered whether
+      she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity had induced her to
+      take my words too literally, or, finally, whether my irritable tone had
+      wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed almost as soon as I had
+      conceived it, for not having seen any appearance of sensitiveness in any
+      human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had begun to regard it almost as
+      a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy announced it I could not tell,
+      for her speedy exit had allowed me no time to ascertain the circumstance.
+      I had, indeed, on two or three previous occasions, caught a passing view
+      of her (as I believe has been mentioned before); but I had never stopped
+      to scrutinize either her face or person, and had but the most vague idea
+      of her general appearance. Just as I had finished rolling up the
+      compositions, the four o’clock bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in
+      obeying that signal, I grasped my hat and evacuated the premises.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0014">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter’s domicile, I was at least
+      equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes
+      before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I
+      heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the “prière du midi”
+      was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have
+      been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How the
+      repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or since
+      heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. “Notre Père qui êtes
+      au ciel” went off like a shot; then followed an address to Marie “vièrge
+      céleste, reine des anges, maison d’or, tour d’ivoire!” and then an
+      invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat, and the
+      solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide and
+      striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found that in
+      entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis, consisted
+      the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The folding-doors between
+      the two classes, opened for the prayer, were instantly closed; a
+      maîtresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her appropriate desk; the
+      pupils sat still with their pens and books before them; my three beauties
+      in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of consistent coolness, sat
+      erect with their hands folded quietly on their knees; they had given up
+      giggling and whispering to each other, and no longer ventured to utter
+      pert speeches in my presence; they now only talked to me occasionally with
+      their eyes, by means of which organs they could still, however, say very
+      audacious and coquettish things. Had affection, goodness, modesty, real
+      talent, ever employed those bright orbs as interpreters, I do not think I
+      could have refrained from giving a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent
+      reply now and then; but as it was, I found pleasure in answering the
+      glance of vanity with the gaze of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as
+      were many of my pupils, I can truly say that in me they never saw any
+      other bearing than such as an austere, though just guardian, might have
+      observed towards them. If any doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as
+      inferring more conscientious self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than
+      they feel disposed to give me credit for, let them take into consideration
+      the following circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit,
+      justify my veracity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different
+      relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to that
+      occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade. A
+      professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and muslin,
+      with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial lace, round
+      white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the gliding dance. It
+      is not his business to whirl her through the waltz, to feed her with
+      compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of gratified vanity.
+      Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled, tree shaded Boulevard,
+      in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs clad in her becoming
+      walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her shoulders, her little
+      bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose under its brim adding a
+      new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her face and eyes, too,
+      illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the sunshine of the
+      gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his office to walk by her
+      side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her parasol, scarcely larger
+      than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon her Blenheim spaniel or
+      Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the schoolroom, plainly dressed,
+      with books before her. Owing to her education or her nature books are to
+      her a nuisance, and she opens them with aversion, yet her teacher must
+      instil into her mind the contents of these books; that mind resists the
+      admission of grave information, it recoils, it grows restive, sullen
+      tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns spoil the symmetry of the face,
+      sometimes coarse gestures banish grace from the deportment, while muttered
+      expressions, redolent of native and ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the
+      sweetness of the voice. Where the temperament is serene though the
+      intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable dullness opposes every effort to
+      instruct. Where there is cunning but not energy, dissimulation, falsehood,
+      a thousand schemes and tricks are put in play to evade the necessity of
+      application; in short, to the tutor, female youth, female charms are like
+      tapestry hangings, of which the wrong side is continually turned towards
+      him; and even when he sees the smooth, neat external surface he so well
+      knows what knots, long stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has
+      scarce a temptation to admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright
+      colours exposed to general view.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a hilly
+      country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because it is
+      convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine woman”—she
+      suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the fashionable young
+      lady—she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged, probably irritable
+      tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and graces, glories
+      chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love of knowledge,
+      natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, are the charms
+      that attract his notice and win his regard. These he seeks, but seldom
+      meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain retain for ever, and
+      when separation deprives him of them he feels as if some ruthless hand had
+      snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being the case, and the case it
+      is, my readers will agree with me that there was nothing either very
+      meritorious or very marvellous in the integrity and moderation of my
+      conduct at Mdlle. Reuter’s pensionnat de demoiselles.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of places
+      for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the compositions
+      given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual, by the name of
+      Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described before as being at
+      once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment; the second place had
+      fallen to the lot of a certain Léonie Ledru, a diminutive, sharp-featured,
+      and parchment-skinned creature of quick wits, frail conscience, and
+      indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of whom I used to say that, had
+      she been a boy, she would have made a model of an unprincipled, clever
+      attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud beauty, the Juno of the school,
+      whom six long years of drilling in the simple grammar of the English
+      language had compelled, despite the stiff phlegm of her intellect, to
+      acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most of its rules. No smile, no
+      trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in Sylvie’s nun-like and
+      passive face as she heard her name read first. I always felt saddened by
+      the sight of that poor girl’s absolute quiescence on all occasions, and it
+      was my custom to look at her, to address her, as seldom as possible; her
+      extreme docility, her assiduous perseverance, would have recommended her
+      warmly to my good opinion; her modesty, her intelligence, would have
+      induced me to feel most kindly—most affectionately towards her,
+      notwithstanding the almost ghastly plainness of her features, the
+      disproportion of her form, the corpse-like lack of animation in her
+      countenance, had I not been aware that every friendly word, every kindly
+      action, would be reported by her to her confessor, and by him
+      misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my hand on her head, in token of
+      approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to smile, her dim eye almost
+      kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me; I was a man and a heretic;
+      she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted Catholic: thus a four-fold
+      wall of separation divided her mind from mine. A pert smirk, and a hard
+      glance of triumph, was Léonie’s method of testifying her gratification;
+      Eulalie looked sullen and envious—she had hoped to be first.
+      Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on hearing their names
+      read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the brand of mental
+      inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their hopes for the
+      future being based solely on their personal attractions.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief
+      interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging
+      carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the
+      farthest seat in the farthest row—a seat usually vacant—was
+      again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously
+      recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her
+      appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to
+      puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her
+      exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her
+      figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied
+      expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was dressed,
+      like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her features
+      were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet scarcely
+      regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior part more
+      developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured, at first sight,
+      that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her countenance, her
+      lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs, and, evidently, the
+      type of another race—of a race less gifted with fullness of flesh
+      and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, unthinking. When I first
+      cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly down, her chin resting on her
+      hand, and she did not change her attitude till I commenced the lesson.
+      None of the Belgian girls would have retained one position, and that a
+      reflective one, for the same length of time. Yet, having intimated that
+      her appearance was peculiar, as being unlike that of her Flemish
+      companions, I have little more to say respecting it; I can pronounce no
+      encomiums on her beauty, for she was not beautiful; nor offer condolence
+      on her plainness, for neither was she plain; a careworn character of
+      forehead, and a corresponding moulding of the mouth, struck me with a
+      sentiment resembling surprise, but these traits would probably have passed
+      unnoticed by any less crotchety observer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle.
+      Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind’s eye no distinct
+      picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her eyes, nor her
+      hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot tell whether her
+      nose was aquiline or retroussé, whether her chin was long or short, her
+      face square or oval; nor could I the first day, and it is not my intention
+      to communicate to you at once a knowledge I myself gained by little and
+      little.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I gave a short exercise which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil
+      was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once or
+      twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not
+      comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the others
+      were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I would not
+      help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye said most
+      plainly, “I cannot follow you.” I disregarded the appeal, and, carelessly
+      leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+      <i lang="fr">nonchalant</i> air
+      out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking towards her
+      again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but she was still
+      writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she employed the
+      interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and shame and
+      discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently found she had
+      made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the dictation was complete,
+      and, having allowed a brief space in which to correct it, I took their
+      books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle. Henri gave up hers, but, having
+      once yielded it to my possession, she composed her anxious face, as if,
+      for the present she had resolved to dismiss regret, and had made up her
+      mind to be thought unprecedentedly stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I
+      found that several lines had been omitted, but what was written contained
+      very few faults; I instantly inscribed “Bon” at the bottom of the page,
+      and returned it to her; she smiled, at first incredulously, then as if
+      reassured, but did not lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed,
+      when perplexed and bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that
+      scarcely fair.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0015">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the
+      holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the
+      turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made the
+      transit of the <i lang="fr">carré</i>, I observed, as usual, the band of
+      sewers surrounding
+      Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but they made as much
+      noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed very little under her
+      control; three or four at once assailed her with importunate requirements;
+      she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but in vain. She saw me, and I
+      read in her eye pain that a stranger should witness the insubordination of
+      her pupils; she seemed to entreat order—her prayers were useless;
+      then I remarked that she compressed her lips and contracted her brow; and
+      her countenance, if I read it correctly, said—“I have done my best;
+      I seem to merit blame notwithstanding; blame me then who will.” I passed
+      on; as I closed the school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and
+      sharply, addressing one of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Amélie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance,
+      for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to you
+      nor help you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The words were uttered with emphasis—nay, with vehemence—and a
+      comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know not;
+      two doors now closed between me and the <i lang="fr">carré</i>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the
+      directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and
+      before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to me)
+      of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and talking
+      at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was easy so to
+      speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person alone, and
+      it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face of the
+      latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was vexation in
+      it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked very placid
+      indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers, and with so
+      equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her discourse had been of
+      the most friendly tendency, for I heard the closing words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est assez, ma bonne amie; à present je ne veux pas vous retenir
+      davantage.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
+      evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
+      distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
+      place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but a
+      second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one of
+      attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to take
+      their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it was such a
+      torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of my native
+      tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever seemed to
+      effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day, each in her
+      appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as usual; about
+      fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was expecting with
+      resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full, though low voice,
+      read out, in clear correct English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
+      herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
+      about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, ‘My lord the
+      king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!’”
+      (<i lang="la">Vide</i> the history of Scotland.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent was
+      pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
+      counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
+      have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
+      in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
+      performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
+      Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at the
+      conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured me
+      with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
+      teacher’s style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not that
+      of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my visage
+      with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by
+      breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window
+      and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did not
+      imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her
+      exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed
+      her:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have had lessons in English before?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, sir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No! you read it well; you have been in England?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, no!” with some animation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have been in English families?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Still the answer was “No.” Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the
+      book, saw written, “Frances Evan Henri.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your name?” I asked
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, sir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me, and
+      close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the
+      interior of a desk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle,” said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, “Will you
+      have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young ladies
+      are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What splendid weather!” observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at
+      the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. “What of
+      your new pupil, monsieur?” continued she, following my retreating steps.
+      “Is she likely to make progress in English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of her
+      real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of forming
+      an opinion.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can
+      you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really I
+      scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her
+      capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She still pursued me. “You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you
+      think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women
+      cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity,
+      monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor
+      little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own
+      efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole
+      fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is then
+      but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see the
+      difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined. I doubt not
+      she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but, monsieur, she wants
+      tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the subject, but I am not
+      fluent, and probably did not express myself with clearness; she never
+      appears to comprehend me. Now, would you occasionally, when you see an
+      opportunity, slip in a word of advice to her on the subject; men have so
+      much more influence than women have—they argue so much more
+      logically than we do; and you, monsieur, in particular, have so paramount
+      a power of making yourself obeyed; a word of advice from you could not but
+      do her good; even if she were sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is
+      not), she would scarcely refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can
+      truly say that I never attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit
+      from witnessing your management of the pupils. The other masters are a
+      constant source of anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies
+      with sentiments of respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in
+      you, monsieur, I feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this
+      poor child into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited
+      Brabantoises. But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don’t alarm her
+      <i lang="fr">amour propre</i>; beware of inflicting a wound there. I
+      reluctantly admit that in that particular she is blameably—some would say
+      ridiculously—susceptible. I fear I have touched this sore point
+      inadvertently, and she cannot get over it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the
+      outer door; I now turned it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Au revoir, mademoiselle,” said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress’s
+      stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she would
+      fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had been altered ever
+      since I had begun to treat her with hardness and indifference: she almost
+      cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted my countenance incessantly,
+      and beset me with innumerable little officious attentions. Servility
+      creates despotism. This slavish homage, instead of softening my heart,
+      only pampered whatever was stern and exacting in its mood. The very
+      circumstance of her hovering round me like a fascinated bird, seemed to
+      transform me into a rigid pillar of stone; her flatteries irritated my
+      scorn, her blandishments confirmed my reserve. At times I wondered what
+      she meant by giving herself such trouble to win me, when the more
+      profitable Pelet was already in her nets, and when, too, she was aware
+      that I possessed her secret, for I had not scrupled to tell her as much:
+      but the fact is that as it was her nature to doubt the reality and
+      under-value the worth of modesty, affection, disinterestedness—to
+      regard these qualities as foibles of character—so it was equally her
+      tendency to consider pride, hardness, selfishness, as proofs of strength.
+      She would trample on the neck of humility, she would kneel at the feet of
+      disdain; she would meet tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she
+      would woo with ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness,
+      enthusiasm, were her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she
+      had a preference—they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and
+      physical degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
+      indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
+      set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
+      succumbed—they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to
+      hate, no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in
+      some hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false
+      and selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
+      the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
+      benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be considered
+      one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension wore off, the
+      real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a deception.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0016">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances Evans
+      Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her character. I
+      found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at least two good
+      points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I found she was really
+      capable of applying to study, of contending with difficulties. At first I
+      offered her the same help which I had always found it necessary to confer
+      on the others; I began with unloosing for her each knotty point, but I
+      soon discovered that such help was regarded by my new pupil as degrading;
+      she recoiled from it with a certain proud impatience. Hereupon I appointed
+      her long lessons, and left her to solve alone any perplexities they might
+      present. She set to the task with serious ardour, and having quickly
+      accomplished one labour, eagerly demanded more. So much for her
+      perseverance; as to her sense of duty, it evinced itself thus: she liked
+      to learn, but hated to teach; her progress as a pupil depended upon
+      herself, and I saw that on herself she could calculate with certainty; her
+      success as a teacher rested partly, perhaps chiefly, upon the will of
+      others; it cost her a most painful effort to enter into conflict with this
+      foreign will, to endeavour to bend it into subjection to her own; for in
+      what regarded people in general the action of her will was impeded by many
+      scruples; it was as unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were
+      concerned, and to it she could at any time subject her inclination, if
+      that inclination went counter to her convictions of right; yet when called
+      upon to wrestle with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others,
+      of children especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part,
+      insensate to persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then
+      came in the sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A
+      wasteful expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence;
+      Frances toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere
+      her conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on
+      their part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by
+      resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control—by
+      forcing her to the employment of coercive measures—they could
+      inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings—human children
+      especially—seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power
+      which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist
+      only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are
+      duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and his
+      bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that
+      instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very
+      young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize nor
+      how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight seemed to
+      oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the house, and
+      whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore the same
+      preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always shaded her
+      features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending
+      cakes in the herdsman’s hut, to be related with amplifications. A singular
+      affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they had chiefly
+      studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly unintelligible;
+      those of Sylvie and Léonie Ledru alone pretended to anything like sense
+      and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a clever expedient for at
+      once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she had obtained access somehow
+      to an abridged history of England, and had copied the anecdote out fair. I
+      wrote on the margin of her production “Stupid and deceitful,” and then
+      tore it down the middle.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several sheets,
+      neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and scarcely
+      needed the evidence of the signature “Frances Evans Henri” to confirm my
+      conjecture as to the writer’s identity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the usual
+      scene of such task—task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed strange
+      to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest, as I
+      snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
+      teacher’s manuscript.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Now,” thought I, “I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
+      get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
+      expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
+      has any mind, here will be a reflection of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant’s hut,
+      situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
+      represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and the
+      herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
+      collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
+      Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
+      is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening meal;
+      but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and flocks,
+      she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger who rests
+      half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him mind the bread
+      till her return.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take care, young man,” she continues, “that you fasten the door well
+      after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound you
+      hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this forest is
+      most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein after sunset;
+      wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the country; worse
+      things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it were, a child cry,
+      and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great black bull, or a
+      shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold; or, more awful still,
+      if something flapped, as with wings, against the lattice, and then a raven
+      or a white dove flew in and settled on the hearth, such a visitor would be
+      a sure sign of misfortune to the house; therefore, heed my advice, and
+      lift the latchet for nothing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone, listens
+      awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of the river,
+      and then he speaks.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is Christmas Eve,” says he, “I mark the date; here I sit alone on a
+      rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman’s hut; I,
+      whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night’s harbourage to a poor serf;
+      my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I have no
+      friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless robbers
+      spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts crushed by the
+      heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now thou
+      standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. Ay; I see thine
+      eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I still hope. Pagan
+      demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot succumb to thy power.
+      My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for
+      man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His
+      behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal,
+      all-wise—in Him is my trust; and though stripped and crushed by
+      thee—though naked, desolate, void of resource—I do not despair, I cannot
+      despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not
+      despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will
+      aid.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same
+      strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms, there
+      were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular transformed
+      into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above example shows, of
+      short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood in great need of
+      polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I had hitherto seen
+      nothing like it in the course of my professorial experience. The girl’s
+      mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the two peasants, of the
+      crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest, she had recalled the
+      old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated Alfred’s courage under
+      calamity, she had remembered his Christian education, and had shown him,
+      with the rooted confidence of those primitive days, relying on the
+      scriptural Jehovah for aid against the mythological Destiny. This she had
+      done without a hint from me: I had given the subject, but not said a word
+      about the manner of treating it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her,” I said to
+      myself as I rolled the devoir up; “I will learn what she has of English in
+      her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the language,
+      that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in England, nor
+      taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs,
+      dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to my
+      custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums were
+      rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri’s exercise, and, spectacles
+      on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her sentiments at
+      the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed a consciousness
+      of her own talents. “If she thinks she did a clever thing in composing
+      that devoir, she will now look mortified,” thought I. Grave as usual,
+      almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were fastened on the
+      cahier open before her; there was something, I thought, of expectation in
+      her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the last devoir, and when,
+      casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade them take their grammars,
+      some slight change did pass over her air and mien, as though she now
+      relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant excitement; she had been waiting
+      for something to be discussed in which she had a degree of interest; the
+      discussion was not to come on, so expectation sank back, shrunk and sad,
+      but attention, promptly filling up the void, repaired in a moment the
+      transient collapse of feature; still, I felt, rather than saw, during the
+      whole course of the lesson, that a hope had been wrenched from her, and
+      that if she did not show distress, it was because she would not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At four o’clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate tumult,
+      instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat still a
+      moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her cabas;
+      having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my eye, she
+      made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon, and was
+      turning to depart:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come here,” said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated;
+      she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both
+      school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused within
+      half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful whether she
+      had mistaken my meaning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Step up,” I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing
+      with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight manual
+      aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be, that is,
+      between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the rush of
+      the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to listen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take a seat,” I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I knew
+      what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and, what was
+      more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an appearance
+      of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from my pocket the
+      rolled-up devoir.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This is yours, I suppose?” said I, addressing her in English, for I now
+      felt sure she could speak English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out flat
+      on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that hand, I
+      saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed as a cloud
+      might behind which the sun is burning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This devoir has numerous faults,” said I. “It will take you some years of
+      careful study before you are in a condition to write English with absolute
+      correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects.” And I went
+      through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating why they were
+      errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been written. In the
+      course of this sobering process she became calm. I now went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me; I
+      perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and
+      fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but
+      such as they are you possess them—not probably in a paramount
+      degree, but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then
+      take courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on
+      you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+      injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of
+      their strength and rarity.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Strength and rarity!” I repeated to myself; “ay, the words are probably
+      true,” for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening
+      cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes—a
+      smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you need
+      not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a
+      stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known
+      fully from a child.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but in a
+      moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect, had
+      subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally conscious
+      of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these obliterated for a
+      single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once subdued the too
+      vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had been expressed. So
+      quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to check her triumph by
+      reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown she had become serious
+      and almost mournful-looking.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Thank you, sir,” said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her voice
+      and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time, indeed, for
+      our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around, behold all the
+      boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated within a yard or
+      two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths wide open; the
+      three maîtresses formed a whispering knot in one corner, and, close at my
+      elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair, calmly clipping the
+      tassels of her finished purse.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0017">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so
+      boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask
+      her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances
+      and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived her
+      good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy had
+      been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward; moreover, I
+      had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I had drawn from
+      her in that language were the words “Yes,” and “Thank you, sir.” “No
+      matter,” I reflected. “What has been left incomplete now, shall be
+      finished another day.” Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus made to
+      myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular
+      conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old
+      proverb, “Where there is a will, there is a way;” and again and again I
+      managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle.
+      Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I
+      approached her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your book an instant.” Such was the mode in which I often began these
+      brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the lesson;
+      and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place, allowing
+      her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise and right in
+      her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in use between master
+      and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in proportion as my manner
+      grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy and self-possessed—an
+      odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary effect in such cases; but so
+      it was.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A pencil,” said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am now
+      about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.) She
+      gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical exercise
+      she had written, I observed—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are not a native of Belgium?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nor of France?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Where, then, is your birthplace?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was born at Geneva.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You don’t call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, sir; they are English names.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children
+      English appellatives?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Non, Monsieur; mais—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Speak English, if you please.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “English—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But” (slowly and with embarrassment) “my parents were not all the two
+      Genevese.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Say <em>both</em>, instead of ‘all the two,’ mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not <em>both</em> Swiss: my mother was English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! and of English extraction?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—her ancestors were all English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And your father?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He was Swiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What besides? What was his profession?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ecclesiastic—pastor—he had a church.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with
+      more facility?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Maman est morte, il y a dix ans.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the
+      goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with
+      you—keep to English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n’en a plus l’habitude.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother
+      tongue.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you not speak it now?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because I have no English friends.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You live with your father, I suppose?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My father is dead.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You have brothers and sisters?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not one.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you live alone?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—I have an aunt—ma tante Julienne.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your father’s sister?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Justement, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is that English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—but I forget—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise
+      some slight punishment; at your age—you must be two or three and
+      twenty, I should think?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Pas encore, monsieur—en un mois j’aurai dix-neuf ans.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to be
+      so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful for
+      a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking English
+      whenever practicable.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my pupil
+      was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile; it
+      seemed to say, “He talks of he knows not what:” it said this so plainly,
+      that I determined to request information on the point concerning which my
+      ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you solicitous for your own improvement?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you prove it, mademoiselle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive—am I? I learn my lessons well—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What more can I do?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as a
+      pupil?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You teach lace-mending?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—it is tedious.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography,
+      grammar, even arithmetic?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these
+      studies?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know; you ought to be at your age.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I never was at school, monsieur—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! What then were your friends—what was your aunt about? She
+      is very much to blame.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No monsieur, no—my aunt is good—she is not to blame—she
+      does what she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s
+      phrases literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She
+      is not rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it
+      would be impossible for her to send me to school.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the
+      dogmatical tone I had adopted:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the
+      most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history
+      and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending
+      drudgery, and risen in the world.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is what I mean to do.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no
+      respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of knowledge
+      consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I know other things.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs and
+      collars—that will do little for you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself, as
+      thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained
+      silent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of
+      acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction at
+      your tongue’s end.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography,
+      and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to
+      send you to school?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to
+      explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after we
+      came to Brussels, because I knew it was a métier, a trade which was easily
+      learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt it in a
+      few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies have old
+      lace—very precious—which must be mended all the times it is
+      washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons in the
+      studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books, English
+      books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess, or
+      school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will be
+      difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will despise
+      me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,” she added in
+      a lower tone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What is it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might
+      suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Have you a wish to see England?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, and an intention.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma
+      bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle.
+      Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to
+      move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her
+      head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the composition,
+      trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than discourage.
+      Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble of giving that
+      intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction was falsified by
+      the event—it did not rain that evening). At the close of the next
+      lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost her:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go there?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no
+      longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so much of
+      hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she experienced in
+      improvising the translation of her thoughts from French to English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is
+      vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there
+      in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting a
+      clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great Britain
+      would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two private
+      dwellings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations made
+      on a scale so narrow?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy? An—échantillon—a—a
+      sample often serves to give an idea of the whole; besides, narrow and wide
+      are words comparative, are they not? All my life would perhaps seem narrow
+      in your eyes—all the life of a—that little animal subterranean—une
+      taupe—comment dit-on?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mole.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, mademoiselle—what then? Proceed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little,
+      learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle; I
+      walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I
+      rested—remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged it,
+      because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements; when I
+      was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to Brussels; my
+      existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or higher; I walk in
+      as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would change again if I
+      went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of Geneva, now I know
+      something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to London, I would know
+      something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make any sense out of what I
+      say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see, I see—now let us advert to another subject; you propose to
+      devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher; you
+      cannot keep your pupils in order.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she bent
+      her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice improves;
+      besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing, I can show
+      no power in sewing, no superiority—it is a subordinate art; then I
+      have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a heretic, which
+      deprives me of influence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you of
+      influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in
+      England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you
+      have here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably
+      difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and perhaps
+      be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to Flemish
+      coarseness; besides, monsieur—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She stopped—not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to
+      express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said
+      enough.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Finish your phrase,” I urged.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are
+      more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous
+      walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house,
+      monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the
+      inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell lies;
+      they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel hatred.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “All?” said I; “you mean the pupils—the mere children—inexperienced,
+      giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
+      right and wrong?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, monsieur—the children are the most sincere; they
+      have not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
+      lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but the
+      grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive each
+      other—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A servant here entered:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. Henri—Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
+      petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet de Rosalie
+      la portière—c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la chercher—voyez-vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne—moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri;
+      then smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
+      once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0018">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from the
+      study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course, confine
+      myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in English a
+      channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a course of
+      reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a few of which
+      had been left her by her mother, and the others she had purchased with her
+      own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all these she read with
+      avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of each work when she had
+      perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in. Such occupation seemed the
+      very breath of her nostrils, and soon her improved productions wrung from
+      me the avowal that those qualities in her I had termed taste and fancy
+      ought rather to have been denominated judgment and imagination. When I
+      intimated so much, which I did as usual in dry and stinted phrase, I
+      looked for the radiant and exulting smile my one word of eulogy had
+      elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she did smile, it was very
+      softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me with a conquering
+      glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched over her shoulder,
+      was writing some directions with a pencil on the margin of her book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+      returning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too
+      cool?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
+      thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had it
+      been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of my
+      admiration—not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little affection—ever so
+      little—pleased her better than all the panegyrics in the world. Feeling
+      this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on the margin of her book.
+      I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my occupation; something
+      retained me bending there, my head very near hers, and my hand near hers
+      too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an illimitable space—so,
+      doubtless, the directress thought; and she took occasion to walk past in
+      order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so disproportionately the
+      period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to go. Distasteful
+      effort—to leave what we most prefer!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
+      employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
+      counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed, indeed,
+      changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When I first saw
+      her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless; she looked
+      like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss anywhere in the
+      world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving space for the dawn
+      of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a clear morning,
+      animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been pale. Her eyes,
+      whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they with repressed
+      tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by a ray of the
+      sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright hazel—irids
+      large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils instinct with fire.
+      That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low spirits often
+      communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than round, having
+      vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom, and a plumpness
+      almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of her features. Her figure
+      shared in this beneficial change; it became rounder, and as the harmony of
+      her form was complete and her stature of the graceful middle height, one
+      did not regret (or at least <em>I</em> did not regret) the absence of
+      confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight, though compact, elegant,
+      flexible—the exquisite turning of waist, wrist, hand, foot, and ankle
+      satisfied completely my notions of symmetry, and allowed a lightness and
+      freedom of movement which corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a new
+      footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but
+      steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when
+      the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily,
+      move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood of
+      youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the
+      growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the said
+      gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it was not
+      difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish her
+      starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that inward
+      vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto forbidden to
+      expand. Constancy of attention—a kindness as mute as watchful,
+      always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and making
+      its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest, or a cordial and
+      gentle word; real respect masked with seeming imperiousness, directing,
+      urging her actions, yet helping her too, and that with devoted care: these
+      were the means I used, for these means best suited Frances’ feelings, as
+      susceptible as deep vibrating—her nature at once proud and shy.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour as
+      a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air of spirit
+      and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be obeyed—and
+      obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over her. If any girl
+      had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her rebellion to heart; she
+      possessed a source of comfort they could not drain, a pillar of support
+      they could not overthrow: formerly, when insulted, she wept; now, she
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her
+      talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject—it was an
+      emigrant’s letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some
+      natural and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin
+      forest and great, New-World river—barren of sail and flag—amidst
+      which the epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers
+      that attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on
+      that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+      resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him from his
+      native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible independence,
+      indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past days were spoken of;
+      the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were touched upon; feeling,
+      forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every period. At the close,
+      consolation was suggested; religious faith became there the speaker, and
+      she spoke well.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice,
+      in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to understand
+      it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could neither speak nor
+      write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir, she sat placidly
+      busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation of a “rivière” or
+      open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she said nothing, and her face
+      and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely negative expression, were as
+      blank of comment as her lips. As neither surprise, pleasure, approbation,
+      nor interest were evinced in her countenance, so no more were disdain,
+      envy, annoyance, weariness; if that inscrutable mien said anything, it was
+      simply this—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an opinion.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round
+      Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of
+      the directress was now heard:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten to
+      return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a little),
+      “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive to fetch
+      them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and
+      signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish,
+      for an instant, the castor I had clutched.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, I am at your service.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in young
+      people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly industrious
+      pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance, Mdlle. Henri can
+      hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other pupils? She is older
+      than most of them, and has had advantages of an exclusive nature for
+      acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other hand, her sphere of life is
+      somewhat beneath theirs; under these circumstances, a public distinction,
+      conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be the means of suggesting comparisons,
+      and exciting feelings such as would be far from advantageous to the
+      individual forming their object. The interest I take in Mdlle. Henri’s
+      real welfare makes me desirous of screening her from annoyances of this
+      sort; besides, monsieur, as I have before hinted to you, the sentiment of
+      <i lang="fr">amour-propre</i> has a somewhat marked preponderance in her
+      character; celebrity has a tendency to foster this sentiment, and in her
+      it should be rather repressed—she rather needs keeping down than bringing
+      forward; and then I think, monsieur—it appears to me that ambition,
+      <em>literary</em> ambition especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in
+      the mind of a woman: would not Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if
+      taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties consists
+      her real vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and
+      publicity? She may never marry; scanty as are her resources, obscure as
+      are her connections, uncertain as is her health (for I think her
+      consumptive, her mother died of that complaint), it is more than probable
+      she never will. I do not see how she can rise to a position, whence such a
+      step would be possible; but even in celibacy it would be better for her to
+      retain the character and habits of a respectable decorous female.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indisputably, mademoiselle,” was my answer. “Your opinion admits of no
+      doubt;” and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under
+      cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find
+      it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri’s usually
+      regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her
+      absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed
+      some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information I
+      wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles and
+      gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and the seat at
+      the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when no allusion was
+      made to the circumstance by any individual of the class—when, on the
+      contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence on the point—I
+      determined, <i lang="fr">coûte qui coûte</i>, to break the ice of this
+      silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I knew
+      that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by wriggle,
+      titter, or other flourish of folly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Où donc est Mdlle. Henri?” I said one day as I returned an exercise-book
+      I had been examining.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Elle est partie, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “En êtes-vous bien sûre, Sylvie?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l’a dit elle-même il
+      y a deux ou trois jours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and circumstances
+      forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on what had been
+      said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the reason of the
+      teacher’s departure, as to whether it had been voluntary or otherwise, was
+      indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it—there were listeners all
+      round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as she was putting
+      on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri’s address? I have some books of hers,” I
+      added carelessly, “and I should wish to send them to her.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur,” replied Sylvie; “but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will
+      be able to give it you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Rosalie’s cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the inquiry.
+      Rosalie—a smart French grisette—looked up from her work with a
+      knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to avoid
+      exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever of Mdlle.
+      Henri’s address—had never known it. Turning from her with impatience—for
+      I believed she lied and was hired to lie—I almost knocked down some
+      one who had been standing at my back; it was the directress. My abrupt
+      movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was obliged to apologize,
+      which I did more concisely than politely. No man likes to be dogged, and
+      in the very irritable mood in which I then was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter
+      thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I turned her countenance looked
+      hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes were bent upon me with an expression
+      of almost hungry curiosity. I had scarcely caught this phase of
+      physiognomy ere it had vanished; a bland smile played on her features; my
+      harsh apology was received with good-humoured facility.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your elbow;
+      it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back, and passing
+      her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more numerous and
+      flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows
+      of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be covered
+      with dust.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter
+      thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising a
+      pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more
+      transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust the
+      flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or two of
+      plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery ground,”
+       thought I; so I began:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment—been dismissed, I
+      presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied
+      the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world; “but we
+      cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a minute?”
+       And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have before
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley, and
+      when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride, closing
+      behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus imparted a
+      sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the very core of
+      a capital.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and
+      rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes
+      tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces
+      always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in your
+      ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole month
+      in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien propre, tout
+      entourée de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la vie champêtre!
+      N’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Cela dépend, mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was
+      right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat in
+      my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my
+      temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper
+      than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of Mdlle.
+      Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing the fire
+      burned; then spake I with my tongue:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but my
+      time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish: have
+      you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too short by
+      twelve hours for your numerous duties?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it
+      had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being
+      my pupil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never thought
+      of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to attend to, one
+      is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary importance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant
+      event?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur,
+      that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher
+      has ever been <em>dismissed</em> from it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently—a change of
+      instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives
+      life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests to
+      the parents the idea of exertion and progress.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yet when you are tired of a professor or maîtresse, you scruple to
+      dismiss them?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you. Allons,
+      monsieur le professeur—asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une petite
+      leçon dans votre état d’instituteur.” (I wish I might write all she said
+      to me in French—it loses sadly by being translated into English.) We
+      had now reached <em>the</em> garden-chair; the directress sat down, and
+      signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat, and
+      stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a huge
+      laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves of a
+      lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the retreat.
+      Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were evidently
+      working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her astute brow; she
+      was meditating some <i lang="fr">chef d’oeuvre</i> of policy. Convinced by
+      several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did not
+      possess was unavailing to ensnare me—aware that I had read her real
+      nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being
+      hers—she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock of
+      my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a
+      glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then
+      her blue eye glittered upon me—it did not flash—nothing of flame ever
+      kindled in its temperate gleam.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the
+      habit of speaking to her bluntly—a habit begun in anger, but
+      continued because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She
+      cast down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she
+      turned with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird
+      that flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer,
+      and seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well—and your lesson?” I demanded briefly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank and
+      fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of
+      vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done in
+      this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew that
+      before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your character—policy,
+      as well as pride?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so
+      piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I
+      passed my hand over my mouth to conceal it; and again she made room for me
+      to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to my
+      senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment, dismiss
+      nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak truth), I
+      despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending off one to
+      the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying circumstances.
+      I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?” She looked up
+      again; she had compounded her glance well this time—much archness,
+      more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled consciousness of
+      capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great Mogul; so I became the
+      great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly
+      down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so
+      long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I
+      don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract the
+      attention and envy of my neighbours—I am merely passive; but when
+      events fall out ill—when circumstances become adverse—I watch
+      very vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every
+      now and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out—so—and give the
+      rebellious circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends
+      it the way I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my
+      expedient. So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and
+      inefficient—when, in short, the interests of the school would suffer from
+      their retaining their places—I mind my knitting, events progress,
+      circumstances glide past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry,
+      will render untenable the post I wish to have vacated—the deed is done—the
+      stumbling-block removed—and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy,
+      I am rid of an incumbrance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I
+      looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer. “And in
+      this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office, therefore
+      you rendered it intolerable to her?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health;
+      no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed to
+      discover the truth. I took—I have always taken a real interest in
+      Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers; I
+      thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent
+      situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more
+      than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself; she
+      saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me
+      her address.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of the
+      directress. “Her address? Ah?—well—I wish I could oblige you,
+      monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked
+      her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought—I may
+      be wrong—but I <em>thought</em> her motive for doing so, was a natural,
+      though mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor
+      abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere,
+      doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were born
+      of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to make a
+      bugbear of her origin to me—I happen to know that she was a Swiss
+      pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow means, I
+      care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart overflows
+      with affluence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress,
+      affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her
+      temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking
+      pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was
+      furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low
+      over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the
+      <i lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> and departed.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0019">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real
+      life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer
+      pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would
+      seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture—still
+      seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the
+      fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid
+      bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have plunged like
+      beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, stimulated, again
+      overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties for enjoyment; then,
+      truly, we may find ourselves without support, robbed of hope. Our agony is
+      great, and how can it end? We have broken the spring of our powers; life
+      must be all suffering—too feeble to conceive faith—death must
+      be darkness—God, spirits, religion can have no place in our
+      collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting recollections of
+      vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave, and dissolution
+      flings us in—a rag eaten through and through with disease, wrung
+      together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by the inexorable heel
+      of despair.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his
+      property—it is a blow—he staggers a moment; then, his
+      energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon
+      mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience—endures
+      what he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not
+      where to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what
+      he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his
+      affections were twined—a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench—but
+      some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and
+      says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred
+      again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin—of that
+      life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens her
+      consolation by connecting with it two ideas—which mortals cannot
+      comprehend, but on which they love to repose—Eternity, Immortality;
+      and the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet
+      glorious, of heavenly hills all light and peace—of a spirit resting
+      there in bliss—of a day when his spirit shall also alight there,
+      free and disembodied—of a reunion perfected by love, purified from
+      fear—he takes courage—goes out to encounter the necessities
+      and discharge the duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her
+      burden from his mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Well—and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be
+      drawn therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best
+      pupil—my treasure—being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my
+      reach; the inference to be drawn from it is—that, being a steady,
+      reasonable man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief,
+      engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any monstrous
+      size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my heart; I
+      pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In the daytime,
+      too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent system; and it
+      was only after I had closed the door of my chamber at night that I
+      somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose nurslings, and allowed
+      vent to their language of murmurs; then, in revenge, they sat on my
+      pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with their long, midnight cry.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm
+      in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at her,
+      it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew had
+      consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an
+      instrument—the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday
+      evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the
+      <i lang="fr">salle-à-manger</i>, where she was sitting alone, and, placing
+      myself before her, I asked, with the same tranquil tone and manner that I
+      should have used had I put the question for the first time—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of
+      Frances Evans Henri?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any
+      knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that I
+      explained all about that circumstance before—a week ago?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing me
+      to that young person’s abode.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably
+      counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am
+      telling an untruth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your
+      intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have only
+      two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in another month
+      the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail yourself of the
+      leisure it will afford you to look out for another English master—at
+      the close of August, I shall be under the necessity of resigning my post
+      in your establishment.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and
+      immediately withdrew.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small packet;
+      it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to see again;
+      being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to prevent my
+      immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces, and a note in
+      English.
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “MONSIEUR,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you
+      would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go into
+      the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said you were
+      already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must be
+      mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the same
+      errand. In one sense a note will do as well—it will wrap up the 20
+      francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it will
+      not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition—if it will not
+      bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done—if it will not tell
+      you, as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you
+      more—why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task.
+      Had I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and
+      unsatisfactory—something belying my feelings rather than explaining
+      them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your
+      presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great deal
+      on fortitude in bearing grief—you said I introduced that theme too
+      often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty
+      than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a
+      reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur—very
+      kind; I am afflicted—I am heart-broken to be quite separated from
+      you; soon I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you
+      with my distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then
+      say no more.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Farewell, Monsieur.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “F. E. HENRI.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces into
+      my purse—then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor; yet
+      she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s lessons,
+      and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she deprived herself
+      to scrape together the twenty francs—I wonder what sort of a place
+      she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt is, and whether she
+      is likely to get employment to supply the place she has lost. No doubt she
+      will have to trudge about long enough from school to school, to inquire
+      here, and apply there—be rejected in this place, disappointed in
+      that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired and unsuccessful. And the
+      directress would not let her in to bid me good-bye? I might not have the
+      chance of standing with her for a few minutes at a window in the
+      schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of sentences—getting to
+      know where she lived—putting matters in train for having all things
+      arranged to my mind? No address on the note”—I continued, drawing it
+      again from the pocket-book and examining it on each side of the two
+      leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and always do business like
+      women; men mechanically put a date and address to their communications.
+      And these five-franc pieces?”—(I hauled them forth from my purse)—“if
+      she had offered me them herself instead of tying them up with a thread of
+      green silk in a kind of Lilliputian packet, I could have thrust them back
+      into her little hand, and shut up the small, taper fingers over
+      them—so—and compelled her shame, her pride, her shyness, all to yield to a
+      little bit of determined Will—now where is she? How can I get at her?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to
+      me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Did he say anything?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my
+      inquiries.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No matter—I’ll
+      seek her through Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure, for
+      four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on the
+      Boulevards, in the Allée Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste. Gudule
+      and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I attended
+      these latter at the German, French, and English services, not doubting
+      that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were absolutely
+      fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the event to be
+      equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood at the door of each
+      chapel after the service, and waited till every individual had come out,
+      scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form, peering under every bonnet
+      covering a young head. In vain; I saw girlish figures pass me, drawing
+      their black scarfs over their sloping shoulders, but none of them had the
+      exact turn and air of Mdlle. Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces
+      “encadrees” in bands of brown hair, but I never found her forehead, her
+      eyes, her eyebrows. All the features of all the faces I met seemed
+      frittered away, because my eye failed to recognize the peculiarities it
+      was bent upon; an ample space of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye,
+      with a fine but decided line of eyebrow traced above.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She has probably left Brussels—perhaps is gone to England, as she
+      said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth
+      Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper
+      had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the
+      congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had soon
+      outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious goodness!
+      why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions of the
+      high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and satin, of
+      the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut coats and
+      strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the English service,
+      filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it, issuing forth into
+      the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with freshly and trimly
+      attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut at the church of
+      Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and the groups of pretty
+      British children, and the British footmen and waiting-maids; I had crossed
+      the Place Royale, and got into the Rue Royale, thence I had diverged into
+      the Rue de Louvain—an old and quiet street. I remember that, feeling
+      a little hungry, and not desiring to go back and take my share of the
+      “goûter,” now on the refectory-table at Pelet’s—to wit, pistolets
+      and water—I stepped into a baker’s and refreshed myself on a
+      <i>couc</i> (?)—it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how to spell
+      it—<i lang="fr">à Corinthe—Anglice</i>,
+      a currant bun—and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on towards
+      the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of the city, and slowly mounting
+      the hill, which ascends from the gate, I took my time; for the afternoon,
+      though cloudy, was very sultry, and not a breeze stirred to refresh the
+      atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels need wander far to search for
+      solitude; let him but move half a league from his own city and he will
+      find her brooding still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so
+      fertile, spread out treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant.
+      Having gained the summit of the hill, and having stood and looked long
+      over the cultured but lifeless campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high
+      road, which I had hitherto followed, and get in among those tilled
+      grounds—fertile as the beds of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden—spreading
+      far and wide even to the boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk
+      green, distance changed them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints
+      with those of the livid and thunderous-looking sky.
+      Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the
+      right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into
+      the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty white
+      wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some thickly
+      planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were the branches
+      resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a massive cross,
+      planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its arms, which
+      seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister trees. I
+      approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden
+      appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some stately
+      residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a hut serving for
+      a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the key—the gates
+      were open; I pushed one leaf back—rain had rusted its hinges, for it
+      groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting embowered the entrance.
+      Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on each hand which, in their own mute
+      language of inscription and sign, explained clearly to what abode I had
+      made my way. This was the house appointed for all living; crosses,
+      monuments, and garlands of everlastings announced, “The Protestant
+      Cemetery, outside the gate of Louvain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The place was large enough to afford half an hour’s strolling without the
+      monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who love to
+      peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription enough to
+      occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time. Hither
+      people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their dead for
+      interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of brass, were
+      written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in English, in
+      French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had erected a marble
+      monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane Brown, and inscribed
+      it only with her name. There the French widower had shaded the grave of
+      his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket of roses, amidst which a
+      little tablet rising, bore an equally bright testimony to her countless
+      virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred, mourned after its own fashion;
+      and how soundless was the mourning of all! My own tread, though slow and
+      upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to startle, because it formed the sole
+      break to a silence otherwise total. Not only the winds, but the very
+      fitful, wandering airs, were that afternoon, as by common consent, all
+      fallen asleep in their various quarters; the north was hushed, the south
+      silent, the east sobbed not, nor did the west whisper. The clouds in
+      heaven were condensed and dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the
+      trees of this cemetery nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the
+      cypresses stood up straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and
+      still; where the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night
+      dew or thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible
+      to sun or shadow, to rain or drought.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf,
+      and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the
+      stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted
+      vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade
+      passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I
+      soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing
+      nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and
+      evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+      meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat which
+      I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight of her
+      before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was the
+      white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall, and, at
+      the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned up, a
+      new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close behind
+      her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, “Julienne Henri,
+      died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18—.” Having perused the
+      inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful just
+      under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it was a
+      slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black stuff,
+      with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as saw, who it
+      was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments enjoying the
+      security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and had never
+      discovered one of her traces—never met a hope, or seized a chance of
+      encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my grasp on
+      expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under the discouraging
+      thought that the current of life, and the impulse of destiny, had swept
+      her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while bending suddenly earthward
+      beneath the pressure of despondency—while following with my eyes the
+      track of sorrow on the turf of a graveyard—here was my lost jewel
+      dropped on the tear-fed herbage, nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of
+      yew-trees.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand. I
+      knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change; at
+      last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the stone before
+      her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those constrictions with
+      which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are, at times, so sorely
+      oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped away, again and again,
+      with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs escaped her, and then, the
+      paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put my hand gently on her
+      shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for she was neither hysterical
+      nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push, indeed, might have startled
+      her, but the contact of my quiet touch merely woke attention as I wished;
+      and, though she turned quickly, yet so lightning-swift is thought—in
+      some minds especially—I believe the wonder of what—the
+      consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares on her solitude, had
+      passed through her brain, and flashed into her heart, even before she had
+      effected that hasty movement; at least, Amazement had hardly opened her
+      eyes and raised them to mine, ere Recognition informed their irids with
+      most speaking brightness. Nervous surprise had hardly discomposed her
+      features ere a sentiment of most vivid joy shone clear and warm on her
+      whole countenance. I had hardly time to observe that she was wasted and
+      pale, ere called to feel a responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most
+      full and exquisite pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in
+      the expansive light, now diffused over my pupil’s face. It was the summer
+      sun flashing out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more
+      rapidly than that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I hate boldness—that boldness which is of the brassy brow and
+      insensate nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour
+      of the generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans’
+      clear hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved
+      the tones with which she uttered the words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître! mon maître!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I loved
+      her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist
+      charmless, for me a treasure—my best object of sympathy on earth,
+      thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my
+      ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification of
+      discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of self-denial
+      and self-control—those guardians, those trusty keepers of the gift I
+      longed to confer on her—the gift of all my affections; model of
+      truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness—those
+      refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well of
+      tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless, of
+      natural feeling, natural passion—those sources of refreshment and
+      comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the
+      well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned
+      safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a moment
+      high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life’s current in its
+      channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its blaze to
+      embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect for her, and as I
+      drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the cemetery, I felt I had
+      another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as firm as respect, more
+      fervid than either—that of love.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, my pupil,” said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind
+      us—“Well, I have found you again: a month’s search has seemed long, and I
+      little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst graves.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, and to speak thus
+      was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised me that
+      this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in her heart:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little
+      imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to be
+      taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier
+      troubles ought to have made me forget it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your aunt is dead?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not
+      chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night of her
+      existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone, so friendless:’
+      she wished too that she could have been buried in Switzerland, and it was
+      I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the banks of Lake Leman, and
+      to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat region of Flanders.
+      Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and taken her remains back
+      to our own country, but that was impossible; I was forced to lay her
+      here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She was ill but a short time, I presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter’s leave to
+      stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one
+      evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room to
+      speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is;
+      afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to
+      go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your
+      departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have
+      taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished
+      in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest
+      need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply your
+      place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can, though she
+      is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will be your part
+      now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure you will
+      everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your talents.’
+      And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary. I asked, as mademoiselle
+      would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to discharge me from
+      the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of speech, and answered
+      that ‘our connection as employer and employed was certainly dissolved, but
+      that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of my acquaintance; she should
+      always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and then she said something about
+      the excellent condition of the streets, and the long continuance of fine
+      weather, and went away quite cheerful.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress—so like what
+      I had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof
+      of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:—“She had frequently
+      applied for Mdlle. Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle. Henri had always
+      evaded giving it,” &amp;c., &amp;c., and here I found her a visitor at the
+      very house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication,
+      were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the
+      path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning
+      obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take the
+      road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and those
+      of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly. There
+      was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before heavy rain
+      came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de Louvain, and
+      were again in the city.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps of
+      the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and shattered
+      cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent, heavy,
+      prone, and broad.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house, I
+      paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the
+      threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and
+      followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a
+      projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood;
+      none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute more
+      and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room
+      with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the
+      articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean;
+      order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it soothed my
+      punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode,
+      because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter’s hint about its
+      extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the
+      lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be;
+      poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had but
+      a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have deemed it
+      more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and no fuel
+      laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself that
+      indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole relative,
+      she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances went into an
+      inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a model of frugal
+      neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so accurately defining
+      her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless white collar turned
+      back from a fair and shapely neck, with her plenteous brown hair arranged
+      in smooth bands on her temples, and in a large Grecian plait behind:
+      ornaments she had none—neither brooch, ring, nor ribbon; she did
+      well enough without them—perfection of fit, proportion of form,
+      grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place. Her eye, as she
+      re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought mine, which was just
+      then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at once the sort of inward
+      ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of that hearth stirred in my
+      soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine, and quicker to put in
+      practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron round her waist; then
+      she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket; it had a cover; she opened
+      it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and compactly she arranged them in
+      the grate.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,”
+       thought I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you going to do?” I asked: “not surely to light a fire this hot
+      evening? I shall be smothered.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides, I
+      must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
+      obliged to try and bear the heat.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
+      contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without, that
+      peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth, seemed very
+      cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced that another
+      being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a black cat, roused by
+      the light from its sleep on a little cushioned foot-stool, came and rubbed
+      its head against Frances’ gown as she knelt; she caressed it, saying it
+      had been a favourite with her “pauvre tante Julienne.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very antique
+      pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old farmhouses in
+      England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands were washed, and
+      her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a cupboard, and took out
+      a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a china tea-equipage, whose
+      pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote antiquity; a little,
+      old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each saucer; and a pair of
+      silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid on the sugar-basin; from
+      the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy silver cream-ewer, not larger then
+      an egg-shell. While making these preparations, she chanced to look up,
+      and, reading curiosity in my eyes, she smiled and asked—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is this like England, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Like the England of a hundred years ago,” I replied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred years
+      old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
+      great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my
+      mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them to
+      me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like to
+      carry them back to England, whence they came.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do
+      make tea—i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups;
+      she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of
+      exaltation—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,” I answered;
+      and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the
+      fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal, and
+      speaking in the English language.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have then no home?” was her remark.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own
+      making, and the task is yet to begin.” And, as I spoke, a pang, new to me,
+      shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility of my
+      position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was born a
+      strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more; and in the
+      increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to include the
+      home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her
+      pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my
+      palate as manna.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and
+      put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, “le chat de ma tante
+      Julienne” also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for its
+      special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too, being
+      swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she took a
+      chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little
+      embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched her
+      rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements a little
+      too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by the grace and
+      alertness of her action—by the deft, cleanly, and even decorative
+      effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine fingers; and when,
+      at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence of her face seemed
+      beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her colour, however, rising,
+      rather than settling with repose, and her eyes remaining downcast, though
+      I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that I might drink a ray of the
+      light I loved—a light where fire dissolved in softness, where
+      affection tempered penetration, where, just now at least, pleasure played
+      with thought—this expectation not being gratified, I began at last
+      to suspect that I had probably myself to blame for the disappointment; I
+      must cease gazing, and begin talking, if I wished to break the spell under
+      which she now sat motionless; so recollecting the composing effect which
+      an authoritative tone and manner had ever been wont to produce on her, I
+      said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls
+      heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at once
+      the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected “Paradise Lost”
+       from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious character
+      of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at the
+      beginning, and while she read Milton’s invocation to that heavenly muse,
+      who on the “secret top of Oreb or Sinai” had taught the Hebrew shepherd
+      how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had originated and
+      ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of having her near
+      me, hearing the sound of her voice—a sound sweet and satisfying in
+      my ear—and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this last
+      privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an intonation,
+      a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might also gaze,
+      without exciting too warm a flush.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Enough,” said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a work
+      of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and receive
+      information)—“enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must soon
+      go.” For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I saw it all
+      blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the setting August
+      sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through the lattice. I got
+      up; I drew on my gloves.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that from
+      which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me for
+      references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the directress,
+      because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably towards me; she
+      used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and thereby render me
+      unhappy while I held my place in her establishment, and she eventually
+      deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical manoeuvre, pretending that
+      she was acting for my good, but really snatching from me my chief means of
+      subsistence, at a crisis when not only my own life, but that of another,
+      depended on my exertions: of her I will never more ask a favour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from
+      starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment
+      yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes are
+      by no means worn out yet.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my
+      Canaan.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, well—ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening
+      now,” and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong
+      inward impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so
+      natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one
+      kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable—that was all I
+      wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason
+      denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and my
+      steps from her apartment—to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would
+      have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be
+      avenged one day. “I’ll earn a right to do as I please in this matter, or
+      I’ll die in the contest. I have one object before me now—to get that
+      Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be—that is,
+      provided she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has
+      for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my
+      instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate or
+      correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?” for I had ever
+      remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when I
+      entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few words,
+      given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she would, all
+      at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene and revived.
+      The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she would chip away
+      with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a little, pouting a
+      little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I deprived her of the
+      pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away, and when I interdicted
+      even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose of working up the subdued
+      excitement a little higher, she would at last raise her eyes and give me a
+      certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and pointed with defiance, which,
+      to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had ever done, and made me, in a
+      fashion (though happily she did not know it), her subject, if not her
+      slave. After such little scenes her spirits would maintain their flow,
+      often for some hours, and, as I remarked before, her health therefrom took
+      a sustenance and vigour which, previously to the event of her aunt’s death
+      and her dismissal, had almost recreated her whole frame.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had
+      thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the
+      stairs from Frances’ room. Just as I was opening the outer door, I
+      remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused:
+      impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back on
+      their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode,
+      witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious
+      care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her little
+      home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused paying her
+      debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be accepted from no
+      hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four five-franc pieces
+      were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get rid of them. An
+      expedient—a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I could devise—suggested
+      itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked, re-entered the room as if
+      in haste:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it
+      here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I—being now
+      at the hearth—noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of
+      china ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups—slipped the money
+      under it, then saying—“Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within
+      the fender; good evening, mademoiselle,” I made my second exit.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick up
+      a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red embers
+      of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate every
+      item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure
+      retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am glad it is not yet winter,” thought I; “but in two months more come
+      the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I could
+      earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate
+      <i lang="la">ad libitum</i>!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the air,
+      purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a sky like
+      opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious in Tyrian
+      tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward, I faced a
+      vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an evening
+      rainbow; a perfect rainbow—high, wide, vivid. I looked long; my eye
+      drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed it; for that
+      night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time, watching the
+      silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the retreating clouds,
+      and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell asleep; and then in a
+      dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of clouds, the mighty
+      rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned over a parapeted wall;
+      there was space below me, depth I could not fathom, but hearing an endless
+      dash of waves, I believed it to be the sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea
+      of changeful green and intense blue: all was soft in the distance; all
+      vapour-veiled. A spark of gold glistened on the line between water and
+      air, floated up, approached, enlarged, changed; the object hung midway
+      between heaven and earth, under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk
+      clouds diffused behind. It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming
+      air streamed like raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured
+      what seemed face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an
+      angel’s forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed
+      to the bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Hope smiles on Effort!”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0020">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and resolve
+      to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With August the
+      school-year (l’année scolaire) closed, the examinations concluded, the
+      prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of all colleges,
+      the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till the beginning
+      or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand, and what was my
+      position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement of the past
+      quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing my engagement
+      as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had voluntarily cut
+      off £20 from my yearly income; I had diminished my £60 per annum to
+      £40, and even that sum I now held by a very precarious tenure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight walk
+      is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where that
+      gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that event, a
+      change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed, ignorant
+      that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice, had revealed
+      to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship, would have
+      continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as a porcupine,
+      and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile for his
+      raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to take coffee
+      with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and very stiffly and
+      sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the directress (which he
+      still continued) were heard with a grim calm very different from the
+      petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite. For a long time Pelet
+      bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently; he even increased his
+      attentions; but finding that even a cringing politeness failed to thaw or
+      move me, he at last altered too; in his turn he cooled; his invitations
+      ceased; his countenance became suspicious and overcast, and I read in the
+      perplexed yet brooding aspect of his brow, a constant examination and
+      comparison of premises, and an anxious endeavour to draw thence some
+      explanatory inference. Ere long, I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not
+      without penetration; perhaps, too, Mdlle. Zoraïde might have aided him in
+      the solution of the enigma; at any rate I soon found that the uncertainty
+      of doubt had vanished from his manner; renouncing all pretence of
+      friendship and cordiality, he adopted a reserved, formal, but still
+      scrupulously polite deportment. This was the point to which I had wished
+      to bring him, and I was now again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it
+      is true, like my position in his house; but being freed from the annoyance
+      of false professions and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as
+      no heroic sentiment of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my
+      philosophical soul; he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender
+      point, the wound was so soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense
+      of contempt for the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted,
+      and a lasting mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab
+      in the dark.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
+      there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
+      usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous with
+      him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen, he had also
+      one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk, however, was he
+      upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole establishment
+      (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes in a building
+      apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the reach of
+      disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering lunch to be
+      brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas the city
+      bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated the servants
+      for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise his poor old
+      mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving dreadfully about “le
+      maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired; some German books I
+      had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the uproar below, and could
+      distinguish the director’s voice exalted in a manner as appalling as it
+      was unusual. Opening my door a little, I became aware of a demand on his
+      part for “Creemsvort” to be brought down to him that he might cut his
+      throat on the hall-table and wash his honour, which he affirmed to be in a
+      dirty condition, in infernal British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,”
+       thought I, “and in either case the old woman and the servants will be the
+      better of a man’s assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I
+      found him staggering about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling—a
+      pretty sight he was, a just medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of
+      his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
+      of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
+      struggled and struck with fury—but a drunken man is no match for a
+      sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could not
+      have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in process of
+      time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to utter comminations
+      which, though broken, had a sense in them; while stigmatizing me as the
+      treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he, in the same breath,
+      anathematized Zoraïde Reuter; he termed her “femme sotte et vicieuse,”
+       who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself away on an unprincipled
+      adventurer; directing the point of the last appellation by a furious blow,
+      obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the act of bounding elastically out
+      of the bed into which I had tucked him; but, as I took the precaution of
+      turning the key in the door behind me, I retired to my own room, assured
+      of his safe custody till the morning, and free to draw undisturbed
+      conclusions from the scene I had just witnessed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by my
+      coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
+      suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her own
+      laying—was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
+      which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in that
+      quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my employer, that
+      his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her affections—inclinations,
+      rather, I would say; affection is a word at once too warm and too pure for
+      the subject—had let him see that the cavity of her hollow heart,
+      emptied of his image, was now occupied by that of his usher. It was not
+      without some surprise that I found myself obliged to entertain this view
+      of the case; Pelet, with his old-established school, was so convenient, so
+      profitable a match—Zoraïde was so calculating, so interested a woman—I
+      wondered mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a
+      moment over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said,
+      that, not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
+      partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the jade
+      doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
+      deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality—and your
+      pure morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit—sotte!”
+       Hers, I thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong,
+      natural tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
+      sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+      impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of a
+      prosperous <i lang="fr">chef d’institution</i>. I smiled inwardly; and
+      strange to say, though my <i lang="fr">amour propre</i> was excited not
+      disagreeably by the conquest, my
+      better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
+      and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
+      notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could not
+      love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly some
+      interesting inquiry about my health—to pass her by with a stern bow—was
+      all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some time
+      previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they sealed up all
+      that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature; sometimes they
+      enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart. I was aware of the
+      detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the change. I had ever
+      hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a slave, self-given, went
+      near to transform me into what I abhorred! There was at once a sort of low
+      gratification in receiving this luscious incense from an attractive and
+      still young worshipper; and an irritating sense of degradation in the very
+      experience of the pleasure. When she stole about me with the soft step of
+      a slave, I felt at once barbarous and sensual as a pasha. I endured her
+      homage sometimes; sometimes I rebuked it. My indifference or harshness
+      served equally to increase the evil I desired to check.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Que le dédain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother: “il
+      est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
+      bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
+      straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait
+      tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses bésicles.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
+      little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful words
+      seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her daughter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
+      recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
+      fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
+      been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to wine
+      for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed that the
+      iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough Frenchman, the
+      national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted by nature in
+      compounding the ingredients of his character; it had appeared first in his
+      access of drunken wrath, when some of his demonstrations of hatred to my
+      person were of a truly fiendish character, and now it was more covertly
+      betrayed by momentary contractions of the features, and flashes of
+      fierceness in his light blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter
+      mine. He absolutely avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the
+      falsehood of his politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my
+      soul rebelled sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house
+      and discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
+      constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise each
+      morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau under
+      my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when I came
+      back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice in my
+      ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective, yet so
+      soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud and pliant,
+      sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a certain tone of
+      feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure and powerful,
+      delighting and troubling my memory—visions of new ties I longed to
+      contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the rover and the
+      rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot in the light of a
+      Spartan virtue.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
+      and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
+      teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
+      interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil, and
+      upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
+      resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
+      Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+      fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment that
+      delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
+      difficult path of principle—in that path she never trod; but the
+      plain highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
+      When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
+      the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
+      she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both in
+      allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon proved by
+      the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed to convince
+      him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his, for the
+      fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding graciousness
+      and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting self-complacency, more
+      ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s life had been passed in
+      proper French style with due disregard to moral restraint, and I thought
+      his married life promised to be very French also. He often boasted to me
+      what a terror he had been to certain husbands of his acquaintance; I
+      perceived it would not now be difficult to pay him back in his own coin.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
+      preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises of
+      Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set to work,
+      and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de Madame.” Not
+      deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced with that title
+      in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm of filial piety,
+      as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her use, I concluded,
+      in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the kitchen-scullion,
+      that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be the tenant of these
+      gay chambers.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
+      another week’s time M. François Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraïde
+      Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of matrimony.
+      Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating his
+      communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
+      continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend; and
+      a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs per
+      annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and, when he
+      had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out on a long
+      walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to cool my
+      blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some order. In
+      fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal. I could not
+      conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the conviction that,
+      being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to become Madame Pelet
+      it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller in the house which
+      was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards me was deficient
+      neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former feeling was
+      unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but Opportunity
+      would be too strong for either of these—Temptation would shiver
+      their restraints.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was no pope—I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I
+      stayed, the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical
+      modern French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof
+      of the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my taste,
+      either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my experience
+      of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an
+      example of the results produced by a course of interesting and romantic
+      domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example, I
+      saw it bare and real, and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by
+      the practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and
+      a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul. I
+      had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle;
+      those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection acted
+      as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had inscribed on my
+      reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s
+      rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure—its hollowness
+      disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its
+      effects deprave for ever.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and that
+      instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how to
+      live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri seemed
+      to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her hand to court
+      my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not relinquish my
+      right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from hers, where I saw
+      so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with heart; over whose
+      expression I had such influence; where I could kindle bliss, infuse awe,
+      stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and sometimes waken pleasurable
+      dread. My hopes to will and possess, my resolutions to merit and rise,
+      rose in array against me; and here I was about to plunge into the gulf of
+      absolute destitution; “and all this,” suggested an inward voice, “because
+      you fear an evil which may never happen!” “It will happen; you
+      <em>know</em> it will,” answered that stubborn monitor, Conscience. “Do
+      what you feel is right; obey me, and even in the sloughs of want I will
+      plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I walked fast along the road,
+      there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea of some Great Being, unseen,
+      but all present, who in His beneficence desired only my welfare, and now
+      watched the struggle of good and evil in my heart, and waited to see
+      whether I should obey His voice, heard in the whispers of my conscience,
+      or lend an ear to the sophisms by which His enemy and mine—the Spirit of
+      Evil—sought to lead me astray.
+      Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine
+      suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation
+      strewed flowers; but whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of
+      all that exists, would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and
+      address myself to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination
+      to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of
+      the man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
+      retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought him
+      in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner proved
+      that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my decision. After
+      twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room, self-deprived of
+      the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present home, with the
+      short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0021">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my
+      thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some
+      of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and
+      with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out of
+      the question; the postman’s arrival had never yet been an event of
+      interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on the
+      documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to break the
+      seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited me, as if I
+      had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover a blank page:
+      on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a lady’s clear, fine
+      autograph; the last I opened first:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “MONSIEUR,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I found out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me;
+      you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but
+      you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current in
+      Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the
+      chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping to
+      look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should imagine it
+      had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money is not mine, and
+      I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note because it might be
+      lost—besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it to you the first
+      time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about taking it;
+      because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can understand that
+      one likes to pay one’s debts; that it is satisfactory to owe no man
+      anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well afford to be
+      honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last circumstance is,
+      indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is pleasant to communicate
+      good news; and, in these days, I have only my master to whom I can tell
+      anything.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English lady;
+      her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich relation having
+      made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old lace, as precious,
+      they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by time, I was
+      commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the house; they gave
+      me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly a week elapsed before
+      I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss Wharton often came into
+      the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs. Wharton; they made me talk
+      English; asked how I had learned to speak it so well; then they inquired
+      what I knew besides—what books I had read; soon they seemed to make
+      a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt as a learned grisette. One
+      afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian lady to test the accuracy of
+      my knowledge of French; the result of it was that, owing probably in a
+      great degree to the mother’s and daughter’s good humour about the
+      marriage, which inclined them to do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think,
+      because they are naturally benevolent people, they decided that the wish I
+      had expressed to do something more than mend lace was a very legitimate
+      one; and the same day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.‘s, who is
+      the directress of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she
+      happened to be in want of a French lady to give lessons in geography,
+      history, grammar, and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton
+      recommended me very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are
+      pupils in the house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was
+      settled that I am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not
+      required that I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to
+      leave my lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred
+      francs per annum.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than I
+      ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
+      beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
+      getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
+      able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should fall
+      ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great measure,
+      removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for the
+      relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness to some
+      one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others joyful. I
+      could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you; I argued
+      with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will not be
+      exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to read. Do not be
+      too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of expression, and,
+      believe me
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your attached pupil,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “F. E. HENRI.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few moments—whether
+      with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will hereafter note—and
+      then took up the other. It was directed in a hand to me unknown—small,
+      and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly feminine; the seal bore a
+      coat of arms, concerning which I could only decipher that it was not that
+      of the Seacombe family, consequently the epistle could be from none of my
+      almost forgotten, and certainly quite forgetting patrician relations. From
+      whom, then, was it? I removed the envelope; the note folded within ran as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
+      Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like a
+      black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots of
+      Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
+      sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
+      drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
+      fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any one
+      in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy of my
+      recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in clover, and
+      yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have you ever offered
+      in return; but I am coming to see you, and small conception can you, with
+      your addled aristocratic brains, form of the sort of moral kicking I have,
+      ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to be presented to you immediately
+      on my arrival.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information, by
+      Brown’s last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming an
+      advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress—a
+      Mdlle. Zénobie, or some such name. Won’t I have a look at her when I come
+      over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I think it
+      worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I’ll pounce on your prize and
+      bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don’t like dumpies
+      either, and Brown says she is little and stout—the better fitted for
+      a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. “Be on the look-out, for you know
+      neither the day nor hour when your ——” (I don’t wish to
+      blaspheme, so I’ll leave a blank)—cometh.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yours truly,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “Humph!” said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the
+      small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor,
+      indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities between
+      the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here? I recalled
+      the writer’s peculiar face and certain traits I suspected, rather than
+      knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, “A great deal.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when; coming
+      charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of prosperity,
+      about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie comfortably down by
+      the side of a snug, well-fed little mate.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,” thought I.
+      “What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves, billing
+      and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean cormorant, standing
+      mateless and shelterless on poverty’s bleak cliff? Oh, confound him! Let
+      him come, and let him laugh at the contrast between rumour and fact. Were
+      he the devil himself, instead of being merely very like him, I’d not
+      condescend to get out of his way, or to forge a smile or a cheerful word
+      wherewith to avert his sarcasm.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I
+      could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated
+      within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a
+      groan.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of
+      excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her
+      first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing it
+      with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her letter
+      were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying my lips
+      for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with vinegar
+      and gall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels on
+      an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for one in
+      London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so much dearer
+      in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the former, but
+      because the English surpass in folly all the nations on God’s earth, and
+      are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to the desire to keep up a
+      certain appearance, than the Italians are to priestcraft, the French to
+      vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or the Germans to black beer. I
+      have seen a degree of sense in the modest arrangement of one homely
+      Belgian household, that might put to shame the elegance, the
+      superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of a hundred genteel
+      English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can make money, you may save
+      it; this is scarcely possible in England; ostentation there lavishes in a
+      month what industry has earned in a year. More shame to all classes in
+      that most bountiful and beggarly country for their servile following of
+      Fashion; I could write a chapter or two on this subject, but must forbear,
+      at least for the present. Had I retained my £60 per annum I could, now
+      that Frances was in possession of £50, have gone straight to her this
+      very evening, and spoken out the words which, repressed, kept fretting my
+      heart with fever; our united income would, as we should have managed it,
+      have sufficed well for our mutual support; since we lived in a country
+      where economy was not confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress,
+      food, and furniture, was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various
+      points. But the placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by
+      connections, must not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word
+      as marriage, were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the
+      first time did I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice
+      I had made in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect;
+      instead of a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light
+      and fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading
+      influence of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the
+      wall to the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at
+      the wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Down, stupid tormenters!” cried she; “the man has done his duty; you
+      shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he
+      relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and
+      certain evil; he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding
+      dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and thought
+      an hour—two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a subterranean
+      vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured by yard-thick
+      stone walls around, and by piles of building above, expecting light to
+      penetrate through granite, and through cement firm as granite. But there
+      are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the best adjusted masonry; there
+      was a chink in my cavernous cell; for, eventually, I saw, or seemed to
+      see, a ray—pallid, indeed, and cold, and doubtful, but still a ray,
+      for it showed that narrow path which conscience had promised after two,
+      three hours’ torturing research in brain and memory, I disinterred certain
+      remains of circumstances, and conceived a hope that by putting them
+      together an expedient might be framed, and a resource discovered. The
+      circumstances were briefly these:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his
+      <i lang="fr">fête</i>, given the
+      boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a certain
+      place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which I do not at
+      this moment remember the name, but near it were several of those lakelets
+      called étangs; and there was one étang, larger than the rest, where on
+      holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by rowing round it in
+      little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited quantity of “gaufres,”
+      and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid the shades of a garden
+      made and provided for such crams, petitioned the director for leave to
+      take a row on the étang. Half a dozen of the eldest succeeded in obtaining
+      leave, and I was commissioned to accompany them as surveillant. Among the
+      half dozen happened to be a certain Jean Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most
+      ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but even now, at the early age of
+      sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of personal development truly
+      national. It chanced that Jean was the first lad to step into the boat; he
+      stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat revolted at his weight and
+      capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose, sank again. My coat and
+      waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been brought up at Eton and
+      boated and bathed and swam there ten long years for nothing; it was a
+      natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue. The lads and the
+      boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths by drowning instead
+      of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched him by one leg and the
+      collar, and in three minutes more both he and I were safe landed. To speak
+      heaven’s truth, my merit in the action was small indeed, for I had run no
+      risk, and subsequently did not even catch cold from the wetting; but when
+      M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean Baptiste was the sole hope, came
+      to hear of the exploit, they seemed to think I had evinced a bravery and
+      devotion which no thanks could sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular,
+      was “certain I must have dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus
+      have hazarded my own life to save his.” Monsieur, an honest-looking,
+      though phlegmatic man, said very little, but he would not suffer me to
+      leave the room, till I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of
+      help I would, by applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the
+      obligation under which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were
+      my glimmer of light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth,
+      though the cold light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem
+      such as I should like to pass through. Right I had none to M.
+      Vandenhuten’s good offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could
+      apply to him; no, I must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I
+      wanted work; my best chance of obtaining it lay in securing his
+      recommendation. This I knew could be had by asking for it; not to ask,
+      because the request revolted my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I
+      felt, be an indulgence of false and indolent fastidiousness. I might
+      repent the omission all my life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and
+      adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the great
+      door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the town); a
+      manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten and family
+      were all out of town—gone to Ostend—did not know when they
+      would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0022">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A WEEK is gone; <i lang="fr">le jour des noces</i> arrived; the marriage
+      was solemnized at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraïde became Madame Pelet,
+      <i lang="fr">née</i> Reuter; and, in about
+      an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers phrase
+      it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous arrangement,
+      the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the pensionnat.
+      Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon transferred to a
+      modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In half an hour my
+      clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf, and the
+      “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day had not
+      one pang tortured me—a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame aux
+      Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid that street
+      till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my prospects.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a sweet September evening—very mild, very still; I had
+      nothing to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
+      occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I knew
+      I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers, infusing
+      into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your seat
+      at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement; you need
+      not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as you always
+      are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads; chide her, or
+      quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you know her smile
+      when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused; you have the
+      secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can choose amongst
+      that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as long as it suits
+      you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent spell: intelligent as
+      she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her lips, and veil her bright
+      countenance with diffidence; yet, you know, she is not all monotonous
+      mildness; you have seen, with a sort of strange pleasure, revolt, scorn,
+      austerity, bitterness, lay energetic claim to a place in her feelings and
+      physiognomy; you know that few could rule her as you do; you know she
+      might break, but never bend under the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but
+      Reason and Affection can guide her by a sign. Try their influence now.
+      Go—they are not passions; you may handle them safely.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will <em>not</em> go,” was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is
+      master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek
+      Frances to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address
+      her only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
+      now controlled me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but I
+      thought the hands were paralyzed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
+      had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair, I
+      wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were as
+      unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the calm
+      of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings. What! was
+      he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in inaudible
+      thought? He had actually knocked at the door—at <em>my</em> door; a smart,
+      prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over the
+      threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
+      language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
+      put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing the
+      only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
+      tranquilly therein.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+      nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether I
+      answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to my
+      good friends “les bésicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of my
+      visitor—for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
+      how he looked—to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance. I
+      wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
+      deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose or
+      get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
+      window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him
+      <i lang="fr">vis-à-vis</i>; a position he would much rather have had
+      reversed; for, at any time, he preferred scrutinizing to being
+      scrutinized. Yes, it was <em>he</em>, and no mistake, with his six feet
+      of length arranged in a sitting attitude; with his dark travelling surtout
+      with its velvet collar, his gray pantaloons, his black stock, and
+      <em>his</em> face, the most original one Nature ever modelled,
+      yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could be termed marked
+      or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no use in attempting
+      to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry to address him, I sat
+      and stared at my ease.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, that’s your game—is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see
+      which is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked
+      one to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his
+      hand, then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if
+      he had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X—-shire, England. I
+      knew he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
+      conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I said,—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the
+      spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went
+      there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in a
+      boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had departed
+      this morning; you had left your address behind you though, which I
+      wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution than I should
+      have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
+      assigned to me as my wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both
+      your wife and your place?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Precisely so.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
+      narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended the
+      state of matters—had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
+      curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
+      certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour, lounging
+      on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he would have
+      hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case have been the
+      extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have come near me
+      more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on its surface; but
+      the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless solitude of my room
+      relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what softening change had taken
+      place both in his voice and look ere he spoke again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have got another place?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You are in the way of getting one?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, indeed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
+      in such matters.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
+      humour to bother him again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+      commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me an
+      important service when I was at X——; got me out of a den where
+      I was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
+      positively adding another item to the account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled
+      generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
+      duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it shall be
+      found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right, lad—make
+      much of me—I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the common
+      herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for a few
+      moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what is more,
+      you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that offers it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+      something else. What news from X——?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
+      before we get to X——. Is this Miss Zénobie” (Zoraïde,
+      interposed I)—“well, Zoraïde—is she really married to Pelet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I tell you yes—and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the curé of
+      St. Jacques.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And your heart is broken?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am not aware that it is; it feels all right—beats as usual.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must be
+      a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
+      under it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
+      circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
+      The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their
+      look-out—not mine.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Who said so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Brown.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll tell you what, Hunsden—Brown is an old gossip.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than fact—if
+      you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraïde—why, O youthful
+      pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her becoming Madame
+      Pelet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because—” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because—in
+      short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged
+      my hands deep in my breeches pocket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden triumphed: his eyes—his laugh announced victory.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how it
+      is: Zoraïde has jilted you—married some one richer, as any sensible
+      woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I made no reply—I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter
+      into an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
+      false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
+      instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render him
+      doubtful about it; he went on:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always are
+      amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your talents—such
+      as they are—in exchange for her position and money: I don’t suppose you
+      took appearance, or what is called <em>love</em>, into the account—for I
+      understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather sensible-looking
+      than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making a better bargain,
+      was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but Pelet—the head of a
+      flourishing school—stepped in with a higher bid; she accepted, and
+      he has got her: a correct transaction—perfectly so—business-like
+      and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to have
+      baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner—if, indeed, I had
+      baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
+      his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
+      idea.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You want to hear news from X——? And what interest can you
+      have in X——? You left no friends there, for you made none.
+      Nobody ever asks after you—neither man nor woman; and if I mention
+      your name in company, the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and
+      the women sneer covertly. Our X—— belles must have disliked
+      you. How did you excite their displeasure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them—they were nothing to me. I
+      considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance; their
+      dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but I could not
+      understand their conversation, nor even read their countenances. When I
+      caught snatches of what they said, I could never make much of it; and the
+      play of their lips and eyes did not help me at all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as handsome
+      women in X——; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to,
+      and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
+      address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
+      remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
+      hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
+      frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
+      the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do you
+      think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if you are
+      generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Content!” I ejaculated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on you;
+      you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
+      desirable on earth—wealth, reputation, love—will for ever to
+      you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they
+      will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
+      have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them
+      sour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they drew
+      no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied since I
+      left X——, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
+      in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk—a dependant amongst
+      wealthy strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an
+      unsocial and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was
+      sure would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew
+      would be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth
+      and loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
+      leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under the
+      embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he was, penetrate
+      into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar sympathies and
+      antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well enough, to perceive
+      how low my feelings would ebb under some influences, powerful over most
+      minds; how high, how fast they would flow under other influences, that
+      perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, because they acted on me
+      alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant the history of my
+      communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him and to all others was the
+      tale of her strange infatuation; her blandishments, her wiles had been
+      seen but by me, and to me only were they known; but they had changed me,
+      for they had proved that I <em>could</em> impress. A sweeter secret
+      nestled deeper
+      in my heart; one full of tenderness and as full of strength: it took the
+      sting out of Hunsden’s sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred
+      by wrath. But of all this I could say nothing—nothing decisive at
+      least; uncertainty sealed my lips, and during the interval of silence by
+      which alone I replied to Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the
+      present wholly misjudged by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had
+      been rather too hard upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his
+      upbraidings; so to re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day;
+      I was only at the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite
+      without sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+      twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
+      minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved, however,
+      he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he was
+      fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as to
+      say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone in my
+      waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m independent
+      of both Fate and Fortune.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hunsden—you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like
+      better than your X—— hot-house grapes—an unique fruit,
+      growing wild, which I have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather
+      and taste. It is of no use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or
+      threatening me with death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness
+      on my palate; the hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the
+      unsavoury, and endure the exhausting.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “For how long?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will be
+      a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the
+      struggle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
+      dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
+      people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a wooden
+      spoon will shovel up broth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who develop
+      best unwatched, and act best unaided—work your own way. Now, I’ll go.”
+       And, without another word, he was going; at the door he turned:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Sold!” was my echo.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! Edward Crimsworth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went
+      awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
+      would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ay, as to him—what is become of him?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nothing extraordinary—don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the
+      protection of the court, compounded with his creditors—tenpence in
+      the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
+      flourishing like a green bay-tree.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And Crimsworth Hall—was the furniture sold too?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Everything—from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And the contents of the oak dining-room—were they sold?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
+      sacred than those of any other?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And the pictures?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of—he
+      did not profess to be an amateur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
+      have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I know—the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+      drapery. Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
+      things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember you
+      said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a sou.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so
+      poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet. Who purchased it?
+      do you know?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
+      the unpractical man—to imagine all the world is interested in what
+      interests himself! Now, good night—I’m off for Germany to-morrow
+      morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call and
+      see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!” he laughed,
+      as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so laughing, vanished.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
+      space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just at
+      parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a draught
+      of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially harsh,
+      stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely knew.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night after
+      this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my slumber
+      become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in my sitting
+      room, to which my bed-room adjoined—a step, and a shoving of
+      furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing of the
+      door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I had dreamt it;
+      perhaps a <i lang="fr">locataire</i> had made a mistake, and entered my
+      apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor
+      the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
+      rise, about two  hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
+      thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed in
+      at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a wooden
+      packing-case—a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter had doubtless
+      shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had left it at the
+      entrance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for
+      somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No —, — St., Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information was
+      to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize enveloped
+      its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the pack-thread with
+      my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses of gilding
+      appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize being at
+      length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a magnificent
+      frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the light from the
+      window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back—already I had mounted
+      my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and threatening
+      of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of hue, raised in
+      full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed with soft dark
+      hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds; large, solemn eyes
+      looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested on a delicate little
+      hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half showed a slight figure.
+      A listener (had there been one) might have heard me, after ten minutes’
+      silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might have said more—but
+      with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy rouses consciousness;
+      it reminds me that only crazy people talk to themselves, and then I think
+      out my monologue, instead of speaking it. I had thought a long while, and
+      a long while had contemplated the intelligence, the sweetness, and—alas!
+      the sadness also of those fine, grey eyes, the mental power of that
+      forehead, and the rare sensibility of that serious mouth, when my glance,
+      travelling downwards, fell on a narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the
+      picture, between the frame and the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent
+      this picture? Who thought of me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth
+      Hall, and now commits it to the care of its natural keeper?” I took the
+      note from its niche; thus it spoke:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
+      bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
+      with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of
+      him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone. In
+      giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets, bells,
+      and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold the result;
+      I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the auctioneer could
+      only have promised me that pleasure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “H. Y. H.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “P.S.—You said last night you positively declined adding another
+      item to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that
+      trouble?”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
+      case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it out
+      of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain; I
+      determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden had
+      come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you nothing,
+      Hunsden—not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself in
+      taunts!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
+      than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find him
+      at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but fancying I
+      might be able to glean information as to the time when his return was
+      expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated, for though
+      the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over to Brussels on
+      business for the day. He received me with the quiet kindness of a sincere
+      though not excitable man. I had not sat five minutes alone with him in his
+      bureau, before I became aware of a sense of ease in his presence, such as
+      I rarely experienced with strangers. I was surprised at my own composure,
+      for, after all, I had come on business to me exceedingly painful—that
+      of soliciting a favour. I asked on what basis the calm rested—I
+      feared it might be deceptive. Ere long I caught a glimpse of the ground,
+      and at once I felt assured of its solidity; I knew where it was.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised and
+      powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the world’s
+      society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our positions were
+      reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure Hollandais) was slow,
+      cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound and accurate judgment;
+      the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker both to plan and to
+      practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman was benevolent, the
+      Englishman susceptible; in short our characters dovetailed, but my mind
+      having more fire and action than his, instinctively assumed and kept the
+      predominance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him on
+      the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
+      confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
+      to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
+      exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not so
+      much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself; of him I
+      did not want exertion—that was to be my part—but only
+      information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
+      hand at parting—an action of greater significance with foreigners
+      than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
+      benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
+      own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
+      of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence during
+      its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which are
+      specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
+      expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
+      zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
+      each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
+      on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure them
+      for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were vain—the
+      door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in, or another
+      candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance useless.
+      Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat following fast
+      on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot fastidiousness, conquered
+      reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I persevered, I remonstrated, I
+      dunned. It is so that openings are forced into the guarded circle where
+      Fortune sits dealing favours round. My perseverance made me known; my
+      importunity made me remarked. I was inquired about; my former pupils’
+      parents, gathering the reports of their children, heard me spoken of as
+      talented, and they echoed the word: the sound, bandied about at random,
+      came at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never have
+      reached; and at the very crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew
+      not what to do, Fortune looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and
+      almost desperate deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity
+      of an old acquaintance—though God knows I had never met her before—and
+      threw a prize into my lap.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the second week of October, 18—, I got the appointment of English
+      professor to all the classes of —— College, Brussels, with a
+      salary of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being
+      able, by dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position,
+      to make as much more by private means. The official notice, which
+      communicated this information, mentioned also that it was the strong
+      recommendation of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of
+      choice in my favour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s
+      bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused it,
+      took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity. My vivid
+      words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted sensation. He
+      said he was happy—glad to have served me; but he had done nothing
+      meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime—only scratched a
+      few words on a sheet of paper.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Again I repeated to him—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not feel
+      an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel disposed
+      to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day you must
+      consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall hereafter
+      recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
+      content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0023">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just brought
+      in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down thinking to
+      eat—had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken glass,
+      instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more signal
+      failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food which I could
+      not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then demanded, “What
+      shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would be vain to seek the
+      Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me it had but one) was
+      detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the streets of Brussels,
+      and I walked in my own room from two o’clock till six; never once in that
+      space of time did I sit down. I was in my chamber when the last-named hour
+      struck; I had just bathed my face and feverish hands, and was standing
+      near the glass; my cheek was crimson, my eye was flame, still all my
+      features looked quite settled and calm. Descending swiftly the stair and
+      stepping out, I was glad to see Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade
+      was to me like a grateful screen, and the chill of latter Autumn,
+      breathing in a fitful wind from the north-west, met me as a refreshing
+      coolness. Still I saw it was cold to others, for the women I passed were
+      wrapped in shawls, and the men had their coats buttoned close.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
+      worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
+      tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had seen
+      her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered her letter
+      by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of continued
+      correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my bark hung on
+      the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what shoal the
+      onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then attach her
+      destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split on the rock,
+      or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other vessel should
+      share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and could it be that she
+      was still well and doing well? Were not all sages agreed in declaring that
+      happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared I think that but half a street
+      now divided me from the full cup of contentment—the draught drawn
+      from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
+      lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
+      green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer; I
+      am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly staying my
+      eager step, I paused on the mat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to myself. A
+      little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied; a movement—a
+      fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life continuing, a step
+      paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the
+      apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated when a voice
+      rewarded the attention of my strained ear—so low, so self-addressed,
+      I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone; solitude might speak
+      thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken house.
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      “‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">‘Was yon dark cavern trod;</span><br>
+      In persecution’s iron days,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">When the land was left by God.</span>
+     </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">A wanderer hither drew;</span><br>
+      And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">As by fits the night-winds blew.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      For trampling round by Cheviot-edge<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Were heard the troopers keen;</span><br>
+      And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">The death-shot flash’d between.’” &amp;c. &amp;c.
+      </span>
+</p>
+<p>
+      The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued; then
+      another strain followed, in French, of which the purport, translated, ran
+      as follows:—
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     I gave, at first, attention close;<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Then interest warm ensued;</span><br>
+     From interest, as improvement rose,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Succeeded gratitude.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Obedience was no effort soon,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And labour was no pain;</span><br>
+     If tired, a word, a glance alone<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Would give me strength again.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     From others of the studious band,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Ere long he singled me;</span><br>
+     But only by more close demand,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And sterner urgency.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The task he from another took,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> From me he did reject;</span><br>
+     He would no slight omission brook,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And suffer no defect.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     If my companions went astray,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He scarce their wanderings blam’d;</span><br>
+     If I but falter’d in the way,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> His anger fiercely flam’d.</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+      Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be surprised
+      eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered. Frances was just
+      before me; she had been walking slowly in her room, and her step was
+      checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and tranquil, ruddy
+      Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark, she had been
+      speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s voice, to her a
+      foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered itself in the first
+      stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and the substance, was the
+      language of her own heart. Her face was grave, its expression
+      concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye—an eye just returning
+      from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged was her simple
+      attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room; but what—with
+      her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her bent to meditation and
+      haply inspiration—what had she to do with love? “Nothing,” was the
+      answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it seemed to say, “I
+      must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is to be my support and
+      the other my solace through life. Human affections do not bloom, nor do
+      human passions glow for me.” Other women have such thoughts. Frances, had
+      she been as desolate as she deemed, would not have been worse off than
+      thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and formal race of old maids—the
+      race whom all despise; they have fed themselves, from youth upwards, on
+      maxims of resignation and endurance. Many of them get ossified with the
+      dry diet; self-control is so continually their thought, so perpetually
+      their object, that at last it absorbs the softer and more agreeable
+      qualities of their nature; and they die mere models of austerity,
+      fashioned out of a little parchment and much bone. Anatomists will tell
+      you that there is a heart in the withered old maid’s carcass—the
+      same as in that of any cherished wife or proud mother in the land. Can
+      this be so? I really don’t know; but feel inclined to doubt it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair I
+      had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little table
+      where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had fully
+      recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft but
+      quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took her
+      cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met, as
+      master and pupil—nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
+      Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought a
+      candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the lattice,
+      and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright fire, she drew
+      a second chair to the table and sat down at my right hand, a little
+      removed. The paper on the top was a translation of some grave French
+      author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with stanzas; on this I
+      laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to recover the captured
+      spoil, saying, that was nothing—a mere copy of verses. I put by
+      resistance with the decision I knew she never long opposed; but on this
+      occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I had quietly to unloose
+      them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand shrunk away; my own would
+      fain have followed it, but for the present I forbade such impulse. The
+      first page of the sheet was occupied with the lines I had overheard; the
+      sequel was not exactly the writer’s own experience, but a composition by
+      portions of that experience suggested. Thus while egotism was avoided, the
+      fancy was exercised, and the heart satisfied. I translate as before, and
+      my translation is nearly literal; it continued thus:—
+    </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+     When sickness stay’d awhile my course,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">He seem’d impatient still,</span><br>
+     Because his pupil’s flagging force<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Could not obey his will.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     One day when summoned to the bed<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Where pain and I did strive,</span><br>
+     I heard him, as he bent his head,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Say, “God, she <em>must</em> revive!”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     I felt his hand, with gentle stress,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A moment laid on mine,</span><br>
+     And wished to mark my consciousness<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> By some responsive sign.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     But pow’rless then to speak or move,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I only felt, within,</span><br>
+     The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Their healing work begin.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     And as he from the room withdrew,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My heart his steps pursued;</span><br>
+     I long’d to prove, by efforts new;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My speechless gratitude.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     When once again I took my place,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Long vacant, in the class,</span><br>
+     Th’ unfrequent smile across his face<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Did for one moment pass.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The lessons done; the signal made<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Of glad release and play,</span><br>
+     He, as he passed, an instant stay’d,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> One kindly word to say.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Jane, till to-morrow you are free<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> From tedious task and rule;</span><br>
+     This afternoon I must not see<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> That yet pale face in school.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Seek in the garden-shades a seat,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Far from the play-ground din;</span><br>
+     The sun is warm, the air is sweet:<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Stay till I call you in.”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     A long and pleasant afternoon<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I passed in those green bowers;</span><br>
+     All silent, tranquil, and alone<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> With birds, and bees, and flowers.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Yet, when my master’s voice I heard<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Call, from the window, “Jane!”</span><br>
+     I entered, joyful, at the word,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The busy house again.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He, in the hall, paced up and down;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He paused as I passed by;</span><br>
+     His forehead stern relaxed its frown:<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He raised his deep-set eye.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Not quite so pale,” he murmured low.<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> “Now Jane, go rest awhile.”</span><br>
+     And as I smiled, his smoothened brow<br>
+     <span class="poemindent">Returned as glad a smile.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     My perfect health restored, he took<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> His mien austere again;</span><br>
+     And, as before, he would not brook<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The slightest fault from Jane.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The longest task, the hardest theme<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Fell to my share as erst,</span><br>
+     And still I toiled to place my name<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In every study first.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He yet begrudged and stinted praise,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> But I had learnt to read</span><br>
+     The secret meaning of his face,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And that was my best meed.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Even when his hasty temper spoke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In tones that sorrow stirred,</span><br>
+     My grief was lulled as soon as woke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> By some relenting word.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     And when he lent some precious book,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Or gave some fragrant flower,</span><br>
+     I did not quail to Envy’s look,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Upheld by Pleasure’s power.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     At last our school ranks took their ground,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The hard-fought field I won;</span><br>
+     The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My throbbing forehead on.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Low at my master’s knee I bent,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The offered crown to meet;</span><br>
+     Its green leaves through my temples sent<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A thrill as wild as sweet.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The strong pulse of Ambition struck<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In every vein I owned;</span><br>
+     At the same instant, bleeding broke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A secret, inward wound.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The hour of triumph was to me<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The hour of sorrow sore;</span><br>
+     A day hence I must cross the sea,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Ne’er to recross it more.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     An hour hence, in my master’s room<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I with him sat alone,</span><br>
+     And told him what a dreary gloom<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> O’er joy had parting thrown.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He little said; the time was brief,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The ship was soon to sail,</span><br>
+     And while I sobbed in bitter grief,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My master but looked pale.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     They called in haste; he bade me go,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Then snatched me back again;</span><br>
+     He held me fast and murmured low,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent">“Why will they part us, Jane?”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Were you not happy in my care?<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Did I not faithful prove?</span><br>
+     Will others to my darling bear<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> As true, as deep a love?</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “O God, watch o’er my foster child!<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> O guard her gentle head!</span><br>
+     When minds are high and tempests wild<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Protection round her spread!</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “They call again; leave then my breast;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Quit thy true shelter, Jane;</span><br>
+     But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Come home to me again!”</span>
+ </p>
+<p>
+      I read—then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil;
+      thinking all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my
+      side; no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
+      affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were far
+      away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the Master’s
+      manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no
+      further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress
+      its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted to suffer the outward
+      revelation of the inward glow—to seek, demand, elicit an answering
+      ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass on Hermon never drank
+      the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my feelings drank the bliss
+      of this hour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire, which
+      did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little ornaments on the
+      mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me; slight, straight, and
+      elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control us,
+      because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere we have
+      seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether bad;
+      perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that is finished
+      ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct meditates, and
+      feels justified in remaining passive while it is performed. I know I did
+      not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, whereas one moment I was
+      sitting solus on the chair near the table, the next, I held Frances on my
+      knee, placed there with sharpness and decision, and retained with
+      exceeding tenacity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
+      lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
+      moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
+      fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
+      before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
+      have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
+      resistance was useless.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer; the
+      situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
+      consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
+      silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
+      question—probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my face,
+      doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
+      tranquillity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, vous me faîtes mal; de grâce lâchez un peu ma main droite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in a
+      somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time, asked
+      more gently—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, how much regard have you for me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?—to
+      accept me as your husband?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast
+      its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult the
+      eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,—“Monsieur désire savoir si
+      je consens—si—enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Justement.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a été bon maître?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will try, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice—an
+      inflexion which provoked while it pleased me—accompanied, too, by a
+      “sourire à la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est à dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entêté exigeant,
+      volontaire—?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have I been so, Frances?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais oui; vous le savez bien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have I been nothing else?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais oui; vous avez été mon meilleur ami.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And what, Frances, are you to me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Votre dévouée élève, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
+      Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly, ran
+      thus:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to see
+      you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
+      superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but you
+      are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they are not
+      clever. Master, I should be <em>glad</em> to live with you always;” and
+      she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
+      restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis—“Master, I
+      consent to pass my life with you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her lips,
+      thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she and I
+      were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during this
+      interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not occupied
+      in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure.
+      The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained
+      her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long as no opposition
+      tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was measuring its own
+      content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth fathomless.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her happiness
+      as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely lifted her
+      head.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
+      overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
+      importunate caresses.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do you
+      ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
+      tranquil enough?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ce n’est pas cela—” began Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “English!” I reminded her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course, to
+      retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
+      monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bon!—I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I
+      like that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours—will
+      they not, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you—no burden in any
+      way.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have left
+      M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another place,
+      with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily double
+      by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless for you
+      to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand francs you
+      and I can live, and live well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s
+      strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
+      becoming the providence of what he loves—feeding and clothing it, as
+      God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
+      on:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
+      require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
+      important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
+      it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
+      happiness of giving you rest.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
+      instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
+      sighed and said,—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my arms.
+      “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve hundred!”
+       She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present; and,
+      monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my place? Oh
+      no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically tightened
+      on mine.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do it;
+      and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close, noisy
+      school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering at
+      home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and you
+      would soon tire of me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, you could read and study—two things you like so well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an active
+      life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have taken
+      notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company for
+      amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so
+      highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own way,
+      for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent, give me a
+      voluntary kiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
+      brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I took
+      the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
+      interest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time I first
+      saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was singularly
+      changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected and joyless
+      countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite gone, and now
+      I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint rounded its
+      contours and brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a
+      flattering idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular
+      perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not rich, she was
+      not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s treasure; I must then be a
+      man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes opened on the mistake I had
+      made; I began to suspect that it was only my tastes which were unique, not
+      my power of discovering and appreciating the superiority of moral worth
+      over physical charms. For me Frances had physical charms: in her there was
+      no deformity to get over; none of those prominent defects of eyes, teeth,
+      complexion, shape, which hold at bay the admiration of the boldest male
+      champions of intellect (for women can love a downright ugly man if he be
+      but talented); had she been either “édentée, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,”
+      my feelings towards her might still have been kindly, but they could never
+      have been impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen
+      Sylvie, but for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’
+      mental points had been the first to interest me, and they still retained
+      the strongest hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person
+      too. I derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the
+      clearness of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of
+      her well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
+      I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
+      sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey fresh
+      from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious; taste
+      then a little gall—just a drop, by way of change.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
+      forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
+      drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all day,
+      and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a fortnight
+      past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few hours had
+      been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long after
+      midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed. At last I
+      dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, and my waking
+      was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face, and like him,
+      “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the parallel, for in
+      truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly brought unto me,
+      and mine ear received a little thereof; there was silence, and I heard a
+      voice,” saying—“In the midst of life we are in death.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many would
+      have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the effect
+      of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was my mortal
+      nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred and gave a
+      false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an aim, had
+      overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great darkness
+      fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, but
+      had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to hypochondria.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I had
+      entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had
+      her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out
+      with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit
+      together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky
+      and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom,
+      and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such
+      hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would discourse to
+      me of her own country—the grave—and again and again promise to
+      conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink of a black,
+      sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal with mound,
+      monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight.
+      “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, “It
+      contains a mansion prepared for you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister; and
+      there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress, finding me
+      lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few objects,
+      glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and slender
+      hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance, and lure me
+      to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells <em>then</em> had
+      power; but <em>now</em>, when my course was widening, my prospect
+      brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding
+      wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of
+      fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
+      hand—why did hypochondria accost me now?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
+      embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
+      sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
+      Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
+      returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all the
+      time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad when
+      the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, and sit
+      at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0024">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
+      made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
+      being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
+      under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary. Frances
+      was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her; and I was just
+      thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her tongue, when she
+      stopped and remarked—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+      passing—Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
+      features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden; he
+      was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
+      grimace at me, and passed on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Who is he?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A person I knew in England.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, he does know you, in his way.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade her
+      to adopt any more familiar term.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So you
+      have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of your
+      kind!’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon gone.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me
+      this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt he
+      will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your rooms?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If you please, monsieur—I have no objection; I think, indeed, I
+      should rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he
+      said was:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your
+      appointment to —— College, and all that; Brown has told me.”
+       Then he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two
+      since; afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame
+      Pelet-Reuter with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to
+      utter a rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself,
+      and, seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I
+      see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with
+      another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up
+      in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But the lady?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better
+      than you—no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to
+      see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These
+      foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She
+      has not been married to him three months—he must be a spoon!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always
+      talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraïde
+      yourself!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraïde?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; nor Madame Zoraïde either.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why did you tell a lie, then?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine—a
+      Swiss girl.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Married! I think I shall—if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer.
+      That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me
+      careless of your hothouse grapes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stop! No boasting—no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To
+      what <em>caste</em> does she belong?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word <em>caste</em>,
+      and, in fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of
+      his old ——shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable
+      and respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of
+      his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have
+      thought of taking a wife from a <em>caste</em> inferior to his own, as a
+      Stanley would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I
+      should give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and
+      leaning over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed
+      glee, I said concisely—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She is a lace-mender.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden examined me. He did not <em>say</em> he was surprised, but
+      surprised he was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he
+      suspected I was going to take some very rash step; but repressing
+      declamation or remonstrance, he only answered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may make
+      a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care to
+      ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or station,
+      she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think most likely
+      to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “None in Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I cannot
+      but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a bore to
+      you to your life’s end.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was
+      quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which
+      he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me
+      that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined and
+      thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or indeed
+      for anything but indulgence and forbearance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face
+      looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your
+      future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious
+      soul.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity
+      of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, that is the name! Yes—if it would be convenient, I should like
+      to see her—but——.” He hesitated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should on no account wish to intrude.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a rash,
+      imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart, in her
+      poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real
+      gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the harsh
+      husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked
+      affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been
+      so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the
+      stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair
+      which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He turned;
+      in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at having made the
+      mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive us;
+      her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but withal very
+      distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing to beauty, but much
+      to dignity; the finish of the white collar and manchettes sufficed for a
+      relief to the merino gown of solemn black; ornament was forsworn. Frances
+      curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as she always did, when one first
+      accosted her, more a woman to respect than to love; I introduced Mr.
+      Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness at making his acquaintance in
+      French. The pure and polished accent, the low yet sweet and rather full
+      voice, produced their effect immediately; Hunsden spoke French in reply; I
+      had not heard him speak that language before; he managed it very well. I
+      retired to the window-seat; Mr. Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation,
+      occupied a chair near the hearth; from my position I could see them both,
+      and the room too, at a glance. The room was so clean and bright, it looked
+      like a little polished cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre
+      of the table, a fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an
+      air of <i lang="fr">fête</i>. Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden
+      subdued, but both
+      mutually polite; they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics
+      were discussed with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen
+      two such models of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the
+      foreign tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his
+      sentences, with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
+      mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
+      she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach of
+      sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
+      glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
+      complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
+      before, she had only looked ladylike.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+      island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
+      ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
+      this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
+      snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
+      before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+      forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
+      interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at once
+      to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself; as Frances
+      was herself, and in none but his own language would he now address her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You understand English?” was the prefatory question.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A little.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not much
+      more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me with his
+      thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little country
+      called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in your
+      looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible that
+      anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a mere
+      name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five minutes
+      ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort of Swiss
+      sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “England is your country?” asked Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you don’t like it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
+      nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ——shire), and
+      helpless pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices
+      everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St.
+      Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works.
+      Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk in
+      blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English
+      cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black
+      hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of Infamy
+      wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her favourite
+      paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched hovels——”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was
+      thinking of the good side—of what is elevated in your character as a
+      nation.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There is no good side—none at least of which you can have any
+      knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+      achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness of
+      education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you from
+      understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical
+      associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you
+      alluded to such humbug.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I did partly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden laughed—his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such
+      associations give no pleasure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its
+      length, breadth, weight, value—ay, <em>value</em>? What price will it
+      bring in the market?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+      association, be without price.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely,
+      too, somewhere; for he coloured—a thing not unusual with him, when
+      hit unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened his
+      eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his
+      antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as he would
+      like to be loved—some one whose love he could unreservedly return.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer
+      wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is,
+      and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can
+      conceive, and angels the most elevated existences—if one of them—if
+      Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly
+      stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth
+      from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+      hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned ‘with retorted scorn.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it was
+      when the word “hell” twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat startling
+      emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of admiration.
+      He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked whatever
+      dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard a lady say
+      “hell” with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound pleased him
+      from a lady’s lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike the string
+      again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric vigour never
+      gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or flashed in her
+      countenance when extraordinary circumstances—and those generally
+      painful—forced it out of the depths where it burned latent. To me,
+      once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered venturous
+      thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such manifestation was
+      past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of itself departed.
+      Hunsden’s excitations she put by soon with a smile, and recurring to the
+      theme of disputation, said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should have thought no child would have asked that question,” replied
+      Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for
+      stupidity those who asked it of him. “If you had been my pupil, as I
+      suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character
+      not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a
+      confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can’t you see that it is our
+      <em>gold</em> which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss
+      servility?” And he sneered diabolically.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Swiss?” said Frances, catching the word “servility.” “Do you call my
+      countrymen servile?” and she started up. I could not suppress a low laugh;
+      there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. “Do you abuse
+      Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no associations? Do
+      you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what vice and
+      degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave quite out of my
+      heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our blood-earned freedom,
+      and the natural glories of our mountains? You’re mistaken—you’re
+      mistaken.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible
+      fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract
+      idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their
+      blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You never were in Switzerland?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—I have been there twice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You know nothing of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I do.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says ‘Poor Poll,’ or as
+      the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French accuse
+      them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There is truth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an
+      unpractical woman, for you don’t acknowledge what really exists; you want
+      to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as an atheist
+      would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their existence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent—I thought we were
+      talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “We were—and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary
+      to-morrow (which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You would be mad, then—mad as a March hare—to indulge in a
+      passion for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not so mad as you who love nothing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There’s a method in my madness; there’s none in yours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of the
+      refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You cannot reason at all,” said Hunsden; “there is no logic in you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Better to be without logic than without feeling,” retorted Frances, who
+      was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table,
+      intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for
+      she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without feeling?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those of
+      other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that, and
+      the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because you
+      imagine it to be inconsistent with logic.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I do right.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon
+      reappeared.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just be
+      so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something to
+      cook.” (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire; then,
+      while she stirred its contents:) “Right! as if it were right to crush any
+      pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially any sentiment
+      that, like patriotism, spreads man’s selfishness in wider circles” (fire
+      stirred, dish put down before it).
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Were you born in Switzerland?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And where did you get your English features and figure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have a
+      right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two
+      noble, free, and fortunate countries.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had an English mother?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from Utopia,
+      since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, I’m a universal patriot, if you could understand me
+      rightly: my country is the world.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have the
+      goodness to come to table. Monsieur” (to me who appeared to be now
+      absorbed in reading by moonlight)—“Monsieur, supper is served.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been
+      bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden—not so short, graver and softer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of
+      staying.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have only
+      the alternative of eating it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but tasty
+      dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad and
+      “fromage Français,” completed it. The business of eating interposed a
+      brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper disposed of
+      than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute ran on the spirit
+      of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to exist strongly in
+      Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment of the Swiss to
+      freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it, not only because she
+      was unskilled to argue, but because her own real opinions on the point in
+      question happened to coincide pretty nearly with Mr. Hunsden’s, and she
+      only contradicted him out of opposition. At last she gave in, confessing
+      that she thought as he thought, but bidding him take notice that she did
+      not consider herself beaten.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No more did the French at Waterloo,” said Hunsden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There is no comparison between the cases,” rejoined Frances; “mine was a
+      sham fight.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sham or real, it’s up with you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case where
+      my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when I had not
+      another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by dumb
+      determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have been
+      conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite of the
+      laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics. I would
+      do as he did.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort
+      of stubborn stuff in you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I’d scorn
+      the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature of our
+      heroic William in his soul.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Does not <em>ass</em> mean <em>baudet</em>?” asked Frances, turning to
+      me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, no,” replied I, “it means an <i lang="fr">esprit-fort</i>; and now,”
+      I continued, as I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between
+      these two, “it is high time to go.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden rose. “Good bye,” said he to Frances; “I shall be off for this
+      glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before I
+      come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I’ll seek you out, and you
+      shall see if I don’t find means to make you fiercer than a dragon. You’ve
+      done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall challenge me
+      outright. Meantime you’re doomed to become Mrs. William Crimsworth, I
+      suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit; cherish it, and
+      give the Professor the full benefit thereof.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you married, Mr. Hunsden?” asked Frances, suddenly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my
+      look.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, whenever you marry don’t take a wife out of Switzerland; for if you
+      begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons—above all, if
+      you mention the word <em>ass</em> in the same breath with the name Tell
+      (for ass <em>is</em> baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to
+      translate it <i lang="fr">esprit-fort</i>) your mountain maid will some
+      night smother her Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare’s Othello
+      smothered Desdemona.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am warned,” said Hunsden; “and so are you, lad,” (nodding to me). “I
+      hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which
+      the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched—you,
+      however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!” He bowed on her
+      hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron;
+      adding—“Death from such fingers would not be without charms.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon Dieu!” murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her
+      distinctly arched brows; “c’est qu’il fait des compliments! je ne m’y suis
+      pas attendu.” She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with
+      foreign grace, and so they parted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And that is your lace-mender?” said he; “and you reckon you have done a
+      fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of
+      Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up
+      with an <i lang="fr">ouvrière</i>! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his
+      feelings had misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low
+      match!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just let go my collar, Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the
+      waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a tug for
+      it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with difficulty
+      picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, that’s my lace-mender,” said I; “and she is to be mine for life—God
+      willing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “God is not willing—you can’t suppose it; what business have you to
+      be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of
+      respect, too, and says, ‘Monsieur’ and modulates her tone in addressing
+      you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince
+      more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the
+      supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hunsden, you’re a puppy. But you’ve only seen the title-page of my
+      happiness; you don’t know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the
+      interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden—speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+      street—desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+      dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till my
+      sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Don’t be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not good
+      enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up to my ideal
+      of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that pale-faced, excitable
+      little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely more of the nervous, mobile
+      Parisienne in her than of the the robust ‘jungfrau’). Your Mdlle. Henri is
+      in person <i lang="fr">chétive</i>, in mind
+      <i lang="fr">sans caractère</i>, compared with the queen of my visions.
+      You, indeed, may put up with that <i lang="fr">minois chiffoné</i>; but
+      when I marry I must have straighter and more harmonious features, to say
+      nothing of a nobler and better developed shape than that perverse,
+      ill-thriven child can boast.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,”
+       said I, “and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless,
+      fullest-blooded of Ruben’s painted women—leave me only my Alpine
+      peri, and I’ll not envy you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither
+      said “God bless you;” yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0025">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her
+      aunt. One January morning—the first of the new year holidays—I
+      went in a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre
+      Dame aux Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found
+      Frances apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate
+      to that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in
+      any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+      window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her
+      array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal
+      because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head, and
+      hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it to her
+      thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each side of
+      her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when I asked her
+      if she were ready, she said “Yes, monsieur,” with something very like a
+      checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the table, and folded
+      it round her, not only did tear after tear course unbidden down her cheek,
+      but she shook to my ministration like a reed. I said I was sorry to see
+      her in such low spirits, and requested to be allowed an insight into the
+      origin thereof. She only said, “It was impossible to help it,” and then
+      voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting her hand into mine, accompanied me
+      out of the room, and ran downstairs with a quick, uncertain step, like one
+      who was eager to get some formidable piece of business over. I put her
+      into the fiacre. M. Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside
+      himself; we drove all together to the Protestant chapel, went through a
+      certain service in the Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married.
+      M. Vandenhuten had given the bride away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity of
+      our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not
+      exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house I
+      had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the scene
+      of our avocations lay.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her
+      bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials, a
+      piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing decoration
+      of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly furnished though
+      not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a chiffonière some
+      books, which I handed to her from the table. It was snowing fast out of
+      doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and cold; the leaden sky seemed
+      full of drifts, and the street was already ankle-deep in the white
+      downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new habitation looked brilliantly
+      clean and fresh, the furniture was all arranged, and there were but some
+      articles of glass, china, books, &amp;c., to put in order. Frances found
+      in this business occupation till tea-time, and then, after I had
+      distinctly instructed her how to make a cup of tea in rational English
+      style, and after she had got over the dismay occasioned by seeing such an
+      extravagant amount of material put into the pot, she administered to me a
+      proper British repast, at which there wanted neither candles nor urn,
+      firelight nor comfort.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Our week’s holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour. Both
+      my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were working
+      people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the most
+      assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part every
+      morning at eight o’clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but into what
+      sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking down the
+      vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little parlour like a
+      long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past. Unvaried were
+      they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and burning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a <i lang="fr">fête</i>, and
+      we had the day to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness
+      peculiar to her when she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last,
+      having come to a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the
+      touchstone of my judgment:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t work enough.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What now?” demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been
+      deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed
+      to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain
+      farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. “What now?” and I saw at
+      once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital importance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am not satisfied,” returned she; “you are now earning eight thousand
+      francs a year” (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my
+      pupils’ progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me on),
+      “while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I <em>can</em> do
+      better, and I <em>will</em>.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am convinced
+      of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You wish to change—you have a plan for progress in your mind; go
+      and put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of
+      it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She went—as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious
+      mixture of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and
+      wondering what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I have given Minnie” (our bonne) “leave to go out too, as it is
+      so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take the
+      key with you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth,” was my not very apposite reply; but she looked
+      so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet, and her
+      manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly and suavely
+      respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and a kiss seemed
+      necessary to content its importunity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you always call me ‘Monsieur’? Say, ‘William.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I cannot pronounce your W; besides, ‘Monsieur’ belongs to you; I like it
+      best.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out,
+      leaving the house solitary and silent—silent, at least, but for the
+      ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields received
+      us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding
+      <i lang="fr">chaussées</i>. Ere
+      long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded, it might have
+      been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of short and mossy
+      grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting to be declined; we
+      took it, and when we had admired and examined some English-looking
+      wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances’ attention and my own
+      to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What was her plan?” A natural one—the next step to be mounted by
+      us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She
+      proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on a
+      careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed, too,
+      by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense
+      advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting
+      acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in
+      schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan, she
+      intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If we only
+      had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure, in time
+      realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too old to
+      enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder us from
+      going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was not one
+      who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively inactive.
+      Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to do—and
+      exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred in her
+      frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine was not the
+      hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in offering them
+      sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have conceived a plan, Frances,” said I, “and a good plan; execute
+      it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is
+      wanted, ask and you shall have.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon
+      brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for some
+      time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than “Thank
+      you, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer moon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings; years
+      of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and my wife,
+      having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as progress
+      whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were strangers to
+      amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as our course ran side by
+      side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither murmured, repented, nor
+      faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us up; harmony of thought
+      and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally, success bestowed every
+      now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our school became one of the
+      most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees we raised our terms and
+      elevated our system of education, our choice of pupils grew more select,
+      and at length included the children of the best families in Belgium. We
+      had too an excellent connection in England, first opened by the
+      unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who having been over, and
+      having abused me for my prosperity in set terms, went back, and soon after
+      sent a leash of young ——shire heiresses—his cousins; as
+      he said “to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another
+      woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was she
+      under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The
+      faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained
+      fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out broad,
+      and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness, activity,
+      and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling and fervour;
+      but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy under the
+      umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in the world
+      knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever ready to
+      yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as radiant.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the
+      directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on
+      her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately
+      after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college, she
+      to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day, I found
+      her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry, observance,
+      attending on her presence. When not actually teaching, she was overlooking
+      and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared vigilant and solicitous.
+      When communicating instruction, her aspect was more animated; she seemed
+      to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation. The language in which she
+      addressed her pupils, though simple and unpretending, was never trite or
+      dry; she did not speak from routine formulas—she made her own
+      phrases as she went on, and very nervous and impressive phrases they
+      frequently were; often, when elucidating favourite points of history, or
+      geography, she would wax genuinely eloquent in her earnestness. Her
+      pupils, or at least the elder and more intelligent amongst them,
+      recognized well the language of a superior mind; they felt too, and some
+      of them received the impression of elevated sentiments; there was little
+      fondling between mistress and girls, but some of Frances’ pupils in time
+      learnt to love her sincerely, all of them beheld her with respect; her
+      general demeanour towards them was serious; sometimes benignant when they
+      pleased her with their progress and attention, always scrupulously refined
+      and considerate. In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she
+      was usually forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that
+      forbearance, which sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like
+      severity taught the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes
+      a gleam of tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare;
+      only when a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of
+      some little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions,
+      whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt of
+      the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble
+      fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was to
+      their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after them
+      she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat by the
+      stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to receive some
+      little dole of cake or fruit—to sit on a footstool at the fireside—to
+      enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for an evening together—to
+      be spoken to gently and softly, comforted, encouraged, cherished—and
+      when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss of true tenderness. As to Julia
+      and Georgiana G——, daughters of an English baronet, as to
+      Mdlle. Mathilde de ——, heiress of a Belgian count, and sundry
+      other children of patrician race, the directress was careful of them as of
+      the others, anxious for their progress, as for that of the rest—but
+      it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish them by a mark of
+      preference; one girl of noble blood she loved dearly—a young Irish
+      baroness—lady Catherine ——; but it was for her
+      enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius, the
+      title and rank went for nothing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
+      that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which she
+      would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
+      pupils to learn their characters, to be “<i lang="fr">au courant</i>”
+      with everything that
+      was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her, to
+      be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it, and
+      this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils to fall
+      asleep, and never making any change of importance without my cognizance
+      and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my lessons (lessons in
+      literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most fixedly attentive of
+      any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when she did it was with an
+      air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her joy to make me still the
+      master in all things.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At six o’clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for my home
+      was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private sitting-room,
+      the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and Frances Henri, my
+      own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my arms; much
+      disappointed she would have been if her master had not been as constant to
+      the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not been prompt to
+      answer her soft, “Bon soir, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for her
+      wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been injudicious,
+      for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage its renewal.
+      Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to refresh our
+      strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we spent them all
+      in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was thoroughly
+      accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved him too absolutely
+      to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so unlimited that topics of
+      conversation could no more be wanting with him than subjects for communion
+      with her own heart. In those moments, happy as a bird with its mate, she
+      would show me what she had of vivacity, of mirth, of originality in her
+      well-dowered nature. She would show, too, some stores of raillery, of
+      “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me sometimes about what she called
+      my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices insulaires,” with a wild and
+      witty wickedness that made a perfect white demon of her while it lasted.
+      This was rare, however, and the elfish freak was always short: sometimes
+      when driven a little hard in the war of words—for her tongue did
+      ample justice to the pith, the point, the delicacy of her native French,
+      in which language she always attacked me—I used to turn upon her
+      with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased me. Vain
+      idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf was gone; the
+      provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown eyes, and a ray of
+      gentle homage shone under the lids in its place. I had seized a mere
+      vexing fairy, and found a submissive and supplicating little mortal woman
+      in my arms. Then I made her get a book, and read English to me for an hour
+      by way of penance. I frequently dosed her with Wordsworth in this way, and
+      Wordsworth steadied her soon; she had a difficulty in comprehending his
+      deep, serene, and sober mind; his language, too, was not facile to her;
+      she had to ask questions, to sue for explanations, to be like a child and
+      a novice, and to acknowledge me as her senior and director. Her instinct
+      instantly penetrated and possessed the meaning of more ardent and
+      imaginative writers. Byron excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only
+      she puzzled at, wondered over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me in
+      French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit, or
+      inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with
+      attention; whether she smiled <em>at</em> me or <em>on</em> me, always
+      at nine o’clock I was left abandoned.
+      She would extricate herself from my arms, quit my side,
+      take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have followed her
+      sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the dortoir (the
+      pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room between the two
+      rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any were wakeful,
+      especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed them; stood some
+      minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil; trimmed the
+      watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then withdrew,
+      closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided to our own
+      chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought; there, too,
+      appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face (the night I
+      followed and observed her) changed as she approached this tiny couch; from
+      grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand the lamp she held in
+      the other; she bent above the pillow and hung over a child asleep; its
+      slumber (that evening at least, and usually, I believe) was sound and
+      calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever heated its round cheek; no
+      ill dream discomposed its budding features. Frances gazed, she did not
+      smile, and yet the deepest delight filled, flushed her face; feeling
+      pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole frame, which still was
+      motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her lips were a little apart,
+      her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child smiled; then at last the
+      mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy, “God bless my little son!”
+       She stooped closer over him, breathed the softest of kisses on his brow,
+      covered his minute hand with hers, and at last started up and came away. I
+      regained the parlour before her. Entering it two minutes later she said
+      quietly as she put down her extinguished lamp—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of our
+      marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.
+      Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a good,
+      just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she married a
+      harsh, envious, careless man—a profligate, a prodigal, a drunkard,
+      or a tyrant—is another question, and one which I once propounded to
+      her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when I
+      found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer
+      suddenly and silently.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if law or might had forced you back again?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust
+      fool?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice and
+      my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know,” she said, hastily. “Why do you ask me, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her eye,
+      whose voice I determined to waken.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to,
+      marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and
+      though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though
+      the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must
+      be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would resist as
+      far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be sure
+      of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from bad laws and their
+      consequences.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Voluntary death, Frances?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur. I’d have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate
+      assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the
+      last.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate had
+      merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you have
+      liked celibacy?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not much, certainly. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and
+      vapid—her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should have
+      spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I should
+      have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no
+      account, like other single women. But I’m not an old maid,” she added
+      quickly. “I should have been, though, but for my master. I should never
+      have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth—no other gentleman,
+      French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or handsome;
+      and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation of many
+      others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor
+      Crimsworth’s wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he
+      honourable, beloved ——?” She stopped, her voice was cut off,
+      her eyes suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she
+      threw her arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate
+      earnestness: the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then
+      dilated eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were
+      like inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a
+      power. Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where
+      all that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+      her glance so thrilling and ardent—her action so rapid and strong.
+      She looked down, smiling softly and passively:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur,” said she, “but I know that,
+      whenever it is wanted, it will come back again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an
+      independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its origin
+      in three reasons:— Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly, we
+      had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had capital
+      to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in England,
+      viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice as to the sort
+      of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was judicious; and, being
+      promptly acted on, the result proved gainful—I need not say how
+      gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten and Hunsden; nobody
+      else can be interested in hearing them.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we
+      both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in
+      which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and
+      our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on—abundance
+      to leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which,
+      properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might help
+      philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of charity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely; Frances
+      realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer and autumn in
+      travelling from end to end of the British islands, and afterwards passed a
+      winter in London. Then we thought it high time to fix our residence. My
+      heart yearned towards my native county of ——shire; and it is
+      in ——shire I now live; it is in the library of my own home I
+      am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather hilly region,
+      thirty miles removed from X——; a region whose verdure the
+      smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure, whose
+      swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between them the
+      very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her blue-bells, her
+      scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes. My house is a
+      picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and long windows, a
+      trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door, just now, on this
+      summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy. The garden is
+      chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills, with herbage
+      short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers, tiny and
+      starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine foliage. At the
+      bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which opens upon a lane as
+      green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little frequented; on the turf of
+      this lane generally appear the first daisies of spring—whence its
+      name—Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to the house.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+      wood—chiefly oak and beech—spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a very
+      old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as well as
+      more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of an individual
+      familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden Wood—for so
+      are those glades and that grey building, with many gables and more
+      chimneys, named—abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never, I
+      suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score of
+      young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to
+      assist him in the search.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he
+      has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some
+      incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides
+      here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the
+      twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each winter
+      in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to ——shire,
+      and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has a German
+      metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a dissatisfied and
+      savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played, and of whom Frances
+      affirmed that he had “tout l’air d’un conspirateur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or
+      Manchester—hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is
+      of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a
+      wider theme—European progress—the spread of liberal sentiments
+      over the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria,
+      and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk
+      vigorous sense—yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in
+      the old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight
+      was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old
+      northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard
+      much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.
+      Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical men
+      he seemed leagued hand and heart.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he
+      generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has a
+      philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on summer
+      evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the roses, with
+      which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he intimates we should
+      certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are almost sure to see him;
+      according to him, it gets on time to work me into lunacy by treading on my
+      mental corns, or to force from Mrs. Crimsworth revelations of the dragon
+      within her, by insulting the memory of Hofer and Tell.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a
+      visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are an
+      interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the absence
+      of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society gives a
+      metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the talk.
+      Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he chooses
+      to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his very
+      mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the passages
+      legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of diamond-paned
+      lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels he has collected
+      stores of articles of <i lang="fr">virtu</i>, which are well and
+      tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen there
+      one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many an
+      aristocratic connoisseur might have envied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he often
+      walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber is old and
+      of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued through glade
+      and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat long one. Many a
+      time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon, and when the night has
+      been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain nightingale has been
+      singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has lent the song a soft
+      accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one hamlet in a district of
+      ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of the wood left us at our
+      porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours, and far more quiet and
+      gentle than in the day-time and before numbers. He would then forget
+      politics and discussion, and would dwell on the past times of his house,
+      on his family history, on himself and his own feelings—subjects each
+      and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they were each and all unique.
+      One glorious night in June, after I had been taunting him about his ideal
+      bride and asking him when she would come and graft her foreign beauty on
+      the old Hunsden oak, he answered suddenly—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a
+      shadow without a substance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He had led us from the depth of the “winding way” into a glade from whence
+      the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded moon poured
+      her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her beam an ivory
+      miniature.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to me—still,
+      however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking in my eyes
+      what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a very handsome
+      and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had once said,
+      “straight and harmonious features.” It was dark; the hair, raven-black,
+      swept not only from the brow, but from the temples—seemed thrust
+      away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay, despised
+      arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an independent,
+      determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the chin ditto. On
+      the back of the miniature was gilded “Lucia.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is a real head,” was my conclusion.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden smiled.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I think so,” he replied. “All was real in Lucia.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And she was somebody you would have liked to marry—but could not?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I <em>have</em> not
+      done so is a proof that I <em>could</em> not.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances’ hand, and
+      put it away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What do <em>you</em> think of it?” he asked of my wife, as he buttoned
+      his coat over it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them,” was the strange answer.
+      “I do not mean matrimonial chains,” she added, correcting herself, as if
+      she feared mis-interpretation, “but social chains of some sort. The face
+      is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful and triumphant
+      effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from insupportable
+      constraint; and when Lucia’s faculty got free, I am certain it spread wide
+      pinions and carried her higher than—” she hesitated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Than what?” demanded Hunsden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Than ‘les convenances’ permitted you to follow.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I think you grow spiteful—impertinent.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Lucia has trodden the stage,” continued Frances. “You never seriously
+      thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness,
+      her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that
+      was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her
+      beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she
+      filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a
+      wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ingenious,” remarked Hunsden; “whether true or not is another question.
+      Meantime, don’t you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale,
+      beside such a girandole as Lucia’s?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the
+      dim light you give?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Will you, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances,” and we had now
+      reached the wicket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it is—there
+      has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest; the hay is
+      just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the air. Frances
+      proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out on the lawn; I see
+      the round table, loaded with china, placed under a certain beech; Hunsden
+      is expected—nay, I hear he is come—there is his voice, laying
+      down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances replies; she
+      opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor, of whom Hunsden
+      affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs. Crimsworth retaliates:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden,
+      calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become a
+      fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and going,
+      no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy till she
+      had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off; for that
+      with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin a score of
+      children.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my desk—but
+      it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on porcelain.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his
+      mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark as
+      those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical
+      enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less
+      than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over a
+      book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure, peril,
+      or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But though still,
+      he is not unhappy—though serious, not morose; he has a
+      susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts
+      to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a
+      spelling-book at his mother’s knee, and as he got on without driving by
+      that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to
+      try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable.
+      When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still. His
+      toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he possesses,
+      he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to affection; this
+      feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of the house,
+      strengthens almost to a passion.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the
+      donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much
+      modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would
+      go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he
+      learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in the
+      lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his own
+      hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left at
+      night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X——, and was
+      bitten in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had
+      brought him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the
+      yard and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an
+      instant; he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had
+      scarcely been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds
+      of anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence.
+      Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its
+      bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, papa, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive you!” was his
+      exclamation. “You shot Yorke—I saw it from the window. I never
+      believed you could be so cruel—I can love you no more!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern necessity
+      of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter accent which I
+      cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He might have been cured—you should have tried—you should
+      have burnt the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave
+      no time; and now it is too late—he is dead!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long
+      while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him in
+      my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort him
+      best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not come
+      out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she was
+      ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on to her
+      gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft embrace,
+      for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him that Yorke had
+      felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to expire naturally,
+      his end would have been most horrible; above all, she told him that I was
+      not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite pain to poor Victor),
+      that it was my affection for Yorke and him which had made me act so, and
+      that I was now almost heart-broken to see him weep thus bitterly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+      considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a tone—married
+      to caresses so benign, so tender—to looks so inspired with pitying
+      sympathy—produced no effect on him. They did produce an effect: he
+      grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still in her arms.
+      Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over again what she
+      had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not being cruel; the
+      balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek on her breast, and
+      was again tranquil.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him, and
+      desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I kept him
+      a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of which he
+      disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in my son. I
+      found, it is true, few elements of the “good fellow” or the “fine fellow”
+       in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash over the wine
+      cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying fire; but I saw in the
+      soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs of compassion, affection,
+      fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his intellect a rich growth of
+      wholesome principles—reason, justice, moral courage, promised, if
+      not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on his large forehead, and
+      on his cheek—still pale with tears—a proud and contented kiss,
+      and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day laid on the mound
+      under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered with his hands; he was
+      melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year elapsed before he would
+      listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first
+      year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his
+      home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not
+      suit him—but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of
+      success, will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a
+      strong repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch,
+      and transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the
+      subject, I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to
+      some fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her
+      fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be taken,
+      and it <em>shall</em> be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of
+      her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance, a
+      congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as I
+      also see, a something in Victor’s temper—a kind of electrical ardour and
+      power—which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it his
+      spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of the
+      offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not <em>whipped</em>
+      out of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of any
+      amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him
+      radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this
+      <em>something</em> in her son’s marked character
+      no name; but when it appears in the grinding of his teeth, in the
+      glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of feeling against
+      disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed injustice, she folds
+      him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her alone in the wood; then
+      she reasons with him like any philosopher, and to reason Victor is ever
+      accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of love, and by love Victor
+      can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason or love be the weapons with
+      which in future the world will meet his violence? Oh, no! for that flash
+      in his black eye—for that cloud on his bony brow—for that
+      compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will some day get blows
+      instead of blandishments—kicks instead of kisses; then for the fit
+      of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden his soul; then for the
+      ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of which he will come (I
+      trust) a wiser and a better man.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the
+      beech; Hunsden’s hand rests on the boy’s collar, and he is instilling God
+      knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for he
+      listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his mother
+      as when he smiles—pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor has
+      a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+      considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever
+      entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a
+      sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden’s knee, or
+      rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round, like a
+      dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes Hunsden
+      had children of his own, for then he would better know the danger of
+      inciting their pride and indulging their foibles.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which
+      half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy she
+      enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my shoulder.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur est trop appliqué.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall soon have done.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her
+      presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and
+      spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the
+      midsummer eve are to my senses.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the
+      lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand,
+      disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress,
+      and make him lift up his head.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Hunsden? I hear you—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was at X—— yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer
+      than Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a
+      stag of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and
+      Jean Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets
+      too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but in
+      business they are doing ‘on ne peut mieux,’ which circumstance he
+      concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little crosses
+      in the affections. Why don’t you invite the Pelets to ——shire,
+      Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraïde. Mistress,
+      don’t be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a
+      fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you’ve lost,
+      Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea, Victor
+      and I will begin without you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Papa, come!”
+     </p>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Professor, by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Professor
+
+Author: (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
+
+Release Date: August 6, 2008 [EBook #1028]
+[Last Updated: October 14, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR
+
+by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+
+T H E ��P R O F E S S O R
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+This little book was written before either "Jane Eyre" or "Shirley,"
+and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first
+attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it
+had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had
+not indeed published anything before I commenced "The Professor," but
+in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had
+got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and
+redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.
+At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of
+incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the
+result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an
+author more surprise than pleasure.
+
+I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had
+seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shilling
+he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to
+wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain,
+should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so
+much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the
+ascent of "the Hill of Difficulty;" that he should not even marry a
+beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's
+doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+
+In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
+approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative
+and poetical--something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with
+a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly.
+Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this
+kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie
+hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such
+treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on
+trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference
+for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and
+harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
+
+Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached
+him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone
+through some struggles--which indeed it has. And after all, its
+worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes
+comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a moderate expectation--and
+mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,
+
+"He that is low need fear no fall."
+
+CURRER BELL.
+
+The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+publication of "The Professor," shortly after the appearance of
+"Shirley." Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some
+use of the materials in a subsequent work--"Villette." As, however,
+these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented
+to me that I ought not to withhold "The Professor" from the public. I
+have therefore consented to its publication.
+
+A. B. NICHOLLS
+
+Haworth Parsonage,
+
+September 22nd, 1856.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+T H E �� P R O F E S S O R
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the
+following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school
+acquaintance:--
+
+"DEAR CHARLES,
+
+"I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of
+us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic,
+observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will
+not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly
+attractive one--can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together
+I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and
+Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on
+your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still,
+out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the
+theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood
+each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some
+vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or
+inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself
+superior to that check THEN as I do NOW.
+
+"It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since
+I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day,
+my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over
+the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down
+and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you
+shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+
+"First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
+Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
+the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
+which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
+hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
+be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one
+of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+
+"I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
+thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh how
+like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of
+my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
+accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom.
+To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of
+Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and
+well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such
+circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
+
+"When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me 'what I intended
+to do?' I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune,
+and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord
+Tynedale demanded sternly, 'Whether I had thoughts of following my
+father's steps and engaging in trade?' Now, I had had no thoughts of the
+sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good
+tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was
+the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale's countenance as he pronounced
+the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I was
+instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did
+not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered
+then, with haste and warmth, 'I cannot do better than follow in
+my father's steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.' My uncles did not
+remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this
+transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of
+Tynedale's patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
+reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and
+which certainly was yet untried.
+
+"I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten
+years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and now
+possessor of the mill and business which was my father's before he
+failed. You are aware that my father--once reckoned a Croesus of
+wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my
+mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by
+her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union
+with Crimsworth, the----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months
+she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I
+should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
+her.
+
+"My father's relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
+was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
+an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for
+it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity
+of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
+Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
+sister's orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
+against Mr. Seacombe's election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
+enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race;
+they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X----; and,
+making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of
+my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during
+which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered
+into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and
+success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune.
+Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from
+him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded
+without some expression of determined enmity against the house of
+Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty
+of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand
+why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale
+and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of
+the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against
+my father--of the sufferings of my mother--of all the wrongs, in short,
+of our house--then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I
+lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had
+refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by
+these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe,
+and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
+
+"An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself,
+I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my
+intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if
+he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my
+conduct, but he said I might come down to ----shire, if I liked, and he
+would 'see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.'
+I repressed all--even mental comment on his note--packed my trunk and
+carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+
+"After two days' travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I
+arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X----. I had always
+understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that
+it was only Mr. Crimsworth's mill and warehouse which were situated in
+the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his RESIDENCE lay four miles out,
+in the country.
+
+"It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the
+habitation designated to me as my brother's. As I advanced up the
+avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy
+mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the
+grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the
+lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the
+centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+
+"Edward is rich," thought I to myself. 'I believed him to be doing
+well--but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.' Cutting
+short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the
+front door and rang. A man-servant opened it--I announced myself--he
+relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a
+room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles
+burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet
+returned from X----market, but that he would certainly be at home in the
+course of half an hour.
+
+"Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red
+morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the
+flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on
+the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting
+about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of
+these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no
+danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation
+of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of
+fraternal tenderness; Edward's letters had always been such as to
+prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still,
+as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I cannot tell
+you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand,
+clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain
+have shaken it.
+
+"I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether
+Edward's indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always
+experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached
+the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some
+minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the
+hall, his tread drew near the library door--that tread alone announced
+the master of the house.
+
+"I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten
+years ago--a tall, wiry, raw youth; NOW, as I rose from my seat and
+turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man,
+light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first
+glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown
+as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general
+expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment
+of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the
+morocco covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.
+
+"'I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,'
+said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably
+habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which
+sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the
+South.
+
+"'The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,'
+said I. 'I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being
+aware that you had such a residence as this.'
+
+"'Oh, it is all right!' he replied, 'only I was kept half an hour behind
+time, waiting for you--that is all. I thought you must be coming by the
+eight o'clock coach.'
+
+"I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but
+stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he
+scanned me again.
+
+"I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of
+meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this
+man with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+
+"'Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?' he asked hastily.
+
+"'I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my
+refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against
+all future intercourse.'
+
+"'Why,' said he, 'I may as well remind you at the very outset of our
+connection, that "no man can serve two masters." Acquaintance with Lord
+Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.' There was a kind
+of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this
+observation.
+
+"Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an
+inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution
+of men's minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from
+my silence--whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an
+evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and
+hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat.
+
+"'To-morrow,' said he, 'I shall call your attention to some other
+points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably
+waiting; will you come?'
+
+"He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I
+wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. 'Is she,' thought I, 'as alien
+to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe--as the
+affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than
+these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of
+my real nature; or--' Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance
+into the dining-room.
+
+"A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the
+fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady;
+she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and
+fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay
+salutation passed between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half
+playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take
+voices into the account in judging of character) was lively--it
+indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked
+her animated scolding with a kiss--a kiss that still told of the
+bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat
+at the supper-table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged
+my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as
+ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to
+all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further
+obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently
+marked but agreeable; her hair was red--quite red. She and Edward
+talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or
+pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in
+the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
+
+"'Now, Mr. William, isn't it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he
+will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice
+already.
+
+"She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I
+soon saw also that there was more than girlish--a somewhat infantine
+expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression
+were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward's eyes, and would be so to
+those of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous
+to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face
+or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw
+vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in
+vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips
+and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that
+Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded,
+the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers
+are very well; but how many wet days are there in life--November seasons
+of disaster, when a man's hearth and home would be cold indeed, without
+the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+
+"Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth's face, a deep,
+involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to
+her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome
+young wife, threw on me a glance--half ridicule, half ire.
+
+"I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two
+pictures set in the oak panelling--one on each side the mantel-piece.
+Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on
+between Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination
+of these pictures. They were portraits--a lady and a gentleman, both
+costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the
+shade. I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam
+from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this
+picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion
+picture being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father's
+property.
+
+"The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not
+understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in the world,
+and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression. The
+serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines
+in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry
+it was only a picture.
+
+"I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant
+conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all
+intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest.
+
+"Good-bye for the present,
+
+"WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH."
+
+To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it,
+he had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was
+already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become
+of him since, I know not.
+
+The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ
+for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at
+large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous;
+but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same
+vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections
+of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now
+proceed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed
+my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in
+the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising
+over the ----shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and
+mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried;
+a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat
+cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the
+banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender
+round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed;
+here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable
+sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful,
+active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from
+it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
+opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----.
+A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay Edward's
+"Concern."
+
+I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell
+on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
+emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought
+to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life's career--I
+said to myself, "William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are
+a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall
+be a tradesman. Look!" I continued mentally--"Look at the sooty smoke in
+that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and work!"
+
+Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
+breakfast-room. I met him collectedly--I could not meet him cheerfully;
+he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how much did I read in
+the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced
+to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature!
+He said "Good morning" abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather
+than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air
+of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with
+an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time,
+or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust
+I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his
+robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the
+mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with comparing the two
+pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so handsome; my
+features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader brow--in
+form I was greatly inferior--thinner, slighter, not so tall. As an
+animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind
+as in person I must be a slave--for I must expect from him no lion-like
+generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye, his
+stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force of
+mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
+
+Mrs. Crimsworth's entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked
+well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning
+and bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last
+night's careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness
+and restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too
+familiar with his clerk.
+
+As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they
+were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he
+should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X----. I did not
+keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the
+road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs.
+Crimsworth had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice
+Jack seemed disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined
+application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon
+compelled him to submission, and Edward's dilated nostril expressed his
+triumph in the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the
+whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his
+horse.
+
+X---- was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the clean
+streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and public
+buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills and
+warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great
+paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us,
+vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick
+brick walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were
+passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth
+looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all
+that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the
+care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me
+follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place
+from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall--a place for business, with a bare,
+planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A
+person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when
+Mr. Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his
+occupation of writing or calculating--I know not which.
+
+Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I
+remained standing near the hearth; he said presently--
+
+"Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact
+with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell."
+
+The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he
+went out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat
+a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to
+do but to watch him--how well his features were cut! what a handsome man
+he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction--that narrow and hard
+aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
+
+Turning to me he began abruptly:
+
+"You are come down to ----shire to learn to be a tradesman?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if
+you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do
+you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning--Greek,
+Latin, and so forth?"
+
+"I have studied mathematics."
+
+"Stuff! I dare say you have."
+
+"I can read and write French and German."
+
+"Hum!" He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him
+took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+
+"Can you read that?" he asked.
+
+It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell
+whether he was gratified or not--his countenance remained fixed.
+
+"It is well," he said, after a pause, "that you are acquainted with
+something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and
+lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second
+clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give
+you a good salary--90l. a year--and now," he continued, raising his
+voice, "hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and
+all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it
+would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my
+brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed
+of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss
+you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and
+I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember,
+too, that things are on a practical footing in my
+establishment--business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best.
+Do you understand?"
+
+"Partly," I replied. "I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my
+wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any
+help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will
+consent to be your clerk."
+
+I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not
+consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor
+did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:--
+
+"You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth
+Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be
+aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I
+like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for
+business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so.
+You will seek out lodgings in X----."
+
+Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+
+"Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X----," I answered. "It would
+not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall."
+
+My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth's blue eye
+became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said
+bluntly--
+
+"You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your
+quarter's salary becomes due?"
+
+"I shall get on," said I.
+
+"How do you expect to live?" he repeated in a louder voice.
+
+"As I can, Mr. Crimsworth."
+
+"Get into debt at your peril! that's all," he answered. "For aught I
+know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop
+them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a
+shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur--mind that."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory."
+
+I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I
+had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one's temper
+effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, "I will
+place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still
+and steady; when full, it will run over of itself--meantime patience.
+Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr.
+Crimsworth has set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those
+wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother
+assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is
+his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once
+aside from the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will
+advance far enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only
+pressing in at the entrance--a strait gate enough; it ought to have a
+good terminus." While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his
+first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference,
+re-entered.
+
+"Mr. Steighton," said he, "show Mr. William the letters from Voss,
+Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate
+them."
+
+Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and
+heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the
+desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English
+answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first
+effort to earn my own living--a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened
+by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some
+time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I
+felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the
+visor down--or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence
+that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might
+see lines, and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them; my
+nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of
+an unknown tongue. Ere long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and
+left the counting-house; he returned to it but twice in the course of
+that day; each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water,
+the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side
+of the fireplace; having glanced at my translations--he could read both
+French and German--he went out again in silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.
+What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do
+well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set
+Timothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was
+baffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made
+inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts
+with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which
+I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings of
+my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to
+ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying
+economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to
+obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency,
+to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time,
+and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to be
+misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward;
+I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of
+them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note, which I was able to
+leave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided
+for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had
+any complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she
+believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he
+thought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she
+said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing
+equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was "a religious man"
+himself; indeed, he was "a joined Methodist," which did not (be it
+understood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal,
+and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having
+imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented
+no place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information
+into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He
+commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first
+perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation
+she had had with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came
+to the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner's
+blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of
+impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunition
+on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he only kept them
+quiet in his quiver.
+
+Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it
+was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master's
+birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar
+anniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept
+strictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin
+and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice
+than was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never
+spoke to me; I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,
+enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in array
+against me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I was
+fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from afar,
+and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to the
+consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the
+rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about him
+a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily--Mr.
+Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept
+down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.
+
+Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some
+pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity
+to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social
+intercourse--that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,
+but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful
+figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the
+figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized,
+left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No
+fibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked
+for and found my mother's picture. I took a wax taper from a stand,
+and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image.
+My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and
+countenance--her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty
+pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined
+likeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacency
+the lineaments of their daughters' faces, where frequently their own
+similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and
+delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so
+interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice close
+behind me pronounced the words--
+
+"Humph! there's some sense in that face."
+
+I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or
+six years older than I--in other respects of an appearance the opposite
+to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his
+portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I
+have just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I
+did not investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either;
+I saw his stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his
+fastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in number,
+and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled
+me to recognize him.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Hunsden," muttered I with a bow, and then, like a
+shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why? Simply because Mr.
+Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and
+my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden
+in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with
+Mr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed
+him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the
+tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction
+that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now
+went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already
+noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I
+perversely said to myself--
+
+"He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,
+perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not
+at all."
+
+I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and
+continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
+
+"Stay here awhile," said he: "it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,
+you don't dance; you have not had a partner to-night."
+
+He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not addressed
+me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool
+dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way
+of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well
+enough to oblige; I stayed.
+
+"That is a good picture," he continued, recurring to the portrait.
+
+"Do you consider the face pretty?" I asked.
+
+"Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?
+but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that
+woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and
+compliments."
+
+I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
+
+"Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;
+there's too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling
+his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat
+written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats."
+
+"You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a
+distinctive cast of form and features?"
+
+"Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have
+their 'distinctive cast of form and features' as much as we----shire
+tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As
+to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from
+childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain
+degree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques.
+Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame
+with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?"
+
+I replied quietly: "Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr
+Hunsden."
+
+"Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a
+straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages--if
+they are advantages--he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician,
+but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was as
+veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal
+the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who are
+the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your
+plebeian brother by long chalk."
+
+There was something in Mr. Hunsden's point-blank mode of speech which
+rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I
+continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
+
+"How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother? I thought
+you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor
+clerk."
+
+"Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
+Crimsworth's work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are, too."
+
+I was silent. Hunsden's language now bordered on the impertinent, still
+his manner did not offend me in the least--it only piqued my curiosity;
+I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
+
+"This world is an absurd one," said he.
+
+"Why so, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the
+absurdity I allude to."
+
+I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my
+pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.
+
+"Is it your intention to become a tradesman?" he inquired presently.
+
+"It was my serious intention three months ago."
+
+"Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a practical
+business-like face you have!"
+
+"My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden."
+
+"The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good can
+your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness,
+do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it's your own
+affair, not mine."
+
+"Perhaps I have no choice."
+
+"Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to me what
+you do or where you go; but I'm cool now--I want to dance again; and
+I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by
+her mamma; see if I don't get her for a partner in a jiffy! There's
+Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won't I cut him out?"
+
+And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open
+folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the
+fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made,
+full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E.
+Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he kept
+at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her
+animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself
+perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs.
+Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably
+flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful
+as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be of
+the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully
+appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred
+on him in a mushroom-place like X----, concerning whose inhabitants
+it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own
+grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent;
+and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business,
+to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his
+house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad face might
+well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden
+Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I,
+however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more
+accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation
+were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous of
+making, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it
+was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do),
+suggested to me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In form
+and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one
+caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had
+learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease,
+and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between
+him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet
+vulgar he could not be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled
+no one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated
+complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an
+indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and
+seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of
+himself, his words and actions an energetic discontent at his life or
+his social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments--I
+know not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of
+his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against
+wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, "I am baffled!" and
+submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my
+residence in X---- I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself--the
+work of copying and translating business-letters--was a dry and tedious
+task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the
+nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double
+desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the
+resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured
+in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not have
+whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have pent
+in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its
+distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of
+Bigben Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I
+should have set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my
+small bedroom at Mrs. King's lodgings, and they two should have been
+my household gods, from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret,
+Imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by softness
+or strength, have severed me. But this was not all; the antipathy which
+had sprung up between myself and my employer striking deeper root and
+spreading denser shade daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the
+sunshine of life; and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid
+darkness out of the slimy walls of a well.
+
+Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward
+Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and
+which was liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement,
+look, or word of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree
+of education evinced in my language irritated him; my punctuality,
+industry, and accuracy, fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour
+and poignant relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a
+successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would
+not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what
+was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental
+wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a
+ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I
+was guarded by three faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and
+prowling and prying as was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle
+the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice
+watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like
+on its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.
+
+I had received my first quarter's wages, and was returning to my
+lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that
+the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned
+pittance--(I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother--he
+was a hard, grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that
+was all). Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices
+spoke within me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous
+phrases. One said: "William, your life is intolerable." The other: "What
+can you do to alter it?" I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night
+in January; as I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of
+my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be
+out; looking towards the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering
+red gleam.
+
+"That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual," said I, "and I shall
+see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night--I
+will walk a little farther."
+
+It WAS a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for X----;
+there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church
+tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the
+sky.
+
+Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into
+Grove-street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the
+extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron
+gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in
+this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past.
+
+"What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he
+expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds."
+
+I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance,
+and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent
+towards me over the wicket.
+
+"You see I am meditating in the field at eventide," continued this
+shade. "God knows it's cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on
+a camel's hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate
+sends me only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper." The
+voice was familiar to me--its second utterance enabled me to seize the
+speaker's identity.
+
+"Mr. Hunsden! good evening."
+
+"Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first."
+
+"I did not know you."
+
+"A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you
+were going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?"
+
+"It wouldn't be worth their while; I'm not of consequence enough to
+attract them."
+
+"Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and
+how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice!
+But since you're not running from the police, from whom are you running?
+the devil?"
+
+"On the contrary, I am going post to him."
+
+"That is well--you're just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there are
+scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and he,
+or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you'll step in
+and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor's parlour, you may catch him as he
+passes without much trouble. I think though you'd better let him alone
+to-night, he'll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day
+in X---- and Dinneford; come in at all events."
+
+He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+
+"Do you really wish me to go in?" I asked.
+
+"As you please--I'm alone; your company for an hour or two would be
+agreeable to me; but, if you don't choose to favour me so far, I'll not
+press the point. I hate to bore any one."
+
+It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it.
+I passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he
+opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door
+being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and
+glanced round me.
+
+It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate
+was filled with a genuine ----shire fire, red, clear, and generous, no
+penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On
+the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal
+light; the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor,
+comprising a couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the
+recesses on each side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and
+arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste;
+I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that
+Hunsden's ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed
+from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals,
+I ran my eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and
+German works predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern
+authors, Thiers, Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in
+German--Goethe, Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there
+were works on Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden
+himself recalled my attention.
+
+"You shall have something," said he, "for you ought to feel disposed for
+refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night
+as this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be
+a bottle of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have
+Rhein-wein for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and
+coffee."
+
+Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received
+practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of
+spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German
+nectar, but I liked coffee, so I responded--
+
+"Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden."
+
+I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a
+chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give
+me neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my
+face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint
+of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I
+honoured his conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he
+seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently
+brought; for himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something
+sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the
+shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not
+answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of
+those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face,
+extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated
+look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed
+the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had
+never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had
+gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised
+now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his
+lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general
+bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and
+massive; not at all:--my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer
+mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his
+inward and outward man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul
+had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle.
+Perhaps, in these incompatibilities of the "physique" with the "morale,"
+lay the secret of that fitful gloom; he WOULD but COULD not, and the
+athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his
+good looks, I should have liked to have a woman's opinion on that
+subject; it seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect
+on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though scarcely pretty,
+female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks--they were
+brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead; his
+cheek had a rather hectic freshness; his features might have done well
+on canvas, but indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character
+had set a stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and
+strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose
+bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more frequently,
+the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite countenance they
+made.
+
+Starting from his silent fit, he began:--
+
+"William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
+King's, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a
+garden like me!"
+
+"I should be too far from the mill."
+
+"What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
+times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
+flower or a green leaf?"
+
+"I am no fossil."
+
+"What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth's counting-house
+day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
+automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
+for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to
+no excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in
+strong drink."
+
+"Do you, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"Don't think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine
+are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a
+parallel. I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be
+unendurable, he is a fossil."
+
+"Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?"
+
+"Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
+surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find
+subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do
+with my eyes and ears? I've been in your counting-house more than once
+when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for
+instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to
+consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you
+to shut or open the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing
+of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither
+place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and
+how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?"
+
+"I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to
+your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide
+your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make something
+eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by
+means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary,
+but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a
+duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in
+no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature is
+phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch
+of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all
+means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you."
+
+Mr. Hunsden's eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and
+oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him
+one of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly
+relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he
+was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I
+suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in
+the urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the
+oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still
+more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a
+resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might
+often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over
+these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved
+thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man.
+It was as I thought: Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his
+incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and
+himself was chafed by a laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+
+His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+
+"Yes," he began, "I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but
+an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look?
+A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony,
+patrician resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William
+Crimsworth! You are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature!
+Look at the features, figure, even to the hands--distinction all
+over--ugly distinction! Now, if you'd only an estate and a mansion,
+and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the
+rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
+peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support
+your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in
+churls' blood; as it is, you've no power; you can do nothing; you're
+wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce; forced into collision
+with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for YOU'LL NEVER BE A
+TRADESMAN."
+
+The first part of Hunsden's speech moved me not at all, or, if it did,
+it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted
+his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
+moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
+wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+
+Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+
+"You'll make nothing by trade," continued he; "nothing more than the
+crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live;
+your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow,
+or running away with an heiress."
+
+"I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,"
+said I, rising.
+
+"And even that is hopeless," he went on coolly. "What widow would have
+you? Much less, what heiress? You're not bold and venturesome enough for
+the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
+perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
+refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid
+for them."
+
+Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was
+out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
+enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence
+and solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+
+"What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you'll find the door." And
+he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house.
+I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that
+I was walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were
+almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were
+set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and
+jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
+my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why
+did I enter Hunsden's house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must
+I repair to Crimsworth's mill? All that night did I ask myself these
+questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I
+got no sleep; my head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells
+rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
+every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
+frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now
+icy street which descended from Mrs. King's to the Close. The factory
+workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all
+lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my
+post in the counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as
+yet only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat
+down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were
+still numb; I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I
+went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the "climax."
+Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+
+"Come, William Crimsworth," said my conscience, or whatever it is that
+within ourselves takes ourselves to task--"come, get a clear notion of
+what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
+pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
+What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
+Tynedale you would tread in your father's steps, and a pretty treading
+you are likely to make of it! How well you like X----! Just at this
+moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
+its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers
+you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
+letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure
+in Brown's, nor Smith's, nor Nicholl's, nor Eccle's company; and as
+to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his
+society--he! he! how did you like the taste you had of him last night?
+was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even
+he does not like you; your self-respect defies you to like him; he has
+always seen you to disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage;
+your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your
+minds could not assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of
+friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are
+your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee
+would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager
+wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight--in
+X---- daylight--you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those
+three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of
+just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will
+never be made perfect. Eight o'clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get
+to work!"
+
+"Work? why should I work?" said I sullenly: "I cannot please though I
+toil like a slave." "Work, work!" reiterated the inward voice. "I may
+work, it will do no good," I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a
+packet of letters and commenced my task--task thankless and bitter as
+that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in
+search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+
+About ten o'clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth's gig turn into the yard, and
+in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to
+glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand
+a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did
+not deviate from his usual habits; the only difference was that when
+he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his
+eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two
+longer than usual, but went out in silence.
+
+Twelve o'clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
+workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
+me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I
+was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place,
+preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door,
+and entering closed it behind him.
+
+"You'll stay here a minute," said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
+nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
+
+Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
+forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful
+forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+
+"It is time to go home," I said, turning the key in my desk.
+
+"You'll stay here!" he reiterated. "And take your hand off that key!
+leave it in the lock!"
+
+"Why?" asked I. "What cause is there for changing my usual plans?"
+
+"Do as I order," was the answer, "and no questions! You are my servant,
+obey me! What have you been about--?" He was going on in the same
+breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
+the better of articulation.
+
+"You may look, if you wish to know," I replied. "There is the open desk,
+there are the papers."
+
+"Confound your insolence! What have you been about?"
+
+"Your work, and have done it well."
+
+"Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!" (This
+last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to the horn of
+black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels,
+and employed for greasing the same.)
+
+"Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
+accounts. I have now given your service three months' trial, and I find
+it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay
+no longer."
+
+"What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages." He
+took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
+
+I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
+temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
+vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
+continued:
+
+"I've found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X---- about me? answer
+me that!"
+
+"You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you."
+
+"You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant
+habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands.
+You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and
+knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I'd set-to this
+minute, and never stir from the spot till I'd cut every strip of flesh
+from your bones with this whip."
+
+He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead.
+A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a
+bound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly,
+came round to where he stood, and faced him.
+
+"Down with your whip!" said I, "and explain this instant what you mean."
+
+"Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?"
+
+"To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
+calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give
+your grounds for these assertions."
+
+Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation,
+he gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+
+"Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
+brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and
+a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
+pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
+question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
+about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such
+trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy
+mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the
+quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I
+saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you
+in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know
+that you were at Hunsden's rooms last night. Deny it if you dare."
+
+"Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
+you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse
+man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom
+existed."
+
+"Sirrah! sirrah!" reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
+he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+
+A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and
+throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded,
+and said--
+
+"Touch me, and I'll have you up before the nearest magistrate."
+
+Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate
+something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought
+before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After
+an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed
+to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient
+superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer
+and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of
+personal chastisement.
+
+"Take your hat," said he. "Take what belongs to you, and go out at
+that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
+transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into
+my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground
+belonging to me, I'll hire a man to cane you."
+
+"It is not likely you'll have the chance; once off your premises, what
+temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
+tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so
+no fear of my coming back."
+
+"Go, or I'll make you!" exclaimed Crimsworth.
+
+I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were
+my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the
+key on the top.
+
+"What are you abstracting from that desk?" demanded the millowner.
+"Leave all behind in its place, or I'll send for a policeman to search
+you."
+
+"Look sharp about it, then," said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
+gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house--walked out of it
+to enter it no more.
+
+I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
+Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
+rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to
+hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images
+of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and
+tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I
+only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize
+with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could
+I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and
+liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of
+resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced
+circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me;
+no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding
+Crimsworth's mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far
+subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer
+boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo!
+straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles
+out of X----. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined
+sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising
+from the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I
+had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy
+blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the
+time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
+within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being
+yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for
+the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow.
+I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current:
+I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear
+and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
+Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of
+that day's sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some
+very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and
+characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the
+sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear,
+eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my
+face towards X----.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred
+seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp
+appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was
+dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered
+how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the
+prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise,
+I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth.
+I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another
+subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was
+already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest,
+and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful
+as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment's examination enabled me to
+recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of
+course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had
+parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred
+the fire, and said coolly, "Good evening," my demeanour evinced as
+little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had
+brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to
+interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared,
+that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to
+ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to
+explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary
+one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it.
+
+"You owe me a debt of gratitude," were his first words.
+
+"Do I?" said I; "I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to
+charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind."
+
+"Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton
+weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit
+again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with
+the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say 'Thank you!'"
+
+"Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so
+famished."
+
+I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+
+"Cold meat!" exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, "what a
+glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you'll die of eating too much."
+
+"No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not." I felt a necessity for contradicting
+him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and
+irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
+
+"It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered," said he.
+
+"How do you know?" I demanded. "It is like you to give a pragmatical
+opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the
+case; I have had no dinner."
+
+What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied
+by looking in my face and laughing.
+
+"Poor thing!" he whined, after a pause. "It has had no dinner, has it?
+What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth
+order you to fast by way of punishment, William!"
+
+"No, Mr. Hunsden." Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought
+in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly.
+Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to
+Mr. Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the
+table and do as I did, if he liked.
+
+"But I don't like in the least," said he, and therewith he summoned the
+servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to
+have a glass of toast-and-water. "And some more coal," he added; "Mr.
+Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay."
+
+His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so
+as to be opposite me.
+
+"Well," he proceeded. "You are out of work, I suppose."
+
+"Yes," said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this
+point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as
+though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had
+been done. "Yes--thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at
+a minute's notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public
+meeting, I understand."
+
+"Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did
+he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden--anything sweet?"
+
+"He called you a treacherous villain."
+
+"Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I'm one of those shy people who don't come
+out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance,
+but he'll find I've some good qualities--excellent ones! The Hunsdens
+were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable
+villain is their natural prey--they could not keep off him wherever
+they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now--that word is the
+property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile
+off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for
+me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact
+with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally
+I care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he
+violated your natural claim to equality)--I say it was impossible for
+me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race
+at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a
+chain."
+
+Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out
+Hunsden's character, and because it explained his motives; it interested
+me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over
+a throng of ideas it had suggested.
+
+"Are you grateful to me?" he asked, presently.
+
+In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at
+the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not
+out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer
+his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency
+to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his
+championship, to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely
+to meet with it here. In reply he termed me "a dry-hearted aristocratic
+scamp," whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of
+my mouth.
+
+"Your bread was dirty, man!" cried Hunsden--"dirty and unwholesome!
+It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a
+tyrant,--a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will
+some day be a tyrant to his wife."
+
+"Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I've lost mine, and
+through your means."
+
+"There's sense in what you say, after all," rejoined Hunsden. "I must
+say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical
+an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous
+observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would
+have taken in your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least,
+have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of
+you for looking steadily to the needful."
+
+"Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live,
+and to live I must have what you call 'the needful,' which I can only
+get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me."
+
+"What do you mean to do?" pursued Hunsden coolly. "You have influential
+relations; I suppose they'll soon provide you with another place."
+
+"Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names."
+
+"The Seacombes."
+
+"Stuff! I have cut them."
+
+Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+
+"I have," said I, "and that definitively."
+
+"You must mean they have cut you, William."
+
+"As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my
+entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I
+withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my
+elder brother's arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by
+the cruel intermeddling of a stranger--of yourself, in short."
+
+I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden's
+lips.
+
+"Oh, I see!" said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did
+see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin
+resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my
+countenance, he went on:
+
+"Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?"
+
+"Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands
+stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of
+a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with
+aristocratic palms?"
+
+"There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete
+Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they
+should disown you."
+
+"They have disowned me; so talk no more about it."
+
+"Do you regret it, William?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not, lad?"
+
+"Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+sympathy."
+
+"I say you are one of them."
+
+"That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my
+mother's son, but not my uncles' nephew."
+
+"Still--one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and not a
+very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should consider
+worldly interest."
+
+"Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to
+be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough
+grace ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own
+comfort and not have gained their patronage in return."
+
+"Very likely--so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your own
+devices at once?"
+
+"Exactly. I must follow my own devices--I must, till the day of my
+death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of
+other people."
+
+Hunsden yawned. "Well," said he, "in all this, I see but one thing
+clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine." He
+stretched himself and again yawned. "I wonder what time it is," he went
+on: "I have an appointment for seven o'clock."
+
+"Three quarters past six by my watch."
+
+"Well, then I'll go." He got up. "You'll not meddle with trade again?"
+said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+
+"No; I think not."
+
+"You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you'll think
+better of your uncles' proposal and go into the Church."
+
+"A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man
+before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men."
+
+"Indeed! Do you think so?" interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+
+"I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to
+make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I
+have no vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty."
+
+"You're a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won't be a tradesman
+or a parson; you can't be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because
+you've no money. I'd recommend you to travel."
+
+"What! without money?"
+
+"You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French--with
+a vile English accent, no doubt--still, you can speak it. Go on to the
+Continent, and see what will turn up for you there."
+
+"God knows I should like to go!" exclaimed I with involuntary ardour.
+
+"Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance,
+for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy."
+
+"Necessity would teach me if I didn't."
+
+"Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I
+know Brussels almost as well as I know X----, and I am sure it would
+suit such a one as you better than London."
+
+"But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had;
+and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at
+Brussels?"
+
+"There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before
+you know every inch of the way. You haven't a sheet of paper and a
+pen-and-ink?"
+
+"I hope so," and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I
+guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded,
+sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to me.
+
+"There, Prudence, there's a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of
+those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they
+are to get it out again, and you're right there. A reckless man is
+my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the
+concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are
+generally ten times more so for their friends."
+
+"This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?" said I, taking the
+epistle.
+
+"Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself
+in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a
+degradation--so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you will
+present it generally has two or three respectable places depending upon
+his recommendation."
+
+"That will just suit me," said I.
+
+"Well, and where's your gratitude?" demanded Mr. Hunsden; "don't you
+know how to say 'Thank you?'"
+
+"I've fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw,
+gave me eighteen years ago," was my rather irrelevant answer; and I
+further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any
+being in Christendom.
+
+"But your gratitude?"
+
+"I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden--to-morrow, if all be well: I'll
+not stay a day longer in X---- than I'm obliged."
+
+"Very good--but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the
+assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike
+seven: I'm waiting to be thanked."
+
+"Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is
+on the corner of the mantelpiece. I'll pack my portmanteau before I go
+to bed."
+
+The house clock struck seven.
+
+"The lad is a heathen," said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a
+sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an
+inclination to follow him: I really intended to leave X---- the next
+morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding
+him good-bye. The front door banged to.
+
+"Let him go," said I, "we shall meet again some day."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don't know the
+physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon
+your memory, as I have them on mine?
+
+Three--nay four--pictures line the four-walled cell where are stored for
+me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far
+perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green, dewy,
+with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my
+childhood was not all sunshine--it had its overcast, its cold, its
+stormy hours. Second, X----, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked;
+a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs
+blighted and sullied--a very dreary scene.
+
+Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the
+fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not,
+as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it
+must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name
+that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such
+as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can
+produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight.
+It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves
+unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept,
+are seen by me ascending from the clouds--haloed most of them--but while
+I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their
+outline, the sound which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all,
+like a light wreath of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns,
+resealed in monuments. Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+
+This is Belgium, reader. Look! don't call the picture a flat or a dull
+one--it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I
+left Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road
+to Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment
+possessed an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite.
+I was young; I had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no
+indulgence of hers had enervated or sated one faculty of my nature.
+Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of
+her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.
+Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that
+from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise; what
+if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not; his eyes are
+fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having
+gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will
+face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon,
+and that the herald breeze he feels on his cheek is opening for the
+god's career a clear, vast path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl
+and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained
+by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot
+no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there were pebbles,
+inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the crimson
+peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament beyond, and
+I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of the thorns
+scratching my face and hands.
+
+I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence
+(these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads).
+Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy
+swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them
+look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as
+pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by
+the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a
+gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful,
+scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to
+me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. It continued fair
+so long as daylight lasted, though the moisture of many preceding damp
+days had sodden the whole country; as it grew dark, however, the rain
+recommenced, and it was through streaming and starless darkness my eye
+caught the first gleam of the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the
+city but its lights that night. Having alighted from the diligence, a
+fiacre conveyed me to the Hotel de ----, where I had been advised by a
+fellow-traveller to put up; having eaten a traveller's supper, I retired
+to bed, and slept a traveller's sleep.
+
+Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression
+that I was yet in X----, and perceiving it to be broad daylight I
+started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind
+time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint
+vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as,
+throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide,
+lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though
+not uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a
+respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet!
+Yet far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room!
+It, too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness,
+I first heard the great bell of St. Paul's telling London it was
+midnight, and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full
+charged with colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window
+of that room, I first saw THE dome, looming through a London mist. I
+suppose the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are
+felt but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them
+in safe niches! Well--I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in
+foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber
+looked stately and cheerful. It had such large windows--CROISEES that
+opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a great
+looking-glass stood on my dressing-table--such a fine mirror glittered
+over the mantelpiece--the painted floor looked so clean and glossy;
+when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble steps
+almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.
+On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a
+short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad,
+her physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she
+answered me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought
+her charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived,
+very picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch
+paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall.
+
+I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty,
+and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and
+most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer
+sense of exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table
+(covered, however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered
+breakfast, began to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot.
+The stove might be dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it
+was indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by
+it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or
+comprehend much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the
+mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
+of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen
+presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt from the fashion in
+which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in
+my execrable South-of-England style, though the man understood English.
+The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted
+me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
+French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for
+the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the
+capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living
+languages I afterwards found to be so general in Brussels.
+
+I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there
+on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a
+free, independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the
+two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
+business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
+one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
+the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
+without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: "Go forth and seek
+another service." I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
+never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
+impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived
+the morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden's
+letter of introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new
+situation. Wrenching my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat,
+and forced my reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign
+street.
+
+It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
+stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out "Mr.
+Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale," for so my letter was addressed. By dint
+of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked,
+asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+
+Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the
+presence of an elderly gentleman--very grave, business-like, and
+respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden's letter; he received me
+very civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there
+was anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said,
+"Yes," and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of
+fortune, travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who
+wanted employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied
+that as a friend of Mr. Hunsden's he would be willing to assist me as
+well as he could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile
+house at Liege, and another in a bookseller's shop at Louvain.
+
+"Clerk and shopman!" murmured I to myself. "No." I shook my head. I
+had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other
+occupations that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave
+Brussels.
+
+"I know of no place in Brussels," answered Mr. Brown, "unless indeed you
+were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with
+the director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of
+English and Latin."
+
+I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+
+"The very thing, sir!" said I.
+
+"But," asked he, "do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian
+boys English?"
+
+Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative;
+having studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language
+intelligibly though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write
+it decently.
+
+"Then," pursued Mr. Brown, "I think I can promise you the place, for
+Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come
+here again at five o'clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to
+him."
+
+The word "professor" struck me. "I am not a professor," said I.
+
+"Oh," returned Mr. Brown, "professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher,
+that is all."
+
+My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present,
+withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart;
+the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now
+take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time
+I remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky,
+the gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what
+a fine street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades,
+the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a
+new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to
+contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the
+top of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow
+back street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d'Isabelle.
+I well recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large
+house opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, "Pensionnat de
+Demoiselles." Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in
+my mind; it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles,
+externats no doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door--I looked
+for a pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets
+hid their features; in a moment they were gone.
+
+I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o'clock arrived,
+but punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale.
+Re-admitted to Mr. Brown's breakfast-room, I found him, as before,
+seated at the table, and he was not alone--a gentleman stood by the
+hearth. Two words of introduction designated him as my future master.
+"M. Pelet, Mr. Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet," a bow on each
+side finished the ceremony. I don't know what sort of a bow I made; an
+ordinary one, I suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of
+mind; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first interview
+with Edward Crimsworth. M. Pelet's bow was extremely polite, yet not
+theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to
+each other. In a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my
+foreign ears, very distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he
+had just been receiving from "le respectable M. Brown," an account of my
+attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as to
+the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and Latin in
+his establishment; nevertheless, for form's sake, he would put a few
+questions to test my powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms
+his satisfaction at my answers. The subject of salary next came on; it
+was fixed at one thousand francs per annum, besides board and lodging.
+"And in addition," suggested M. Pelet, "as there will be some hours
+in each day during which your services will not be required in my
+establishment, you may, in time, obtain employment in other seminaries,
+and thus turn your vacant moments to profitable account."
+
+I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms
+on which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels;
+instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of
+teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new
+post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted.
+
+Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him?
+He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather
+emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes
+hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French
+turn (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth
+and parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic
+lineaments was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a
+melancholy, almost suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy
+was "fine et spirituelle." I use two French words because they define
+better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his
+features were imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing
+personage. I wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary
+characteristics of his profession, and almost feared he could not be
+stern and resolute enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least
+M. Pelet presented an absolute contrast to my late master, Edward
+Crimsworth.
+
+Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a
+good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer's
+house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the
+sphere of my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted
+schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course,
+whose collective appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing,
+and well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company
+with M. Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance
+a murmur or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this
+most gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I
+thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual. When I had
+perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and
+said to me--
+
+"Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their
+proficiency in English?"
+
+The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at
+least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career
+by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor's desk near which we
+stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect
+my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I
+proposed to open business. I made it as short as possible:--
+
+"Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture."
+
+"Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?" demanded a thickset, moon-faced young
+Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:--
+
+"Anglais."
+
+I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this
+lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the
+delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the
+criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt
+already it would be necessary at once to take up an advantageous
+position, and I proceeded to employ means accordingly.
+
+"Commencez!" cried I, when they had all produced their books. The
+moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt)
+took the first sentence. The "livre de lecture" was the "Vicar of
+Wakefield," much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to
+contain prime samples of conversational English; it might, however,
+have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by
+Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great
+Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was
+said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but
+I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of
+correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced,
+no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred
+"Anglais." In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in
+rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and
+mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+
+"Arretez!" said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all
+with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough
+and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length
+did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me
+were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my
+hands, and ejaculated in a deep "voix de poitrine"--
+
+"Comme c'est affreux!"
+
+They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they
+were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way
+I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their
+self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation; not
+a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of
+betraying my own deficiencies.
+
+"Ecoutez, messieurs!" said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my
+accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the
+extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn,
+deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of
+the "Vicar of Wakefield," and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some
+twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed
+attention; by the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then
+rose and said:--
+
+"C'est assez pour aujourd'hui, messieurs; demain nous recommencerons, et
+j'espere que tout ira bien."
+
+With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet
+quitted the school-room.
+
+"C'est bien! c'est tres bien!" said my principal as we entered his
+parlour. "Je vois que monsieur a de l'adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans
+l'instruction, l'adresse fait tout autant que le savoir."
+
+From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my "chambre,"
+as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small
+room, with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand
+that I was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great
+comfort. Yet, though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light
+not being taxed in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into
+their houses; just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS,
+for one of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into
+the boys' playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect
+it would present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I
+suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:--
+
+"La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat
+de demoiselles," said he, "et les convenances exigent--enfin, vous
+comprenez--n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
+
+"Oui, oui," was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but
+when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing
+I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find
+some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the
+consecrated ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well
+joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I
+thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a
+garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the
+demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety
+of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin
+curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old
+duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare
+gravelled court, with an enormous "pas de geant" in the middle, and the
+monotonous walls and windows of a boys' school-house round. Not only
+then, but many a time after, especially in moments of weariness and
+low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing
+board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region
+which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the
+window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often heard
+at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the daytime,
+when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the boards, the
+voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and, to speak
+the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a trifle
+disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen
+sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated
+clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to
+me a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter's girls or those
+of M. Pelet's boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking
+the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by,
+that Reuter was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded
+up. I say old, for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from
+her cautious, chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of
+her as young. I remember I was very much amused when I first heard her
+Christian name; it was Zoraide--Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter. But the
+continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names,
+such as we sober English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too
+limited a list to choose from.
+
+Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a
+few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the
+commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much
+facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and
+as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
+continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
+never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
+acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the
+relation in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards
+each other in those establishments, will consider an important and
+uncommon one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
+system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may possibly
+be of use to others.
+
+It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
+youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one's
+measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
+weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
+impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull,
+but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead,
+most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly
+absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having
+short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
+recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study
+or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by
+injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they
+would have resisted as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine;
+and though not brave singly, they were relentless acting EN MASSE.
+
+I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet's establishment, the
+combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of
+more than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the
+most moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply--to
+assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
+contracted--to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
+point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
+that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
+root it in rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
+step--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
+gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs
+of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and
+handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of
+learning, remove every pebble from the track; but then you must finally
+insist with decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself
+to be led quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my
+lesson to the lowest level of my dullest pupil's capacity--when I
+had shown myself the mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of
+impertinence, a movement of disobedience, changed me at once into
+a despot. I offered then but one alternative--submission and
+acknowledgment of error, or ignominious expulsion. This system answered,
+and my influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. "The
+boy is father to the man," it is said; and so I often thought when
+looked at my boys and remembered the political history of their
+ancestors. Pelet's school was merely an epitome of the Belgian nation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well!
+Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than
+his demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect,
+irritating interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I
+fear, however, two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment
+could not have said as much; to them the director's manner was
+invariably dry, stern, and cool. I believe he perceived once or twice
+that I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and
+me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile--
+
+"Ce ne sont que des Flamands--allez!"
+
+And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted
+floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they
+were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual
+inferiority is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men,
+and, in the main, honest men; and I could not see why their being
+aboriginals of the flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for
+treating them with perpetual severity and contempt. This idea, of
+injustice somewhat poisoned the pleasure I might otherwise have derived
+from Pelet's soft affable manner to myself. Certainly it was agreeable,
+when the day's work was over, to find one's employer an intelligent
+and cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic
+and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover that
+his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of reality--if I did
+occasionally suspect the existence of flint or steel under an external
+covering of velvet--still we are none of us perfect; and weary as I was
+of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence in which I had constantly
+lived at X----, I had no inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer
+regions, to institute at once a prying search after defects that were
+scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was willing
+to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him benevolent and friendly
+until some untoward event should prove him otherwise. He was not
+married, and I soon perceived he had all a Frenchman's, all a Parisian's
+notions about matrimony and women. I suspected a degree of laxity in
+his code of morals, there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone
+whenever he alluded to what he called "le beau sexe;" but he was too
+gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was really
+intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of discourse, he
+and I always found enough to talk about, without seeking themes in the
+mire. I hated his fashion of mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul,
+mere licentiousness. He felt the difference of our notions, and, by
+mutual consent, we kept off ground debateable.
+
+Pelet's house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real
+old Frenchwoman; she had been handsome--at least she told me so, and I
+strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women
+can be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than
+she really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair
+strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown--only
+a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in
+lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On
+the other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on
+Sundays and fete-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured
+dress, usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers,
+and a very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old
+woman, but an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly
+in and about the kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son's august
+presence; of him, indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved
+her, his reproofs were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself
+that trouble.
+
+Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors,
+whom, however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what
+she called her "cabinet," a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen,
+and descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by,
+I have not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on
+her knee, engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner,
+gossiping with her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her
+antagonist, the cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal
+with her son; and as to showing her face at the boys' table, that was
+quite out of the question. These details will sound very odd in English
+ears, but Belgium is not England, and its ways are not our ways.
+
+Madame Pelet's habits of life, then, being taken into consideration,
+I was a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was
+always a half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment,
+correcting a huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant
+tapped at the door, and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet's
+compliments, and she would be happy to see me to take my "gouter" (a
+meal which answers to our English "tea") with her in the dining-room.
+
+"Plait-il?" said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the
+message and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I
+accepted, of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what
+whim had entered the old lady's brain; her son was out--gone to pass the
+evening at the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which
+he was a member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room
+door, a queer idea glanced across my mind.
+
+"Surely she's not going to make love to me," said I. "I've heard of
+old Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the gouter? They
+generally begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe."
+
+There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination,
+and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt
+have cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself
+in; but whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty,
+the primary wish of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth,
+reserving the expedient of flight for the moment when its dread
+anticipation shall be realized. I turned the door-handle, and in an
+instant had crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and
+stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+
+Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst
+apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown,
+on her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her
+table was carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a
+bottle of something--I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started
+on my brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed
+door, when, to my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the
+direction of the stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large
+fauteuil beside it. This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman,
+and as fat and as rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her
+attire was likewise very fine, and spring flowers of different hues
+circled in a bright wreath the crown of her violet-coloured velvet
+bonnet.
+
+I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet,
+coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic
+step, thus accosted me:
+
+"Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the
+request of an insignificant person like me--will Monsieur complete his
+kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame Reuter,
+who resides in the neighbouring house--the young ladies' school."
+
+"Ah!" thought I, "I knew she was old," and I bowed and took my seat.
+Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+
+"How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?" asked she, in an accent of the
+broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between
+the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and
+the guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then
+wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me
+should be at the head of a ladies' seminary, which I had always heard
+spoken of in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something
+to wonder at. Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old
+Flemish fermiere, or even a maitresse d'auberge, than a staid, grave,
+rigid directrice de pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least
+the Belgian old women permit themselves a licence of manners, speech,
+and aspect, such as our venerable granddames would recoil from as
+absolutely disreputable, and Madame Reuter's jolly face bore evidence
+that she was no exception to the rule of her country; there was a
+twinkle and leer in her left eye; her right she kept habitually half
+shut, which I thought very odd indeed. After several vain attempts to
+comprehend the motives of these two droll old creatures for inviting me
+to join them at their gouter, I at last fairly gave it up, and resigning
+myself to inevitable mystification, I sat and looked first at one, then
+at the other, taking care meantime to do justice to the confitures,
+cakes, and coffee, with which they amply supplied me. They, too, ate,
+and that with no delicate appetite, and having demolished a large
+portion of the solids, they proposed a "petit verre." I declined. Not
+so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought rather
+a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near the stove, they
+drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited me to do the same.
+I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was thus addressed
+first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter.
+
+"We will now speak of business," said Madame Pelet, and she went on to
+make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect
+that she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in
+order to give her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an
+important proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage.
+
+"Pourvu que vous soyez sage," said Madame Reuter, "et a vrai dire,
+vous en avez bien l'air. Take one drop of the punch" (or ponche, as she
+pronounced it); "it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full
+meal."
+
+I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
+
+"I feel," said she, after a solemn sip--"I feel profoundly the
+importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted
+me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the
+establishment in the next house?"
+
+"Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame." Though, indeed, at that moment
+I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter's
+pensionnat.
+
+"I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend
+Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more. Ah! you thought I
+gave lessons in class--did you?"
+
+And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy
+amazingly.
+
+"Madame is in the wrong to laugh," I observed; "if she does not give
+lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;" and I whipped out a
+white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my
+nose, bowing at the same time.
+
+"Quel charmant jeune homme!" murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice.
+Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not
+French, only laughed again.
+
+"You are a dangerous person, I fear," said she; "if you can forge
+compliments at that rate, Zoraide will positively be afraid of you; but
+if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you
+can flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She
+has heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get
+the very best masters for her school (car Zoraide fait tout comme une
+reine, c'est une veritable maitresse-femme), she has commissioned me to
+step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility
+of engaging you. Zoraide is a wary general; she never advances without
+first examining well her ground. I don't think she would be pleased
+if she knew I had already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not
+order me to go so far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting
+you into the secret, and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take
+care, however, you don't betray either of us to Zoraide--to my
+daughter, I mean; she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot
+understand that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little--"
+
+"C'est absolument comme mon fils!" cried Madame Pelet.
+
+"All the world is so changed since our girlhood!" rejoined the other:
+"young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame
+Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter's
+establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow,
+you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you
+will introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached
+you from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I
+would not displease Zoraide on any account."
+
+"Bien! bien!" interrupted I--for all this chatter and circumlocution
+began to bore me very much; "I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing
+shall be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames--I am infinitely
+obliged to you."
+
+"Comment! vous vous en allez deja?" exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+
+"Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits,
+encore une tasse de cafe?"
+
+"Merci, merci, madame--au revoir." And I backed at last out of the
+apartment.
+
+Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind
+the incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and
+queerly managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate
+mess of it; still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the
+subject was one of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change
+to give lessons in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies
+would be an occupation so interesting--to be admitted at all into a
+ladies' boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life. Besides,
+thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, "I shall now at last see
+the mysterious garden: I shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle.
+Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment, should it
+offer, having formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me.
+It was, therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should
+be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter's establishment four
+afternoons in every week.
+
+When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference
+with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the
+visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember
+very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with
+myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something
+smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. "Doubtless,"
+thought I, "she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of
+Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if
+it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome,
+and no dressing can make me so, therefore I'll go as I am." And off
+I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table,
+surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk,
+dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom
+or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a
+lady's love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid.
+
+I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled
+the bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a
+passage paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were
+painted in imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass
+door, through which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in
+the sunshine of the mild spring evening--for it was now the middle of
+April.
+
+This, then, was my first glimpse of the garden; but I had not time to
+look long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative
+my question as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the
+folding-doors of a room to the left, and having ushered me in, closed
+them behind me. I found myself in a salon with a very well-painted,
+highly varnished floor; chairs and sofas covered with white draperies,
+a green porcelain stove, walls hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt
+pendule and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent
+from the centre of the ceiling, mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and
+a handsome centre table completed the inventory of furniture. All looked
+extremely clean and glittering, but the general effect would have been
+somewhat chilling had not a second large pair of folding-doors, standing
+wide open, and disclosing another and smaller salon, more snugly
+furnished, offered some relief to the eye. This room was carpeted, and
+therein was a piano, a couch, a chiffonniere--above all, it contained
+a lofty window with a crimson curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded
+another glimpse of the garden, through the large, clear panes, round
+which some leaves of ivy, some tendrils of vine were trained.
+
+"Monsieur Creemsvort, n'est ce pas?" said a voice behind me; and,
+starting involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the
+contemplation of the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the
+entrance of a person into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle.
+Reuter who now addressed me, and stood close beside me; and when I had
+bowed with instantaneously recovered sang-froid--for I am not easily
+embarrassed--I commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant
+aspect of her little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in
+possessing a garden.
+
+"Yes," she said, "she often thought so;" and added, "it is my garden,
+monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably
+have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you
+see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one
+so large and pleasant anywhere else in town."
+
+I approved her judgment.
+
+"But you have not seen it yet," said she, rising; "come to the window
+and take a better view." I followed her; she opened the sash, and
+leaning out I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been
+to me an unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured
+ground, with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the
+middle; there was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some
+flower-borders, and, on the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs,
+laburnums, and acacias. It looked pleasant, to me--very pleasant, so
+long a time had elapsed since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it
+was not only on Mdlle. Reuter's garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had
+taken a view of her well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed
+my glance to come back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it.
+
+I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black,
+with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun's head-gear;
+whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might
+indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought,
+be more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair
+Englishwoman; she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it
+in curls; pretty her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular,
+but neither were they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause
+to deem them expressive. What was their predominant cast? Was it
+sagacity?--sense? Yes, I thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be
+sure. I discovered, however, that there was a certain serenity of eye,
+and freshness of complexion, most pleasing to behold. The colour on her
+cheek was like the bloom on a good apple, which is as sound at the core
+as it is red on the rind.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not
+absolutely certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take,
+because I was so young, and parents might possibly object to a professor
+like me for their daughters: "But it is often well to act on one's own
+judgment," said she, "and to lead parents, rather than be led by them.
+The fitness of a professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have
+heard, and from what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you
+than M. Ledru, the music-master, who is a married man of near fifty."
+
+I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion;
+that if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence
+reposed in me. "Du reste," said she, "the surveillance will be strictly
+attended to." And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms.
+She was very cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely
+bargain, but she warily sounded me to find out what my expectations
+might be; and when she could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and
+reasoned with a fluent yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last
+nailed me down to five hundred francs per annum--not too much, but I
+agreed. Before the negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little
+dusk. I did not hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear
+her talk; I was amused with the sort of business talent she displayed.
+Edward could not have shown himself more practical, though he might have
+evinced more coarseness and urgency; and then she had so many reasons,
+so many explanations; and, after all, she succeeded in proving herself
+quite disinterested and even liberal. At last she concluded, she could
+say no more, because, as I acquiesced in all things, there was no
+further ground for the exercise of her parts of speech. I was obliged to
+rise. I would rather have sat a little longer; what had I to return to
+but my small empty room? And my eyes had a pleasure in looking at
+Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the twilight softened her features a
+little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I could fancy her forehead as open
+as it was really elevated, her mouth touched with turns of sweetness
+as well as defined in lines of sense. When I rose to go, I held out
+my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was contrary to the etiquette of
+foreign habits; she smiled, and said--
+
+"Ah! c'est comme tous les Anglais," but gave me her hand very kindly.
+
+"It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle," said I; "and,
+remember, I shall always claim it."
+
+She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+tranquillity obvious in all she did--a tranquillity which soothed and
+suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels
+seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street,
+and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career
+were even then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night.
+So impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in
+those days.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet's; I
+wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring
+pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for
+pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at
+one o'clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule's
+deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been
+waiting.
+
+At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met
+M. Pelet.
+
+"Comme vous avez l'air rayonnant!" said he. "Je ne vous ai jamais vu
+aussi gai. Que s'est-il donc passe?"
+
+"Apparemment que j'aime les changements," replied I.
+
+"Ah! je comprends--c'est cela--soyez sage seulement. Vous etes bien
+jeune--trop jeune pour le role que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre
+garde--savez-vous?"
+
+"Mais quel danger y a-t-il?"
+
+"Je n'en sais rien--ne vous laissez pas aller a de vives
+impressions--voila tout."
+
+I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at
+the thought that "vives impressions" were likely to be created; it was
+the deadness, the sameness of life's daily ongoings that had hitherto
+been my bane; my blouse-clad "eleves" in the boys' seminary never
+stirred in me any "vives impressions" except it might be occasionally
+some of anger. I broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage
+he followed me with one of his laughs--a very French, rakish, mocking
+sound.
+
+Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into
+the cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls.
+I followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I
+found myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter's
+little figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see
+her dress in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted
+her compact round shape to perfection--delicate little collar and
+manchettes of lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists,
+and feet, to complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she
+came suddenly upon me! Solicitude and business were in her eye--on her
+forehead; she looked almost stern. Her "Bon jour, monsieur," was quite
+polite, but so orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp
+towel over my "vives impressions." The servant turned back when her
+mistress appeared, and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side
+with Mdlle. Reuter.
+
+"Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day," said she;
+"dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for
+those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign
+language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little
+unsettled."
+
+She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained
+for me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor
+terminated in a hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side
+showed within a long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and
+two lamps; it was empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the
+playground and garden; a broad staircase ascended spirally on the
+opposite side; the remaining wall showed a pair of great folding-doors,
+now closed, and admitting, doubtless, to the classes.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably,
+whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum.
+I suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government,
+for she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of
+uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I
+walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks,
+and took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an
+estrade, of one step high, so as to command one division; the other
+division being under the surveillance of a maitresse similarly elevated.
+At the back of the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition
+dividing this schoolroom from another beyond, was a large tableau of
+wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on
+my desk for the convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal
+obscurity which might occur in my lessons by writing it upon the
+tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the chalk, to enable me to efface
+the marks when they had served the purpose intended.
+
+I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing
+myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the
+crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to
+ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool
+enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me.
+
+And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she
+was nowhere visible; a maitresse or teacher, the one who occupied the
+corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me;
+she was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only
+see that she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion,
+and that her attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and
+affectation. More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of
+the large window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of
+whom some were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women
+from eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest
+attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all;
+and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant
+eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear
+the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice
+somewhat too low I murmured--
+
+"Prenez vos cahiers de dictee, mesdemoiselles."
+
+Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet's take their reading-books. A
+rustle followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which
+momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I
+heard tittering and whispers.
+
+"Eulalie, je suis prete a pleuer de rire," observed one.
+
+"Comme il a rougi en parlant!"
+
+"Oui, c'est un veritable blanc-bec."
+
+"Tais-toi, Hortense--il nous ecoute."
+
+And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the
+whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as
+they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease
+and courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by
+which I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their
+dark nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels.
+The light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure
+relieved my mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+
+The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my
+estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names
+I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie,
+Hortense, Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was
+fair, and her features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a
+"figure de Vierge" have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling
+hers; there were no angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve
+and roundness--neither thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line
+or flush the equality of her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved
+with her regular breathing, her eyes moved a little--by these evidences
+of life alone could I have distinguished her from some large handsome
+figure moulded in wax. Hortense was of middle size and stout, her
+form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and brilliant than
+Eulalie's, her hair was dark brown, her complexion richly coloured;
+there were frolic and mischief in her eye: consistency and good sense
+she might possess, but none of her features betokened those qualities.
+
+Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair,
+very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
+complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in
+her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
+perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
+classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
+don't know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between
+them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder's mind. She was
+sensual now, and in ten years' time she would be coarse--promise plain
+was written in her face of much future folly.
+
+If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me
+with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to
+expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic
+charms. Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while
+she said, with an air of impudent freedom--
+
+"Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur."
+
+Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
+over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
+hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between
+them, and treated me at the same time to a smile "de sa facon."
+Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer
+than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her
+lady-mother's character afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the
+precocious accomplishments of the daughter. These three, I at once saw,
+deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their
+splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five
+minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than
+five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and
+let down a visor of impassible austerity.
+
+"Take your pens and commence writing," said I, in as dry and trite a
+voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.
+
+The dictee now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually
+with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I
+made no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. "Comment
+dit-on point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?"
+
+"Semi-colon, mademoiselle."
+
+"Semi-collong? Ah, comme c'est drole!" (giggle.)
+
+"J'ai une si mauvaise plume--impossible d'ecrire!"
+
+"Mais, monsieur--je ne sais pas suivre--vous allez si vite."
+
+"Je n'ai rien compris, moi!"
+
+Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the
+first time, ejaculated--
+
+"Silence, mesdemoiselles!"
+
+No silence followed--on the contrary, the three ladies in front began to
+talk more loudly.
+
+"C'est si difficile, l'Anglais!"
+
+"Je deteste la dictee."
+
+"Quel ennui d'ecrire quelquechose que l'on ne comprend pas!"
+
+Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the
+class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+
+"Donnez-moi votre cahier," said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and
+bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+
+"Et vous, mademoiselle--donnez-moi le votre," continued I, more mildly,
+addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of
+the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest
+and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and
+delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the
+two dictations; Eulalie's was slurred, blotted, and full of silly
+mistakes--Sylvie's (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was
+clearly written, it contained no error against sense, and but few
+faults of orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the
+faults--then I looked at Eulalie:
+
+"C'est honteux!" said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four
+parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book
+with a smile, saying--
+
+"C'est bien--je suis content de vous."
+
+Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey,
+but the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation
+of the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more
+convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption.
+
+A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation
+of school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a
+certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up
+started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maitresse,
+and quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the
+inner class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising
+tumult I already heard.
+
+I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle.
+Reuter came again upon me.
+
+"Step in here a moment," said she, and she held open the door of
+the side room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitree,
+filled with glass and china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she
+had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled
+with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from
+the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a
+maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some
+sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough
+ranks, and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in
+Brussels.
+
+"Well, you have given your first lesson," began Mdlle. Reuter in the
+most calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from
+which we were separated only by a single wall.
+
+"Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their
+conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in
+me entire confidence."
+
+Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without
+aid; the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity
+at first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined
+or downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de
+demoiselles presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was
+only enlightened and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to
+complain to Mdlle. Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to
+confidence with a smile.
+
+"A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly."
+
+She looked more than doubtful.
+
+"Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?" said she.
+
+"Ah! tout va au mieux!" was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to
+question me; but her eye--not large, not brilliant, not melting, or
+kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with
+me; it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, "Be as close as
+you like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I
+already know."
+
+By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress's
+manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she
+began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly
+wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she
+prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she
+sat so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse,
+that it was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus
+detaining me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this
+aim, but her countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable
+commonplaces, her eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were
+not given in full, but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily,
+yet I think I lost not one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me;
+I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was
+searching for salient points, and weak points, and eccentric points;
+she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some
+chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand
+upon my neck--mistress of my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was
+no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it was only the
+power of the politician to which she aspired; I was now installed as a
+professor in her establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind
+was superior to mine--by what feeling or opinion she could lead me.
+
+I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I
+gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye
+would light up--she thought she had me; having led her a little way, I
+delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her
+countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner;
+the conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having
+gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given
+me an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to
+baffle her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I
+again held out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a
+small and white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full--obliging
+her to give me a straightforward look; this last test went against
+me: it left her as it found her--moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it
+disappointed.
+
+"I am growing wiser," thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet's. "Look
+at this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers?
+To read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would
+think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad--here is
+a specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose
+staple ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more
+passionless than Zoraide Reuter!" So I thought then; I found
+afterwards that blunt susceptibilities are very consistent with strong
+propensities.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and
+on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late
+at meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it
+been one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the
+soup and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably
+have greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted
+him both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial
+gentleman only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my
+napkin, and said my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a
+servant to the kitchen, to bring me a plate of "puree aux carottes"
+(for this was a maigre-day), and before sending away the first course,
+reserved for me a portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted.
+Dinner being over, the boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and
+Vandam (the two ushers) of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they
+had not looked so very heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to
+all things in heaven above or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied
+them greatly for the obligation they were under to trail after those
+rough lads everywhere and at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed
+to scout myself as a privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my
+chamber, sure to find there, if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but
+this evening (as had often happened before) I was to be still farther
+distinguished.
+
+"Eh bien, mauvais sujet!" said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I
+set my foot on the first step of the stair, "ou allez-vous? Venez a la
+salle-a-manger, que je vous gronde un peu."
+
+"I beg pardon, monsieur," said I, as I followed him to his private
+sitting-room, "for having returned so late--it was not my fault."
+
+"That is just what I want to know," rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me
+into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire--for the stove had
+now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered "Coffee
+for two," and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort,
+one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with
+a coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While
+M. Pelet employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts
+reverted to the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now
+crying hoarsely for order in the playground.
+
+"C'est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance," observed I.
+
+"Plait-il?" dit M. Pelet.
+
+I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a
+little fatigued with their labours.
+
+"Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme," murmured scornfully the
+director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+
+"Servez-vous mon garcon," said he blandly, when I had put a couple of
+huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup. "And now tell me why you
+stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter's. I know that lessons conclude, in her
+establishment as in mine, at four o'clock, and when you returned it was
+past five."
+
+"Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur."
+
+"Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask."
+
+"Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur."
+
+"A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom,
+before the pupils?"
+
+"No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour."
+
+"And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother's gossip, was there, of
+course?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle."
+
+"C'est joli--cela," observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into the
+fire.
+
+"Honi soit qui mal y pense," murmured I, significantly.
+
+"Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous."
+
+"In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was
+mademoiselle's reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour,
+listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest
+frivolities."
+
+"She was sounding your character."
+
+"I thought so, monsieur."
+
+"Did she find out your weak point?"
+
+"What is my weak point?"
+
+"Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will
+at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast,
+Crimsworth."
+
+I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+
+"Some women might, monsieur."
+
+"Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est
+encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste assey pour unir
+la tendresse d'une petite maman a l'amour d'une epouse devouee; n'est-ce
+pas que cela t'irait superieurement?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my
+mother."
+
+"She is then a little too old for you?"
+
+"No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things."
+
+"In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is
+she not?"
+
+"Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of
+form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace."
+
+"Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?"
+
+"A little harsh, especially her mouth."
+
+"Ah, yes! her mouth," said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. "There is
+character about her mouth--firmness--but she has a very pleasant smile;
+don't you think so?"
+
+"Rather crafty."
+
+"True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you
+remarked her eyebrows?"
+
+I answered that I had not.
+
+"You have not seen her looking down then?" said he.
+
+"No."
+
+"It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting,
+or some other woman's work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly
+intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on
+around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being
+developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it;
+her humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her
+features move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown
+disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending
+task; if she can only get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec
+completed, it is enough for her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a
+deeper quiescence, a meeker modesty settles on her features, and clothes
+her general mien; observe then her eyebrows, et dites-moi s'il n'y a pas
+du chat dans l'un et du renard dans l'autre."
+
+"I will take careful notice the first opportunity," said I.
+
+"And then," continued M. Pelet, "the eyelid will flicker, the
+light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out
+from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and
+retreat again."
+
+I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes' silence, I asked:
+
+"Will she ever marry, do you think?"
+
+"Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and
+resolution to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is
+better aware than herself of the sort of impression she is capable
+of producing; no one likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am
+mistaken if she will not yet leave the print of her stealing steps on
+thy heart, Crimsworth."
+
+"Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked
+on."
+
+"But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm."
+
+"She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with
+me."
+
+"That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first
+floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect."
+
+"And interest, M. Pelet--interest. Will not mademoiselle consider that
+point?"
+
+"Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now
+we have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N'y a-t-il pas de
+belles etudes parmi ces jeunes tetes?"
+
+"Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one
+cannot divine much from a first interview."
+
+"Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little
+abashed before these blooming young creatures?"
+
+"At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid."
+
+"I don't believe you."
+
+"It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they
+did not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and
+handsomest undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed
+so cleverly that in five minutes I knew them, at least, for what they
+were--three arrant coquettes."
+
+"Je les connais!" exclaimed M. Pelet. "Elles sont toujours au premier
+rang a l'eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie
+espiegle, une belle brune."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group they
+would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her
+smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut
+locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know
+how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask
+cheek, and roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is
+beauty! beauty in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face
+of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron
+would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid islander!--you
+played the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so
+exquisite?"
+
+I might have laughed at the director's enthusiasm had I believed
+it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up
+raptures. I felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my
+guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He
+went on:
+
+"Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraide Reuter appear
+dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of
+her pupils?"
+
+The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal
+was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at that time I
+could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to
+what was right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved
+its antidote, and when he further added:--
+
+"Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
+with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like
+you might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one
+of the trio."
+
+I replied by a look and an interrogative "Monsieur?" which startled him.
+
+He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
+demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
+the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M.
+Pelet was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles
+lettres to his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left
+the room, humming as he went some gay strain of Beranger's.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter,
+did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What
+had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels?
+Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight,
+gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be
+a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy;
+there was metal in it, both lead and iron.
+
+Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
+just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or
+two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
+schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter's establishment, where about a hundred
+specimens of the genus "jeune fille" collected together offered a
+fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were,
+differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced
+over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English,
+Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class
+bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of
+two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES;
+these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be
+demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of
+the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was
+small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the
+majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
+boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards
+each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her
+own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest
+and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity
+when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of
+speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate
+skill and at a moment's notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
+civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took
+place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close
+friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl
+seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to
+secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each
+and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
+The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
+innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having
+attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty
+and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly
+leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye.
+I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I
+am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this
+precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to
+be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
+I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the
+respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up,
+yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general
+view: now for one or two selected specimens.
+
+The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
+or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
+of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is
+of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed
+but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an
+inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured
+into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and
+gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
+grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek
+bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion.
+So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed:
+incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native
+tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere
+farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably
+gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and
+reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
+that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia's
+daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of
+observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her
+desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty;
+her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing
+behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of
+washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as
+one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers
+through. Aurelia's conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
+something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence.
+The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges
+in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
+fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
+monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
+languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
+against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly
+offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
+she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for
+which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass
+near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
+happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
+brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter;
+if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in
+sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
+with an intolerable Low German accent.
+
+Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele
+Dronsart: this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy,
+with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion,
+features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown
+colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as
+full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives
+the idea of a somewhat dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well,
+when I looked along the row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at
+this of Adele's; her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently
+succeeded in arresting it. She was an unnatural-looking being--so young,
+fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were
+on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like
+deceit about her mouth. In general she sat very still; her massive shape
+looked as if it could not bend much, nor did her large head--so broad
+at the base, so narrow towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her
+short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one
+a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious
+and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as
+many of them were, few were as bad as she.
+
+Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class; the
+second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
+girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was
+dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the ---- Isles,
+where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
+educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl's head and
+countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
+the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs
+of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were
+singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness,
+combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse
+shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she
+had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was
+fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black,
+form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen.
+
+Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her "regard"
+was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough
+for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of
+her other lineaments I think the eye--cowardice had also its distinct
+cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
+coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like
+a horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
+and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
+Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of person
+and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would
+seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy
+of the human mind and body; these, I soon found, were completely under
+her influence, and with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish
+tumult, which I was constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two
+of her tools to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing
+five minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices
+into a large place adjoining called the grands salle; the principal
+into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and pocketed the key. This
+judgment I executed in the presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much
+aghast at beholding so decided a proceeding--the most severe that had
+ever been ventured on in her establishment. Her look of affright I
+answered with one of composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps
+flattered, and certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe
+long enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
+done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the----
+Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have slaves, whom,
+as she said, she could kick and strike at will.
+
+These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and
+as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
+
+Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to
+show something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo,
+some sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to
+her bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray
+it. The pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was
+a young girl from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently
+benevolent and obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered;
+moreover, the plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
+principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their names. The
+least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned
+once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners, intelligent in mind; she was
+even sincere, as far as her religion would permit her to be so, but her
+physical organization was defective; weak health stunted her growth and
+chilled her spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister,
+her whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained
+subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself
+for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought
+and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted
+herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment;
+in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton
+air, she went about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she
+liked, or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
+poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the dictates
+of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to the will of
+her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of Mdlle. Reuter's
+establishment; pale, blighted image, where life lingered feebly, but
+whence the soul had been conjured by Romish wizard-craft!
+
+A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be
+divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English--the daughters
+chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from
+their own country. These poor girls had never known the advantages
+of settled homes, decorous example, or honest Protestant education;
+resident a few months now in one Catholic school, now in another, as
+their parents wandered from land to land--from France to Germany, from
+Germany to Belgium--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad
+habits, losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
+morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment that
+can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an habitual look
+of sullen dejection, the result of crushed self-respect and constant
+browbeating from their Popish fellow-pupils, who hated them as English,
+and scorned them as heretics.
+
+The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half
+a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
+characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair
+(compared with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible
+figures, white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more
+intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances,
+a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
+alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE
+of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once
+envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off
+insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they
+eschewed company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell
+isolated.
+
+The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number,
+all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and Suzette; the two
+last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary,
+their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts,
+feelings, and views were all ordinary--were I to write a chapter on the
+subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more
+distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette,
+but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
+to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy
+art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in
+the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her,
+consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
+observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English
+air for a maitresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I
+should think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly
+"en revolte" against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her
+name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+
+Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
+that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
+described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
+British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
+steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o'-lanthorns; profoundly aware
+of her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
+which sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable
+from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner
+tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on entering the school-room,
+to feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and
+quiet which all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings
+frequently failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or
+rather--contrast, with those who surrounded her, and to know that in
+personal as well as mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed
+palm of preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
+managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on herself the
+office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns
+every invidious task of blame and punishment, that they all regarded her
+with deference, if not with affection; her teachers did not love her,
+but they submitted because they were her inferiors in everything; the
+various masters who attended her school were each and all in some way
+or other under her influence; over one she had acquired power by her
+skilful management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
+to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a fourth--a
+timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me,
+she still watched, still tried by the most ingenious tests--she roved
+round me, baffled, yet persevering; I believe she thought I was like
+a smooth and bare precipice, which offered neither jutting stone nor
+tree-root, nor tuft of grass to aid the climber. Now she flattered
+with exquisite tact, now she moralized, now she tried how far I was
+accessible to mercenary motives, then she disported on the brink of
+affection--knowing that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked
+excellent sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment.
+I found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it was
+sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to smile in
+her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her scarcely veiled,
+though mute mortification. Still she persevered, and at last, I am bound
+to confess it, her finger, essaying, proving every atom of the casket,
+touched its secret spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she
+laid her hand on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or
+whether the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
+shall know.
+
+It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed;
+I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours' incessant talking left me very
+hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
+corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that
+I looked very pale and tired. "Yes," I said, "I was fatigued;" and then,
+with increased interest, she rejoined, "You shall not go away till you
+have had some refreshment." She persuaded me to step into the parlour,
+and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
+still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
+closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
+earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me
+her hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
+pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
+modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance;
+I thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my
+mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive,
+that I might see her again.
+
+I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
+subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
+o'clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
+after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
+gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
+the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
+very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked
+at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began
+to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+
+"Will you go into the garden a minute or two," asked she, "till they are
+gone?"
+
+I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
+say--
+
+"You will come with me?"
+
+In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down
+the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in
+full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the
+air still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance.
+Released from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage,
+with a pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side--how did I feel? Why,
+very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
+suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
+the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet's
+mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
+amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
+and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
+down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
+ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned
+in my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell
+rang, both at her house and M. Pelet's; we were obliged to part; I
+detained her a moment as she was moving away.
+
+"I want something," said I.
+
+"What?" asked Zoraide naively.
+
+"Only a flower."
+
+"Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like."
+
+"No--one will do--but you must gather it, and give it to me."
+
+"What a caprice!" she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
+and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace.
+I took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
+future.
+
+Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight
+night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having
+sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and
+a little oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
+often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded
+old Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of
+professor in the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it
+was no longer "inconvenient" for me to overlook my own pupils at their
+sports. I sat down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill,
+and leaned out: above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless
+night sky--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the
+stars--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep shade,
+and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from the closed
+blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the night was
+breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a certain walk of Mdlle.
+Reuter's garden, called "l'allee defendue," so named because the pupils
+were forbidden to enter it on account of its proximity to the boys'
+school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick;
+this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened
+the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
+directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her as
+I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks and
+borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
+which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part
+of the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
+through the persiennes of one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.
+
+"She watches late," thought I, "for it must be now near midnight. She
+is a fascinating little woman," I continued in voiceless soliloquy; "her
+image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the
+world calls pretty--no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I
+like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the
+whiteness of her neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent;
+the idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know
+that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon;
+but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood
+laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that
+I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know that I must pass the
+rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what
+I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I
+felt! "Now, Zoraide Reuter," thought I, "has tact, CARACTERE, judgment,
+discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played
+about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her
+crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much
+that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only
+the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing
+difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the
+world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient
+in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She
+has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and
+reared a Protestant, might she not have added straight integrity to
+all her other excellences? Supposing she were to marry an English and
+Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is, quickly
+acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over
+policy? It would be worth a man's while to try the experiment; to-morrow
+I will renew my observations. She knows that I watch her: how calm she
+is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than annoy her." Here a
+strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and suspended it; it was
+a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I
+thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones, so subduing
+their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the
+quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon
+gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once
+more. No. What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching
+nearer, frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
+conversing--yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in
+the garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was
+that of a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw
+coming slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I
+could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met
+them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose,
+and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter,
+arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal,
+confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying--
+
+"A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?"
+
+And Mdlle. Reuter answered--
+
+"Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu'il me serait impossible de me marier
+avant les vacances."
+
+"June, July, August, a whole quarter!" exclaimed the director. "How can
+I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
+impatience!"
+
+"Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
+about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight
+mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial
+trousseau."
+
+"Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch
+my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain
+you have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
+presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
+given him room to hope."
+
+"What do you say, Francois? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?"
+
+"Over head and ears."
+
+"Has he told you so?"
+
+"No--but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
+mentioned." A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle.
+Reuter's gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie,
+by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet
+proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty
+plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think
+of taking such a "blanc-bec" as a husband, since she must be at least
+ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have
+thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject--the
+director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer.
+
+"Francois," said she, "you are jealous," and still she laughed; then, as
+if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
+character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded,
+in a demure voice: "Truly, my dear Francois, I will not deny that this
+young Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with
+me; but, so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated
+him with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility;
+affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me,
+dear friend." Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust--so I judged, at
+least, from her reply.
+
+"What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And
+then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear comparison
+with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all;
+some may call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my
+part--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
+from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
+return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that
+they had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was
+perfectly still; I listened more than an hour--at last I heard M. Pelet
+come in and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long
+front of the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was
+at length extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and
+friendship. I went to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into
+my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood
+half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what
+means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness,
+to their ordinary tone--for I had no intention of getting up a scene
+with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or
+performing other gambadoes of the sort--I hit at last on the
+expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring
+establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge.
+The remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o'clock
+steadied and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he
+entered to breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even
+a cordial offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of "mon
+fils," pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of
+late days especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any
+external sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at
+my heart. Not that I nursed vengeance--no; but the sense of insult and
+treachery lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God
+knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I
+can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings
+are of the vacillating order--they are not of that sand-like sort where
+impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my
+friend's disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he
+is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles,
+and I dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the
+discovery was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I
+placed before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet
+(we never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid
+face looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye
+turned, now sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me.
+
+"Circumstances must guide me," said I; and meeting Pelet's false glance
+and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened
+my window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that
+guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of
+his nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his
+soul lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases
+a voice interpreting their treacherous import.
+
+But Zoraide Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick?
+That stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy
+to be available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over,
+I looked about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home
+than at Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the
+prize I had missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically,
+Zoraide might have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in
+harmony, and that discord must have resulted from the union of her mind
+with mine. She then insisted on the suppression of all repining,
+and commanded me rather to rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her
+medicament did me good. I felt its strengthening effect when I met the
+directress the next day; its stringent operation on the nerves suffered
+no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me to face her with firmness,
+to pass her with ease. She had held out her hand to me--that I did not
+choose to see. She had greeted me with a charming smile--it fell on my
+heart like light on stone. I passed on to the estrade, she followed me;
+her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of every feature the meaning of
+my changed and careless manner. "I will give her an answer," thought I;
+and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing her glance, I shot into
+her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no respect, no love,
+no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest analysis could detect
+nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear it, and feel it;
+her steady countenance did not change, but her colour rose, and she
+approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the estrade, and
+stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not relieve her
+embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a book.
+
+"I hope you feel quite recovered to-day," at last she said, in a low
+tone.
+
+"And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in
+consequence of your late walk in the garden."
+
+Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face
+became a little blanched--a very little--but no muscle in her rather
+marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from
+the estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying
+herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a
+"Composition," i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the
+pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being
+forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &c., were pondering
+over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I had
+propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further
+observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing
+fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she
+sat netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole
+person were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and
+repose--a rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been
+before, to offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute
+of involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her
+my esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who
+coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal
+good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had
+witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused
+to vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered
+her composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side,
+sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere
+forehead!
+
+"There is metal there," I said, as I gazed. "Would that there were fire
+also, living ardour to make the steel glow--then I could love her."
+
+Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred
+not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her
+netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple
+merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a
+bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round
+the wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head,
+causing her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs
+I read that the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure
+back the game she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity
+of addressing me again.
+
+While all was silence in the class--silence, but for the rustling of
+copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages--a leaf of the
+large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a
+pupil who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some
+appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so
+late, in a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she
+proceeded, still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her
+cabas, to take out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look
+up, in order to make out her identity--for, shortsighted as I was, I had
+not recognized her at her entrance--Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair,
+approached the estrade.
+
+"Monsieur Creemsvort," said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms
+were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke
+in the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much
+by example as precept: "Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has
+just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in
+English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense,
+a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to
+qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has asked
+permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge
+of English, in which language she has, I believe, already made
+some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in an effort
+so praiseworthy; you will permit her then to benefit by your
+instruction--n'est ce pas, monsieur?" And Mdlle. Reuter's eyes were
+raised to mine with a look at once naive, benign, and beseeching.
+
+I replied, "Of course," very laconically, almost abruptly.
+
+"Another word," she said, with softness: "Mdlle. Henri has not received
+a regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest
+order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and
+even of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am
+sure, have the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not
+expose her backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young
+ladies, who, in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour
+me by attending to this hint?" I nodded. She continued with subdued
+earnestness--
+
+"Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is
+of importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty
+in impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference
+for her authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new
+discoveries of her incapacity, she might find her position in my
+establishment too painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much
+regret for her sake, as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her
+occupation here."
+
+Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive,
+unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on
+this occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being
+indulgent to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I
+listened. I discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a
+wish to aid the dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one
+was no other than a design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted
+goodness and tender considerateness; so having again hastily nodded
+assent to her remarks, I obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding
+the compositions, in a sharp accent, and stepping from the estrade, I
+proceeded to collect them. As I passed the governess-pupil, I said to
+her--
+
+"You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more
+punctual next time."
+
+I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not
+very civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so,
+had I been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began
+to slip her books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had
+returned to the estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions,
+I heard the folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I
+perceived her place vacant. I thought to myself, "She will consider her
+first attempt at taking a lesson in English something of a failure;" and
+I wondered whether she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity
+had induced her to take my words too literally, or, finally, whether
+my irritable tone had wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed
+almost as soon as I had conceived it, for not having seen any appearance
+of sensitiveness in any human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had
+begun to regard it almost as a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy
+announced it I could not tell, for her speedy exit had allowed me no
+time to ascertain the circumstance. I had, indeed, on two or three
+previous occasions, caught a passing view of her (as I believe has been
+mentioned before); but I had never stopped to scrutinize either her face
+or person, and had but the most vague idea of her general appearance.
+Just as I had finished rolling up the compositions, the four o'clock
+bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in obeying that signal, I
+grasped my hat and evacuated the premises.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter's domicile, I was at least
+equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes
+before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I
+heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the "priere du midi"
+was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have
+been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How
+the repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or
+since heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. "Notre Pere
+qui etes au ciel" went off like a shot; then followed an address to
+Marie "vierge celeste, reine des anges, maison d'or, tour d'ivoire!" and
+then an invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat,
+and the solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide
+and striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found
+that in entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis,
+consisted the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The
+folding-doors between the two classes, opened for the prayer, were
+instantly closed; a maitresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her
+appropriate desk; the pupils sat still with their pens and books before
+them; my three beauties in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of
+consistent coolness, sat erect with their hands folded quietly on their
+knees; they had given up giggling and whispering to each other, and no
+longer ventured to utter pert speeches in my presence; they now only
+talked to me occasionally with their eyes, by means of which organs
+they could still, however, say very audacious and coquettish things. Had
+affection, goodness, modesty, real talent, ever employed those bright
+orbs as interpreters, I do not think I could have refrained from giving
+a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent reply now and then; but as it
+was, I found pleasure in answering the glance of vanity with the gaze
+of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as were many of my pupils, I can
+truly say that in me they never saw any other bearing than such as an
+austere, though just guardian, might have observed towards them. If any
+doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as inferring more conscientious
+self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than they feel disposed to
+give me credit for, let them take into consideration the following
+circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit, justify my
+veracity.
+
+Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different
+relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to
+that occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade.
+A professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and
+muslin, with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial
+lace, round white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the
+gliding dance. It is not his business to whirl her through the waltz,
+to feed her with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of
+gratified vanity. Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled,
+tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs
+clad in her becoming walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her
+shoulders, her little bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose
+under its brim adding a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her
+face and eyes, too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the
+sunshine of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his
+office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her
+parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon
+her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the
+schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books before her. Owing to her
+education or her nature books are to her a nuisance, and she opens them
+with aversion, yet her teacher must instil into her mind the contents
+of these books; that mind resists the admission of grave information, it
+recoils, it grows restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns
+spoil the symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace
+from the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native and
+ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the
+temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable
+dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but
+not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks
+are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the
+tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which
+the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees
+the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long
+stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to
+admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general
+view.
+
+Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a
+hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because
+it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls "a fine
+woman"--she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the
+fashionable young lady--she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged,
+probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and
+graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love
+of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness,
+are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard. These he
+seeks, but seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain
+retain for ever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if
+some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being
+the case, and the case it is, my readers will agree with me that there
+was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous in the
+integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter's pensionnat de
+demoiselles.
+
+My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of
+places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the
+compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual,
+by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described
+before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment;
+the second place had fallen to the lot of a certain Leonie Ledru, a
+diminutive, sharp-featured, and parchment-skinned creature of quick
+wits, frail conscience, and indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of
+whom I used to say that, had she been a boy, she would have made a
+model of an unprincipled, clever attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud
+beauty, the Juno of the school, whom six long years of drilling in the
+simple grammar of the English language had compelled, despite the stiff
+phlegm of her intellect, to acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most
+of its rules. No smile, no trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in
+Sylvie's nun-like and passive face as she heard her name read first.
+I always felt saddened by the sight of that poor girl's absolute
+quiescence on all occasions, and it was my custom to look at her, to
+address her, as seldom as possible; her extreme docility, her assiduous
+perseverance, would have recommended her warmly to my good opinion;
+her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to feel most
+kindly--most affectionately towards her, notwithstanding the almost
+ghastly plainness of her features, the disproportion of her form, the
+corpse-like lack of animation in her countenance, had I not been aware
+that every friendly word, every kindly action, would be reported by her
+to her confessor, and by him misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my
+hand on her head, in token of approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to
+smile, her dim eye almost kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me;
+I was a man and a heretic; she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted
+Catholic: thus a four-fold wall of separation divided her mind from
+mine. A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie's method of
+testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious--she had
+hoped to be first. Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on
+hearing their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the
+brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their
+hopes for the future being based solely on their personal attractions.
+
+This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief
+interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging
+carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the
+farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually vacant--was
+again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously
+recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her
+appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to
+puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her
+exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her
+figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied
+expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was
+dressed, like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her
+features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet
+scarcely regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior
+part more developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured,
+at first sight, that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her
+countenance, her lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs,
+and, evidently, the type of another race--of a race less gifted with
+fullness of flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material,
+unthinking. When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly
+down, her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude
+till I commenced the lesson. None of the Belgian girls would have
+retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the same length of
+time. Yet, having intimated that her appearance was peculiar, as
+being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I have little more to say
+respecting it; I can pronounce no encomiums on her beauty, for she was
+not beautiful; nor offer condolence on her plainness, for neither
+was she plain; a careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding
+moulding of the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise,
+but these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less
+crotchety observer.
+
+Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle.
+Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind's eye no
+distinct picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her
+eyes, nor her hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot
+tell whether her nose was aquiline or retrousse, whether her chin was
+long or short, her face square or oval; nor could I the first day,
+and it is not my intention to communicate to you at once a knowledge I
+myself gained by little and little.
+
+I gave a short exercise: which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil
+was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once
+or twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not
+comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the
+others were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I
+would not help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye
+said most plainly, "I cannot follow you." I disregarded the appeal, and,
+carelessly leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+NONCHALANT air out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking
+towards her again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but
+she was still writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she
+employed the interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and
+shame and discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently
+found she had made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the
+dictation was complete, and, having allowed a brief space in which to
+correct it, I took their books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle.
+Henri gave up hers, but, having once yielded it to my possession, she
+composed her anxious face, as if, for the present she had resolved to
+dismiss regret, and had made up her mind to be thought unprecedentedly
+stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I found that several lines had been
+omitted, but what was written contained very few faults; I instantly
+inscribed "Bon" at the bottom of the page, and returned it to her; she
+smiled, at first incredulously, then as if reassured, but did not
+lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed, when perplexed and
+bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that scarcely fair.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the
+holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the
+turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made
+the transit of the CARRE, I observed, as usual, the band of sewers
+surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but
+they made as much noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed
+very little under her control; three or four at once assailed her with
+importunate requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but
+in vain. She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger should
+witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to entreat
+order--her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she compressed
+her lips and contracted her brow; and her countenance, if I read
+it correctly, said--"I have done my best; I seem to merit blame
+notwithstanding; blame me then who will." I passed on; as I closed the
+school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and sharply, addressing one
+of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot--
+
+"Amelie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance,
+for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to
+you nor help you."
+
+The words were uttered with emphasis--nay, with vehemence--and a
+comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know
+not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE.
+
+Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the
+directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and
+before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to
+me) of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and
+talking at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was
+easy so to speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person
+alone, and it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face
+of the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was
+vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked
+very placid indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers,
+and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her
+discourse had been of the most friendly tendency, for I heard the
+closing words--
+
+"C'est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous retenir
+davantage."
+
+Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
+evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
+distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
+place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but
+a second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one
+of attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to
+take their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it
+was such a torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of
+my native tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever
+seemed to effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day,
+each in her appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as
+usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was
+expecting with resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full,
+though low voice, read out, in clear correct English.
+
+"On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
+herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
+about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, 'My lord the
+king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!'"--(VIDE
+the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND).
+
+I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent
+was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
+counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
+have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
+in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
+performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
+Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at
+the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured
+me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
+teacher's style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not
+that of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my
+visage with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+
+When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by
+breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window
+and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did
+not imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her
+exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed
+her:--
+
+"You have had lessons in English before?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"No! you read it well; you have been in England?"
+
+"Oh, no!" with some animation.
+
+"You have been in English families?"
+
+Still the answer was "No." Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the
+book, saw written, "Frances Evan Henri."
+
+"Your name?" I asked
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me,
+and close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the
+interior of a desk.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, "Will
+you have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young
+ladies are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?"
+
+Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+
+"What splendid weather!" observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at
+the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. "What of
+your new pupil, monsieur?" continued she, following my retreating steps.
+"Is she likely to make progress in English?"
+
+"Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of
+her real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of
+forming an opinion."
+
+"And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can
+you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?"
+
+"I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really
+I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her
+capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon."
+
+She still pursued me. "You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you
+think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women
+cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity,
+monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor
+little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own
+efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole
+fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is
+then but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see
+the difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined.
+I doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but,
+monsieur, she wants tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the
+subject, but I am not fluent, and probably did not express myself
+with clearness; she never appears to comprehend me. Now, would you
+occasionally, when you see an opportunity, slip in a word of advice
+to her on the subject; men have so much more influence than women
+have--they argue so much more logically than we do; and you, monsieur,
+in particular, have so paramount a power of making yourself obeyed;
+a word of advice from you could not but do her good; even if she were
+sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is not), she would scarcely
+refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can truly say that I never
+attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit from witnessing your
+management of the pupils. The other masters are a constant source of
+anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies with sentiments of
+respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in you, monsieur, I
+feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this poor child
+into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited Brabantoises.
+But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don't alarm her AMOUR PROPRE;
+beware of inflicting a wound there. I reluctantly admit that in that
+particular she is blameably--some would say ridiculously--susceptible.
+I fear I have touched this sore point inadvertently, and she cannot get
+over it."
+
+During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the
+outer door; I now turned it.
+
+"Au revoir, mademoiselle," said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress's
+stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she
+would fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had
+been altered ever since I had begun to treat her with hardness and
+indifference: she almost cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted
+my countenance incessantly, and beset me with innumerable little
+officious attentions. Servility creates despotism. This slavish homage,
+instead of softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and
+exacting in its mood. The very circumstance of her hovering round me
+like a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of
+stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments confirmed
+my reserve. At times I wondered what she meant by giving herself such
+trouble to win me, when the more profitable Pelet was already in her
+nets, and when, too, she was aware that I possessed her secret, for I
+had not scrupled to tell her as much: but the fact is that as it was
+her nature to doubt the reality and under-value the worth of modesty,
+affection, disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of
+character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride, hardness,
+selfishness, as proofs of strength. She would trample on the neck
+of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain; she would meet
+tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with
+ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were
+her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a
+preference--they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical
+degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
+indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
+set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
+succumbed--they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate,
+no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in some
+hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false and
+selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
+the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
+benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be
+considered one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension
+wore off, the real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a
+deception.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances
+Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her
+character. I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at
+least two good points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I
+found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with
+difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always
+found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for
+her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded
+by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud
+impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve
+alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with
+serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour, eagerly
+demanded more. So much for her perseverance; as to her sense of duty,
+it evinced itself thus: she liked to learn, but hated to teach; her
+progress as a pupil depended upon herself, and I saw that on herself she
+could calculate with certainty; her success as a teacher rested partly,
+perhaps chiefly, upon the will of others; it cost her a most painful
+effort to enter into conflict with this foreign will, to endeavour
+to bend it into subjection to her own; for in what regarded people in
+general the action of her will was impeded by many scruples; it was as
+unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were concerned, and to it
+she could at any time subject her inclination, if that inclination went
+counter to her convictions of right; yet when called upon to wrestle
+with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others, of children
+especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part, insensate to
+persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then came in the
+sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A wasteful
+expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence; Frances
+toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere her
+conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on their
+part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by
+resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control--by
+forcing her to the employment of coercive measures--they could
+inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings--human children
+especially--seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power
+which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist
+only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are
+duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and
+his bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that
+instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very
+young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize
+nor how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight
+seemed to oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the
+house, and whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore
+the same preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always
+shaded her features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+
+One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending
+cakes in the herdsman's hut, to be related with amplifications. A
+singular affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they
+had chiefly studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly
+unintelligible; those of Sylvie and Leonie Ledru alone pretended to
+anything like sense and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a
+clever expedient for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she
+had obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and had
+copied the anecdote out fair. I wrote on the margin of her production
+"Stupid and deceitful," and then tore it down the middle.
+
+Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several
+sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and
+scarcely needed the evidence of the signature "Frances Evans Henri" to
+confirm my conjecture as to the writer's identity.
+
+Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the
+usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed
+strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest,
+as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
+teacher's manuscript.
+
+"Now," thought I, "I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
+get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
+expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
+has any mind, here will be a reflection of it."
+
+The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant's hut,
+situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
+represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and
+the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
+collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
+Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
+is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening
+meal; but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and
+flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger
+who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him
+mind the bread till her return.
+
+"Take care, young man," she continues, "that you fasten the door well
+after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound
+you hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this
+forest is most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein
+after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the
+country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it
+were, a child cry, and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great
+black bull, or a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold;
+or, more awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the
+lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on the
+hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to the house;
+therefore, heed my advice, and lift the latchet for nothing."
+
+Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone,
+listens awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of
+the river, and then he speaks.
+
+"It is Christmas Eve," says he, "I mark the date; here I sit alone on
+a rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman's hut;
+I, whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night's harbourage to a poor
+serf; my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I
+have no friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless
+robbers spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts
+crushed by the heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst,
+and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade.
+Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I
+still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot
+succumb to thy power. My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him
+the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls
+thy hand, and without His behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God
+is sinless, eternal, all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped
+and crushed by thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not
+despair, I cannot despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my
+blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah,
+in his own time, will aid."
+
+I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same
+strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms,
+there were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular
+transformed into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above
+example shows, of short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood
+in great need of polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I
+had hitherto seen nothing like it in the course of my professorial
+experience. The girl's mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the
+two peasants, of the crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest,
+she had recalled the old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated
+Alfred's courage under calamity, she had remembered his Christian
+education, and had shown him, with the rooted confidence of those
+primitive days, relying on the scriptural Jehovah for aid against the
+mythological Destiny. This she had done without a hint from me: I had
+given the subject, but not said a word about the manner of treating it.
+
+"I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her," I said to
+myself as I rolled the devoir up; "I will learn what she has of English
+in her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the
+language, that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in
+England, nor taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families."
+
+In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs,
+dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to
+my custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums
+were rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri's exercise, and,
+spectacles on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her
+sentiments at the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed
+a consciousness of her own talents. "If she thinks she did a clever
+thing in composing that devoir, she will now look mortified," thought
+I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were
+fastened on the cahier open before her; there was something, I thought,
+of expectation in her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the
+last devoir, and when, casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade
+them take their grammars, some slight change did pass over her air
+and mien, as though she now relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant
+excitement; she had been waiting for something to be discussed in which
+she had a degree of interest; the discussion was not to come on, so
+expectation sank back, shrunk and sad, but attention, promptly filling
+up the void, repaired in a moment the transient collapse of feature;
+still, I felt, rather than saw, during the whole course of the lesson,
+that a hope had been wrenched from her, and that if she did not show
+distress, it was because she would not.
+
+At four o'clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate
+tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat
+still a moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her
+cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my
+eye, she made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon,
+and was turning to depart:--
+
+"Come here," said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated;
+she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both
+school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused
+within half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful
+whether she had mistaken my meaning.
+
+"Step up," I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing
+with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight
+manual aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be,
+that is, between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the
+rush of the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to
+listen.
+
+"Take a seat," I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I
+knew what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and,
+what was more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an
+appearance of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from
+my pocket the rolled-up devoir.
+
+"This is yours, I suppose?" said I, addressing her in English, for I now
+felt sure she could speak English.
+
+"Yes," she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out
+flat on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that
+hand, I saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed
+as a cloud might behind which the sun is burning.
+
+"This devoir has numerous faults," said I. "It will take you some years
+of careful study before you are in a condition to write English with
+absolute correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects."
+And I went through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating
+why they were errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been
+written. In the course of this sobering process she became calm. I now
+went on:
+
+"As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me;
+I perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and
+fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but
+such as they are you possess them--not probably in a paramount degree,
+but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then take
+courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on
+you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of
+their strength and rarity."
+
+"Strength and rarity!" I repeated to myself; "ay, the words are probably
+true," for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening
+cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes--a
+smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say--
+
+"I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you
+need not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a
+stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known
+fully from a child."
+
+She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but
+in a moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect,
+had subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally
+conscious of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these
+obliterated for a single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once
+subdued the too vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had
+been expressed. So quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to
+check her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown
+she had become serious and almost mournful-looking.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her
+voice and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time,
+indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around,
+behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated
+within a yard or two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths
+wide open; the three maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner,
+and, close at my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair,
+calmly clipping the tassels of her finished purse.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so
+boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask
+her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances
+and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived
+her good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy
+had been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward;
+moreover, I had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I
+had drawn from her in that language were the words "Yes," and "Thank
+you, sir." "No matter," I reflected. "What has been left incomplete now,
+shall be finished another day." Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus
+made to myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular
+conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old
+proverb, "Where there is a will, there is a way;" and again and again
+I managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle.
+Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I
+approached her.
+
+"Your book an instant." Such was the mode in which I often began these
+brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the
+lesson; and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place,
+allowing her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise
+and right in her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in
+use between master and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in
+proportion as my manner grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy
+and self-possessed--an odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary
+effect in such cases; but so it was.
+
+"A pencil," said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am
+now about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.)
+She gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical
+exercise she had written, I observed--
+
+"You are not a native of Belgium?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor of France?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where, then, is your birthplace?"
+
+"I was born at Geneva."
+
+"You don't call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?"
+
+"No, sir; they are English names."
+
+"Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children
+English appellatives?"
+
+"Non, Monsieur; mais--"
+
+"Speak English, if you please."
+
+"Mais--"
+
+"English--"
+
+"But" (slowly and with embarrassment) "my parents were not all the two
+Genevese."
+
+"Say BOTH, instead of 'all the two,' mademoiselle."
+
+"Not BOTH Swiss: my mother was English."
+
+"Ah! and of English extraction?"
+
+"Yes--her ancestors were all English."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"He was Swiss."
+
+"What besides? What was his profession?"
+
+"Ecclesiastic--pastor--he had a church."
+
+"Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with
+more facility?"
+
+"Maman est morte, il y a dix ans."
+
+"And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the
+goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with
+you--keep to English."
+
+"C'est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n'en a plus l'habitude."
+
+"You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother
+tongue."
+
+"Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child."
+
+"Why do you not speak it now?"
+
+"Because I have no English friends."
+
+"You live with your father, I suppose?"
+
+"My father is dead."
+
+"You have brothers and sisters?"
+
+"Not one."
+
+"Do you live alone?"
+
+"No--I have an aunt--ma tante Julienne."
+
+"Your father's sister?"
+
+"Justement, monsieur."
+
+"Is that English?"
+
+"No--but I forget--"
+
+"For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise
+some slight punishment; at your age--you must be two or three and
+twenty, I should think?"
+
+"Pas encore, monsieur--en un mois j'aurai dix-neuf ans."
+
+"Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to
+be so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful
+for a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking
+English whenever practicable."
+
+To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my
+pupil was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile;
+it seemed to say, "He talks of he knows not what:" it said this
+so plainly, that I determined to request information on the point
+concerning which my ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed.
+
+"Are you solicitous for your own improvement?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"How do you prove it, mademoiselle?"
+
+An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+
+"Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive--am I? I learn my lessons well--"
+
+"Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?"
+
+"What more can I do?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as
+a pupil?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You teach lace-mending?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?"
+
+"No--it is tedious."
+
+"Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography,
+grammar, even arithmetic?"
+
+"Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these
+studies?"
+
+"I don't know; you ought to be at your age."
+
+"But I never was at school, monsieur--"
+
+"Indeed! What then were your friends--what was your aunt about? She is
+very much to blame."
+
+"No monsieur, no--my aunt is good--she is not to blame--she does what
+she can; she lodges and nourishes me" (I report Mdlle. Henri's phrases
+literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). "She is not
+rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be
+impossible for her to send me to school."
+
+"Rather," thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the
+dogmatical tone I had adopted:--
+
+"It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the
+most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history
+and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending
+drudgery, and risen in the world."
+
+"It is what I mean to do."
+
+"How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no
+respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of
+knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign language."
+
+"Monsieur, I know other things."
+
+"Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs
+and collars--that will do little for you."
+
+Mdlle. Henri's lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself,
+as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained
+silent.
+
+"Speak," I continued, impatiently; "I never like the appearance of
+acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction
+at your tongue's end."
+
+"Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography,
+and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study."
+
+"Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to
+send you to school?"
+
+"By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much."
+
+"Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to
+explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means."
+
+"Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after
+we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was
+easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt
+it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies
+have old lace--very precious--which must be mended all the times it is
+washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons
+in the studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books,
+English books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess,
+or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will
+be difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will
+despise me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j'ai mon projet,"
+she added in a lower tone.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I will go and live in England; I will teach French there."
+
+The words were pronounced emphatically. She said "England" as you might
+suppose an Israelite of Moses' days would have said Canaan.
+
+"Have you a wish to see England?"
+
+"Yes, and an intention."
+
+And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+
+"Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu'il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma
+bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite."
+
+In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle.
+Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to
+move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her
+head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.
+
+Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the
+composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than
+discourage. Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble
+of giving that intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction
+was falsified by the event--it did not rain that evening). At the close
+of the next lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri's desk. Thus did I accost
+her:--
+
+"What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go
+there?"
+
+Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no
+longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so
+much of hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she
+experienced in improvising the translation of her thoughts from French
+to English.
+
+"England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is
+vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite."
+
+"Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there
+in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting
+a clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great
+Britain would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two
+private dwellings."
+
+"It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings."
+
+"Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations
+made on a scale so narrow?"
+
+"Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy?
+An--echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole;
+besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not? All my
+life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes--all the life of a--that
+little animal subterranean--une taupe--comment dit-on?"
+
+"Mole."
+
+"Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me."
+
+"Well, mademoiselle--what then? Proceed."
+
+"Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez."
+
+"Not in the least; have the goodness to explain."
+
+"Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little,
+learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle;
+I walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I
+rested--remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged
+it, because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements;
+when I was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to
+Brussels; my existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or
+higher; I walk in as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would
+change again if I went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of
+Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to
+London, I would know something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make
+any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?"
+
+"I see, I see--now let us advert to another subject; you propose to
+devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher;
+you cannot keep your pupils in order."
+
+A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she
+bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied--
+
+"Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice
+improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing,
+I can show no power in sewing, no superiority--it is a subordinate
+art; then I have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a
+heretic, which deprives me of influence."
+
+"And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you
+of influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in
+England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you
+have here."
+
+"But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably
+difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and
+perhaps be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to
+Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur--"
+
+She stopped--not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to
+express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, "You have said
+enough."
+
+"Finish your phrase," I urged.
+
+"Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are
+more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous
+walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house,
+monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the
+inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell
+lies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel
+hatred."
+
+"All?" said I; "you mean the pupils--the mere children--inexperienced,
+giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
+right and wrong?"
+
+"On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere; they have
+not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
+lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but
+the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive
+each other--"
+
+A servant here entered:--
+
+"Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
+petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet
+de Rosalie la portiere--c'est que sa bonne n'est pas venue la
+chercher--voyez-vous."
+
+"Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?" demanded Mdlle. Henri; then
+smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
+once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from
+the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course,
+confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in
+English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a
+course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a
+few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had
+purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all
+these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of
+each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in.
+Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her
+improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in
+her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated
+judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual
+in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile
+my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she
+did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me
+with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched
+over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the
+margin of her book.
+
+"Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+returning.
+
+"But I do not say enough, I suppose?" I continued. "My praises are too
+cool?"
+
+She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
+thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had
+it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of
+my admiration--not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little
+affection--ever so little--pleased her better than all the panegyrics in
+the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on
+the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my
+occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near
+hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an
+illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took
+occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so
+disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to
+go. Distasteful effort--to leave what we most prefer!
+
+Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
+employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
+counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed,
+indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When
+I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless;
+she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss
+anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving
+space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a
+clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been
+pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they
+with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by
+a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright
+hazel--irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils
+instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low
+spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than
+round, having vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom,
+and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of
+her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became
+rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of
+the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not
+regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight,
+though compact, elegant, flexible--the exquisite turning of waist,
+wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my notions of
+symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of movement which
+corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+
+Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a
+new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but
+steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when
+the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily,
+move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood
+of youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+
+To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the
+growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the
+said gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it
+was not difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish
+her starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that
+inward vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto
+forbidden to expand. Constancy of attention--a kindness as mute
+as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of
+austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of
+interest, or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming
+imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and
+that with devoted care: these were the means I used, for these means
+best suited Frances' feelings, as susceptible as deep vibrating--her
+nature at once proud and shy.
+
+The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour
+as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air
+of spirit and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be
+obeyed--and obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over
+her. If any girl had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her
+rebellion to heart; she possessed a source of comfort they could not
+drain, a pillar of support they could not overthrow: formerly, when
+insulted, she wept; now, she smiled.
+
+The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her
+talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject--it was an emigrant's
+letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural
+and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest
+and great, New-World river--barren of sail and flag--amidst which the
+epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that
+attend a settler's life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on
+that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him
+from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible
+independence, indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past
+days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were
+touched upon; feeling, forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every
+period. At the close, consolation was suggested; religious faith became
+there the speaker, and she spoke well.
+
+The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice,
+in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to
+understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could
+neither speak nor write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir,
+she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation
+of a "riviere" or open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she
+said nothing, and her face and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely
+negative expression, were as blank of comment as her lips. As neither
+surprise, pleasure, approbation, nor interest were evinced in her
+countenance, so no more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if
+that inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this--
+
+"The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an
+opinion."
+
+As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round
+Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of
+the directress was now heard:--
+
+"Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten
+to return home before the shower becomes heavier" (it was raining a
+little), "the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive
+to fetch them." And the school dispersed, for it was four o'clock.
+
+"Monsieur, a word," said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and
+signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish,
+for an instant, the castor I had clutched.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in
+young people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly
+industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance,
+Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other
+pupils? She is older than most of them, and has had advantages of an
+exclusive nature for acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other
+hand, her sphere of life is somewhat beneath theirs; under these
+circumstances, a public distinction, conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be
+the means of suggesting comparisons, and exciting feelings such as would
+be far from advantageous to the individual forming their object. The
+interest I take in Mdlle. Henri's real welfare makes me desirous of
+screening her from annoyances of this sort; besides, monsieur, as I
+have before hinted to you, the sentiment of AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat
+marked preponderance in her character; celebrity has a tendency to
+foster this sentiment, and in her it should be rather repressed--she
+rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think,
+monsieur--it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially,
+is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not
+Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the
+quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if
+stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity? She may never marry;
+scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connections, uncertain
+as is her health (for I think her consumptive, her mother died of that
+complaint), it is more than probable she never will. I do not see how
+she can rise to a position, whence such a step would be possible; but
+even in celibacy it would be better for her to retain the character and
+habits of a respectable decorous female."
+
+"Indisputably, mademoiselle," was my answer. "Your opinion admits of no
+doubt;" and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under
+cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+
+At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find
+it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri's usually
+regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her
+absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed
+some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information
+I wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles
+and gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and
+the seat at the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when
+no allusion was made to the circumstance by any individual of the
+class--when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence
+on the point--I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to break the ice of this
+silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I
+knew that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by
+wriggle, titter, or other flourish of folly.
+
+"Ou donc est Mdlle. Henri?" I said one day as I returned an
+exercise-book I had been examining.
+
+"Elle est partie, monsieur."
+
+"Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?"
+
+"Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus."
+
+"Ah!" was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:--
+
+"En etes-vous bien sure, Sylvie?"
+
+"Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l'a dit elle-meme
+il y a deux ou trois jours."
+
+And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and
+circumstances forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on
+what had been said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the
+reason of the teacher's departure, as to whether it had been voluntary
+or otherwise, was indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it--there were
+listeners all round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as
+she was putting on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:--
+
+"Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri's address? I have some books of hers,"
+I added carelessly, "and I should wish to send them to her."
+
+"No, monsieur," replied Sylvie; "but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will
+be able to give it you."
+
+Rosalie's cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the
+inquiry. Rosalie--a smart French grisette--looked up from her work with
+a knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to
+avoid exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever
+of Mdlle. Henri's address--had never known it. Turning from her with
+impatience--for I believed she lied and was hired to lie--I almost
+knocked down some one who had been standing at my back; it was the
+directress. My abrupt movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was
+obliged to apologize, which I did more concisely than politely. No man
+likes to be dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then
+was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I
+turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes
+were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had
+scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a
+bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received with
+good-humoured facility.
+
+"Oh, don't mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your
+elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled." She shook it back,
+and passing her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more
+numerous and flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:
+
+"Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows
+of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be
+covered with dust."
+
+Rosalie departed. "Now," thought I, "this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter
+thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising
+a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more
+transparent than this same pretext." An impulse came over me to thrust
+the flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or
+two of plain truth. "The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery
+ground," thought I; so I began:
+
+"Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment--been dismissed, I
+presume?"
+
+"Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur," replied
+the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world;
+"but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a
+minute?" And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have
+before mentioned.
+
+"There," said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley,
+and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride,
+closing behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus
+imparted a sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the
+very core of a capital.
+
+"There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and
+rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes
+tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces
+always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in
+your ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole
+month in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien
+propre, tout entouree de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la
+vie champetre! N'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
+
+"Cela depend, mademoiselle."
+
+"Que le vent est bon et frais!" continued the directress; and she was
+right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat
+in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my
+temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper
+than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of
+Mdlle. Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing
+the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue:--
+
+"I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?"
+
+"Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but
+my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish:
+have you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too
+short by twelve hours for your numerous duties?"
+
+"Not often. Mdlle. Henri's departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it
+had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being
+my pupil."
+
+"Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never
+thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to
+attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary
+importance."
+
+"You consider Mdlle. Henri's dismission, then, as a very insignificant
+event?"
+
+"Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur,
+that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher
+has ever been dismissed from it."
+
+"Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently--a change of
+instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives
+life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests
+to the parents the idea of exertion and progress."
+
+"Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple to
+dismiss them?"
+
+"No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you.
+Allons, monsieur le professeur--asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une
+petite lecon dans votre etat d'instituteur." (I wish I might write
+all she said to me in French--it loses sadly by being translated into
+English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair; the directress sat down,
+and signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat,
+and stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a
+huge laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves
+of a lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the
+retreat. Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were
+evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her
+astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D'OEUVRE of policy. Convinced
+by several months' experience that the affectation of virtues she did
+not possess was unavailing to ensnare me--aware that I had read her real
+nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being
+hers--she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock
+of my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a
+glimpse of the real. "Yes, I will try," was her inward resolve; and then
+her blue eye glittered upon me--it did not flash--nothing of flame ever
+kindled in its temperate gleam.
+
+"Monsieur fears to sit by me?" she inquired playfully.
+
+"I have no wish to usurp Pelet's place," I answered, for I had got the
+habit of speaking to her bluntly--a habit begun in anger, but continued
+because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She cast
+down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she turned
+with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird that
+flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and
+seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.
+
+"Well--and your lesson?" I demanded briefly.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, recovering herself, "you are so young, so frank
+and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of
+vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done
+in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew
+that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your
+character--policy, as well as pride?"
+
+"Go on," said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so
+piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I
+passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and again she made room for
+me to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to
+my senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.
+
+"Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment,
+dismiss nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak
+truth), I despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending
+off one to the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying
+circumstances. I'll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?"
+She looked up again; she had compounded her glance well this time--much
+archness, more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled
+consciousness of capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great
+Mogul; so I became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+
+"I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly
+down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so
+long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I
+don't clap my hands, and cry out 'Bravo! How lucky I am!' to attract
+the attention and envy of my neighbours--I am merely passive; but when
+events fall out ill--when circumstances become adverse--I watch very
+vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now
+and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out--so--and give the rebellious
+circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends it the way
+I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my expedient.
+So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and inefficient--when,
+in short, the interests of the school would suffer from their retaining
+their places--I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide
+past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render
+untenable the post I wish to have vacated--the deed is done--the
+stumbling-block removed--and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I
+am rid of an incumbrance."
+
+A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I
+looked on her with distaste. "Just like you," was my cold answer.
+"And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office,
+therefore you rendered it intolerable to her?"
+
+"Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri's health;
+no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed
+to discover the truth. I took--I have always taken a real interest in
+Mdlle. Henri's welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers;
+I thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent
+situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more
+than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself;
+she saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them."
+
+"Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me
+her address."
+
+"Her address!" and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of
+the directress. "Her address? Ah?--well--I wish I could oblige you,
+monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked
+her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought--I may
+be wrong--but I THOUGHT her motive for doing so, was a natural, though
+mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor
+abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere,
+doubtless, in the 'basse ville.'"
+
+"I'll not lose sight of my best pupil yet," said I, "though she were
+born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to
+make a bugbear of her origin to me--I happen to know that she was a
+Swiss pastor's daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow
+means, I care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart
+overflows with affluence."
+
+"Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur," said the directress,
+affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her
+temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking
+pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was
+furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung
+low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the
+TETE-A-TETE and departed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real
+life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us
+fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade;
+they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of
+rapture--still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we
+rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour
+the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have
+plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained,
+stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties
+for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support,
+robbed of hope. Our agony is great, and how can it end? We have broken
+the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering--too feeble to
+conceive faith--death must be darkness--God, spirits, religion can have
+no place in our collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting
+recollections of vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave,
+and dissolution flings us in--a rag eaten through and through with
+disease, wrung together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by
+the inexorable heel of despair.
+
+But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses
+his property--it is a blow--he staggers a moment; then, his energies,
+roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon
+mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience--endures what
+he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where
+to find rest; he leans on Hope's anchors. Death takes from him what
+he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his
+affections were twined--a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but
+some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and
+says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred
+again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that
+life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens
+her consolation by connecting with it two ideas--which mortals cannot
+comprehend, but on which they love to repose--Eternity, Immortality; and
+the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious,
+of heavenly hills all light and peace--of a spirit resting there in
+bliss--of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and
+disembodied--of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he
+takes courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the
+duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his
+mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+
+Well--and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be drawn
+therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil--my
+treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach;
+the inference to be drawn from it is--that, being a steady, reasonable
+man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief,
+engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any
+monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my
+heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In
+the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent
+system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber
+at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose
+nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in
+revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with
+their long, midnight cry.
+
+A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm
+in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at
+her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew
+had consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an
+instrument--the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday
+evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where
+she was sitting alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with
+the same tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the
+question for the first time--
+
+"Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of
+Frances Evans Henri?"
+
+A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any
+knowledge of that address, adding, "Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that
+I explained all about that circumstance before--a week ago?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," I continued, "you would greatly oblige me by directing
+me to that young person's abode."
+
+She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably
+counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, "Does Monsieur think I am
+telling an untruth?"
+
+Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, "It is not then your
+intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?"
+
+"But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?"
+
+"Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have
+only two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in
+another month the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail
+yourself of the leisure it will afford you to look out for another
+English master--at the close of August, I shall be under the necessity
+of resigning my post in your establishment."
+
+I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and
+immediately withdrew.
+
+That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small
+packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to
+see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to
+prevent my immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces,
+and a note in English.
+
+"MONSIEUR,
+
+"I came to Mdlle. Reuter's house yesterday, at the time when I knew you
+would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go
+into the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said
+you were already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must
+be mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the
+same errand. In one sense a note will do as well--it will wrap up the
+20 francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it
+will not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition--if it will not
+bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done--if it will not tell you,
+as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you
+more--why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task. Had
+I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and
+unsatisfactory--something belying my feelings rather than explaining
+them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your
+presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great
+deal on fortitude in bearing grief--you said I introduced that theme too
+often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty
+than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a
+reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur--very kind;
+I am afflicted--I am heart-broken to be quite separated from you; soon
+I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you with my
+distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then say no
+more.
+
+"Farewell, Monsieur.
+
+"F. E. HENRI."
+
+I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces
+into my purse--then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.
+
+"Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty," said I, "and she is poor;
+yet she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter's
+lessons, and she has sent me a quarter's due. I wonder of what she
+deprived herself to scrape together the twenty francs--I wonder what
+sort of a place she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt
+is, and whether she is likely to get employment to supply the place she
+has lost. No doubt she will have to trudge about long enough from school
+to school, to inquire here, and apply there--be rejected in this place,
+disappointed in that. Many an evening she'll go to her bed tired
+and unsuccessful. And the directress would not let her in to bid me
+good-bye? I might not have the chance of standing with her for a few
+minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of
+sentences--getting to know where she lived--putting matters in train
+for having all things arranged to my mind? No address on the note"--I
+continued, drawing it again from the pocket-book and examining it on
+each side of the two leaves: "women are women, that is certain, and
+always do business like women; men mechanically put a date and address
+to their communications. And these five-franc pieces?"--(I hauled them
+forth from my purse)--"if she had offered me them herself instead of
+tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of Lilliputian
+packet, I could have thrust them back into her little hand, and shut
+up the small, taper fingers over them--so--and compelled her shame, her
+pride, her shyness, all to yield to a little bit of determined Will--now
+where is she? How can I get at her?"
+
+Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+
+"Who brought the packet?" I asked of the servant who had delivered it to
+me.
+
+"Un petit commissionaire, monsieur."
+
+"Did he say anything?"
+
+"Rien."
+
+And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my
+inquiries.
+
+"No matter," said I to myself, as I again closed the door. "No
+matter--I'll seek her through Brussels."
+
+And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment's leisure,
+for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on
+the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste.
+Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I
+attended these latter at the German, French, and English services, not
+doubting that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were
+absolutely fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the
+event to be equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood
+at the door of each chapel after the service, and waited till every
+individual had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form,
+peering under every bonnet covering a young head. In vain; I saw
+girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their sloping
+shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of Mdlle.
+Henri's; I saw pale and thoughtful faces "encadrees" in bands of brown
+hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes, her eyebrows. All the
+features of all the faces I met seemed frittered away, because my eye
+failed to recognize the peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space
+of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line
+of eyebrow traced above.
+
+"She has probably left Brussels--perhaps is gone to England, as she
+said she would," muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth
+Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper
+had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the
+congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had
+soon outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious
+goodness! why don't they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions
+of the high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and
+satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut
+coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the
+English service, filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it,
+issuing forth into the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with
+freshly and trimly attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut
+at the church of Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and
+the groups of pretty British children, and the British footmen and
+waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the Rue
+Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain--an old and quiet
+street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to
+go back and take my share of the "gouter," now on the refectory-table
+at Pelet's--to wit, pistolets and water--I stepped into a baker's and
+refreshed myself on a COUC(?)--it is a Flemish word, I don't know how
+to spell it--A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun--and a cup of coffee; and
+then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of
+the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I
+took my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and not
+a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels
+need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league
+from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over
+the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and
+trackless round the capital of Brabant. Having gained the summit of the
+hill, and having stood and looked long over the cultured but lifeless
+campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high road, which I had hitherto
+followed, and get in among those tilled grounds--fertile as the beds
+of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden--spreading far and wide even to the
+boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance changed
+them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with those of the livid
+and thunderous-looking sky. Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the
+right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into
+the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty
+white wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some
+thickly planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were
+the branches resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a
+massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its
+arms, which seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister
+trees. I approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden
+appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some
+stately residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a
+hut serving for a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the
+key--the gates were open; I pushed one leaf back--rain had rusted
+its hinges, for it groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting
+embowered the entrance. Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on
+each hand which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign,
+explained clearly to what abode I had made my way. This was the
+house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands of
+everlastings announced, "The Protestant Cemetery, outside the gate of
+Louvain."
+
+The place was large enough to afford half an hour's strolling without
+the monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who
+love to peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription
+enough to occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time.
+Hither people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their
+dead for interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of
+brass, were written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in
+English, in French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had
+erected a marble monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane
+Brown, and inscribed it only with her name. There the French widower had
+shaded the grave of his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket
+of roses, amidst which a little tablet rising, bore an equally bright
+testimony to her countless virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred,
+mourned after its own fashion; and how soundless was the mourning of
+all! My own tread, though slow and upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to
+startle, because it formed the sole break to a silence otherwise total.
+Not only the winds, but the very fitful, wandering airs, were that
+afternoon, as by common consent, all fallen asleep in their various
+quarters; the north was hushed, the south silent, the east sobbed not,
+nor did the west whisper. The clouds in heaven were condensed and
+dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the trees of this cemetery
+nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the cypresses stood up
+straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and still; where
+the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night dew or
+thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible to
+sun or shadow, to rain or drought.
+
+Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf,
+and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the
+stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted
+vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade
+passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I
+soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing
+nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and
+evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat
+which I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight
+of her before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was
+the white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall,
+and, at the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned
+up, a new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close
+behind her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, "Julienne
+Henri, died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18--." Having perused
+the inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful
+just under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it
+was a slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black
+stuff, with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as
+saw, who it was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments
+enjoying the security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and
+had never discovered one of her traces--never met a hope, or seized
+a chance of encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my
+grasp on expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under
+the discouraging thought that the current of life, and the impulse
+of destiny, had swept her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while
+bending suddenly earthward beneath the pressure of despondency--while
+following with my eyes the track of sorrow on the turf of a
+graveyard--here was my lost jewel dropped on the tear-fed herbage,
+nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of yew-trees.
+
+Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand.
+I knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change;
+at last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the
+stone before her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those
+constrictions with which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are,
+at times, so sorely oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped
+away, again and again, with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs
+escaped her, and then, the paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put
+my hand gently on her shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for
+she was neither hysterical nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push,
+indeed, might have startled her, but the contact of my quiet touch
+merely woke attention as I wished; and, though she turned quickly, yet
+so lightning-swift is thought--in some minds especially--I believe the
+wonder of what--the consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares
+on her solitude, had passed through her brain, and flashed into her
+heart, even before she had effected that hasty movement; at least,
+Amazement had hardly opened her eyes and raised them to mine, ere
+Recognition informed their irids with most speaking brightness. Nervous
+surprise had hardly discomposed her features ere a sentiment of most
+vivid joy shone clear and warm on her whole countenance. I had hardly
+time to observe that she was wasted and pale, ere called to feel a
+responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most full and exquisite
+pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in the expansive
+light, now diffused over my pupil's face. It was the summer sun flashing
+out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more rapidly than
+that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour?
+
+I hate boldness--that boldness which is of the brassy brow and insensate
+nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour of the
+generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans' clear
+hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved the
+tones with which she uttered the words--
+
+"Mon maitre! mon maitre!"
+
+I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I
+loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist
+charmless, for me a treasure--my best object of sympathy on earth,
+thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my
+ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification
+of discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of
+self-denial and self-control--those guardians, those trusty keepers of
+the gift I longed to confer on her--the gift of all my affections;
+model of truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness--those
+refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well
+of tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless,
+of natural feeling, natural passion--those sources of refreshment and
+comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the
+well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned
+safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a
+moment high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life's current
+in its channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its
+blaze to embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect
+for her, and as I drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the
+cemetery, I felt I had another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as
+firm as respect, more fervid than either--that of love.
+
+"Well, my pupil," said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind
+us--"Well, I have found you again: a month's search has seemed long,
+and I little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst
+graves."
+
+Never had I addressed her but as "Mademoiselle" before, and to speak
+thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised
+me that this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in
+her heart:
+
+"Mon maitre," she said, "have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little
+imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to
+be taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier
+troubles ought to have made me forget it."
+
+"Your aunt is dead?"
+
+"Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not
+chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night
+of her existence, 'Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone,
+so friendless:' she wished too that she could have been buried in
+Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the
+banks of Lake Leman, and to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat
+region of Flanders. Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and
+taken her remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I
+was forced to lay her here."
+
+"She was ill but a short time, I presume?"
+
+"But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter's leave
+to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave."
+
+"Do you return to the pensionnat!" I demanded hastily.
+
+"Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one
+evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room
+to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is;
+afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to
+go away, she said: "Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your
+departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have
+taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished
+in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest
+need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply
+your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can,
+though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will
+be your part now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure
+you will everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your
+talents.' And then she paid me my last quarter's salary. I asked, as
+mademoiselle would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to
+discharge me from the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of
+speech, and answered that 'our connection as employer and employed was
+certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of
+my acquaintance; she should always be happy to see me as a friend;' and
+then she said something about the excellent condition of the streets,
+and the long continuance of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful."
+
+I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress--so like what I
+had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof
+of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:--"She had frequently
+applied for Mdlle. Henri's address," forsooth; "Mdlle. Henri had always
+evaded giving it," &c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very
+house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+
+Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil's communication,
+were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the
+path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning
+obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take
+the road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and
+those of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly.
+There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before
+heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de
+Louvain, and were again in the city.
+
+"Where do you live?" I asked; "I will see you safe home."
+
+"Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges," answered Frances.
+
+It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps
+of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and
+shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent,
+heavy, prone, and broad.
+
+"Come in! come in!" said Frances, as, after putting her into the house,
+I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the
+threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and
+followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a
+projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood;
+none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute
+more and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
+
+Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room
+with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the
+articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean;
+order reigned through its narrow limits--such order as it soothed my
+punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode,
+because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter's hint about its
+extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the
+lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be;
+poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had
+but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have
+deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and
+no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself
+that indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole
+relative, she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances
+went into an inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a
+model of frugal neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so
+accurately defining her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless
+white collar turned back from a fair and shapely neck, with her
+plenteous brown hair arranged in smooth bands on her temples, and in
+a large Grecian plait behind: ornaments she had none--neither brooch,
+ring, nor ribbon; she did well enough without them--perfection of fit,
+proportion of form, grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place.
+Her eye, as she re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought
+mine, which was just then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at
+once the sort of inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of
+that hearth stirred in my soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine,
+and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron
+round her waist; then she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket;
+it had a cover; she opened it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and
+compactly she arranged them in the grate.
+
+"It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,"
+thought I.
+
+"What are you going to do?" I asked: "not surely to light a fire this
+hot evening? I shall be smothered."
+
+"Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides,
+I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
+obliged to try and bear the heat."
+
+She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
+contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without,
+that peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth,
+seemed very cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced
+that another being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a
+black cat, roused by the light from its sleep on a little cushioned
+foot-stool, came and rubbed its head against Frances' gown as she knelt;
+she caressed it, saying it had been a favourite with her "pauvre tante
+Julienne."
+
+The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very
+antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old
+farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances' hands
+were washed, and her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a
+cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a
+china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote
+antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each
+saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid
+on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy
+silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these
+preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes,
+she smiled and asked--
+
+"Is this like England, monsieur?"
+
+"Like the England of a hundred years ago," I replied.
+
+"Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred
+years old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
+great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my
+mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them
+to me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like
+to carry them back to England, whence they came."
+
+She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do
+make tea--i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups;
+she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of
+exaltation--
+
+"Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?"
+
+"If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it," I
+answered; and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the
+fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal,
+and speaking in the English language.
+
+"You have then no home?" was her remark.
+
+"None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own
+making, and the task is yet to begin." And, as I spoke, a pang, new to
+me, shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility
+of my position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was
+born a strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more;
+and in the increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to
+include the home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+
+Frances' tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her
+pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my
+palate as manna.
+
+The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and
+put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, "le chat de ma tante
+Julienne" also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for
+its special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too,
+being swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she
+took a chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little
+embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched
+her rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements
+a little too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by
+the grace and alertness of her action--by the deft, cleanly, and even
+decorative effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine
+fingers; and when, at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence
+of her face seemed beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her
+colour, however, rising, rather than settling with repose, and her eyes
+remaining downcast, though I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that
+I might drink a ray of the light I loved--a light where fire dissolved
+in softness, where affection tempered penetration, where, just now
+at least, pleasure played with thought--this expectation not being
+gratified, I began at last to suspect that I had probably myself to
+blame for the disappointment; I must cease gazing, and begin talking,
+if I wished to break the spell under which she now sat motionless; so
+recollecting the composing effect which an authoritative tone and manner
+had ever been wont to produce on her, I said--
+
+"Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls
+heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer."
+
+Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at
+once the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected "Paradise
+Lost" from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious
+character of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at
+the beginning, and while she read Milton's invocation to that heavenly
+muse, who on the "secret top of Oreb or Sinai" had taught the Hebrew
+shepherd how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had
+originated and ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of
+having her near me, hearing the sound of her voice--a sound sweet and
+satisfying in my ear--and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this
+last privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an
+intonation, a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might
+also gaze, without exciting too warm a flush.
+
+"Enough," said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a
+work of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and
+receive information)--"enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must
+soon go." For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I
+saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the
+setting August sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through
+the lattice. I got up; I drew on my gloves.
+
+"You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that
+from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me
+for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the
+directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably
+towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and
+thereby render me unhappy while I held my place in her establishment,
+and she eventually deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical
+manoeuvre, pretending that she was acting for my good, but really
+snatching from me my chief means of subsistence, at a crisis when not
+only my own life, but that of another, depended on my exertions: of her
+I will never more ask a favour."
+
+"How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?"
+
+"I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from
+starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment
+yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes
+are by no means worn out yet."
+
+"And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?"
+
+"To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my
+Canaan."
+
+"Well, well--ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening now,"
+and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong inward
+impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so
+natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one
+kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable--that was all I
+wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason
+denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and
+my steps from her apartment--to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would
+have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be
+avenged one day. "I'll earn a right to do as I please in this matter,
+or I'll die in the contest. I have one object before me now--to get that
+Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be--that is, provided
+she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has
+for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my
+instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate
+or correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?" for I had ever
+remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when
+I entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few
+words, given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she
+would, all at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene
+and revived. The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she
+would chip away with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a
+little, pouting a little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I
+deprived her of the pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away,
+and when I interdicted even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose
+of working up the subdued excitement a little higher, she would at last
+raise her eyes and give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and
+pointed with defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had
+ever done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know
+it), her subject, if not her slave. After such little scenes her spirits
+would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, as I remarked
+before, her health therefrom took a sustenance and vigour which,
+previously to the event of her aunt's death and her dismissal, had
+almost recreated her whole frame.
+
+It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had
+thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the
+stairs from Frances' room. Just as I was opening the outer door,
+I remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused:
+impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back
+on their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode,
+witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious
+care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her
+little home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused
+paying her debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be
+accepted from no hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four
+five-franc pieces were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get
+rid of them. An expedient--a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I
+could devise-suggested itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked,
+re-entered the room as if in haste:--
+
+"Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it
+here."
+
+She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I--being now
+at the hearth--noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of china
+ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups--slipped the money under it,
+then saying--"Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within the fender;
+good evening, mademoiselle," I made my second exit.
+
+Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick
+up a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red
+embers of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate
+every item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure
+retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+
+"I am glad it is not yet winter," thought I; "but in two months more
+come the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I
+could earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate AD
+LIBITUM!"
+
+Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the
+air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a
+sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious
+in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward,
+I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an
+evening rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked long;
+my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed
+it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time,
+watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
+retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell
+asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of
+clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned
+over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not
+fathom, but hearing an endless dash of waves, I believed it to be the
+sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense
+blue: all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold
+glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, approached,
+enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth,
+under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused behind.
+It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air streamed like
+raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured what seemed
+face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an angel's
+forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed to the
+bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered--
+
+"Hope smiles on Effort!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and
+resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With
+August the school-year (l'annee scolaire) closed, the examinations
+concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of
+all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till
+the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand,
+and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement
+of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing
+my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter's establishment, I had
+voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l.
+per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very precarious
+tenure.
+
+It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight
+walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where
+that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that
+event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed,
+ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice,
+had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship,
+would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as
+a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile
+for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to
+take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and
+very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the
+directress (which he still continued) were heard with a grim calm very
+different from the petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite.
+For a long time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently;
+he even increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing
+politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in
+his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance became
+suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet brooding aspect
+of his brow, a constant examination and comparison of premises, and an
+anxious endeavour to draw thence some explanatory inference. Ere long,
+I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not without penetration; perhaps, too,
+Mdlle. Zoraide might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at
+any rate I soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from
+his manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he
+adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite deportment.
+This was the point to which I had wished to bring him, and I was now
+again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it is true, like my position
+in his house; but being freed from the annoyance of false professions
+and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as no heroic sentiment
+of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my philosophical soul;
+he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so
+soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for
+the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting
+mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in the
+dark.
+
+This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
+there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
+usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous
+with him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen,
+he had also one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk,
+however, was he upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole
+establishment (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes
+in a building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the
+reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering
+lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas
+the city bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated
+the servants for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise
+his poor old mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving
+dreadfully about "le maudit Anglais, Creemsvort." I had not yet retired;
+some German books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the
+uproar below, and could distinguish the director's voice exalted in
+a manner as appalling as it was unusual. Opening my door a little, I
+became aware of a demand on his part for "Creemsvort" to be brought
+down to him that he might cut his throat on the hall-table and wash
+his honour, which he affirmed to be in a dirty condition, in infernal
+British blood. "He is either mad or drunk," thought I, "and in either
+case the old woman and the servants will be the better of a man's
+assistance," so I descended straight to the hall. I found him staggering
+about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just
+medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+
+"Come, M. Pelet," said I, "you had better go to bed," and I took hold of
+his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
+of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
+struggled and struck with fury--but a drunken man is no match for a
+sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet's worn out frame could
+not have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in
+process of time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to
+utter comminations which, though broken, had a sense in them; while
+stigmatizing me as the treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he,
+in the same breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her "femme
+sotte et vicieuse," who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself
+away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the last
+appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the
+act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him;
+but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me,
+I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning,
+and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just
+witnessed.
+
+Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by
+my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
+suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her
+own laying--was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
+which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in
+that quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my
+employer, that his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her
+affections--inclinations, rather, I would say; affection is a word at
+once too warm and too pure for the subject--had let him see that the
+cavity of her hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by
+that of his usher. It was not without some surprise that I found
+myself obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with
+his old-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a
+match--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered
+mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment
+over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that,
+not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
+partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, "And the
+jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
+deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality--and your pure
+morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!" Hers, I
+thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural
+tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
+sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of
+a prosperous CHEF D'INSTITUTION. I smiled inwardly; and strange to say,
+though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited not disagreeably by the conquest, my
+better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
+and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
+notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could
+not love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly
+some interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern
+bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some
+time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they
+sealed up all that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature;
+sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart.
+I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the
+change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a
+slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred!
+There was at once a sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious
+incense from an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating
+sense of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she
+stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once barbarous
+and sensual as a pasha. I endured her homage sometimes; sometimes I
+rebuked it. My indifference or harshness served equally to increase the
+evil I desired to check.
+
+"Que le dedain lui sied bien!" I once overheard her say to her mother:
+"il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain."
+
+And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
+bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
+straight and without deformity. "Pour moi," she continued, "il me fait
+tout l'effet d'un chat-huant, avec ses besicles."
+
+Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
+little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful
+words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her
+daughter.
+
+When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
+recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
+fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
+been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to
+wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed
+that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough
+Frenchman, the national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted
+by nature in compounding the ingredients of his character; it had
+appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
+demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
+character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
+contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light
+blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely
+avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his
+politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled
+sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and
+discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
+constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise
+each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau
+under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when
+I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice
+in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective,
+yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud
+and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a
+certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure
+and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I
+longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the
+rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot
+in the light of a Spartan virtue.
+
+But Pelet's fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
+and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
+teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
+interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil,
+and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
+resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
+Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment
+that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
+difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain
+highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
+When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
+the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
+she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both
+in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon
+proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed
+to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his,
+for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding
+graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting
+self-complacency, more ludicrous than irritating. Pelet's bachelor's
+life had been passed in proper French style with due disregard to moral
+restraint, and I thought his married life promised to be very French
+also. He often boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain
+husbands of his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult
+to pay him back in his own coin.
+
+The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
+preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises
+of Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set
+to work, and there was talk of "la chambre de Madame," "le salon de
+Madame." Not deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced
+with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm
+of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her
+use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the
+kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be
+the tenant of these gay chambers.
+
+Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
+another week's time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraide
+Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of
+matrimony. Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating
+his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
+continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend;
+and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs
+per annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and,
+when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out
+on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to
+cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some
+order. In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal.
+I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the
+conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to
+become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller
+in the house which was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards
+me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former
+feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
+Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would
+shiver their restraints.
+
+I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I stayed,
+the probability was that, in three months' time, a practical modern
+French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of
+the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my
+taste, either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my
+experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating,
+near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of
+interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction
+was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very
+loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by
+the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious
+influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced
+and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now
+regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote
+to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that
+unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and
+envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison
+cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.
+
+From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet's, and
+that instantly; "but," said Prudence, "you know not where to go, nor how
+to live;" and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri
+seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her
+hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not
+relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from
+hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with
+heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle
+bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and
+sometimes waken pleasurable dread. My hopes to will and possess, my
+resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was
+about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; "and all this,"
+suggested an inward voice, "because you fear an evil which may never
+happen!" "It will happen; you KNOW it will," answered that stubborn
+monitor, Conscience. "Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in
+the sloughs of want I will plant for you firm footing." And then, as I
+walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea
+of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence
+desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil
+in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in
+the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which
+His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil--sought to lead me astray.
+Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and
+declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but
+whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists,
+would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself
+to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the
+velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the
+man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
+retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet's: I sought
+him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner
+proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my
+decision. After twenty minutes' conversation, I re-entered my own room,
+self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present
+home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my
+thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some
+of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and
+with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out
+of the question; the postman's arrival had never yet been an event of
+interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on
+the documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to
+break the seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited
+me, as if I had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover
+a blank page: on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a
+lady's clear, fine autograph; the last I opened first:--
+
+"MONSIEUR,
+
+"I FOUND out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me;
+you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but
+you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current
+in Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the
+chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping
+to look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should
+imagine it had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money
+is not mine, and I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note
+because it might be lost--besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it
+to you the first time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about
+taking it; because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can
+understand that one likes to pay one's debts; that it is satisfactory
+to owe no man anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well
+afford to be honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last
+circumstance is, indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is
+pleasant to communicate good news; and, in these days, I have only my
+master to whom I can tell anything.
+
+"A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English
+lady; her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich
+relation having made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old
+lace, as precious, they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by
+time, I was commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the
+house; they gave me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly
+a week elapsed before I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss
+Wharton often came into the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs.
+Wharton; they made me talk English; asked how I had learned to speak it
+so well; then they inquired what I knew besides--what books I had read;
+soon they seemed to make a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt
+as a learned grisette. One afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian
+lady to test the accuracy of my knowledge of French; the result of
+it was that, owing probably in a great degree to the mother's and
+daughter's good humour about the marriage, which inclined them to
+do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think, because they are naturally
+benevolent people, they decided that the wish I had expressed to do
+something more than mend lace was a very legitimate one; and the same
+day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.'s, who is the directress
+of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she happened to be in
+want of a French lady to give lessons in geography, history, grammar,
+and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton recommended me
+very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are pupils in the
+house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was settled that I
+am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not required that
+I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to leave my
+lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred francs per
+annum.
+
+"You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than
+I ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
+beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
+getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
+able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should
+fall ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great
+measure, removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for
+the relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness
+to some one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others
+joyful. I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you;
+I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will
+not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to
+read. Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of
+expression, and, believe me
+
+"Your attached pupil,
+
+"F. E. HENRI."
+
+Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few
+moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will
+hereafter note--and then took up the other. It was directed in a hand
+to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly
+feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which I could only
+decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe family, consequently the
+epistle could be from none of my almost forgotten, and certainly quite
+forgetting patrician relations. From whom, then, was it? I removed the
+envelope; the note folded within ran as follows:
+
+"I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
+Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like
+a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots
+of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
+sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
+drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
+fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any
+one in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy
+of my recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in
+clover, and yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have
+you ever offered in return; but I am coming to see you, and small
+conception can you, with your addled aristocratic brains, form of the
+sort of moral kicking I have, ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to
+be presented to you immediately on my arrival.
+
+"Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information,
+by Brown's last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming
+an advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress--a
+Mdlle. Zenobie, or some such name. Won't I have a look at her when I
+come over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I
+think it worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I'll pounce on your
+prize and bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don't
+like dumpies either, and Brown says she is little and stout--the better
+fitted for a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. "Be on the look-out,
+for you know neither the day nor hour when your ----" (I don't wish to
+blaspheme, so I'll leave a blank)--cometh.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN."
+
+"Humph!" said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the
+small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor,
+indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities
+between the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here?
+I recalled the writer's peculiar face and certain traits I suspected,
+rather than knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, "A great
+deal."
+
+Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when;
+coming charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of
+prosperity, about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie
+comfortably down by the side of a snug, well-fed little mate.
+
+"I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted," thought
+I. "What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves,
+billing and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean
+cormorant, standing mateless and shelterless on poverty's bleak cliff?
+Oh, confound him! Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast
+between rumour and fact. Were he the devil himself, instead of being
+merely very like him, I'd not condescend to get out of his way, or to
+forge a smile or a cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm."
+
+Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I
+could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated
+within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a
+groan.
+
+That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of
+excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her
+first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing
+it with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her
+letter were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying
+my lips for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with
+vinegar and gall.
+
+Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels
+on an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for
+one in London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so
+much dearer in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the
+former, but because the English surpass in folly all the nations on
+God's earth, and are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to
+the desire to keep up a certain appearance, than the Italians are to
+priestcraft, the French to vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or
+the Germans to black beer. I have seen a degree of sense in the modest
+arrangement of one homely Belgian household, that might put to shame the
+elegance, the superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of
+a hundred genteel English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can
+make money, you may save it; this is scarcely possible in England;
+ostentation there lavishes in a month what industry has earned in a
+year. More shame to all classes in that most bountiful and beggarly
+country for their servile following of Fashion; I could write a chapter
+or two on this subject, but must forbear, at least for the present. Had
+I retained my 60l. per annum I could, now that Frances was in possession
+of 50l., have gone straight to her this very evening, and spoken out the
+words which, repressed, kept fretting my heart with fever; our united
+income would, as we should have managed it, have sufficed well for
+our mutual support; since we lived in a country where economy was not
+confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress, food, and furniture,
+was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various points. But the
+placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by connections, must
+not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word as marriage,
+were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the first time did
+I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice I had made
+in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect; instead of
+a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light and
+fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading influence
+of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the wall to
+the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at the
+wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:--
+
+"Down, stupid tormenters!" cried she; "the man has done his duty;
+you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he
+relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and
+certain evil he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding
+dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path."
+
+I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and
+thought an hour--two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a
+subterranean vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured
+by yard-thick stone walls around, and by piles of building above,
+expecting light to penetrate through granite, and through cement firm
+as granite. But there are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the
+best adjusted masonry; there was a chink in my cavernous cell; for,
+eventually, I saw, or seemed to see, a ray--pallid, indeed, and cold,
+and doubtful, but still a ray, for it showed that narrow path which
+conscience had promised after two, three hours' torturing research in
+brain and memory, I disinterred certain remains of circumstances, and
+conceived a hope that by putting them together an expedient might be
+framed, and a resource discovered. The circumstances were briefly these:
+
+Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his fete, given
+the boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a
+certain place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which
+I do not at this moment remember the name, but near it were several of
+those lakelets called etangs; and there was one etang, larger than the
+rest, where on holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by
+rowing round it in little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited
+quantity of "gaufres," and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid
+the shades of a garden made and provided for such crams, petitioned
+the director for leave to take a row on the etang. Half a dozen of the
+eldest succeeded in obtaining leave, and I was commissioned to accompany
+them as surveillant. Among the half dozen happened to be a certain Jean
+Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but
+even now, at the early age of sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of
+personal development truly national. It chanced that Jean was the first
+lad to step into the boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat
+revolted at his weight and capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose,
+sank again. My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been
+brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten long years
+for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue.
+The lads and the boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths
+by drowning instead of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched
+him by one leg and the collar, and in three minutes more both he and I
+were safe landed. To speak heaven's truth, my merit in the action was
+small indeed, for I had run no risk, and subsequently did not even catch
+cold from the wetting; but when M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean
+Baptiste was the sole hope, came to hear of the exploit, they seemed
+to think I had evinced a bravery and devotion which no thanks could
+sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular, was "certain I must have
+dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus have hazarded my own
+life to save his." Monsieur, an honest-looking, though phlegmatic man,
+said very little, but he would not suffer me to leave the room, till
+I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of help I would, by
+applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the obligation under
+which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were my glimmer of
+light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth, though the cold
+light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem such as I
+should like to pass through. Right I had none to M. Vandenhuten's good
+offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could apply to him; no, I
+must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I wanted work; my best
+chance of obtaining it lay in securing his recommendation. This I knew
+could be had by asking for it; not to ask, because the request revolted
+my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of
+false and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my
+life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+
+That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten's; but I had bent the bow and
+adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the
+great door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the
+town); a manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten
+and family were all out of town--gone to Ostend--did not know when they
+would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized
+at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in
+about an hour after this transformation, "the happy pair," as newspapers
+phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous
+arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the
+pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon
+transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In
+half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf,
+and the "flitting" was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day
+had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame
+aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid
+that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my
+prospects.
+
+It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had nothing
+to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
+occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I
+knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers,
+infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
+
+"You will find her reading or writing," said she; "you can take your
+seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement;
+you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as
+you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads;
+chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you
+know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused;
+you have the secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can
+choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as
+long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent
+spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her
+lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know,
+she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of
+strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic
+claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few
+could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under
+the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide
+her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go--they are not passions; you
+may handle them safely."
+
+"I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master
+of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances
+to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her
+only in the language of Reason and Affection?"
+
+"No," was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
+now controlled me.
+
+Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but
+I thought the hands were paralyzed.
+
+"What a hot evening!" I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
+had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair,
+I wondered whether the "locataire," now mounting to his apartments, were
+as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the
+calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings.
+What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in
+inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY door; a
+smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over
+the threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
+
+"And how are you?" asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
+language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
+put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing
+the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
+tranquilly therein.
+
+"Can't you speak?" he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether
+I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to
+my good friends "les besicles;" not exactly to ascertain the identity of
+my visitor--for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
+how he looked--to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance.
+I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
+deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose
+or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
+window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a
+position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he
+preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no
+mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude;
+with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray
+pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature
+ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could
+be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no
+use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry
+to address him, I sat and stared at my ease.
+
+"Oh, that's your game--is it?" said he at last. "Well, we'll see which
+is soonest tired." And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one
+to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand,
+then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he
+had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X---shire, England. I knew
+he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
+conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I
+said,--
+
+"You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it."
+
+"It is silly and dull," he observed, "so I have not lost much;" then the
+spell being broken, he went on: "I thought you lived at Pelet's; I went
+there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in
+a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had
+departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though,
+which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution
+than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?"
+
+"Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
+assigned to me as my wife."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" replied Hunsden with a short laugh; "so you've lost both
+your wife and your place?"
+
+"Precisely so."
+
+I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
+narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended
+the state of matters--had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
+curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
+certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour,
+lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he
+would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case
+have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have
+come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on
+its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless
+solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what
+softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke
+again.
+
+"You have got another place?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are in the way of getting one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That is bad; have you applied to Brown?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
+in such matters."
+
+"He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
+humour to bother him again."
+
+"Oh, if you're bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word."
+
+"I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me
+an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a den where I
+was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
+positively adding another item to the account."
+
+"If the wind sits that way, I'm satisfied. I thought my unexampled
+generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
+duly appreciated some day: 'Cast your bread on the waters, and it
+shall be found after many days,' say the Scriptures. Yes, that's right,
+lad--make much of me--I'm a nonpareil: there's nothing like me in the
+common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for
+a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what
+is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that
+offers it."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+something else. What news from X----?"
+
+"I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
+before we get to X----. Is this Miss Zenobie" (Zoraide, interposed
+I)--"well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?"
+
+"I tell you yes--and if you don't believe me, go and ask the cure of St.
+Jacques."
+
+"And your heart is broken?"
+
+"I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual."
+
+"Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must
+be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
+under it."
+
+"Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
+circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
+The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that's their
+look-out--not mine."
+
+"He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!"
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"Brown."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip."
+
+"He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than
+fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide--why, O
+youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her
+becoming Madame Pelet?"
+
+"Because--" I felt my face grow a little hot; "because--in short, Mr.
+Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions," and I plunged my hands
+deep in my breeches pocket.
+
+Hunsden triumphed: his eyes--his laugh announced victory.
+
+"What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I'll not bore you; I see how
+it is: Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer, as any sensible
+woman would have done if she had had the chance."
+
+I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into
+an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
+false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
+instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render
+him doubtful about it; he went on:--
+
+"I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always
+are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your
+talents--such as they are--in exchange for her position and money: I
+don't suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the
+account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather
+sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making
+a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but
+Pelet--the head of a flourishing school--stepped in with a higher bid;
+she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction--perfectly
+so--business-like and legitimate. And now we'll talk of something else."
+
+"Do," said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to
+have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed, I had
+baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
+his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
+idea.
+
+"You want to hear news from X----? And what interest can you have in
+X----? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks
+after you--neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company,
+the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer
+covertly. Our X---- belles must have disliked you. How did you excite
+their displeasure?"
+
+"I don't know. I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me. I
+considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance;
+their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but
+I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their
+countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never
+make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at
+all."
+
+"That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as
+handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man's while to talk to,
+and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
+address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
+remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
+hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
+frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
+the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do
+you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if
+you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so."
+
+"Content!" I ejaculated.
+
+"No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on
+you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
+desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will for ever to you be
+the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you'll look up at them; they will
+tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
+have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you'll go away calling them
+sour."
+
+Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they
+drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied
+since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
+in the character of Mr. Crimsworth's clerk--a dependant amongst wealthy
+strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial
+and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure
+would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would
+be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and
+loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
+leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under
+the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he
+was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar
+sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well
+enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences,
+powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under
+other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me,
+because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant
+the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him
+and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her
+blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were
+they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD
+impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of
+tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden's
+sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all
+this I could say nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed
+my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
+Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged
+by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard
+upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to
+re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at
+the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without
+sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
+
+Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
+minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved,
+however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:--
+
+"Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he
+was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as
+to say, 'Let the world wag as it will, I've the philosopher's stone
+in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I'm
+independent of both Fate and Fortune.'"
+
+"Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better
+than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing wild, which I
+have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no
+use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with
+death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the
+hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the
+exhausting."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will
+be a treasure after my own heart, I'll bring a bull's strength to the
+struggle."
+
+"Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
+dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on
+it."
+
+"I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
+people's silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a
+wooden spoon will shovel up broth."
+
+Hunsden rose: "I see," said he; "I suppose you're one of those who
+develop best unwatched, and act best unaided--work your own way. Now,
+I'll go." And, without another word, he was going; at the door he
+turned:--
+
+"Crimsworth Hall is sold," said he.
+
+"Sold!" was my echo.
+
+"Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?"
+
+"What! Edward Crimsworth?"
+
+"Precisely; and his wife went home to her father's; when affairs went
+awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
+would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--"
+
+"Ay, as to him--what is become of him?"
+
+"Nothing extraordinary--don't be alarmed; he put himself under the
+protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in
+the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
+flourishing like a green bay-tree."
+
+"And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?"
+
+"Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin."
+
+"And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?"
+
+"Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
+sacred than those of any other?"
+
+"And the pictures?"
+
+"What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he
+did not profess to be an amateur."
+
+"There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
+have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--"
+
+"Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
+things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember
+you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a
+sou."
+
+I did. "But surely," I thought to myself, "I shall not always be so
+poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who purchased it? do
+you know?" I asked.
+
+"How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
+the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what
+interests himself! Now, good night--I'm off for Germany to-morrow
+morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call
+and see you again; I wonder whether you'll be still out of place!"
+he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so
+laughing, vanished.
+
+Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
+space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just
+at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a
+draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially
+harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely
+knew.
+
+A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night
+after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my
+slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in
+my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of
+furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing
+of the door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I
+had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my
+apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o'clock; neither I nor
+the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
+rise, about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
+thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed
+in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a
+wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter
+had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had
+left it at the entrance.
+
+"That is none of mine," thought I, approaching; "it must be meant for
+somebody else." I stooped to examine the address:--
+
+"Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels."
+
+I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information
+was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize
+enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the
+pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses
+of gilding appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize
+being at length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a
+magnificent frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the
+light from the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I
+had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter's sky (the most sombre and
+threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of
+hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed
+with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds;
+large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested
+on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half
+showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard
+me, after ten minutes' silent gazing, utter the word "Mother!" I might
+have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy
+rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to
+themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
+I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the
+intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine,
+grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility
+of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a
+narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
+the canvas. Then I first asked, "Who sent this picture? Who thought of
+me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to
+the care of its natural keeper?" I took the note from its niche; thus it
+spoke:--
+
+"There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
+bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
+with sugar; by witnessing how the fool's ecstasy makes a greater fool of
+him than ever; by watching the dog's nature come out over his bone.
+In giving William Crimsworth his mother's picture, I give him sweets,
+bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold
+the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the
+auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.
+
+"H. Y. H.
+
+"P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item
+to your account with me; don't you think I've saved you that trouble?"
+
+I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
+case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it
+out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain;
+I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden
+had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, "I owe you
+nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself
+in taunts!"
+
+Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
+than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten's, scarcely hoping to find
+him at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but
+fancying I might be able to glean information as to the time when his
+return was expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated,
+for though the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over
+to Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet
+kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat five
+minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware of a sense
+of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced with strangers.
+I was surprised at my own composure, for, after all, I had come on
+business to me exceedingly painful--that of soliciting a favour. I asked
+on what basis the calm rested--I feared it might be deceptive. Ere long
+I caught a glimpse of the ground, and at once I felt assured of its
+solidity; I knew where it was.
+
+M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised
+and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the
+world's society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our
+positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure
+Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound
+and accurate judgment; the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker
+both to plan and to practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman
+was benevolent, the Englishman susceptible; in short our characters
+dovetailed, but my mind having more fire and action than his,
+instinctively assumed and kept the predominance.
+
+This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him
+on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
+confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
+to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
+exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not
+so much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself;
+of him I did not want exertion--that was to be my part--but only
+information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
+hand at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners
+than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
+benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
+own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
+of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+
+The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence
+during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which
+are specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
+expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
+zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
+each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
+on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure
+them for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were
+vain--the door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in,
+or another candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance
+useless. Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat
+following fast on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot
+fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I
+persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced
+into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My
+perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was
+inquired about; my former pupils' parents, gathering the reports of
+their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the
+word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which,
+but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at the very
+crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew not what to do, Fortune
+looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate
+deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old
+acquaintance--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a
+prize into my lap.
+
+In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of English
+professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels, with a salary
+of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being able, by
+dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position, to make
+as much more by private means. The official notice, which communicated
+this information, mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation
+of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in my
+favour.
+
+No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten's
+bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused
+it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity.
+My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted
+sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had
+done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only
+scratched a few words on a sheet of paper.
+
+Again I repeated to him--
+
+"You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not
+feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel
+disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day
+you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall
+hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society."
+
+"Ainsi soit-il," was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
+content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IT was two o'clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just
+brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down
+thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken
+glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more
+signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food
+which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then
+demanded, "What shall I do till evening?" for before six P.M. it would
+be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me
+it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the
+streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o'clock
+till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my
+chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and
+feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson,
+my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and
+calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see
+Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful
+screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from
+the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold
+to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men
+had their coats buttoned close.
+
+When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
+worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
+tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had
+seen her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered
+her letter by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of
+continued correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my
+bark hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what
+shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then
+attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split
+on the rock, or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other
+vessel should share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and
+could it be that she was still well and doing well? Were not all sages
+agreed in declaring that happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared
+I think that but half a street now divided me from the full cup of
+contentment--the draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+
+I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
+lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
+green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+
+"Signal of hope!" I said, and advanced. "But I will be a little calmer;
+I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly." Forcibly
+staying my eager step, I paused on the mat.
+
+"What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?" I demanded to
+myself. A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied;
+a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life
+continuing, a step paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and
+forwards, in the apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated
+when a voice rewarded the attention of my strained ear--so low, so
+self-addressed, I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone;
+solitude might speak thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken
+house.
+
+
+    "'And ne'er but once, my son,' he said,
+      'Was yon dark cavern trod;
+      In persecution's iron days,
+       When the land was left by God.
+      From Bewley's bog, with slaughter red,
+       A wanderer hither drew;
+      And oft he stopp'd and turn'd his head,
+       As by fits the night-winds blew.
+      For trampling round by Cheviot-edge
+       Were heard the troopers keen;
+      And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge
+       The death-shot flash'd between.'" etc. etc.
+
+The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued;
+then another strain followed, in French, of which the purport,
+translated, ran as follows:--
+
+
+     I gave, at first, attention close;
+      Then interest warm ensued;
+     From interest, as improvement rose,
+      Succeeded gratitude.
+
+     Obedience was no effort soon,
+      And labour was no pain;
+     If tired, a word, a glance alone
+      Would give me strength again.
+
+     From others of the studious band,
+      Ere long he singled me;
+     But only by more close demand,
+      And sterner urgency.
+
+     The task he from another took,
+      From me he did reject;
+     He would no slight omission brook,
+      And suffer no defect.
+
+     If my companions went astray,
+      He scarce their wanderings blam'd;
+     If I but falter'd in the way,
+      His anger fiercely flam'd.
+
+Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be
+surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered.
+Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly in her room,
+and her step was checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and
+tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark,
+she had been speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott's
+voice, to her a foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered
+itself in the first stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and
+the substance, was the language of her own heart. Her face was grave,
+its expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye
+just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged
+was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room;
+but what--with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her
+bent to meditation and haply inspiration--what had she to do with love?
+"Nothing," was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it
+seemed to say, "I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is
+to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections
+do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me." Other women have such
+thoughts. Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not
+have been worse off than thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and
+formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed
+themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.
+Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so
+continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last
+it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and
+they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment
+and much bone. Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the
+withered old maid's carcass--the same as in that of any cherished wife
+or proud mother in the land. Can this be so? I really don't know; but
+feel inclined to doubt it.
+
+I came forward, bade Frances "good evening," and took my seat. The chair
+I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little
+table where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had
+fully recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft
+but quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took
+her cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met,
+as master and pupil--nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
+Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought
+a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the
+lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright
+fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat down at my right
+hand, a little removed. The paper on the top was a translation of
+some grave French author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with
+stanzas; on this I laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to
+recover the captured spoil, saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of
+verses. I put by resistance with the decision I knew she never long
+opposed; but on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I
+had quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand
+shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the present I
+forbade such impulse. The first page of the sheet was occupied with
+the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not exactly the writer's own
+experience, but a composition by portions of that experience suggested.
+Thus while egotism was avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart
+satisfied. I translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal;
+it continued thus:--
+
+
+     When sickness stay'd awhile my course,
+      He seem'd impatient still,
+     Because his pupil's flagging force
+      Could not obey his will.
+
+     One day when summoned to the bed
+      Where pain and I did strive,
+     I heard him, as he bent his head,
+      Say, "God, she must revive!"
+
+     I felt his hand, with gentle stress,
+      A moment laid on mine,
+     And wished to mark my consciousness
+      By some responsive sign.
+
+     But pow'rless then to speak or move,
+      I only felt, within,
+     The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,
+      Their healing work begin.
+
+     And as he from the room withdrew,
+      My heart his steps pursued;
+     I long'd to prove, by efforts new;
+      My speechless gratitude.
+
+     When once again I took my place,
+      Long vacant, in the class,
+     Th' unfrequent smile across his face
+      Did for one moment pass.
+
+     The lessons done; the signal made
+      Of glad release and play,
+     He, as he passed, an instant stay'd,
+      One kindly word to say.
+
+    "Jane, till to-morrow you are free
+      From tedious task and rule;
+     This afternoon I must not see
+      That yet pale face in school.
+
+    "Seek in the garden-shades a seat,
+      Far from the play-ground din;
+     The sun is warm, the air is sweet:
+      Stay till I call you in."
+
+     A long and pleasant afternoon
+      I passed in those green bowers;
+     All silent, tranquil, and alone
+      With birds, and bees, and flowers.
+
+     Yet, when my master's voice I heard
+      Call, from the window, "Jane!"
+     I entered, joyful, at the word,
+      The busy house again.
+
+     He, in the hall, paced up and down;
+      He paused as I passed by;
+     His forehead stern relaxed its frown:
+      He raised his deep-set eye.
+
+    "Not quite so pale," he murmured low.
+      "Now Jane, go rest awhile."
+     And as I smiled, his smoothened brow
+      Returned as glad a smile.
+
+     My perfect health restored, he took
+      His mien austere again;
+     And, as before, he would not brook
+      The slightest fault from Jane.
+
+     The longest task, the hardest theme
+      Fell to my share as erst,
+     And still I toiled to place my name
+      In every study first.
+
+     He yet begrudged and stinted praise,
+      But I had learnt to read
+     The secret meaning of his face,
+      And that was my best meed.
+
+     Even when his hasty temper spoke
+      In tones that sorrow stirred,
+     My grief was lulled as soon as woke
+      By some relenting word.
+
+     And when he lent some precious book,
+      Or gave some fragrant flower,
+     I did not quail to Envy's look,
+      Upheld by Pleasure's power.
+
+     At last our school ranks took their ground,
+      The hard-fought field I won;
+     The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound
+      My throbbing forehead on.
+
+     Low at my master's knee I bent,
+      The offered crown to meet;
+     Its green leaves through my temples sent
+      A thrill as wild as sweet.
+
+     The strong pulse of Ambition struck
+      In every vein I owned;
+     At the same instant, bleeding broke
+      A secret, inward wound.
+
+     The hour of triumph was to me
+      The hour of sorrow sore;
+     A day hence I must cross the sea,
+      Ne'er to recross it more.
+
+     An hour hence, in my master's room
+      I with him sat alone,
+     And told him what a dreary gloom
+      O'er joy had parting thrown.
+
+     He little said; the time was brief,
+      The ship was soon to sail,
+     And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
+      My master but looked pale.
+
+     They called in haste; he bade me go,
+      Then snatched me back again;
+     He held me fast and murmured low,
+     "Why will they part us, Jane?"
+
+    "Were you not happy in my care?
+      Did I not faithful prove?
+     Will others to my darling bear
+      As true, as deep a love?
+
+    "O God, watch o'er my foster child!
+      O guard her gentle head!
+     When minds are high and tempests wild
+      Protection round her spread!
+
+    "They call again; leave then my breast;
+      Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
+     But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
+      Come home to me again!"
+
+I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking
+all the while of other things; thinking that "Jane" was now at my side;
+no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
+affirmed; Poverty's curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were
+far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the
+Master's manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would
+or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the
+brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted
+to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand,
+elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass
+on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my
+feelings drank the bliss of this hour.
+
+Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire,
+which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little
+ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me;
+slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
+
+There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control
+us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere
+we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether
+bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that
+is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct
+meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is
+performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet,
+whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table,
+the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and
+decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity.
+
+"Monsieur!" cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
+lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
+moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
+fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
+before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
+have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
+resistance was useless.
+
+"Frances, how much regard have you for me?" was my demand. No answer;
+the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
+consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
+silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
+question--probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my
+face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
+tranquillity.
+
+"Do speak," I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice
+said--
+
+"Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main droite."
+
+In truth I became aware that I was holding the said "main droite" in
+a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time,
+asked more gently--
+
+"Frances, how much regard have you for me?"
+
+"Mon maitre, j'en ai beaucoup," was the truthful rejoinder.
+
+"Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to accept
+me as your husband?"
+
+I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw "the purple light of love" cast
+its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult
+the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+
+"Monsieur," said the soft voice at last,--"Monsieur desire savoir si je
+consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?"
+
+"Justement."
+
+"Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu'il a ete bon maitre?"
+
+"I will try, Frances."
+
+A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice--an
+inflexion which provoked while it pleased me--accompanied, too, by a
+"sourire a la fois fin et timide" in perfect harmony with the tone:--
+
+"C'est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
+volontaire--?"
+
+"Have I been so, Frances?"
+
+"Mais oui; vous le savez bien."
+
+"Have I been nothing else?"
+
+"Mais oui; vous avez ete mon meilleur ami."
+
+"And what, Frances, are you to me?"
+
+"Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur."
+
+"Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
+Frances."
+
+Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly,
+ran thus:--
+
+"You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to
+see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
+superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but
+you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they
+are not clever. Master, I should be GLAD to live with you always;"
+and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
+restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis--"Master, I
+consent to pass my life with you."
+
+"Very well, Frances."
+
+I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her
+lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she
+and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances' thoughts, during
+this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not
+occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her
+composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true,
+still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long
+as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was
+measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth
+fathomless.
+
+"Monsieur," at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
+happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely
+lifted her head.
+
+"Well, Frances?" I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
+overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
+importunate caresses.
+
+"Monsieur est raisonnable, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+"Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do
+you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
+tranquil enough?"
+
+"Ce n'est pas cela--" began Frances.
+
+"English!" I reminded her.
+
+"Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course,
+to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
+monsieur?"
+
+"Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on."
+
+"Bon!--I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like
+that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours--will
+they not, monsieur?"
+
+"You are laying plans to be independent of me," said I.
+
+"Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any way."
+
+"But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have
+left M. Pelet's; and after nearly a month's seeking, I have got another
+place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily
+double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless
+for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand
+francs you and I can live, and live well."
+
+Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man's
+strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
+becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and clothing it, as
+God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
+on:--
+
+"Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
+require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
+important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
+it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
+happiness of giving you rest."
+
+I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
+instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
+sighed and said,--
+
+"How rich you are, monsieur!" and then she stirred uneasy in my
+arms. "Three thousand francs!" she murmured, "While I get only twelve
+hundred!" She went on faster. "However, it must be so for the present;
+and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my
+place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;" and her little fingers emphatically
+tightened on mine.
+
+"Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do
+it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close,
+noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering
+at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and
+you would soon tire of me."
+
+"Frances, you could read and study--two things you like so well."
+
+"Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an
+active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have
+taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other's company
+for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each
+other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer
+together."
+
+"You speak God's truth," said I at last, "and you shall have your own
+way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent,
+give me a voluntary kiss."
+
+After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
+brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I
+took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
+interest.
+
+I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
+I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
+singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected
+and joyless countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite
+gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and
+rosy tint rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been
+accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her
+proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome,
+she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's
+treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes
+opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my
+tastes which were unique, not my power of discovering and appreciating
+the superiority of moral worth over physical charms. For me Frances
+had physical charms: in her there was no deformity to get over; none of
+those prominent defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at
+bay the admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for
+women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she been
+either "edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue," my feelings towards
+her might still have been kindly, but they could never have been
+impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen Sylvie, but
+for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances' mental points
+had been the first to interest me, and they still retained the strongest
+hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person too. I
+derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the clearness
+of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her
+well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
+I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
+sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+
+Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey
+fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious;
+taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of change.
+
+At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
+forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
+drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all
+day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a
+fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few
+hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long
+after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed.
+At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke,
+and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face,
+and like him, "the hair of my flesh stood up." I might continue the
+parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet "a thing was secretly
+brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was
+silence, and I heard a voice," saying--"In the midst of life we are in
+death."
+
+That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many
+would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the
+effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was
+my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an
+aim, had overstrained the body's comparative weakness. A horror of great
+darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known
+formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to
+hypochondria.
+
+She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I
+had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time
+I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she
+walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where
+we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me,
+and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her
+death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would
+tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she
+would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again
+promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink
+of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal
+with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary
+than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale
+piles, and add, "It contains a mansion prepared for you."
+
+But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister;
+and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress,
+finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few
+objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and
+slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance,
+and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells
+THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect
+brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires,
+folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap
+of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
+hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
+
+I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
+embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
+sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
+Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
+returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all
+the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad
+when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances,
+and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
+made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
+being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
+under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary.
+Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her;
+and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her
+tongue, when she stopped and remarked--
+
+"Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you."
+
+I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
+features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden;
+he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
+grimace at me, and passed on.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"A person I knew in England."
+
+"Why did he bow to me? He does not know me."
+
+"Yes, he does know you, in his way."
+
+"How, monsieur?" (She still called me "monsieur"; I could not persuade
+her to adopt any more familiar term.)
+
+"Did you not read the expression of his eyes?"
+
+"Of his eyes? No. What did they say?"
+
+"To you they said, 'How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?' To me, 'So
+you have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of
+your kind!'"
+
+"Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon
+gone."
+
+"I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me
+this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt
+he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your
+rooms?"
+
+"If you please, monsieur--I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should
+rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original."
+
+As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he
+said was:--
+
+"You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your
+appointment to ---- College, and all that; Brown has told me." Then
+he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since;
+afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter
+with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a
+rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and,
+seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?
+
+"As to her, I'll come to that directly; but first I've a word for you. I
+see you are a scoundrel; you've no business to be promenading about with
+another man's wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up
+in foreign hodge-podge of this sort."
+
+"But the lady?"
+
+"She's too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better
+than you--no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to
+see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These
+foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She
+has not been married to him three months--he must be a spoon!"
+
+I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+
+"Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always
+talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraide
+yourself!"
+
+"Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?"
+
+"No; nor Madame Zoraide either."
+
+"Why did you tell a lie, then?"
+
+"I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine--a
+Swiss girl."
+
+"And of course you are going to be married to her? Don't deny that."
+
+"Married! I think I shall--if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That
+is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless
+of your hothouse grapes."
+
+"Stop! No boasting--no heroics; I won't hear them. What is she? To what
+caste does she belong?"
+
+I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste, and, in
+fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old
+----shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and
+respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of
+his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have
+thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley
+would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I should
+give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and leaning
+over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed glee, I
+said concisely--
+
+"She is a lace-mender."
+
+Hunsden examined me. He did not SAY he was surprised, but surprised he
+was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he suspected I
+was going to take some very rash step; but repressing declamation or
+remonstrance, he only answered--
+
+"Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may
+make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care
+to ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or
+station, she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think
+most likely to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?"
+
+"None in Brussels."
+
+"That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I
+cannot but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a
+bore to you to your life's end."
+
+After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was
+quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which
+he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me
+that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined
+and thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or
+indeed for anything but indulgence and forbearance.
+
+"Good night, William," he said, in a really soft voice, while his face
+looked benevolently compassionate. "Good night, lad. I wish you and your
+future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious
+soul."
+
+I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity
+of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:--
+
+"I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?"
+
+"Oh, that is the name! Yes--if it would be convenient, I should like to
+see her--but----." He hesitated.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should on no account wish to intrude."
+
+"Come, then," said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a
+rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart,
+in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real
+gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the
+harsh husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked
+affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been
+so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the
+stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair
+which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+
+"Here, Mr. Hunsden," said I quietly, tapping at Frances' door. He
+turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at
+having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said
+nothing.
+
+We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive
+us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but
+withal very distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing
+to beauty, but much to dignity; the finish of the white collar and
+manchettes sufficed for a relief to the merino gown of solemn black;
+ornament was forsworn. Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as
+she always did, when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect
+than to love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness
+at making his acquaintance in French. The pure and polished accent, the
+low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their effect immediately;
+Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not heard him speak that language
+before; he managed it very well. I retired to the window-seat; Mr.
+Hunsden, at his hostess's invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth;
+from my position I could see them both, and the room too, at a glance.
+The room was so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished
+cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a
+fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE.
+Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually polite;
+they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed
+with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models
+of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign
+tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences,
+with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
+mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
+she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach
+of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
+glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
+complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
+before, she had only looked ladylike.
+
+She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
+ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
+this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
+snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
+before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
+interlocutor's tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at
+once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself;
+as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now
+address her.
+
+"You understand English?" was the prefatory question.
+
+"A little."
+
+"Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you've not
+much more sense than some others of my acquaintance" (indicating me
+with his thumb), "or else you'd never turn rabid about that dirty little
+country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in
+your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible
+that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a
+mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five
+minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort
+of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!"
+
+"England is your country?" asked Frances.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you don't like it?"
+
+"I'd be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
+nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ----shire), and helpless
+pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!"
+
+"You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices
+everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries."
+
+"Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St.
+Giles' in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works.
+Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk
+in blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English
+cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black
+hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of
+Infamy wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her
+favourite paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched
+hovels----"
+
+"I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was
+thinking of the good side--of what is elevated in your character as a
+nation."
+
+"There is no good side--none at least of which you can have any
+knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness
+of education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you
+from understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical
+associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you
+alluded to such humbug."
+
+"But I did partly."
+
+Hunsden laughed--his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+
+"I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such
+associations give no pleasure?"
+
+"Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its
+length, breadth, weight, value--ay, VALUE? What price will it bring in
+the market?"
+
+"Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+association, be without price."
+
+That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely,
+too, somewhere; for he coloured--a thing not unusual with him, when hit
+unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened
+his eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his
+antagonist's home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as
+he would like to be loved--some one whose love he could unreservedly
+return.
+
+The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+
+"If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer
+wonder that you hate England so. I don't clearly know what Paradise is,
+and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can
+conceive, and angels the most elevated existences--if one of them--if
+Abdiel the Faithful himself" (she was thinking of Milton) "were suddenly
+stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth
+from 'the ever-during gates,' leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned 'with retorted scorn.'"
+
+Frances' tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it
+was when the word "hell" twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat
+startling emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of
+admiration. He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked
+whatever dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard
+a lady say "hell" with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound
+pleased him from a lady's lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike
+the string again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric
+vigour never gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or
+flashed in her countenance when extraordinary circumstances--and those
+generally painful--forced it out of the depths where it burned latent.
+To me, once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered
+venturous thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such
+manifestation was past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of
+itself departed. Hunsden's excitations she put by soon with a smile, and
+recurring to the theme of disputation, said--
+
+"Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her
+so?"
+
+"I should have thought no child would have asked that question," replied
+Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for
+stupidity those who asked it of him. "If you had been my pupil, as I
+suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character
+not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a
+confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can't you see that it is
+our GOLD which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss
+servility?" And he sneered diabolically.
+
+"Swiss?" said Frances, catching the word "servility." "Do you call my
+countrymen servile?" and she started up. I could not suppress a low
+laugh; there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. "Do
+you abuse Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no
+associations? Do you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what
+vice and degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave
+quite out of my heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our
+blood-earned freedom, and the natural glories of our mountains? You're
+mistaken--you're mistaken."
+
+"Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible
+fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract
+idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their
+blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings."
+
+"You never were in Switzerland?"
+
+"Yes--I have been there twice."
+
+"You know nothing of it."
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says 'Poor Poll,' or
+as the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French
+accuse them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums."
+
+"There is truth."
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an
+unpractical woman, for you don't acknowledge what really exists; you
+want to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as
+an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their
+existence."
+
+"Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent--I thought we were
+talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss."
+
+"We were--and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary to-morrow
+(which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still."
+
+"You would be mad, then--mad as a March hare--to indulge in a passion
+for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice."
+
+"Not so mad as you who love nothing."
+
+"There's a method in my madness; there's none in yours."
+
+"Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of
+the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use."
+
+"You cannot reason at all," said Hunsden; "there is no logic in you."
+
+"Better to be without logic than without feeling," retorted Frances, who
+was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table,
+intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for
+she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+
+"Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without
+feeling?"
+
+"I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those
+of other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that,
+and the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because
+you imagine it to be inconsistent with logic."
+
+"I do right."
+
+Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon
+reappeared.
+
+"You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just
+be so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something
+to cook." (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire;
+then, while she stirred its contents:) "Right! as if it were right to
+crush any pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially
+any sentiment that, like patriotism, spreads man's selfishness in wider
+circles" (fire stirred, dish put down before it).
+
+"Were you born in Switzerland?"
+
+"I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?"
+
+"And where did you get your English features and figure?"
+
+"I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have
+a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two
+noble, free, and fortunate countries."
+
+"You had an English mother?"
+
+"Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from
+Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?"
+
+"On the contrary, I'm a universal patriot, if you could understand me
+rightly: my country is the world."
+
+"Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have
+the goodness to come to table. Monsieur" (to me who appeared to be now
+absorbed in reading by moonlight)--"Monsieur, supper is served."
+
+This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been
+bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden--not so short, graver and softer.
+
+"Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of
+staying."
+
+"Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have
+only the alternative of eating it."
+
+The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but
+tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad
+and "fromage francais," completed it. The business of eating interposed
+a brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper
+disposed of than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute
+ran on the spirit of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to
+exist strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment
+of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it,
+not only because she was unskilled to argue, but because her own real
+opinions on the point in question happened to coincide pretty nearly
+with Mr. Hunsden's, and she only contradicted him out of opposition. At
+last she gave in, confessing that she thought as he thought, but bidding
+him take notice that she did not consider herself beaten.
+
+"No more did the French at Waterloo," said Hunsden.
+
+"There is no comparison between the cases," rejoined Frances; "mine was
+a sham fight."
+
+"Sham or real, it's up with you."
+
+"No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case
+where my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when
+I had not another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by
+dumb determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have
+been conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite
+of the laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics.
+I would do as he did."
+
+"I'll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort
+of stubborn stuff in you."
+
+"I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I'd
+scorn the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature
+of our heroic William in his soul."
+
+"If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass."
+
+"Does not ASS mean BAUDET?" asked Frances, turning to me.
+
+"No, no," replied I, "it means an ESPRIT-FORT; and now," I continued, as
+I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between these two, "it
+is high time to go."
+
+Hunsden rose. "Good bye," said he to Frances; "I shall be off for this
+glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before
+I come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I'll seek you out, and
+you shall see if I don't find means to make you fiercer than a dragon.
+You've done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall
+challenge me outright. Meantime you're doomed to become Mrs. William
+Crimsworth, I suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit;
+cherish it, and give the Professor the full benefit thereof."
+
+"Are you married. Mr. Hunsden?" asked Frances, suddenly.
+
+"No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my
+look."
+
+"Well, whenever you marry don't take a wife out of Switzerland; for if
+you begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons--above all, if
+you mention the word ASS in the same breath with the name Tell (for
+ass IS baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to translate
+it ESPRIT-FORT) your mountain maid will some night smother her
+Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare's Othello smothered
+Desdemona."
+
+"I am warned," said Hunsden; "and so are you, lad," (nodding to me). "I
+hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which
+the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched--you,
+however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!" He bowed on her
+hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron;
+adding--"Death from such fingers would not be without charms."
+
+"Mon Dieu!" murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her
+distinctly arched brows; "c'est qu'il fait des compliments! je ne m'y
+suis pas attendu." She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with
+foreign grace, and so they parted.
+
+No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+
+"And that is your lace-mender?" said he; "and you reckon you have done
+a fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of
+Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up
+with an ouvriere! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his feelings had
+misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low match!"
+
+"Just let go my collar, Hunsden."
+
+On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the
+waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a
+tug for it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with
+difficulty picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly.
+
+"Yes, that's my lace-mender," said I; "and she is to be mine for
+life--God willing."
+
+"God is not willing--you can't suppose it; what business have you to
+be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of
+respect, too, and says, 'Monsieur' and modulates her tone in addressing
+you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince
+more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the
+supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours."
+
+"Hunsden, you're a puppy. But you've only seen the title-page of my
+happiness; you don't know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the
+interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative."
+
+Hunsden--speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+street--desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till
+my sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he
+said--
+
+"Don't be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not
+good enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up
+to my ideal of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that
+pale-faced, excitable little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely
+more of the nervous, mobile Parisienne in her than of the the robust
+'jungfrau'). Your Mdlle. Henri is in person "chetive", in mind "sans
+caractere", compared with the queen of my visions. You, indeed, may put
+up with that "minois chiffone"; but when I marry I must have straighter
+and more harmonious features, to say nothing of a nobler and better
+developed shape than that perverse, ill-thriven child can boast."
+
+"Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,"
+said I, "and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless,
+fullest-blooded of Ruben's painted women--leave me only my Alpine peri,
+and I'll not envy you."
+
+With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither
+said "God bless you;" yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her
+aunt. One January morning--the first of the new year holidays--I went in
+a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre Dame aux
+Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found Frances
+apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate to
+that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in
+any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her
+array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal
+because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head,
+and hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it
+to her thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each
+side of her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when
+I asked her if she were ready, she said "Yes, monsieur," with something
+very like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the
+table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear course
+unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration like a reed.
+I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits, and requested to
+be allowed an insight into the origin thereof. She only said, "It was
+impossible to help it," and then voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting
+her hand into mine, accompanied me out of the room, and ran downstairs
+with a quick, uncertain step, like one who was eager to get some
+formidable piece of business over. I put her into the fiacre. M.
+Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside himself; we drove all
+together to the Protestant chapel, went through a certain service in the
+Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married. M. Vandenhuten had
+given the bride away.
+
+We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity
+of our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not
+exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house
+I had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the
+scene of our avocations lay.
+
+Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her
+bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials,
+a piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing
+decoration of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly
+furnished though not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a
+chiffoniere some books, which I handed to her from the table. It was
+snowing fast out of doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and
+cold; the leaden sky seemed full of drifts, and the street was already
+ankle-deep in the white downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new
+habitation looked brilliantly clean and fresh, the furniture was all
+arranged, and there were but some articles of glass, china, books,
+&c., to put in order. Frances found in this business occupation till
+tea-time, and then, after I had distinctly instructed her how to make
+a cup of tea in rational English style, and after she had got over the
+dismay occasioned by seeing such an extravagant amount of material put
+into the pot, she administered to me a proper British repast, at which
+there wanted neither candles nor urn, firelight nor comfort.
+
+Our week's holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour.
+Both my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were
+working people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the
+most assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part
+every morning at eight o'clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but
+into what sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking
+down the vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little
+parlour like a long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past.
+Unvaried were they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and
+burning.
+
+A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a FETE, and we had the day
+to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness peculiar to her when
+she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last, having come to
+a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the touchstone of my
+judgment:--
+
+"I don't work enough."
+
+"What now?" demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been
+deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed
+to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain
+farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. "What now?" and I
+saw at once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital
+importance.
+
+"I am not satisfied," returned she: "you are now earning eight thousand
+francs a year" (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my
+pupils' progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me
+on), "while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I CAN do
+better, and I WILL."
+
+"You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances."
+
+"Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am
+convinced of it."
+
+"You wish to change--you have a plan for progress in your mind; go and
+put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of
+it."
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+She went--as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious mixture
+of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and wondering
+what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+
+"Monsieur, I have given Minnie" (our bonne) "leave to go out too, as it
+is so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take
+the key with you?"
+
+"Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth," was my not very apposite reply; but she
+looked so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet,
+and her manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly
+and suavely respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and
+a kiss seemed necessary to content its importunity.
+
+"There, monsieur."
+
+"Why do you always call me 'Monsieur'? Say, 'William.'"
+
+"I cannot pronounce your W; besides, 'Monsieur' belongs to you; I like
+it best."
+
+Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out,
+leaving the house solitary and silent--silent, at least, but for
+the ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields
+received us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding
+CHAUSSEES. Ere long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded,
+it might have been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of
+short and mossy grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting
+to be declined; we took it, and when we had admired and examined some
+English-looking wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances'
+attention and my own to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+
+"What was her plan?" A natural one--the next step to be mounted by
+us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She
+proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on
+a careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed,
+too, by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense
+advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting
+acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in
+schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan,
+she intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If
+we only had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure,
+in time realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too
+old to enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder
+us from going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land.
+
+I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was
+not one who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively
+inactive. Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to
+do--and exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred
+in her frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine
+was not the hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in
+offering them sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+
+"You have conceived a plan, Frances," said I, "and a good plan; execute
+it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is
+wanted, ask and you shall have."
+
+Frances' eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon
+brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for
+some time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than
+"Thank you, monsieur."
+
+We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer
+moon.
+
+Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings;
+years of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and
+my wife, having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as
+progress whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were
+strangers to amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as
+our course ran side by side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither
+murmured, repented, nor faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us
+up; harmony of thought and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally,
+success bestowed every now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our
+school became one of the most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees
+we raised our terms and elevated our system of education, our choice of
+pupils grew more select, and at length included the children of the
+best families in Belgium. We had too an excellent connection in England,
+first opened by the unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who
+having been over, and having abused me for my prosperity in set terms,
+went back, and soon after sent a leash of young ----shire heiresses--his
+cousins; as he said "to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth."
+
+As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another
+woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was
+she under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The
+faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained
+fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out
+broad, and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness,
+activity, and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling
+and fervour; but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy
+under the umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in
+the world knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever
+ready to yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as
+radiant.
+
+In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the
+directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on
+her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately
+after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college,
+she to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day,
+I found her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry,
+observance, attending on her presence. When not actually teaching,
+she was overlooking and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared
+vigilant and solicitous. When communicating instruction, her aspect was
+more animated; she seemed to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation.
+The language in which she addressed her pupils, though simple and
+unpretending, was never trite or dry; she did not speak from routine
+formulas--she made her own phrases as she went on, and very nervous
+and impressive phrases they frequently were; often, when elucidating
+favourite points of history, or geography, she would wax genuinely
+eloquent in her earnestness. Her pupils, or at least the elder and more
+intelligent amongst them, recognized well the language of a superior
+mind; they felt too, and some of them received the impression of
+elevated sentiments; there was little fondling between mistress and
+girls, but some of Frances' pupils in time learnt to love her sincerely,
+all of them beheld her with respect; her general demeanour towards
+them was serious; sometimes benignant when they pleased her with their
+progress and attention, always scrupulously refined and considerate.
+In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she was usually
+forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that forbearance, which
+sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like severity taught
+the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes a gleam of
+tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare; only when
+a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of some
+little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions,
+whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt
+of the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble
+fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was
+to their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after
+them she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat
+by the stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to
+receive some little dole of cake or fruit--to sit on a footstool at
+the fireside--to enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for
+an evening together--to be spoken to gently and softly, comforted,
+encouraged, cherished--and when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss
+of true tenderness. As to Julia and Georgiana G----, daughters of an
+English baronet, as to Mdlle. Mathilde de ----, heiress of a Belgian
+count, and sundry other children of patrician race, the directress was
+careful of them as of the others, anxious for their progress, as for
+that of the rest--but it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish
+them by a mark of preference; one girl of noble blood she loved
+dearly--a young Irish baroness--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her
+enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius,
+the title and rank went for nothing.
+
+My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
+that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which
+she would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
+pupils to learn their characters, to be AU COURANT with everything that
+was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her,
+to be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it,
+and this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils
+to fall asleep, and never making any change of importance without
+my cognizance and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my
+lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most
+fixedly attentive of any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when
+she did it was with an air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her
+joy to make me still the master in all things.
+
+At six o'clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for
+my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private
+sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and
+Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my
+arms; much disappointed she would have been if her master had not been
+as constant to the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not
+been prompt to answer her soft, "Bon soir, monsieur."
+
+Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for
+her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been
+injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage
+its renewal. Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to
+refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we
+spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was
+thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved
+him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so
+unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him
+than subjects for communion with her own heart. In those moments, happy
+as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of
+mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature. She would show, too,
+some stores of raillery, of "malice," and would vex, tease, pique me
+sometimes about what she called my "bizarreries anglaises," my "caprices
+insulaires," with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect white
+demon of her while it lasted. This was rare, however, and the elfish
+freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war
+of words--for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the
+delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked
+me--I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the
+sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm
+than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive
+brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its
+place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and
+supplicating little mortal woman in my arms. Then I made her get a book,
+and read English to me for an hour by way of penance. I frequently dosed
+her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she
+had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his
+language, too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue
+for explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge
+me as her senior and director. Her instinct instantly penetrated and
+possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers. Byron
+excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled at, wondered
+over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+
+But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me
+in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit,
+or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with
+attention; whether she smiled at me or on me, always at nine o'clock I
+was left abandoned. She would extricate herself from my arms, quit
+my side, take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have
+followed her sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the
+dortoir (the pupils' chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room
+between the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any
+were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed
+them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil;
+trimmed the watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then
+withdrew, closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided
+to our own chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought;
+there, too, appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face
+(the night I followed and observed her) changed as she approached this
+tiny couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand
+the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and hung
+over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and usually,
+I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever
+heated its round cheek; no ill dream discomposed its budding features.
+Frances gazed, she did not smile, and yet the deepest delight filled,
+flushed her face; feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole
+frame, which still was motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her
+lips were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child
+smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy,
+"God bless my little son!" She stooped closer over him, breathed the
+softest of kisses on his brow, covered his minute hand with hers, and
+at last started up and came away. I regained the parlour before her.
+Entering it two minutes later she said quietly as she put down her
+extinguished lamp--
+
+"Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile,
+monsieur."
+
+The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of
+our marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.
+Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.
+
+Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a
+good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she
+married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a prodigal,
+a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one which I once
+propounded to her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was--
+
+"I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when
+I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer
+suddenly and silently."
+
+"And if law or might had forced you back again?"
+
+"What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust
+fool?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice
+and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again."
+
+"And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, hastily. "Why do you ask me, monsieur?"
+
+I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her
+eye, whose voice I determined to waken.
+
+"Monsieur, if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to,
+marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and
+though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though
+the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates
+must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would
+resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I
+should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from
+bad laws and their consequences."
+
+"Voluntary death, Frances?"
+
+"No, monsieur. I'd have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate
+assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the
+last."
+
+"I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate
+had merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you
+have liked celibacy?"
+
+"Not much, certainly. An old maid's life must doubtless be void and
+vapid--her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should
+have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I
+should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised
+and of no account, like other single women. But I'm not an old maid,"
+she added quickly. "I should have been, though, but for my master. I
+should never have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth--no other
+gentleman, French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or
+handsome; and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation
+of many others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor
+Crimsworth's wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he
+honourable, beloved ----?" She stopped, her voice was cut off, her eyes
+suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she threw her
+arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate earnestness:
+the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then dilated
+eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were like
+inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a power.
+Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where all
+that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+her glance so thrilling and ardent--her action so rapid and strong. She
+looked down, smiling softly and passively:--
+
+"I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur," said she, "but I know that,
+whenever it is wanted, it will come back again."
+
+Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an
+independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its
+origin in three reasons:-- Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly,
+we had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had
+capital to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in
+England, viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice
+as to the sort of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was
+judicious; and, being promptly acted on, the result proved gainful--I
+need not say how gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten
+and Hunsden; nobody else can be interested in hearing them.
+
+Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we
+both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in
+which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and
+our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on--abundance to
+leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which,
+properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might
+help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of
+charity.
+
+To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely;
+Frances realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer
+and autumn in travelling from end to end of the British islands, and
+afterwards passed a winter in London. Then we thought it high time
+to fix our residence. My heart yearned towards my native county of
+----shire; and it is in ----shire I now live; it is in the library of my
+own home I am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather
+hilly region, thirty miles removed from X----; a region whose verdure
+the smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure,
+whose swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between
+them the very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her
+blue-bells, her scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes.
+My house is a picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and
+long windows, a trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door,
+just now, on this summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy.
+The garden is chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills,
+with herbage short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers,
+tiny and starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine
+foliage. At the bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which
+opens upon a lane as green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little
+frequented; on the turf of this lane generally appear the first daisies
+of spring--whence its name--Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to
+the house.
+
+It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+wood--chiefly oak and beech--spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a
+very old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as
+well as more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of
+an individual familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden
+Wood--for so are those glades and that grey building, with many gables
+and more chimneys, named--abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never,
+I suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score
+of young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to
+assist him in the search.
+
+The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he
+has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some
+incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides
+here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the
+twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each
+winter in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to
+----shire, and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has
+a German metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a
+dissatisfied and savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played,
+and of whom Frances affirmed that he had "tout l'air d'un conspirateur."
+
+What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or
+Manchester--hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is
+of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a
+wider theme--European progress--the spread of liberal sentiments over
+the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria,
+and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk
+vigorous sense--yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in the
+old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight
+was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old
+northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard
+much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.
+Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical
+men he seemed leagued hand and heart.
+
+When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he
+generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has
+a philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on
+summer evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the
+roses, with which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he
+intimates we should certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are
+almost sure to see him; according to him, it gets on time to work
+me into lunacy by treading on my mental corns, or to force from Mrs.
+Crimsworth revelations of the dragon within her, by insulting the memory
+of Hofer and Tell.
+
+We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a
+visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are
+an interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the
+absence of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society
+gives a metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the
+talk. Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he
+chooses to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his
+very mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the
+passages legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of
+diamond-paned lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels
+he has collected stores of articles of VERTU, which are well and
+tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen
+there one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many
+an aristocratic connoisseur might have envied.
+
+When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he
+often walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber
+is old and of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued
+through glade and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat
+long one. Many a time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon,
+and when the night has been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain
+nightingale has been singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has
+lent the song a soft accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one
+hamlet in a district of ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of
+the wood left us at our porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours,
+and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers.
+He would then forget politics and discussion, and would dwell on the
+past times of his house, on his family history, on himself and his own
+feelings--subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they
+were each and all unique. One glorious night in June, after I had been
+taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she would
+come and graft her foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak, he answered
+suddenly--
+
+"You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a
+shadow without a substance."
+
+He had led us from the depth of the "winding way" into a glade from
+whence the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded
+moon poured her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her
+beam an ivory miniature.
+
+Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to
+me--still, however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking
+in my eyes what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a
+very handsome and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had
+once said, "straight and harmonious features." It was dark; the hair,
+raven-black, swept not only from the brow, but from the temples--seemed
+thrust away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay,
+despised arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an
+independent, determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the
+chin ditto. On the back of the miniature was gilded "Lucia."
+
+"That is a real head," was my conclusion.
+
+Hunsden smiled.
+
+"I think so," he replied. "All was real in Lucia."
+
+"And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could not?"
+
+"I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not done so
+is a proof that I COULD not."
+
+He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances' hand, and
+put it away.
+
+"What do YOU think of it?" he asked of my wife, as he buttoned his coat
+over it.
+
+"I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them," was the strange
+answer. "I do not mean matrimonial chains," she added, correcting
+herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, "but social chains of some
+sort. The face is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful
+and triumphant effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from
+insupportable constraint; and when Lucia's faculty got free, I am
+certain it spread wide pinions and carried her higher than--" she
+hesitated.
+
+"Than what?" demanded Hunsden.
+
+"Than 'les convenances' permitted you to follow."
+
+"I think you grow spiteful--impertinent."
+
+"Lucia has trodden the stage," continued Frances. "You never seriously
+thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness,
+her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that
+was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her
+beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she
+filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a
+wife."
+
+"Ingenious," remarked Hunsden; "whether true or not is another question.
+Meantime, don't you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale,
+beside such a girandole as Lucia's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the
+dim light you give?"
+
+"Will you, monsieur?"
+
+"My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances," and we had
+now reached the wicket.
+
+I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it
+is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest;
+the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the
+air. Frances proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out
+on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded with china, placed under a
+certain beech; Hunsden is expected--nay, I hear he is come--there is his
+voice, laying down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances
+replies; she opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor,
+of whom Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs.
+Crimsworth retaliates:--
+
+"Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden,
+calls 'a fine lad;' and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become
+a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and
+going, no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy
+till she had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off;
+for that with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin
+a score of children."
+
+I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my
+desk--but it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on
+porcelain.
+
+Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his
+mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark
+as those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical
+enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less
+than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over
+a book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure,
+peril, or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But
+though still, he is not unhappy--though serious, not morose; he has a
+susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts
+to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a
+spelling-book at his mother's knee, and as he got on without driving by
+that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to
+try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable.
+When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still.
+His toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he
+possesses, he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to
+affection; this feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of
+the house, strengthens almost to a passion.
+
+Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the
+donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much
+modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would
+go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he
+learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in
+the lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his
+own hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left
+at night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X----, and was bitten
+in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had brought
+him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the yard
+and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an instant;
+he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had scarcely
+been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds of
+anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence.
+Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its
+bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me.
+
+"Oh, papa, I'll never forgive you! I'll never forgive you!" was his
+exclamation. "You shot Yorke--I saw it from the window. I never believed
+you could be so cruel--I can love you no more!"
+
+I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern
+necessity of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter
+accent which I cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated--
+
+"He might have been cured--you should have tried--you should have burnt
+the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave no time;
+and now it is too late--he is dead!"
+
+He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long
+while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him
+in my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort
+him best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not
+come out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she
+was ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on
+to her gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft
+embrace, for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him
+that Yorke had felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to
+expire naturally, his end would have been most horrible; above all, she
+told him that I was not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite
+pain to poor Victor), that it was my affection for Yorke and him which
+had made me act so, and that I was now almost heart-broken to see him
+weep thus bitterly.
+
+Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a
+tone--married to caresses so benign, so tender--to looks so inspired
+with pitying sympathy--produced no effect on him. They did produce an
+effect: he grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still
+in her arms. Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over
+again what she had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not
+being cruel; the balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek
+on her breast, and was again tranquil.
+
+Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him,
+and desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I
+kept him a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of
+which he disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in
+my son. I found, it is true, few elements of the "good fellow" or the
+"fine fellow" in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash
+over the wine cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying
+fire; but I saw in the soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs
+of compassion, affection, fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his
+intellect a rich growth of wholesome principles--reason, justice, moral
+courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on
+his large forehead, and on his cheek--still pale with tears--a proud and
+contented kiss, and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day
+laid on the mound under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered
+with his hands; he was melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year
+elapsed before he would listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+
+Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first
+year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his
+home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not
+suit him--but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of success,
+will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a strong
+repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and
+transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject,
+I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some
+fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her
+fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be
+taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of
+her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance,
+a congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as
+I also see, a something in Victor's temper--a kind of electrical ardour
+and power--which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it
+his spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of
+the offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not WHIPPED out
+of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of
+any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him
+radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this something in
+her son's marked character no name; but when it appears in the grinding
+of his teeth, in the glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of
+feeling against disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed
+injustice, she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her
+alone in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and
+to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of
+love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason
+or love be the weapons with which in future the world will meet his
+violence? Oh, no! for that flash in his black eye--for that cloud on
+his bony brow--for that compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will
+some day get blows instead of blandishments--kicks instead of kisses;
+then for the fit of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden
+his soul; then for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of
+which he will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man.
+
+I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the
+beech; Hunsden's hand rests on the boy's collar, and he is instilling
+God knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for
+he listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his
+mother as when he smiles--pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor
+has a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever
+entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a
+sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden's knee, or
+rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round,
+like a dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes
+Hunsden had children of his own, for then he would better know the
+danger of inciting their pride end indulging their foibles.
+
+Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which
+half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy
+she enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+"Monsieur est trop applique."
+
+"I shall soon have done."
+
+She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her
+presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and
+spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the
+midsummer eve are to my senses.
+
+But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the
+lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand,
+disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+
+"Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress,
+and make him lift up his head."
+
+"Well, Hunsden? I hear you--"
+
+"I was at X---- yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer than
+Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a stag
+of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and Jean
+Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets
+too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but
+in business they are doing 'on ne peut mieux,' which circumstance
+he concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little
+crosses in the affections. Why don't you invite the Pelets to ----shire,
+Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide. Mistress,
+don't be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a
+fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you've
+lost, Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don't come to tea,
+Victor and I will begin without you."
+
+"Papa, come!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Professor, by (AKA Charlotte
+Bronte) Currer Bell
+
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diff --git a/old/old/1028.zip b/old/old/1028.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,9419 @@
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR
+
+by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+
+T H E   P R O F E S S O R
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+This little book was written before either “Jane Eyre” or “Shirley,”
+ and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first
+attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it
+had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had
+not indeed published anything before I commenced “The Professor,” but
+in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had
+got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and
+redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.
+At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of
+incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the
+result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an
+author more surprise than pleasure.
+
+I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had
+seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shilling
+he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to
+wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain,
+should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so
+much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the
+ascent of “the Hill of Difficulty;” that he should not even marry a
+beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s
+doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+
+In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
+approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative
+and poetical--something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with
+a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly.
+Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this
+kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie
+hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such
+treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on
+trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference
+for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and
+harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
+
+Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached
+him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone
+through some struggles--which indeed it has. And after all, its
+worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes
+comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a moderate expectation--and
+mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,
+
+“He that is low need fear no fall.”
+
+CURRER BELL.
+
+The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+publication of “The Professor,” shortly after the appearance of
+“Shirley.” Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some
+use of the materials in a subsequent work--“Villette.” As, however,
+these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented
+to me that I ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public. I
+have therefore consented to its publication.
+
+A. B. NICHOLLS
+
+Haworth Parsonage,
+
+September 22nd, 1856.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+T H E    P R O F E S S O R
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+
+THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the
+following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school
+acquaintance:--
+
+“DEAR CHARLES,
+
+“I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of
+us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic,
+observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will
+not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly
+attractive one--can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together
+I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and
+Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on
+your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still,
+out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the
+theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood
+each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some
+vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or
+inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself
+superior to that check THEN as I do NOW.
+
+“It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since
+I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day,
+my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over
+the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down
+and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you
+shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+
+“First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
+Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
+the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
+which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
+hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
+be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one
+of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+
+“I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
+thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh how
+like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of
+my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
+accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom.
+To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of
+Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and
+well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such
+circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
+
+“When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me ‘what I intended
+to do?’ I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune,
+and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord
+Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my
+father’s steps and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the
+sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good
+tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was
+the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced
+the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I was
+instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did
+not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered
+then, with haste and warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in
+my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not
+remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this
+transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of
+Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
+reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and
+which certainly was yet untried.
+
+“I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten
+years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now
+possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he
+failed. You are aware that my father--once reckoned a Croesus of
+wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my
+mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by
+her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union
+with Crimsworth, the----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months
+she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I
+should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
+her.
+
+“My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
+was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
+an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for
+it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity
+of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
+Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
+sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
+against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
+enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race;
+they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X----; and,
+making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of
+my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during
+which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered
+into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and
+success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune.
+Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from
+him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded
+without some expression of determined enmity against the house of
+Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty
+of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand
+why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale
+and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of
+the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against
+my father--of the sufferings of my mother--of all the wrongs, in short,
+of our house--then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I
+lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had
+refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by
+these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe,
+and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
+
+“An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself,
+I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my
+intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if
+he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my
+conduct, but he said I might come down to ----shire, if I liked, and he
+would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.’
+I repressed all--even mental comment on his note--packed my trunk and
+carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+
+“After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I
+arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X----. I had always
+understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that
+it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in
+the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his RESIDENCE lay four miles out,
+in the country.
+
+“It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the
+habitation designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the
+avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy
+mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the
+grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the
+lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the
+centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+
+“Edward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing
+well--but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting
+short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the
+front door and rang. A man-servant opened it--I announced myself--he
+relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a
+room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles
+burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet
+returned from X----market, but that he would certainly be at home in the
+course of half an hour.
+
+“Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red
+morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the
+flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on
+the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting
+about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of
+these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no
+danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation
+of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of
+fraternal tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to
+prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still,
+as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I cannot tell
+you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand,
+clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain
+have shaken it.
+
+“I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether
+Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always
+experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached
+the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some
+minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the
+hall, his tread drew near the library door--that tread alone announced
+the master of the house.
+
+“I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten
+years ago--a tall, wiry, raw youth; NOW, as I rose from my seat and
+turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man,
+light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first
+glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown
+as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general
+expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment
+of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the
+morocco covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.
+
+“‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’
+said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably
+habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which
+sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the
+South.
+
+“‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’
+said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being
+aware that you had such a residence as this.’
+
+“‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind
+time, waiting for you--that is all. I thought you must be coming by the
+eight o’clock coach.’
+
+“I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but
+stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he
+scanned me again.
+
+“I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of
+meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this
+man with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+
+“‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily.
+
+“‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my
+refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against
+all future intercourse.’
+
+“‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our
+connection, that “no man can serve two masters.” Acquaintance with Lord
+Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind
+of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this
+observation.
+
+“Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an
+inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution
+of men’s minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from
+my silence--whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an
+evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and
+hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat.
+
+“‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other
+points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably
+waiting; will you come?’
+
+“He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I
+wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien
+to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe--as the
+affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than
+these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of
+my real nature; or--’ Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance
+into the dining-room.
+
+“A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the
+fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady;
+she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and
+fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay
+salutation passed between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half
+playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take
+voices into the account in judging of character) was lively--it
+indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked
+her animated scolding with a kiss--a kiss that still told of the
+bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat
+at the supper-table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged
+my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as
+ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to
+all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further
+obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently
+marked but agreeable; her hair was red--quite red. She and Edward
+talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or
+pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in
+the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
+
+“‘Now, Mr. William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he
+will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice
+already.
+
+“She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I
+soon saw also that there was more than girlish--a somewhat infantine
+expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression
+were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to
+those of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous
+to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face
+or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw
+vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in
+vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips
+and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that
+Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded,
+the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers
+are very well; but how many wet days are there in life--November seasons
+of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without
+the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+
+“Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth’s face, a deep,
+involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to
+her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome
+young wife, threw on me a glance--half ridicule, half ire.
+
+“I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two
+pictures set in the oak panelling--one on each side the mantel-piece.
+Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on
+between Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination
+of these pictures. They were portraits--a lady and a gentleman, both
+costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the
+shade. I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam
+from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this
+picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion
+picture being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father’s
+property.
+
+“The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not
+understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in the world,
+and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression. The
+serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines
+in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry
+it was only a picture.
+
+“I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant
+conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all
+intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest.
+
+“Good-bye for the present,
+
+“WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH.”
+
+To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it,
+he had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was
+already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become
+of him since, I know not.
+
+The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ
+for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at
+large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous;
+but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same
+vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections
+of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now
+proceed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed
+my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in
+the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising
+over the ----shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and
+mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried;
+a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat
+cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the
+banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender
+round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed;
+here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable
+sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful,
+active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from
+it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
+opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----.
+A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay Edward’s
+“Concern.”
+
+I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell
+on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
+emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought
+to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s career--I
+said to myself, “William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are
+a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall
+be a tradesman. Look!” I continued mentally--“Look at the sooty smoke in
+that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and work!”
+
+Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
+breakfast-room. I met him collectedly--I could not meet him cheerfully;
+he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how much did I read in
+the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced
+to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature!
+He said “Good morning” abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather
+than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air
+of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with
+an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time,
+or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust
+I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his
+robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the
+mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with comparing the two
+pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so handsome; my
+features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader brow--in
+form I was greatly inferior--thinner, slighter, not so tall. As an
+animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind
+as in person I must be a slave--for I must expect from him no lion-like
+generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye, his
+stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force of
+mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
+
+Mrs. Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked
+well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning
+and bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last
+night’s careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness
+and restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too
+familiar with his clerk.
+
+As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they
+were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he
+should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X----. I did not
+keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the
+road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs.
+Crimsworth had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice
+Jack seemed disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined
+application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon
+compelled him to submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his
+triumph in the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the
+whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his
+horse.
+
+X---- was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the clean
+streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and public
+buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills and
+warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great
+paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us,
+vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick
+brick walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were
+passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth
+looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all
+that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the
+care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me
+follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place
+from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall--a place for business, with a bare,
+planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A
+person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when
+Mr. Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his
+occupation of writing or calculating--I know not which.
+
+Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I
+remained standing near the hearth; he said presently--
+
+“Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact
+with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.”
+
+The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he
+went out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat
+a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to
+do but to watch him--how well his features were cut! what a handsome man
+he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction--that narrow and hard
+aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
+
+Turning to me he began abruptly:
+
+“You are come down to ----shire to learn to be a tradesman?”
+
+“Yes, I am.”
+
+“Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if
+you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do
+you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning--Greek,
+Latin, and so forth?”
+
+“I have studied mathematics.”
+
+“Stuff! I dare say you have.”
+
+“I can read and write French and German.”
+
+“Hum!” He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him
+took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+
+“Can you read that?” he asked.
+
+It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell
+whether he was gratified or not--his countenance remained fixed.
+
+“It is well,” he said, after a pause, “that you are acquainted with
+something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and
+lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second
+clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give
+you a good salary--90l. a year--and now,” he continued, raising his
+voice, “hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and
+all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it
+would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my
+brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed
+of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss
+you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and
+I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember,
+too, that things are on a practical footing in my
+establishment--business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best.
+Do you understand?”
+
+“Partly,” I replied. “I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my
+wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any
+help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will
+consent to be your clerk.”
+
+I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not
+consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor
+did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:--
+
+“You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth
+Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be
+aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I
+like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for
+business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so.
+You will seek out lodgings in X----.”
+
+Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+
+“Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X----,” I answered. “It would
+not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.”
+
+My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth’s blue eye
+became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said
+bluntly--
+
+“You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your
+quarter’s salary becomes due?”
+
+“I shall get on,” said I.
+
+“How do you expect to live?” he repeated in a louder voice.
+
+“As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.”
+
+“Get into debt at your peril! that’s all,” he answered. “For aught I
+know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop
+them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a
+shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur--mind that.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.”
+
+I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I
+had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper
+effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, “I will
+place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still
+and steady; when full, it will run over of itself--meantime patience.
+Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr.
+Crimsworth has set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those
+wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother
+assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is
+his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once
+aside from the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will
+advance far enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only
+pressing in at the entrance--a strait gate enough; it ought to have a
+good terminus.” While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his
+first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference,
+re-entered.
+
+“Mr. Steighton,” said he, “show Mr. William the letters from Voss,
+Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate
+them.”
+
+Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and
+heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the
+desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English
+answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first
+effort to earn my own living--a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened
+by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some
+time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I
+felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the
+visor down--or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence
+that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might
+see lines, and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them; my
+nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of
+an unknown tongue. Ere long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and
+left the counting-house; he returned to it but twice in the course of
+that day; each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water,
+the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side
+of the fireplace; having glanced at my translations--he could read both
+French and German--he went out again in silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.
+What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do
+well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set
+Timothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was
+baffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made
+inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts
+with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which
+I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings of
+my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to
+ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying
+economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to
+obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency,
+to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time,
+and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to be
+misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward;
+I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of
+them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note, which I was able to
+leave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided
+for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had
+any complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she
+believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he
+thought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she
+said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing
+equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was “a religious man”
+ himself; indeed, he was “a joined Methodist,” which did not (be it
+understood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal,
+and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having
+imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented
+no place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information
+into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He
+commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first
+perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation
+she had had with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came
+to the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s
+blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of
+impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunition
+on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he only kept them
+quiet in his quiver.
+
+Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it
+was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s
+birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar
+anniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept
+strictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin
+and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice
+than was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never
+spoke to me; I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,
+enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in array
+against me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I was
+fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from afar,
+and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to the
+consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the
+rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about him
+a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily--Mr.
+Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept
+down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.
+
+Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some
+pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity
+to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social
+intercourse--that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,
+but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful
+figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the
+figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized,
+left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No
+fibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked
+for and found my mother’s picture. I took a wax taper from a stand,
+and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image.
+My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and
+countenance--her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty
+pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined
+likeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacency
+the lineaments of their daughters’ faces, where frequently their own
+similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and
+delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so
+interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice close
+behind me pronounced the words--
+
+“Humph! there’s some sense in that face.”
+
+I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or
+six years older than I--in other respects of an appearance the opposite
+to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his
+portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I
+have just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I
+did not investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either;
+I saw his stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his
+fastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in number,
+and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled
+me to recognize him.
+
+“Good evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a
+shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why? Simply because Mr.
+Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and
+my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden
+in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with
+Mr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed
+him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the
+tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction
+that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now
+went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already
+noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I
+perversely said to myself--
+
+“He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,
+perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not
+at all.”
+
+I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and
+continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
+
+“Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,
+you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.”
+
+He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not addressed
+me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool
+dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way
+of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well
+enough to oblige; I stayed.
+
+“That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait.
+
+“Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked.
+
+“Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?
+but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that
+woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and
+compliments.”
+
+I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
+
+“Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;
+there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling
+his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat
+written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.”
+
+“You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a
+distinctive cast of form and features?”
+
+“Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have
+their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we----shire
+tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As
+to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from
+childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain
+degree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques.
+Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame
+with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?”
+
+I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr
+Hunsden.”
+
+“Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a
+straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages--if
+they are advantages--he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician,
+but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was as
+veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal
+the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who are
+the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your
+plebeian brother by long chalk.”
+
+There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which
+rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I
+continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
+
+“How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought
+you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor
+clerk.”
+
+“Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
+Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are, too.”
+
+I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still
+his manner did not offend me in the least--it only piqued my curiosity;
+I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
+
+“This world is an absurd one,” said he.
+
+“Why so, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the
+absurdity I allude to.”
+
+I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my
+pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.
+
+“Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently.
+
+“It was my serious intention three months ago.”
+
+“Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a practical
+business-like face you have!”
+
+“My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.”
+
+“The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good can
+your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness,
+do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it’s your own
+affair, not mine.”
+
+“Perhaps I have no choice.”
+
+“Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to me what
+you do or where you go; but I’m cool now--I want to dance again; and
+I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by
+her mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s
+Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?”
+
+And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open
+folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the
+fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made,
+full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E.
+Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he kept
+at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her
+animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself
+perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs.
+Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably
+flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful
+as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name) professed to be of
+the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully
+appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred
+on him in a mushroom-place like X----, concerning whose inhabitants
+it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own
+grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent;
+and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business,
+to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his
+house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton’s broad face might
+well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden
+Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I,
+however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more
+accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation
+were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous of
+making, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it
+was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do),
+suggested to me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In form
+and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one
+caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had
+learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease,
+and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between
+him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet
+vulgar he could not be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled
+no one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated
+complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an
+indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and
+seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of
+himself, his words and actions an energetic discontent at his life or
+his social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments--I
+know not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of
+his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against
+wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and
+submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my
+residence in X---- I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself--the
+work of copying and translating business-letters--was a dry and tedious
+task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the
+nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double
+desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the
+resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured
+in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not have
+whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have pent
+in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its
+distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of
+Bigben Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I
+should have set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my
+small bedroom at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been
+my household gods, from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret,
+Imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by softness
+or strength, have severed me. But this was not all; the antipathy which
+had sprung up between myself and my employer striking deeper root and
+spreading denser shade daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the
+sunshine of life; and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid
+darkness out of the slimy walls of a well.
+
+Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward
+Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and
+which was liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement,
+look, or word of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree
+of education evinced in my language irritated him; my punctuality,
+industry, and accuracy, fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour
+and poignant relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a
+successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would
+not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what
+was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental
+wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a
+ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I
+was guarded by three faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and
+prowling and prying as was Edward’s malignity, it could never baffle
+the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice
+watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like
+on its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.
+
+I had received my first quarter’s wages, and was returning to my
+lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that
+the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned
+pittance--(I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother--he
+was a hard, grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that
+was all). Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices
+spoke within me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous
+phrases. One said: “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What
+can you do to alter it?” I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night
+in January; as I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of
+my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be
+out; looking towards the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering
+red gleam.
+
+“That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual,” said I, “and I shall
+see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night--I
+will walk a little farther.”
+
+It WAS a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for X----;
+there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church
+tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the
+sky.
+
+Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into
+Grove-street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the
+extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron
+gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in
+this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past.
+
+“What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he
+expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds.”
+
+I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance,
+and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent
+towards me over the wicket.
+
+“You see I am meditating in the field at eventide,” continued this
+shade. “God knows it’s cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on
+a camel’s hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate
+sends me only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper.” The
+voice was familiar to me--its second utterance enabled me to seize the
+speaker’s identity.
+
+“Mr. Hunsden! good evening.”
+
+“Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first.”
+
+“I did not know you.”
+
+“A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you
+were going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?”
+
+“It wouldn’t be worth their while; I’m not of consequence enough to
+attract them.”
+
+“Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and
+how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice!
+But since you’re not running from the police, from whom are you running?
+the devil?”
+
+“On the contrary, I am going post to him.”
+
+“That is well--you’re just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there are
+scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and he,
+or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in
+and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he
+passes without much trouble. I think though you’d better let him alone
+to-night, he’ll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day
+in X---- and Dinneford; come in at all events.”
+
+He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+
+“Do you really wish me to go in?” I asked.
+
+“As you please--I’m alone; your company for an hour or two would be
+agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour me so far, I’ll not
+press the point. I hate to bore any one.”
+
+It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it.
+I passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he
+opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door
+being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and
+glanced round me.
+
+It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate
+was filled with a genuine ----shire fire, red, clear, and generous, no
+penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On
+the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal
+light; the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor,
+comprising a couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the
+recesses on each side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and
+arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste;
+I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that
+Hunsden’s ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed
+from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals,
+I ran my eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and
+German works predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern
+authors, Thiers, Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in
+German--Goethe, Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there
+were works on Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden
+himself recalled my attention.
+
+“You shall have something,” said he, “for you ought to feel disposed for
+refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night
+as this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be
+a bottle of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have
+Rhein-wein for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and
+coffee.”
+
+Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received
+practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of
+spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German
+nectar, but I liked coffee, so I responded--
+
+“Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.”
+
+I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a
+chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give
+me neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my
+face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint
+of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I
+honoured his conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he
+seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently
+brought; for himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something
+sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the
+shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not
+answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of
+those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face,
+extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated
+look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed
+the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had
+never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had
+gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised
+now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his
+lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general
+bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and
+massive; not at all:--my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer
+mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his
+inward and outward man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul
+had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle.
+Perhaps, in these incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,”
+ lay the secret of that fitful gloom; he WOULD but COULD not, and the
+athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his
+good looks, I should have liked to have a woman’s opinion on that
+subject; it seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect
+on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though scarcely pretty,
+female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks--they were
+brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead; his
+cheek had a rather hectic freshness; his features might have done well
+on canvas, but indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character
+had set a stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and
+strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose
+bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more frequently,
+the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite countenance they
+made.
+
+Starting from his silent fit, he began:--
+
+“William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
+King’s, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a
+garden like me!”
+
+“I should be too far from the mill.”
+
+“What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
+times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
+flower or a green leaf?”
+
+“I am no fossil.”
+
+“What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth’s counting-house
+day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
+automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
+for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to
+no excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in
+strong drink.”
+
+“Do you, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“Don’t think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine
+are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a
+parallel. I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be
+unendurable, he is a fossil.”
+
+“Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?”
+
+“Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
+surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find
+subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do
+with my eyes and ears? I’ve been in your counting-house more than once
+when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for
+instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to
+consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you
+to shut or open the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing
+of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither
+place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and
+how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances!”
+
+“Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?”
+
+“I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to
+your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide
+your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make something
+eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by
+means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary,
+but may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a
+duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in
+no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature is
+phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch
+of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all
+means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you.”
+
+Mr. Hunsden’s eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and
+oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him
+one of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly
+relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he
+was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I
+suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in
+the urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the
+oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still
+more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a
+resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might
+often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over
+these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved
+thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man.
+It was as I thought: Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his
+incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and
+himself was chafed by a laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+
+His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+
+“Yes,” he began, “I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but
+an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look?
+A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony,
+patrician resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William
+Crimsworth! You are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature!
+Look at the features, figure, even to the hands--distinction all
+over--ugly distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion,
+and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the
+rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
+peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support
+your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in
+churls’ blood; as it is, you’ve no power; you can do nothing; you’re
+wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce; forced into collision
+with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for YOU’LL NEVER BE A
+TRADESMAN.”
+
+The first part of Hunsden’s speech moved me not at all, or, if it did,
+it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted
+his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
+moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
+wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+
+Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+
+“You’ll make nothing by trade,” continued he; “nothing more than the
+crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live;
+your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow,
+or running away with an heiress.”
+
+“I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,”
+ said I, rising.
+
+“And even that is hopeless,” he went on coolly. “What widow would have
+you? Much less, what heiress? You’re not bold and venturesome enough for
+the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
+perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
+refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid
+for them.”
+
+Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was
+out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
+enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence
+and solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+
+“What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you’ll find the door.” And
+he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house.
+I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that
+I was walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were
+almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were
+set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and
+jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
+my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why
+did I enter Hunsden’s house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must
+I repair to Crimsworth’s mill? All that night did I ask myself these
+questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I
+got no sleep; my head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells
+rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
+every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
+frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now
+icy street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory
+workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all
+lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my
+post in the counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as
+yet only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat
+down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were
+still numb; I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I
+went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.”
+ Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+
+“Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that
+within ourselves takes ourselves to task--“come, get a clear notion of
+what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
+pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
+What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
+Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading
+you are likely to make of it! How well you like X----! Just at this
+moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
+its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers
+you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
+letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure
+in Brown’s, nor Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as
+to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his
+society--he! he! how did you like the taste you had of him last night?
+was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even
+he does not like you; your self-respect defies you to like him; he has
+always seen you to disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage;
+your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your
+minds could not assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of
+friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are
+your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee
+would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager
+wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight--in
+X---- daylight--you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those
+three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of
+just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will
+never be made perfect. Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get
+to work!”
+
+“Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I
+toil like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may
+work, it will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a
+packet of letters and commenced my task--task thankless and bitter as
+that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in
+search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+
+About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and
+in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to
+glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand
+a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did
+not deviate from his usual habits; the only difference was that when
+he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his
+eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two
+longer than usual, but went out in silence.
+
+Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
+workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
+me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I
+was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place,
+preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door,
+and entering closed it behind him.
+
+“You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
+nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
+
+Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
+forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful
+forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+
+“It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk.
+
+“You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key!
+leave it in the lock!”
+
+“Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?”
+
+“Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant,
+obey me! What have you been about--?” He was going on in the same
+breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
+the better of articulation.
+
+“You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk,
+there are the papers.”
+
+“Confound your insolence! What have you been about?”
+
+“Your work, and have done it well.”
+
+“Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This
+last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to the horn of
+black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels,
+and employed for greasing the same.)
+
+“Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
+accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find
+it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay
+no longer.”
+
+“What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He
+took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
+
+I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
+temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
+vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
+continued:
+
+“I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X---- about me? answer
+me that!”
+
+“You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.”
+
+“You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant
+habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands.
+You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and
+knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this
+minute, and never stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh
+from your bones with this whip.”
+
+He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead.
+A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a
+bound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly,
+came round to where he stood, and faced him.
+
+“Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.”
+
+“Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?”
+
+“To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
+calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give
+your grounds for these assertions.”
+
+Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation,
+he gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+
+“Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
+brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and
+a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
+pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
+question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
+about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such
+trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy
+mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the
+quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I
+saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you
+in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know
+that you were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
+
+“Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
+you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse
+man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom
+existed.”
+
+“Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
+he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+
+A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and
+throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded,
+and said--
+
+“Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
+
+Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate
+something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought
+before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After
+an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed
+to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient
+superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer
+and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of
+personal chastisement.
+
+“Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at
+that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
+transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into
+my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground
+belonging to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
+
+“It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what
+temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
+tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so
+no fear of my coming back.”
+
+“Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
+
+I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were
+my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the
+key on the top.
+
+“What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner.
+“Leave all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search
+you.”
+
+“Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
+gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house--walked out of it
+to enter it no more.
+
+I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
+Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
+rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to
+hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images
+of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and
+tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I
+only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize
+with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could
+I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and
+liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of
+resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced
+circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me;
+no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding
+Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far
+subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer
+boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo!
+straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles
+out of X----. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined
+sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising
+from the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I
+had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy
+blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the
+time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
+within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being
+yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for
+the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow.
+I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current:
+I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear
+and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
+Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of
+that day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some
+very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and
+characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the
+sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear,
+eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my
+face towards X----.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred
+seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp
+appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was
+dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered
+how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the
+prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise,
+I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth.
+I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another
+subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was
+already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest,
+and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful
+as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to
+recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of
+course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had
+parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred
+the fire, and said coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as
+little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had
+brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to
+interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared,
+that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to
+ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to
+explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary
+one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it.
+
+“You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words.
+
+“Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to
+charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.”
+
+“Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton
+weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit
+again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with
+the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘Thank you!’”
+
+“Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so
+famished.”
+
+I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+
+“Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a
+glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.”
+
+“No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting
+him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and
+irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
+
+“It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he.
+
+“How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical
+opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the
+case; I have had no dinner.”
+
+What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied
+by looking in my face and laughing.
+
+“Poor thing!” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it?
+What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth
+order you to fast by way of punishment, William!”
+
+“No, Mr. Hunsden.” Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought
+in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly.
+Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to
+Mr. Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the
+table and do as I did, if he liked.
+
+“But I don’t like in the least,” said he, and therewith he summoned the
+servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to
+have a glass of toast-and-water. “And some more coal,” he added; “Mr.
+Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay.”
+
+His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so
+as to be opposite me.
+
+“Well,” he proceeded. “You are out of work, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes,” said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this
+point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as
+though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had
+been done. “Yes--thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at
+a minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public
+meeting, I understand.”
+
+“Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did
+he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden--anything sweet?”
+
+“He called you a treacherous villain.”
+
+“Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come
+out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance,
+but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities--excellent ones! The Hunsdens
+were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable
+villain is their natural prey--they could not keep off him wherever
+they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now--that word is the
+property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile
+off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for
+me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact
+with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally
+I care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he
+violated your natural claim to equality)--I say it was impossible for
+me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race
+at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a
+chain.”
+
+Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out
+Hunsden’s character, and because it explained his motives; it interested
+me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over
+a throng of ideas it had suggested.
+
+“Are you grateful to me?” he asked, presently.
+
+In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at
+the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not
+out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer
+his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency
+to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his
+championship, to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely
+to meet with it here. In reply he termed me “a dry-hearted aristocratic
+scamp,” whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of
+my mouth.
+
+“Your bread was dirty, man!” cried Hunsden--“dirty and unwholesome!
+It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a
+tyrant,--a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will
+some day be a tyrant to his wife.”
+
+“Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and
+through your means.”
+
+“There’s sense in what you say, after all,” rejoined Hunsden. “I must
+say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical
+an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous
+observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would
+have taken in your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least,
+have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of
+you for looking steadily to the needful.”
+
+“Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live,
+and to live I must have what you call ‘the needful,’ which I can only
+get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.”
+
+“What do you mean to do?” pursued Hunsden coolly. “You have influential
+relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.”
+
+“Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.”
+
+“The Seacombes.”
+
+“Stuff! I have cut them.”
+
+Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+
+“I have,” said I, “and that definitively.”
+
+“You must mean they have cut you, William.”
+
+“As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my
+entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I
+withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my
+elder brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by
+the cruel intermeddling of a stranger--of yourself, in short.”
+
+I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s
+lips.
+
+“Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did
+see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin
+resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my
+countenance, he went on:
+
+“Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?”
+
+“Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands
+stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of
+a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with
+aristocratic palms?”
+
+“There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete
+Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they
+should disown you.”
+
+“They have disowned me; so talk no more about it.”
+
+“Do you regret it, William?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why not, lad?”
+
+“Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+sympathy.”
+
+“I say you are one of them.”
+
+“That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my
+mother’s son, but not my uncles’ nephew.”
+
+“Still--one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and not a
+very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should consider
+worldly interest.”
+
+“Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to
+be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough
+grace ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own
+comfort and not have gained their patronage in return.”
+
+“Very likely--so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your own
+devices at once?”
+
+“Exactly. I must follow my own devices--I must, till the day of my
+death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of
+other people.”
+
+Hunsden yawned. “Well,” said he, “in all this, I see but one thing
+clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine.” He
+stretched himself and again yawned. “I wonder what time it is,” he went
+on: “I have an appointment for seven o’clock.”
+
+“Three quarters past six by my watch.”
+
+“Well, then I’ll go.” He got up. “You’ll not meddle with trade again?”
+ said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+
+“No; I think not.”
+
+“You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you’ll think
+better of your uncles’ proposal and go into the Church.”
+
+“A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man
+before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men.”
+
+“Indeed! Do you think so?” interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+
+“I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to
+make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I
+have no vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty.”
+
+“You’re a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won’t be a tradesman
+or a parson; you can’t be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because
+you’ve no money. I’d recommend you to travel.”
+
+“What! without money?”
+
+“You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French--with
+a vile English accent, no doubt--still, you can speak it. Go on to the
+Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.”
+
+“God knows I should like to go!” exclaimed I with involuntary ardour.
+
+“Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance,
+for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.”
+
+“Necessity would teach me if I didn’t.”
+
+“Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I
+know Brussels almost as well as I know X----, and I am sure it would
+suit such a one as you better than London.”
+
+“But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had;
+and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at
+Brussels?”
+
+“There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before
+you know every inch of the way. You haven’t a sheet of paper and a
+pen-and-ink?”
+
+“I hope so,” and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I
+guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded,
+sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to me.
+
+“There, Prudence, there’s a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of
+those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they
+are to get it out again, and you’re right there. A reckless man is
+my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the
+concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are
+generally ten times more so for their friends.”
+
+“This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?” said I, taking the
+epistle.
+
+“Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself
+in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a
+degradation--so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you will
+present it generally has two or three respectable places depending upon
+his recommendation.”
+
+“That will just suit me,” said I.
+
+“Well, and where’s your gratitude?” demanded Mr. Hunsden; “don’t you
+know how to say ‘Thank you?’”
+
+“I’ve fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw,
+gave me eighteen years ago,” was my rather irrelevant answer; and I
+further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any
+being in Christendom.
+
+“But your gratitude?”
+
+“I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden--to-morrow, if all be well: I’ll
+not stay a day longer in X---- than I’m obliged.”
+
+“Very good--but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the
+assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike
+seven: I’m waiting to be thanked.”
+
+“Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is
+on the corner of the mantelpiece. I’ll pack my portmanteau before I go
+to bed.”
+
+The house clock struck seven.
+
+“The lad is a heathen,” said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a
+sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an
+inclination to follow him: I really intended to leave X---- the next
+morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding
+him good-bye. The front door banged to.
+
+“Let him go,” said I, “we shall meet again some day.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don’t know the
+physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon
+your memory, as I have them on mine?
+
+Three--nay four--pictures line the four-walled cell where are stored for
+me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far
+perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green, dewy,
+with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my
+childhood was not all sunshine--it had its overcast, its cold, its
+stormy hours. Second, X----, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked;
+a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs
+blighted and sullied--a very dreary scene.
+
+Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the
+fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not,
+as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it
+must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name
+that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such
+as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can
+produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight.
+It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves
+unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept,
+are seen by me ascending from the clouds--haloed most of them--but while
+I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their
+outline, the sound which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all,
+like a light wreath of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns,
+resealed in monuments. Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+
+This is Belgium, reader. Look! don’t call the picture a flat or a dull
+one--it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I
+left Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road
+to Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment
+possessed an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite.
+I was young; I had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no
+indulgence of hers had enervated or sated one faculty of my nature.
+Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of
+her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.
+Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that
+from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise; what
+if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not; his eyes are
+fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having
+gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will
+face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon,
+and that the herald breeze he feels on his cheek is opening for the
+god’s career a clear, vast path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl
+and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained
+by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot
+no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there were pebbles,
+inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the crimson
+peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament beyond, and
+I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of the thorns
+scratching my face and hands.
+
+I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence
+(these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads).
+Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy
+swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them
+look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as
+pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by
+the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a
+gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful,
+scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to
+me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. It continued fair
+so long as daylight lasted, though the moisture of many preceding damp
+days had sodden the whole country; as it grew dark, however, the rain
+recommenced, and it was through streaming and starless darkness my eye
+caught the first gleam of the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the
+city but its lights that night. Having alighted from the diligence, a
+fiacre conveyed me to the Hotel de ----, where I had been advised by a
+fellow-traveller to put up; having eaten a traveller’s supper, I retired
+to bed, and slept a traveller’s sleep.
+
+Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression
+that I was yet in X----, and perceiving it to be broad daylight I
+started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind
+time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint
+vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as,
+throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide,
+lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though
+not uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a
+respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet!
+Yet far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room!
+It, too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness,
+I first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was
+midnight, and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full
+charged with colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window
+of that room, I first saw THE dome, looming through a London mist. I
+suppose the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are
+felt but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them
+in safe niches! Well--I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in
+foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber
+looked stately and cheerful. It had such large windows--CROISEES that
+opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a great
+looking-glass stood on my dressing-table--such a fine mirror glittered
+over the mantelpiece--the painted floor looked so clean and glossy;
+when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble steps
+almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.
+On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a
+short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad,
+her physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she
+answered me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought
+her charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived,
+very picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch
+paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall.
+
+I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty,
+and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and
+most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer
+sense of exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table
+(covered, however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered
+breakfast, began to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot.
+The stove might be dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it
+was indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by
+it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or
+comprehend much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the
+mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
+of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen
+presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt from the fashion in
+which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in
+my execrable South-of-England style, though the man understood English.
+The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted
+me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
+French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for
+the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the
+capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living
+languages I afterwards found to be so general in Brussels.
+
+I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there
+on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a
+free, independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the
+two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
+business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
+one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
+the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
+without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek
+another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
+never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
+impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived
+the morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden’s
+letter of introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new
+situation. Wrenching my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat,
+and forced my reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign
+street.
+
+It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
+stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out “Mr.
+Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint
+of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked,
+asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+
+Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the
+presence of an elderly gentleman--very grave, business-like, and
+respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter; he received me
+very civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there
+was anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said,
+“Yes,” and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of
+fortune, travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who
+wanted employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied
+that as a friend of Mr. Hunsden’s he would be willing to assist me as
+well as he could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile
+house at Liege, and another in a bookseller’s shop at Louvain.
+
+“Clerk and shopman!” murmured I to myself. “No.” I shook my head. I
+had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other
+occupations that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave
+Brussels.
+
+“I know of no place in Brussels,” answered Mr. Brown, “unless indeed you
+were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with
+the director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of
+English and Latin.”
+
+I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+
+“The very thing, sir!” said I.
+
+“But,” asked he, “do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian
+boys English?”
+
+Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative;
+having studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language
+intelligibly though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write
+it decently.
+
+“Then,” pursued Mr. Brown, “I think I can promise you the place, for
+Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come
+here again at five o’clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to
+him.”
+
+The word “professor” struck me. “I am not a professor,” said I.
+
+“Oh,” returned Mr. Brown, “professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher,
+that is all.”
+
+My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present,
+withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart;
+the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now
+take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time
+I remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky,
+the gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what
+a fine street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades,
+the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a
+new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to
+contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the
+top of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow
+back street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle.
+I well recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large
+house opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, “Pensionnat de
+Demoiselles.” Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in
+my mind; it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles,
+externats no doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door--I looked
+for a pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets
+hid their features; in a moment they were gone.
+
+I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o’clock arrived,
+but punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale.
+Re-admitted to Mr. Brown’s breakfast-room, I found him, as before,
+seated at the table, and he was not alone--a gentleman stood by the
+hearth. Two words of introduction designated him as my future master.
+“M. Pelet, Mr. Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet,” a bow on each
+side finished the ceremony. I don’t know what sort of a bow I made; an
+ordinary one, I suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of
+mind; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first interview
+with Edward Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not
+theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to
+each other. In a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my
+foreign ears, very distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he
+had just been receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my
+attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as to
+the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and Latin in
+his establishment; nevertheless, for form’s sake, he would put a few
+questions to test my powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms
+his satisfaction at my answers. The subject of salary next came on; it
+was fixed at one thousand francs per annum, besides board and lodging.
+“And in addition,” suggested M. Pelet, “as there will be some hours
+in each day during which your services will not be required in my
+establishment, you may, in time, obtain employment in other seminaries,
+and thus turn your vacant moments to profitable account.”
+
+I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms
+on which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels;
+instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of
+teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new
+post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted.
+
+Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him?
+He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather
+emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes
+hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French
+turn (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth
+and parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic
+lineaments was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a
+melancholy, almost suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy
+was “fine et spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define
+better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his
+features were imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing
+personage. I wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary
+characteristics of his profession, and almost feared he could not be
+stern and resolute enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least
+M. Pelet presented an absolute contrast to my late master, Edward
+Crimsworth.
+
+Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a
+good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer’s
+house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the
+sphere of my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted
+schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course,
+whose collective appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing,
+and well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company
+with M. Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance
+a murmur or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this
+most gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I
+thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual. When I had
+perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and
+said to me--
+
+“Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their
+proficiency in English?”
+
+The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at
+least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career
+by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we
+stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect
+my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I
+proposed to open business. I made it as short as possible:--
+
+“Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture.”
+
+“Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?” demanded a thickset, moon-faced young
+Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:--
+
+“Anglais.”
+
+I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this
+lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the
+delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the
+criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt
+already it would be necessary at once to take up an advantageous
+position, and I proceeded to employ means accordingly.
+
+“Commencez!” cried I, when they had all produced their books. The
+moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt)
+took the first sentence. The “livre de lecture” was the “Vicar of
+Wakefield,” much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to
+contain prime samples of conversational English; it might, however,
+have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by
+Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great
+Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was
+said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but
+I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of
+correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced,
+no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred
+“Anglais.” In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in
+rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and
+mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+
+“Arretez!” said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all
+with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough
+and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length
+did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me
+were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my
+hands, and ejaculated in a deep “voix de poitrine”--
+
+“Comme c’est affreux!”
+
+They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they
+were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way
+I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their
+self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation; not
+a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of
+betraying my own deficiencies.
+
+“Ecoutez, messieurs!” said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my
+accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the
+extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn,
+deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of
+the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some
+twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed
+attention; by the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then
+rose and said:--
+
+“C’est assez pour aujourd’hui, messieurs; demain nous recommencerons, et
+j’espere que tout ira bien.”
+
+With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet
+quitted the school-room.
+
+“C’est bien! c’est tres bien!” said my principal as we entered his
+parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans
+l’instruction, l’adresse fait tout autant que le savoir.”
+
+From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my “chambre,”
+ as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small
+room, with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand
+that I was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great
+comfort. Yet, though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light
+not being taxed in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into
+their houses; just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS,
+for one of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into
+the boys’ playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect
+it would present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I
+suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:--
+
+“La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat
+de demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances exigent--enfin, vous
+comprenez--n’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+
+“Oui, oui,” was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but
+when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing
+I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find
+some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the
+consecrated ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well
+joined and strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I
+thought it would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a
+garden planted with flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the
+demoiselles at their play; to have studied female character in a variety
+of phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin
+curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old
+duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking at a bare
+gravelled court, with an enormous “pas de geant” in the middle, and the
+monotonous walls and windows of a boys’ school-house round. Not only
+then, but many a time after, especially in moments of weariness and
+low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing
+board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region
+which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the
+window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often heard
+at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the daytime,
+when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the boards, the
+voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and, to speak
+the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a trifle
+disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen
+sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated
+clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to
+me a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter’s girls or those
+of M. Pelet’s boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking
+the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by,
+that Reuter was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded
+up. I say old, for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from
+her cautious, chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of
+her as young. I remember I was very much amused when I first heard her
+Christian name; it was Zoraide--Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter. But the
+continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names,
+such as we sober English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too
+limited a list to choose from.
+
+Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a
+few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the
+commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much
+facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and
+as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
+continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
+never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
+acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the
+relation in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards
+each other in those establishments, will consider an important and
+uncommon one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
+system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may possibly
+be of use to others.
+
+It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
+youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one’s
+measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
+weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
+impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull,
+but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead,
+most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly
+absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having
+short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
+recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study
+or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by
+injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they
+would have resisted as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine;
+and though not brave singly, they were relentless acting EN MASSE.
+
+I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet’s establishment, the
+combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of
+more than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the
+most moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply--to
+assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
+contracted--to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
+point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
+that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
+root it in rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
+step--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
+gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs
+of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and
+handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of
+learning, remove every pebble from the track; but then you must finally
+insist with decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself
+to be led quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my
+lesson to the lowest level of my dullest pupil’s capacity--when I
+had shown myself the mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of
+impertinence, a movement of disobedience, changed me at once into
+a despot. I offered then but one alternative--submission and
+acknowledgment of error, or ignominious expulsion. This system answered,
+and my influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. “The
+boy is father to the man,” it is said; and so I often thought when
+looked at my boys and remembered the political history of their
+ancestors. Pelet’s school was merely an epitome of the Belgian nation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well!
+Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than
+his demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect,
+irritating interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I
+fear, however, two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment
+could not have said as much; to them the director’s manner was
+invariably dry, stern, and cool. I believe he perceived once or twice
+that I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and
+me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile--
+
+“Ce ne sont que des Flamands--allez!”
+
+And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted
+floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they
+were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual
+inferiority is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men,
+and, in the main, honest men; and I could not see why their being
+aboriginals of the flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for
+treating them with perpetual severity and contempt. This idea, of
+injustice somewhat poisoned the pleasure I might otherwise have derived
+from Pelet’s soft affable manner to myself. Certainly it was agreeable,
+when the day’s work was over, to find one’s employer an intelligent
+and cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic
+and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover that
+his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of reality--if I did
+occasionally suspect the existence of flint or steel under an external
+covering of velvet--still we are none of us perfect; and weary as I was
+of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence in which I had constantly
+lived at X----, I had no inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer
+regions, to institute at once a prying search after defects that were
+scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was willing
+to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him benevolent and friendly
+until some untoward event should prove him otherwise. He was not
+married, and I soon perceived he had all a Frenchman’s, all a Parisian’s
+notions about matrimony and women. I suspected a degree of laxity in
+his code of morals, there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone
+whenever he alluded to what he called “le beau sexe;” but he was too
+gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was really
+intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of discourse, he
+and I always found enough to talk about, without seeking themes in the
+mire. I hated his fashion of mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul,
+mere licentiousness. He felt the difference of our notions, and, by
+mutual consent, we kept off ground debateable.
+
+Pelet’s house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real
+old Frenchwoman; she had been handsome--at least she told me so, and I
+strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women
+can be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than
+she really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair
+strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown--only
+a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in
+lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On
+the other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on
+Sundays and fete-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured
+dress, usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers,
+and a very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old
+woman, but an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly
+in and about the kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son’s august
+presence; of him, indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved
+her, his reproofs were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself
+that trouble.
+
+Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors,
+whom, however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what
+she called her “cabinet,” a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen,
+and descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by,
+I have not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on
+her knee, engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner,
+gossiping with her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her
+antagonist, the cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal
+with her son; and as to showing her face at the boys’ table, that was
+quite out of the question. These details will sound very odd in English
+ears, but Belgium is not England, and its ways are not our ways.
+
+Madame Pelet’s habits of life, then, being taken into consideration,
+I was a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was
+always a half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment,
+correcting a huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant
+tapped at the door, and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet’s
+compliments, and she would be happy to see me to take my “gouter” (a
+meal which answers to our English “tea”) with her in the dining-room.
+
+“Plait-il?” said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the
+message and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I
+accepted, of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what
+whim had entered the old lady’s brain; her son was out--gone to pass the
+evening at the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which
+he was a member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room
+door, a queer idea glanced across my mind.
+
+“Surely she’s not going to make love to me,” said I. “I’ve heard of
+old Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the gouter? They
+generally begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe.”
+
+There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination,
+and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt
+have cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself
+in; but whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty,
+the primary wish of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth,
+reserving the expedient of flight for the moment when its dread
+anticipation shall be realized. I turned the door-handle, and in an
+instant had crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and
+stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+
+Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst
+apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown,
+on her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her
+table was carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a
+bottle of something--I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started
+on my brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed
+door, when, to my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the
+direction of the stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large
+fauteuil beside it. This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman,
+and as fat and as rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her
+attire was likewise very fine, and spring flowers of different hues
+circled in a bright wreath the crown of her violet-coloured velvet
+bonnet.
+
+I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet,
+coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic
+step, thus accosted me:
+
+“Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the
+request of an insignificant person like me--will Monsieur complete his
+kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame Reuter,
+who resides in the neighbouring house--the young ladies’ school.”
+
+“Ah!” thought I, “I knew she was old,” and I bowed and took my seat.
+Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+
+“How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?” asked she, in an accent of the
+broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between
+the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and
+the guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then
+wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me
+should be at the head of a ladies’ seminary, which I had always heard
+spoken of in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something
+to wonder at. Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old
+Flemish fermiere, or even a maitresse d’auberge, than a staid, grave,
+rigid directrice de pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least
+the Belgian old women permit themselves a licence of manners, speech,
+and aspect, such as our venerable granddames would recoil from as
+absolutely disreputable, and Madame Reuter’s jolly face bore evidence
+that she was no exception to the rule of her country; there was a
+twinkle and leer in her left eye; her right she kept habitually half
+shut, which I thought very odd indeed. After several vain attempts to
+comprehend the motives of these two droll old creatures for inviting me
+to join them at their gouter, I at last fairly gave it up, and resigning
+myself to inevitable mystification, I sat and looked first at one, then
+at the other, taking care meantime to do justice to the confitures,
+cakes, and coffee, with which they amply supplied me. They, too, ate,
+and that with no delicate appetite, and having demolished a large
+portion of the solids, they proposed a “petit verre.” I declined. Not
+so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought rather
+a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near the stove, they
+drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited me to do the same.
+I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was thus addressed
+first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter.
+
+“We will now speak of business,” said Madame Pelet, and she went on to
+make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect
+that she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in
+order to give her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an
+important proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage.
+
+“Pourvu que vous soyez sage,” said Madame Reuter, “et a vrai dire,
+vous en avez bien l’air. Take one drop of the punch” (or ponche, as she
+pronounced it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full
+meal.”
+
+I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
+
+“I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip--“I feel profoundly the
+importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted
+me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the
+establishment in the next house?”
+
+“Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment
+I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s
+pensionnat.
+
+“I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend
+Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more. Ah! you thought I
+gave lessons in class--did you?”
+
+And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy
+amazingly.
+
+“Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give
+lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a
+white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my
+nose, bowing at the same time.
+
+“Quel charmant jeune homme!” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice.
+Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not
+French, only laughed again.
+
+“You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge
+compliments at that rate, Zoraide will positively be afraid of you; but
+if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you
+can flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She
+has heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get
+the very best masters for her school (car Zoraide fait tout comme une
+reine, c’est une veritable maitresse-femme), she has commissioned me to
+step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility
+of engaging you. Zoraide is a wary general; she never advances without
+first examining well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased
+if she knew I had already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not
+order me to go so far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting
+you into the secret, and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take
+care, however, you don’t betray either of us to Zoraide--to my
+daughter, I mean; she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot
+understand that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little--”
+
+“C’est absolument comme mon fils!” cried Madame Pelet.
+
+“All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other:
+“young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame
+Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s
+establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow,
+you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you
+will introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached
+you from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I
+would not displease Zoraide on any account.”
+
+“Bien! bien!” interrupted I--for all this chatter and circumlocution
+began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing
+shall be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames--I am infinitely
+obliged to you.”
+
+“Comment! vous vous en allez deja?” exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+
+“Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits,
+encore une tasse de cafe?”
+
+“Merci, merci, madame--au revoir.” And I backed at last out of the
+apartment.
+
+Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind
+the incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and
+queerly managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate
+mess of it; still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the
+subject was one of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change
+to give lessons in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies
+would be an occupation so interesting--to be admitted at all into a
+ladies’ boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life. Besides,
+thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see
+the mysterious garden: I shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle.
+Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment, should it
+offer, having formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me.
+It was, therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should
+be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four
+afternoons in every week.
+
+When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference
+with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the
+visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember
+very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with
+myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something
+smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,”
+ thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of
+Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if
+it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome,
+and no dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off
+I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table,
+surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk,
+dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom
+or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a
+lady’s love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid.
+
+I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled
+the bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a
+passage paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were
+painted in imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass
+door, through which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in
+the sunshine of the mild spring evening--for it was now the middle of
+April.
+
+This, then, was my first glimpse of the garden; but I had not time to
+look long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative
+my question as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the
+folding-doors of a room to the left, and having ushered me in, closed
+them behind me. I found myself in a salon with a very well-painted,
+highly varnished floor; chairs and sofas covered with white draperies,
+a green porcelain stove, walls hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt
+pendule and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent
+from the centre of the ceiling, mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and
+a handsome centre table completed the inventory of furniture. All looked
+extremely clean and glittering, but the general effect would have been
+somewhat chilling had not a second large pair of folding-doors, standing
+wide open, and disclosing another and smaller salon, more snugly
+furnished, offered some relief to the eye. This room was carpeted, and
+therein was a piano, a couch, a chiffonniere--above all, it contained
+a lofty window with a crimson curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded
+another glimpse of the garden, through the large, clear panes, round
+which some leaves of ivy, some tendrils of vine were trained.
+
+“Monsieur Creemsvort, n’est ce pas?” said a voice behind me; and,
+starting involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the
+contemplation of the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the
+entrance of a person into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle.
+Reuter who now addressed me, and stood close beside me; and when I had
+bowed with instantaneously recovered sang-froid--for I am not easily
+embarrassed--I commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant
+aspect of her little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in
+possessing a garden.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “she often thought so;” and added, “it is my garden,
+monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably
+have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you
+see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one
+so large and pleasant anywhere else in town.”
+
+I approved her judgment.
+
+“But you have not seen it yet,” said she, rising; “come to the window
+and take a better view.” I followed her; she opened the sash, and
+leaning out I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been
+to me an unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured
+ground, with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the
+middle; there was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some
+flower-borders, and, on the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs,
+laburnums, and acacias. It looked pleasant, to me--very pleasant, so
+long a time had elapsed since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it
+was not only on Mdlle. Reuter’s garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had
+taken a view of her well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed
+my glance to come back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it.
+
+I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black,
+with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun’s head-gear;
+whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might
+indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought,
+be more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair
+Englishwoman; she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it
+in curls; pretty her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular,
+but neither were they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause
+to deem them expressive. What was their predominant cast? Was it
+sagacity?--sense? Yes, I thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be
+sure. I discovered, however, that there was a certain serenity of eye,
+and freshness of complexion, most pleasing to behold. The colour on her
+cheek was like the bloom on a good apple, which is as sound at the core
+as it is red on the rind.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not
+absolutely certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take,
+because I was so young, and parents might possibly object to a professor
+like me for their daughters: “But it is often well to act on one’s own
+judgment,” said she, “and to lead parents, rather than be led by them.
+The fitness of a professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have
+heard, and from what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you
+than M. Ledru, the music-master, who is a married man of near fifty.”
+
+I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion;
+that if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence
+reposed in me. “Du reste,” said she, “the surveillance will be strictly
+attended to.” And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms.
+She was very cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely
+bargain, but she warily sounded me to find out what my expectations
+might be; and when she could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and
+reasoned with a fluent yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last
+nailed me down to five hundred francs per annum--not too much, but I
+agreed. Before the negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little
+dusk. I did not hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear
+her talk; I was amused with the sort of business talent she displayed.
+Edward could not have shown himself more practical, though he might have
+evinced more coarseness and urgency; and then she had so many reasons,
+so many explanations; and, after all, she succeeded in proving herself
+quite disinterested and even liberal. At last she concluded, she could
+say no more, because, as I acquiesced in all things, there was no
+further ground for the exercise of her parts of speech. I was obliged to
+rise. I would rather have sat a little longer; what had I to return to
+but my small empty room? And my eyes had a pleasure in looking at
+Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the twilight softened her features a
+little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I could fancy her forehead as open
+as it was really elevated, her mouth touched with turns of sweetness
+as well as defined in lines of sense. When I rose to go, I held out
+my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was contrary to the etiquette of
+foreign habits; she smiled, and said--
+
+“Ah! c’est comme tous les Anglais,” but gave me her hand very kindly.
+
+“It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle,” said I; “and,
+remember, I shall always claim it.”
+
+She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+tranquillity obvious in all she did--a tranquillity which soothed and
+suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels
+seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street,
+and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career
+were even then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night.
+So impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in
+those days.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet’s; I
+wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring
+pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for
+pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at
+one o’clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule’s
+deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been
+waiting.
+
+At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met
+M. Pelet.
+
+“Comme vous avez l’air rayonnant!” said he. “Je ne vous ai jamais vu
+aussi gai. Que s’est-il donc passe?”
+
+“Apparemment que j’aime les changements,” replied I.
+
+“Ah! je comprends--c’est cela--soyez sage seulement. Vous etes bien
+jeune--trop jeune pour le role que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre
+garde--savez-vous?”
+
+“Mais quel danger y a-t-il?”
+
+“Je n’en sais rien--ne vous laissez pas aller a de vives
+impressions--voila tout.”
+
+I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at
+the thought that “vives impressions” were likely to be created; it was
+the deadness, the sameness of life’s daily ongoings that had hitherto
+been my bane; my blouse-clad “eleves” in the boys’ seminary never
+stirred in me any “vives impressions” except it might be occasionally
+some of anger. I broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage
+he followed me with one of his laughs--a very French, rakish, mocking
+sound.
+
+Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into
+the cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls.
+I followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I
+found myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter’s
+little figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see
+her dress in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted
+her compact round shape to perfection--delicate little collar and
+manchettes of lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists,
+and feet, to complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she
+came suddenly upon me! Solicitude and business were in her eye--on her
+forehead; she looked almost stern. Her “Bon jour, monsieur,” was quite
+polite, but so orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp
+towel over my “vives impressions.” The servant turned back when her
+mistress appeared, and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side
+with Mdlle. Reuter.
+
+“Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day,” said she;
+“dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for
+those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign
+language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little
+unsettled.”
+
+She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained
+for me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor
+terminated in a hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side
+showed within a long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and
+two lamps; it was empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the
+playground and garden; a broad staircase ascended spirally on the
+opposite side; the remaining wall showed a pair of great folding-doors,
+now closed, and admitting, doubtless, to the classes.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably,
+whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum.
+I suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government,
+for she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of
+uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I
+walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks,
+and took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an
+estrade, of one step high, so as to command one division; the other
+division being under the surveillance of a maitresse similarly elevated.
+At the back of the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition
+dividing this schoolroom from another beyond, was a large tableau of
+wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on
+my desk for the convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal
+obscurity which might occur in my lessons by writing it upon the
+tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the chalk, to enable me to efface
+the marks when they had served the purpose intended.
+
+I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing
+myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the
+crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to
+ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool
+enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me.
+
+And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she
+was nowhere visible; a maitresse or teacher, the one who occupied the
+corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me;
+she was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only
+see that she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion,
+and that her attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and
+affectation. More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of
+the large window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of
+whom some were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women
+from eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest
+attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all;
+and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant
+eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear
+the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice
+somewhat too low I murmured--
+
+“Prenez vos cahiers de dictee, mesdemoiselles.”
+
+Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet’s take their reading-books. A
+rustle followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which
+momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I
+heard tittering and whispers.
+
+“Eulalie, je suis prete a pleuer de rire,” observed one.
+
+“Comme il a rougi en parlant!”
+
+“Oui, c’est un veritable blanc-bec.”
+
+“Tais-toi, Hortense--il nous ecoute.”
+
+And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the
+whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as
+they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease
+and courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by
+which I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their
+dark nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels.
+The light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure
+relieved my mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+
+The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my
+estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names
+I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie,
+Hortense, Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was
+fair, and her features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a
+“figure de Vierge” have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling
+hers; there were no angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve
+and roundness--neither thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line
+or flush the equality of her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved
+with her regular breathing, her eyes moved a little--by these evidences
+of life alone could I have distinguished her from some large handsome
+figure moulded in wax. Hortense was of middle size and stout, her
+form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and brilliant than
+Eulalie’s, her hair was dark brown, her complexion richly coloured;
+there were frolic and mischief in her eye: consistency and good sense
+she might possess, but none of her features betokened those qualities.
+
+Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair,
+very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
+complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in
+her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
+perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
+classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
+don’t know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between
+them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder’s mind. She was
+sensual now, and in ten years’ time she would be coarse--promise plain
+was written in her face of much future folly.
+
+If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me
+with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to
+expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic
+charms. Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while
+she said, with an air of impudent freedom--
+
+“Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur.”
+
+Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
+over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
+hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between
+them, and treated me at the same time to a smile “de sa facon.”
+ Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer
+than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her
+lady-mother’s character afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the
+precocious accomplishments of the daughter. These three, I at once saw,
+deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their
+splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five
+minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than
+five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and
+let down a visor of impassible austerity.
+
+“Take your pens and commence writing,” said I, in as dry and trite a
+voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.
+
+The dictee now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually
+with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I
+made no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. “Comment
+dit-on point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?”
+
+“Semi-colon, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Semi-collong? Ah, comme c’est drole!” (giggle.)
+
+“J’ai une si mauvaise plume--impossible d’ecrire!”
+
+“Mais, monsieur--je ne sais pas suivre--vous allez si vite.”
+
+“Je n’ai rien compris, moi!”
+
+Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the
+first time, ejaculated--
+
+“Silence, mesdemoiselles!”
+
+No silence followed--on the contrary, the three ladies in front began to
+talk more loudly.
+
+“C’est si difficile, l’Anglais!”
+
+“Je deteste la dictee.”
+
+“Quel ennui d’ecrire quelquechose que l’on ne comprend pas!”
+
+Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the
+class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+
+“Donnez-moi votre cahier,” said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and
+bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+
+“Et vous, mademoiselle--donnez-moi le votre,” continued I, more mildly,
+addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of
+the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest
+and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and
+delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the
+two dictations; Eulalie’s was slurred, blotted, and full of silly
+mistakes--Sylvie’s (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was
+clearly written, it contained no error against sense, and but few
+faults of orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the
+faults--then I looked at Eulalie:
+
+“C’est honteux!” said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four
+parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book
+with a smile, saying--
+
+“C’est bien--je suis content de vous.”
+
+Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey,
+but the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation
+of the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more
+convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption.
+
+A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation
+of school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a
+certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up
+started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maitresse,
+and quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the
+inner class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising
+tumult I already heard.
+
+I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle.
+Reuter came again upon me.
+
+“Step in here a moment,” said she, and she held open the door of
+the side room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitree,
+filled with glass and china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she
+had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled
+with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from
+the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a
+maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some
+sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough
+ranks, and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in
+Brussels.
+
+“Well, you have given your first lesson,” began Mdlle. Reuter in the
+most calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from
+which we were separated only by a single wall.
+
+“Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their
+conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in
+me entire confidence.”
+
+Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without
+aid; the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity
+at first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined
+or downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de
+demoiselles presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was
+only enlightened and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to
+complain to Mdlle. Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to
+confidence with a smile.
+
+“A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly.”
+
+She looked more than doubtful.
+
+“Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?” said she.
+
+“Ah! tout va au mieux!” was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to
+question me; but her eye--not large, not brilliant, not melting, or
+kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with
+me; it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, “Be as close as
+you like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I
+already know.”
+
+By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress’s
+manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she
+began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly
+wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she
+prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she
+sat so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse,
+that it was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus
+detaining me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this
+aim, but her countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable
+commonplaces, her eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were
+not given in full, but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily,
+yet I think I lost not one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me;
+I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was
+searching for salient points, and weak points, and eccentric points;
+she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some
+chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand
+upon my neck--mistress of my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was
+no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it was only the
+power of the politician to which she aspired; I was now installed as a
+professor in her establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind
+was superior to mine--by what feeling or opinion she could lead me.
+
+I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I
+gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye
+would light up--she thought she had me; having led her a little way, I
+delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her
+countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner;
+the conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having
+gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given
+me an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to
+baffle her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I
+again held out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a
+small and white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full--obliging
+her to give me a straightforward look; this last test went against
+me: it left her as it found her--moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it
+disappointed.
+
+“I am growing wiser,” thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet’s. “Look
+at this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers?
+To read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would
+think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad--here is
+a specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose
+staple ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more
+passionless than Zoraide Reuter!” So I thought then; I found
+afterwards that blunt susceptibilities are very consistent with strong
+propensities.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and
+on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late
+at meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it
+been one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the
+soup and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably
+have greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted
+him both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial
+gentleman only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my
+napkin, and said my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a
+servant to the kitchen, to bring me a plate of “puree aux carottes”
+ (for this was a maigre-day), and before sending away the first course,
+reserved for me a portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted.
+Dinner being over, the boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and
+Vandam (the two ushers) of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they
+had not looked so very heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to
+all things in heaven above or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied
+them greatly for the obligation they were under to trail after those
+rough lads everywhere and at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed
+to scout myself as a privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my
+chamber, sure to find there, if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but
+this evening (as had often happened before) I was to be still farther
+distinguished.
+
+“Eh bien, mauvais sujet!” said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I
+set my foot on the first step of the stair, “ou allez-vous? Venez a la
+salle-a-manger, que je vous gronde un peu.”
+
+“I beg pardon, monsieur,” said I, as I followed him to his private
+sitting-room, “for having returned so late--it was not my fault.”
+
+“That is just what I want to know,” rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me
+into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire--for the stove had
+now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered “Coffee
+for two,” and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort,
+one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with
+a coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While
+M. Pelet employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts
+reverted to the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now
+crying hoarsely for order in the playground.
+
+“C’est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance,” observed I.
+
+“Plait-il?” dit M. Pelet.
+
+I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a
+little fatigued with their labours.
+
+“Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme,” murmured scornfully the
+director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+
+“Servez-vous mon garcon,” said he blandly, when I had put a couple of
+huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup. “And now tell me why you
+stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter’s. I know that lessons conclude, in her
+establishment as in mine, at four o’clock, and when you returned it was
+past five.”
+
+“Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur.”
+
+“Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask.”
+
+“Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur.”
+
+“A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom,
+before the pupils?”
+
+“No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour.”
+
+“And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother’s gossip, was there, of
+course?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle.”
+
+“C’est joli--cela,” observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into the
+fire.
+
+“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” murmured I, significantly.
+
+“Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous.”
+
+“In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was
+mademoiselle’s reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour,
+listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest
+frivolities.”
+
+“She was sounding your character.”
+
+“I thought so, monsieur.”
+
+“Did she find out your weak point?”
+
+“What is my weak point?”
+
+“Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will
+at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast,
+Crimsworth.”
+
+I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+
+“Some women might, monsieur.”
+
+“Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est
+encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste assey pour unir
+la tendresse d’une petite maman a l’amour d’une epouse devouee; n’est-ce
+pas que cela t’irait superieurement?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my
+mother.”
+
+“She is then a little too old for you?”
+
+“No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things.”
+
+“In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is
+she not?”
+
+“Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of
+form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace.”
+
+“Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?”
+
+“A little harsh, especially her mouth.”
+
+“Ah, yes! her mouth,” said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. “There is
+character about her mouth--firmness--but she has a very pleasant smile;
+don’t you think so?”
+
+“Rather crafty.”
+
+“True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you
+remarked her eyebrows?”
+
+I answered that I had not.
+
+“You have not seen her looking down then?” said he.
+
+“No.”
+
+“It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting,
+or some other woman’s work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly
+intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on
+around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being
+developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it;
+her humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her
+features move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown
+disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending
+task; if she can only get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec
+completed, it is enough for her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a
+deeper quiescence, a meeker modesty settles on her features, and clothes
+her general mien; observe then her eyebrows, et dites-moi s’il n’y a pas
+du chat dans l’un et du renard dans l’autre.”
+
+“I will take careful notice the first opportunity,” said I.
+
+“And then,” continued M. Pelet, “the eyelid will flicker, the
+light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out
+from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and
+retreat again.”
+
+I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes’ silence, I asked:
+
+“Will she ever marry, do you think?”
+
+“Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and
+resolution to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is
+better aware than herself of the sort of impression she is capable
+of producing; no one likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am
+mistaken if she will not yet leave the print of her stealing steps on
+thy heart, Crimsworth.”
+
+“Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked
+on.”
+
+“But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm.”
+
+“She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with
+me.”
+
+“That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first
+floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect.”
+
+“And interest, M. Pelet--interest. Will not mademoiselle consider that
+point?”
+
+“Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now
+we have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N’y a-t-il pas de
+belles etudes parmi ces jeunes tetes?”
+
+“Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one
+cannot divine much from a first interview.”
+
+“Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little
+abashed before these blooming young creatures?”
+
+“At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid.”
+
+“I don’t believe you.”
+
+“It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they
+did not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and
+handsomest undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed
+so cleverly that in five minutes I knew them, at least, for what they
+were--three arrant coquettes.”
+
+“Je les connais!” exclaimed M. Pelet. “Elles sont toujours au premier
+rang a l’eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie
+espiegle, une belle brune.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group they
+would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her
+smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut
+locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know
+how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask
+cheek, and roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is
+beauty! beauty in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face
+of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron
+would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid islander!--you
+played the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so
+exquisite?”
+
+I might have laughed at the director’s enthusiasm had I believed
+it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up
+raptures. I felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my
+guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He
+went on:
+
+“Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraide Reuter appear
+dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of
+her pupils?”
+
+The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal
+was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at that time I
+could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to
+what was right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved
+its antidote, and when he further added:--
+
+“Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
+with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like
+you might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one
+of the trio.”
+
+I replied by a look and an interrogative “Monsieur?” which startled him.
+
+He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
+demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
+the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M.
+Pelet was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles
+lettres to his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left
+the room, humming as he went some gay strain of Beranger’s.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter,
+did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What
+had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels?
+Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight,
+gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be
+a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy;
+there was metal in it, both lead and iron.
+
+Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
+just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or
+two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
+schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred
+specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a
+fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were,
+differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced
+over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English,
+Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class
+bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of
+two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES;
+these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be
+demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of
+the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was
+small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the
+majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
+boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards
+each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her
+own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest
+and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity
+when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of
+speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate
+skill and at a moment’s notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
+civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took
+place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close
+friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl
+seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to
+secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each
+and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
+The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
+innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having
+attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty
+and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly
+leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye.
+I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I
+am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this
+precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to
+be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
+I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the
+respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up,
+yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general
+view: now for one or two selected specimens.
+
+The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
+or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
+of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is
+of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed
+but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an
+inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured
+into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and
+gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
+grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek
+bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion.
+So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed:
+incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native
+tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere
+farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably
+gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and
+reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
+that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s
+daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of
+observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her
+desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty;
+her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing
+behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of
+washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as
+one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers
+through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
+something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence.
+The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges
+in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
+fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
+monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
+languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
+against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly
+offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
+she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for
+which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass
+near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
+happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
+brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter;
+if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in
+sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
+with an intolerable Low German accent.
+
+Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele
+Dronsart: this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy,
+with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion,
+features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown
+colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as
+full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives
+the idea of a somewhat dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well,
+when I looked along the row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at
+this of Adele’s; her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently
+succeeded in arresting it. She was an unnatural-looking being--so young,
+fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were
+on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like
+deceit about her mouth. In general she sat very still; her massive shape
+looked as if it could not bend much, nor did her large head--so broad
+at the base, so narrow towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her
+short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one
+a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious
+and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as
+many of them were, few were as bad as she.
+
+Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class; the
+second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
+girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was
+dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the ---- Isles,
+where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
+educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and
+countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
+the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs
+of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were
+singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness,
+combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse
+shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she
+had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was
+fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black,
+form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen.
+
+Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard”
+ was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough
+for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of
+her other lineaments I think the eye--cowardice had also its distinct
+cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
+coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like
+a horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
+and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
+Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of person
+and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would
+seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy
+of the human mind and body; these, I soon found, were completely under
+her influence, and with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish
+tumult, which I was constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two
+of her tools to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing
+five minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices
+into a large place adjoining called the grands salle; the principal
+into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and pocketed the key. This
+judgment I executed in the presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much
+aghast at beholding so decided a proceeding--the most severe that had
+ever been ventured on in her establishment. Her look of affright I
+answered with one of composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps
+flattered, and certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe
+long enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
+done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the----
+Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have slaves, whom,
+as she said, she could kick and strike at will.
+
+These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and
+as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
+
+Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to
+show something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo,
+some sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to
+her bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray
+it. The pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was
+a young girl from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently
+benevolent and obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered;
+moreover, the plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
+principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their names. The
+least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned
+once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners, intelligent in mind; she was
+even sincere, as far as her religion would permit her to be so, but her
+physical organization was defective; weak health stunted her growth and
+chilled her spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister,
+her whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained
+subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself
+for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought
+and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted
+herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment;
+in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton
+air, she went about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she
+liked, or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
+poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the dictates
+of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to the will of
+her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of Mdlle. Reuter’s
+establishment; pale, blighted image, where life lingered feebly, but
+whence the soul had been conjured by Romish wizard-craft!
+
+A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be
+divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English--the daughters
+chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from
+their own country. These poor girls had never known the advantages
+of settled homes, decorous example, or honest Protestant education;
+resident a few months now in one Catholic school, now in another, as
+their parents wandered from land to land--from France to Germany, from
+Germany to Belgium--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad
+habits, losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
+morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment that
+can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an habitual look
+of sullen dejection, the result of crushed self-respect and constant
+browbeating from their Popish fellow-pupils, who hated them as English,
+and scorned them as heretics.
+
+The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half
+a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
+characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair
+(compared with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible
+figures, white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more
+intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances,
+a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
+alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE
+of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once
+envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off
+insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they
+eschewed company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell
+isolated.
+
+The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number,
+all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and Suzette; the two
+last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary,
+their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts,
+feelings, and views were all ordinary--were I to write a chapter on the
+subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more
+distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette,
+but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
+to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy
+art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in
+the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her,
+consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
+observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English
+air for a maitresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I
+should think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly
+“en revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her
+name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+
+Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
+that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
+described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
+British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
+steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware
+of her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
+which sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable
+from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner
+tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on entering the school-room,
+to feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and
+quiet which all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings
+frequently failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or
+rather--contrast, with those who surrounded her, and to know that in
+personal as well as mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed
+palm of preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
+managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on herself the
+office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns
+every invidious task of blame and punishment, that they all regarded her
+with deference, if not with affection; her teachers did not love her,
+but they submitted because they were her inferiors in everything; the
+various masters who attended her school were each and all in some way
+or other under her influence; over one she had acquired power by her
+skilful management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
+to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a fourth--a
+timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me,
+she still watched, still tried by the most ingenious tests--she roved
+round me, baffled, yet persevering; I believe she thought I was like
+a smooth and bare precipice, which offered neither jutting stone nor
+tree-root, nor tuft of grass to aid the climber. Now she flattered
+with exquisite tact, now she moralized, now she tried how far I was
+accessible to mercenary motives, then she disported on the brink of
+affection--knowing that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked
+excellent sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment.
+I found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it was
+sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to smile in
+her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her scarcely veiled,
+though mute mortification. Still she persevered, and at last, I am bound
+to confess it, her finger, essaying, proving every atom of the casket,
+touched its secret spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she
+laid her hand on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or
+whether the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
+shall know.
+
+It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed;
+I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very
+hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
+corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that
+I looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then,
+with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you
+have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour,
+and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
+still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
+closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
+earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me
+her hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
+pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
+modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance;
+I thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my
+mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive,
+that I might see her again.
+
+I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
+subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
+o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
+after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
+gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
+the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
+very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked
+at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began
+to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+
+“Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are
+gone?”
+
+I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
+say--
+
+“You will come with me?”
+
+In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down
+the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in
+full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the
+air still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance.
+Released from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage,
+with a pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side--how did I feel? Why,
+very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
+suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
+the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s
+mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
+amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
+and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
+down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
+ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned
+in my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell
+rang, both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I
+detained her a moment as she was moving away.
+
+“I want something,” said I.
+
+“What?” asked Zoraide naively.
+
+“Only a flower.”
+
+“Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like.”
+
+“No--one will do--but you must gather it, and give it to me.”
+
+“What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
+and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace.
+I took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
+future.
+
+Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight
+night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having
+sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and
+a little oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
+often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded
+old Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of
+professor in the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it
+was no longer “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their
+sports. I sat down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill,
+and leaned out: above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless
+night sky--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the
+stars--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep shade,
+and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from the closed
+blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the night was
+breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a certain walk of Mdlle.
+Reuter’s garden, called “l’allee defendue,” so named because the pupils
+were forbidden to enter it on account of its proximity to the boys’
+school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick;
+this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened
+the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
+directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her as
+I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks and
+borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
+which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part
+of the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
+through the persiennes of one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.
+
+“She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She
+is a fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her
+image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the
+world calls pretty--no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I
+like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the
+whiteness of her neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent;
+the idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know
+that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon;
+but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood
+laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that
+I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know that I must pass the
+rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what
+I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I
+felt! “Now, Zoraide Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, CARACTERE, judgment,
+discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played
+about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her
+crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much
+that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only
+the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing
+difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the
+world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient
+in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She
+has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and
+reared a Protestant, might she not have added straight integrity to
+all her other excellences? Supposing she were to marry an English and
+Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is, quickly
+acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over
+policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try the experiment; to-morrow
+I will renew my observations. She knows that I watch her: how calm she
+is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than annoy her.” Here a
+strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and suspended it; it was
+a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I
+thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones, so subduing
+their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the
+quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon
+gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once
+more. No. What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching
+nearer, frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
+conversing--yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in
+the garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was
+that of a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw
+coming slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I
+could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met
+them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose,
+and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter,
+arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal,
+confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying--
+
+“A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?”
+
+And Mdlle. Reuter answered--
+
+“Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier
+avant les vacances.”
+
+“June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can
+I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
+impatience!”
+
+“Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
+about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight
+mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial
+trousseau.”
+
+“Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch
+my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain
+you have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
+presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
+given him room to hope.”
+
+“What do you say, Francois? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?”
+
+“Over head and ears.”
+
+“Has he told you so?”
+
+“No--but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
+mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle.
+Reuter’s gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie,
+by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet
+proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty
+plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think
+of taking such a “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least
+ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have
+thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject--the
+director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer.
+
+“Francois,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as
+if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
+character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded,
+in a demure voice: “Truly, my dear Francois, I will not deny that this
+young Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with
+me; but, so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated
+him with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility;
+affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me,
+dear friend.” Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust--so I judged, at
+least, from her reply.
+
+“What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And
+then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear comparison
+with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all;
+some may call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my
+part--”
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
+from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
+return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that
+they had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was
+perfectly still; I listened more than an hour--at last I heard M. Pelet
+come in and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long
+front of the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was
+at length extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and
+friendship. I went to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into
+my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood
+half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what
+means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness,
+to their ordinary tone--for I had no intention of getting up a scene
+with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or
+performing other gambadoes of the sort--I hit at last on the
+expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring
+establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge.
+The remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o’clock
+steadied and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he
+entered to breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even
+a cordial offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of “mon
+fils,” pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of
+late days especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any
+external sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at
+my heart. Not that I nursed vengeance--no; but the sense of insult and
+treachery lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God
+knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I
+can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings
+are of the vacillating order--they are not of that sand-like sort where
+impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my
+friend’s disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he
+is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles,
+and I dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the
+discovery was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I
+placed before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet
+(we never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid
+face looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye
+turned, now sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me.
+
+“Circumstances must guide me,” said I; and meeting Pelet’s false glance
+and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened
+my window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that
+guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of
+his nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his
+soul lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases
+a voice interpreting their treacherous import.
+
+But Zoraide Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick?
+That stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy
+to be available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over,
+I looked about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home
+than at Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the
+prize I had missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically,
+Zoraide might have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in
+harmony, and that discord must have resulted from the union of her mind
+with mine. She then insisted on the suppression of all repining,
+and commanded me rather to rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her
+medicament did me good. I felt its strengthening effect when I met the
+directress the next day; its stringent operation on the nerves suffered
+no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me to face her with firmness,
+to pass her with ease. She had held out her hand to me--that I did not
+choose to see. She had greeted me with a charming smile--it fell on my
+heart like light on stone. I passed on to the estrade, she followed me;
+her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of every feature the meaning of
+my changed and careless manner. “I will give her an answer,” thought I;
+and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing her glance, I shot into
+her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no respect, no love,
+no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest analysis could detect
+nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear it, and feel it;
+her steady countenance did not change, but her colour rose, and she
+approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the estrade, and
+stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not relieve her
+embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a book.
+
+“I hope you feel quite recovered to-day,” at last she said, in a low
+tone.
+
+“And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in
+consequence of your late walk in the garden.”
+
+Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face
+became a little blanched--a very little--but no muscle in her rather
+marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from
+the estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying
+herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a
+“Composition,” i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the
+pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being
+forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &c., were pondering
+over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I had
+propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further
+observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing
+fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she
+sat netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole
+person were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and
+repose--a rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been
+before, to offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute
+of involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her
+my esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who
+coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal
+good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had
+witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused
+to vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered
+her composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side,
+sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere
+forehead!
+
+“There is metal there,” I said, as I gazed. “Would that there were fire
+also, living ardour to make the steel glow--then I could love her.”
+
+Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred
+not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her
+netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple
+merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a
+bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round
+the wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head,
+causing her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs
+I read that the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure
+back the game she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity
+of addressing me again.
+
+While all was silence in the class--silence, but for the rustling of
+copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages--a leaf of the
+large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a
+pupil who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some
+appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so
+late, in a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she
+proceeded, still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her
+cabas, to take out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look
+up, in order to make out her identity--for, shortsighted as I was, I had
+not recognized her at her entrance--Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair,
+approached the estrade.
+
+“Monsieur Creemsvort,” said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms
+were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke
+in the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much
+by example as precept: “Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has
+just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in
+English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense,
+a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to
+qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has asked
+permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge
+of English, in which language she has, I believe, already made
+some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in an effort
+so praiseworthy; you will permit her then to benefit by your
+instruction--n’est ce pas, monsieur?” And Mdlle. Reuter’s eyes were
+raised to mine with a look at once naive, benign, and beseeching.
+
+I replied, “Of course,” very laconically, almost abruptly.
+
+“Another word,” she said, with softness: “Mdlle. Henri has not received
+a regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest
+order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and
+even of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am
+sure, have the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not
+expose her backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young
+ladies, who, in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour
+me by attending to this hint?” I nodded. She continued with subdued
+earnestness--
+
+“Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is
+of importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty
+in impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference
+for her authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new
+discoveries of her incapacity, she might find her position in my
+establishment too painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much
+regret for her sake, as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her
+occupation here.”
+
+Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive,
+unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on
+this occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being
+indulgent to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I
+listened. I discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a
+wish to aid the dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one
+was no other than a design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted
+goodness and tender considerateness; so having again hastily nodded
+assent to her remarks, I obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding
+the compositions, in a sharp accent, and stepping from the estrade, I
+proceeded to collect them. As I passed the governess-pupil, I said to
+her--
+
+“You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more
+punctual next time.”
+
+I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not
+very civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so,
+had I been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began
+to slip her books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had
+returned to the estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions,
+I heard the folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I
+perceived her place vacant. I thought to myself, “She will consider her
+first attempt at taking a lesson in English something of a failure;” and
+I wondered whether she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity
+had induced her to take my words too literally, or, finally, whether
+my irritable tone had wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed
+almost as soon as I had conceived it, for not having seen any appearance
+of sensitiveness in any human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had
+begun to regard it almost as a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy
+announced it I could not tell, for her speedy exit had allowed me no
+time to ascertain the circumstance. I had, indeed, on two or three
+previous occasions, caught a passing view of her (as I believe has been
+mentioned before); but I had never stopped to scrutinize either her face
+or person, and had but the most vague idea of her general appearance.
+Just as I had finished rolling up the compositions, the four o’clock
+bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in obeying that signal, I
+grasped my hat and evacuated the premises.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter’s domicile, I was at least
+equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes
+before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I
+heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the “priere du midi”
+ was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have
+been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How
+the repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or
+since heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. “Notre Pere
+qui etes au ciel” went off like a shot; then followed an address to
+Marie “vierge celeste, reine des anges, maison d’or, tour d’ivoire!” and
+then an invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat,
+and the solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide
+and striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found
+that in entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis,
+consisted the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The
+folding-doors between the two classes, opened for the prayer, were
+instantly closed; a maitresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her
+appropriate desk; the pupils sat still with their pens and books before
+them; my three beauties in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of
+consistent coolness, sat erect with their hands folded quietly on their
+knees; they had given up giggling and whispering to each other, and no
+longer ventured to utter pert speeches in my presence; they now only
+talked to me occasionally with their eyes, by means of which organs
+they could still, however, say very audacious and coquettish things. Had
+affection, goodness, modesty, real talent, ever employed those bright
+orbs as interpreters, I do not think I could have refrained from giving
+a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent reply now and then; but as it
+was, I found pleasure in answering the glance of vanity with the gaze
+of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as were many of my pupils, I can
+truly say that in me they never saw any other bearing than such as an
+austere, though just guardian, might have observed towards them. If any
+doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as inferring more conscientious
+self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than they feel disposed to
+give me credit for, let them take into consideration the following
+circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit, justify my
+veracity.
+
+Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different
+relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to
+that occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade.
+A professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and
+muslin, with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial
+lace, round white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the
+gliding dance. It is not his business to whirl her through the waltz,
+to feed her with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of
+gratified vanity. Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled,
+tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs
+clad in her becoming walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her
+shoulders, her little bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose
+under its brim adding a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her
+face and eyes, too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the
+sunshine of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his
+office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her
+parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon
+her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the
+schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books before her. Owing to her
+education or her nature books are to her a nuisance, and she opens them
+with aversion, yet her teacher must instil into her mind the contents
+of these books; that mind resists the admission of grave information, it
+recoils, it grows restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns
+spoil the symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace
+from the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native and
+ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the
+temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable
+dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but
+not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks
+are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the
+tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which
+the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees
+the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long
+stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to
+admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general
+view.
+
+Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a
+hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because
+it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine
+woman”--she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the
+fashionable young lady--she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged,
+probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and
+graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love
+of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness,
+are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard. These he
+seeks, but seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain
+retain for ever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if
+some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being
+the case, and the case it is, my readers will agree with me that there
+was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous in the
+integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter’s pensionnat de
+demoiselles.
+
+My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of
+places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the
+compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual,
+by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described
+before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment;
+the second place had fallen to the lot of a certain Leonie Ledru, a
+diminutive, sharp-featured, and parchment-skinned creature of quick
+wits, frail conscience, and indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of
+whom I used to say that, had she been a boy, she would have made a
+model of an unprincipled, clever attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud
+beauty, the Juno of the school, whom six long years of drilling in the
+simple grammar of the English language had compelled, despite the stiff
+phlegm of her intellect, to acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most
+of its rules. No smile, no trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in
+Sylvie’s nun-like and passive face as she heard her name read first.
+I always felt saddened by the sight of that poor girl’s absolute
+quiescence on all occasions, and it was my custom to look at her, to
+address her, as seldom as possible; her extreme docility, her assiduous
+perseverance, would have recommended her warmly to my good opinion;
+her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to feel most
+kindly--most affectionately towards her, notwithstanding the almost
+ghastly plainness of her features, the disproportion of her form, the
+corpse-like lack of animation in her countenance, had I not been aware
+that every friendly word, every kindly action, would be reported by her
+to her confessor, and by him misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my
+hand on her head, in token of approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to
+smile, her dim eye almost kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me;
+I was a man and a heretic; she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted
+Catholic: thus a four-fold wall of separation divided her mind from
+mine. A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie’s method of
+testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious--she had
+hoped to be first. Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on
+hearing their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the
+brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their
+hopes for the future being based solely on their personal attractions.
+
+This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief
+interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging
+carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the
+farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually vacant--was
+again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously
+recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her
+appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to
+puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her
+exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her
+figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied
+expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was
+dressed, like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her
+features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet
+scarcely regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior
+part more developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured,
+at first sight, that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her
+countenance, her lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs,
+and, evidently, the type of another race--of a race less gifted with
+fullness of flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material,
+unthinking. When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly
+down, her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude
+till I commenced the lesson. None of the Belgian girls would have
+retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the same length of
+time. Yet, having intimated that her appearance was peculiar, as
+being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I have little more to say
+respecting it; I can pronounce no encomiums on her beauty, for she was
+not beautiful; nor offer condolence on her plainness, for neither
+was she plain; a careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding
+moulding of the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise,
+but these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less
+crotchety observer.
+
+Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle.
+Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind’s eye no
+distinct picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her
+eyes, nor her hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot
+tell whether her nose was aquiline or retrousse, whether her chin was
+long or short, her face square or oval; nor could I the first day,
+and it is not my intention to communicate to you at once a knowledge I
+myself gained by little and little.
+
+I gave a short exercise: which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil
+was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once
+or twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not
+comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the
+others were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I
+would not help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye
+said most plainly, “I cannot follow you.” I disregarded the appeal, and,
+carelessly leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+NONCHALANT air out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking
+towards her again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but
+she was still writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she
+employed the interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and
+shame and discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently
+found she had made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the
+dictation was complete, and, having allowed a brief space in which to
+correct it, I took their books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle.
+Henri gave up hers, but, having once yielded it to my possession, she
+composed her anxious face, as if, for the present she had resolved to
+dismiss regret, and had made up her mind to be thought unprecedentedly
+stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I found that several lines had been
+omitted, but what was written contained very few faults; I instantly
+inscribed “Bon” at the bottom of the page, and returned it to her; she
+smiled, at first incredulously, then as if reassured, but did not
+lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed, when perplexed and
+bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that scarcely fair.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the
+holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the
+turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made
+the transit of the CARRE, I observed, as usual, the band of sewers
+surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but
+they made as much noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed
+very little under her control; three or four at once assailed her with
+importunate requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but
+in vain. She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger should
+witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to entreat
+order--her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she compressed
+her lips and contracted her brow; and her countenance, if I read
+it correctly, said--“I have done my best; I seem to merit blame
+notwithstanding; blame me then who will.” I passed on; as I closed the
+school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and sharply, addressing one
+of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot--
+
+“Amelie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance,
+for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to
+you nor help you.”
+
+The words were uttered with emphasis--nay, with vehemence--and a
+comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know
+not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE.
+
+Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the
+directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and
+before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to
+me) of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and
+talking at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was
+easy so to speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person
+alone, and it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face
+of the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was
+vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked
+very placid indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers,
+and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her
+discourse had been of the most friendly tendency, for I heard the
+closing words--
+
+“C’est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous retenir
+davantage.”
+
+Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
+evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
+distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
+place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but
+a second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one
+of attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to
+take their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it
+was such a torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of
+my native tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever
+seemed to effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day,
+each in her appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as
+usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was
+expecting with resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full,
+though low voice, read out, in clear correct English.
+
+“On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
+herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
+about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, ‘My lord the
+king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!’”--(VIDE
+the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND).
+
+I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent
+was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
+counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
+have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
+in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
+performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
+Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at
+the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured
+me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
+teacher’s style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not
+that of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my
+visage with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+
+When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by
+breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window
+and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did
+not imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her
+exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed
+her:--
+
+“You have had lessons in English before?” I asked.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“No! you read it well; you have been in England?”
+
+“Oh, no!” with some animation.
+
+“You have been in English families?”
+
+Still the answer was “No.” Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the
+book, saw written, “Frances Evan Henri.”
+
+“Your name?” I asked
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me,
+and close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the
+interior of a desk.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, “Will
+you have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young
+ladies are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?”
+
+Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+
+“What splendid weather!” observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at
+the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. “What of
+your new pupil, monsieur?” continued she, following my retreating steps.
+“Is she likely to make progress in English?”
+
+“Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of
+her real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of
+forming an opinion.”
+
+“And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can
+you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?”
+
+“I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really
+I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her
+capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon.”
+
+She still pursued me. “You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you
+think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women
+cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity,
+monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor
+little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own
+efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole
+fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is
+then but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see
+the difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined.
+I doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but,
+monsieur, she wants tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the
+subject, but I am not fluent, and probably did not express myself
+with clearness; she never appears to comprehend me. Now, would you
+occasionally, when you see an opportunity, slip in a word of advice
+to her on the subject; men have so much more influence than women
+have--they argue so much more logically than we do; and you, monsieur,
+in particular, have so paramount a power of making yourself obeyed;
+a word of advice from you could not but do her good; even if she were
+sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is not), she would scarcely
+refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can truly say that I never
+attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit from witnessing your
+management of the pupils. The other masters are a constant source of
+anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies with sentiments of
+respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in you, monsieur, I
+feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this poor child
+into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited Brabantoises.
+But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don’t alarm her AMOUR PROPRE;
+beware of inflicting a wound there. I reluctantly admit that in that
+particular she is blameably--some would say ridiculously--susceptible.
+I fear I have touched this sore point inadvertently, and she cannot get
+over it.”
+
+During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the
+outer door; I now turned it.
+
+“Au revoir, mademoiselle,” said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress’s
+stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she
+would fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had
+been altered ever since I had begun to treat her with hardness and
+indifference: she almost cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted
+my countenance incessantly, and beset me with innumerable little
+officious attentions. Servility creates despotism. This slavish homage,
+instead of softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and
+exacting in its mood. The very circumstance of her hovering round me
+like a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of
+stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments confirmed
+my reserve. At times I wondered what she meant by giving herself such
+trouble to win me, when the more profitable Pelet was already in her
+nets, and when, too, she was aware that I possessed her secret, for I
+had not scrupled to tell her as much: but the fact is that as it was
+her nature to doubt the reality and under-value the worth of modesty,
+affection, disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of
+character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride, hardness,
+selfishness, as proofs of strength. She would trample on the neck
+of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain; she would meet
+tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with
+ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were
+her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a
+preference--they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical
+degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
+indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
+set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
+succumbed--they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate,
+no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in some
+hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false and
+selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
+the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
+benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be
+considered one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension
+wore off, the real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a
+deception.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances
+Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her
+character. I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at
+least two good points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I
+found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with
+difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always
+found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for
+her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded
+by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud
+impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve
+alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with
+serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour, eagerly
+demanded more. So much for her perseverance; as to her sense of duty,
+it evinced itself thus: she liked to learn, but hated to teach; her
+progress as a pupil depended upon herself, and I saw that on herself she
+could calculate with certainty; her success as a teacher rested partly,
+perhaps chiefly, upon the will of others; it cost her a most painful
+effort to enter into conflict with this foreign will, to endeavour
+to bend it into subjection to her own; for in what regarded people in
+general the action of her will was impeded by many scruples; it was as
+unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were concerned, and to it
+she could at any time subject her inclination, if that inclination went
+counter to her convictions of right; yet when called upon to wrestle
+with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others, of children
+especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part, insensate to
+persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then came in the
+sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A wasteful
+expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence; Frances
+toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere her
+conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on their
+part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by
+resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control--by
+forcing her to the employment of coercive measures--they could
+inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings--human children
+especially--seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power
+which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist
+only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are
+duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and
+his bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that
+instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very
+young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize
+nor how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight
+seemed to oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the
+house, and whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore
+the same preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always
+shaded her features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+
+One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending
+cakes in the herdsman’s hut, to be related with amplifications. A
+singular affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they
+had chiefly studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly
+unintelligible; those of Sylvie and Leonie Ledru alone pretended to
+anything like sense and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a
+clever expedient for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she
+had obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and had
+copied the anecdote out fair. I wrote on the margin of her production
+“Stupid and deceitful,” and then tore it down the middle.
+
+Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several
+sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and
+scarcely needed the evidence of the signature “Frances Evans Henri” to
+confirm my conjecture as to the writer’s identity.
+
+Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the
+usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed
+strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest,
+as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
+teacher’s manuscript.
+
+“Now,” thought I, “I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
+get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
+expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
+has any mind, here will be a reflection of it.”
+
+The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant’s hut,
+situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
+represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and
+the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
+collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
+Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
+is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening
+meal; but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and
+flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger
+who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him
+mind the bread till her return.
+
+“Take care, young man,” she continues, “that you fasten the door well
+after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound
+you hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this
+forest is most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein
+after sunset; wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the
+country; worse things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it
+were, a child cry, and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great
+black bull, or a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold;
+or, more awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the
+lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on the
+hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to the house;
+therefore, heed my advice, and lift the latchet for nothing.”
+
+Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone,
+listens awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of
+the river, and then he speaks.
+
+“It is Christmas Eve,” says he, “I mark the date; here I sit alone on
+a rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman’s hut;
+I, whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night’s harbourage to a poor
+serf; my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I
+have no friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless
+robbers spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts
+crushed by the heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst,
+and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade.
+Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I
+still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot
+succumb to thy power. My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him
+the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls
+thy hand, and without His behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God
+is sinless, eternal, all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped
+and crushed by thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not
+despair, I cannot despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my
+blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah,
+in his own time, will aid.”
+
+I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same
+strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms,
+there were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular
+transformed into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above
+example shows, of short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood
+in great need of polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I
+had hitherto seen nothing like it in the course of my professorial
+experience. The girl’s mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the
+two peasants, of the crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest,
+she had recalled the old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated
+Alfred’s courage under calamity, she had remembered his Christian
+education, and had shown him, with the rooted confidence of those
+primitive days, relying on the scriptural Jehovah for aid against the
+mythological Destiny. This she had done without a hint from me: I had
+given the subject, but not said a word about the manner of treating it.
+
+“I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her,” I said to
+myself as I rolled the devoir up; “I will learn what she has of English
+in her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the
+language, that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in
+England, nor taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families.”
+
+In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs,
+dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to
+my custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums
+were rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri’s exercise, and,
+spectacles on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her
+sentiments at the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed
+a consciousness of her own talents. “If she thinks she did a clever
+thing in composing that devoir, she will now look mortified,” thought
+I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were
+fastened on the cahier open before her; there was something, I thought,
+of expectation in her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the
+last devoir, and when, casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade
+them take their grammars, some slight change did pass over her air
+and mien, as though she now relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant
+excitement; she had been waiting for something to be discussed in which
+she had a degree of interest; the discussion was not to come on, so
+expectation sank back, shrunk and sad, but attention, promptly filling
+up the void, repaired in a moment the transient collapse of feature;
+still, I felt, rather than saw, during the whole course of the lesson,
+that a hope had been wrenched from her, and that if she did not show
+distress, it was because she would not.
+
+At four o’clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate
+tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat
+still a moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her
+cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my
+eye, she made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon,
+and was turning to depart:--
+
+“Come here,” said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated;
+she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both
+school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused
+within half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful
+whether she had mistaken my meaning.
+
+“Step up,” I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing
+with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight
+manual aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be,
+that is, between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the
+rush of the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to
+listen.
+
+“Take a seat,” I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I
+knew what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and,
+what was more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an
+appearance of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from
+my pocket the rolled-up devoir.
+
+“This is yours, I suppose?” said I, addressing her in English, for I now
+felt sure she could speak English.
+
+“Yes,” she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out
+flat on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that
+hand, I saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed
+as a cloud might behind which the sun is burning.
+
+“This devoir has numerous faults,” said I. “It will take you some years
+of careful study before you are in a condition to write English with
+absolute correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects.”
+ And I went through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating
+why they were errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been
+written. In the course of this sobering process she became calm. I now
+went on:
+
+“As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me;
+I perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and
+fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but
+such as they are you possess them--not probably in a paramount degree,
+but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then take
+courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on
+you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of
+their strength and rarity.”
+
+“Strength and rarity!” I repeated to myself; “ay, the words are probably
+true,” for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening
+cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes--a
+smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say--
+
+“I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you
+need not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a
+stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known
+fully from a child.”
+
+She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but
+in a moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect,
+had subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally
+conscious of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these
+obliterated for a single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once
+subdued the too vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had
+been expressed. So quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to
+check her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown
+she had become serious and almost mournful-looking.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her
+voice and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time,
+indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around,
+behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated
+within a yard or two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths
+wide open; the three maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner,
+and, close at my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair,
+calmly clipping the tassels of her finished purse.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so
+boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask
+her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances
+and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived
+her good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy
+had been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward;
+moreover, I had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I
+had drawn from her in that language were the words “Yes,” and “Thank
+you, sir.” “No matter,” I reflected. “What has been left incomplete now,
+shall be finished another day.” Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus
+made to myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular
+conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old
+proverb, “Where there is a will, there is a way;” and again and again
+I managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle.
+Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I
+approached her.
+
+“Your book an instant.” Such was the mode in which I often began these
+brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the
+lesson; and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place,
+allowing her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise
+and right in her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in
+use between master and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in
+proportion as my manner grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy
+and self-possessed--an odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary
+effect in such cases; but so it was.
+
+“A pencil,” said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am
+now about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.)
+She gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical
+exercise she had written, I observed--
+
+“You are not a native of Belgium?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor of France?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Where, then, is your birthplace?”
+
+“I was born at Geneva.”
+
+“You don’t call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?”
+
+“No, sir; they are English names.”
+
+“Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children
+English appellatives?”
+
+“Non, Monsieur; mais--”
+
+“Speak English, if you please.”
+
+“Mais--”
+
+“English--”
+
+“But” (slowly and with embarrassment) “my parents were not all the two
+Genevese.”
+
+“Say BOTH, instead of ‘all the two,’ mademoiselle.”
+
+“Not BOTH Swiss: my mother was English.”
+
+“Ah! and of English extraction?”
+
+“Yes--her ancestors were all English.”
+
+“And your father?”
+
+“He was Swiss.”
+
+“What besides? What was his profession?”
+
+“Ecclesiastic--pastor--he had a church.”
+
+“Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with
+more facility?”
+
+“Maman est morte, il y a dix ans.”
+
+“And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the
+goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with
+you--keep to English.”
+
+“C’est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n’en a plus l’habitude.”
+
+“You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother
+tongue.”
+
+“Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child.”
+
+“Why do you not speak it now?”
+
+“Because I have no English friends.”
+
+“You live with your father, I suppose?”
+
+“My father is dead.”
+
+“You have brothers and sisters?”
+
+“Not one.”
+
+“Do you live alone?”
+
+“No--I have an aunt--ma tante Julienne.”
+
+“Your father’s sister?”
+
+“Justement, monsieur.”
+
+“Is that English?”
+
+“No--but I forget--”
+
+“For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise
+some slight punishment; at your age--you must be two or three and
+twenty, I should think?”
+
+“Pas encore, monsieur--en un mois j’aurai dix-neuf ans.”
+
+“Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to
+be so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful
+for a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking
+English whenever practicable.”
+
+To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my
+pupil was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile;
+it seemed to say, “He talks of he knows not what:” it said this
+so plainly, that I determined to request information on the point
+concerning which my ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed.
+
+“Are you solicitous for your own improvement?”
+
+“Rather.”
+
+“How do you prove it, mademoiselle?”
+
+An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+
+“Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive--am I? I learn my lessons well--”
+
+“Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?”
+
+“What more can I do?”
+
+“Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as
+a pupil?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You teach lace-mending?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?”
+
+“No--it is tedious.”
+
+“Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography,
+grammar, even arithmetic?”
+
+“Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these
+studies?”
+
+“I don’t know; you ought to be at your age.”
+
+“But I never was at school, monsieur--”
+
+“Indeed! What then were your friends--what was your aunt about? She is
+very much to blame.”
+
+“No monsieur, no--my aunt is good--she is not to blame--she does what
+she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s phrases
+literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She is not
+rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it would be
+impossible for her to send me to school.”
+
+“Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the
+dogmatical tone I had adopted:--
+
+“It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the
+most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history
+and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending
+drudgery, and risen in the world.”
+
+“It is what I mean to do.”
+
+“How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no
+respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of
+knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.”
+
+“Monsieur, I know other things.”
+
+“Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs
+and collars--that will do little for you.”
+
+Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself,
+as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained
+silent.
+
+“Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of
+acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction
+at your tongue’s end.”
+
+“Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography,
+and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.”
+
+“Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to
+send you to school?”
+
+“By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.”
+
+“Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to
+explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.”
+
+“Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after
+we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was
+easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt
+it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies
+have old lace--very precious--which must be mended all the times it is
+washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons
+in the studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books,
+English books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess,
+or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will
+be difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will
+despise me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,”
+ she added in a lower tone.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.”
+
+The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might
+suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan.
+
+“Have you a wish to see England?”
+
+“Yes, and an intention.”
+
+And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+
+“Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma
+bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.”
+
+In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle.
+Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to
+move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her
+head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.
+
+Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the
+composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than
+discourage. Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble
+of giving that intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction
+was falsified by the event--it did not rain that evening). At the close
+of the next lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost
+her:--
+
+“What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go
+there?”
+
+Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no
+longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so
+much of hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she
+experienced in improvising the translation of her thoughts from French
+to English.
+
+“England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is
+vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.”
+
+“Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there
+in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting
+a clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great
+Britain would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two
+private dwellings.”
+
+“It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.”
+
+“Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations
+made on a scale so narrow?”
+
+“Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy?
+An--echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole;
+besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not? All my
+life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes--all the life of a--that
+little animal subterranean--une taupe--comment dit-on?”
+
+“Mole.”
+
+“Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.”
+
+“Well, mademoiselle--what then? Proceed.”
+
+“Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.”
+
+“Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.”
+
+“Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little,
+learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle;
+I walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I
+rested--remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged
+it, because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements;
+when I was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to
+Brussels; my existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or
+higher; I walk in as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would
+change again if I went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of
+Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to
+London, I would know something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make
+any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?”
+
+“I see, I see--now let us advert to another subject; you propose to
+devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher;
+you cannot keep your pupils in order.”
+
+A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she
+bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied--
+
+“Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice
+improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing,
+I can show no power in sewing, no superiority--it is a subordinate
+art; then I have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a
+heretic, which deprives me of influence.”
+
+“And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you
+of influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in
+England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you
+have here.”
+
+“But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably
+difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and
+perhaps be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to
+Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur--”
+
+She stopped--not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to
+express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said
+enough.”
+
+“Finish your phrase,” I urged.
+
+“Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are
+more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous
+walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house,
+monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the
+inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell
+lies; they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel
+hatred.”
+
+“All?” said I; “you mean the pupils--the mere children--inexperienced,
+giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
+right and wrong?”
+
+“On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere; they have
+not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
+lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but
+the grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive
+each other--”
+
+A servant here entered:--
+
+“Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
+petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet
+de Rosalie la portiere--c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la
+chercher--voyez-vous.”
+
+“Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri; then
+smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
+once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from
+the study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course,
+confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in
+English a channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a
+course of reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a
+few of which had been left her by her mother, and the others she had
+purchased with her own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all
+these she read with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of
+each work when she had perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in.
+Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon her
+improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those qualities in
+her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to have been denominated
+judgment and imagination. When I intimated so much, which I did as usual
+in dry and stinted phrase, I looked for the radiant and exulting smile
+my one word of eulogy had elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she
+did smile, it was very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me
+with a conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched
+over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on the
+margin of her book.
+
+“Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+returning.
+
+“But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too
+cool?”
+
+She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
+thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had
+it been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of
+my admiration--not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little
+affection--ever so little--pleased her better than all the panegyrics in
+the world. Feeling this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on
+the margin of her book. I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my
+occupation; something retained me bending there, my head very near
+hers, and my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an
+illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she took
+occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so
+disproportionately the period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to
+go. Distasteful effort--to leave what we most prefer!
+
+Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
+employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
+counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed,
+indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When
+I first saw her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless;
+she looked like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss
+anywhere in the world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving
+space for the dawn of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a
+clear morning, animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been
+pale. Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they
+with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by
+a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright
+hazel--irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils
+instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low
+spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than
+round, having vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom,
+and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of
+her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became
+rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of
+the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not
+regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight,
+though compact, elegant, flexible--the exquisite turning of waist,
+wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my notions of
+symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of movement which
+corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+
+Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a
+new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but
+steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when
+the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily,
+move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood
+of youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+
+To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the
+growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the
+said gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it
+was not difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish
+her starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that
+inward vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto
+forbidden to expand. Constancy of attention--a kindness as mute
+as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of
+austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of
+interest, or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming
+imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and
+that with devoted care: these were the means I used, for these means
+best suited Frances’ feelings, as susceptible as deep vibrating--her
+nature at once proud and shy.
+
+The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour
+as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air
+of spirit and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be
+obeyed--and obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over
+her. If any girl had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her
+rebellion to heart; she possessed a source of comfort they could not
+drain, a pillar of support they could not overthrow: formerly, when
+insulted, she wept; now, she smiled.
+
+The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her
+talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject--it was an emigrant’s
+letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural
+and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest
+and great, New-World river--barren of sail and flag--amidst which the
+epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that
+attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on
+that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him
+from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible
+independence, indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past
+days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were
+touched upon; feeling, forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every
+period. At the close, consolation was suggested; religious faith became
+there the speaker, and she spoke well.
+
+The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice,
+in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to
+understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could
+neither speak nor write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir,
+she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation
+of a “riviere” or open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she
+said nothing, and her face and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely
+negative expression, were as blank of comment as her lips. As neither
+surprise, pleasure, approbation, nor interest were evinced in her
+countenance, so no more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if
+that inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this--
+
+“The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an
+opinion.”
+
+As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round
+Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of
+the directress was now heard:--
+
+“Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten
+to return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a
+little), “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive
+to fetch them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock.
+
+“Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and
+signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish,
+for an instant, the castor I had clutched.
+
+“Mademoiselle, I am at your service.”
+
+“Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in
+young people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly
+industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance,
+Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other
+pupils? She is older than most of them, and has had advantages of an
+exclusive nature for acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other
+hand, her sphere of life is somewhat beneath theirs; under these
+circumstances, a public distinction, conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be
+the means of suggesting comparisons, and exciting feelings such as would
+be far from advantageous to the individual forming their object. The
+interest I take in Mdlle. Henri’s real welfare makes me desirous of
+screening her from annoyances of this sort; besides, monsieur, as I
+have before hinted to you, the sentiment of AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat
+marked preponderance in her character; celebrity has a tendency to
+foster this sentiment, and in her it should be rather repressed--she
+rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think,
+monsieur--it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially,
+is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not
+Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the
+quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if
+stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity? She may never marry;
+scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connections, uncertain
+as is her health (for I think her consumptive, her mother died of that
+complaint), it is more than probable she never will. I do not see how
+she can rise to a position, whence such a step would be possible; but
+even in celibacy it would be better for her to retain the character and
+habits of a respectable decorous female.”
+
+“Indisputably, mademoiselle,” was my answer. “Your opinion admits of no
+doubt;” and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under
+cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+
+At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find
+it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri’s usually
+regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her
+absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed
+some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information
+I wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles
+and gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and
+the seat at the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when
+no allusion was made to the circumstance by any individual of the
+class--when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence
+on the point--I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to break the ice of this
+silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I
+knew that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by
+wriggle, titter, or other flourish of folly.
+
+“Ou donc est Mdlle. Henri?” I said one day as I returned an
+exercise-book I had been examining.
+
+“Elle est partie, monsieur.”
+
+“Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?”
+
+“Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus.”
+
+“Ah!” was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:--
+
+“En etes-vous bien sure, Sylvie?”
+
+“Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l’a dit elle-meme
+il y a deux ou trois jours.”
+
+And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and
+circumstances forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on
+what had been said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the
+reason of the teacher’s departure, as to whether it had been voluntary
+or otherwise, was indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it--there were
+listeners all round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as
+she was putting on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:--
+
+“Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri’s address? I have some books of hers,”
+ I added carelessly, “and I should wish to send them to her.”
+
+“No, monsieur,” replied Sylvie; “but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will
+be able to give it you.”
+
+Rosalie’s cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the
+inquiry. Rosalie--a smart French grisette--looked up from her work with
+a knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to
+avoid exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever
+of Mdlle. Henri’s address--had never known it. Turning from her with
+impatience--for I believed she lied and was hired to lie--I almost
+knocked down some one who had been standing at my back; it was the
+directress. My abrupt movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was
+obliged to apologize, which I did more concisely than politely. No man
+likes to be dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then
+was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I
+turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes
+were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had
+scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a
+bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received with
+good-humoured facility.
+
+“Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your
+elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back,
+and passing her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more
+numerous and flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:
+
+“Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows
+of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be
+covered with dust.”
+
+Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter
+thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising
+a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more
+transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust
+the flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or
+two of plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery
+ground,” thought I; so I began:
+
+“Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment--been dismissed, I
+presume?”
+
+“Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied
+the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world;
+“but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a
+minute?” And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have
+before mentioned.
+
+“There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley,
+and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride,
+closing behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus
+imparted a sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the
+very core of a capital.
+
+“There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and
+rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes
+tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces
+always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in
+your ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole
+month in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien
+propre, tout entouree de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la
+vie champetre! N’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+
+“Cela depend, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was
+right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat
+in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my
+temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper
+than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of
+Mdlle. Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing
+the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue:--
+
+“I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?”
+
+“Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but
+my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish:
+have you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too
+short by twelve hours for your numerous duties?”
+
+“Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it
+had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being
+my pupil.”
+
+“Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never
+thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to
+attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary
+importance.”
+
+“You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant
+event?”
+
+“Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur,
+that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher
+has ever been dismissed from it.”
+
+“Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently--a change of
+instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives
+life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests
+to the parents the idea of exertion and progress.”
+
+“Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple to
+dismiss them?”
+
+“No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you.
+Allons, monsieur le professeur--asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une
+petite lecon dans votre etat d’instituteur.” (I wish I might write
+all she said to me in French--it loses sadly by being translated into
+English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair; the directress sat down,
+and signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat,
+and stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a
+huge laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves
+of a lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the
+retreat. Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were
+evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her
+astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D’OEUVRE of policy. Convinced
+by several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did
+not possess was unavailing to ensnare me--aware that I had read her real
+nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being
+hers--she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock
+of my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a
+glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then
+her blue eye glittered upon me--it did not flash--nothing of flame ever
+kindled in its temperate gleam.
+
+“Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully.
+
+“I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the
+habit of speaking to her bluntly--a habit begun in anger, but continued
+because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She cast
+down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she turned
+with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird that
+flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and
+seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.
+
+“Well--and your lesson?” I demanded briefly.
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank
+and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of
+vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done
+in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew
+that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your
+character--policy, as well as pride?”
+
+“Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so
+piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I
+passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and again she made room for
+me to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to
+my senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.
+
+“Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment,
+dismiss nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak
+truth), I despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending
+off one to the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying
+circumstances. I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?”
+ She looked up again; she had compounded her glance well this time--much
+archness, more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled
+consciousness of capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great
+Mogul; so I became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+
+“I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly
+down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so
+long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I
+don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract
+the attention and envy of my neighbours--I am merely passive; but when
+events fall out ill--when circumstances become adverse--I watch very
+vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now
+and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out--so--and give the rebellious
+circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends it the way
+I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my expedient.
+So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and inefficient--when,
+in short, the interests of the school would suffer from their retaining
+their places--I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide
+past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render
+untenable the post I wish to have vacated--the deed is done--the
+stumbling-block removed--and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I
+am rid of an incumbrance.”
+
+A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I
+looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer.
+“And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office,
+therefore you rendered it intolerable to her?”
+
+“Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health;
+no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed
+to discover the truth. I took--I have always taken a real interest in
+Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers;
+I thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent
+situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more
+than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself;
+she saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.”
+
+“Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me
+her address.”
+
+“Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of
+the directress. “Her address? Ah?--well--I wish I could oblige you,
+monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked
+her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought--I may
+be wrong--but I THOUGHT her motive for doing so, was a natural, though
+mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor
+abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere,
+doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’”
+
+“I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were
+born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to
+make a bugbear of her origin to me--I happen to know that she was a
+Swiss pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow
+means, I care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart
+overflows with affluence.”
+
+“Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress,
+affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her
+temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking
+pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was
+furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung
+low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the
+TETE-A-TETE and departed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real
+life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us
+fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade;
+they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of
+rapture--still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we
+rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour
+the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have
+plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained,
+stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties
+for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support,
+robbed of hope. Our agony is great, and how can it end? We have broken
+the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering--too feeble to
+conceive faith--death must be darkness--God, spirits, religion can have
+no place in our collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting
+recollections of vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave,
+and dissolution flings us in--a rag eaten through and through with
+disease, wrung together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by
+the inexorable heel of despair.
+
+But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses
+his property--it is a blow--he staggers a moment; then, his energies,
+roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon
+mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience--endures what
+he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where
+to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what
+he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his
+affections were twined--a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but
+some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and
+says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred
+again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that
+life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens
+her consolation by connecting with it two ideas--which mortals cannot
+comprehend, but on which they love to repose--Eternity, Immortality; and
+the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious,
+of heavenly hills all light and peace--of a spirit resting there in
+bliss--of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and
+disembodied--of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he
+takes courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the
+duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his
+mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+
+Well--and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be drawn
+therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil--my
+treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach;
+the inference to be drawn from it is--that, being a steady, reasonable
+man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief,
+engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any
+monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my
+heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In
+the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent
+system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber
+at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose
+nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in
+revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with
+their long, midnight cry.
+
+A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm
+in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at
+her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew
+had consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an
+instrument--the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday
+evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where
+she was sitting alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with
+the same tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the
+question for the first time--
+
+“Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of
+Frances Evans Henri?”
+
+A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any
+knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that
+I explained all about that circumstance before--a week ago?”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing
+me to that young person’s abode.”
+
+She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably
+counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am
+telling an untruth?”
+
+Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your
+intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?”
+
+“But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?”
+
+“Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have
+only two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in
+another month the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail
+yourself of the leisure it will afford you to look out for another
+English master--at the close of August, I shall be under the necessity
+of resigning my post in your establishment.”
+
+I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and
+immediately withdrew.
+
+That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small
+packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to
+see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to
+prevent my immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces,
+and a note in English.
+
+“MONSIEUR,
+
+“I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you
+would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go
+into the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said
+you were already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must
+be mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the
+same errand. In one sense a note will do as well--it will wrap up the
+20 francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it
+will not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition--if it will not
+bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done--if it will not tell you,
+as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you
+more--why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task. Had
+I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and
+unsatisfactory--something belying my feelings rather than explaining
+them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your
+presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great
+deal on fortitude in bearing grief--you said I introduced that theme too
+often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty
+than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a
+reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur--very kind;
+I am afflicted--I am heart-broken to be quite separated from you; soon
+I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you with my
+distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then say no
+more.
+
+“Farewell, Monsieur.
+
+“F. E. HENRI.”
+
+I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces
+into my purse--then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.
+
+“Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor;
+yet she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s
+lessons, and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she
+deprived herself to scrape together the twenty francs--I wonder what
+sort of a place she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt
+is, and whether she is likely to get employment to supply the place she
+has lost. No doubt she will have to trudge about long enough from school
+to school, to inquire here, and apply there--be rejected in this place,
+disappointed in that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired
+and unsuccessful. And the directress would not let her in to bid me
+good-bye? I might not have the chance of standing with her for a few
+minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of
+sentences--getting to know where she lived--putting matters in train
+for having all things arranged to my mind? No address on the note”--I
+continued, drawing it again from the pocket-book and examining it on
+each side of the two leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and
+always do business like women; men mechanically put a date and address
+to their communications. And these five-franc pieces?”--(I hauled them
+forth from my purse)--“if she had offered me them herself instead of
+tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of Lilliputian
+packet, I could have thrust them back into her little hand, and shut
+up the small, taper fingers over them--so--and compelled her shame, her
+pride, her shyness, all to yield to a little bit of determined Will--now
+where is she? How can I get at her?”
+
+Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+
+“Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to
+me.
+
+“Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.”
+
+“Did he say anything?”
+
+“Rien.”
+
+And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my
+inquiries.
+
+“No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No
+matter--I’ll seek her through Brussels.”
+
+And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure,
+for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on
+the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste.
+Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I
+attended these latter at the German, French, and English services, not
+doubting that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were
+absolutely fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the
+event to be equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood
+at the door of each chapel after the service, and waited till every
+individual had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form,
+peering under every bonnet covering a young head. In vain; I saw
+girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their sloping
+shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of Mdlle.
+Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces “encadrees” in bands of brown
+hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes, her eyebrows. All the
+features of all the faces I met seemed frittered away, because my eye
+failed to recognize the peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space
+of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line
+of eyebrow traced above.
+
+“She has probably left Brussels--perhaps is gone to England, as she
+said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth
+Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper
+had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the
+congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had
+soon outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious
+goodness! why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions
+of the high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and
+satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut
+coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the
+English service, filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it,
+issuing forth into the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with
+freshly and trimly attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut
+at the church of Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and
+the groups of pretty British children, and the British footmen and
+waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the Rue
+Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain--an old and quiet
+street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to
+go back and take my share of the “gouter,” now on the refectory-table
+at Pelet’s--to wit, pistolets and water--I stepped into a baker’s and
+refreshed myself on a COUC(?)--it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how
+to spell it--A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun--and a cup of coffee; and
+then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of
+the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I
+took my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and not
+a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels
+need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league
+from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over
+the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and
+trackless round the capital of Brabant. Having gained the summit of the
+hill, and having stood and looked long over the cultured but lifeless
+campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high road, which I had hitherto
+followed, and get in among those tilled grounds--fertile as the beds
+of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden--spreading far and wide even to the
+boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance changed
+them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with those of the livid
+and thunderous-looking sky. Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the
+right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into
+the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty
+white wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some
+thickly planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were
+the branches resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a
+massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its
+arms, which seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister
+trees. I approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden
+appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some
+stately residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a
+hut serving for a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the
+key--the gates were open; I pushed one leaf back--rain had rusted
+its hinges, for it groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting
+embowered the entrance. Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on
+each hand which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign,
+explained clearly to what abode I had made my way. This was the
+house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands of
+everlastings announced, “The Protestant Cemetery, outside the gate of
+Louvain.”
+
+The place was large enough to afford half an hour’s strolling without
+the monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who
+love to peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription
+enough to occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time.
+Hither people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their
+dead for interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of
+brass, were written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in
+English, in French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had
+erected a marble monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane
+Brown, and inscribed it only with her name. There the French widower had
+shaded the grave of his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket
+of roses, amidst which a little tablet rising, bore an equally bright
+testimony to her countless virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred,
+mourned after its own fashion; and how soundless was the mourning of
+all! My own tread, though slow and upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to
+startle, because it formed the sole break to a silence otherwise total.
+Not only the winds, but the very fitful, wandering airs, were that
+afternoon, as by common consent, all fallen asleep in their various
+quarters; the north was hushed, the south silent, the east sobbed not,
+nor did the west whisper. The clouds in heaven were condensed and
+dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the trees of this cemetery
+nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the cypresses stood up
+straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and still; where
+the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night dew or
+thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible to
+sun or shadow, to rain or drought.
+
+Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf,
+and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the
+stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted
+vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade
+passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I
+soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing
+nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and
+evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat
+which I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight
+of her before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was
+the white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall,
+and, at the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned
+up, a new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close
+behind her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, “Julienne
+Henri, died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18--.” Having perused
+the inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful
+just under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it
+was a slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black
+stuff, with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as
+saw, who it was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments
+enjoying the security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and
+had never discovered one of her traces--never met a hope, or seized
+a chance of encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my
+grasp on expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under
+the discouraging thought that the current of life, and the impulse
+of destiny, had swept her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while
+bending suddenly earthward beneath the pressure of despondency--while
+following with my eyes the track of sorrow on the turf of a
+graveyard--here was my lost jewel dropped on the tear-fed herbage,
+nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of yew-trees.
+
+Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand.
+I knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change;
+at last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the
+stone before her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those
+constrictions with which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are,
+at times, so sorely oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped
+away, again and again, with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs
+escaped her, and then, the paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put
+my hand gently on her shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for
+she was neither hysterical nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push,
+indeed, might have startled her, but the contact of my quiet touch
+merely woke attention as I wished; and, though she turned quickly, yet
+so lightning-swift is thought--in some minds especially--I believe the
+wonder of what--the consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares
+on her solitude, had passed through her brain, and flashed into her
+heart, even before she had effected that hasty movement; at least,
+Amazement had hardly opened her eyes and raised them to mine, ere
+Recognition informed their irids with most speaking brightness. Nervous
+surprise had hardly discomposed her features ere a sentiment of most
+vivid joy shone clear and warm on her whole countenance. I had hardly
+time to observe that she was wasted and pale, ere called to feel a
+responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most full and exquisite
+pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in the expansive
+light, now diffused over my pupil’s face. It was the summer sun flashing
+out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more rapidly than
+that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour?
+
+I hate boldness--that boldness which is of the brassy brow and insensate
+nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour of the
+generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans’ clear
+hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved the
+tones with which she uttered the words--
+
+“Mon maitre! mon maitre!”
+
+I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I
+loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist
+charmless, for me a treasure--my best object of sympathy on earth,
+thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my
+ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification
+of discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of
+self-denial and self-control--those guardians, those trusty keepers of
+the gift I longed to confer on her--the gift of all my affections;
+model of truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness--those
+refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well
+of tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless,
+of natural feeling, natural passion--those sources of refreshment and
+comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the
+well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned
+safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a
+moment high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life’s current
+in its channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its
+blaze to embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect
+for her, and as I drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the
+cemetery, I felt I had another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as
+firm as respect, more fervid than either--that of love.
+
+“Well, my pupil,” said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind
+us--“Well, I have found you again: a month’s search has seemed long,
+and I little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst
+graves.”
+
+Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, and to speak
+thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised
+me that this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in
+her heart:
+
+“Mon maitre,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little
+imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to
+be taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier
+troubles ought to have made me forget it.”
+
+“Your aunt is dead?”
+
+“Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not
+chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night
+of her existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone,
+so friendless:’ she wished too that she could have been buried in
+Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the
+banks of Lake Leman, and to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat
+region of Flanders. Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and
+taken her remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I
+was forced to lay her here.”
+
+“She was ill but a short time, I presume?”
+
+“But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter’s leave
+to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.”
+
+“Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily.
+
+“Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one
+evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room
+to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is;
+afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to
+go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your
+departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have
+taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished
+in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest
+need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply
+your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can,
+though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will
+be your part now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure
+you will everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your
+talents.’ And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary. I asked, as
+mademoiselle would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to
+discharge me from the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of
+speech, and answered that ‘our connection as employer and employed was
+certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of
+my acquaintance; she should always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and
+then she said something about the excellent condition of the streets,
+and the long continuance of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful.”
+
+I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress--so like what I
+had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof
+of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:--“She had frequently
+applied for Mdlle. Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle. Henri had always
+evaded giving it,” &c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very
+house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+
+Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication,
+were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the
+path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning
+obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take
+the road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and
+those of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly.
+There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before
+heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de
+Louvain, and were again in the city.
+
+“Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home.”
+
+“Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances.
+
+It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps
+of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and
+shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent,
+heavy, prone, and broad.
+
+“Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house,
+I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the
+threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and
+followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a
+projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood;
+none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute
+more and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
+
+Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room
+with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the
+articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean;
+order reigned through its narrow limits--such order as it soothed my
+punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode,
+because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter’s hint about its
+extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the
+lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be;
+poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had
+but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have
+deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and
+no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself
+that indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole
+relative, she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances
+went into an inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a
+model of frugal neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so
+accurately defining her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless
+white collar turned back from a fair and shapely neck, with her
+plenteous brown hair arranged in smooth bands on her temples, and in
+a large Grecian plait behind: ornaments she had none--neither brooch,
+ring, nor ribbon; she did well enough without them--perfection of fit,
+proportion of form, grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place.
+Her eye, as she re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought
+mine, which was just then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at
+once the sort of inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of
+that hearth stirred in my soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine,
+and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron
+round her waist; then she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket;
+it had a cover; she opened it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and
+compactly she arranged them in the grate.
+
+“It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,”
+ thought I.
+
+“What are you going to do?” I asked: “not surely to light a fire this
+hot evening? I shall be smothered.”
+
+“Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides,
+I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
+obliged to try and bear the heat.”
+
+She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
+contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without,
+that peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth,
+seemed very cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced
+that another being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a
+black cat, roused by the light from its sleep on a little cushioned
+foot-stool, came and rubbed its head against Frances’ gown as she knelt;
+she caressed it, saying it had been a favourite with her “pauvre tante
+Julienne.”
+
+The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very
+antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old
+farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands
+were washed, and her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a
+cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a
+china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote
+antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each
+saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid
+on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy
+silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these
+preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes,
+she smiled and asked--
+
+“Is this like England, monsieur?”
+
+“Like the England of a hundred years ago,” I replied.
+
+“Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred
+years old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
+great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my
+mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them
+to me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like
+to carry them back to England, whence they came.”
+
+She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do
+make tea--i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups;
+she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of
+exaltation--
+
+“Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?”
+
+“If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,” I
+answered; and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the
+fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal,
+and speaking in the English language.
+
+“You have then no home?” was her remark.
+
+“None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own
+making, and the task is yet to begin.” And, as I spoke, a pang, new to
+me, shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility
+of my position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was
+born a strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more;
+and in the increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to
+include the home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+
+Frances’ tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her
+pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my
+palate as manna.
+
+The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and
+put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, “le chat de ma tante
+Julienne” also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for
+its special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too,
+being swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she
+took a chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little
+embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched
+her rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements
+a little too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by
+the grace and alertness of her action--by the deft, cleanly, and even
+decorative effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine
+fingers; and when, at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence
+of her face seemed beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her
+colour, however, rising, rather than settling with repose, and her eyes
+remaining downcast, though I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that
+I might drink a ray of the light I loved--a light where fire dissolved
+in softness, where affection tempered penetration, where, just now
+at least, pleasure played with thought--this expectation not being
+gratified, I began at last to suspect that I had probably myself to
+blame for the disappointment; I must cease gazing, and begin talking,
+if I wished to break the spell under which she now sat motionless; so
+recollecting the composing effect which an authoritative tone and manner
+had ever been wont to produce on her, I said--
+
+“Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls
+heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer.”
+
+Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at
+once the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected “Paradise
+Lost” from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious
+character of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at
+the beginning, and while she read Milton’s invocation to that heavenly
+muse, who on the “secret top of Oreb or Sinai” had taught the Hebrew
+shepherd how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had
+originated and ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of
+having her near me, hearing the sound of her voice--a sound sweet and
+satisfying in my ear--and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this
+last privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an
+intonation, a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might
+also gaze, without exciting too warm a flush.
+
+“Enough,” said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a
+work of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and
+receive information)--“enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must
+soon go.” For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I
+saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the
+setting August sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through
+the lattice. I got up; I drew on my gloves.
+
+“You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that
+from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?”
+
+“No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me
+for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the
+directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably
+towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and
+thereby render me unhappy while I held my place in her establishment,
+and she eventually deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical
+manoeuvre, pretending that she was acting for my good, but really
+snatching from me my chief means of subsistence, at a crisis when not
+only my own life, but that of another, depended on my exertions: of her
+I will never more ask a favour.”
+
+“How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?”
+
+“I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from
+starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment
+yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes
+are by no means worn out yet.”
+
+“And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?”
+
+“To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my
+Canaan.”
+
+“Well, well--ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening now,”
+ and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong inward
+impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so
+natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one
+kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable--that was all I
+wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason
+denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and
+my steps from her apartment--to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would
+have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be
+avenged one day. “I’ll earn a right to do as I please in this matter,
+or I’ll die in the contest. I have one object before me now--to get that
+Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be--that is, provided
+she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has
+for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my
+instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate
+or correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?” for I had ever
+remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when
+I entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few
+words, given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she
+would, all at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene
+and revived. The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she
+would chip away with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a
+little, pouting a little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I
+deprived her of the pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away,
+and when I interdicted even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose
+of working up the subdued excitement a little higher, she would at last
+raise her eyes and give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and
+pointed with defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had
+ever done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know
+it), her subject, if not her slave. After such little scenes her spirits
+would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, as I remarked
+before, her health therefrom took a sustenance and vigour which,
+previously to the event of her aunt’s death and her dismissal, had
+almost recreated her whole frame.
+
+It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had
+thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the
+stairs from Frances’ room. Just as I was opening the outer door,
+I remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused:
+impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back
+on their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode,
+witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious
+care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her
+little home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused
+paying her debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be
+accepted from no hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four
+five-franc pieces were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get
+rid of them. An expedient--a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I
+could devise-suggested itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked,
+re-entered the room as if in haste:--
+
+“Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it
+here.”
+
+She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I--being now
+at the hearth--noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of china
+ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups--slipped the money under it,
+then saying--“Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within the fender;
+good evening, mademoiselle,” I made my second exit.
+
+Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick
+up a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red
+embers of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate
+every item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure
+retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+
+“I am glad it is not yet winter,” thought I; “but in two months more
+come the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I
+could earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate AD
+LIBITUM!”
+
+Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the
+air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a
+sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious
+in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward,
+I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an
+evening rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked long;
+my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed
+it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time,
+watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
+retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell
+asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of
+clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned
+over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not
+fathom, but hearing an endless dash of waves, I believed it to be the
+sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense
+blue: all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold
+glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, approached,
+enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth,
+under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused behind.
+It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air streamed like
+raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured what seemed
+face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an angel’s
+forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed to the
+bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered--
+
+“Hope smiles on Effort!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and
+resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With
+August the school-year (l’annee scolaire) closed, the examinations
+concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of
+all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till
+the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand,
+and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement
+of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing
+my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had
+voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l.
+per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very precarious
+tenure.
+
+It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight
+walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where
+that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that
+event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed,
+ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice,
+had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship,
+would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as
+a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile
+for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to
+take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and
+very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the
+directress (which he still continued) were heard with a grim calm very
+different from the petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite.
+For a long time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently;
+he even increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing
+politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in
+his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance became
+suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet brooding aspect
+of his brow, a constant examination and comparison of premises, and an
+anxious endeavour to draw thence some explanatory inference. Ere long,
+I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not without penetration; perhaps, too,
+Mdlle. Zoraide might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at
+any rate I soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from
+his manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he
+adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite deportment.
+This was the point to which I had wished to bring him, and I was now
+again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it is true, like my position
+in his house; but being freed from the annoyance of false professions
+and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as no heroic sentiment
+of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my philosophical soul;
+he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so
+soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for
+the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting
+mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in the
+dark.
+
+This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
+there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
+usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous
+with him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen,
+he had also one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk,
+however, was he upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole
+establishment (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes
+in a building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the
+reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering
+lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas
+the city bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated
+the servants for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise
+his poor old mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving
+dreadfully about “le maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired;
+some German books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the
+uproar below, and could distinguish the director’s voice exalted in
+a manner as appalling as it was unusual. Opening my door a little, I
+became aware of a demand on his part for “Creemsvort” to be brought
+down to him that he might cut his throat on the hall-table and wash
+his honour, which he affirmed to be in a dirty condition, in infernal
+British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,” thought I, “and in either
+case the old woman and the servants will be the better of a man’s
+assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I found him staggering
+about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just
+medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+
+“Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of
+his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
+of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
+struggled and struck with fury--but a drunken man is no match for a
+sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could
+not have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in
+process of time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to
+utter comminations which, though broken, had a sense in them; while
+stigmatizing me as the treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he,
+in the same breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her “femme
+sotte et vicieuse,” who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself
+away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the last
+appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the
+act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him;
+but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me,
+I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning,
+and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just
+witnessed.
+
+Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by
+my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
+suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her
+own laying--was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
+which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in
+that quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my
+employer, that his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her
+affections--inclinations, rather, I would say; affection is a word at
+once too warm and too pure for the subject--had let him see that the
+cavity of her hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by
+that of his usher. It was not without some surprise that I found
+myself obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with
+his old-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a
+match--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered
+mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment
+over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that,
+not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
+partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the
+jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
+deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality--and your pure
+morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!” Hers, I
+thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural
+tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
+sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of
+a prosperous CHEF D’INSTITUTION. I smiled inwardly; and strange to say,
+though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited not disagreeably by the conquest, my
+better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
+and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
+notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could
+not love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly
+some interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern
+bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some
+time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they
+sealed up all that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature;
+sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart.
+I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the
+change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a
+slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred!
+There was at once a sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious
+incense from an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating
+sense of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she
+stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once barbarous
+and sensual as a pasha. I endured her homage sometimes; sometimes I
+rebuked it. My indifference or harshness served equally to increase the
+evil I desired to check.
+
+“Que le dedain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother:
+“il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.”
+
+And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
+bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
+straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait
+tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses besicles.”
+
+Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
+little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful
+words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her
+daughter.
+
+When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
+recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
+fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
+been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to
+wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed
+that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough
+Frenchman, the national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted
+by nature in compounding the ingredients of his character; it had
+appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
+demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
+character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
+contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light
+blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely
+avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his
+politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled
+sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and
+discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
+constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise
+each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau
+under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when
+I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice
+in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective,
+yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud
+and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a
+certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure
+and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I
+longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the
+rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot
+in the light of a Spartan virtue.
+
+But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
+and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
+teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
+interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil,
+and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
+resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
+Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment
+that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
+difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain
+highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
+When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
+the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
+she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both
+in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon
+proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed
+to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his,
+for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding
+graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting
+self-complacency, more ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s
+life had been passed in proper French style with due disregard to moral
+restraint, and I thought his married life promised to be very French
+also. He often boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain
+husbands of his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult
+to pay him back in his own coin.
+
+The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
+preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises
+of Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set
+to work, and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de
+Madame.” Not deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced
+with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm
+of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her
+use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the
+kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be
+the tenant of these gay chambers.
+
+Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
+another week’s time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraide
+Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of
+matrimony. Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating
+his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
+continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend;
+and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs
+per annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and,
+when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out
+on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to
+cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some
+order. In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal.
+I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the
+conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to
+become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller
+in the house which was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards
+me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former
+feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
+Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would
+shiver their restraints.
+
+I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I stayed,
+the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical modern
+French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of
+the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my
+taste, either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my
+experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating,
+near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of
+interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction
+was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very
+loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by
+the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious
+influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced
+and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now
+regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote
+to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that
+unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and
+envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison
+cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.
+
+From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and
+that instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how
+to live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri
+seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her
+hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not
+relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from
+hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with
+heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle
+bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and
+sometimes waken pleasurable dread. My hopes to will and possess, my
+resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was
+about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; “and all this,”
+ suggested an inward voice, “because you fear an evil which may never
+happen!” “It will happen; you KNOW it will,” answered that stubborn
+monitor, Conscience. “Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in
+the sloughs of want I will plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I
+walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea
+of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence
+desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil
+in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in
+the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which
+His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil--sought to lead me astray.
+Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and
+declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but
+whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists,
+would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself
+to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the
+velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the
+man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
+retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought
+him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner
+proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my
+decision. After twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room,
+self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present
+home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my
+thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some
+of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and
+with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out
+of the question; the postman’s arrival had never yet been an event of
+interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on
+the documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to
+break the seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited
+me, as if I had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover
+a blank page: on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a
+lady’s clear, fine autograph; the last I opened first:--
+
+“MONSIEUR,
+
+“I FOUND out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me;
+you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but
+you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current
+in Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the
+chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping
+to look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should
+imagine it had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money
+is not mine, and I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note
+because it might be lost--besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it
+to you the first time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about
+taking it; because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can
+understand that one likes to pay one’s debts; that it is satisfactory
+to owe no man anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well
+afford to be honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last
+circumstance is, indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is
+pleasant to communicate good news; and, in these days, I have only my
+master to whom I can tell anything.
+
+“A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English
+lady; her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich
+relation having made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old
+lace, as precious, they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by
+time, I was commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the
+house; they gave me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly
+a week elapsed before I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss
+Wharton often came into the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs.
+Wharton; they made me talk English; asked how I had learned to speak it
+so well; then they inquired what I knew besides--what books I had read;
+soon they seemed to make a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt
+as a learned grisette. One afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian
+lady to test the accuracy of my knowledge of French; the result of
+it was that, owing probably in a great degree to the mother’s and
+daughter’s good humour about the marriage, which inclined them to
+do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think, because they are naturally
+benevolent people, they decided that the wish I had expressed to do
+something more than mend lace was a very legitimate one; and the same
+day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.’s, who is the directress
+of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she happened to be in
+want of a French lady to give lessons in geography, history, grammar,
+and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton recommended me
+very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are pupils in the
+house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was settled that I
+am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not required that
+I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to leave my
+lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred francs per
+annum.
+
+“You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than
+I ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
+beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
+getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
+able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should
+fall ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great
+measure, removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for
+the relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness
+to some one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others
+joyful. I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you;
+I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will
+not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to
+read. Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of
+expression, and, believe me
+
+“Your attached pupil,
+
+“F. E. HENRI.”
+
+Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few
+moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will
+hereafter note--and then took up the other. It was directed in a hand
+to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly
+feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which I could only
+decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe family, consequently the
+epistle could be from none of my almost forgotten, and certainly quite
+forgetting patrician relations. From whom, then, was it? I removed the
+envelope; the note folded within ran as follows:
+
+“I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
+Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like
+a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots
+of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
+sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
+drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
+fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any
+one in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy
+of my recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in
+clover, and yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have
+you ever offered in return; but I am coming to see you, and small
+conception can you, with your addled aristocratic brains, form of the
+sort of moral kicking I have, ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to
+be presented to you immediately on my arrival.
+
+“Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information,
+by Brown’s last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming
+an advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress--a
+Mdlle. Zenobie, or some such name. Won’t I have a look at her when I
+come over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I
+think it worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I’ll pounce on your
+prize and bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don’t
+like dumpies either, and Brown says she is little and stout--the better
+fitted for a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. “Be on the look-out,
+for you know neither the day nor hour when your ----” (I don’t wish to
+blaspheme, so I’ll leave a blank)--cometh.
+
+“Yours truly,
+
+“HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN.”
+
+“Humph!” said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the
+small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor,
+indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities
+between the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here?
+I recalled the writer’s peculiar face and certain traits I suspected,
+rather than knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, “A great
+deal.”
+
+Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when;
+coming charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of
+prosperity, about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie
+comfortably down by the side of a snug, well-fed little mate.
+
+“I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,” thought
+I. “What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves,
+billing and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean
+cormorant, standing mateless and shelterless on poverty’s bleak cliff?
+Oh, confound him! Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast
+between rumour and fact. Were he the devil himself, instead of being
+merely very like him, I’d not condescend to get out of his way, or to
+forge a smile or a cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm.”
+
+Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I
+could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated
+within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a
+groan.
+
+That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of
+excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her
+first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing
+it with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her
+letter were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying
+my lips for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with
+vinegar and gall.
+
+Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels
+on an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for
+one in London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so
+much dearer in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the
+former, but because the English surpass in folly all the nations on
+God’s earth, and are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to
+the desire to keep up a certain appearance, than the Italians are to
+priestcraft, the French to vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or
+the Germans to black beer. I have seen a degree of sense in the modest
+arrangement of one homely Belgian household, that might put to shame the
+elegance, the superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of
+a hundred genteel English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can
+make money, you may save it; this is scarcely possible in England;
+ostentation there lavishes in a month what industry has earned in a
+year. More shame to all classes in that most bountiful and beggarly
+country for their servile following of Fashion; I could write a chapter
+or two on this subject, but must forbear, at least for the present. Had
+I retained my 60l. per annum I could, now that Frances was in possession
+of 50l., have gone straight to her this very evening, and spoken out the
+words which, repressed, kept fretting my heart with fever; our united
+income would, as we should have managed it, have sufficed well for
+our mutual support; since we lived in a country where economy was not
+confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress, food, and furniture,
+was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various points. But the
+placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by connections, must
+not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word as marriage,
+were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the first time did
+I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice I had made
+in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect; instead of
+a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light and
+fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading influence
+of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the wall to
+the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at the
+wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:--
+
+“Down, stupid tormenters!” cried she; “the man has done his duty;
+you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he
+relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and
+certain evil he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding
+dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path.”
+
+I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and
+thought an hour--two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a
+subterranean vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured
+by yard-thick stone walls around, and by piles of building above,
+expecting light to penetrate through granite, and through cement firm
+as granite. But there are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the
+best adjusted masonry; there was a chink in my cavernous cell; for,
+eventually, I saw, or seemed to see, a ray--pallid, indeed, and cold,
+and doubtful, but still a ray, for it showed that narrow path which
+conscience had promised after two, three hours’ torturing research in
+brain and memory, I disinterred certain remains of circumstances, and
+conceived a hope that by putting them together an expedient might be
+framed, and a resource discovered. The circumstances were briefly these:
+
+Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his fete, given
+the boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a
+certain place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which
+I do not at this moment remember the name, but near it were several of
+those lakelets called etangs; and there was one etang, larger than the
+rest, where on holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by
+rowing round it in little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited
+quantity of “gaufres,” and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid
+the shades of a garden made and provided for such crams, petitioned
+the director for leave to take a row on the etang. Half a dozen of the
+eldest succeeded in obtaining leave, and I was commissioned to accompany
+them as surveillant. Among the half dozen happened to be a certain Jean
+Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but
+even now, at the early age of sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of
+personal development truly national. It chanced that Jean was the first
+lad to step into the boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat
+revolted at his weight and capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose,
+sank again. My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been
+brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten long years
+for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue.
+The lads and the boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths
+by drowning instead of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched
+him by one leg and the collar, and in three minutes more both he and I
+were safe landed. To speak heaven’s truth, my merit in the action was
+small indeed, for I had run no risk, and subsequently did not even catch
+cold from the wetting; but when M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean
+Baptiste was the sole hope, came to hear of the exploit, they seemed
+to think I had evinced a bravery and devotion which no thanks could
+sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular, was “certain I must have
+dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus have hazarded my own
+life to save his.” Monsieur, an honest-looking, though phlegmatic man,
+said very little, but he would not suffer me to leave the room, till
+I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of help I would, by
+applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the obligation under
+which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were my glimmer of
+light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth, though the cold
+light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem such as I
+should like to pass through. Right I had none to M. Vandenhuten’s good
+offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could apply to him; no, I
+must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I wanted work; my best
+chance of obtaining it lay in securing his recommendation. This I knew
+could be had by asking for it; not to ask, because the request revolted
+my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of
+false and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my
+life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+
+That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and
+adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the
+great door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the
+town); a manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten
+and family were all out of town--gone to Ostend--did not know when they
+would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized
+at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in
+about an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers
+phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous
+arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the
+pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon
+transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In
+half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf,
+and the “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day
+had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame
+aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid
+that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my
+prospects.
+
+It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had nothing
+to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
+occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I
+knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers,
+infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
+
+“You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your
+seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement;
+you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as
+you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads;
+chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you
+know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused;
+you have the secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can
+choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as
+long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent
+spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her
+lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know,
+she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of
+strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic
+claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few
+could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under
+the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide
+her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go--they are not passions; you
+may handle them safely.”
+
+“I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master
+of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances
+to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her
+only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
+
+“No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
+now controlled me.
+
+Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but
+I thought the hands were paralyzed.
+
+“What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
+had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair,
+I wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were
+as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the
+calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings.
+What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in
+inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY door; a
+smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over
+the threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
+
+“And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
+language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
+put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing
+the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
+tranquilly therein.
+
+“Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether
+I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to
+my good friends “les besicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of
+my visitor--for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
+how he looked--to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance.
+I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
+deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose
+or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
+window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a
+position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he
+preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no
+mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude;
+with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray
+pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature
+ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could
+be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no
+use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry
+to address him, I sat and stared at my ease.
+
+“Oh, that’s your game--is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see which
+is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one
+to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand,
+then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he
+had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X---shire, England. I knew
+he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
+conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I
+said,--
+
+“You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
+
+“It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the
+spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went
+there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in
+a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had
+departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though,
+which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution
+than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
+
+“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
+assigned to me as my wife.”
+
+“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both
+your wife and your place?”
+
+“Precisely so.”
+
+I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
+narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended
+the state of matters--had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
+curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
+certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour,
+lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he
+would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case
+have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have
+come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on
+its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless
+solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what
+softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke
+again.
+
+“You have got another place?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You are in the way of getting one?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
+in such matters.”
+
+“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
+humour to bother him again.”
+
+“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”
+
+“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me
+an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a den where I
+was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
+positively adding another item to the account.”
+
+“If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled
+generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
+duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it
+shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right,
+lad--make much of me--I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the
+common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for
+a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what
+is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that
+offers it.”
+
+“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+something else. What news from X----?”
+
+“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
+before we get to X----. Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraide, interposed
+I)--“well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?”
+
+“I tell you yes--and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St.
+Jacques.”
+
+“And your heart is broken?”
+
+“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual.”
+
+“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must
+be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
+under it.”
+
+“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
+circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
+The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their
+look-out--not mine.”
+
+“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
+
+“Who said so?”
+
+“Brown.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip.”
+
+“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than
+fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide--why, O
+youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her
+becoming Madame Pelet?”
+
+“Because--” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because--in short, Mr.
+Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands
+deep in my breeches pocket.
+
+Hunsden triumphed: his eyes--his laugh announced victory.
+
+“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
+
+“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how
+it is: Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer, as any sensible
+woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
+
+I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into
+an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
+false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
+instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render
+him doubtful about it; he went on:--
+
+“I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always
+are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your
+talents--such as they are--in exchange for her position and money: I
+don’t suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the
+account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather
+sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making
+a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but
+Pelet--the head of a flourishing school--stepped in with a higher bid;
+she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction--perfectly
+so--business-like and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
+
+“Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to
+have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed, I had
+baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
+his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
+idea.
+
+“You want to hear news from X----? And what interest can you have in
+X----? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks
+after you--neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company,
+the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer
+covertly. Our X---- belles must have disliked you. How did you excite
+their displeasure?”
+
+“I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me. I
+considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance;
+their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but
+I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their
+countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never
+make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at
+all.”
+
+“That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as
+handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to,
+and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
+address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
+remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
+hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
+frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
+the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do
+you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if
+you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
+
+“Content!” I ejaculated.
+
+“No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on
+you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
+desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will for ever to you be
+the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they will
+tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
+have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them
+sour.”
+
+Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they
+drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied
+since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
+in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk--a dependant amongst wealthy
+strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial
+and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure
+would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would
+be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and
+loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
+leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under
+the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he
+was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar
+sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well
+enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences,
+powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under
+other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me,
+because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant
+the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him
+and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her
+blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were
+they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD
+impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of
+tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden’s
+sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all
+this I could say nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed
+my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
+Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged
+by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard
+upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to
+re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at
+the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without
+sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
+
+Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
+minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved,
+however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:--
+
+“Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he
+was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as
+to say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone
+in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m
+independent of both Fate and Fortune.’”
+
+“Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better
+than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing wild, which I
+have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no
+use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with
+death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the
+hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the
+exhausting.”
+
+“For how long?”
+
+“Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will
+be a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the
+struggle.”
+
+“Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
+dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on
+it.”
+
+“I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
+people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a
+wooden spoon will shovel up broth.”
+
+Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who
+develop best unwatched, and act best unaided--work your own way. Now,
+I’ll go.” And, without another word, he was going; at the door he
+turned:--
+
+“Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he.
+
+“Sold!” was my echo.
+
+“Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?”
+
+“What! Edward Crimsworth?”
+
+“Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went
+awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
+would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--”
+
+“Ay, as to him--what is become of him?”
+
+“Nothing extraordinary--don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the
+protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in
+the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
+flourishing like a green bay-tree.”
+
+“And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?”
+
+“Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.”
+
+“And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?”
+
+“Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
+sacred than those of any other?”
+
+“And the pictures?”
+
+“What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he
+did not profess to be an amateur.”
+
+“There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
+have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--”
+
+“Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
+things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember
+you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a
+sou.”
+
+I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so
+poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who purchased it? do
+you know?” I asked.
+
+“How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
+the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what
+interests himself! Now, good night--I’m off for Germany to-morrow
+morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call
+and see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!”
+ he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so
+laughing, vanished.
+
+Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
+space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just
+at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a
+draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially
+harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely
+knew.
+
+A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night
+after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my
+slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in
+my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of
+furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing
+of the door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I
+had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my
+apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor
+the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
+rise, about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
+thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed
+in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a
+wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter
+had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had
+left it at the entrance.
+
+“That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for
+somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:--
+
+“Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels.”
+
+I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information
+was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize
+enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the
+pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses
+of gilding appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize
+being at length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a
+magnificent frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the
+light from the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I
+had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and
+threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of
+hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed
+with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds;
+large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested
+on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half
+showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard
+me, after ten minutes’ silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might
+have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy
+rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to
+themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
+I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the
+intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine,
+grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility
+of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a
+narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
+the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent this picture? Who thought of
+me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to
+the care of its natural keeper?” I took the note from its niche; thus it
+spoke:--
+
+“There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
+bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
+with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of
+him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone.
+In giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets,
+bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold
+the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the
+auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.
+
+“H. Y. H.
+
+“P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item
+to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that trouble?”
+
+I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
+case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it
+out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain;
+I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden
+had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you
+nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself
+in taunts!”
+
+Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
+than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find
+him at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but
+fancying I might be able to glean information as to the time when his
+return was expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated,
+for though the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over
+to Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet
+kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat five
+minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware of a sense
+of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced with strangers.
+I was surprised at my own composure, for, after all, I had come on
+business to me exceedingly painful--that of soliciting a favour. I asked
+on what basis the calm rested--I feared it might be deceptive. Ere long
+I caught a glimpse of the ground, and at once I felt assured of its
+solidity; I knew where it was.
+
+M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised
+and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the
+world’s society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our
+positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure
+Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound
+and accurate judgment; the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker
+both to plan and to practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman
+was benevolent, the Englishman susceptible; in short our characters
+dovetailed, but my mind having more fire and action than his,
+instinctively assumed and kept the predominance.
+
+This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him
+on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
+confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
+to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
+exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not
+so much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself;
+of him I did not want exertion--that was to be my part--but only
+information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
+hand at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners
+than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
+benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
+own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
+of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+
+The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence
+during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which
+are specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
+expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
+zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
+each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
+on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure
+them for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were
+vain--the door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in,
+or another candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance
+useless. Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat
+following fast on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot
+fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I
+persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced
+into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My
+perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was
+inquired about; my former pupils’ parents, gathering the reports of
+their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the
+word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which,
+but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at the very
+crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew not what to do, Fortune
+looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate
+deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old
+acquaintance--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a
+prize into my lap.
+
+In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of English
+professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels, with a salary
+of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being able, by
+dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position, to make
+as much more by private means. The official notice, which communicated
+this information, mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation
+of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in my
+favour.
+
+No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s
+bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused
+it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity.
+My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted
+sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had
+done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only
+scratched a few words on a sheet of paper.
+
+Again I repeated to him--
+
+“You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not
+feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel
+disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day
+you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall
+hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.”
+
+“Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
+content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just
+brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down
+thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken
+glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more
+signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food
+which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then
+demanded, “What shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would
+be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me
+it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the
+streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o’clock
+till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my
+chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and
+feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson,
+my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and
+calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see
+Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful
+screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from
+the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold
+to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men
+had their coats buttoned close.
+
+When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
+worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
+tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had
+seen her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered
+her letter by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of
+continued correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my
+bark hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what
+shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then
+attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split
+on the rock, or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other
+vessel should share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and
+could it be that she was still well and doing well? Were not all sages
+agreed in declaring that happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared
+I think that but half a street now divided me from the full cup of
+contentment--the draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+
+I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
+lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
+green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+
+“Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer;
+I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly
+staying my eager step, I paused on the mat.
+
+“What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to
+myself. A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied;
+a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life
+continuing, a step paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and
+forwards, in the apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated
+when a voice rewarded the attention of my strained ear--so low, so
+self-addressed, I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone;
+solitude might speak thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken
+house.
+
+
+    “‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said,
+      ‘Was yon dark cavern trod;
+      In persecution’s iron days,
+       When the land was left by God.
+      From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red,
+       A wanderer hither drew;
+      And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head,
+       As by fits the night-winds blew.
+      For trampling round by Cheviot-edge
+       Were heard the troopers keen;
+      And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge
+       The death-shot flash’d between.’” etc. etc.
+
+The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued;
+then another strain followed, in French, of which the purport,
+translated, ran as follows:--
+
+
+     I gave, at first, attention close;
+      Then interest warm ensued;
+     From interest, as improvement rose,
+      Succeeded gratitude.
+
+     Obedience was no effort soon,
+      And labour was no pain;
+     If tired, a word, a glance alone
+      Would give me strength again.
+
+     From others of the studious band,
+      Ere long he singled me;
+     But only by more close demand,
+      And sterner urgency.
+
+     The task he from another took,
+      From me he did reject;
+     He would no slight omission brook,
+      And suffer no defect.
+
+     If my companions went astray,
+      He scarce their wanderings blam’d;
+     If I but falter’d in the way,
+      His anger fiercely flam’d.
+
+Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be
+surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered.
+Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly in her room,
+and her step was checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and
+tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark,
+she had been speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s
+voice, to her a foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered
+itself in the first stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and
+the substance, was the language of her own heart. Her face was grave,
+its expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye
+just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged
+was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room;
+but what--with her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her
+bent to meditation and haply inspiration--what had she to do with love?
+“Nothing,” was the answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it
+seemed to say, “I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is
+to be my support and the other my solace through life. Human affections
+do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me.” Other women have such
+thoughts. Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not
+have been worse off than thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and
+formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed
+themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.
+Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so
+continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last
+it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and
+they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment
+and much bone. Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the
+withered old maid’s carcass--the same as in that of any cherished wife
+or proud mother in the land. Can this be so? I really don’t know; but
+feel inclined to doubt it.
+
+I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair
+I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little
+table where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had
+fully recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft
+but quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took
+her cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met,
+as master and pupil--nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
+Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought
+a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the
+lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright
+fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat down at my right
+hand, a little removed. The paper on the top was a translation of
+some grave French author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with
+stanzas; on this I laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to
+recover the captured spoil, saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of
+verses. I put by resistance with the decision I knew she never long
+opposed; but on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I
+had quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand
+shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the present I
+forbade such impulse. The first page of the sheet was occupied with
+the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not exactly the writer’s own
+experience, but a composition by portions of that experience suggested.
+Thus while egotism was avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart
+satisfied. I translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal;
+it continued thus:--
+
+
+     When sickness stay’d awhile my course,
+      He seem’d impatient still,
+     Because his pupil’s flagging force
+      Could not obey his will.
+
+     One day when summoned to the bed
+      Where pain and I did strive,
+     I heard him, as he bent his head,
+      Say, “God, she must revive!”
+
+     I felt his hand, with gentle stress,
+      A moment laid on mine,
+     And wished to mark my consciousness
+      By some responsive sign.
+
+     But pow’rless then to speak or move,
+      I only felt, within,
+     The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,
+      Their healing work begin.
+
+     And as he from the room withdrew,
+      My heart his steps pursued;
+     I long’d to prove, by efforts new;
+      My speechless gratitude.
+
+     When once again I took my place,
+      Long vacant, in the class,
+     Th’ unfrequent smile across his face
+      Did for one moment pass.
+
+     The lessons done; the signal made
+      Of glad release and play,
+     He, as he passed, an instant stay’d,
+      One kindly word to say.
+
+    “Jane, till to-morrow you are free
+      From tedious task and rule;
+     This afternoon I must not see
+      That yet pale face in school.
+
+    “Seek in the garden-shades a seat,
+      Far from the play-ground din;
+     The sun is warm, the air is sweet:
+      Stay till I call you in.”
+
+     A long and pleasant afternoon
+      I passed in those green bowers;
+     All silent, tranquil, and alone
+      With birds, and bees, and flowers.
+
+     Yet, when my master’s voice I heard
+      Call, from the window, “Jane!”
+      I entered, joyful, at the word,
+      The busy house again.
+
+     He, in the hall, paced up and down;
+      He paused as I passed by;
+     His forehead stern relaxed its frown:
+      He raised his deep-set eye.
+
+    “Not quite so pale,” he murmured low.
+      “Now Jane, go rest awhile.”
+      And as I smiled, his smoothened brow
+      Returned as glad a smile.
+
+     My perfect health restored, he took
+      His mien austere again;
+     And, as before, he would not brook
+      The slightest fault from Jane.
+
+     The longest task, the hardest theme
+      Fell to my share as erst,
+     And still I toiled to place my name
+      In every study first.
+
+     He yet begrudged and stinted praise,
+      But I had learnt to read
+     The secret meaning of his face,
+      And that was my best meed.
+
+     Even when his hasty temper spoke
+      In tones that sorrow stirred,
+     My grief was lulled as soon as woke
+      By some relenting word.
+
+     And when he lent some precious book,
+      Or gave some fragrant flower,
+     I did not quail to Envy’s look,
+      Upheld by Pleasure’s power.
+
+     At last our school ranks took their ground,
+      The hard-fought field I won;
+     The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound
+      My throbbing forehead on.
+
+     Low at my master’s knee I bent,
+      The offered crown to meet;
+     Its green leaves through my temples sent
+      A thrill as wild as sweet.
+
+     The strong pulse of Ambition struck
+      In every vein I owned;
+     At the same instant, bleeding broke
+      A secret, inward wound.
+
+     The hour of triumph was to me
+      The hour of sorrow sore;
+     A day hence I must cross the sea,
+      Ne’er to recross it more.
+
+     An hour hence, in my master’s room
+      I with him sat alone,
+     And told him what a dreary gloom
+      O’er joy had parting thrown.
+
+     He little said; the time was brief,
+      The ship was soon to sail,
+     And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
+      My master but looked pale.
+
+     They called in haste; he bade me go,
+      Then snatched me back again;
+     He held me fast and murmured low,
+     “Why will they part us, Jane?”
+
+    “Were you not happy in my care?
+      Did I not faithful prove?
+     Will others to my darling bear
+      As true, as deep a love?
+
+    “O God, watch o’er my foster child!
+      O guard her gentle head!
+     When minds are high and tempests wild
+      Protection round her spread!
+
+    “They call again; leave then my breast;
+      Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
+     But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
+      Come home to me again!”
+
+I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking
+all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my side;
+no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
+affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were
+far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the
+Master’s manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would
+or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the
+brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted
+to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand,
+elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass
+on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my
+feelings drank the bliss of this hour.
+
+Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire,
+which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little
+ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me;
+slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
+
+There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control
+us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere
+we have seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether
+bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that
+is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct
+meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is
+performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet,
+whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table,
+the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and
+decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity.
+
+“Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
+lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
+moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
+fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
+before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
+have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
+resistance was useless.
+
+“Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer;
+the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
+consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
+silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
+question--probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my
+face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
+tranquillity.
+
+“Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice
+said--
+
+“Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main droite.”
+
+In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in
+a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time,
+asked more gently--
+
+“Frances, how much regard have you for me?”
+
+“Mon maitre, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder.
+
+“Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to accept
+me as your husband?”
+
+I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast
+its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult
+the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+
+“Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,--“Monsieur desire savoir si je
+consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?”
+
+“Justement.”
+
+“Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a ete bon maitre?”
+
+“I will try, Frances.”
+
+A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice--an
+inflexion which provoked while it pleased me--accompanied, too, by a
+“sourire a la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:--
+
+“C’est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
+volontaire--?”
+
+“Have I been so, Frances?”
+
+“Mais oui; vous le savez bien.”
+
+“Have I been nothing else?”
+
+“Mais oui; vous avez ete mon meilleur ami.”
+
+“And what, Frances, are you to me?”
+
+“Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”
+
+“Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
+Frances.”
+
+Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly,
+ran thus:--
+
+“You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to
+see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
+superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but
+you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they
+are not clever. Master, I should be GLAD to live with you always;”
+ and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
+restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis--“Master, I
+consent to pass my life with you.”
+
+“Very well, Frances.”
+
+I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her
+lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she
+and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during
+this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not
+occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her
+composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true,
+still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long
+as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was
+measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth
+fathomless.
+
+“Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
+happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely
+lifted her head.
+
+“Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
+overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
+importunate caresses.
+
+“Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?”
+
+“Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do
+you ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
+tranquil enough?”
+
+“Ce n’est pas cela--” began Frances.
+
+“English!” I reminded her.
+
+“Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course,
+to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
+monsieur?”
+
+“Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.”
+
+“Bon!--I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like
+that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours--will
+they not, monsieur?”
+
+“You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I.
+
+“Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any way.”
+
+“But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have
+left M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another
+place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily
+double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless
+for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand
+francs you and I can live, and live well.”
+
+Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s
+strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
+becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and clothing it, as
+God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
+on:--
+
+“Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
+require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
+important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
+it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
+happiness of giving you rest.”
+
+I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
+instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
+sighed and said,--
+
+“How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my
+arms. “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve
+hundred!” She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present;
+and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my
+place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically
+tightened on mine.
+
+“Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do
+it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close,
+noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering
+at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and
+you would soon tire of me.”
+
+“Frances, you could read and study--two things you like so well.”
+
+“Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an
+active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have
+taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company
+for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each
+other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer
+together.”
+
+“You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own
+way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent,
+give me a voluntary kiss.”
+
+After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
+brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I
+took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
+interest.
+
+I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
+I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
+singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected
+and joyless countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite
+gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and
+rosy tint rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been
+accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her
+proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome,
+she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s
+treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes
+opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my
+tastes which were unique, not my power of discovering and appreciating
+the superiority of moral worth over physical charms. For me Frances
+had physical charms: in her there was no deformity to get over; none of
+those prominent defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at
+bay the admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for
+women can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she been
+either “edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,” my feelings towards
+her might still have been kindly, but they could never have been
+impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen Sylvie, but
+for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’ mental points
+had been the first to interest me, and they still retained the strongest
+hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person too. I
+derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the clearness
+of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her
+well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
+I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
+sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+
+Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey
+fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious;
+taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of change.
+
+At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
+forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
+drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all
+day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a
+fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few
+hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long
+after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed.
+At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke,
+and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face,
+and like him, “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the
+parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly
+brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was
+silence, and I heard a voice,” saying--“In the midst of life we are in
+death.”
+
+That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many
+would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the
+effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was
+my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an
+aim, had overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great
+darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known
+formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to
+hypochondria.
+
+She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I
+had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time
+I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she
+walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where
+we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me,
+and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her
+death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would
+tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she
+would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again and again
+promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink
+of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal
+with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary
+than moonlight. “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale
+piles, and add, “It contains a mansion prepared for you.”
+
+But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister;
+and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress,
+finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few
+objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and
+slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance,
+and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells
+THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect
+brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires,
+folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap
+of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
+hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
+
+I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
+embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
+sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
+Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
+returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all
+the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad
+when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances,
+and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
+made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
+being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
+under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary.
+Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her;
+and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her
+tongue, when she stopped and remarked--
+
+“Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”
+
+I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
+features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden;
+he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
+grimace at me, and passed on.
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“A person I knew in England.”
+
+“Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”
+
+“Yes, he does know you, in his way.”
+
+“How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade
+her to adopt any more familiar term.)
+
+“Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”
+
+“Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”
+
+“To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So
+you have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of
+your kind!’”
+
+“Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon
+gone.”
+
+“I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me
+this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt
+he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your
+rooms?”
+
+“If you please, monsieur--I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should
+rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”
+
+As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he
+said was:--
+
+“You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your
+appointment to ---- College, and all that; Brown has told me.” Then
+he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since;
+afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter
+with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a
+rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and,
+seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?
+
+“As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I
+see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with
+another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up
+in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.”
+
+“But the lady?”
+
+“She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better
+than you--no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to
+see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These
+foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She
+has not been married to him three months--he must be a spoon!”
+
+I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+
+“Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always
+talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraide
+yourself!”
+
+“Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?”
+
+“No; nor Madame Zoraide either.”
+
+“Why did you tell a lie, then?”
+
+“I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine--a
+Swiss girl.”
+
+“And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”
+
+“Married! I think I shall--if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That
+is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless
+of your hothouse grapes.”
+
+“Stop! No boasting--no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To what
+caste does she belong?”
+
+I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste, and, in
+fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old
+----shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and
+respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of
+his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have
+thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley
+would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I should
+give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and leaning
+over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed glee, I
+said concisely--
+
+“She is a lace-mender.”
+
+Hunsden examined me. He did not SAY he was surprised, but surprised he
+was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he suspected I
+was going to take some very rash step; but repressing declamation or
+remonstrance, he only answered--
+
+“Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may
+make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care
+to ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or
+station, she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think
+most likely to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?”
+
+“None in Brussels.”
+
+“That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I
+cannot but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a
+bore to you to your life’s end.”
+
+After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was
+quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which
+he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me
+that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined
+and thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or
+indeed for anything but indulgence and forbearance.
+
+“Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face
+looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your
+future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious
+soul.”
+
+I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity
+of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:--
+
+“I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?”
+
+“Oh, that is the name! Yes--if it would be convenient, I should like to
+see her--but----.” He hesitated.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I should on no account wish to intrude.”
+
+“Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a
+rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart,
+in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real
+gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the
+harsh husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked
+affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been
+so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the
+stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair
+which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+
+“Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He
+turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at
+having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said
+nothing.
+
+We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive
+us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but
+withal very distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing
+to beauty, but much to dignity; the finish of the white collar and
+manchettes sufficed for a relief to the merino gown of solemn black;
+ornament was forsworn. Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as
+she always did, when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect
+than to love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness
+at making his acquaintance in French. The pure and polished accent, the
+low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their effect immediately;
+Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not heard him speak that language
+before; he managed it very well. I retired to the window-seat; Mr.
+Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth;
+from my position I could see them both, and the room too, at a glance.
+The room was so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished
+cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a
+fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE.
+Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually polite;
+they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed
+with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models
+of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign
+tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences,
+with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
+mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
+she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach
+of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
+glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
+complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
+before, she had only looked ladylike.
+
+She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
+ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
+this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
+snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
+before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
+interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at
+once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself;
+as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now
+address her.
+
+“You understand English?” was the prefatory question.
+
+“A little.”
+
+“Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not
+much more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me
+with his thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little
+country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in
+your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible
+that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a
+mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five
+minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort
+of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!”
+
+“England is your country?” asked Frances.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you don’t like it?”
+
+“I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
+nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ----shire), and helpless
+pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!”
+
+“You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices
+everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.”
+
+“Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St.
+Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works.
+Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk
+in blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English
+cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black
+hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of
+Infamy wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her
+favourite paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched
+hovels----”
+
+“I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was
+thinking of the good side--of what is elevated in your character as a
+nation.”
+
+“There is no good side--none at least of which you can have any
+knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness
+of education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you
+from understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical
+associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you
+alluded to such humbug.”
+
+“But I did partly.”
+
+Hunsden laughed--his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+
+“I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such
+associations give no pleasure?”
+
+“Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its
+length, breadth, weight, value--ay, VALUE? What price will it bring in
+the market?”
+
+“Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+association, be without price.”
+
+That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely,
+too, somewhere; for he coloured--a thing not unusual with him, when hit
+unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened
+his eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his
+antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as
+he would like to be loved--some one whose love he could unreservedly
+return.
+
+The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+
+“If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer
+wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is,
+and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can
+conceive, and angels the most elevated existences--if one of them--if
+Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly
+stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth
+from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned ‘with retorted scorn.’”
+
+Frances’ tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it
+was when the word “hell” twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat
+startling emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of
+admiration. He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked
+whatever dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard
+a lady say “hell” with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound
+pleased him from a lady’s lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike
+the string again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric
+vigour never gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or
+flashed in her countenance when extraordinary circumstances--and those
+generally painful--forced it out of the depths where it burned latent.
+To me, once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered
+venturous thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such
+manifestation was past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of
+itself departed. Hunsden’s excitations she put by soon with a smile, and
+recurring to the theme of disputation, said--
+
+“Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her
+so?”
+
+“I should have thought no child would have asked that question,” replied
+Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for
+stupidity those who asked it of him. “If you had been my pupil, as I
+suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character
+not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a
+confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can’t you see that it is
+our GOLD which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss
+servility?” And he sneered diabolically.
+
+“Swiss?” said Frances, catching the word “servility.” “Do you call my
+countrymen servile?” and she started up. I could not suppress a low
+laugh; there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. “Do
+you abuse Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no
+associations? Do you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what
+vice and degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave
+quite out of my heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our
+blood-earned freedom, and the natural glories of our mountains? You’re
+mistaken--you’re mistaken.”
+
+“Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible
+fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract
+idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their
+blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings.”
+
+“You never were in Switzerland?”
+
+“Yes--I have been there twice.”
+
+“You know nothing of it.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says ‘Poor Poll,’ or
+as the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French
+accuse them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums.”
+
+“There is truth.”
+
+“I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an
+unpractical woman, for you don’t acknowledge what really exists; you
+want to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as
+an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their
+existence.”
+
+“Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent--I thought we were
+talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss.”
+
+“We were--and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary to-morrow
+(which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still.”
+
+“You would be mad, then--mad as a March hare--to indulge in a passion
+for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice.”
+
+“Not so mad as you who love nothing.”
+
+“There’s a method in my madness; there’s none in yours.”
+
+“Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of
+the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use.”
+
+“You cannot reason at all,” said Hunsden; “there is no logic in you.”
+
+“Better to be without logic than without feeling,” retorted Frances, who
+was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table,
+intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for
+she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+
+“Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without
+feeling?”
+
+“I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those
+of other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that,
+and the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because
+you imagine it to be inconsistent with logic.”
+
+“I do right.”
+
+Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon
+reappeared.
+
+“You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just
+be so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something
+to cook.” (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire;
+then, while she stirred its contents:) “Right! as if it were right to
+crush any pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially
+any sentiment that, like patriotism, spreads man’s selfishness in wider
+circles” (fire stirred, dish put down before it).
+
+“Were you born in Switzerland?”
+
+“I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?”
+
+“And where did you get your English features and figure?”
+
+“I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have
+a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two
+noble, free, and fortunate countries.”
+
+“You had an English mother?”
+
+“Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from
+Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?”
+
+“On the contrary, I’m a universal patriot, if you could understand me
+rightly: my country is the world.”
+
+“Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have
+the goodness to come to table. Monsieur” (to me who appeared to be now
+absorbed in reading by moonlight)--“Monsieur, supper is served.”
+
+This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been
+bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden--not so short, graver and softer.
+
+“Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of
+staying.”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have
+only the alternative of eating it.”
+
+The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but
+tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad
+and “fromage francais,” completed it. The business of eating interposed
+a brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper
+disposed of than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute
+ran on the spirit of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to
+exist strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment
+of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it,
+not only because she was unskilled to argue, but because her own real
+opinions on the point in question happened to coincide pretty nearly
+with Mr. Hunsden’s, and she only contradicted him out of opposition. At
+last she gave in, confessing that she thought as he thought, but bidding
+him take notice that she did not consider herself beaten.
+
+“No more did the French at Waterloo,” said Hunsden.
+
+“There is no comparison between the cases,” rejoined Frances; “mine was
+a sham fight.”
+
+“Sham or real, it’s up with you.”
+
+“No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case
+where my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when
+I had not another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by
+dumb determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have
+been conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite
+of the laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics.
+I would do as he did.”
+
+“I’ll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort
+of stubborn stuff in you.”
+
+“I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I’d
+scorn the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature
+of our heroic William in his soul.”
+
+“If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass.”
+
+“Does not ASS mean BAUDET?” asked Frances, turning to me.
+
+“No, no,” replied I, “it means an ESPRIT-FORT; and now,” I continued, as
+I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between these two, “it
+is high time to go.”
+
+Hunsden rose. “Good bye,” said he to Frances; “I shall be off for this
+glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before
+I come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I’ll seek you out, and
+you shall see if I don’t find means to make you fiercer than a dragon.
+You’ve done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall
+challenge me outright. Meantime you’re doomed to become Mrs. William
+Crimsworth, I suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit;
+cherish it, and give the Professor the full benefit thereof.”
+
+“Are you married. Mr. Hunsden?” asked Frances, suddenly.
+
+“No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my
+look.”
+
+“Well, whenever you marry don’t take a wife out of Switzerland; for if
+you begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons--above all, if
+you mention the word ASS in the same breath with the name Tell (for
+ass IS baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to translate
+it ESPRIT-FORT) your mountain maid will some night smother her
+Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare’s Othello smothered
+Desdemona.”
+
+“I am warned,” said Hunsden; “and so are you, lad,” (nodding to me). “I
+hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which
+the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched--you,
+however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!” He bowed on her
+hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron;
+adding--“Death from such fingers would not be without charms.”
+
+“Mon Dieu!” murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her
+distinctly arched brows; “c’est qu’il fait des compliments! je ne m’y
+suis pas attendu.” She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with
+foreign grace, and so they parted.
+
+No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+
+“And that is your lace-mender?” said he; “and you reckon you have done
+a fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of
+Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up
+with an ouvriere! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his feelings had
+misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low match!”
+
+“Just let go my collar, Hunsden.”
+
+On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the
+waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a
+tug for it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with
+difficulty picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly.
+
+“Yes, that’s my lace-mender,” said I; “and she is to be mine for
+life--God willing.”
+
+“God is not willing--you can’t suppose it; what business have you to
+be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of
+respect, too, and says, ‘Monsieur’ and modulates her tone in addressing
+you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince
+more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the
+supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours.”
+
+“Hunsden, you’re a puppy. But you’ve only seen the title-page of my
+happiness; you don’t know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the
+interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.”
+
+Hunsden--speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+street--desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till
+my sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he
+said--
+
+“Don’t be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not
+good enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up
+to my ideal of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that
+pale-faced, excitable little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely
+more of the nervous, mobile Parisienne in her than of the the robust
+‘jungfrau’). Your Mdlle. Henri is in person “chetive”, in mind “sans
+caractere”, compared with the queen of my visions. You, indeed, may put
+up with that “minois chiffone”; but when I marry I must have straighter
+and more harmonious features, to say nothing of a nobler and better
+developed shape than that perverse, ill-thriven child can boast.”
+
+“Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,”
+ said I, “and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless,
+fullest-blooded of Ruben’s painted women--leave me only my Alpine peri,
+and I’ll not envy you.”
+
+With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither
+said “God bless you;” yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her
+aunt. One January morning--the first of the new year holidays--I went in
+a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre Dame aux
+Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found Frances
+apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate to
+that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in
+any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her
+array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal
+because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head,
+and hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it
+to her thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each
+side of her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when
+I asked her if she were ready, she said “Yes, monsieur,” with something
+very like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the
+table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear course
+unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration like a reed.
+I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits, and requested to
+be allowed an insight into the origin thereof. She only said, “It was
+impossible to help it,” and then voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting
+her hand into mine, accompanied me out of the room, and ran downstairs
+with a quick, uncertain step, like one who was eager to get some
+formidable piece of business over. I put her into the fiacre. M.
+Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside himself; we drove all
+together to the Protestant chapel, went through a certain service in the
+Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married. M. Vandenhuten had
+given the bride away.
+
+We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity
+of our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not
+exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house
+I had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the
+scene of our avocations lay.
+
+Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her
+bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials,
+a piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing
+decoration of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly
+furnished though not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a
+chiffoniere some books, which I handed to her from the table. It was
+snowing fast out of doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and
+cold; the leaden sky seemed full of drifts, and the street was already
+ankle-deep in the white downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new
+habitation looked brilliantly clean and fresh, the furniture was all
+arranged, and there were but some articles of glass, china, books,
+&c., to put in order. Frances found in this business occupation till
+tea-time, and then, after I had distinctly instructed her how to make
+a cup of tea in rational English style, and after she had got over the
+dismay occasioned by seeing such an extravagant amount of material put
+into the pot, she administered to me a proper British repast, at which
+there wanted neither candles nor urn, firelight nor comfort.
+
+Our week’s holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour.
+Both my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were
+working people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the
+most assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part
+every morning at eight o’clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but
+into what sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking
+down the vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little
+parlour like a long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past.
+Unvaried were they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and
+burning.
+
+A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a FETE, and we had the day
+to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness peculiar to her when
+she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last, having come to
+a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the touchstone of my
+judgment:--
+
+“I don’t work enough.”
+
+“What now?” demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been
+deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed
+to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain
+farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. “What now?” and I
+saw at once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital
+importance.
+
+“I am not satisfied,” returned she: “you are now earning eight thousand
+francs a year” (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my
+pupils’ progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me
+on), “while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I CAN do
+better, and I WILL.”
+
+“You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am
+convinced of it.”
+
+“You wish to change--you have a plan for progress in your mind; go and
+put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of
+it.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+She went--as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious mixture
+of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and wondering
+what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+
+“Monsieur, I have given Minnie” (our bonne) “leave to go out too, as it
+is so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take
+the key with you?”
+
+“Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth,” was my not very apposite reply; but she
+looked so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet,
+and her manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly
+and suavely respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and
+a kiss seemed necessary to content its importunity.
+
+“There, monsieur.”
+
+“Why do you always call me ‘Monsieur’? Say, ‘William.’”
+
+“I cannot pronounce your W; besides, ‘Monsieur’ belongs to you; I like
+it best.”
+
+Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out,
+leaving the house solitary and silent--silent, at least, but for
+the ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields
+received us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding
+CHAUSSEES. Ere long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded,
+it might have been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of
+short and mossy grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting
+to be declined; we took it, and when we had admired and examined some
+English-looking wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances’
+attention and my own to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+
+“What was her plan?” A natural one--the next step to be mounted by
+us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She
+proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on
+a careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed,
+too, by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense
+advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting
+acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in
+schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan,
+she intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If
+we only had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure,
+in time realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too
+old to enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder
+us from going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land.
+
+I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was
+not one who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively
+inactive. Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to
+do--and exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred
+in her frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine
+was not the hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in
+offering them sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+
+“You have conceived a plan, Frances,” said I, “and a good plan; execute
+it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is
+wanted, ask and you shall have.”
+
+Frances’ eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon
+brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for
+some time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than
+“Thank you, monsieur.”
+
+We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer
+moon.
+
+Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings;
+years of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and
+my wife, having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as
+progress whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were
+strangers to amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as
+our course ran side by side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither
+murmured, repented, nor faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us
+up; harmony of thought and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally,
+success bestowed every now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our
+school became one of the most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees
+we raised our terms and elevated our system of education, our choice of
+pupils grew more select, and at length included the children of the
+best families in Belgium. We had too an excellent connection in England,
+first opened by the unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who
+having been over, and having abused me for my prosperity in set terms,
+went back, and soon after sent a leash of young ----shire heiresses--his
+cousins; as he said “to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth.”
+
+As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another
+woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was
+she under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The
+faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained
+fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out
+broad, and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness,
+activity, and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling
+and fervour; but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy
+under the umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in
+the world knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever
+ready to yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as
+radiant.
+
+In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the
+directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on
+her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately
+after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college,
+she to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day,
+I found her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry,
+observance, attending on her presence. When not actually teaching,
+she was overlooking and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared
+vigilant and solicitous. When communicating instruction, her aspect was
+more animated; she seemed to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation.
+The language in which she addressed her pupils, though simple and
+unpretending, was never trite or dry; she did not speak from routine
+formulas--she made her own phrases as she went on, and very nervous
+and impressive phrases they frequently were; often, when elucidating
+favourite points of history, or geography, she would wax genuinely
+eloquent in her earnestness. Her pupils, or at least the elder and more
+intelligent amongst them, recognized well the language of a superior
+mind; they felt too, and some of them received the impression of
+elevated sentiments; there was little fondling between mistress and
+girls, but some of Frances’ pupils in time learnt to love her sincerely,
+all of them beheld her with respect; her general demeanour towards
+them was serious; sometimes benignant when they pleased her with their
+progress and attention, always scrupulously refined and considerate.
+In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she was usually
+forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that forbearance, which
+sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like severity taught
+the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes a gleam of
+tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare; only when
+a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of some
+little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions,
+whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt
+of the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble
+fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was
+to their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after
+them she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat
+by the stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to
+receive some little dole of cake or fruit--to sit on a footstool at
+the fireside--to enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for
+an evening together--to be spoken to gently and softly, comforted,
+encouraged, cherished--and when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss
+of true tenderness. As to Julia and Georgiana G----, daughters of an
+English baronet, as to Mdlle. Mathilde de ----, heiress of a Belgian
+count, and sundry other children of patrician race, the directress was
+careful of them as of the others, anxious for their progress, as for
+that of the rest--but it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish
+them by a mark of preference; one girl of noble blood she loved
+dearly--a young Irish baroness--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her
+enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius,
+the title and rank went for nothing.
+
+My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
+that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which
+she would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
+pupils to learn their characters, to be AU COURANT with everything that
+was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her,
+to be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it,
+and this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils
+to fall asleep, and never making any change of importance without
+my cognizance and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my
+lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most
+fixedly attentive of any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when
+she did it was with an air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her
+joy to make me still the master in all things.
+
+At six o’clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for
+my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private
+sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and
+Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my
+arms; much disappointed she would have been if her master had not been
+as constant to the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not
+been prompt to answer her soft, “Bon soir, monsieur.”
+
+Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for
+her wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been
+injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage
+its renewal. Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to
+refresh our strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we
+spent them all in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was
+thoroughly accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved
+him too absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so
+unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting with him
+than subjects for communion with her own heart. In those moments, happy
+as a bird with its mate, she would show me what she had of vivacity, of
+mirth, of originality in her well-dowered nature. She would show, too,
+some stores of raillery, of “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me
+sometimes about what she called my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices
+insulaires,” with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect white
+demon of her while it lasted. This was rare, however, and the elfish
+freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war
+of words--for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the
+delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked
+me--I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the
+sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm
+than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive
+brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its
+place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and
+supplicating little mortal woman in my arms. Then I made her get a book,
+and read English to me for an hour by way of penance. I frequently dosed
+her with Wordsworth in this way, and Wordsworth steadied her soon; she
+had a difficulty in comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his
+language, too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue
+for explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge
+me as her senior and director. Her instinct instantly penetrated and
+possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers. Byron
+excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled at, wondered
+over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+
+But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me
+in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit,
+or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with
+attention; whether she smiled at me or on me, always at nine o’clock I
+was left abandoned. She would extricate herself from my arms, quit
+my side, take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have
+followed her sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the
+dortoir (the pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room
+between the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any
+were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed
+them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil;
+trimmed the watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then
+withdrew, closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided
+to our own chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought;
+there, too, appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face
+(the night I followed and observed her) changed as she approached this
+tiny couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand
+the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and hung
+over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and usually,
+I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever
+heated its round cheek; no ill dream discomposed its budding features.
+Frances gazed, she did not smile, and yet the deepest delight filled,
+flushed her face; feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole
+frame, which still was motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her
+lips were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child
+smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy,
+“God bless my little son!” She stooped closer over him, breathed the
+softest of kisses on his brow, covered his minute hand with hers, and
+at last started up and came away. I regained the parlour before her.
+Entering it two minutes later she said quietly as she put down her
+extinguished lamp--
+
+“Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile,
+monsieur.”
+
+The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of
+our marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.
+Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.
+
+Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a
+good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she
+married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a prodigal,
+a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one which I once
+propounded to her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was--
+
+“I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when
+I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer
+suddenly and silently.”
+
+“And if law or might had forced you back again?”
+
+“What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust
+fool?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice
+and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.”
+
+“And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she said, hastily. “Why do you ask me, monsieur?”
+
+I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her
+eye, whose voice I determined to waken.
+
+“Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to,
+marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and
+though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though
+the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates
+must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would
+resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I
+should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from
+bad laws and their consequences.”
+
+“Voluntary death, Frances?”
+
+“No, monsieur. I’d have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate
+assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the
+last.”
+
+“I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate
+had merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you
+have liked celibacy?”
+
+“Not much, certainly. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and
+vapid--her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should
+have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I
+should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised
+and of no account, like other single women. But I’m not an old maid,”
+ she added quickly. “I should have been, though, but for my master. I
+should never have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth--no other
+gentleman, French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or
+handsome; and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation
+of many others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor
+Crimsworth’s wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he
+honourable, beloved ----?” She stopped, her voice was cut off, her eyes
+suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she threw her
+arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate earnestness:
+the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then dilated
+eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were like
+inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a power.
+Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where all
+that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+her glance so thrilling and ardent--her action so rapid and strong. She
+looked down, smiling softly and passively:--
+
+“I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur,” said she, “but I know that,
+whenever it is wanted, it will come back again.”
+
+Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an
+independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its
+origin in three reasons:-- Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly,
+we had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had
+capital to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in
+England, viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice
+as to the sort of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was
+judicious; and, being promptly acted on, the result proved gainful--I
+need not say how gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten
+and Hunsden; nobody else can be interested in hearing them.
+
+Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we
+both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in
+which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and
+our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on--abundance to
+leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which,
+properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might
+help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of
+charity.
+
+To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely;
+Frances realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer
+and autumn in travelling from end to end of the British islands, and
+afterwards passed a winter in London. Then we thought it high time
+to fix our residence. My heart yearned towards my native county of
+----shire; and it is in ----shire I now live; it is in the library of my
+own home I am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather
+hilly region, thirty miles removed from X----; a region whose verdure
+the smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure,
+whose swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between
+them the very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her
+blue-bells, her scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes.
+My house is a picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and
+long windows, a trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door,
+just now, on this summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy.
+The garden is chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills,
+with herbage short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers,
+tiny and starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine
+foliage. At the bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which
+opens upon a lane as green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little
+frequented; on the turf of this lane generally appear the first daisies
+of spring--whence its name--Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to
+the house.
+
+It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+wood--chiefly oak and beech--spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a
+very old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as
+well as more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of
+an individual familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden
+Wood--for so are those glades and that grey building, with many gables
+and more chimneys, named--abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never,
+I suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score
+of young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to
+assist him in the search.
+
+The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he
+has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some
+incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides
+here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the
+twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each
+winter in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to
+----shire, and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has
+a German metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a
+dissatisfied and savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played,
+and of whom Frances affirmed that he had “tout l’air d’un conspirateur.”
+
+What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or
+Manchester--hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is
+of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a
+wider theme--European progress--the spread of liberal sentiments over
+the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria,
+and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk
+vigorous sense--yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in the
+old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight
+was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old
+northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard
+much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.
+Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical
+men he seemed leagued hand and heart.
+
+When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he
+generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has
+a philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on
+summer evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the
+roses, with which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he
+intimates we should certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are
+almost sure to see him; according to him, it gets on time to work
+me into lunacy by treading on my mental corns, or to force from Mrs.
+Crimsworth revelations of the dragon within her, by insulting the memory
+of Hofer and Tell.
+
+We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a
+visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are
+an interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the
+absence of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society
+gives a metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the
+talk. Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he
+chooses to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his
+very mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the
+passages legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of
+diamond-paned lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels
+he has collected stores of articles of VERTU, which are well and
+tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen
+there one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many
+an aristocratic connoisseur might have envied.
+
+When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he
+often walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber
+is old and of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued
+through glade and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat
+long one. Many a time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon,
+and when the night has been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain
+nightingale has been singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has
+lent the song a soft accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one
+hamlet in a district of ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of
+the wood left us at our porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours,
+and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers.
+He would then forget politics and discussion, and would dwell on the
+past times of his house, on his family history, on himself and his own
+feelings--subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they
+were each and all unique. One glorious night in June, after I had been
+taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she would
+come and graft her foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak, he answered
+suddenly--
+
+“You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a
+shadow without a substance.”
+
+He had led us from the depth of the “winding way” into a glade from
+whence the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded
+moon poured her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her
+beam an ivory miniature.
+
+Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to
+me--still, however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking
+in my eyes what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a
+very handsome and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had
+once said, “straight and harmonious features.” It was dark; the hair,
+raven-black, swept not only from the brow, but from the temples--seemed
+thrust away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay,
+despised arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an
+independent, determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the
+chin ditto. On the back of the miniature was gilded “Lucia.”
+
+“That is a real head,” was my conclusion.
+
+Hunsden smiled.
+
+“I think so,” he replied. “All was real in Lucia.”
+
+“And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could not?”
+
+“I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not done so
+is a proof that I COULD not.”
+
+He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances’ hand, and
+put it away.
+
+“What do YOU think of it?” he asked of my wife, as he buttoned his coat
+over it.
+
+“I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them,” was the strange
+answer. “I do not mean matrimonial chains,” she added, correcting
+herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, “but social chains of some
+sort. The face is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful
+and triumphant effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from
+insupportable constraint; and when Lucia’s faculty got free, I am
+certain it spread wide pinions and carried her higher than--” she
+hesitated.
+
+“Than what?” demanded Hunsden.
+
+“Than ‘les convenances’ permitted you to follow.”
+
+“I think you grow spiteful--impertinent.”
+
+“Lucia has trodden the stage,” continued Frances. “You never seriously
+thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness,
+her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that
+was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her
+beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she
+filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a
+wife.”
+
+“Ingenious,” remarked Hunsden; “whether true or not is another question.
+Meantime, don’t you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale,
+beside such a girandole as Lucia’s?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the
+dim light you give?”
+
+“Will you, monsieur?”
+
+“My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances,” and we had
+now reached the wicket.
+
+I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it
+is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest;
+the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the
+air. Frances proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out
+on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded with china, placed under a
+certain beech; Hunsden is expected--nay, I hear he is come--there is his
+voice, laying down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances
+replies; she opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor,
+of whom Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs.
+Crimsworth retaliates:--
+
+“Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden,
+calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become
+a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and
+going, no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy
+till she had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off;
+for that with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin
+a score of children.”
+
+I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my
+desk--but it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on
+porcelain.
+
+Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his
+mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark
+as those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical
+enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less
+than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over
+a book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure,
+peril, or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But
+though still, he is not unhappy--though serious, not morose; he has a
+susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts
+to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a
+spelling-book at his mother’s knee, and as he got on without driving by
+that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to
+try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable.
+When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still.
+His toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he
+possesses, he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to
+affection; this feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of
+the house, strengthens almost to a passion.
+
+Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the
+donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much
+modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would
+go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he
+learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in
+the lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his
+own hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left
+at night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X----, and was bitten
+in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had brought
+him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the yard
+and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an instant;
+he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had scarcely
+been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds of
+anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence.
+Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its
+bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me.
+
+“Oh, papa, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive you!” was his
+exclamation. “You shot Yorke--I saw it from the window. I never believed
+you could be so cruel--I can love you no more!”
+
+I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern
+necessity of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter
+accent which I cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated--
+
+“He might have been cured--you should have tried--you should have burnt
+the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave no time;
+and now it is too late--he is dead!”
+
+He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long
+while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him
+in my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort
+him best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not
+come out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she
+was ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on
+to her gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft
+embrace, for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him
+that Yorke had felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to
+expire naturally, his end would have been most horrible; above all, she
+told him that I was not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite
+pain to poor Victor), that it was my affection for Yorke and him which
+had made me act so, and that I was now almost heart-broken to see him
+weep thus bitterly.
+
+Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a
+tone--married to caresses so benign, so tender--to looks so inspired
+with pitying sympathy--produced no effect on him. They did produce an
+effect: he grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still
+in her arms. Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over
+again what she had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not
+being cruel; the balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek
+on her breast, and was again tranquil.
+
+Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him,
+and desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I
+kept him a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of
+which he disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in
+my son. I found, it is true, few elements of the “good fellow” or the
+“fine fellow” in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash
+over the wine cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying
+fire; but I saw in the soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs
+of compassion, affection, fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his
+intellect a rich growth of wholesome principles--reason, justice, moral
+courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on
+his large forehead, and on his cheek--still pale with tears--a proud and
+contented kiss, and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day
+laid on the mound under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered
+with his hands; he was melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year
+elapsed before he would listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+
+Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first
+year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his
+home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not
+suit him--but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of success,
+will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a strong
+repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and
+transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject,
+I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some
+fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her
+fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be
+taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of
+her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance,
+a congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as
+I also see, a something in Victor’s temper--a kind of electrical ardour
+and power--which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it
+his spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of
+the offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not WHIPPED out
+of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of
+any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him
+radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this something in
+her son’s marked character no name; but when it appears in the grinding
+of his teeth, in the glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of
+feeling against disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed
+injustice, she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her
+alone in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and
+to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of
+love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason
+or love be the weapons with which in future the world will meet his
+violence? Oh, no! for that flash in his black eye--for that cloud on
+his bony brow--for that compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will
+some day get blows instead of blandishments--kicks instead of kisses;
+then for the fit of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden
+his soul; then for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of
+which he will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man.
+
+I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the
+beech; Hunsden’s hand rests on the boy’s collar, and he is instilling
+God knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for
+he listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his
+mother as when he smiles--pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor
+has a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever
+entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a
+sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden’s knee, or
+rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round,
+like a dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes
+Hunsden had children of his own, for then he would better know the
+danger of inciting their pride end indulging their foibles.
+
+Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which
+half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy
+she enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+“Monsieur est trop applique.”
+
+“I shall soon have done.”
+
+She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her
+presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and
+spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the
+midsummer eve are to my senses.
+
+But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the
+lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand,
+disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+
+“Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress,
+and make him lift up his head.”
+
+“Well, Hunsden? I hear you--”
+
+“I was at X---- yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer than
+Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a stag
+of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and Jean
+Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets
+too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but
+in business they are doing ‘on ne peut mieux,’ which circumstance
+he concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little
+crosses in the affections. Why don’t you invite the Pelets to ----shire,
+Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide. Mistress,
+don’t be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a
+fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you’ve
+lost, Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea,
+Victor and I will begin without you.”
+
+“Papa, come!”
+
+
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+        } .xhtml_big {font-size: larger;}</style><title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Professor, by (aka Charlotte Brontë) Currer Bell</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>
+      THE PROFESSOR
+    </h1>
+<p class="author">
+    by (AKA Charlotte Brontë) Currer Bell
+    </p>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<hr>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<blockquote><div>
+<p class="toc">
+<span class="xhtml_big"><b>CONTENTS</b></span>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2H_PREF" class="pginternal"> PREFACE. </a>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2H_4_0002" class="pginternal">
+<span class="xhtml_big"><b>T H E   P R O F E S S O R</b></span>
+</a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0001" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0002" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0003" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0004" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0005" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0006" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0007" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0008" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0009" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0010" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0011" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0012" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0013" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0014" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0015" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0016" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0017" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0018" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0019" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0020" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0021" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0022" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0023" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0024" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0025" class="pginternal"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+</p>
+</div></blockquote>
+<p>
+<br> <br>
+</p>
+<hr>
+<p>
+<br> <br> <a id="link2H_PREF">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2>
+      PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      This little book was written before either “Jane Eyre” or “Shirley,” and
+      yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt.
+      A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been
+      previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed
+      published anything before I commenced “The Professor,” but in many a crude
+      effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such
+      taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition,
+      and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had
+      adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, &amp;c., such as
+      would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when
+      carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than
+      pleasure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had
+      seen real living men work theirs—that he should never get a shilling
+      he had not earned—that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment
+      to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain,
+      should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much
+      as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of
+      “the Hill of Difficulty;” that he should not even marry a beautiful girl
+      or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s doom, and drain
+      throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
+      approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative
+      and poetical—something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy,
+      with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly.
+      Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind,
+      he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in
+      breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in
+      business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the idea will be
+      often found fallacious: a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful,
+      and thrilling—the strange, startling, and harrowing—agitates
+      divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him
+      in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through
+      some struggles—which indeed it has. And after all, its worst
+      struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort—subdues
+      fear—leans on the staff of a moderate expectation—and mutters
+      under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He that is low need fear no fall.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      CURRER BELL.
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+      publication of “The Professor,” shortly after the appearance of “Shirley.”
+       Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some use of the
+      materials in a subsequent work—“Villette.” As, however, these two
+      stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented to me that I
+      ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public. I have therefore
+      consented to its publication.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A. B. NICHOLLS
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Haworth Parsonage,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      September 22nd, 1856.
+    </p>
+<div class="chapter no-break">
+<p>
+<a id="link2H_4_0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+     </p>
+<h2 class="topspace">
+      T H E    P R O F E S S O R
+    </h2>
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0001">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+     </p>
+<h2 class="topspace no-break">
+      CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following
+      copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “DEAR CHARLES,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what
+      could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic, observant,
+      shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw,
+      but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one—can
+      you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly
+      I never experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you,
+      and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free
+      from all romantic regard to me. Still, out of school hours we walked and
+      talked continually together; when the theme of conversation was our
+      companions or our masters we understood each other, and when I recurred to
+      some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful
+      object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did
+      not move me. I felt myself superior to that check <em>then</em> as I do
+      <em>now</em>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I
+      saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my
+      eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the
+      events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and
+      commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you shall
+      hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
+      Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
+      the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
+      which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
+      hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
+      be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of
+      my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
+      thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife—oh how
+      like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my
+      cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
+      accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To
+      think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe
+      Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and
+      well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under
+      such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me ‘what I intended to
+      do?’ I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and
+      no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale
+      demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my father’s steps
+      and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not
+      think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my
+      taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn
+      expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced the word
+      <em>trade</em>—such
+      the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone—that I was instantly decided.
+      My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear
+      mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and
+      warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in my father’s steps; yes, I will
+      be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted with
+      mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite
+      right to shake off the burden of Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer
+      my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden—one which
+      might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I wrote instantly to Edward—you know Edward—my only brother,
+      ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now
+      possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he failed.
+      You are aware that my father—once reckoned a Croesus of wealth—became
+      bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in
+      destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical
+      brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth,
+      the ——shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into
+      the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret,
+      as it contained little hope or comfort for her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
+      was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
+      an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for it.
+      My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of
+      writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
+      Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
+      sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+      conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
+      against Mr. Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
+      enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they
+      knew also that they had influence in the borough of X——; and,
+      making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my
+      education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which
+      space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into
+      trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success,
+      that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I
+      was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some
+      three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without
+      some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and
+      some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house.
+      At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no
+      parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for
+      my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering
+      hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father—of
+      the sufferings of my mother—of all the wrongs, in short, of our
+      house—then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived,
+      and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused
+      to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these
+      feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the
+      union with one of my patrician cousins.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I
+      wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my
+      intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he
+      could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my
+      conduct, but he said I might come down to ——shire, if I liked,
+      and he would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with
+      work.’ I repressed all—even <em>mental</em> comment on his note—packed
+      my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I
+      arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X——. I had
+      always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found
+      that it was only Mr. Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated
+      in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his <em>residence</em> lay four
+      miles out, in the country.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation
+      designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see
+      through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened
+      those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it
+      sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning
+      my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with
+      interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Edward is rich,” thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing
+      well—but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting
+      short all marvelling, speculation, conjecture, &amp;c., I advanced to the
+      front door and rang. A man-servant opened it—I announced myself—he
+      relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room
+      furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning
+      on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from
+      X—— market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half
+      an hour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red
+      morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames
+      dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the
+      hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about
+      to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these
+      conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain—I was in no
+      danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of
+      my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal
+      tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to prevent the
+      engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat
+      awaiting his arrival, I felt eager—very eager—I cannot tell
+      you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand,
+      clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain
+      have shaken it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether
+      Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always
+      experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached
+      the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some
+      minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall,
+      his tread drew near the library door—that tread alone announced the
+      master of the house.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years
+      ago—a tall, wiry, raw youth; <em>now</em>, as I rose from my seat and
+      turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man,
+      light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first
+      glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown as well
+      in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general expression of
+      his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands,
+      scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco covered
+      arm-chair, and motioned me to another seat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’
+      said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably habitual
+      to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh
+      in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the South.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’
+      said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being
+      aware that you had such a residence as this.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind
+      time, waiting for you—that is all. I thought you must be coming by
+      the eight o’clock coach.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but
+      stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he scanned
+      me again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of
+      meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this man
+      with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my
+      refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against all
+      future intercourse.’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our
+      connection, that “no man can serve two masters.” Acquaintance with Lord
+      Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind
+      of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this
+      observation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an inward
+      speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution of men’s
+      minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Crimsworth drew from my
+      silence—whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an evidence
+      of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and hard stare at
+      me, he rose sharply from his seat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other points;
+      but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is probably waiting; will
+      you come?’
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I wondered
+      what Mrs. Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien to what I
+      like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe—as the affectionate
+      relative now striding before me? or is she better than these? Shall I, in
+      conversing with her, feel free to show something of my real nature; or—’
+      Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+      apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the
+      fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady; she was
+      young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and fashionable: so
+      much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay salutation passed
+      between her and Mr. Crimsworth; she chid him, half playfully, half
+      poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take voices into the
+      account in judging of character) was lively—it indicated, I thought,
+      good animal spirits. Mr. Crimsworth soon checked her animated scolding
+      with a kiss—a kiss that still told of the bridegroom (they had not
+      yet been married a year); she took her seat at the supper-table in
+      first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged my pardon for not noticing
+      me before, and then shook hands with me, as ladies do when a flow of
+      good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to all, even the most indifferent
+      of their acquaintance. It was now further obvious to me that she had a
+      good complexion, and features sufficiently marked but agreeable; her hair
+      was red—quite red. She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of
+      playful contention; she was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that he had
+      that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made light of her
+      fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “‘Now, Mr. William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he will
+      drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice
+      already.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I soon saw
+      also that there was more than girlish—a somewhat infantine
+      expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression
+      were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to those
+      of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous to read
+      there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in
+      her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw vivacity,
+      vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in vain for a
+      glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips and cheeks,
+      clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that Promethean
+      spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished
+      hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well;
+      but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of
+      disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the
+      clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth’s face, a deep,
+      involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to
+      her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome
+      young wife, threw on me a glance—half ridicule, half ire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two
+      pictures set in the oak panelling—one on each side the mantel-piece.
+      Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on between
+      Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination of these
+      pictures. They were portraits—a lady and a gentleman, both costumed
+      in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the shade. I
+      could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam from the
+      softly shaded lamp. I presently recognised her; I had seen this picture
+      before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion picture
+      being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale of my father’s property.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but <em>then</em> I did
+      not understand it; <em>now</em> I knew how rare that class of face is in
+      the world, and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression.
+      The serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines
+      in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry it
+      was only a picture.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant conducted me
+      to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all intruders—you,
+      Charles, as well as the rest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good-bye for the present,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it, he
+      had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was
+      already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become
+      of him since, I know not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ for his
+      private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at large. My
+      narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous; but it may
+      interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same vocation as
+      myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections of their own. The
+      above letter will serve as an introduction. I now proceed.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed
+      my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in
+      the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising
+      over the ——shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods
+      brown and mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately
+      carried; a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the
+      somewhat cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals
+      along the banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like
+      slender round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half
+      concealed; here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied
+      agreeable sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a
+      cheerful, active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished
+      from it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley,
+      opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X——.
+      A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality—there lay
+      Edward’s “Concern.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell on
+      it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable
+      emotion to my heart—that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man
+      ought to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s
+      career—I said to myself, “William, you are a rebel against circumstances;
+      you are a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you
+      shall be a tradesman. Look!” I continued mentally—“Look at the sooty smoke
+      in that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+      you cannot speculate and theorize—there you shall out and work!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the
+      breakfast-room. I met him collectedly—I could not meet him
+      cheerfully; he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire—how
+      much did I read in the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his,
+      when I advanced to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory
+      to my nature! He said “Good morning” abruptly and nodded, and then he
+      snatched, rather than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read
+      it with the air of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of
+      conversing with an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to
+      endure for a time, or his manner would have gone far to render
+      insupportable the disgust I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked
+      at him: I measured his robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own
+      reflection in the mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused myself with
+      comparing the two pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so
+      handsome; my features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader
+      brow—in form I was greatly inferior—thinner, slighter, not so
+      tall. As an animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount
+      in mind as in person I must be a slave—for I must expect from him no
+      lion-like generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye,
+      his stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force
+      of mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mrs. Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked
+      well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning and
+      bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last night’s
+      careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness and
+      restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too familiar
+      with his clerk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that they
+      were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he
+      should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X——. I did
+      not keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the road.
+      The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs. Crimsworth
+      had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice Jack seemed
+      disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined application of the
+      whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon compelled him to
+      submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his triumph in the
+      result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the whole of the
+      brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his horse.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      X—— was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the
+      clean streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and
+      public buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills
+      and warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great
+      paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us,
+      vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick brick
+      walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were passing to
+      and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth looked from
+      side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all that was going
+      on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the care of a man who
+      hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me follow him to the
+      counting-house. We entered it; a very different place from the parlours of
+      Crimsworth Hall—a place for business, with a bare, planked floor, a
+      safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A person was seated at
+      one of the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr. Crimsworth entered,
+      and in an instant was again absorbed in his occupation of writing or
+      calculating—I know not which.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I
+      remained standing near the hearth; he said presently—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact with
+      this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he went
+      out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat a
+      moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to do
+      but to watch him—how well his features were cut! what a handsome man
+      he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction—that narrow and
+      hard aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Turning to me he began abruptly:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are come down to ——shire to learn to be a tradesman?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, I am.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if you
+      are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do you
+      know anything besides that useless trash of college learning—Greek,
+      Latin, and so forth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have studied mathematics.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stuff! I dare say you have.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I can read and write French and German.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hum!” He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him
+      took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Can you read that?” he asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell
+      whether he was gratified or not—his countenance remained fixed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is well,” he said, after a pause, “that you are acquainted with
+      something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and
+      lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second clerk
+      to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give you a good
+      salary—£90 a year—and now,” he continued, raising his voice,
+      “hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and all that
+      sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it would never suit
+      me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother; if I find
+      you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults
+      detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as I would
+      any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and I expect to have
+      the full value of my money out of you; remember, too, that things are on a
+      practical footing in my establishment—business-like habits,
+      feelings, and ideas, suit me best. Do you understand?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Partly,” I replied. “I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my
+      wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any
+      help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will
+      consent to be your clerk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not consult
+      his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor did I then
+      care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth Hall,
+      and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be aware
+      that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I like to have
+      the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for business reasons
+      I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. You will seek out
+      lodgings in X——.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X——,” I answered. “It
+      would not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth’s blue eye
+      became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said
+      bluntly—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your
+      quarter’s salary becomes due?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall get on,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you expect to live?” he repeated in a louder voice.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Get into debt at your peril! that’s all,” he answered. “For aught I know
+      you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop them; I
+      tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a shilling
+      extra, whatever liabilities you may incur—mind that.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I had
+      an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper
+      effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, “I will
+      place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still and
+      steady; when full, it will run over of itself—meantime patience. Two
+      things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr. Crimsworth has
+      set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those wages are
+      sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother assuming
+      towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is his, not
+      mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once aside from
+      the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will advance far
+      enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only pressing in at the
+      entrance—a strait gate enough; it ought to have a good terminus.”
+       While I thus reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his first clerk, the
+      individual dismissed previously to our conference, re-entered.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mr. Steighton,” said he, “show Mr. William the letters from Voss,
+      Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate
+      them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and
+      heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the desk,
+      and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English answers
+      into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first effort to
+      earn my own living—a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened by the
+      presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some time as I
+      wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I felt as secure
+      against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the visor down—or
+      rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence that one would show
+      an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might see lines, and trace
+      characters, but he could make nothing of them; my nature was not his
+      nature, and its signs were to him like the words of an unknown tongue. Ere
+      long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and left the counting-house;
+      he returned to it but twice in the course of that day; each time he mixed
+      and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water, the materials for making which
+      he extracted from a cupboard on one side of the fireplace; having glanced
+      at my translations—he could read both French and German—he
+      went out again in silence.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0003">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.
+      What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do well.
+      Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set Timothy
+      Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was baffled; I
+      was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to
+      how I lived, whether I got into debt—no, my accounts with my
+      landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which I
+      contrived to pay for out of a slender fund—the accumulated savings
+      of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to
+      ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying
+      economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to
+      obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to
+      beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time, and I
+      used to couple the reproach with this consolation—better to be
+      misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward; I
+      had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of them
+      threw down on the table before me a £5 note, which I was able to leave
+      there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided for. Mr.
+      Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had any complaint
+      to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she believed I was a
+      very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I had any
+      intention of going into the Church some day; for, she said, she had had
+      young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing equal to me for
+      steadiness and quietness. Tim was “a religious man” himself; indeed, he
+      was “a joined Methodist,” which did not (be it understood) prevent him
+      from being at the same time an engrained rascal, and he came away much
+      posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr.
+      Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship,
+      and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of
+      attack against the equability of my temper. He commenced a series of
+      covert sneers, of which I did not at first perceive the drift, till my
+      landlady happened to relate the conversation she had had with Mr.
+      Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to the counting-house
+      prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s blasphemous sarcasms,
+      when next levelled at me, on a buckler of impenetrable indifference. Ere
+      long he tired of wasting his ammunition on a statue, but he did not throw
+      away the shafts—he only kept them quiet in his quiver.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it was on
+      the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s birthday; he
+      had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar anniversaries,
+      and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept strictly in the
+      background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming
+      in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressed by a
+      distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never spoke to me; I was introduced
+      to none of the band of young ladies, who, enveloped in silvery clouds of
+      white gauze and muslin, sat in array against me on the opposite side of a
+      long and large room; in fact, I was fairly isolated, and could but
+      contemplate the shining ones from afar, and when weary of such a dazzling
+      scene, turn for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr.
+      Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by the marble
+      mantelpiece, and about him a group of very pretty girls, with whom he
+      conversed gaily—Mr. Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked
+      weary, solitary, kept down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was
+      satisfied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some
+      pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity to show
+      that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social
+      intercourse—that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,
+      but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful
+      figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the
+      figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, left
+      the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No fibre of
+      sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked for and
+      found my mother’s picture. I took a wax taper from a stand, and held it
+      up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image. My mother, I
+      perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and countenance—her
+      forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty pleases egotistical
+      human beings so much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves; for
+      this reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments of their
+      daughters’ faces, where frequently their own similitude is found
+      flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacy of outline. I
+      was just wondering how that picture, to me so interesting, would strike an
+      impartial spectator, when a voice close behind me pronounced the words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Humph! there’s some sense in that face.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five or six
+      years older than I—in other respects of an appearance the opposite
+      to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his
+      portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I have
+      just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I did not
+      investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either; I saw his
+      stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his fastidious-looking
+      <i lang="fr">retroussé</i> nose; these observations, few in number, and
+      general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled me to
+      recognize       him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy
+      noodle as I was, I began moving away—and why? Simply because Mr.
+      Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and my
+      instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in
+      Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr.
+      Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him a
+      sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the tacit
+      witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction that he
+      could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about
+      to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already
+      noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I
+      perversely said to myself—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,
+      perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not at
+      all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and continued
+      to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,
+      you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+      displeased me; my <i lang="fr">amour-propre</i> was propitiated; he had
+      not addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the
+      cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by
+      way of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well
+      enough to oblige; I stayed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pretty! no—how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?
+      but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that
+      woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and
+      compliments.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;
+      there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling his lip
+      at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat written on
+      the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a
+      distinctive cast of form and features?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have
+      their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we ——shire
+      tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As to
+      their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from
+      childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain degree
+      of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques. Yet even
+      this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs.
+      Edward Crimsworth—which is the finer animal?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr
+      Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a
+      straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages—if
+      they are advantages—he did not inherit from his mother, the
+      patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, <em>my</em> father
+      says, was as veritable a ——shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat
+      yet withal the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William,
+      who are the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as
+      your plebeian brother by long chalk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which
+      rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I continued
+      the conversation with a degree of interest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought
+      you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor clerk.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do
+      Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages—shabby wages they are,
+      too.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still
+      his manner did not offend me in the least—it only piqued my
+      curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This world is an absurd one,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Why so, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the absurdity
+      I allude to.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my
+      pressing him so to do—so I resumed my silence.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It was my serious intention three months ago.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Humph! the more fool you—you look like a tradesman! What a
+      practical business-like face you have!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “The Lord never made either your face or head for X—— What
+      good can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem,
+      conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there;
+      it’s your own affair, not mine.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Perhaps I have no choice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, I care nought about it—it will make little difference to me
+      what you do or where you go; but I’m cool now—I want to dance again;
+      and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by her
+      mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s Waddy—Sam
+      Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open folding-doors;
+      he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the fine girl, and led her
+      off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made, full-formed, dashingly-dressed
+      young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her
+      through the waltz with spirit; he kept at her side during the remainder of
+      the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance that he
+      succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout
+      person in a turban—Mrs. Lupton by name) looked well pleased;
+      prophetic visions probably flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of
+      an old stem; and scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name)
+      professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well
+      knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high
+      lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X——,
+      concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a
+      thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were
+      still independent; and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his
+      success in business, to restore to pristine prosperity the partially
+      decayed fortunes of his house. These circumstances considered, Mrs.
+      Lupton’s broad face might well wear a smile of complacency as she
+      contemplated the heir of Hunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court
+      to her darling Sarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less
+      anxious, were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds for
+      maternal self-congratulation were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to
+      me much more desirous of making, than susceptible of receiving an
+      impression. I know not what it was in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him
+      (I had nothing better to do), suggested to me, every now and then, the
+      idea of a foreigner. In form and features he might be pronounced English,
+      though even there one caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no
+      English shyness: he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting
+      himself quite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity to
+      intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or pleasure.
+      Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could not be called; he was
+      not odd—no quiz—yet he resembled no one else I had ever seen
+      before; his general bearing intimated complete, sovereign satisfaction
+      with himself; yet, at times, an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse
+      over his countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and
+      strong inward doubt of himself, his words and actions an energetic
+      discontent at his life or his social position, his future prospects or his
+      mental attainments—I know not which; perhaps after all it might only
+      be a bilious caprice.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0004">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2 class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of
+      his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against
+      wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, “I am baffled!” and
+      submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my
+      residence in X—— I felt my occupation irksome. The thing
+      itself—the work of copying and translating business-letters—was
+      a dry and tedious task enough, but had that been all, I should long have
+      borne with the nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced
+      by the double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and
+      others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have
+      endured in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties; I should not
+      have whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty; I should have
+      pent in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its
+      distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of Bigben
+      Close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I should have
+      set up the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my small bedroom
+      at Mrs. King’s lodgings, and they two should have been my household gods,
+      from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret, Imagination, the tender and
+      the mighty, should never, either by softness or strength, have severed me.
+      But this was not all; the antipathy which had sprung up between myself and
+      my employer striking deeper root and spreading denser shade daily,
+      excluded me from every glimpse of the sunshine of life; and I began to
+      feel like a plant growing in humid darkness out of the slimy walls of a
+      well.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward Crimsworth
+      had for me—a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and which was
+      liable to be excited by every, the most trifling movement, look, or word
+      of mine. My southern accent annoyed him; the degree of education evinced
+      in my language irritated him; my punctuality, industry, and accuracy,
+      fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant relish of
+      envy; he feared that I too should one day make a successful tradesman. Had
+      I been in anything inferior to him, he would not have hated me so
+      thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what was worse, he suspected
+      that I kept the padlock of silence on mental wealth in which he was no
+      sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying
+      position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three
+      faculties—Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as was
+      Edward’s malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of these, my
+      natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my tact, hoping it
+      would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on its slumber; but tact, if
+      it be genuine, never sleeps.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had received my first quarter’s wages, and was returning to my lodgings,
+      possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that the master who had
+      paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned pittance—(I had long
+      ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother—he was a hard,
+      grinding master; he wished to be an inexorable tyrant: that was all).
+      Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind; two voices spoke within
+      me; again and again they uttered the same monotonous phrases. One said:
+      “William, your life is intolerable.” The other: “What can you do to alter
+      it?” I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night in January; as I
+      approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of my affairs to the
+      particular speculation as to whether my fire would be out; looking towards
+      the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering red gleam.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual,” said I, “and I shall
+      see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine starlight night—I
+      will walk a little farther.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      It <em>was</em> a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for
+      X——; there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish
+      church tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of
+      the sky.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got into
+      Grove Street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the
+      extremity, round a suburban house, when a person leaning over the iron
+      gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling-houses in
+      this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have left Sodom, when he
+      expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass clouds.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance,
+      and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of a man, too, bent
+      towards me over the wicket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You see I am meditating in the field at eventide,” continued this shade.
+      “God knows it’s cool work! especially as instead of Rebecca on a camel’s
+      hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, Fate sends me
+      only a counting-house clerk, in a grey tweed wrapper.” The voice was
+      familiar to me—its second utterance enabled me to seize the
+      speaker’s identity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mr. Hunsden! good evening.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+      recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I did not know you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A famous excuse! You ought to have known me; I knew you, though you were
+      going ahead like a steam-engine. Are the police after you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It wouldn’t be worth their while; I’m not of consequence enough to
+      attract them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Alas, poor shepherd! Alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and
+      how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice!
+      But since you’re not running from the police, from whom are you running?
+      the devil?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, I am going post to him.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is well—you’re just in luck: this is Tuesday evening; there
+      are scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night; and
+      he, or some of his, have a seat in all regularly; so, if you’ll step in
+      and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor’s parlour, you may catch him as he
+      passes without much trouble. I think though you’d better let him alone
+      to-night, he’ll have so many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day
+      in X—— and Dinneford; come in at all events.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you really wish me to go in?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As you please—I’m alone; your company for an hour or two would be
+      agreeable to me; but, if you don’t choose to favour me so far, I’ll not
+      press the point. I hate to bore any one.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it. I
+      passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door, which he
+      opened; thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour; the door
+      being shut, he pointed me to an arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and
+      glanced round me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright grate was
+      filled with a genuine ——shire fire, red, clear, and generous,
+      no penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On
+      the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal light;
+      the furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor, comprising a
+      couch and two very easy chairs; bookshelves filled the recesses on each
+      side of the mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and arranged with
+      perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste; I hate irregular
+      and slovenly habits. From what I saw I concluded that Hunsden’s ideas on
+      that point corresponded with my own. While he removed from the
+      centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets and periodicals, I ran my
+      eye along the shelves of the book-case nearest me. French and German works
+      predominated, the old French dramatists, sundry modern authors, Thiers,
+      Villemain, Paul de Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in German—Goëthe,
+      Schiller, Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there were works on
+      Political Economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden himself recalled
+      my attention.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You shall have something,” said he, “for you ought to feel disposed for
+      refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night as
+      this; but it shall not be brandy-and-water, and it shall not be a bottle
+      of port, nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have Rhein-wein for
+      my own drinking, and you may choose between that and coffee.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Here again Hunsden suited me: if there was one generally received practice
+      I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of spirits and
+      strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German nectar, but I
+      liked coffee, so I responded—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to see a
+      chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give me
+      neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one searching glance at my face to
+      ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint of politeness.
+      I smiled, because I quite understood him; and, while I honoured his
+      conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he seemed satisfied,
+      rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently brought; for
+      himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something sour sufficed. My
+      coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the shuddering pity
+      with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not answer, and I
+      scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of those momentary
+      eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, extinguishing his
+      smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily
+      shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed the interval of silence in
+      a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had never observed him closely
+      before; and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague,
+      general idea of his appearance; I was surprised now, on examination, to
+      perceive how small, and even feminine, were his lineaments; his tall
+      figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general bearing, had impressed
+      me with the notion of something powerful and massive; not at all:—my
+      own features were cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his. I
+      discerned that there would be contrasts between his inward and outward
+      man; contentions, too; for I suspected his soul had more of will and
+      ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. Perhaps, in these
+      incompatibilities of the “physique” with the “morale,” lay the secret of
+      that fitful gloom; he <em>would</em> but <em>could</em> not, and the
+      athletic mind scowled
+      scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his good looks, I should have
+      liked to have a woman’s opinion on that subject; it seemed to me that his
+      face might produce the same effect on a lady that a very piquant and
+      interesting, though scarcely pretty, female face would on a man. I have
+      mentioned his dark locks—they were brushed sideways above a white
+      and sufficiently expansive forehead; his cheek had a rather hectic
+      freshness; his features might have done well on canvas, but indifferently
+      in marble: they were plastic; character had set a stamp upon each;
+      expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphoses she
+      wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose bull, and anon that of an
+      arch and mischievous girl; more frequently, the two semblances were blent,
+      and a queer, composite countenance they made.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Starting from his silent fit, he began:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
+      King’s, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a garden
+      like me!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should be too far from the mill.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
+      times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
+      flower or a green leaf?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am no fossil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth’s counting-house
+      day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
+      automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
+      for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to no
+      excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in strong
+      drink.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Don’t think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine are
+      diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a parallel.
+      I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be unendurable, he
+      is a fossil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
+      surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find subject
+      for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do with my
+      eyes and ears? I’ve been in your counting-house more than once when
+      Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for instance,
+      and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the
+      wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you to shut or open
+      the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing of your position
+      at the party about a month ago, where you had neither place nor partner,
+      but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and how patient you were
+      under each and all of these circumstances!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as to your
+      character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide your conduct;
+      if you are patient because you expect to make something eventually out of
+      Crimsworth, notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you
+      are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very
+      wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult
+      with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my
+      money; if you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic, flat,
+      inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why,
+      God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and
+      let Juggernaut ride well over you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden’s eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and
+      oily order. As he spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognize in him one
+      of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly
+      relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he was
+      neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I
+      suspected, overbearing in his way: there was a tone of despotism in the
+      urgency of the very reproaches by which he aimed at goading the oppressed
+      into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly
+      than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to
+      arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on
+      the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over these thoughts, and
+      then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved thereto by a slight
+      inward revelation of the inconsistency of man. It was as I thought:
+      Hunsden had expected me to take with calm his incorrect and offensive
+      surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and himself was chafed by a
+      laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” he began, “I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but an
+      aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look? A laugh
+      frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous; gentlemanlike irony, patrician
+      resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William Crimsworth! You
+      are cut out for one; pity Fortune has baulked Nature! Look at the
+      features, figure, even to the hands—distinction all over—ugly
+      distinction! Now, if you’d only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a
+      title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of your
+      class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the peerage, oppose at
+      every step the advancing power of the people, support your rotten order,
+      and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in churls’ blood; as it is,
+      you’ve no power; you can do nothing; you’re wrecked and stranded on the
+      shores of commerce; forced into collision with practical men, with whom
+      you cannot cope, for <em>you’ll never be a tradesman</em>.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The first part of Hunsden’s speech moved me not at all, or, if it did, it
+      was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted his
+      judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
+      moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
+      wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll make nothing by trade,” continued he; “nothing more than the crust
+      of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live; your
+      only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow, or
+      running away with an heiress.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,” said
+      I, rising.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And even that is hopeless,” he went on coolly. “What widow would have
+      you? Much less, what heiress? You’re not bold and venturesome enough for
+      the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
+      perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
+      refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid for
+      them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was out
+      of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
+      enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence and
+      solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you’ll find the door.” And he
+      sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house. I had
+      got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that I was
+      walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost
+      stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set
+      fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws,
+      but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind
+      to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter
+      Hunsden’s house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morrow, must I repair to
+      Crimsworth’s mill? All that night did I ask myself these questions, and
+      all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep; my
+      head burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells rang, and I sprang
+      from my bed with other slaves.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0005">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
+      every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
+      frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now icy
+      street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory
+      workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted
+      up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my post in the
+      counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as yet only smoked;
+      Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat down at the desk;
+      my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were still numb; I could
+      not write till they had regained vitality, so I went on thinking, and
+      still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.” Self-dissatisfaction
+      troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that
+      within ourselves takes ourselves to task—“come, get a clear notion
+      of what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
+      pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
+      What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
+      Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading you
+      are likely to make of it! How well you like X——! Just at this
+      moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
+      its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers you!
+      Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings, letter-copying
+      till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure in Brown’s, nor
+      Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as to Hunsden, you
+      fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his society—he! he!
+      how did you like the taste you had of him last night? was it sweet? Yet he
+      is a talented, an original-minded man, and even he does not like you; your
+      self-respect defies you to like him; he has always seen you to
+      disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage; your positions are
+      unequal, and were they on the same level your minds could not assimilate;
+      never hope, then, to gather the honey of friendship out of that
+      thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are your thoughts tending?
+      You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee would a rock, as a bird a
+      desert; and your aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions
+      where, now in advancing daylight—in X—— daylight—you
+      dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those three you will never
+      meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of just men made perfect
+      may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will never be made perfect.
+      Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get to work!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I toil
+      like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may work, it
+      will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a packet of
+      letters and commenced my task—task thankless and bitter as that of
+      the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in search of
+      straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and in
+      a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to glance
+      his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand a minute
+      with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did not deviate
+      from his usual habits; the only difference was that when he looked at me,
+      his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his eye, instead of
+      being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two longer than usual,
+      but went out in silence.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
+      workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
+      me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I was tying
+      up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place, preparatory to
+      closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door, and entering
+      closed it behind him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
+      nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
+      forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful forms
+      of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key! leave
+      it in the lock!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant,
+      obey me! What have you been about—?” He was going on in the same
+      breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
+      the better of articulation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk,
+      there are the papers.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Confound your insolence! What have you been about?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your work, and have done it well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This last
+      term is, I believe, purely ——shire, and alludes to the horn of
+      black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels, and
+      employed for greasing the same.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
+      accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find it
+      the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay no
+      longer.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He
+      took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
+      temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
+      vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
+      continued:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+      lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X—— about me?
+      answer me that!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant habit
+      to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands. You
+      have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and knock you
+      about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this minute, and never
+      stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh from your bones with
+      this whip.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead. A
+      warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a bound,
+      and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly, came
+      round to where he stood, and faced him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
+      calumniating you—complaining of your low wages and bad treatment.
+      Give your grounds for these assertions.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation, he
+      gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
+      brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and a
+      hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
+      pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
+      question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
+      about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such trash;
+      and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy mob, where
+      the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which
+      this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I saw that
+      treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you in close
+      conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know that you
+      were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
+      you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse man,
+      a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom existed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
+      he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and throw
+      it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, and
+      said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something
+      of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought before a
+      magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and
+      long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bethink
+      himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient superiority over a
+      beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer and more dignified
+      mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at that
+      door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
+      transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into my
+      sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground belonging
+      to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what
+      temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
+      tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so no
+      fear of my coming back.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were my
+      own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the key
+      on the top.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner. “Leave
+      all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
+      gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house—walked out of
+      it to enter it no more.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
+      Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
+      rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to hear
+      the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images of
+      potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and tumult
+      which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I only
+      thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize with the
+      action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could I do
+      otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and liberated. I
+      had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of resolution; without
+      injury to my self-respect. I had not forced circumstances; circumstances
+      had freed me. Life was again open to me; no longer was its horizon limited
+      by the high black wall surrounding Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had
+      elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm
+      enough to remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged
+      that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay
+      Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of X——.
+      The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was
+      already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising from the
+      river on which X—— stands, and along whose banks the road I
+      had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy blue
+      of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the time of
+      the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
+      within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being yet
+      arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the
+      river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I
+      stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current: I
+      watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and
+      permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
+      Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of that
+      day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak
+      trees surrounding the church—its light coloured and characterized
+      the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound
+      of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear, eye and feeling
+      satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my face towards X——.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0006">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred
+      seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp
+      appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was dark
+      when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered how my
+      fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a
+      grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found, on
+      entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly
+      noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject for
+      wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was already
+      filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, and his legs
+      stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful as was the gleam
+      of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to recognize in this
+      person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of course be much pleased
+      to see him, considering the manner in which I had parted from him the
+      night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred the fire, and said
+      coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as little cordiality as I
+      felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had brought him there; and I
+      wondered, also, what motives had induced him to interfere so actively
+      between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared, that I owed my welcome
+      dismissal; still I could not bring myself to ask him questions, to show
+      any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to explain, he might, but the
+      explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part; I thought he
+      was entering upon it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to
+      charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton
+      weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit
+      again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with the
+      bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘Thank you!’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so
+      famished.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a
+      glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting him;
+      I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and
+      irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical
+      opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the
+      case; I have had no dinner.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied by
+      looking in my face and laughing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Poor thing!” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it?
+      What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth
+      order you to fast by way of punishment, William!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, Mr. Hunsden.” Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was brought
+      in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly.
+      Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to Mr.
+      Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the table
+      and do as I did, if he liked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But I don’t like in the least,” said he, and therewith he summoned the
+      servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to have a
+      glass of toast-and-water. “And some more coal,” he added; “Mr. Crimsworth
+      shall keep a good fire while I stay.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so as
+      to be opposite me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well,” he proceeded. “You are out of work, I suppose.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this
+      point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as
+      though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had
+      been done. “Yes—thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at a
+      minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public meeting,
+      I understand.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did he?
+      What had he to say about his friend Hunsden—anything sweet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He called you a treacherous villain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come
+      out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance,
+      but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities—excellent ones! The Hunsdens
+      were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable
+      villain is their natural prey—they could not keep off him wherever
+      they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now—that word is
+      the property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+      generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile
+      off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for
+      me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact
+      with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally I
+      care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he violated
+      your natural claim to equality)—I say it was impossible for me to be
+      thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work
+      within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out Hunsden’s
+      character, and because it explained his motives; it interested me so much
+      that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over a throng of
+      ideas it had suggested.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you grateful to me?” he asked, presently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at
+      the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not out
+      of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer his
+      blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency to
+      gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his championship,
+      to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely to meet with it
+      here. In reply he termed me “a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp,” whereupon
+      I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your bread was dirty, man!” cried Hunsden—“dirty and unwholesome!
+      It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a
+      tyrant,—a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will
+      some day be a tyrant to his wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and
+      through your means.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There’s sense in what you say, after all,” rejoined Hunsden. “I must say
+      I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical an
+      observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous observation
+      of your character, that the sentimental delight you would have taken in
+      your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least, have effaced all
+      ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of you for looking
+      steadily to the needful.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live, and
+      to live I must have what you call ‘the needful,’ which I can only get by
+      working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What do you mean to do?” pursued Hunsden coolly. “You have influential
+      relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “The Seacombes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stuff! I have cut them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I have,” said I, “and that definitively.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You must mean they have cut you, William.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my
+      entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I
+      withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my elder
+      brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel
+      intermeddling of a stranger—of yourself, in short.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+      demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s
+      lips.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he
+      <em>did</em> see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with
+      his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal
+      of my countenance, he went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands
+      stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of a
+      wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into contact with
+      aristocratic palms?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete
+      Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they
+      should disown you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “They have disowned me; so talk no more about it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you regret it, William?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why not, lad?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+      sympathy.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I say you are one of them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am my
+      mother’s son, but not my uncles’ nephew.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Still—one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure and
+      not a very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable: you should
+      consider worldly interest.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I desired to be
+      submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough grace
+      ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own comfort and
+      not have gained their patronage in return.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very likely—so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your
+      own devices at once?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Exactly. I must follow my own devices—I must, till the day of my
+      death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of
+      other people.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden yawned. “Well,” said he, “in all this, I see but one thing
+      clearly—that is, that the whole affair is no business of mine.” He
+      stretched himself and again yawned. “I wonder what time it is,” he went
+      on: “I have an appointment for seven o’clock.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Three quarters past six by my watch.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then I’ll go.” He got up. “You’ll not meddle with trade again?”
+       said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No; I think not.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you’ll think better
+      of your uncles’ proposal and go into the Church.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man
+      before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! Do you think so?” interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which go to make
+      a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession for which I have no
+      vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You’re a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won’t be a tradesman or a
+      parson; you can’t be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman, because you’ve
+      no money. I’d recommend you to travel.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! without money?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French—with
+      a vile English accent, no doubt—still, you can speak it. Go on to
+      the Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “God knows I should like to go!” exclaimed I with involuntary ardour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance,
+      for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Necessity would teach me if I didn’t.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I know
+      Brussels almost as well as I know X——, and I am sure it would
+      suit such a one as you better than London.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to be had; and
+      how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or employment at
+      Brussels?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before you
+      know every inch of the way. You haven’t a sheet of paper and a
+      pen-and-ink?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I hope so,” and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for I guessed
+      what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded, sealed,
+      and addressed a letter, and held it out to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, Prudence, there’s a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+      difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of
+      those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they are to
+      get it out again, and you’re right there. A reckless man is my aversion,
+      and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the concerns of such a
+      one. Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so
+      for their friends.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?” said I, taking the epistle.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself in
+      a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a
+      degradation—so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you
+      will present it generally has two or three respectable places depending
+      upon his recommendation.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That will just suit me,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, and where’s your gratitude?” demanded Mr. Hunsden; “don’t you know
+      how to say ‘Thank you?’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ve fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw,
+      gave me eighteen years ago,” was my rather irrelevant answer; and I
+      further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any
+      being in Christendom.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But your gratitude?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden—to-morrow, if all be well:
+      I’ll not stay a day longer in X—— than I’m obliged.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very good—but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for the
+      assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to strike seven:
+      I’m waiting to be thanked.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key there is
+      on the corner of the mantelpiece. I’ll pack my portmanteau before I go to
+      bed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The house clock struck seven.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The lad is a heathen,” said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a sideboard,
+      he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an inclination to follow
+      him: I really intended to leave X—— the next morning, and
+      should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding him good-bye. The
+      front door banged to.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Let him go,” said I, “we shall meet again some day.”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0007">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don’t know the
+      physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments defined upon your
+      memory, as I have them on mine?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Three—nay four—pictures line the four-walled cell where are
+      stored for me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is
+      in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green,
+      dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my
+      childhood was not all sunshine—it had its overcast, its cold, its
+      stormy hours. Second, X——, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and
+      smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the
+      suburbs blighted and sullied—a very dreary scene.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the fourth,
+      a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not, as suits
+      my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it must hang
+      undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name that whenever
+      uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other
+      assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium! I
+      repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. It stirs my world of
+      the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves unclose, the dead are
+      raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept, are seen by me ascending
+      from the clods—haloed most of them—but while I gaze on their
+      vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their outline, the sound
+      which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all, like a light wreath
+      of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, resealed in monuments.
+      Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This is Belgium, reader. Look! don’t call the picture a flat or a dull
+      one—it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I left
+      Ostend on a mild February morning, and found myself on the road to
+      Brussels, nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment possessed
+      an edge whetted to the finest, untouched, keen, exquisite. I was young; I
+      had good health; pleasure and I had never met; no indulgence of hers had
+      enervated or sated one faculty of my nature. Liberty I clasped in my arms
+      for the first time, and the influence of her smile and embrace revived my
+      life like the sun and the west wind. Yes, at that epoch I felt like a
+      morning traveller who doubts not that from the hill he is ascending he
+      shall behold a glorious sunrise; what if the track be strait, steep, and
+      stony? he sees it not; his eyes are fixed on that summit, flushed already,
+      flushed and gilded, and having gained it he is certain of the scene
+      beyond. He knows that the sun will face him, that his chariot is even now
+      coming over the eastern horizon, and that the herald breeze he feels on
+      his cheek is opening for the god’s career a clear, vast path of azure,
+      amidst clouds soft as pearl and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to
+      be my lot, but sustained by energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague,
+      I deemed such a lot no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade; there
+      were pebbles, inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on
+      the crimson peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent firmament
+      beyond, and I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of
+      the thorns scratching my face and hands.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the diligence
+      (these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains and railroads).
+      Well! and what did I see? I will tell you faithfully. Green, reedy swamps;
+      fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them look like
+      magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as pollard willows,
+      skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by the road-side;
+      painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a gray, dead sky; wet
+      road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque
+      object met my eye along the whole route; yet to me, all was beautiful, all
+      was more than picturesque. It continued fair so long as daylight lasted,
+      though the moisture of many preceding damp days had sodden the whole
+      country; as it grew dark, however, the rain recommenced, and it was
+      through streaming and starless darkness my eye caught the first gleam of
+      the lights of Brussels. I saw little of the city but its lights that
+      night. Having alighted from the diligence, a fiacre conveyed me to the
+      Hotel de ——, where I had been advised by a fellow-traveller to
+      put up; having eaten a traveller’s supper, I retired to bed, and slept a
+      traveller’s sleep.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the impression
+      that I was yet in X——, and perceiving it to be broad daylight
+      I started up, imagining that I had overslept myself and should be behind
+      time at the counting-house. The momentary and painful sense of restraint
+      vanished before the revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as,
+      throwing back the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide,
+      lofty foreign chamber; how different from the small and dingy, though not
+      uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at a
+      respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the packet! Yet
+      far be it from me to profane the memory of that little dingy room! It,
+      too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I lay in quiet and darkness, I
+      first heard the great bell of St. Paul’s telling London it was midnight,
+      and well do I recall the deep, deliberate tones, so full charged with
+      colossal phlegm and force. From the small, narrow window of that room, I
+      first saw <em>the</em> dome, looming through a London mist. I suppose the
+      sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt but
+      once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them in safe
+      niches! Well—I rose. Travellers talk of the apartments in foreign
+      dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my chamber looked
+      stately and cheerful. It had such large windows—<i lang="fr">croisées</i>
+      that opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes of glass; such a
+      great looking-glass stood on my dressing-table—such a fine mirror
+      glittered over the mantelpiece—the painted floor looked so clean and
+      glossy; when I had dressed and was descending the stairs, the broad marble
+      steps almost awed me, and so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.
+      On the first landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a
+      short red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad, her
+      physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she answered
+      me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I thought her
+      charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I conceived, very
+      picturesque; she reminded me of the female figures in certain Dutch
+      paintings I had seen in other years at Seacombe Hall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very lofty,
+      and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove was black, and
+      most of the furniture was black: yet I never experienced a freer sense of
+      exhilaration than when I sat down at a very long, black table (covered,
+      however, in part by a white cloth), and, having ordered breakfast, began
+      to pour out my coffee from a little black coffee-pot. The stove might be
+      dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it was indisputably very
+      warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by it talking in French;
+      impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or comprehend much of the
+      purport of what they said—yet French, in the mouths of Frenchmen, or
+      Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors of the Belgian accent)
+      was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen presently discerned me to
+      be an Englishman—no doubt from the fashion in which I addressed the
+      waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in my execrable
+      South-of-England style, though the man understood English. The gentleman,
+      after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted me in very good
+      English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak French as well; his
+      fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for the first time with a
+      due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the capital I was in; it was
+      my first experience of that skill in living languages I afterwards found
+      to be so general in Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there on the
+      table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a free,
+      independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the two
+      gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
+      business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
+      one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
+      the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
+      without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: “Go forth and seek
+      another service.” I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
+      never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
+      impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived the
+      morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter of
+      introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new situation. Wrenching
+      my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat, and forced my reluctant
+      body out of the Hotel de —— into the foreign street.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the stately
+      houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out “Mr. Brown,
+      Numero —, Rue Royale,” for so my letter was addressed. By dint of
+      inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked, asked
+      for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the presence of
+      an elderly gentleman—very grave, business-like, and
+      respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden’s letter; he received me very
+      civilly. After a little desultory conversation he asked me if there was
+      anything in which his advice or experience could be of use. I said, “Yes,”
+       and then proceeded to tell him that I was not a gentleman of fortune,
+      travelling for pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who wanted
+      employment of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied that as a
+      friend of Mr. Hunsden’s he would be willing to assist me as well as he
+      could. After some meditation he named a place in a mercantile house at
+      Liege, and another in a bookseller’s shop at Louvain.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Clerk and shopman!” murmured I to myself. “No.” I shook my head. I had
+      tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there were other occupations
+      that would suit me better; besides I did not wish to leave Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I know of no place in Brussels,” answered Mr. Brown, “unless indeed you
+      were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I am acquainted with the
+      director of a large establishment who is in want of a professor of English
+      and Latin.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The very thing, sir!” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But,” asked he, “do you understand French well enough to teach Belgian
+      boys English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative; having
+      studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the language intelligibly
+      though not fluently. I could also read it well, and write it decently.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Then,” pursued Mr. Brown, “I think I can promise you the place, for
+      Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me; but come
+      here again at five o’clock this afternoon, and I will introduce you to
+      him.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The word “professor” struck me. “I am not a professor,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh,” returned Mr. Brown, “professor, here in Belgium, means a teacher,
+      that is all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the present,
+      withdrew. This time I stepped out into the street with a relieved heart;
+      the task I had imposed on myself for that day was executed. I might now
+      take some hours of holiday. I felt free to look up. For the first time I
+      remarked the sparkling clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky, the
+      gay clean aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what a fine
+      street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+      pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the palisades,
+      the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight, offered to my eye a
+      new attraction. I remember, before entering the park, I stood awhile to
+      contemplate the statue of General Belliard, and then I advanced to the top
+      of the great staircase just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back
+      street, which I afterwards learnt was called the Rue d’Isabelle. I well
+      recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large house
+      opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, “Pensionnat de
+      Demoiselles.” Pensionnat! The word excited an uneasy sensation in my mind;
+      it seemed to speak of restraint. Some of the demoiselles, externats no
+      doubt, were at that moment issuing from the door—I looked for a
+      pretty face amongst them, but their close, little French bonnets hid their
+      features; in a moment they were gone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o’clock arrived, but
+      punctually as that hour struck I was again in the Rue Royale. Re-admitted
+      to Mr. Brown’s breakfast-room, I found him, as before, seated at the
+      table, and he was not alone—a gentleman stood by the hearth. Two
+      words of introduction designated him as my future master. “M. Pelet, Mr.
+      Crimsworth; Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet,” a bow on each side finished the
+      ceremony. I don’t know what sort of a bow I made; an ordinary one, I
+      suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of mind; I felt none
+      of the agitation which had troubled my first interview with Edward
+      Crimsworth. M. Pelet’s bow was extremely polite, yet not theatrical,
+      scarcely French; he and I were presently seated opposite to each other. In
+      a pleasing voice, low, and, out of consideration to my foreign ears, very
+      distinct and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he had just been
+      receiving from “le respectable M. Brown,” an account of my attainments and
+      character, which relieved him from all scruple as to the propriety of
+      engaging me as professor of English and Latin in his establishment;
+      nevertheless, for form’s sake, he would put a few questions to test my
+      powers. He did, and expressed in flattering terms his satisfaction at my
+      answers. The subject of salary next came on; it was fixed at one thousand
+      francs per annum, besides board and lodging. “And in addition,” suggested
+      M. Pelet, “as there will be some hours in each day during which your
+      services will not be required in my establishment, you may, in time,
+      obtain employment in other seminaries, and thus turn your vacant moments
+      to profitable account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the terms on
+      which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for Brussels;
+      instruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of
+      teachers. It was further arranged that I should be installed in my new
+      post the very next day, after which M. Pelet and I parted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions concerning him?
+      He was a man of about forty years of age, of middle size, and rather
+      emaciated figure; his face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes
+      hollow; his features were pleasing and regular, they had a French turn
+      (for M. Pelet was no Fleming, but a Frenchman both by birth and
+      parentage), yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Gallic lineaments
+      was, in his case, softened by a mild blue eye, and a melancholy, almost
+      suffering, expression of countenance; his physiognomy was “fine et
+      spirituelle.” I use two French words because they define better than any
+      English terms the species of intelligence with which his features were
+      imbued. He was altogether an interesting and prepossessing personage. I
+      wondered only at the utter absence of all the ordinary characteristics of
+      his profession, and almost feared he could not be stern and resolute
+      enough for a schoolmaster. Externally at least M. Pelet presented an
+      absolute contrast to my late master, Edward Crimsworth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I was a
+      good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my new employer’s
+      house, and being admitted to a first view of what was to be the sphere of
+      my future labours, namely the large, lofty, and well-lighted schoolrooms,
+      I beheld a numerous assemblage of pupils, boys of course, whose collective
+      appearance showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, and
+      well-disciplined seminary. As I traversed the classes in company with M.
+      Pelet, a profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance a murmur
+      or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this most gentle
+      pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I thought, how so mild
+      a check could prove so effectual. When I had perambulated the length and
+      breadth of the classes, M. Pelet turned and said to me—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing their
+      proficiency in English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been allowed at
+      least three days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to commence any career
+      by hesitation, so I just stepped to the professor’s desk near which we
+      stood, and faced the circle of my pupils. I took a moment to collect my
+      thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I proposed
+      to open business. I made it as short as possible:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Anglais ou Français, monsieur?” demanded a thickset, moon-faced young
+      Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Anglais.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this lesson;
+      it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the delivery of
+      explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the criticisms of
+      the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt already it would be
+      necessary at once to take up an advantageous position, and I proceeded to
+      employ means accordingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Commencez!” cried I, when they had all produced their books. The
+      moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt) took
+      the first sentence. The “livre de lecture” was the “Vicar of Wakefield,”
+       much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to contain prime
+      samples of conversational English; it might, however, have been a Runic
+      scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the
+      language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how
+      he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat and
+      nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but I heard him to the end of his
+      paragraph without proffering a word of correction, whereat he looked
+      vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself
+      like a real born and bred “Anglais.” In the same unmoved silence I
+      listened to a dozen in rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with
+      splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Arrêtez!” said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all
+      with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared at hard enough and
+      long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my
+      bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me were
+      beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands,
+      and ejaculated in a deep “voix de poitrine”—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme c’est affreux!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they were
+      not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way I wished them
+      to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next
+      step was to raise myself in their estimation; not a very easy thing,
+      considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of betraying my own
+      deficiencies.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ecoutez, messieurs!” said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my accents
+      the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the extremity
+      of the helplessness, which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at
+      length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of the “Vicar of
+      Wakefield,” and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some twenty pages, they
+      all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed attention; by the time
+      I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est assez pour aujourd’hui, messieurs; demain nous recommençerons, et
+      j’espère que tout ira bien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet quitted
+      the school-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est bien! c’est très bien!” said my principal as we entered his
+      parlour. “Je vois que monsieur a de l’adresse; cela, me plait, car, dans
+      l’instruction, l’adresse fait tout autant que le savoir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my “chambre,” as
+      Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency. It was a very small room,
+      with an excessively small bed, but M. Pelet gave me to understand that I
+      was to occupy it quite alone, which was of course a great comfort. Yet,
+      though so limited in dimensions, it had two windows. Light not being taxed
+      in Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into their houses; just
+      here, however, this observation is not very <em>apropos</em>, for one of
+      these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into the boys’
+      playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what aspect it would
+      present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet read, I suppose, the
+      expression of my eye; he explained:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “La fenêtre fermée donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat de
+      demoiselles,” said he, “et les convenances exigent—enfin, vous
+      comprenez—n’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, oui,” was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied; but when
+      M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the first thing I did
+      was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards, hoping to find some chink or
+      crevice which I might enlarge, and so get a peep at the consecrated
+      ground. My researches were vain, for the boards were well joined and
+      strongly nailed. It is astonishing how disappointed I felt. I thought it
+      would have been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with
+      flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at their
+      play; to have studied female character in a variety of phases, myself the
+      while sheltered from view by a modest muslin curtain, whereas, owing
+      doubtless to the absurd scruples of some old duenna of a directress, I had
+      now only the option of looking at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous
+      “pas de geant” in the middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a
+      boys’ school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after, especially
+      in moments of weariness and low spirits, did I look with dissatisfied eyes
+      on that most tantalizing board, longing to tear it away and get a glimpse
+      of the green region which I imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew
+      close up to the window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle,
+      I often heard at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the
+      daytime, when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through the
+      boards, the voices of the demoiselles in their hours of recreation, and,
+      to speak the honest truth, my sentimental reflections were occasionally a
+      trifle disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen
+      sounds, which, rising from the unseen paradise below, penetrated
+      clamorously into my solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to me
+      a doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter’s girls or those of M.
+      Pelet’s boys were the strongest, and when it came to shrieking the girls
+      indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot to say, by-the-by, that Reuter
+      was the name of the old lady who had had my window bearded up. I say old,
+      for such I, of course, concluded her to be, judging from her cautious,
+      chaperon-like proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of her as young. I
+      remember I was very much amused when I first heard her Christian name; it
+      was Zoraïde—Mademoiselle Zoraïde Reuter. But the continental nations
+      do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of names, such as we sober
+      English never run into. I think, indeed, we have too limited a list to
+      choose from.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a few
+      weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the
+      commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much
+      facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and as I
+      had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
+      continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
+      never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
+      acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the relation
+      in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards each other in
+      those establishments, will consider an important and uncommon one. Before
+      concluding this chapter I will say a word on the system I pursued with
+      regard to my classes: my experience may possibly be of use to others.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
+      youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one’s
+      measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
+      weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
+      impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull, but
+      they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, most
+      difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly absurd to
+      exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having short memories,
+      dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they recoiled with
+      repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study or deep thought.
+      Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by injudicious and
+      arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they would have resisted
+      as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine; and though not brave
+      singly, they were relentless acting <i lang="fr">en masse</i>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet’s establishment, the
+      combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of more
+      than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the most
+      moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply—to
+      assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
+      contracted—to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
+      point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
+      that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
+      root it in rock—become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
+      step—but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the gulf
+      of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs of Flemish
+      gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and handfuls of Low
+      Country mud. You might smooth to the utmost the path of learning, remove
+      every pebble from the track; but then you must finally insist with
+      decision on the pupil taking your arm and allowing himself to be led
+      quietly along the prepared road. When I had brought down my lesson to the
+      lowest level of my dullest pupil’s capacity—when I had shown myself
+      the mildest, the most tolerant of masters—a word of impertinence, a
+      movement of disobedience, changed me at once into a despot. I offered then
+      but one alternative—submission and acknowledgment of error, or
+      ignominious expulsion. This system answered, and my influence, by degrees,
+      became established on a firm basis. “The boy is father to the man,” it is
+      said; and so I often thought when I looked at my boys and remembered the
+      political history of their ancestors. Pelet’s school was merely an epitome
+      of the Belgian nation.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0008">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh, extremely well!
+      Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike, and even friendly, than his
+      demeanour to me. I had to endure from him neither cold neglect, irritating
+      interference, nor pretentious assumption of superiority. I fear, however,
+      two poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment could not have
+      said as much; to them the director’s manner was invariably dry, stern, and
+      cool. I believe he perceived once or twice that I was a little shocked at
+      the difference he made between them and me, and accounted for it by
+      saying, with a quiet sarcastic smile—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ce ne sont que des Flamands—allez!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted
+      floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they were,
+      and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual inferiority
+      is marked in lines none can mistake; still they were men, and, in the
+      main, honest men; and I could not see why their being aboriginals of the
+      flat, dull soil should serve as a pretext for treating them with perpetual
+      severity and contempt. This idea of injustice somewhat poisoned the
+      pleasure I might otherwise have derived from Pelet’s soft affable manner
+      to myself. Certainly it was agreeable, when the day’s work was over, to
+      find one’s employer an intelligent and cheerful companion; and if he was
+      sometimes a little sarcastic and sometimes a little too insinuating, and
+      if I did discover that his mildness was more a matter of appearance than
+      of reality—if I did occasionally suspect the existence of flint or
+      steel under an external covering of velvet—still we are none of us
+      perfect; and weary as I was of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence
+      in which I had constantly lived at X——, I had no inclination
+      now, on casting anchor in calmer regions, to institute at once a prying
+      search after defects that were scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled
+      from my view. I was willing to take Pelet for what he seemed—to
+      believe him benevolent and friendly until some untoward event should prove
+      him otherwise. He was not married, and I soon perceived he had all a
+      Frenchman’s, all a Parisian’s notions about matrimony and women. I
+      suspected a degree of laxity in his code of morals, there was something so
+      cold and <i lang="fr">blasé</I> in his tone whenever he alluded to what he
+      called “le beau sexe;” but he was too gentlemanlike to intrude topics I
+      did not invite, and as he was really intelligent and really fond of
+      intellectual subjects of discourse, he and I always found enough to talk
+      about, without seeking themes in the mire. I hated his fashion of
+      mentioning love; I abhorred, from my soul, mere licentiousness. He felt
+      the difference of our notions, and, by mutual consent, we kept off ground
+      debateable.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Pelet’s house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a real old
+      Frenchwoman; she had been handsome—at least she told me so, and I
+      strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only continental old women can
+      be; perhaps, though, her style of dress made her look uglier than she
+      really was. Indoors she would go about without cap, her grey hair
+      strangely dishevelled; then, when at home, she seldom wore a gown—only
+      a shabby cotton camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in
+      lieu of them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels. On the
+      other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as on Sundays
+      and fête-days, she would put on some very brilliant-coloured dress,
+      usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet with a wreath of flowers, and a
+      very fine shawl. She was not, in the main, an ill-natured old woman, but
+      an incessant and most indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly in and about the
+      kitchen, and seemed rather to avoid her son’s august presence; of him,
+      indeed, she evidently stood in awe. When he reproved her, his reproofs
+      were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself that trouble.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen visitors, whom,
+      however, I seldom saw, as she generally entertained them in what she
+      called her “cabinet,” a small den of a place adjoining the kitchen, and
+      descending into it by one or two steps. On these steps, by-the-by, I have
+      not unfrequently seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on her knee,
+      engaged in the threefold employment of eating her dinner, gossiping with
+      her favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her antagonist, the
+      cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal with her son; and
+      as to showing her face at the boys’ table, that was quite out of the
+      question. These details will sound very odd in English ears, but Belgium
+      is not England, and its ways are not our ways.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Madame Pelet’s habits of life, then, being taken into consideration, I was
+      a good deal surprised when, one Thursday evening (Thursday was always a
+      half-holiday), as I was sitting all alone in my apartment, correcting a
+      huge pile of English and Latin exercises, a servant tapped at the door,
+      and, on its being opened, presented Madame Pelet’s compliments, and she
+      would be happy to see me to take my “goûter” (a meal which answers to our
+      English “tea”) with her in the dining-room.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Plait-il?” said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the message
+      and invitation were so unusual; the same words were repeated. I accepted,
+      of course, and as I descended the stairs, I wondered what whim had entered
+      the old lady’s brain; her son was out—gone to pass the evening at
+      the Salle of the Grande Harmonie or some other club of which he was a
+      member. Just as I laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room door, a
+      queer idea glanced across my mind.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Surely she’s not going to make love to me,” said I. “I’ve heard of old
+      Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the goûter? They generally
+      begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I believe.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination,
+      and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt have
+      cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself in; but
+      whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty, the primary wish
+      of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth, reserving the expedient
+      of flight for the moment when its dread anticipation shall be realized. I
+      turned the door-handle, and in an instant had crossed the fatal threshold,
+      closed the door behind me, and stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Gracious heavens! The first view of her seemed to confirm my worst
+      apprehensions. There she sat, dressed out in a light green muslin gown, on
+      her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in the frill; her table was
+      carefully spread; there were fruit, cakes, and coffee, with a bottle of
+      something—I did not know what. Already the cold sweat started on my
+      brow, already I glanced back over my shoulder at the closed door, when, to
+      my unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the direction of the
+      stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large fauteuil beside it.
+      This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old woman, and as fat and as
+      rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and yellow; her attire was likewise
+      very fine, and spring flowers of different hues circled in a bright wreath
+      the crown of her violet-coloured velvet bonnet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had only time to make these general observations when Madame Pelet,
+      coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful and elastic
+      step, thus accosted me:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies, at the
+      request of an insignificant person like me—will Monsieur complete
+      his kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear friend Madame
+      Reuter, who resides in the neighbouring house—the young ladies’
+      school.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” thought I, “I knew she was old,” and I bowed and took my seat.
+      Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?” asked she, in an accent of the
+      broadest Bruxellois. I could now well distinguish the difference between
+      the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M. Pelet, for instance, and the
+      guttural enunciation of the Flamands. I answered politely, and then
+      wondered how so coarse and clumsy an old woman as the one before me should
+      be at the head of a ladies’ seminary, which I had always heard spoken of
+      in terms of high commendation. In truth there was something to wonder at.
+      Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living old Flemish fermière,
+      or even a maîtresse d’auberge, than a staid, grave, rigid directrice de
+      pensionnat. In general the continental, or at least the Belgian old women
+      permit themselves a licence of manners, speech, and aspect, such as our
+      venerable granddames would recoil from as absolutely disreputable, and
+      Madame Reuter’s jolly face bore evidence that she was no exception to the
+      rule of her country; there was a twinkle and leer in her left eye; her
+      right she kept habitually half shut, which I thought very odd indeed.
+      After several vain attempts to comprehend the motives of these two droll
+      old creatures for inviting me to join them at their goûter, I at last
+      fairly gave it up, and resigning myself to inevitable mystification, I sat
+      and looked first at one, then at the other, taking care meantime to do
+      justice to the confitures, cakes, and coffee, with which they amply
+      supplied me. They, too, ate, and that with no delicate appetite, and
+      having demolished a large portion of the solids, they proposed a “petit
+      verre.” I declined. Not so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself
+      what I thought rather a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand
+      near the stove, they drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited
+      me to do the same. I obeyed; and being seated fairly between them, I was
+      thus addressed first by Madame Pelet, then by Madame Reuter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “We will now speak of business,” said Madame Pelet, and she went on to
+      make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to the effect that
+      she had asked for the pleasure of my company that evening in order to give
+      her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity of broaching an important
+      proposal, which might turn out greatly to my advantage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pourvu que vous soyez sage,” said Madame Reuter, “et à vrai dire, vous en
+      avez bien l’air. Take one drop of the punch” (or ponche, as she pronounced
+      it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full meal.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip—“I feel profoundly the
+      importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted me,
+      for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the
+      establishment in the next house?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment I
+      recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s
+      pensionnat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend
+      Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son—nothing more. Ah! you thought
+      I gave lessons in class—did you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy
+      amazingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give
+      lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a
+      white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my
+      nose, bowing at the same time.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Quel charmant jeune homme!” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice. Madame
+      Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not French, only
+      laughed again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge
+      compliments at that rate, Zoraïde will positively be afraid of you; but if
+      you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you can
+      flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She has
+      heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get the
+      very best masters for her school (car Zoraïde fait tout comme une reine,
+      c’est une véritable maîtresse-femme), she has commissioned me to step over
+      this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility of engaging
+      you. Zoraïde is a wary general; she never advances without first examining
+      well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased if she knew I had
+      already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not order me to go so
+      far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting you into the secret,
+      and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take care, however, you don’t
+      betray either of us to Zoraïde—to my daughter, I mean; she is so
+      discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot understand that one should
+      find a pleasure in gossiping a little—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est absolument comme mon fils!” cried Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other:
+      “young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame
+      Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s
+      establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow,
+      you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you will
+      introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached you
+      from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I would
+      not displease Zoraïde on any account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bien! bien!” interrupted I—for all this chatter and circumlocution
+      began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing shall
+      be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames—I am infinitely
+      obliged to you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Comment! vous vous en allez déjà?” exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits,
+      encore une tasse de café?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Merci, merci, madame—au revoir.” And I backed at last out of the
+      apartment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind the
+      incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and queerly
+      managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate mess of it;
+      still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the subject was one
+      of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change to give lessons
+      in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies would be an occupation
+      so interesting—to be admitted at all into a ladies’ boarding-school
+      would be an incident so new in my life. Besides, thought I, as I glanced
+      at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see the mysterious garden: I
+      shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0009">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle. Reuter;
+      permission to accept such additional employment, should it offer, having
+      formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me. It was,
+      therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should be at liberty
+      to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four afternoons in every
+      week.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference
+      with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the
+      visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember
+      very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with
+      myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something
+      smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,”
+       thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of Madame
+      Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if it were
+      otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, and no
+      dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off I started,
+      cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a
+      looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a
+      large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction;
+      something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady’s love, no butt
+      for the shafts of Cupid.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had pulled the
+      bell; in another moment the door was opened, and within appeared a passage
+      paved alternately with black and white marble; the walls were painted in
+      imitation of marble also; and at the far end opened a glass door, through
+      which I saw shrubs and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in the sunshine of
+      the mild spring evening—for it was now the middle of April.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This, then, was my first glimpse of <em>the</em> garden;
+      but I had not time to look
+      long, the portress, after having answered in the affirmative my question
+      as to whether her mistress was at home, opened the folding-doors of a room
+      to the left, and having ushered me in, closed them behind me. I found
+      myself in a salon with a very well-painted, highly varnished floor; chairs
+      and sofas covered with white draperies, a green porcelain stove, walls
+      hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt pendule and other ornaments on
+      the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent from the centre of the ceiling,
+      mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and a handsome centre table completed
+      the inventory of furniture. All looked extremely clean and glittering, but
+      the general effect would have been somewhat chilling had not a second
+      large pair of folding-doors, standing wide open, and disclosing another
+      and smaller salon, more snugly furnished, offered some relief to the eye.
+      This room was carpeted, and therein was a piano, a couch, a
+      chiffonniere—above all, it contained a lofty window with a crimson
+      curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded another glimpse of the garden,
+      through the large, clear panes, round which some leaves of ivy, some
+      tendrils of vine were trained.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur Creemsvort, n’est ce pas?” said a voice behind me; and, starting
+      involuntarily, I turned. I had been so taken up with the contemplation of
+      the pretty little salon that I had not noticed the entrance of a person
+      into the larger room. It was, however, Mdlle. Reuter who now addressed me,
+      and stood close beside me; and when I had bowed with instantaneously
+      recovered <i lang="fr">sang froid</i>—for I am not easily embarrassed—I
+      commenced the conversation by remarking on the pleasant aspect of her
+      little cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in possessing a
+      garden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” she said, “she often thought so;” and added, “it is my garden,
+      monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably
+      have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you
+      see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one so
+      large and pleasant anywhere else in town.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I approved her judgment.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But you have not seen it yet,” said she, rising; “come to the window and
+      take a better view.” I followed her; she opened the sash, and leaning out
+      I saw in full the enclosed demesne which had hitherto been to me an
+      unknown region. It was a long, not very broad strip of cultured ground,
+      with an alley bordered by enormous old fruit trees down the middle; there
+      was a sort of lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some flower-borders, and, on
+      the far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs, laburnums, and acacias.
+      It looked pleasant, to me—very pleasant, so long a time had elapsed
+      since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it was not only on Mdlle.
+      Reuter’s garden that my eyes dwelt; when I had taken a view of her
+      well-trimmed beds and budding shrubberies, I allowed my glance to come
+      back to herself, nor did I hastily withdraw it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in black,
+      with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a nun’s head-gear;
+      whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly formed woman, who might
+      indeed be older than I, but was still young; she could not, I thought, be
+      more than six or seven and twenty; she was as fair as a fair Englishwoman;
+      she had no cap; her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it in curls; pretty
+      her features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular, but neither were
+      they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause to deem them expressive.
+      What was their predominant cast? Was it sagacity?—sense? Yes, I
+      thought so; but I could scarcely as yet be sure. I discovered, however,
+      that there was a certain serenity of eye, and freshness of complexion,
+      most pleasing to behold. The colour on her cheek was like the bloom on a
+      good apple, which is as sound at the core as it is red on the rind.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business. She said she was not absolutely
+      certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to take, because I was so
+      young, and parents might possibly object to a professor like me for their
+      daughters: “But it is often well to act on one’s own judgment,” said she,
+      “and to lead parents, rather than be led by them. The fitness of a
+      professor is not a matter of age; and, from what I have heard, and from
+      what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you than M. Ledru, the
+      music-master, who is a married man of near fifty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good opinion; that
+      if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any confidence reposed in
+      me. “Du reste,” said she, “the surveillance will be strictly attended to.”
+       And then she proceeded to discuss the subject of terms. She was very
+      cautious, quite on her guard; she did not absolutely bargain, but she
+      warily sounded me to find out what my expectations might be; and when she
+      could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and reasoned with a fluent
+      yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at last nailed me down to five
+      hundred francs per annum—not too much, but I agreed. Before the
+      negotiation was completed, it began to grow a little dusk. I did not
+      hasten it, for I liked well enough to sit and hear her talk; I was amused
+      with the sort of business talent she displayed. Edward could not have
+      shown himself more practical, though he might have evinced more coarseness
+      and urgency; and then she had so many reasons, so many explanations; and,
+      after all, she succeeded in proving herself quite disinterested and even
+      liberal. At last she concluded, she could say no more, because, as I
+      acquiesced in all things, there was no further ground for the exercise of
+      her parts of speech. I was obliged to rise. I would rather have sat a
+      little longer; what had I to return to but my small empty room? And my
+      eyes had a pleasure in looking at Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the
+      twilight softened her features a little, and, in the doubtful dusk, I
+      could fancy her forehead as open as it was really elevated, her mouth
+      touched with turns of sweetness as well as defined in lines of sense. When
+      I rose to go, I held out my hand, on purpose, though I knew it was
+      contrary to the etiquette of foreign habits; she smiled, and said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! c’est comme tous les Anglais,” but gave me her hand very kindly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle,” said I; “and, remember,
+      I shall always claim it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+      tranquillity obvious in all she did—a tranquillity which soothed and
+      suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening. Brussels seemed
+      a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street, and it
+      appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career were even
+      then opening to me, on that selfsame mild, still April night. So
+      impressionable a being is man, or at least such a man as I was in those
+      days.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0010">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M. Pelet’s; I
+      wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to the neighbouring
+      pensionnat and give my first lesson within its pleasant precincts; for
+      pleasant they appeared to me. At noon the hour of recreation arrived; at
+      one o’clock we had lunch; this got on the time, and at last St. Gudule’s
+      deep bell, tolling slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been
+      waiting.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my room, I met
+      M. Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme vous avez l’air rayonnant!” said he. “Je ne vous ai jamais vu aussi
+      gai. Que s’est-il donc passé?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Apparemment que j’aime les changements,” replied I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! je comprends—c’est cela—soyez sage seulement. Vous êtes bien
+      jeune—trop jeune pour le rôle que vous allez jouer; il faut prendre
+      garde—savez-vous?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais quel danger y a-t-il?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je n’en sais rien—ne vous laissez pas aller à de vives impressions—voila
+      tout.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I laughed: a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my nerves at the
+      thought that “vives impressions” were likely to be created; it was the
+      deadness, the sameness of life’s daily ongoings that had hitherto been my
+      bane; my blouse-clad “élèves” in the boys’ seminary never stirred in me
+      any “vives impressions” except it might be occasionally some of anger. I
+      broke from M. Pelet, and as I strode down the passage he followed me with
+      one of his laughs—a very French, rakish, mocking sound.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted into the
+      cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation marble walls. I
+      followed the portress, and descending a step, and making a turn, I found
+      myself in a sort of corridor; a side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter’s little
+      figure, as graceful as it was plump, appeared. I could now see her dress
+      in full daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted her compact
+      round shape to perfection—delicate little collar and manchettes of
+      lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists, and feet, to
+      complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she came suddenly upon
+      me! Solicitude and business were in her eye—on her forehead; she
+      looked almost stern. Her “Bon jour, monsieur,” was quite polite, but so
+      orderly, so commonplace, it spread directly a cool, damp towel over my
+      “vives impressions.” The servant turned back when her mistress appeared,
+      and I walked slowly along the corridor, side by side with Mdlle. Reuter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day,” said she;
+      “dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to begin with, for
+      those are the easiest forms of communicating instruction in a foreign
+      language; and, at the first, a master naturally feels a little unsettled.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only remained for
+      me to acquiesce. We proceeded now in silence. The corridor terminated in a
+      hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass door on one side showed within a
+      long narrow refectory, with tables, an armoire, and two lamps; it was
+      empty; large glass doors, in front, opened on the playground and garden; a
+      broad staircase ascended spirally on the opposite side; the remaining wall
+      showed a pair of great folding-doors, now closed, and admitting,
+      doubtless, to the classes.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain, probably,
+      whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her sanctum sanctorum. I
+      suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable state of self-government, for
+      she opened the door, and I followed her through. A rustling sound of
+      uprising greeted our entrance; without looking to the right or left, I
+      walked straight up the lane between two sets of benches and desks, and
+      took possession of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an estrade,
+      of one step high, so as to command one division; the other division being
+      under the surveillance of a maîtresse similarly elevated. At the back of
+      the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition dividing this schoolroom
+      from another beyond, was a large tableau of wood painted black and
+      varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on my desk for the
+      convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal obscurity which might
+      occur in my lessons by writing it upon the tableau; a wet sponge appeared
+      beside the chalk, to enable me to efface the marks when they had served
+      the purpose intended.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I carefully and deliberately made these observations before allowing
+      myself to take one glance at the benches before me; having handled the
+      crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered the sponge in order to
+      ascertain that it was in a right state of moisture, I found myself cool
+      enough to admit of looking calmly up and gazing deliberately round me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away, she was
+      nowhere visible; a maîtresse or teacher, the one who occupied the
+      corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to keep guard over me; she
+      was a little in the shade, and, with my short sight, I could only see that
+      she was of a thin bony figure and rather tallowy complexion, and that her
+      attitude, as she sat, partook equally of listlessness and affectation.
+      More obvious, more prominent, shone on by the full light of the large
+      window, were the occupants of the benches just before me, of whom some
+      were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women from eighteen
+      (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest attire, the simplest
+      fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all; and good features,
+      ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant eyes, forms full, even to
+      solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear the first view like a stoic; I
+      was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice somewhat too low I murmured—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Prenez vos cahiers de dictée, mesdemoiselles.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet’s take their reading-books. A rustle
+      followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids which
+      momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for exercise-books, I
+      heard tittering and whispers.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Eulalie, je suis prête à pâmer de rire,” observed one.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Comme il a rougi en parlant!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, c’est un véritable blanc-bec.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Tais-toi, Hortense—il nous écoute.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked three, the
+      whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very steady look at them as
+      they emerged from their temporary eclipse. It is astonishing what ease and
+      courage their little phrases of flippancy had given me; the idea by which
+      I had been awed was that the youthful beings before me, with their dark
+      nun-like robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels. The
+      light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure relieved my
+      mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my
+      estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present. Their names I
+      knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie, Hortense,
+      Caroline. Eulalie was tall, and very finely shaped: she was fair, and her
+      features were those of a Low Country Madonna; many a “figure de Vierge”
+       have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling hers; there were no
+      angles in her shape or in her face, all was curve and roundness—neither
+      thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line or flush the equality of
+      her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved with her regular breathing,
+      her eyes moved a little—by these evidences of life alone could I
+      have distinguished her from some large handsome figure moulded in wax.
+      Hortense was of middle size and stout, her form was ungraceful, her face
+      striking, more alive and brilliant than Eulalie’s, her hair was dark
+      brown, her complexion richly coloured; there were frolic and mischief in
+      her eye: consistency and good sense she might possess, but none of her
+      features betokened those qualities.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black hair, very
+      dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive
+      complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in her
+      that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the
+      perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the
+      classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I
+      don’t know. I think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between them,
+      and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder’s mind. She was sensual
+      now, and in ten years’ time she would be coarse—promise plain was
+      written in her face of much future folly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me with
+      still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to expect,
+      passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic charms.
+      Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while she said,
+      with an air of impudent freedom—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commençer, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse hair
+      over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as those of a
+      hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between them,
+      and treated me at the same time to a smile “de sa façon.” Beautiful as
+      Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer than Lucrece de
+      Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her lady-mother’s character
+      afterwards, and then I ceased to wonder at the precocious accomplishments
+      of the daughter. These three, I at once saw, deemed themselves the queens
+      of the school, and conceived that by their splendour they threw all the
+      rest into the shade. In less than five minutes they had thus revealed to
+      me their characters, and in less than five minutes I had buckled on a
+      breast-plate of steely indifference, and let down a visor of impassible
+      austerity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take your pens and commence writing,” said I, in as dry and trite a voice
+      as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov and Co.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The dictée now commenced. My three belles interrupted me perpetually with
+      little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks, to some of which I made
+      no answer, and to others replied very quietly and briefly. “Comment dit-on
+      point et virgule en Anglais, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Semi-colon, mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Semi-collong? Ah, comme c’est drôle!” (giggle.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “J’ai une si mauvaise plume—impossible d’écrire!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, monsieur—je ne sais pas suivre—vous allez si vîte.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je n’ai rien compris, moi!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips for the
+      first time, ejaculated—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Silence, mesdemoiselles!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      No silence followed—on the contrary, the three ladies in front began
+      to talk more loudly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est si difficile, l’Anglais!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je déteste la dictée.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Quel ennui d’écrire quelquechose que l’on ne comprend pas!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Some of those behind laughed: a degree of confusion began to pervade the
+      class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Donnez-moi vôtre cahier,” said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone; and
+      bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Et vous, mademoiselle—donnez-moi le vôtre,” continued I, more mildly,
+      addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in the first row of
+      the other division, and whom I had remarked as being at once the ugliest
+      and the most attentive in the room; she rose up, walked over to me, and
+      delivered her book with a grave, modest curtsey. I glanced over the two
+      dictations; Eulalie’s was slurred, blotted, and full of silly
+      mistakes—Sylvie’s (such was the name of the ugly little girl) was clearly
+      written, it contained no error against sense, and but few faults of
+      orthography. I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the faults—then
+      I looked at Eulalie:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est honteux!” said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation in four
+      parts, and presented her with the fragments. I returned Sylvie her book
+      with a smile, saying—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est bien—je suis content de vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey, but
+      the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation of
+      the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more
+      convenient to me, and the rest of my lesson passed without interruption.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the cessation of
+      school labours. I heard our own bell at the same time, and that of a
+      certain public college immediately after. Order dissolved instantly; up
+      started every pupil, I hastened to seize my hat, bow to the maîtresse, and
+      quit the room before the tide of externats should pour from the inner
+      class, where I knew near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising tumult
+      I already heard.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when Mdlle.
+      Reuter came again upon me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Step in here a moment,” said she, and she held open the door of the side
+      room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+      <i lang="fr">salle-à-manger</i>, as
+      appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitrée, filled with glass and
+      china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she had closed the door on
+      me and herself, the corridor was already filled with day-pupils, tearing
+      down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from the wooden pegs on which they
+      were suspended; the shrill voice of a maîtresse was heard at intervals
+      vainly endeavouring to enforce some sort of order; vainly, I say:
+      discipline there was none in these rough ranks, and yet this was
+      considered one of the best-conducted schools in Brussels.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, you have given your first lesson,” began Mdlle. Reuter in the most
+      calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the chaos from which
+      we were separated only by a single wall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in their
+      conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from me, repose in
+      me entire confidence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils without aid;
+      the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled my perspicuity at
+      first, had been a good deal dissipated. I cannot say I was chagrined or
+      downcast by the contrast which the reality of a pensionnat de demoiselles
+      presented to my vague ideal of the same community; I was only enlightened
+      and amused; consequently, I felt in no disposition to complain to Mdlle.
+      Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to confidence with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She looked more than doubtful.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?” said she.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! tout va au mieux!” was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased to
+      question me; but her eye—not large, not brilliant, not melting, or
+      kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed she was even with me;
+      it let out a momentary gleam, which said plainly, “Be as close as you
+      like, I am not dependent on your candour; what you would conceal I already
+      know.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the directress’s
+      manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from her face, and she
+      began chatting about the weather and the town, and asking in neighbourly
+      wise after M. and Madame Pelet. I answered all her little questions; she
+      prolonged her talk, I went on following its many little windings; she sat
+      so long, said so much, varied so often the topics of discourse, that it
+      was not difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus detaining
+      me. Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this aim, but her
+      countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable commonplaces, her
+      eyes reverted continually to my face. Her glances were not given in full,
+      but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily, yet I think I lost not
+      one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me; I perceived soon that she
+      was feeling after my real character; she was searching for salient points,
+      and weak points, and eccentric points; she was applying now this test,
+      now that, hoping in the end to find some chink, some niche, where she
+      could put in her little firm foot and stand upon my neck—mistress of
+      my nature. Do not mistake me, reader, it was no amorous influence she
+      wished to gain—at that time it was only the power of the politician
+      to which she aspired; I was now installed as a professor in her
+      establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind was superior to
+      mine—by what feeling or opinion she could lead me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I
+      gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye
+      would light up—she thought she had me; having led her a little way,
+      I delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her
+      countenance would fall. At last a servant entered to announce dinner; the
+      conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having
+      gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle. Reuter had not even given me
+      an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to baffle
+      her little schemes of craft. It was a regular drawn battle. I again held
+      out my hand when I left the room, she gave me hers; it was a small and
+      white hand, but how cool! I met her eye too in full—obliging her to
+      give me a straightforward look; this last test went against me: it left
+      her as it found her—moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it
+      disappointed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am growing wiser,” thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet’s. “Look at
+      this little woman; is she like the women of novelists and romancers? To
+      read of female character as depicted in Poetry and Fiction, one would
+      think it was made up of sentiment, either for good or bad—here is a
+      specimen, and a most sensible and respectable specimen, too, whose staple
+      ingredient is abstract reason. No Talleyrand was ever more passionless
+      than Zoraïde Reuter!” So I thought then; I found afterwards that blunt
+      susceptibilities are very consistent with strong propensities.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0011">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little politician, and
+      on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was half over. To be late at
+      meals was against a standing rule of the establishment, and had it been
+      one of the Flemish ushers who thus entered after the removal of the soup
+      and the commencement of the first course, M. Pelet would probably have
+      greeted him with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted him
+      both of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial gentleman
+      only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my napkin, and said
+      my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a servant to the
+      kitchen, to bring me a plate of “purée aux carrottes” (for this was a
+      maigre-day), and before sending away the first course, reserved for me a
+      portion of the stock-fish of which it consisted. Dinner being over, the
+      boys rushed out for their evening play; Kint and Vandam (the two ushers)
+      of course followed them. Poor fellows! if they had not looked so very
+      heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to all things in heaven above
+      or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied them greatly for the
+      obligation they were under to trail after those rough lads everywhere and
+      at all times; even as it was, I felt disposed to scout myself as a
+      privileged prig when I turned to ascend to my chamber, sure to find there,
+      if not enjoyment, at least liberty; but this evening (as had often
+      happened before) I was to be still farther distinguished.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Eh bien, mauvais sujet!” said the voice of M. Pelet behind me, as I set
+      my foot on the first step of the stair. “Où allez-vous? Venez à la
+      salle-à-manger, que je vous gronde un peu.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I beg pardon, monsieur,” said I, as I followed him to his private
+      sitting-room, “for having returned so late—it was not my fault.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is just what I want to know,” rejoined M. Pelet, as he ushered me
+      into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire—for the stove had
+      now been removed for the season. Having rung the bell he ordered “Coffee
+      for two,” and presently he and I were seated, almost in English comfort,
+      one on each side of the hearth, a little round table between us, with a
+      coffee-pot, a sugar-basin, and two large white china cups. While M. Pelet
+      employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts reverted to
+      the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear even now crying hoarsely
+      for order in the playground.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est une grande responsabilité, que la surveillance,” observed I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Plait-il?” dit M. Pelet.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a
+      little fatigued with their labours.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Des bêtes de somme—des bêtes de somme,” murmured scornfully the
+      director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Servez-vous mon garçon,” said he blandly, when I had put a couple of huge
+      lumps of continental sugar into his cup. “And now tell me why you stayed
+      so long at Mdlle. Reuter’s. I know that lessons conclude, in her
+      establishment as in mine, at four o’clock, and when you returned it was
+      past five.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom, before
+      the pupils?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And Madame Reuter—the old duenna—my mother’s gossip, was
+      there, of course?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est joli—cela,” observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into
+      the fire.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” murmured I, significantly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Je connais un peu ma petite voisine—voyez-vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was
+      mademoiselle’s reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour,
+      listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest
+      frivolities.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She was sounding your character.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought so, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Did she find out your weak point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What is my weak point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will at
+      last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast, Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Some women might, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est
+      encore jeune, plus agée que toi peut-être, mais juste assez pour unir la
+      tendresse d’une petite maman à l’amour d’une epouse dévouée; n’est-ce pas
+      que cela t’irait supérieurement?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my
+      mother.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She is then a little too old for you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is
+      she not?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her turn of
+      form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bravo! and her face? her features? How do you like them?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A little harsh, especially her mouth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, yes! her mouth,” said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly. “There is
+      character about her mouth—firmness—but she has a very pleasant
+      smile; don’t you think so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather crafty.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows; have you
+      remarked her eyebrows?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I answered that I had not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have not seen her looking down then?” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is a treat, notwithstanding. Observe her when she has some knitting,
+      or some other woman’s work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly
+      intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on
+      around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being
+      developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in it; her
+      humble, feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her features
+      move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown disapprobation;
+      her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending task; if she can only
+      get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec completed, it is enough for
+      her. If gentlemen approach her chair, a deeper quiescence, a meeker
+      modesty settles on her features, and clothes her general mien; observe
+      then her eyebrows, et dîtes-moi s’il n’y a pas du chat dans l’un et du
+      renard dans l’autre.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will take careful notice the first opportunity,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And then,” continued M. Pelet, “the eyelid will flicker, the
+      light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye, glancing out
+      from under the screen, will take its brief, sly, searching survey, and
+      retreat again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes’ silence, I asked:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will she ever marry, do you think?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Marry! Will birds pair? Of course it is both her intention and resolution
+      to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one is better aware than
+      herself of the sort of impression she is capable of producing; no one
+      likes better to captivate in a quiet way. I am mistaken if she will not
+      yet leave the print of her stealing steps on thy heart, Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of her steps? Confound it, no! My heart is not a plank to be walked on.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve with me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first
+      floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful architect.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And interest, M. Pelet—interest. Will not mademoiselle consider
+      that point?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone. And now we
+      have discussed the directress, what of the pupils? N’y a-t-il pas de
+      belles études parmi ces jeunes têtes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Studies of character? Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine; but one
+      cannot divine much from a first interview.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a little abashed
+      before these blooming young creatures?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due sang-froid.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t believe you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is true, notwithstanding. At first I thought them angels, but they did
+      not leave me long under that delusion; three of the eldest and handsomest
+      undertook the task of setting me right, and they managed so cleverly that
+      in five minutes I knew <em>them</em>, at least, for what they were—three
+      arrant coquettes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Je les connais!” exclaimed M. Pelet. “Elles sont toujours au premier rang
+      à l’eglise et à la promenade; une blonde superbe, une jolie espiègle, une
+      belle brune.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Exactly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Lovely creatures all of them—heads for artists; what a group they
+      would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names), with her smooth
+      braided hair and calm ivory brow. Hortense, with her rich chesnut locks so
+      luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know how to
+      dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask cheek, and
+      roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is beauty! beauty
+      in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face of a houri! What
+      fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron would have
+      worshipped her, and you—you cold, frigid islander!—you played
+      the austere, the insensible in the presence of an Aphrodite so exquisite?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I might have laughed at the director’s enthusiasm had I believed it real,
+      but there was something in his tone which indicated got-up raptures. I
+      felt he was only affecting fervour in order to put me off my guard, to
+      induce me to come out in return, so I scarcely even smiled. He went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraïde Reuter appear
+      dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms of some of her
+      pupils?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my principal was
+      endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself—at that time I could
+      not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in my mind alien to what was
+      right and honourable. The iniquity of the instigation proved its antidote,
+      and when he further added:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome fortune; and
+      with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent young fellow like you
+      might make himself master of the hand, heart, and purse of any one of the
+      trio.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I replied by a look and an interrogative “Monsieur?” which startled him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking, and
+      demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in earnest. Just then
+      the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was an evening on which M. Pelet
+      was accustomed to read passages from the drama and the belles lettres to
+      his pupils. He did not wait for my answer, but rising, left the room,
+      humming as he went some gay strain of Béranger’s.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0012">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter, did
+      I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What had I
+      known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels? Precious
+      little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight, gauzy,
+      glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be a palpable
+      substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy; there was
+      metal in it, both lead and iron.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
+      just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or two,
+      pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
+      schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred
+      specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a fertile
+      variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were, differing both
+      in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced over the long
+      range of desks, I had under my eye French, English, Belgians, Austrians,
+      and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class bourgeois; but there
+      were many countesses, there were the daughters of two generals and of
+      several colonels, captains, and government <i lang="fr">employés</i>:
+      these ladies sat side
+      by side with young females destined to be demoiselles de magasins, and
+      with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of the country. In dress all were
+      nearly similar, and in manners there was small difference; exceptions
+      there were to the general rule, but the majority gave the tone to the
+      establishment, and that tone was rough, boisterous, masked by a
+      point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards each other or their
+      teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her own interest and
+      convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest and convenience of
+      every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity when it appeared
+      advantageous to do so. All understood the art of speaking fair when a
+      point was to be gained, and could with consummate skill and at a moment’s
+      notice turn the cold shoulder the instant civility ceased to be
+      profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took place amongst them; but
+      backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close friendships were
+      forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl seemed to cultivate
+      more regard for another than was just necessary to secure a companion when
+      solitude would have been irksome. They were each and all supposed to have
+      been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice. The precautions used to keep
+      them ignorant, if not innocent, were innumerable. How was it, then, that
+      scarcely one of those girls having attained the age of fourteen could look
+      a man in the face with modesty and propriety? An air of bold, impudent
+      flirtation, or a loose, silly leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary
+      glance from a masculine eye. I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman
+      Catholic religion, and I am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I
+      suspect the root of this precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in
+      Popish countries, is to be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines
+      of the Church of Rome. I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to
+      what are called the respectable ranks of society; they had all been
+      carefully brought up, yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much
+      for the general view: now for one or two selected specimens.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
+      or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
+      of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is of
+      middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed but
+      not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an inhumanly
+      braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured into small
+      bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and gummed to
+      perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive grey eyes,
+      somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek bones, yet
+      the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion. So much for
+      person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed: incapable of
+      writing or speaking correctly even German, her native tongue, a dunce in
+      French, and her attempts at learning English a mere farce, yet she has
+      been at school twelve years; but as she invariably gets her exercises, of
+      every description, done by a fellow pupil, and reads her lessons off a
+      book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful that her progress has been
+      so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s daily habits of life are,
+      because I have not the opportunity of observing her at all times; but from
+      what I see of the state of her desk, books, and papers, I should say she
+      is slovenly and even dirty; her outward dress, as I have said, is well
+      attended to, but in passing behind her bench, I have remarked that her
+      neck is gray for want of washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and
+      grease, is not such as one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less
+      to run the fingers through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am
+      present, is something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish
+      innocence. The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and
+      indulges in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
+      fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
+      monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
+      languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
+      against this sort of artillery—for we scorn what, unasked, is
+      lavishly offered—she has recourse to the expedient of making noises;
+      sometimes she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate
+      sounds, for which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom,
+      I pass near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
+      happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
+      brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter; if
+      I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in sullen
+      muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced with an
+      intolerable Low German accent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adèle Dronsart:
+      this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy, with broad waist,
+      short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion, features well
+      chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown colour, light brown
+      hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as full-grown as a stout
+      young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives the idea of a somewhat
+      dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well, when I looked along the
+      row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at this of Adèle’s; her gaze
+      was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently succeeded in arresting it.
+      She was an unnatural-looking being—so young, fresh, blooming, yet so
+      Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were on her forehead, vicious
+      propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like deceit about her mouth. In
+      general she sat very still; her massive shape looked as if it could not
+      bend much, nor did her large head—so broad at the base, so narrow
+      towards the top—seem made to turn readily on her short neck. She had
+      but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one a forbidding,
+      dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious and perfidious
+      smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as many of them
+      were, few were as bad as she.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Aurelia and Adèle were in the first division of the second class; the
+      second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
+      girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was dead,
+      her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the —— Isles,
+      where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
+      educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and
+      countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
+      the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs of
+      benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were singularly
+      small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness, combativeness,
+      preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse shape, was
+      contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she had rather good,
+      though large and marked features; her temperament was fibrous and bilious,
+      her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black, form angular and rigid
+      but proportionate, age fifteen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard” was
+      fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough for
+      the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of her
+      other lineaments—I think the eye—cowardice had also its distinct
+      cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
+      coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like a
+      horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind and
+      below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking Flamandes,
+      including two or three examples of that deformity of person and imbecility
+      of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would seem to furnish
+      proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy of the human mind
+      and body; these, I soon found, were completely under her influence, and
+      with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish tumult, which I was
+      constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two of her tools to rise
+      from their seats, and, having kept them standing five minutes, turning
+      them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices into a large place
+      adjoining called the grands salle; the principal into a cabinet, of which
+      I closed the door and pocketed the key. This judgment I executed in the
+      presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much aghast at beholding so decided
+      a proceeding—the most severe that had ever been ventured on in her
+      establishment. Her look of affright I answered with one of composure, and
+      finally with a smile, which perhaps flattered, and certainly soothed her.
+      Juanna Trista remained in Europe long enough to repay, by malevolence and
+      ingratitude, all who had ever done her a good turn; and she then went to
+      join her father in the —— Isles, exulting in the thought that
+      she should there have slaves, whom, as she said, she could kick and strike
+      at will.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and as
+      little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to show
+      something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo, some
+      sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to her
+      bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray it. The
+      pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was a young girl
+      from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently benevolent and
+      obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered; moreover, the plague-spot
+      of dissimulation was in her also; honour and principle were unknown to
+      her, she had scarcely heard their names. The least exceptionable pupil was
+      the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned once before. Sylvie was gentle in
+      manners, intelligent in mind; she was even sincere, as far as her religion
+      would permit her to be so, but her physical organization was defective;
+      weak health stunted her growth and chilled her spirits, and then, destined
+      as she was for the cloister, her whole soul was warped to a conventual
+      bias, and in the tame, trained subjection of her manner, one read that she
+      had already prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up
+      her independence of thought and action into the hands of some despotic
+      confessor. She permitted herself no original opinion, no preference of
+      companion or employment; in everything she was guided by another. With a
+      pale, passive, automaton air, she went about all day long doing what she
+      was bid; never what she liked, or what, from innate conviction, she
+      thought it right to do. The poor little future religieuse had been early
+      taught to make the dictates of her own reason and conscience quite
+      subordinate to the will of her spiritual director. She was the model pupil
+      of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment; pale, blighted image, where life
+      lingered feebly, but whence the soul had been conjured by Romish
+      wizard-craft!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be divided
+      into two classes. 1st. The continental English—the daughters chiefly
+      of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from their own
+      country. These poor girls had never known the advantages of settled homes,
+      decorous example, or honest Protestant education; resident a few months
+      now in one Catholic school, now in another, as their parents wandered from
+      land to land—from France to Germany, from Germany to Belgium—they
+      had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad habits, losing every
+      notion even of the first elements of religion and morals, and acquiring an
+      imbecile indifference to every sentiment that can elevate humanity; they
+      were distinguishable by an habitual look of sullen dejection, the result
+      of crushed self-respect and constant browbeating from their Popish
+      fellow-pupils, who hated them as English, and scorned them as heretics.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half a
+      dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
+      characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair (compared
+      with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible figures,
+      white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more intellectual
+      than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, a general air
+      of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance alone I could
+      at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and nursling of
+      Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the <i lang="fr">protégé</i>
+      of Jesuistry:
+      proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once envied and
+      ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off insult with
+      austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they eschewed
+      company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell isolated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number, all
+      French—their names Mdlles. Zéphyrine, Pélagie, and Suzette; the two
+      last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary, their
+      manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts, feelings,
+      and views were all ordinary—were I to write a chapter on the subject
+      I could not elucidate it further. Zéphyrine was somewhat more
+      distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pélagie and Suzette, but
+      in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+      dry-hearted. A fourth maîtresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
+      to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy art;
+      but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in the
+      <i lang="fr">carré</i>, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils
+      about her,
+      consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
+      observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English air
+      for a maîtresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I should
+      think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly “en
+      revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her name,
+      I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
+      that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
+      described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
+      British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
+      steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware of
+      her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness which
+      sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable from her
+      position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner tranquil.
+      She liked—as who would not?—on entering the school-room, to
+      feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and quiet which
+      all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings frequently
+      failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or rather—contrast,
+      with those who surrounded her, and to know that in personal as well as
+      mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed palm of preference—(the
+      three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she managed with such
+      indulgence and address, taking always on herself the office of recompenser
+      and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns every invidious task of
+      blame and punishment, that they all regarded her with deference, if not
+      with affection; her teachers did not love her, but they submitted because
+      they were her inferiors in everything; the various masters who attended
+      her school were each and all in some way or other under her influence;
+      over one she had acquired power by her skilful management of his bad
+      temper; over another by little attentions to his petty caprices; a third
+      she had subdued by flattery; a fourth—a timid man—she kept in
+      awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me, she still watched, still
+      tried by the most ingenious tests—she roved round me, baffled, yet
+      persevering; I believe she thought I was like a smooth and bare precipice,
+      which offered neither jutting stone nor tree-root, nor tuft of grass to
+      aid the climber. Now she flattered with exquisite tact, now she moralized,
+      now she tried how far I was accessible to mercenary motives, then she
+      disported on the brink of affection—knowing that some men are won by
+      weakness—anon, she talked excellent sense, aware that others have
+      the folly to admire judgment. I found it at once pleasant and easy to
+      evade all these efforts; it was sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to
+      turn round and to smile in her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to
+      witness her scarcely veiled, though mute mortification. Still she
+      persevered, and at last, I am bound to confess it, her finger, essaying,
+      proving every atom of the casket, touched its secret spring, and for a
+      moment the lid sprung open; she laid her hand on the jewel within; whether
+      she stole and broke it, or whether the lid shut again with a snap on her
+      fingers, read on, and you shall know.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed; I
+      had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very
+      hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
+      corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that I
+      looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then,
+      with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you
+      have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour, and
+      was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
+      still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
+      closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
+      earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me her
+      hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
+      pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
+      modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance; I
+      thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my mind
+      was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive, that I
+      might see her again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
+      subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
+      o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
+      after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
+      gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
+      the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
+      very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked at
+      the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began to
+      pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are
+      gone?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
+      say—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You will come with me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down the
+      alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in full
+      blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the air
+      still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance. Released
+      from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage, with a
+      pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side—how did I feel? Why,
+      very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
+      suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+      boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
+      the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s mansion,
+      and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
+      amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
+      and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
+      down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
+      ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned in
+      my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell rang,
+      both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I detained her
+      a moment as she was moving away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I want something,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What?” asked Zoraïde naively.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Only a flower.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Gather it then—or two, or twenty, if you like.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—one will do—but you must gather it, and give it to me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
+      and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace. I
+      took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
+      future.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight night
+      of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having sat up
+      late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and a little
+      oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
+      often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded old
+      Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of professor in
+      the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it was no longer
+      “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their sports. I sat
+      down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill, and leaned out: above
+      me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless night sky—splendid moonlight
+      subdued the tremulous sparkle of the stars—below lay the garden,
+      varied with silvery lustre and deep shade, and all fresh with dew—a
+      grateful perfume exhaled from the closed blossoms of the fruit-trees—not
+      a leaf stirred, the night was breezeless. My window looked directly down
+      upon a certain walk of Mdlle. Reuter’s garden, called “l’allée défendue,”
+      so named because the pupils were forbidden to enter it on account of its
+      proximity to the boys’ school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums
+      grew especially thick; this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure,
+      its shrubs screened the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with
+      the young directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with
+      her as I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks
+      and borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
+      which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part of
+      the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
+      through the persiennes of one croisée, seemed to direct me to it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She is a
+      fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her image
+      forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the world calls
+      pretty—no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I like it; her
+      brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the whiteness of her
+      neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent; the idea of marrying a
+      doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know that a pretty doll, a
+      fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion
+      cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a
+      half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my
+      equal—nay, my idol—to know that I must pass the rest of my
+      dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of
+      appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I felt! “Now,
+      Zoraïde Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, <i lang="fr">caractère</i>,
+      judgment, discretion;
+      has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played about her lips when
+      she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her crafty, dissembling,
+      interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much that looks like cunning
+      and dissimulation in her conduct be only the efforts made by a bland
+      temper to traverse quietly perplexing difficulties? And as to interest,
+      she wishes to make her way in the world, no doubt, and who can blame her?
+      Even if she be truly deficient in sound principle, is it not rather her
+      misfortune than her fault? She has been brought up a Catholic: had she
+      been born an Englishwoman, and reared a Protestant, might she not have
+      added straight integrity to all her other excellences? Supposing she were
+      to marry an English and Protestant husband, would she not, rational,
+      sensible as she is, quickly acknowledge the superiority of right over
+      expediency, honesty over policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try
+      the experiment; to-morrow I will renew my observations. She knows that I
+      watch her: how calm she is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than
+      annoy her.” Here a strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and
+      suspended it; it was a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood
+      of the park, I thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones,
+      so subduing their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under
+      the quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+      intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon gone;
+      my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once more. No.
+      What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching nearer,
+      frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
+      conversing—yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in the
+      garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was that of
+      a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw coming
+      slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I could but
+      discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met them at the
+      termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose, and revealed
+      very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraïde Reuter, arm-in-arm, or
+      hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal, confidant, and
+      counsellor, M. François Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimée?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And Mdlle. Reuter answered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, François, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier
+      avant les vacances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can I
+      wait so long?—I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
+      impatience!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
+      about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight mourning
+      dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial trousseau.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Cruel Zoraïde! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+      devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch my
+      soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain you
+      have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
+      presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
+      given him room to hope.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What do you say, François? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Over head and ears.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Has he told you so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
+      mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle. Reuter’s
+      gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie, by-the-by—I
+      had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet proceeded to ask
+      what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty plainly, and not very
+      gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think of taking such a
+      “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least ten years older than
+      I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have thought it). I heard her
+      disclaim any intentions on the subject—the director, however, still
+      pressed her to give a definite answer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “François,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as
+      if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
+      character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded, in a
+      demure voice: “Truly, my dear François, I will not deny that this young
+      Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with me; but,
+      so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated him with
+      as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility; affianced as
+      I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me, dear friend.”
+       Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust—so I judged, at least, from
+      her reply.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And then—not
+      to flatter your vanity—Crimsworth could not bear comparison with you
+      either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all; some may
+      call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my part—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
+      from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
+      return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that they
+      had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was perfectly
+      still; I listened more than an hour—at last I heard M. Pelet come in
+      and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long front of
+      the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was at length
+      extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and friendship. I went
+      to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into my veins which
+      prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0013">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and stood
+      half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers, considering what
+      means I should adopt to restore my spirits, fagged with sleeplessness, to
+      their ordinary tone—for I had no intention of getting up a scene
+      with M. Pelet, reproaching him with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or
+      performing other gambadoes of the sort—I hit at last on the
+      expedient of walking out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring
+      establishment of baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge. The
+      remedy produced the desired effect. I came back at seven o’clock steadied
+      and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he entered to
+      breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance; even a cordial
+      offering of the hand and the flattering appellation of “mon fils,”
+       pronounced in that caressing tone with which Monsieur had, of late days
+      especially, been accustomed to address me, did not elicit any external
+      sign of the feeling which, though subdued, still glowed at my heart. Not
+      that I nursed vengeance—no; but the sense of insult and treachery
+      lived in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal. God knows I am
+      not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I can no longer
+      trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings are of the
+      vacillating order—they are not of that sand-like sort where
+      impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my
+      friend’s disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he is
+      indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles, and I
+      dissolve the connection. I did so with Edward. As to Pelet, the discovery
+      was yet new; should I act thus with him? It was the question I placed
+      before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a half-pistolet (we
+      never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated opposite, his pallid face
+      looking as knowing and more haggard than usual, his blue eye turned, now
+      sternly on his boys and ushers, and now graciously on me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Circumstances must guide me,” said I; and meeting Pelet’s false glance
+      and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last night opened my
+      window and read by the light of a full moon the true meaning of that
+      guileful countenance. I felt half his master, because the reality of his
+      nature was now known to me; smile and flatter as he would, I saw his soul
+      lurk behind his smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases a
+      voice interpreting their treacherous import.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Zoraïde Reuter? Of course her defection had cut me to the quick? That
+      stint must have gone too deep for any consolations of philosophy to be
+      available in curing its smart? Not at all. The night fever over, I looked
+      about for balm to that wound also, and found some nearer home than at
+      Gilead. Reason was my physician; she began by proving that the prize I had
+      missed was of little value: she admitted that, physically, Zoraïde might
+      have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in harmony, and that
+      discord must have resulted from the union of her mind with mine. She then
+      insisted on the suppression of all repining, and commanded me rather to
+      rejoice that I had escaped a snare. Her medicament did me good. I felt its
+      strengthening effect when I met the directress the next day; its stringent
+      operation on the nerves suffered no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me
+      to face her with firmness, to pass her with ease. She had held out her
+      hand to me—that I did not choose to see. She had greeted me with a
+      charming smile—it fell on my heart like light on stone. I passed on
+      to the estrade, she followed me; her eye, fastened on my face, demanded of
+      every feature the meaning of my changed and careless manner. “I will give
+      her an answer,” thought I; and, meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing
+      her glance, I shot into her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no
+      respect, no love, no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest
+      analysis could detect nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony. I made her bear
+      it, and feel it; her steady countenance did not change, but her colour
+      rose, and she approached me as if fascinated. She stepped on to the
+      estrade, and stood close by my side; she had nothing to say. I would not
+      relieve her embarrassment, and negligently turned over the leaves of a
+      book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I hope you feel quite recovered to-day,” at last she said, in a low tone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in consequence
+      of your late walk in the garden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her face became
+      a little blanched—a very little—but no muscle in her rather
+      marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed, she retired from the
+      estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little distance, and occupying
+      herself with netting a purse. I proceeded to give my lesson; it was a
+      “Composition,” i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the
+      pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being
+      forbidden. While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &amp;c., were
+      pondering over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I
+      had propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour in further
+      observing the directress herself. The green silk purse was progressing
+      fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon it; her attitude, as she sat
+      netting within two yards of me, was still yet guarded; in her whole person
+      were expressed at once, and with equal clearness, vigilance and repose—a
+      rare union! Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been before, to
+      offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute of
+      involuntary admiration. She had felt that I had withdrawn from her my
+      esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and to her, who
+      coveted the approbation of all around her, who thirsted after universal
+      good opinion, such discovery must have been an acute wound. I had
+      witnessed its effect in the momentary pallor of her cheek--cheek unused to
+      vary; yet how quickly, by dint of self-control, had she recovered her
+      composure! With what quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side,
+      sustained by her sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+      lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her austere
+      forehead!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There is metal there,” I said, as I gazed. “Would that there were fire
+      also, living ardour to make the steel glow—then I could love her.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she stirred
+      not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced down from her
+      netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft folds of her purple
+      merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her hand, ivory white, with a
+      bright garnet ring on the forefinger, and a light frill of lace round the
+      wrist; with a scarcely perceptible movement she turned her head, causing
+      her nut-brown curls to wave gracefully. In these slight signs I read that
+      the wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure back the game
+      she had scared. A little incident gave her the opportunity of addressing
+      me again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      While all was silence in the class—silence, but for the rustling of
+      copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages—a leaf of the
+      large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed, admitting a pupil
+      who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced herself with some
+      appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned by her entering so late, in
+      a vacant seat at the desk nearest the door. Being seated, she proceeded,
+      still with an air of hurry and embarrassment, to open her cabas, to take
+      out her books; and, while I was waiting for her to look up, in order to
+      make out her identity—for, shortsighted as I was, I had not
+      recognized her at her entrance—Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair,
+      approached the estrade.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur Creemsvort,” said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms
+      were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke in
+      the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much by
+      example as precept: “Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has just
+      entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in
+      English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, a
+      teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+      varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to qualify
+      herself for a higher department of education, and has asked permission to
+      attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge of English, in
+      which language she has, I believe, already made some progress; of course
+      it is my wish to aid her in an effort so praiseworthy; you will permit her
+      then to benefit by your instruction—n’est ce pas, monsieur?” And
+      Mdlle. Reuter’s eyes were raised to mine with a look at once naive,
+      benign, and beseeching.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I replied, “Of course,” very laconically, almost abruptly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Another word,” she said, with softness: “Mdlle. Henri has not received a
+      regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not of the highest
+      order: but I can assure you of the excellence of her intentions, and even
+      of the amiability of her disposition. Monsieur will then, I am sure, have
+      the goodness to be considerate with her at first, and not expose her
+      backwardness, her inevitable deficiencies, before the young ladies, who,
+      in a sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour me by
+      attending to this hint?” I nodded. She continued with subdued earnestness—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just said is of
+      importance to the poor girl; she already experiences great difficulty in
+      impressing these giddy young things with a due degree of deference for her
+      authority, and should that difficulty be increased by new discoveries of
+      her incapacity, she might find her position in my establishment too
+      painful to be retained; a circumstance I should much regret for her sake,
+      as she can ill afford to lose the profits of her occupation here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most exclusive,
+      unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its effect; thus, on this
+      occasion, the longer she preached about the necessity of being indulgent
+      to the governess pupil, the more impatient I felt as I listened. I
+      discerned so clearly that while her professed motive was a wish to aid the
+      dull, though well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one was no other than a
+      design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted goodness and tender
+      considerateness; so having again hastily nodded assent to her remarks, I
+      obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding the compositions, in a sharp
+      accent, and stepping from the estrade, I proceeded to collect them. As I
+      passed the governess-pupil, I said to her—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be more
+      punctual next time.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my not very
+      civil speech. Probably I should not have troubled myself to do so, had I
+      been full in front; but I observed that she immediately began to slip her
+      books into her cabas again; and, presently, after I had returned to the
+      estrade, while I was arranging the mass of compositions, I heard the
+      folding-door again open and close; and, on looking up, I perceived her
+      place vacant. I thought to myself, “She will consider her first attempt at
+      taking a lesson in English something of a failure;” and I wondered whether
+      she had departed in the sulks, or whether stupidity had induced her to
+      take my words too literally, or, finally, whether my irritable tone had
+      wounded her feelings. The last notion I dismissed almost as soon as I had
+      conceived it, for not having seen any appearance of sensitiveness in any
+      human face since my arrival in Belgium, I had begun to regard it almost as
+      a fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy announced it I could not tell,
+      for her speedy exit had allowed me no time to ascertain the circumstance.
+      I had, indeed, on two or three previous occasions, caught a passing view
+      of her (as I believe has been mentioned before); but I had never stopped
+      to scrutinize either her face or person, and had but the most vague idea
+      of her general appearance. Just as I had finished rolling up the
+      compositions, the four o’clock bell rang; with my accustomed alertness in
+      obeying that signal, I grasped my hat and evacuated the premises.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0014">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter’s domicile, I was at least
+      equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at five minutes
+      before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door, before I opened it, I
+      heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned me that the “prière du midi”
+      was not yet concluded. I waited the termination thereof; it would have
+      been impious to intrude my heretical presence during its progress. How the
+      repeater of the prayer did cackle and splutter! I never before or since
+      heard language enounced with such steam-engine haste. “Notre Père qui êtes
+      au ciel” went off like a shot; then followed an address to Marie “vièrge
+      céleste, reine des anges, maison d’or, tour d’ivoire!” and then an
+      invocation to the saint of the day; and then down they all sat, and the
+      solemn (?) rite was over; and I entered, flinging the door wide and
+      striding in fast, as it was my wont to do now; for I had found that in
+      entering with aplomb, and mounting the estrade with emphasis, consisted
+      the grand secret of ensuring immediate silence. The folding-doors between
+      the two classes, opened for the prayer, were instantly closed; a
+      maîtresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her appropriate desk; the
+      pupils sat still with their pens and books before them; my three beauties
+      in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of consistent coolness, sat
+      erect with their hands folded quietly on their knees; they had given up
+      giggling and whispering to each other, and no longer ventured to utter
+      pert speeches in my presence; they now only talked to me occasionally with
+      their eyes, by means of which organs they could still, however, say very
+      audacious and coquettish things. Had affection, goodness, modesty, real
+      talent, ever employed those bright orbs as interpreters, I do not think I
+      could have refrained from giving a kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent
+      reply now and then; but as it was, I found pleasure in answering the
+      glance of vanity with the gaze of stoicism. Youthful, fair, brilliant, as
+      were many of my pupils, I can truly say that in me they never saw any
+      other bearing than such as an austere, though just guardian, might have
+      observed towards them. If any doubt the accuracy of this assertion, as
+      inferring more conscientious self-denial or Scipio-like self-control than
+      they feel disposed to give me credit for, let them take into consideration
+      the following circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit,
+      justify my veracity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Know, O incredulous reader! that a master stands in a somewhat different
+      relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably ignorant girl, to that
+      occupied by a partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade. A
+      professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and muslin,
+      with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial lace, round
+      white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the gliding dance. It
+      is not his business to whirl her through the waltz, to feed her with
+      compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of gratified vanity.
+      Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled, tree shaded Boulevard,
+      in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs clad in her becoming
+      walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her shoulders, her little
+      bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose under its brim adding a
+      new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her face and eyes, too,
+      illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the sunshine of the
+      gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his office to walk by her
+      side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her parasol, scarcely larger
+      than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon her Blenheim spaniel or
+      Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the schoolroom, plainly dressed,
+      with books before her. Owing to her education or her nature books are to
+      her a nuisance, and she opens them with aversion, yet her teacher must
+      instil into her mind the contents of these books; that mind resists the
+      admission of grave information, it recoils, it grows restive, sullen
+      tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns spoil the symmetry of the face,
+      sometimes coarse gestures banish grace from the deportment, while muttered
+      expressions, redolent of native and ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the
+      sweetness of the voice. Where the temperament is serene though the
+      intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable dullness opposes every effort to
+      instruct. Where there is cunning but not energy, dissimulation, falsehood,
+      a thousand schemes and tricks are put in play to evade the necessity of
+      application; in short, to the tutor, female youth, female charms are like
+      tapestry hangings, of which the wrong side is continually turned towards
+      him; and even when he sees the smooth, neat external surface he so well
+      knows what knots, long stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has
+      scarce a temptation to admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright
+      colours exposed to general view.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a hilly
+      country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because it is
+      convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine woman”—she
+      suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the fashionable young
+      lady—she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged, probably irritable
+      tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and graces, glories
+      chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love of knowledge,
+      natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, are the charms
+      that attract his notice and win his regard. These he seeks, but seldom
+      meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain retain for ever, and
+      when separation deprives him of them he feels as if some ruthless hand had
+      snatched from him his only ewe-lamb. Such being the case, and the case it
+      is, my readers will agree with me that there was nothing either very
+      meritorious or very marvellous in the integrity and moderation of my
+      conduct at Mdlle. Reuter’s pensionnat de demoiselles.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of places
+      for the month, determined by the relative correctness of the compositions
+      given the preceding day. The list was headed, as usual, by the name of
+      Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I have described before as being at
+      once the best and ugliest pupil in the establishment; the second place had
+      fallen to the lot of a certain Léonie Ledru, a diminutive, sharp-featured,
+      and parchment-skinned creature of quick wits, frail conscience, and
+      indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of whom I used to say that, had
+      she been a boy, she would have made a model of an unprincipled, clever
+      attorney. Then came Eulalie, the proud beauty, the Juno of the school,
+      whom six long years of drilling in the simple grammar of the English
+      language had compelled, despite the stiff phlegm of her intellect, to
+      acquire a mechanical acquaintance with most of its rules. No smile, no
+      trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in Sylvie’s nun-like and
+      passive face as she heard her name read first. I always felt saddened by
+      the sight of that poor girl’s absolute quiescence on all occasions, and it
+      was my custom to look at her, to address her, as seldom as possible; her
+      extreme docility, her assiduous perseverance, would have recommended her
+      warmly to my good opinion; her modesty, her intelligence, would have
+      induced me to feel most kindly—most affectionately towards her,
+      notwithstanding the almost ghastly plainness of her features, the
+      disproportion of her form, the corpse-like lack of animation in her
+      countenance, had I not been aware that every friendly word, every kindly
+      action, would be reported by her to her confessor, and by him
+      misinterpreted and poisoned. Once I laid my hand on her head, in token of
+      approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to smile, her dim eye almost
+      kindled; but, presently, she shrank from me; I was a man and a heretic;
+      she, poor child! a destined nun and devoted Catholic: thus a four-fold
+      wall of separation divided her mind from mine. A pert smirk, and a hard
+      glance of triumph, was Léonie’s method of testifying her gratification;
+      Eulalie looked sullen and envious—she had hoped to be first.
+      Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on hearing their names
+      read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the brand of mental
+      inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their hopes for the
+      future being based solely on their personal attractions.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a brief
+      interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my eye, ranging
+      carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first time, that the
+      farthest seat in the farthest row—a seat usually vacant—was
+      again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so ostentatiously
+      recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had on my spectacles; her
+      appearance, therefore, was clear to me at the first glance; I had not to
+      puzzle over it. She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her
+      exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her
+      figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied
+      expression of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was dressed,
+      like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her features
+      were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more defined, yet scarcely
+      regular. The shape of her head too was different, the superior part more
+      developed, the base considerably less. I felt assured, at first sight,
+      that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her countenance, her
+      lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs, and, evidently, the
+      type of another race—of a race less gifted with fullness of flesh
+      and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, unthinking. When I first
+      cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly down, her chin resting on her
+      hand, and she did not change her attitude till I commenced the lesson.
+      None of the Belgian girls would have retained one position, and that a
+      reflective one, for the same length of time. Yet, having intimated that
+      her appearance was peculiar, as being unlike that of her Flemish
+      companions, I have little more to say respecting it; I can pronounce no
+      encomiums on her beauty, for she was not beautiful; nor offer condolence
+      on her plainness, for neither was she plain; a careworn character of
+      forehead, and a corresponding moulding of the mouth, struck me with a
+      sentiment resembling surprise, but these traits would probably have passed
+      unnoticed by any less crotchety observer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing Mdlle.
+      Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind’s eye no distinct
+      picture of her; I have not painted her complexion, nor her eyes, nor her
+      hair, nor even drawn the outline of her shape. You cannot tell whether her
+      nose was aquiline or retroussé, whether her chin was long or short, her
+      face square or oval; nor could I the first day, and it is not my intention
+      to communicate to you at once a knowledge I myself gained by little and
+      little.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I gave a short exercise which they all wrote down. I saw the new pupil
+      was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and language; once or
+      twice she looked at me with a sort of painful solicitude, as not
+      comprehending at all what I meant; then she was not ready when the others
+      were, she could not write her phrases so fast as they did; I would not
+      help her, I went on relentless. She looked at me; her eye said most
+      plainly, “I cannot follow you.” I disregarded the appeal, and, carelessly
+      leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+      <i lang="fr">nonchalant</i> air
+      out of the window, I dictated a little faster. On looking towards her
+      again, I perceived her face clouded with embarrassment, but she was still
+      writing on most diligently; I paused a few seconds; she employed the
+      interval in hurriedly re-perusing what she had written, and shame and
+      discomfiture were apparent in her countenance; she evidently found she had
+      made great nonsense of it. In ten minutes more the dictation was complete,
+      and, having allowed a brief space in which to correct it, I took their
+      books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle. Henri gave up hers, but, having
+      once yielded it to my possession, she composed her anxious face, as if,
+      for the present she had resolved to dismiss regret, and had made up her
+      mind to be thought unprecedentedly stupid. Glancing over her exercise, I
+      found that several lines had been omitted, but what was written contained
+      very few faults; I instantly inscribed “Bon” at the bottom of the page,
+      and returned it to her; she smiled, at first incredulously, then as if
+      reassured, but did not lift her eyes; she could look at me, it seemed,
+      when perplexed and bewildered, but not when gratified; I thought that
+      scarcely fair.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0015">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first class; the
+      holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the fourth it was the
+      turn of the second division to receive my instructions. As I made the
+      transit of the <i lang="fr">carré</i>, I observed, as usual, the band of
+      sewers surrounding
+      Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but they made as much
+      noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed very little under her
+      control; three or four at once assailed her with importunate requirements;
+      she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but in vain. She saw me, and I
+      read in her eye pain that a stranger should witness the insubordination of
+      her pupils; she seemed to entreat order—her prayers were useless;
+      then I remarked that she compressed her lips and contracted her brow; and
+      her countenance, if I read it correctly, said—“I have done my best;
+      I seem to merit blame notwithstanding; blame me then who will.” I passed
+      on; as I closed the school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly and
+      sharply, addressing one of the eldest and most turbulent of the lot—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Amélie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no assistance,
+      for a week to come; during that space of time I will neither speak to you
+      nor help you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The words were uttered with emphasis—nay, with vehemence—and a
+      comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I know not;
+      two doors now closed between me and the <i lang="fr">carré</i>.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the
+      directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and
+      before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to me)
+      of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and talking
+      at the same time. Amidst the hum of a large school-room, it was easy so to
+      speak in the ear of one person, as to be heard by that person alone, and
+      it was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher. The face of the
+      latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was vexation in
+      it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress looked very placid
+      indeed; she could not be scolding in such gentle whispers, and with so
+      equable a mien; no, it was presently proved that her discourse had been of
+      the most friendly tendency, for I heard the closing words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est assez, ma bonne amie; à present je ne veux pas vous retenir
+      davantage.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatisfaction was plainly
+      evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but bitter,
+      distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as she took her
+      place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary smile, which lasted but a
+      second; an air of depression succeeded, chased away presently by one of
+      attention and interest, when I gave the word for all the pupils to take
+      their reading-books. In general I hated the reading-lesson, it was such a
+      torture to the ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of my native
+      tongue, and no effort of example or precept on my part ever seemed to
+      effect the slightest improvement in their accent. To-day, each in her
+      appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as usual; about
+      fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular nerve was expecting with
+      resignation the discords of the sixteenth, when a full, though low voice,
+      read out, in clear correct English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman, calling
+      herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry by which he was
+      about to travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, ‘My lord the
+      king, if you pass this water you will never return again alive!’”
+      (<i lang="la">Vide</i> the history of Scotland.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the accent was
+      pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and assurance, to be the
+      counterpart of what any well-educated lady in Essex or Middlesex might
+      have enounced, yet the speaker or reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri,
+      in whose grave, joyless face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had
+      performed any extraordinary feat. No one else evinced surprise either.
+      Mdlle. Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at the
+      conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and honoured me
+      with a glance sideways; she did not know the full excellency of the
+      teacher’s style of reading, but she perceived that her accent was not that
+      of the others, and wanted to discover what I thought; I masked my visage
+      with indifference, and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion caused by
+      breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing near the window
+      and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted to look out, and did not
+      imagine that I could have anything to say to her. I took her
+      exercise-book out of her hand; as I turned over the leaves I addressed
+      her:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have had lessons in English before?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, sir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No! you read it well; you have been in England?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, no!” with some animation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have been in English families?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Still the answer was “No.” Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of the
+      book, saw written, “Frances Evan Henri.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your name?” I asked
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, sir.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling behind me, and
+      close at my back was the directress, professing to be examining the
+      interior of a desk.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle,” said she, looking up and addressing the teacher, “Will you
+      have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor, while the young ladies
+      are putting on their things, and try to keep some order?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What splendid weather!” observed the directress cheerfully, glancing at
+      the same time from the window. I assented and was withdrawing. “What of
+      your new pupil, monsieur?” continued she, following my retreating steps.
+      “Is she likely to make progress in English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed I can hardly judge. She possesses a pretty good accent; of her
+      real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no opportunity of forming
+      an opinion.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And her natural capacity, monsieur? I have had my fears about that: can
+      you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average power?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really I
+      scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her
+      capacity. I wish you a very good afternoon.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She still pursued me. “You will observe, monsieur, and tell me what you
+      think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than on my own; women
+      cannot judge of these things as men can, and, excuse my pertinacity,
+      monsieur, but it is natural I should feel interested about this poor
+      little girl (pauvre petite); she has scarcely any relations, her own
+      efforts are all she has to look to, her acquirements must be her sole
+      fortune; her present position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is then
+      but natural I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see the
+      difficulty she has in managing pupils, I feel quite chagrined. I doubt not
+      she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but, monsieur, she wants
+      tact and firmness. I have talked to her on the subject, but I am not
+      fluent, and probably did not express myself with clearness; she never
+      appears to comprehend me. Now, would you occasionally, when you see an
+      opportunity, slip in a word of advice to her on the subject; men have so
+      much more influence than women have—they argue so much more
+      logically than we do; and you, monsieur, in particular, have so paramount
+      a power of making yourself obeyed; a word of advice from you could not but
+      do her good; even if she were sullen and headstrong (which I hope she is
+      not), she would scarcely refuse to listen to you; for my own part, I can
+      truly say that I never attend one of your lessons without deriving benefit
+      from witnessing your management of the pupils. The other masters are a
+      constant source of anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies
+      with sentiments of respect, nor restrain the levity natural to youth: in
+      you, monsieur, I feel the most absolute confidence; try then to put this
+      poor child into the way of controlling our giddy, high-spirited
+      Brabantoises. But, monsieur, I would add one word more; don’t alarm her
+      <i lang="fr">amour propre</i>; beware of inflicting a wound there. I
+      reluctantly admit that in that particular she is blameably—some would say
+      ridiculously—susceptible. I fear I have touched this sore point
+      inadvertently, and she cannot get over it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock of the
+      outer door; I now turned it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Au revoir, mademoiselle,” said I, and I escaped. I saw the directress’s
+      stock of words was yet far from exhausted. She looked after me, she would
+      fain have detained me longer. Her manner towards me had been altered ever
+      since I had begun to treat her with hardness and indifference: she almost
+      cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted my countenance incessantly,
+      and beset me with innumerable little officious attentions. Servility
+      creates despotism. This slavish homage, instead of softening my heart,
+      only pampered whatever was stern and exacting in its mood. The very
+      circumstance of her hovering round me like a fascinated bird, seemed to
+      transform me into a rigid pillar of stone; her flatteries irritated my
+      scorn, her blandishments confirmed my reserve. At times I wondered what
+      she meant by giving herself such trouble to win me, when the more
+      profitable Pelet was already in her nets, and when, too, she was aware
+      that I possessed her secret, for I had not scrupled to tell her as much:
+      but the fact is that as it was her nature to doubt the reality and
+      under-value the worth of modesty, affection, disinterestedness—to
+      regard these qualities as foibles of character—so it was equally her
+      tendency to consider pride, hardness, selfishness, as proofs of strength.
+      She would trample on the neck of humility, she would kneel at the feet of
+      disdain; she would meet tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she
+      would woo with ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness,
+      enthusiasm, were her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she
+      had a preference—they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and
+      physical degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
+      indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
+      set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
+      succumbed—they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to
+      hate, no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in
+      some hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false
+      and selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
+      the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
+      benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be considered
+      one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension wore off, the
+      real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a deception.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0016">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances Evans
+      Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her character. I
+      found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at least two good
+      points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I found she was really
+      capable of applying to study, of contending with difficulties. At first I
+      offered her the same help which I had always found it necessary to confer
+      on the others; I began with unloosing for her each knotty point, but I
+      soon discovered that such help was regarded by my new pupil as degrading;
+      she recoiled from it with a certain proud impatience. Hereupon I appointed
+      her long lessons, and left her to solve alone any perplexities they might
+      present. She set to the task with serious ardour, and having quickly
+      accomplished one labour, eagerly demanded more. So much for her
+      perseverance; as to her sense of duty, it evinced itself thus: she liked
+      to learn, but hated to teach; her progress as a pupil depended upon
+      herself, and I saw that on herself she could calculate with certainty; her
+      success as a teacher rested partly, perhaps chiefly, upon the will of
+      others; it cost her a most painful effort to enter into conflict with this
+      foreign will, to endeavour to bend it into subjection to her own; for in
+      what regarded people in general the action of her will was impeded by many
+      scruples; it was as unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were
+      concerned, and to it she could at any time subject her inclination, if
+      that inclination went counter to her convictions of right; yet when called
+      upon to wrestle with the propensities, the habits, the faults of others,
+      of children especially, who are deaf to reason, and, for the most part,
+      insensate to persuasion, her will sometimes almost refused to act; then
+      came in the sense of duty, and forced the reluctant will into operation. A
+      wasteful expense of energy and labour was frequently the consequence;
+      Frances toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere
+      her conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like docility on
+      their part, because they saw that they had power over her, inasmuch as by
+      resisting her painful attempts to convince, persuade, control—by
+      forcing her to the employment of coercive measures—they could
+      inflict upon her exquisite suffering. Human beings—human children
+      especially—seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power
+      which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist
+      only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are
+      duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and his
+      bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that
+      instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very
+      young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize nor
+      how to spare. Frances, I fear, suffered much; a continual weight seemed to
+      oppress her spirits; I have said she did not live in the house, and
+      whether in her own abode, wherever that might be, she wore the same
+      preoccupied, unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always shaded her
+      features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred tending
+      cakes in the herdsman’s hut, to be related with amplifications. A singular
+      affair most of the pupils made of it; brevity was what they had chiefly
+      studied; the majority of the narratives were perfectly unintelligible;
+      those of Sylvie and Léonie Ledru alone pretended to anything like sense
+      and connection. Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a clever expedient for at
+      once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she had obtained access somehow
+      to an abridged history of England, and had copied the anecdote out fair. I
+      wrote on the margin of her production “Stupid and deceitful,” and then
+      tore it down the middle.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several sheets,
+      neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the hand, and scarcely
+      needed the evidence of the signature “Frances Evans Henri” to confirm my
+      conjecture as to the writer’s identity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room the usual
+      scene of such task—task most onerous hitherto; and it seemed strange
+      to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense of interest, as I
+      snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the perusal of the poor
+      teacher’s manuscript.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Now,” thought I, “I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I shall
+      get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not that she can be
+      expected to express herself well in a foreign tongue, but still, if she
+      has any mind, here will be a reflection of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant’s hut,
+      situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter forest; it
+      represented an evening in December; flakes of snow were falling, and the
+      herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he summoned his wife to aid him in
+      collecting their flock, roaming far away on the pastoral banks of the
+      Thone; he warns her that it will be late ere they return. The good woman
+      is reluctant to quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening meal;
+      but acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and flocks,
+      she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a stranger who rests
+      half reclined on a bed of rushes near the hearth, bids him mind the bread
+      till her return.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take care, young man,” she continues, “that you fasten the door well
+      after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence; whatever sound you
+      hear, stir not, and look not out. The night will soon fall; this forest is
+      most wild and lonely; strange noises are often heard therein after sunset;
+      wolves haunt these glades, and Danish warriors infest the country; worse
+      things are talked of; you might chance to hear, as it were, a child cry,
+      and on opening the door to afford it succour, a great black bull, or a
+      shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold; or, more awful still,
+      if something flapped, as with wings, against the lattice, and then a raven
+      or a white dove flew in and settled on the hearth, such a visitor would be
+      a sure sign of misfortune to the house; therefore, heed my advice, and
+      lift the latchet for nothing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Her husband calls her away, both depart. The stranger, left alone, listens
+      awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote, swollen sound of the river,
+      and then he speaks.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is Christmas Eve,” says he, “I mark the date; here I sit alone on a
+      rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a herdsman’s hut; I,
+      whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my night’s harbourage to a poor serf;
+      my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I have no
+      friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless robbers
+      spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts crushed by the
+      heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now thou
+      standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. Ay; I see thine
+      eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I still hope. Pagan
+      demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot succumb to thy power.
+      My God, whose Son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for
+      man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His
+      behest thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal,
+      all-wise—in Him is my trust; and though stripped and crushed by
+      thee—though naked, desolate, void of resource—I do not despair, I cannot
+      despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not
+      despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will
+      aid.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the same
+      strain. There were errors of orthography, there were foreign idioms, there
+      were some faults of construction, there were verbs irregular transformed
+      into verbs regular; it was mostly made up, as the above example shows, of
+      short and somewhat rude sentences, and the style stood in great need of
+      polish and sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I had hitherto seen
+      nothing like it in the course of my professorial experience. The girl’s
+      mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the two peasants, of the
+      crownless king; she had imagined the wintry forest, she had recalled the
+      old Saxon ghost-legends, she had appreciated Alfred’s courage under
+      calamity, she had remembered his Christian education, and had shown him,
+      with the rooted confidence of those primitive days, relying on the
+      scriptural Jehovah for aid against the mythological Destiny. This she had
+      done without a hint from me: I had given the subject, but not said a word
+      about the manner of treating it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her,” I said to
+      myself as I rolled the devoir up; “I will learn what she has of English in
+      her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no novice in the language,
+      that is evident, yet she told me she had neither been in England, nor
+      taken lessons in English, nor lived in English families.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other devoirs,
+      dealing out praise and blame in very small retail parcels, according to my
+      custom, for there was no use in blaming severely, and high encomiums were
+      rarely merited. I said nothing of Mdlle. Henri’s exercise, and, spectacles
+      on nose, I endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her sentiments at
+      the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed a consciousness
+      of her own talents. “If she thinks she did a clever thing in composing
+      that devoir, she will now look mortified,” thought I. Grave as usual,
+      almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were fastened on the
+      cahier open before her; there was something, I thought, of expectation in
+      her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the last devoir, and when,
+      casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade them take their grammars,
+      some slight change did pass over her air and mien, as though she now
+      relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant excitement; she had been waiting
+      for something to be discussed in which she had a degree of interest; the
+      discussion was not to come on, so expectation sank back, shrunk and sad,
+      but attention, promptly filling up the void, repaired in a moment the
+      transient collapse of feature; still, I felt, rather than saw, during the
+      whole course of the lesson, that a hope had been wrenched from her, and
+      that if she did not show distress, it was because she would not.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At four o’clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate tumult,
+      instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat still a
+      moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her cabas;
+      having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my eye, she
+      made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon, and was
+      turning to depart:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come here,” said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She hesitated;
+      she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now pervading both
+      school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached; again she paused within
+      half a yard of the estrade, and looked shy, and still doubtful whether she
+      had mistaken my meaning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Step up,” I said, speaking with decision. It is the only way of dealing
+      with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with some slight manual
+      aid I presently got her placed just where I wanted her to be, that is,
+      between my desk and the window, where she was screened from the rush of
+      the second division, and where no one could sneak behind her to listen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Take a seat,” I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit down. I knew
+      what I was doing would be considered a very strange thing, and, what was
+      more, I did not care. Frances knew it also, and, I fear, by an appearance
+      of agitation and trembling, that she cared much. I drew from my pocket the
+      rolled-up devoir.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This is yours, I suppose?” said I, addressing her in English, for I now
+      felt sure she could speak English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it out flat
+      on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a pencil in that hand, I
+      saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled; her depression beamed as a cloud
+      might behind which the sun is burning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “This devoir has numerous faults,” said I. “It will take you some years of
+      careful study before you are in a condition to write English with absolute
+      correctness. Attend: I will point out some principal defects.” And I went
+      through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating why they were
+      errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been written. In the
+      course of this sobering process she became calm. I now went on:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has surprised me; I
+      perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it some proofs of taste and
+      fancy. Taste and fancy are not the highest gifts of the human mind, but
+      such as they are you possess them—not probably in a paramount
+      degree, but in a degree beyond what the majority can boast. You may then
+      take courage; cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on
+      you, and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+      injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the consciousness of
+      their strength and rarity.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Strength and rarity!” I repeated to myself; “ay, the words are probably
+      true,” for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered its screening
+      cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile shone in her eyes—a
+      smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature; you need
+      not so carefully moderate your language. Do you think I am myself a
+      stranger to myself? What you tell me in terms so qualified, I have known
+      fully from a child.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could, but in a
+      moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her aspect, had
+      subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she was equally conscious
+      of her harassing defects, and the remembrance of these obliterated for a
+      single second, now reviving with sudden force, at once subdued the too
+      vivid characters in which her sense of her powers had been expressed. So
+      quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to check her triumph by
+      reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown she had become serious
+      and almost mournful-looking.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Thank you, sir,” said she, rising. There was gratitude both in her voice
+      and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was time, indeed, for
+      our conference to terminate; for, when I glanced around, behold all the
+      boarders (the day-scholars had departed) were congregated within a yard or
+      two of my desk, and stood staring with eyes and mouths wide open; the
+      three maîtresses formed a whispering knot in one corner, and, close at my
+      elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair, calmly clipping the
+      tassels of her finished purse.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0017">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had so
+      boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my intention to ask
+      her how she came to be possessed of two English baptismal names, Frances
+      and Evans, in addition to her French surname, also whence she derived her
+      good accent. I had forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy had
+      been so brief that I had not had time to bring them forward; moreover, I
+      had not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I had drawn from
+      her in that language were the words “Yes,” and “Thank you, sir.” “No
+      matter,” I reflected. “What has been left incomplete now, shall be
+      finished another day.” Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus made to
+      myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular
+      conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old
+      proverb, “Where there is a will, there is a way;” and again and again I
+      managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle.
+      Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I
+      approached her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your book an instant.” Such was the mode in which I often began these
+      brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion of the lesson;
+      and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself in her place, allowing
+      her to stand deferentially at my side; for I esteemed it wise and right in
+      her case to enforce strictly all forms ordinarily in use between master
+      and pupil; the rather because I perceived that in proportion as my manner
+      grew austere and magisterial, hers became easy and self-possessed—an
+      odd contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary effect in such cases; but so
+      it was.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A pencil,” said I, holding out my hand without looking at her. (I am now
+      about to sketch a brief report of the first of these conferences.) She
+      gave me one, and while I underlined some errors in a grammatical exercise
+      she had written, I observed—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You are not a native of Belgium?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nor of France?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Where, then, is your birthplace?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was born at Geneva.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You don’t call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, sir; they are English names.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their children
+      English appellatives?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Non, Monsieur; mais—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Speak English, if you please.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “English—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But” (slowly and with embarrassment) “my parents were not all the two
+      Genevese.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Say <em>both</em>, instead of ‘all the two,’ mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not <em>both</em> Swiss: my mother was English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah! and of English extraction?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—her ancestors were all English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And your father?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He was Swiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What besides? What was his profession?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ecclesiastic—pastor—he had a church.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak English with
+      more facility?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Maman est morte, il y a dix ans.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language. Have the
+      goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I converse with
+      you—keep to English.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n’en a plus l’habitude.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had the habitude formerly, I suppose? Now answer me in your mother
+      tongue.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a child.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you not speak it now?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because I have no English friends.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You live with your father, I suppose?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My father is dead.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You have brothers and sisters?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not one.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you live alone?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—I have an aunt—ma tante Julienne.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your father’s sister?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Justement, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is that English?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—but I forget—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly devise
+      some slight punishment; at your age—you must be two or three and
+      twenty, I should think?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Pas encore, monsieur—en un mois j’aurai dix-neuf ans.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you ought to be
+      so solicitous for your own improvement, that it should not be needful for
+      a master to remind you twice of the expediency of your speaking English
+      whenever practicable.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up, my pupil
+      was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very gay smile; it
+      seemed to say, “He talks of he knows not what:” it said this so plainly,
+      that I determined to request information on the point concerning which my
+      ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly affirmed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you solicitous for your own improvement?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How do you prove it, mademoiselle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive—am I? I learn my lessons well—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What more can I do?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as a
+      pupil?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You teach lace-mending?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No—it is tedious.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you pursue it? Why do you not rather teach history, geography,
+      grammar, even arithmetic?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with these
+      studies?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know; you ought to be at your age.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I never was at school, monsieur—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed! What then were your friends—what was your aunt about? She
+      is very much to blame.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No monsieur, no—my aunt is good—she is not to blame—she
+      does what she can; she lodges and nourishes me” (I report Mdlle. Henri’s
+      phrases literally, and it was thus she translated from the French). “She
+      is not rich; she has only an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and it
+      would be impossible for her to send me to school.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rather,” thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued, in the
+      dogmatical tone I had adopted:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the
+      most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history
+      and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending
+      drudgery, and risen in the world.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is what I mean to do.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How? By a knowledge of English alone? That will not suffice; no
+      respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock of knowledge
+      consists in a familiarity with one foreign language.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I know other things.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider handkerchiefs and
+      collars—that will do little for you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Henri’s lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked herself, as
+      thinking the discussion had been sufficiently pursued, and remained
+      silent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Speak,” I continued, impatiently; “I never like the appearance of
+      acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a contradiction at
+      your tongue’s end.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history, geography,
+      and arithmetic. I have gone through a course of each study.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford to
+      send you to school?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to
+      explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after we
+      came to Brussels, because I knew it was a métier, a trade which was easily
+      learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt it in a
+      few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies have old
+      lace—very precious—which must be mended all the times it is
+      washed. I earned money a little, and this money I gave for lessons in the
+      studies I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books, English
+      books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess, or
+      school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but it will be
+      difficult, because those who know I have been a lace-mender will despise
+      me, as the pupils here despise me. Pourtant j’ai mon projet,” she added in
+      a lower tone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What is it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will go and live in England; I will teach French there.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The words were pronounced emphatically. She said “England” as you might
+      suppose an Israelite of Moses’ days would have said Canaan.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Have you a wish to see England?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, and an intention.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu’il va pleuvoir; vous feriez bien, ma
+      bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning, Mdlle.
+      Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully, endeavoured to
+      move to her superior, though the endeavour was almost a failure, for her
+      head seemed as if it would not bend, and thus departed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the composition,
+      trifling obstacles are ever known rather to stimulate than discourage.
+      Mdlle. Reuter might as well have spared herself the trouble of giving that
+      intimation about the weather (by-the-by her prediction was falsified by
+      the event—it did not rain that evening). At the close of the next
+      lesson I was again at Mdlle. Henri’s desk. Thus did I accost her:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What is your idea of England, mademoiselle? Why do you wish to go there?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my manner, it no
+      longer discomposed or surprised her, and she answered with only so much of
+      hesitation as was rendered inevitable by the difficulty she experienced in
+      improvising the translation of her thoughts from French to English.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea of it is
+      vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear, definite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you went there
+      in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you must have of getting a
+      clear and definite idea of a country! All you could see of Great Britain
+      would be the interior of a school, or at most of one or two private
+      dwellings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of observations made
+      on a scale so narrow?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy? An—échantillon—a—a
+      sample often serves to give an idea of the whole; besides, narrow and wide
+      are words comparative, are they not? All my life would perhaps seem narrow
+      in your eyes—all the life of a—that little animal subterranean—une
+      taupe—comment dit-on?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mole.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, mademoiselle—what then? Proceed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not in the least; have the goodness to explain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why, monsieur, it is just so. In Switzerland I have done but little,
+      learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was in a circle; I
+      walked the same round every day; I could not get out of it; had I
+      rested—remained there even till my death, I should never have enlarged it,
+      because I am poor and not skilful, I have not great acquirements; when I
+      was quite tired of this round, I begged my aunt to go to Brussels; my
+      existence is no larger here, because I am no richer or higher; I walk in
+      as narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would change again if I
+      went to England. I knew something of the bourgeois of Geneva, now I know
+      something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I went to London, I would know
+      something of the bourgeois of London. Can you make any sense out of what I
+      say, monsieur, or is it all obscure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see, I see—now let us advert to another subject; you propose to
+      devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful teacher; you
+      cannot keep your pupils in order.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark; she bent
+      her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice improves;
+      besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach sewing, I can show
+      no power in sewing, no superiority—it is a subordinate art; then I
+      have no associates in this house, I am isolated; I am too a heretic, which
+      deprives me of influence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive you of
+      influence, and would effectually separate you from all round you; in
+      England you would have as few connections, as little importance as you
+      have here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are probably
+      difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must contend, and perhaps
+      be conquered, I would rather submit to English pride than to Flemish
+      coarseness; besides, monsieur—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She stopped—not evidently from any difficulty in finding words to
+      express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, “You have said
+      enough.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Finish your phrase,” I urged.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants; they are
+      more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a building with porous
+      walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling; every room in this house,
+      monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes, and what the house is, the
+      inhabitants are, very treacherous; they all think it lawful to tell lies;
+      they all call it politeness to profess friendship where they feel hatred.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “All?” said I; “you mean the pupils—the mere children—inexperienced,
+      giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish the difference between
+      right and wrong?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, monsieur—the children are the most sincere; they
+      have not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity; they will tell
+      lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know they are lying; but the
+      grown-up people are very false; they deceive strangers, they deceive each
+      other—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A servant here entered:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. Henri—Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire la
+      petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet de Rosalie
+      la portière—c’est que sa bonne n’est pas venue la chercher—voyez-vous.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne—moi?” demanded Mdlle. Henri;
+      then smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips
+      once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0018">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit from the
+      study of her mother-tongue. In teaching her I did not, of course, confine
+      myself to the ordinary school routine; I made instruction in English a
+      channel for instruction in literature. I prescribed to her a course of
+      reading; she had a little selection of English classics, a few of which
+      had been left her by her mother, and the others she had purchased with her
+      own penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all these she read with
+      avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of each work when she had
+      perused it. Composition, too, she delighted in. Such occupation seemed the
+      very breath of her nostrils, and soon her improved productions wrung from
+      me the avowal that those qualities in her I had termed taste and fancy
+      ought rather to have been denominated judgment and imagination. When I
+      intimated so much, which I did as usual in dry and stinted phrase, I
+      looked for the radiant and exulting smile my one word of eulogy had
+      elicited before; but Frances coloured. If she did smile, it was very
+      softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me with a conquering
+      glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched over her shoulder,
+      was writing some directions with a pencil on the margin of her book.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes,” said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+      returning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “But I do not say enough, I suppose?” I continued. “My praises are too
+      cool?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I divined her
+      thoughts, and should much have liked to have responded to them, had it
+      been expedient so to do. She was not now very ambitious of my
+      admiration—not eagerly desirous of dazzling me; a little affection—ever so
+      little—pleased her better than all the panegyrics in the world. Feeling
+      this, I stood a good while behind her, writing on the margin of her book.
+      I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my occupation; something
+      retained me bending there, my head very near hers, and my hand near hers
+      too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an illimitable space—so,
+      doubtless, the directress thought; and she took occasion to walk past in
+      order to ascertain by what art I prolonged so disproportionately the
+      period necessary for filling it. I was obliged to go. Distasteful
+      effort—to leave what we most prefer!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her sedentary
+      employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her mind
+      counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body. She changed, indeed,
+      changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better. When I first saw
+      her, her countenance was sunless, her complexion colourless; she looked
+      like one who had no source of enjoyment, no store of bliss anywhere in the
+      world; now the cloud had passed from her mien, leaving space for the dawn
+      of hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a clear morning,
+      animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been pale. Her eyes,
+      whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they with repressed
+      tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by a ray of the
+      sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright hazel—irids
+      large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils instinct with fire.
+      That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low spirits often
+      communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than round, having
+      vanished from hers, a clearness of skin almost bloom, and a plumpness
+      almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of her features. Her figure
+      shared in this beneficial change; it became rounder, and as the harmony of
+      her form was complete and her stature of the graceful middle height, one
+      did not regret (or at least <em>I</em> did not regret) the absence of
+      confirmed fulness, in contours, still slight, though compact, elegant,
+      flexible—the exquisite turning of waist, wrist, hand, foot, and ankle
+      satisfied completely my notions of symmetry, and allowed a lightness and
+      freedom of movement which corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a new
+      footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually but
+      steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the envious; and when
+      the young and healthy saw that she could smile brightly, converse gaily,
+      move with vivacity and alertness, they acknowledged in her a sisterhood of
+      youth and health, and tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the
+      growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the said
+      gardener contributes to the development of his favourite. To me it was not
+      difficult to discover how I could best foster my pupil, cherish her
+      starved feelings, and induce the outward manifestation of that inward
+      vigour which sunless drought and blighting blast had hitherto forbidden to
+      expand. Constancy of attention—a kindness as mute as watchful,
+      always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and making
+      its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest, or a cordial and
+      gentle word; real respect masked with seeming imperiousness, directing,
+      urging her actions, yet helping her too, and that with devoted care: these
+      were the means I used, for these means best suited Frances’ feelings, as
+      susceptible as deep vibrating—her nature at once proud and shy.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered demeanour as
+      a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils with an air of spirit
+      and firmness which assured them at once that she meant to be obeyed—and
+      obeyed she was. They felt they had lost their power over her. If any girl
+      had rebelled, she would no longer have taken her rebellion to heart; she
+      possessed a source of comfort they could not drain, a pillar of support
+      they could not overthrow: formerly, when insulted, she wept; now, she
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation of her
+      talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject—it was an
+      emigrant’s letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some
+      natural and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin
+      forest and great, New-World river—barren of sail and flag—amidst
+      which the epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers
+      that attend a settler’s life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on
+      that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+      resolve, patience, endeavour. The disasters which had driven him from his
+      native country were alluded to; stainless honour, inflexible independence,
+      indestructible self-respect there took the word. Past days were spoken of;
+      the grief of parting, the regrets of absence, were touched upon; feeling,
+      forcible and fine, breathed eloquent in every period. At the close,
+      consolation was suggested; religious faith became there the speaker, and
+      she spoke well.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and choice,
+      in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to understand
+      it when read or spoken in her presence, though she could neither speak nor
+      write it herself. During the perusal of this devoir, she sat placidly
+      busy, her eyes and fingers occupied with the formation of a “rivière” or
+      open-work hem round a cambric handkerchief; she said nothing, and her face
+      and forehead, clothed with a mask of purely negative expression, were as
+      blank of comment as her lips. As neither surprise, pleasure, approbation,
+      nor interest were evinced in her countenance, so no more were disdain,
+      envy, annoyance, weariness; if that inscrutable mien said anything, it was
+      simply this—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an opinion.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils, pressing round
+      Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments; the composed voice of
+      the directress was now heard:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will hasten to
+      return home before the shower becomes heavier” (it was raining a little),
+      “the remainder will wait till their respective servants arrive to fetch
+      them.” And the school dispersed, for it was four o’clock.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, a word,” said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the estrade, and
+      signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she wished me to relinquish,
+      for an instant, the castor I had clutched.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, I am at your service.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort in young
+      people by making conspicuous the progress of any particularly industrious
+      pupil; but do you not think that in the present instance, Mdlle. Henri can
+      hardly be considered as a concurrent with the other pupils? She is older
+      than most of them, and has had advantages of an exclusive nature for
+      acquiring a knowledge of English; on the other hand, her sphere of life is
+      somewhat beneath theirs; under these circumstances, a public distinction,
+      conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be the means of suggesting comparisons,
+      and exciting feelings such as would be far from advantageous to the
+      individual forming their object. The interest I take in Mdlle. Henri’s
+      real welfare makes me desirous of screening her from annoyances of this
+      sort; besides, monsieur, as I have before hinted to you, the sentiment of
+      <i lang="fr">amour-propre</i> has a somewhat marked preponderance in her
+      character; celebrity has a tendency to foster this sentiment, and in her
+      it should be rather repressed—she rather needs keeping down than bringing
+      forward; and then I think, monsieur—it appears to me that ambition,
+      <em>literary</em> ambition especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in
+      the mind of a woman: would not Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if
+      taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties consists
+      her real vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and
+      publicity? She may never marry; scanty as are her resources, obscure as
+      are her connections, uncertain as is her health (for I think her
+      consumptive, her mother died of that complaint), it is more than probable
+      she never will. I do not see how she can rise to a position, whence such a
+      step would be possible; but even in celibacy it would be better for her to
+      retain the character and habits of a respectable decorous female.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indisputably, mademoiselle,” was my answer. “Your opinion admits of no
+      doubt;” and, fearful of the harangue being renewed, I retreated under
+      cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above, I find
+      it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle. Henri’s usually
+      regular attendance in class. The first day or two I wondered at her
+      absence, but did not like to ask an explanation of it; I thought indeed
+      some chance word might be dropped which would afford me the information I
+      wished to obtain, without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles and
+      gossiping whispers by demanding it. But when a week passed and the seat at
+      the desk near the door still remained vacant, and when no allusion was
+      made to the circumstance by any individual of the class—when, on the
+      contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence on the point—I
+      determined, <i lang="fr">coûte qui coûte</i>, to break the ice of this
+      silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I knew
+      that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by wriggle,
+      titter, or other flourish of folly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Où donc est Mdlle. Henri?” I said one day as I returned an exercise-book
+      I had been examining.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Elle est partie, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Partie? et pour combien de temps? Quand reviendra-t-elle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra plus.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “En êtes-vous bien sûre, Sylvie?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l’a dit elle-même il
+      y a deux ou trois jours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and circumstances
+      forbade my adding another word. I could neither comment on what had been
+      said, nor demand further particulars. A question as to the reason of the
+      teacher’s departure, as to whether it had been voluntary or otherwise, was
+      indeed on my lips, but I suppressed it—there were listeners all
+      round. An hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as she was putting
+      on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri’s address? I have some books of hers,” I
+      added carelessly, “and I should wish to send them to her.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur,” replied Sylvie; “but perhaps Rosalie, the portress, will
+      be able to give it you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Rosalie’s cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the inquiry.
+      Rosalie—a smart French grisette—looked up from her work with a
+      knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been so desirous to avoid
+      exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew nothing whatever of Mdlle.
+      Henri’s address—had never known it. Turning from her with impatience—for
+      I believed she lied and was hired to lie—I almost knocked down some
+      one who had been standing at my back; it was the directress. My abrupt
+      movement made her recoil two or three steps. I was obliged to apologize,
+      which I did more concisely than politely. No man likes to be dogged, and
+      in the very irritable mood in which I then was the sight of Mdlle. Reuter
+      thoroughly incensed me. At the moment I turned her countenance looked
+      hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes were bent upon me with an expression
+      of almost hungry curiosity. I had scarcely caught this phase of
+      physiognomy ere it had vanished; a bland smile played on her features; my
+      harsh apology was received with good-humoured facility.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, don’t mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with your elbow;
+      it is no worse, only a little dishevelled.” She shook it back, and passing
+      her fingers through her curls, loosened them into more numerous and
+      flowing ringlets. Then she went on with vivacity:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the windows
+      of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains will be covered
+      with dust.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Rosalie departed. “Now,” thought I, “this will not do; Mdlle. Reuter
+      thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her art in devising a
+      pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks of are not more
+      transparent than this same pretext.” An impulse came over me to thrust the
+      flimsy screen aside, and confront her craft boldly with a word or two of
+      plain truth. “The rough-shod foot treads most firmly on slippery ground,”
+       thought I; so I began:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment—been dismissed, I
+      presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,” replied
+      the directress with the most natural and affable air in the world; “but we
+      cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step into the garden a minute?”
+       And she preceded me, stepping out through the glass-door I have before
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There,” said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle alley, and
+      when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their summer pride, closing
+      behind and around us, shut out the view of the house, and thus imparted a
+      sense of seclusion even to this little plot of ground in the very core of
+      a capital.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees and
+      rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are sometimes
+      tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of having human faces
+      always round you, human eyes always upon you, human voices always in your
+      ear. I am sure I often wish intensely for liberty to spend a whole month
+      in the country at some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien propre, tout
+      entourée de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la vie champêtre!
+      N’est-ce pas, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Cela dépend, mademoiselle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Que le vent est bon et frais!” continued the directress; and she was
+      right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet. I carried my hat in
+      my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing through my hair, soothed my
+      temples like balm. Its refreshing effect, however, penetrated no deeper
+      than the mere surface of the frame; for as I walked by the side of Mdlle.
+      Reuter, my heart was still hot within me, and while I was musing the fire
+      burned; then spake I with my tongue:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not return?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, true! I meant to have named the subject to you some days ago, but my
+      time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the things I wish: have
+      you never experienced what it is, monsieur, to find the day too short by
+      twelve hours for your numerous duties?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not often. Mdlle. Henri’s departure was not voluntary, I presume? If it
+      had been, she would certainly have given me some intimation of it, being
+      my pupil.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I never thought
+      of adverting to the subject; when one has so many things to attend to, one
+      is apt to forget little incidents that are not of primary importance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You consider Mdlle. Henri’s dismission, then, as a very insignificant
+      event?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Dismission? Ah! she was not dismissed; I can say with truth, monsieur,
+      that since I became the head of this establishment no master or teacher
+      has ever been <em>dismissed</em> from it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently—a change of
+      instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school; it gives
+      life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the pupils, and suggests to
+      the parents the idea of exertion and progress.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yet when you are tired of a professor or maîtresse, you scruple to
+      dismiss them?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you. Allons,
+      monsieur le professeur—asseyons-nous; je vais vous donner une petite
+      leçon dans votre état d’instituteur.” (I wish I might write all she said
+      to me in French—it loses sadly by being translated into English.) We
+      had now reached <em>the</em> garden-chair; the directress sat down, and
+      signed to me to sit by her, but I only rested my knee on the seat, and
+      stood leaning my head and arm against the embowering branch of a huge
+      laburnum, whose golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves of a
+      lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the retreat.
+      Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements were evidently
+      working in her mind, and they showed their nature on her astute brow; she
+      was meditating some <i lang="fr">chef d’oeuvre</i> of policy. Convinced by
+      several months’ experience that the affectation of virtues she did not
+      possess was unavailing to ensnare me—aware that I had read her real
+      nature, and would believe nothing of the character she gave out as being
+      hers—she had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock of
+      my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth, a
+      glimpse of the real. “Yes, I will try,” was her inward resolve; and then
+      her blue eye glittered upon me—it did not flash—nothing of flame ever
+      kindled in its temperate gleam.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur fears to sit by me?” she inquired playfully.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I have no wish to usurp Pelet’s place,” I answered, for I had got the
+      habit of speaking to her bluntly—a habit begun in anger, but
+      continued because I saw that, instead of offending, it fascinated her. She
+      cast down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids; she sighed uneasily; she
+      turned with an anxious gesture, as if she would give me the idea of a bird
+      that flutters in its cage, and would fain fly from its jail and jailer,
+      and seek its natural mate and pleasant nest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well—and your lesson?” I demanded briefly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah!” she exclaimed, recovering herself, “you are so young, so frank and
+      fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of
+      vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done in
+      this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew that
+      before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your character—policy,
+      as well as pride?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Go on,” said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery was so
+      piquant, so finely seasoned. She caught the prohibited smile, though I
+      passed my hand over my mouth to conceal it; and again she made room for me
+      to sit beside her. I shook my head, though temptation penetrated to my
+      senses at the moment, and once more I told her to go on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large establishment, dismiss
+      nobody. To speak truth, monsieur (and to you I will speak truth), I
+      despise people who are always making rows, blustering, sending off one to
+      the right, and another to the left, urging and hurrying circumstances.
+      I’ll tell you what I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?” She looked up
+      again; she had compounded her glance well this time—much archness,
+      more deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled consciousness of
+      capacity. I nodded; she treated me like the great Mogul; so I became the
+      great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit quietly
+      down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch their march; so
+      long as they follow the course I wish, I say nothing, and do nothing; I
+      don’t clap my hands, and cry out ‘Bravo! How lucky I am!’ to attract the
+      attention and envy of my neighbours—I am merely passive; but when
+      events fall out ill—when circumstances become adverse—I watch
+      very vigilantly; I knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every
+      now and then, monsieur, I just put my toe out—so—and give the
+      rebellious circumstance a little secret push, without noise, which sends
+      it the way I wish, and I am successful after all, and nobody has seen my
+      expedient. So, when teachers or masters become troublesome and
+      inefficient—when, in short, the interests of the school would suffer from
+      their retaining their places—I mind my knitting, events progress,
+      circumstances glide past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry,
+      will render untenable the post I wish to have vacated—the deed is done—the
+      stumbling-block removed—and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy,
+      I am rid of an incumbrance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech concluded, I
+      looked on her with distaste. “Just like you,” was my cold answer. “And in
+      this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri? You wanted her office, therefore
+      you rendered it intolerable to her?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri’s health;
+      no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you have failed to
+      discover the truth. I took—I have always taken a real interest in
+      Mdlle. Henri’s welfare; I did not like her going out in all weathers; I
+      thought it would be more advantageous for her to obtain a permanent
+      situation; besides, I considered her now qualified to do something more
+      than teach sewing. I reasoned with her; left the decision to herself; she
+      saw the correctness of my views, and adopted them.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to give me
+      her address.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Her address!” and a sombre and stony change came over the mien of the
+      directress. “Her address? Ah?—well—I wish I could oblige you,
+      monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why; whenever I myself asked
+      her for her address, she always evaded the inquiry. I thought—I may
+      be wrong—but I <em>thought</em> her motive for doing so, was a natural,
+      though mistaken reluctance to introduce me to some, probably, very poor
+      abode; her means were narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere,
+      doubtless, in the ‘basse ville.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll not lose sight of my best pupil yet,” said I, “though she were born
+      of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is absurd to make a
+      bugbear of her origin to me—I happen to know that she was a Swiss
+      pastor’s daughter, neither more nor less; and, as to her narrow means, I
+      care nothing for the poverty of her purse so long as her heart overflows
+      with affluence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur,” said the directress,
+      affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was now extinct, her
+      temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking
+      pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was
+      furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low
+      over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the
+      <i lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> and departed.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0019">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real
+      life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer
+      pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would
+      seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture—still
+      seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the
+      fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid
+      bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have plunged like
+      beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, stimulated, again
+      overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties for enjoyment; then,
+      truly, we may find ourselves without support, robbed of hope. Our agony is
+      great, and how can it end? We have broken the spring of our powers; life
+      must be all suffering—too feeble to conceive faith—death must
+      be darkness—God, spirits, religion can have no place in our
+      collapsed minds, where linger only hideous and polluting recollections of
+      vice; and time brings us on to the brink of the grave, and dissolution
+      flings us in—a rag eaten through and through with disease, wrung
+      together with pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by the inexorable heel
+      of despair.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his
+      property—it is a blow—he staggers a moment; then, his
+      energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon
+      mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience—endures
+      what he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not
+      where to find rest; he leans on Hope’s anchors. Death takes from him what
+      he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his
+      affections were twined—a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench—but
+      some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and
+      says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred
+      again. She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin—of that
+      life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens her
+      consolation by connecting with it two ideas—which mortals cannot
+      comprehend, but on which they love to repose—Eternity, Immortality;
+      and the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet
+      glorious, of heavenly hills all light and peace—of a spirit resting
+      there in bliss—of a day when his spirit shall also alight there,
+      free and disembodied—of a reunion perfected by love, purified from
+      fear—he takes courage—goes out to encounter the necessities
+      and discharge the duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her
+      burden from his mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Well—and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to be
+      drawn therefrom? What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best
+      pupil—my treasure—being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my
+      reach; the inference to be drawn from it is—that, being a steady,
+      reasonable man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief,
+      engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any monstrous
+      size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my heart; I
+      pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In the daytime,
+      too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent system; and it
+      was only after I had closed the door of my chamber at night that I
+      somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose nurslings, and allowed
+      vent to their language of murmurs; then, in revenge, they sat on my
+      pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with their long, midnight cry.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A week passed. I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter. I had been calm
+      in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard. When I looked at her,
+      it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew had
+      consulted jealousy as an adviser, and employed treachery as an
+      instrument—the glance of quiet disdain and rooted distrust. On Saturday
+      evening, ere I left the house, I stept into the
+      <i lang="fr">salle-à-manger</i>, where she was sitting alone, and, placing
+      myself before her, I asked, with the same tranquil tone and manner that I
+      should have used had I put the question for the first time—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address of
+      Frances Evans Henri?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly disclaimed any
+      knowledge of that address, adding, “Monsieur has perhaps forgotten that I
+      explained all about that circumstance before—a week ago?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle,” I continued, “you would greatly oblige me by directing me
+      to that young person’s abode.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an admirably
+      counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, “Does Monsieur think I am
+      telling an untruth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, “It is not then your
+      intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this particular?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I have only
+      two or three words to say. This is the last week in July; in another month
+      the vacation will commence, have the goodness to avail yourself of the
+      leisure it will afford you to look out for another English master—at
+      the close of August, I shall be under the necessity of resigning my post
+      in your establishment.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed and
+      immediately withdrew.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a small packet;
+      it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped so soon to see again;
+      being in my own apartment and alone, there was nothing to prevent my
+      immediately opening it; it contained four five-franc pieces, and a note in
+      English.
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “MONSIEUR,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I came to Mdlle. Reuter’s house yesterday, at the time when I knew you
+      would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked if I might go into
+      the schoolroom and speak to you. Mdlle. Reuter came out and said you were
+      already gone; it had not yet struck four, so I thought she must be
+      mistaken, but concluded it would be vain to call another day on the same
+      errand. In one sense a note will do as well—it will wrap up the 20
+      francs, the price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it will
+      not fully express the thanks I owe you in addition—if it will not
+      bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done—if it will not tell
+      you, as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably never see you
+      more—why, spoken words would hardly be more adequate to the task.
+      Had I seen you, I should probably have stammered out something feeble and
+      unsatisfactory—something belying my feelings rather than explaining
+      them; so it is perhaps as well that I was denied admission to your
+      presence. You often remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great deal
+      on fortitude in bearing grief—you said I introduced that theme too
+      often: I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a severe duty
+      than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and feel to what a
+      reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to me, monsieur—very
+      kind; I am afflicted—I am heart-broken to be quite separated from
+      you; soon I shall have no friend on earth. But it is useless troubling you
+      with my distresses. What claim have I on your sympathy? None; I will then
+      say no more.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Farewell, Monsieur.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “F. E. HENRI.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      I put up the note in my pocket-book. I slipped the five-franc pieces into
+      my purse—then I took a turn through my narrow chamber.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty,” said I, “and she is poor; yet
+      she pays her debts and more. I have not yet given her a quarter’s lessons,
+      and she has sent me a quarter’s due. I wonder of what she deprived herself
+      to scrape together the twenty francs—I wonder what sort of a place
+      she has to live in, and what sort of a woman her aunt is, and whether she
+      is likely to get employment to supply the place she has lost. No doubt she
+      will have to trudge about long enough from school to school, to inquire
+      here, and apply there—be rejected in this place, disappointed in
+      that. Many an evening she’ll go to her bed tired and unsuccessful. And the
+      directress would not let her in to bid me good-bye? I might not have the
+      chance of standing with her for a few minutes at a window in the
+      schoolroom and exchanging some half-dozen of sentences—getting to
+      know where she lived—putting matters in train for having all things
+      arranged to my mind? No address on the note”—I continued, drawing it
+      again from the pocket-book and examining it on each side of the two
+      leaves: “women are women, that is certain, and always do business like
+      women; men mechanically put a date and address to their communications.
+      And these five-franc pieces?”—(I hauled them forth from my purse)—“if
+      she had offered me them herself instead of tying them up with a thread of
+      green silk in a kind of Lilliputian packet, I could have thrust them back
+      into her little hand, and shut up the small, taper fingers over
+      them—so—and compelled her shame, her pride, her shyness, all to yield to a
+      little bit of determined Will—now where is she? How can I get at her?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Who brought the packet?” I asked of the servant who had delivered it to
+      me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Un petit commissionaire, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Did he say anything?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for my
+      inquiries.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No matter,” said I to myself, as I again closed the door. “No matter—I’ll
+      seek her through Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And I did. I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment’s leisure, for
+      four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I sought her on the
+      Boulevards, in the Allée Verte, in the Park; I sought her in Ste. Gudule
+      and St. Jacques; I sought her in the two Protestant chapels; I attended
+      these latter at the German, French, and English services, not doubting
+      that I should meet her at one of them. All my researches were absolutely
+      fruitless; my security on the last point was proved by the event to be
+      equally groundless with my other calculations. I stood at the door of each
+      chapel after the service, and waited till every individual had come out,
+      scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form, peering under every bonnet
+      covering a young head. In vain; I saw girlish figures pass me, drawing
+      their black scarfs over their sloping shoulders, but none of them had the
+      exact turn and air of Mdlle. Henri’s; I saw pale and thoughtful faces
+      “encadrees” in bands of brown hair, but I never found her forehead, her
+      eyes, her eyebrows. All the features of all the faces I met seemed
+      frittered away, because my eye failed to recognize the peculiarities it
+      was bent upon; an ample space of brow and a large, dark, and serious eye,
+      with a fine but decided line of eyebrow traced above.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She has probably left Brussels—perhaps is gone to England, as she
+      said she would,” muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of the fourth
+      Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal which the door-keeper
+      had just closed and locked, and followed in the wake of the last of the
+      congregation, now dispersed and dispersing over the square. I had soon
+      outwalked the couples of English gentlemen and ladies. (Gracious goodness!
+      why don’t they dress better? My eye is yet filled with visions of the
+      high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and satin, of
+      the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the ill-cut coats and
+      strangely fashioned pantaloons which every Sunday, at the English service,
+      filled the choirs of the chapel-royal, and after it, issuing forth into
+      the square, came into disadvantageous contrast with freshly and trimly
+      attired foreign figures, hastening to attend salut at the church of
+      Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and the groups of pretty
+      British children, and the British footmen and waiting-maids; I had crossed
+      the Place Royale, and got into the Rue Royale, thence I had diverged into
+      the Rue de Louvain—an old and quiet street. I remember that, feeling
+      a little hungry, and not desiring to go back and take my share of the
+      “goûter,” now on the refectory-table at Pelet’s—to wit, pistolets
+      and water—I stepped into a baker’s and refreshed myself on a
+      <i>couc</i> (?)—it is a Flemish word, I don’t know how to spell
+      it—<i lang="fr">à Corinthe—Anglice</i>,
+      a currant bun—and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on towards
+      the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of the city, and slowly mounting
+      the hill, which ascends from the gate, I took my time; for the afternoon,
+      though cloudy, was very sultry, and not a breeze stirred to refresh the
+      atmosphere. No inhabitant of Brussels need wander far to search for
+      solitude; let him but move half a league from his own city and he will
+      find her brooding still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so
+      fertile, spread out treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant.
+      Having gained the summit of the hill, and having stood and looked long
+      over the cultured but lifeless campaign, I felt a wish to quit the high
+      road, which I had hitherto followed, and get in among those tilled
+      grounds—fertile as the beds of a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden—spreading
+      far and wide even to the boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk
+      green, distance changed them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints
+      with those of the livid and thunderous-looking sky.
+      Accordingly I turned up a by-path to the
+      right; I had not followed it far ere it brought me, as I expected, into
+      the fields, amidst which, just before me, stretched a long and lofty white
+      wall enclosing, as it seemed from the foliage showing above, some thickly
+      planted nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were the branches
+      resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a massive cross,
+      planted doubtless on a central eminence and extending its arms, which
+      seemed of black marble, over the summits of those sinister trees. I
+      approached, wondering to what house this well-protected garden
+      appertained; I turned the angle of the wall, thinking to see some stately
+      residence; I was close upon great iron gates; there was a hut serving for
+      a lodge near, but I had no occasion to apply for the key—the gates
+      were open; I pushed one leaf back—rain had rusted its hinges, for it
+      groaned dolefully as they revolved. Thick planting embowered the entrance.
+      Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on each hand which, in their own mute
+      language of inscription and sign, explained clearly to what abode I had
+      made my way. This was the house appointed for all living; crosses,
+      monuments, and garlands of everlastings announced, “The Protestant
+      Cemetery, outside the gate of Louvain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The place was large enough to afford half an hour’s strolling without the
+      monotony of treading continually the same path; and, for those who love to
+      peruse the annals of graveyards, here was variety of inscription enough to
+      occupy the attention for double or treble that space of time. Hither
+      people of many kindreds, tongues, and nations, had brought their dead for
+      interment; and here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of brass, were
+      written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in English, in
+      French, in German, and Latin. Here the Englishman had erected a marble
+      monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane Brown, and inscribed
+      it only with her name. There the French widower had shaded the grave of
+      his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant thicket of roses, amidst which a
+      little tablet rising, bore an equally bright testimony to her countless
+      virtues. Every nation, tribe, and kindred, mourned after its own fashion;
+      and how soundless was the mourning of all! My own tread, though slow and
+      upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to startle, because it formed the sole
+      break to a silence otherwise total. Not only the winds, but the very
+      fitful, wandering airs, were that afternoon, as by common consent, all
+      fallen asleep in their various quarters; the north was hushed, the south
+      silent, the east sobbed not, nor did the west whisper. The clouds in
+      heaven were condensed and dull, but apparently quite motionless. Under the
+      trees of this cemetery nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the
+      cypresses stood up straight and mute, above which the willows hung low and
+      still; where the flowers, as languid as fair, waited listless for night
+      dew or thunder-shower; where the tombs, and those they hid, lay impassible
+      to sun or shadow, to rain or drought.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon the turf,
+      and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something stir among the
+      stems; I thought it might be a broken branch swinging, my short-sighted
+      vision had caught no form, only a sense of motion; but the dusky shade
+      passed on, appearing and disappearing at the openings in the avenue. I
+      soon discerned it was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing
+      nearer, I perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and
+      evidently deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+      meditating as I had been meditating. Ere long she returned to a seat which
+      I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have caught sight of her
+      before. It was in a nook, screened by a clump of trees; there was the
+      white wall before her, and a little stone set up against the wall, and, at
+      the foot of the stone, was an allotment of turf freshly turned up, a
+      new-made grave. I put on my spectacles, and passed softly close behind
+      her; glancing at the inscription on the stone, I read, “Julienne Henri,
+      died at Brussels, aged sixty. August 10th, 18—.” Having perused the
+      inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and thoughtful just
+      under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any living thing; it was a
+      slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel of the plainest black stuff,
+      with a little simple, black crape bonnet; I felt, as well as saw, who it
+      was; and, moving neither hand nor foot, I stood some moments enjoying the
+      security of conviction. I had sought her for a month, and had never
+      discovered one of her traces—never met a hope, or seized a chance of
+      encountering her anywhere. I had been forced to loosen my grasp on
+      expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly under the discouraging
+      thought that the current of life, and the impulse of destiny, had swept
+      her for ever from my reach; and, behold, while bending suddenly earthward
+      beneath the pressure of despondency—while following with my eyes the
+      track of sorrow on the turf of a graveyard—here was my lost jewel
+      dropped on the tear-fed herbage, nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of
+      yew-trees.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on her hand. I
+      knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long time without change; at
+      last, a tear fell; she had been looking at the name on the stone before
+      her, and her heart had no doubt endured one of those constrictions with
+      which the desolate living, regretting the dead, are, at times, so sorely
+      oppressed. Many tears rolled down, which she wiped away, again and again,
+      with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs escaped her, and then, the
+      paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before. I put my hand gently on her
+      shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for she was neither hysterical
+      nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden push, indeed, might have startled
+      her, but the contact of my quiet touch merely woke attention as I wished;
+      and, though she turned quickly, yet so lightning-swift is thought—in
+      some minds especially—I believe the wonder of what—the
+      consciousness of who it was that thus stole unawares on her solitude, had
+      passed through her brain, and flashed into her heart, even before she had
+      effected that hasty movement; at least, Amazement had hardly opened her
+      eyes and raised them to mine, ere Recognition informed their irids with
+      most speaking brightness. Nervous surprise had hardly discomposed her
+      features ere a sentiment of most vivid joy shone clear and warm on her
+      whole countenance. I had hardly time to observe that she was wasted and
+      pale, ere called to feel a responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most
+      full and exquisite pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in
+      the expansive light, now diffused over my pupil’s face. It was the summer
+      sun flashing out after the heavy summer shower; and what fertilizes more
+      rapidly than that beam, burning almost like fire in its ardour?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I hate boldness—that boldness which is of the brassy brow and
+      insensate nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour
+      of the generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans’
+      clear hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved
+      the tones with which she uttered the words—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître! mon maître!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I loved
+      her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist
+      charmless, for me a treasure—my best object of sympathy on earth,
+      thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my
+      ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love; personification of
+      discretion and forethought, of diligence and perseverance, of self-denial
+      and self-control—those guardians, those trusty keepers of the gift I
+      longed to confer on her—the gift of all my affections; model of
+      truth and honour, of independence and conscientiousness—those
+      refiners and sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well of
+      tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as quenchless, of
+      natural feeling, natural passion—those sources of refreshment and
+      comfort to the sanctuary of home. I knew how quietly and how deeply the
+      well bubbled in her heart; I knew how the more dangerous flame burned
+      safely under the eye of reason; I had seen when the fire shot up a moment
+      high and vivid, when the accelerated heat troubled life’s current in its
+      channels; I had seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its blaze to
+      embers. I had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect for her, and as I
+      drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the cemetery, I felt I had
+      another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as firm as respect, more
+      fervid than either—that of love.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, my pupil,” said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to behind
+      us—“Well, I have found you again: a month’s search has seemed long, and I
+      little thought to have discovered my lost sheep straying amongst graves.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, and to speak thus
+      was to take up a tone new to both her and me. Her answer suprised me that
+      this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in her heart:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little
+      imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to be
+      taken away from you. I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier
+      troubles ought to have made me forget it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your aunt is dead?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not
+      chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night of her
+      existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone, so friendless:’
+      she wished too that she could have been buried in Switzerland, and it was
+      I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the banks of Lake Leman, and
+      to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat region of Flanders.
+      Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and taken her remains back
+      to our own country, but that was impossible; I was forced to lay her
+      here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She was ill but a short time, I presume?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But three weeks. When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter’s leave to
+      stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called one
+      evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room to
+      speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is;
+      afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to
+      go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your
+      departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have
+      taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished
+      in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest
+      need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply your
+      place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can, though she
+      is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will be your part
+      now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure you will
+      everywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your talents.’
+      And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary. I asked, as mademoiselle
+      would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to discharge me from
+      the establishment. She smiled at my inelegance of speech, and answered
+      that ‘our connection as employer and employed was certainly dissolved, but
+      that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of my acquaintance; she should
+      always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and then she said something about
+      the excellent condition of the streets, and the long continuance of fine
+      weather, and went away quite cheerful.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress—so like what
+      I had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof
+      of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:—“She had frequently
+      applied for Mdlle. Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle. Henri had always
+      evaded giving it,” &amp;c., &amp;c., and here I found her a visitor at the
+      very house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication,
+      were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the
+      path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm. The warning
+      obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take the
+      road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and those
+      of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly. There
+      was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before heavy rain
+      came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de Louvain, and
+      were again in the city.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps of
+      the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and shattered
+      cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent, heavy,
+      prone, and broad.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house, I
+      paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the
+      threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and
+      followed her upstairs to her apartments. Neither she nor I were wet; a
+      projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood;
+      none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute more
+      and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room
+      with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the
+      articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean;
+      order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it soothed my
+      punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode,
+      because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter’s hint about its
+      extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the
+      lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! Poor the place might be;
+      poor truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had but
+      a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have deemed it
+      more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and no fuel
+      laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself that
+      indulgence, especially now when, deprived by death of her sole relative,
+      she had only her own unaided exertions to rely on. Frances went into an
+      inner room to take off her bonnet, and she came out a model of frugal
+      neatness, with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so accurately defining
+      her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless white collar turned
+      back from a fair and shapely neck, with her plenteous brown hair arranged
+      in smooth bands on her temples, and in a large Grecian plait behind:
+      ornaments she had none—neither brooch, ring, nor ribbon; she did
+      well enough without them—perfection of fit, proportion of form,
+      grace of carriage, agreeably supplied their place. Her eye, as she
+      re-entered the small sitting-room, instantly sought mine, which was just
+      then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at once the sort of inward
+      ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of that hearth stirred in my
+      soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine, and quicker to put in
+      practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron round her waist; then
+      she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket; it had a cover; she opened
+      it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and compactly she arranged them in
+      the grate.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,”
+       thought I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What are you going to do?” I asked: “not surely to light a fire this hot
+      evening? I shall be smothered.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides, I
+      must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
+      obliged to try and bear the heat.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
+      contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without, that
+      peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth, seemed very
+      cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced that another
+      being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a black cat, roused by
+      the light from its sleep on a little cushioned foot-stool, came and rubbed
+      its head against Frances’ gown as she knelt; she caressed it, saying it
+      had been a favourite with her “pauvre tante Julienne.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very antique
+      pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old farmhouses in
+      England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands were washed, and
+      her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a cupboard, and took out
+      a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a china tea-equipage, whose
+      pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote antiquity; a little,
+      old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each saucer; and a pair of
+      silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid on the sugar-basin; from
+      the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy silver cream-ewer, not larger then
+      an egg-shell. While making these preparations, she chanced to look up,
+      and, reading curiosity in my eyes, she smiled and asked—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is this like England, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Like the England of a hundred years ago,” I replied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred years
+      old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
+      great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she to my mother, and my
+      mother brought them with her from England to Switzerland, and left them to
+      me; and, ever since I was a little girl, I have thought I should like to
+      carry them back to England, whence they came.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as foreigners do
+      make tea—i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to half-a-dozen cups;
+      she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she asked, with a sort of
+      exaltation—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,” I answered;
+      and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing the
+      fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the English meal, and
+      speaking in the English language.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have then no home?” was her remark.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “None, nor ever have had. If ever I possess a home, it must be of my own
+      making, and the task is yet to begin.” And, as I spoke, a pang, new to me,
+      shot across my heart: it was a pang of mortification at the humility of my
+      position, and the inadequacy of my means; while with that pang was born a
+      strong desire to do more, earn more, be more, possess more; and in the
+      increased possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to include the
+      home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk; and her
+      pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were sweet to my
+      palate as manna.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being washed and
+      put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, “le chat de ma tante
+      Julienne” also being fed with provisions brought forth on a plate for its
+      special use, a few stray cinders, and a scattering of ashes too, being
+      swept from the hearth, Frances at last sat down; and then, as she took a
+      chair opposite to me, she betrayed, for the first time, a little
+      embarrassment; and no wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched her
+      rather too closely, followed all her steps and all her movements a little
+      too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by the grace and
+      alertness of her action—by the deft, cleanly, and even decorative
+      effect resulting from each touch of her slight and fine fingers; and when,
+      at last, she subsided to stillness, the intelligence of her face seemed
+      beauty to me, and I dwelt on it accordingly. Her colour, however, rising,
+      rather than settling with repose, and her eyes remaining downcast, though
+      I kept waiting for the lids to be raised that I might drink a ray of the
+      light I loved—a light where fire dissolved in softness, where
+      affection tempered penetration, where, just now at least, pleasure played
+      with thought—this expectation not being gratified, I began at last
+      to suspect that I had probably myself to blame for the disappointment; I
+      must cease gazing, and begin talking, if I wished to break the spell under
+      which she now sat motionless; so recollecting the composing effect which
+      an authoritative tone and manner had ever been wont to produce on her, I
+      said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet falls
+      heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and accepted at once
+      the chair I placed for her at my side. She had selected “Paradise Lost”
+       from her shelf of classics, thinking, I suppose, the religious character
+      of the book best adapted it to Sunday; I told her to begin at the
+      beginning, and while she read Milton’s invocation to that heavenly muse,
+      who on the “secret top of Oreb or Sinai” had taught the Hebrew shepherd
+      how in the womb of chaos, the conception of a world had originated and
+      ripened, I enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of having her near
+      me, hearing the sound of her voice—a sound sweet and satisfying in
+      my ear—and looking, by intervals, at her face: of this last
+      privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an intonation,
+      a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I might also gaze,
+      without exciting too warm a flush.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Enough,” said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages (a work
+      of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to ask and receive
+      information)—“enough; and now the rain is ceasing, and I must soon
+      go.” For indeed, at that moment, looking towards the window, I saw it all
+      blue; the thunder-clouds were broken and scattered, and the setting August
+      sun sent a gleam like the reflection of rubies through the lattice. I got
+      up; I drew on my gloves.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of that from
+      which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask me for
+      references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to the directress,
+      because I consider she acted neither justly nor honourably towards me; she
+      used underhand means to set my pupils against me, and thereby render me
+      unhappy while I held my place in her establishment, and she eventually
+      deprived me of it by a masked and hypocritical manoeuvre, pretending that
+      she was acting for my good, but really snatching from me my chief means of
+      subsistence, at a crisis when not only my own life, but that of another,
+      depended on my exertions: of her I will never more ask a favour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How, then, do you propose to get on? How do you live now?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me from
+      starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get better employment
+      yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to try; my courage or hopes are
+      by no means worn out yet.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate views?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To save enough to cross the Channel: I always look to England as my
+      Canaan.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, well—ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening
+      now,” and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a strong
+      inward impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more expressive leave: what so
+      natural as to fold her for a moment in a close embrace, to imprint one
+      kiss on her cheek or forehead? I was not unreasonable—that was all I
+      wanted; satisfied in that point, I could go away content; and Reason
+      denied me even this; she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and my
+      steps from her apartment—to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would
+      have quitted old Madame Pelet. I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to be
+      avenged one day. “I’ll earn a right to do as I please in this matter, or
+      I’ll die in the contest. I have one object before me now—to get that
+      Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall be—that is,
+      provided she has as much, or half as much regard for her master as he has
+      for her. And would she be so docile, so smiling, so happy under my
+      instructions if she had not? would she sit at my side when I dictate or
+      correct, with such a still, contented, halcyon mien?” for I had ever
+      remarked, that however sad or harassed her countenance might be when I
+      entered a room, yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few words,
+      given her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she would, all
+      at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene and revived.
+      The reproofs suited her best of all: while I scolded she would chip away
+      with her pen-knife at a pencil or a pen; fidgetting a little, pouting a
+      little, defending herself by monosyllables, and when I deprived her of the
+      pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away, and when I interdicted
+      even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose of working up the subdued
+      excitement a little higher, she would at last raise her eyes and give me a
+      certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and pointed with defiance, which,
+      to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had ever done, and made me, in a
+      fashion (though happily she did not know it), her subject, if not her
+      slave. After such little scenes her spirits would maintain their flow,
+      often for some hours, and, as I remarked before, her health therefrom took
+      a sustenance and vigour which, previously to the event of her aunt’s death
+      and her dismissal, had almost recreated her whole frame.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences; but I had
+      thought all their purport during the brief interval of descending the
+      stairs from Frances’ room. Just as I was opening the outer door, I
+      remembered the twenty francs which I had not restored; I paused:
+      impossible to carry them away with me; difficult to force them back on
+      their original owner; I had now seen her in her own humble abode,
+      witnessed the dignity of her poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious
+      care of conservatism, obvious in the arrangement and economy of her little
+      home; I was sure she would not suffer herself to be excused paying her
+      debts; I was certain the favour of indemnity would be accepted from no
+      hand, perhaps least of all from mine: yet these four five-franc pieces
+      were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get rid of them. An
+      expedient—a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I could devise—suggested
+      itself to me. I darted up the stairs, knocked, re-entered the room as if
+      in haste:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have left it
+      here.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I—being now
+      at the hearth—noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set of
+      china ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups—slipped the money
+      under it, then saying—“Oh here is my glove! I had dropped it within
+      the fender; good evening, mademoiselle,” I made my second exit.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time to pick up
+      a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already removed the red embers
+      of her cheerful little fire from the grate: forced to calculate every
+      item, to save in every detail, she had instantly on my departure
+      retrenched a luxury too expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am glad it is not yet winter,” thought I; “but in two months more come
+      the winds and rains of November; would to God that before then I could
+      earn the right, and the power, to shovel coals into that grate
+      <i lang="la">ad libitum</i>!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred the air,
+      purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where spread a sky like
+      opal; azure immingled with crimson: the enlarged sun, glorious in Tyrian
+      tints, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was, eastward, I faced a
+      vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the arch of an evening
+      rainbow; a perfect rainbow—high, wide, vivid. I looked long; my eye
+      drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed it; for that
+      night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time, watching the
+      silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the retreating clouds,
+      and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell asleep; and then in a
+      dream were reproduced the setting sun, the bank of clouds, the mighty
+      rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned over a parapeted wall;
+      there was space below me, depth I could not fathom, but hearing an endless
+      dash of waves, I believed it to be the sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea
+      of changeful green and intense blue: all was soft in the distance; all
+      vapour-veiled. A spark of gold glistened on the line between water and
+      air, floated up, approached, enlarged, changed; the object hung midway
+      between heaven and earth, under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk
+      clouds diffused behind. It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming
+      air streamed like raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation, coloured
+      what seemed face and limbs; a large star shone with still lustre on an
+      angel’s forehead; an upraised arm and hand, glancing like a ray, pointed
+      to the bow overhead, and a voice in my heart whispered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Hope smiles on Effort!”
+     </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0020">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and resolve
+      to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With August the
+      school-year (l’année scolaire) closed, the examinations concluded, the
+      prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of all colleges,
+      the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till the beginning
+      or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand, and what was my
+      position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement of the past
+      quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing my engagement
+      as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had voluntarily cut
+      off £20 from my yearly income; I had diminished my £60 per annum to
+      £40, and even that sum I now held by a very precarious tenure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight walk
+      is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where that
+      gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that event, a
+      change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed, ignorant
+      that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice, had revealed
+      to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship, would have
+      continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as a porcupine,
+      and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile for his
+      raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to take coffee
+      with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and very stiffly and
+      sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the directress (which he
+      still continued) were heard with a grim calm very different from the
+      petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite. For a long time Pelet
+      bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently; he even increased his
+      attentions; but finding that even a cringing politeness failed to thaw or
+      move me, he at last altered too; in his turn he cooled; his invitations
+      ceased; his countenance became suspicious and overcast, and I read in the
+      perplexed yet brooding aspect of his brow, a constant examination and
+      comparison of premises, and an anxious endeavour to draw thence some
+      explanatory inference. Ere long, I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not
+      without penetration; perhaps, too, Mdlle. Zoraïde might have aided him in
+      the solution of the enigma; at any rate I soon found that the uncertainty
+      of doubt had vanished from his manner; renouncing all pretence of
+      friendship and cordiality, he adopted a reserved, formal, but still
+      scrupulously polite deportment. This was the point to which I had wished
+      to bring him, and I was now again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it
+      is true, like my position in his house; but being freed from the annoyance
+      of false professions and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as
+      no heroic sentiment of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my
+      philosophical soul; he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender
+      point, the wound was so soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense
+      of contempt for the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted,
+      and a lasting mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab
+      in the dark.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
+      there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
+      usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous with
+      him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen, he had also
+      one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk, however, was he
+      upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole establishment
+      (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes in a building
+      apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the reach of
+      disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering lunch to be
+      brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas the city
+      bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated the servants
+      for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise his poor old
+      mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving dreadfully about “le
+      maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired; some German books I
+      had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the uproar below, and could
+      distinguish the director’s voice exalted in a manner as appalling as it
+      was unusual. Opening my door a little, I became aware of a demand on his
+      part for “Creemsvort” to be brought down to him that he might cut his
+      throat on the hall-table and wash his honour, which he affirmed to be in a
+      dirty condition, in infernal British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,”
+       thought I, “and in either case the old woman and the servants will be the
+      better of a man’s assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I
+      found him staggering about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling—a
+      pretty sight he was, a just medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of
+      his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
+      of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
+      struggled and struck with fury—but a drunken man is no match for a
+      sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could not
+      have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in process of
+      time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to utter comminations
+      which, though broken, had a sense in them; while stigmatizing me as the
+      treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he, in the same breath,
+      anathematized Zoraïde Reuter; he termed her “femme sotte et vicieuse,”
+       who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself away on an unprincipled
+      adventurer; directing the point of the last appellation by a furious blow,
+      obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the act of bounding elastically out
+      of the bed into which I had tucked him; but, as I took the precaution of
+      turning the key in the door behind me, I retired to my own room, assured
+      of his safe custody till the morning, and free to draw undisturbed
+      conclusions from the scene I had just witnessed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by my
+      coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
+      suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her own
+      laying—was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
+      which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in that
+      quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my employer, that
+      his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her affections—inclinations,
+      rather, I would say; affection is a word at once too warm and too pure for
+      the subject—had let him see that the cavity of her hollow heart,
+      emptied of his image, was now occupied by that of his usher. It was not
+      without some surprise that I found myself obliged to entertain this view
+      of the case; Pelet, with his old-established school, was so convenient, so
+      profitable a match—Zoraïde was so calculating, so interested a woman—I
+      wondered mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a
+      moment over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said,
+      that, not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
+      partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the jade
+      doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
+      deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality—and your
+      pure morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit—sotte!”
+       Hers, I thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong,
+      natural tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
+      sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+      impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of a
+      prosperous <i lang="fr">chef d’institution</i>. I smiled inwardly; and
+      strange to say, though my <i lang="fr">amour propre</i> was excited not
+      disagreeably by the conquest, my
+      better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
+      and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
+      notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could not
+      love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly some
+      interesting inquiry about my health—to pass her by with a stern bow—was
+      all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some time
+      previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they sealed up all
+      that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature; sometimes they
+      enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart. I was aware of the
+      detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the change. I had ever
+      hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a slave, self-given, went
+      near to transform me into what I abhorred! There was at once a sort of low
+      gratification in receiving this luscious incense from an attractive and
+      still young worshipper; and an irritating sense of degradation in the very
+      experience of the pleasure. When she stole about me with the soft step of
+      a slave, I felt at once barbarous and sensual as a pasha. I endured her
+      homage sometimes; sometimes I rebuked it. My indifference or harshness
+      served equally to increase the evil I desired to check.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Que le dédain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother: “il
+      est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
+      bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
+      straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait
+      tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses bésicles.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
+      little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful words
+      seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her daughter.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
+      recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
+      fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
+      been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to wine
+      for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed that the
+      iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough Frenchman, the
+      national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted by nature in
+      compounding the ingredients of his character; it had appeared first in his
+      access of drunken wrath, when some of his demonstrations of hatred to my
+      person were of a truly fiendish character, and now it was more covertly
+      betrayed by momentary contractions of the features, and flashes of
+      fierceness in his light blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter
+      mine. He absolutely avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the
+      falsehood of his politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my
+      soul rebelled sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house
+      and discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
+      constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise each
+      morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau under
+      my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when I came
+      back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice in my
+      ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective, yet so
+      soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud and pliant,
+      sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a certain tone of
+      feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure and powerful,
+      delighting and troubling my memory—visions of new ties I longed to
+      contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the rover and the
+      rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot in the light of a
+      Spartan virtue.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
+      and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
+      teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
+      interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil, and
+      upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
+      resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
+      Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+      fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment that
+      delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
+      difficult path of principle—in that path she never trod; but the
+      plain highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
+      When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
+      the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
+      she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both in
+      allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon proved by
+      the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed to convince
+      him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his, for the
+      fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding graciousness
+      and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting self-complacency, more
+      ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s life had been passed in
+      proper French style with due disregard to moral restraint, and I thought
+      his married life promised to be very French also. He often boasted to me
+      what a terror he had been to certain husbands of his acquaintance; I
+      perceived it would not now be difficult to pay him back in his own coin.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
+      preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises of
+      Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set to work,
+      and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de Madame.” Not
+      deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced with that title
+      in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm of filial piety,
+      as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her use, I concluded,
+      in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the kitchen-scullion,
+      that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be the tenant of these
+      gay chambers.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
+      another week’s time M. François Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraïde
+      Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of matrimony.
+      Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating his
+      communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
+      continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend; and
+      a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs per
+      annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and, when he
+      had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out on a long
+      walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to cool my
+      blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some order. In
+      fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal. I could not
+      conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the conviction that,
+      being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to become Madame Pelet
+      it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller in the house which
+      was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards me was deficient
+      neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former feeling was
+      unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but Opportunity
+      would be too strong for either of these—Temptation would shiver
+      their restraints.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was no pope—I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I
+      stayed, the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical
+      modern French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof
+      of the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my taste,
+      either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my experience
+      of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an
+      example of the results produced by a course of interesting and romantic
+      domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example, I
+      saw it bare and real, and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by
+      the practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and
+      a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul. I
+      had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle;
+      those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection acted
+      as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had inscribed on my
+      reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s
+      rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure—its hollowness
+      disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its
+      effects deprave for ever.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and that
+      instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how to
+      live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri seemed
+      to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her hand to court
+      my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not relinquish my
+      right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from hers, where I saw
+      so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with heart; over whose
+      expression I had such influence; where I could kindle bliss, infuse awe,
+      stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and sometimes waken pleasurable
+      dread. My hopes to will and possess, my resolutions to merit and rise,
+      rose in array against me; and here I was about to plunge into the gulf of
+      absolute destitution; “and all this,” suggested an inward voice, “because
+      you fear an evil which may never happen!” “It will happen; you
+      <em>know</em> it will,” answered that stubborn monitor, Conscience. “Do
+      what you feel is right; obey me, and even in the sloughs of want I will
+      plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I walked fast along the road,
+      there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea of some Great Being, unseen,
+      but all present, who in His beneficence desired only my welfare, and now
+      watched the struggle of good and evil in my heart, and waited to see
+      whether I should obey His voice, heard in the whispers of my conscience,
+      or lend an ear to the sophisms by which His enemy and mine—the Spirit of
+      Evil—sought to lead me astray.
+      Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine
+      suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation
+      strewed flowers; but whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of
+      all that exists, would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and
+      address myself to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination
+      to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of
+      the man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
+      retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought him
+      in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner proved
+      that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my decision. After
+      twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room, self-deprived of
+      the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present home, with the
+      short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0021">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two letters; my
+      thought was, that they were notes of invitation from the friends of some
+      of my pupils; I had received such marks of attention occasionally, and
+      with me, who had no friends, correspondence of more interest was out of
+      the question; the postman’s arrival had never yet been an event of
+      interest to me since I came to Brussels. I laid my hand carelessly on the
+      documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to break the
+      seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what excited me, as if I
+      had found a vivid picture where I expected only to discover a blank page:
+      on one cover was an English postmark; on the other, a lady’s clear, fine
+      autograph; the last I opened first:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “MONSIEUR,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I found out what you had done the very morning after your visit to me;
+      you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and, as no one but
+      you had been in my room for a week, and as fairy-money is not current in
+      Brussels, I could not doubt who left the twenty francs on the
+      chimney-piece. I thought I heard you stir the vase when I was stooping to
+      look for your glove under the table, and I wondered you should imagine it
+      had got into such a little cup. Now, monsieur, the money is not mine, and
+      I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note because it might be
+      lost—besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it to you the first
+      time I see you, and you must make no difficulties about taking it;
+      because, in the first place, I am sure, monsieur, you can understand that
+      one likes to pay one’s debts; that it is satisfactory to owe no man
+      anything; and, in the second place, I can now very well afford to be
+      honest, as I am provided with a situation. This last circumstance is,
+      indeed, the reason of my writing to you, for it is pleasant to communicate
+      good news; and, in these days, I have only my master to whom I can tell
+      anything.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an English lady;
+      her eldest daughter was going to be married, and some rich relation having
+      made her a present of a veil and dress in costly old lace, as precious,
+      they said, almost as jewels, but a little damaged by time, I was
+      commissioned to put them in repair. I had to do it at the house; they gave
+      me, besides, some embroidery to complete, and nearly a week elapsed before
+      I had finished everything. While I worked, Miss Wharton often came into
+      the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs. Wharton; they made me talk
+      English; asked how I had learned to speak it so well; then they inquired
+      what I knew besides—what books I had read; soon they seemed to make
+      a sort of wonder of me, considering me no doubt as a learned grisette. One
+      afternoon, Mrs. Wharton brought in a Parisian lady to test the accuracy of
+      my knowledge of French; the result of it was that, owing probably in a
+      great degree to the mother’s and daughter’s good humour about the
+      marriage, which inclined them to do beneficent deeds, and partly, I think,
+      because they are naturally benevolent people, they decided that the wish I
+      had expressed to do something more than mend lace was a very legitimate
+      one; and the same day they took me in their carriage to Mrs. D.‘s, who is
+      the directress of the first English school at Brussels. It seems she
+      happened to be in want of a French lady to give lessons in geography,
+      history, grammar, and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton
+      recommended me very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters are
+      pupils in the house, her patronage availed to get me the place. It was
+      settled that I am to attend six hours daily (for, happily, it was not
+      required that I should live in the house; I should have been sorry to
+      leave my lodgings), and, for this, Mrs. D. will give me twelve hundred
+      francs per annum.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost than I
+      ever hoped to be: I feel thankful for it, especially as my sight was
+      beginning to be injured by constant working at fine lace; and I was
+      getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at nights, and yet not being
+      able to find time for reading or study. I began to fear that I should fall
+      ill, and be unable to pay my way; this fear is now, in a great measure,
+      removed; and, in truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for the
+      relief; and I feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness to some
+      one who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others joyful. I
+      could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing to you; I argued
+      with myself it is very pleasant for me to write, and it will not be
+      exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to monsieur to read. Do not be
+      too angry with my circumlocution and inelegancies of expression, and,
+      believe me
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Your attached pupil,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “F. E. HENRI.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few moments—whether
+      with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will hereafter note—and
+      then took up the other. It was directed in a hand to me unknown—small,
+      and rather neat; neither masculine nor exactly feminine; the seal bore a
+      coat of arms, concerning which I could only decipher that it was not that
+      of the Seacombe family, consequently the epistle could be from none of my
+      almost forgotten, and certainly quite forgetting patrician relations. From
+      whom, then, was it? I removed the envelope; the note folded within ran as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that greasy
+      Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land; sitting like a
+      black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite by the flesh-pots of
+      Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near the brass cauldrons of the
+      sanctuary, and every now and then plunging in a consecrated hook, and
+      drawing out of the sea of broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the
+      fleshiest of wave-breasts. I know this, because you never write to any one
+      in England. Thankless dog that you are! I, by the sovereign efficacy of my
+      recommendation, got you the place where you are now living in clover, and
+      yet not a word of gratitude, or even acknowledgment, have you ever offered
+      in return; but I am coming to see you, and small conception can you, with
+      your addled aristocratic brains, form of the sort of moral kicking I have,
+      ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to be presented to you immediately
+      on my arrival.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got information, by
+      Brown’s last letter, that you are said to be on the point of forming an
+      advantageous match with a pursy, little Belgian schoolmistress—a
+      Mdlle. Zénobie, or some such name. Won’t I have a look at her when I come
+      over! And this you may rely on: if she pleases my taste, or if I think it
+      worth while in a pecuniary point of view, I’ll pounce on your prize and
+      bear her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don’t like dumpies
+      either, and Brown says she is little and stout—the better fitted for
+      a wiry, starved-looking chap like you. “Be on the look-out, for you know
+      neither the day nor hour when your ——” (I don’t wish to
+      blaspheme, so I’ll leave a blank)—cometh.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yours truly,
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN.”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “Humph!” said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the
+      small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor,
+      indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities between
+      the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here? I recalled
+      the writer’s peculiar face and certain traits I suspected, rather than
+      knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, “A great deal.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not when; coming
+      charged with the expectation of finding me on the summit of prosperity,
+      about to be married, to step into a warm nest, to lie comfortably down by
+      the side of a snug, well-fed little mate.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,” thought I.
+      “What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump turtle doves, billing
+      and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a single lean cormorant, standing
+      mateless and shelterless on poverty’s bleak cliff? Oh, confound him! Let
+      him come, and let him laugh at the contrast between rumour and fact. Were
+      he the devil himself, instead of being merely very like him, I’d not
+      condescend to get out of his way, or to forge a smile or a cheerful word
+      wherewith to avert his sarcasm.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Then I recurred to the other letter: that struck a chord whose sound I
+      could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears, for it vibrated
+      within; and though its swell might be exquisite music, its cadence was a
+      groan.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the curse of
+      excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with happiness; that her
+      first thought in prosperity should be to augment her joy by sharing it
+      with me, met and satisfied the wish of my heart. Two results of her letter
+      were then pleasant, sweet as two draughts of nectar; but applying my lips
+      for the third time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with vinegar
+      and gall.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in Brussels on
+      an income which would scarcely afford a respectable maintenance for one in
+      London: and that, not because the necessaries of life are so much dearer
+      in the latter capital, or taxes so much higher than in the former, but
+      because the English surpass in folly all the nations on God’s earth, and
+      are more abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to the desire to keep up a
+      certain appearance, than the Italians are to priestcraft, the French to
+      vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or the Germans to black beer. I
+      have seen a degree of sense in the modest arrangement of one homely
+      Belgian household, that might put to shame the elegance, the
+      superfluities, the luxuries, the strained refinements of a hundred genteel
+      English mansions. In Belgium, provided you can make money, you may save
+      it; this is scarcely possible in England; ostentation there lavishes in a
+      month what industry has earned in a year. More shame to all classes in
+      that most bountiful and beggarly country for their servile following of
+      Fashion; I could write a chapter or two on this subject, but must forbear,
+      at least for the present. Had I retained my £60 per annum I could, now
+      that Frances was in possession of £50, have gone straight to her this
+      very evening, and spoken out the words which, repressed, kept fretting my
+      heart with fever; our united income would, as we should have managed it,
+      have sufficed well for our mutual support; since we lived in a country
+      where economy was not confounded with meanness, where frugality in dress,
+      food, and furniture, was not synonymous with vulgarity in these various
+      points. But the placeless usher, bare of resource, and unsupported by
+      connections, must not think of this; such a sentiment as love, such a word
+      as marriage, were misplaced in his heart, and on his lips. Now for the
+      first time did I truly feel what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice
+      I had made in casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect;
+      instead of a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once light
+      and fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the goading
+      influence of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of an hour from the
+      wall to the window; and at the window, self-reproach seemed to face me; at
+      the wall, self-disdain: all at once out spoke Conscience:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Down, stupid tormenters!” cried she; “the man has done his duty; you
+      shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he
+      relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and
+      certain evil; he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding
+      dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and thought
+      an hour—two hours; vainly. I seemed like one sealed in a subterranean
+      vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness ensured by yard-thick
+      stone walls around, and by piles of building above, expecting light to
+      penetrate through granite, and through cement firm as granite. But there
+      are chinks, or there may be chinks, in the best adjusted masonry; there
+      was a chink in my cavernous cell; for, eventually, I saw, or seemed to
+      see, a ray—pallid, indeed, and cold, and doubtful, but still a ray,
+      for it showed that narrow path which conscience had promised after two,
+      three hours’ torturing research in brain and memory, I disinterred certain
+      remains of circumstances, and conceived a hope that by putting them
+      together an expedient might be framed, and a resource discovered. The
+      circumstances were briefly these:
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his
+      <i lang="fr">fête</i>, given the
+      boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of pleasure to a certain
+      place of public resort in the outskirts of Brussels, of which I do not at
+      this moment remember the name, but near it were several of those lakelets
+      called étangs; and there was one étang, larger than the rest, where on
+      holidays people were accustomed to amuse themselves by rowing round it in
+      little boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited quantity of “gaufres,”
+      and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid the shades of a garden
+      made and provided for such crams, petitioned the director for leave to
+      take a row on the étang. Half a dozen of the eldest succeeded in obtaining
+      leave, and I was commissioned to accompany them as surveillant. Among the
+      half dozen happened to be a certain Jean Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most
+      ponderous young Flamand, not tall, but even now, at the early age of
+      sixteen, possessing a breadth and depth of personal development truly
+      national. It chanced that Jean was the first lad to step into the boat; he
+      stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat revolted at his weight and
+      capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose, sank again. My coat and
+      waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been brought up at Eton and
+      boated and bathed and swam there ten long years for nothing; it was a
+      natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue. The lads and the
+      boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two deaths by drowning instead
+      of one; but as Jean rose the third time, I clutched him by one leg and the
+      collar, and in three minutes more both he and I were safe landed. To speak
+      heaven’s truth, my merit in the action was small indeed, for I had run no
+      risk, and subsequently did not even catch cold from the wetting; but when
+      M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom Jean Baptiste was the sole hope, came
+      to hear of the exploit, they seemed to think I had evinced a bravery and
+      devotion which no thanks could sufficiently repay. Madame, in particular,
+      was “certain I must have dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not thus
+      have hazarded my own life to save his.” Monsieur, an honest-looking,
+      though phlegmatic man, said very little, but he would not suffer me to
+      leave the room, till I had promised that in case I ever stood in need of
+      help I would, by applying to him, give him a chance of discharging the
+      obligation under which he affirmed I had laid him. These words, then, were
+      my glimmer of light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth,
+      though the cold light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet seem
+      such as I should like to pass through. Right I had none to M.
+      Vandenhuten’s good offices; it was not on the ground of merit I could
+      apply to him; no, I must stand on that of necessity: I had no work; I
+      wanted work; my best chance of obtaining it lay in securing his
+      recommendation. This I knew could be had by asking for it; not to ask,
+      because the request revolted my pride and contradicted my habits, would, I
+      felt, be an indulgence of false and indolent fastidiousness. I might
+      repent the omission all my life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten’s; but I had bent the bow and
+      adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the bell at the great
+      door (it was a large, handsome house in an expensive part of the town); a
+      manservant opened; I asked for M. Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten and family
+      were all out of town—gone to Ostend—did not know when they
+      would be back. I left my card, and retraced my steps.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0022">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      A WEEK is gone; <i lang="fr">le jour des noces</i> arrived; the marriage
+      was solemnized at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraïde became Madame Pelet,
+      <i lang="fr">née</i> Reuter; and, in about
+      an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers phrase
+      it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous arrangement,
+      the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the pensionnat.
+      Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon transferred to a
+      modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In half an hour my
+      clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf, and the
+      “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day had not
+      one pang tortured me—a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame aux
+      Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid that street
+      till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my prospects.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It was a sweet September evening—very mild, very still; I had
+      nothing to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
+      occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I knew
+      I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers, infusing
+      into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your seat
+      at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement; you need
+      not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as you always
+      are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads; chide her, or
+      quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you know her smile
+      when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused; you have the
+      secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can choose amongst
+      that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as long as it suits
+      you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent spell: intelligent as
+      she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her lips, and veil her bright
+      countenance with diffidence; yet, you know, she is not all monotonous
+      mildness; you have seen, with a sort of strange pleasure, revolt, scorn,
+      austerity, bitterness, lay energetic claim to a place in her feelings and
+      physiognomy; you know that few could rule her as you do; you know she
+      might break, but never bend under the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but
+      Reason and Affection can guide her by a sign. Try their influence now.
+      Go—they are not passions; you may handle them safely.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will <em>not</em> go,” was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is
+      master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek
+      Frances to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address
+      her only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
+      now controlled me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but I
+      thought the hands were paralyzed.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
+      had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair, I
+      wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were as
+      unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the calm
+      of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings. What! was
+      he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in inaudible
+      thought? He had actually knocked at the door—at <em>my</em> door; a smart,
+      prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over the
+      threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
+      language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
+      put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing the
+      only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
+      tranquilly therein.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+      nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether I
+      answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to my
+      good friends “les bésicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of my
+      visitor—for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
+      how he looked—to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance. I
+      wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
+      deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose or
+      get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
+      window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him
+      <i lang="fr">vis-à-vis</i>; a position he would much rather have had
+      reversed; for, at any time, he preferred scrutinizing to being
+      scrutinized. Yes, it was <em>he</em>, and no mistake, with his six feet
+      of length arranged in a sitting attitude; with his dark travelling surtout
+      with its velvet collar, his gray pantaloons, his black stock, and
+      <em>his</em> face, the most original one Nature ever modelled,
+      yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could be termed marked
+      or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no use in attempting
+      to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry to address him, I sat
+      and stared at my ease.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, that’s your game—is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see
+      which is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked
+      one to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his
+      hand, then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if
+      he had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X—-shire, England. I
+      knew he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
+      conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I said,—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the
+      spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went
+      there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in a
+      boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had departed
+      this morning; you had left your address behind you though, which I
+      wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution than I should
+      have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
+      assigned to me as my wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both
+      your wife and your place?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Precisely so.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
+      narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended the
+      state of matters—had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
+      curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
+      certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour, lounging
+      on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he would have
+      hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case have been the
+      extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have come near me
+      more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on its surface; but
+      the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless solitude of my room
+      relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what softening change had taken
+      place both in his voice and look ere he spoke again.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have got another place?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You are in the way of getting one?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, indeed.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
+      in such matters.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
+      humour to bother him again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+      commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me an
+      important service when I was at X——; got me out of a den where
+      I was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
+      positively adding another item to the account.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled
+      generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
+      duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it shall be
+      found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right, lad—make
+      much of me—I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the common
+      herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for a few
+      moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what is more,
+      you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that offers it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+      something else. What news from X——?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
+      before we get to X——. Is this Miss Zénobie” (Zoraïde,
+      interposed I)—“well, Zoraïde—is she really married to Pelet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I tell you yes—and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the curé of
+      St. Jacques.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And your heart is broken?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am not aware that it is; it feels all right—beats as usual.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must be
+      a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
+      under it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
+      circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
+      The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their
+      look-out—not mine.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Who said so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Brown.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll tell you what, Hunsden—Brown is an old gossip.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than fact—if
+      you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraïde—why, O youthful
+      pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her becoming Madame
+      Pelet?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Because—” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because—in
+      short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged
+      my hands deep in my breeches pocket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden triumphed: his eyes—his laugh announced victory.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how it
+      is: Zoraïde has jilted you—married some one richer, as any sensible
+      woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I made no reply—I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter
+      into an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
+      false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
+      instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render him
+      doubtful about it; he went on:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always are
+      amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your talents—such
+      as they are—in exchange for her position and money: I don’t suppose you
+      took appearance, or what is called <em>love</em>, into the account—for I
+      understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather sensible-looking
+      than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making a better bargain,
+      was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but Pelet—the head of a
+      flourishing school—stepped in with a higher bid; she accepted, and
+      he has got her: a correct transaction—perfectly so—business-like
+      and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to have
+      baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner—if, indeed, I had
+      baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
+      his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
+      idea.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You want to hear news from X——? And what interest can you
+      have in X——? You left no friends there, for you made none.
+      Nobody ever asks after you—neither man nor woman; and if I mention
+      your name in company, the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and
+      the women sneer covertly. Our X—— belles must have disliked
+      you. How did you excite their displeasure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them—they were nothing to me. I
+      considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance; their
+      dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but I could not
+      understand their conversation, nor even read their countenances. When I
+      caught snatches of what they said, I could never make much of it; and the
+      play of their lips and eyes did not help me at all.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as handsome
+      women in X——; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to,
+      and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
+      address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
+      remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
+      hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
+      frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
+      the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do you
+      think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if you are
+      generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Content!” I ejaculated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on you;
+      you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
+      desirable on earth—wealth, reputation, love—will for ever to
+      you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they
+      will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
+      have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them
+      sour.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they drew
+      no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied since I
+      left X——, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
+      in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk—a dependant amongst
+      wealthy strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an
+      unsocial and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was
+      sure would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew
+      would be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth
+      and loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
+      leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under the
+      embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he was, penetrate
+      into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar sympathies and
+      antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well enough, to perceive
+      how low my feelings would ebb under some influences, powerful over most
+      minds; how high, how fast they would flow under other influences, that
+      perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, because they acted on me
+      alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant the history of my
+      communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him and to all others was the
+      tale of her strange infatuation; her blandishments, her wiles had been
+      seen but by me, and to me only were they known; but they had changed me,
+      for they had proved that I <em>could</em> impress. A sweeter secret
+      nestled deeper
+      in my heart; one full of tenderness and as full of strength: it took the
+      sting out of Hunsden’s sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred
+      by wrath. But of all this I could say nothing—nothing decisive at
+      least; uncertainty sealed my lips, and during the interval of silence by
+      which alone I replied to Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the
+      present wholly misjudged by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had
+      been rather too hard upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his
+      upbraidings; so to re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day;
+      I was only at the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite
+      without sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+      twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
+      minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved, however,
+      he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he was
+      fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as to
+      say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone in my
+      waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m independent
+      of both Fate and Fortune.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hunsden—you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like
+      better than your X—— hot-house grapes—an unique fruit,
+      growing wild, which I have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather
+      and taste. It is of no use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or
+      threatening me with death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness
+      on my palate; the hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the
+      unsavoury, and endure the exhausting.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “For how long?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will be
+      a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the
+      struggle.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
+      dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
+      people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a wooden
+      spoon will shovel up broth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who develop
+      best unwatched, and act best unaided—work your own way. Now, I’ll go.”
+       And, without another word, he was going; at the door he turned:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Sold!” was my echo.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What! Edward Crimsworth?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went
+      awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
+      would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ay, as to him—what is become of him?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Nothing extraordinary—don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the
+      protection of the court, compounded with his creditors—tenpence in
+      the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
+      flourishing like a green bay-tree.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And Crimsworth Hall—was the furniture sold too?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Everything—from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And the contents of the oak dining-room—were they sold?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
+      sacred than those of any other?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And the pictures?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of—he
+      did not profess to be an amateur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
+      have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, I know—the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+      drapery. Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
+      things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember you
+      said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a sou.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so
+      poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet. Who purchased it?
+      do you know?” I asked.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
+      the unpractical man—to imagine all the world is interested in what
+      interests himself! Now, good night—I’m off for Germany to-morrow
+      morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call and
+      see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!” he laughed,
+      as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so laughing, vanished.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
+      space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just at
+      parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a draught
+      of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially harsh,
+      stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely knew.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night after
+      this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my slumber
+      become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in my sitting
+      room, to which my bed-room adjoined—a step, and a shoving of
+      furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing of the
+      door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I had dreamt it;
+      perhaps a <i lang="fr">locataire</i> had made a mistake, and entered my
+      apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor
+      the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
+      rise, about two  hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
+      thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed in
+      at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a wooden
+      packing-case—a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter had doubtless
+      shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had left it at the
+      entrance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for
+      somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No —, — St., Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information was
+      to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize enveloped
+      its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the pack-thread with
+      my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses of gilding
+      appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize being at
+      length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a magnificent
+      frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the light from the
+      window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back—already I had mounted
+      my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and threatening
+      of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of hue, raised in
+      full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed with soft dark
+      hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds; large, solemn eyes
+      looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested on a delicate little
+      hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half showed a slight figure.
+      A listener (had there been one) might have heard me, after ten minutes’
+      silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might have said more—but
+      with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy rouses consciousness;
+      it reminds me that only crazy people talk to themselves, and then I think
+      out my monologue, instead of speaking it. I had thought a long while, and
+      a long while had contemplated the intelligence, the sweetness, and—alas!
+      the sadness also of those fine, grey eyes, the mental power of that
+      forehead, and the rare sensibility of that serious mouth, when my glance,
+      travelling downwards, fell on a narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the
+      picture, between the frame and the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent
+      this picture? Who thought of me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth
+      Hall, and now commits it to the care of its natural keeper?” I took the
+      note from its niche; thus it spoke:—
+    </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      “There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
+      bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
+      with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of
+      him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone. In
+      giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets, bells,
+      and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold the result;
+      I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the auctioneer could
+      only have promised me that pleasure.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “H. Y. H.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “P.S.—You said last night you positively declined adding another
+      item to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that
+      trouble?”
+     </p>
+<p class="topspace">
+      I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
+      case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it out
+      of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain; I
+      determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden had
+      come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you nothing,
+      Hunsden—not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself in
+      taunts!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
+      than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find him
+      at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but fancying I
+      might be able to glean information as to the time when his return was
+      expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated, for though
+      the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over to Brussels on
+      business for the day. He received me with the quiet kindness of a sincere
+      though not excitable man. I had not sat five minutes alone with him in his
+      bureau, before I became aware of a sense of ease in his presence, such as
+      I rarely experienced with strangers. I was surprised at my own composure,
+      for, after all, I had come on business to me exceedingly painful—that
+      of soliciting a favour. I asked on what basis the calm rested—I
+      feared it might be deceptive. Ere long I caught a glimpse of the ground,
+      and at once I felt assured of its solidity; I knew where it was.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised and
+      powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the world’s
+      society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our positions were
+      reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure Hollandais) was slow,
+      cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound and accurate judgment;
+      the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker both to plan and to
+      practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman was benevolent, the
+      Englishman susceptible; in short our characters dovetailed, but my mind
+      having more fire and action than his, instinctively assumed and kept the
+      predominance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him on
+      the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
+      confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
+      to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
+      exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not so
+      much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself; of him I
+      did not want exertion—that was to be my part—but only
+      information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
+      hand at parting—an action of greater significance with foreigners
+      than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
+      benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
+      own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
+      of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence during
+      its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which are
+      specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
+      expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
+      zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
+      each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
+      on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure them
+      for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were vain—the
+      door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in, or another
+      candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance useless.
+      Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat following fast
+      on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot fastidiousness, conquered
+      reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I persevered, I remonstrated, I
+      dunned. It is so that openings are forced into the guarded circle where
+      Fortune sits dealing favours round. My perseverance made me known; my
+      importunity made me remarked. I was inquired about; my former pupils’
+      parents, gathering the reports of their children, heard me spoken of as
+      talented, and they echoed the word: the sound, bandied about at random,
+      came at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never have
+      reached; and at the very crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew
+      not what to do, Fortune looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and
+      almost desperate deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity
+      of an old acquaintance—though God knows I had never met her before—and
+      threw a prize into my lap.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the second week of October, 18—, I got the appointment of English
+      professor to all the classes of —— College, Brussels, with a
+      salary of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being
+      able, by dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position,
+      to make as much more by private means. The official notice, which
+      communicated this information, mentioned also that it was the strong
+      recommendation of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of
+      choice in my favour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s
+      bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused it,
+      took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity. My vivid
+      words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted sensation. He
+      said he was happy—glad to have served me; but he had done nothing
+      meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime—only scratched a
+      few words on a sheet of paper.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Again I repeated to him—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not feel
+      an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel disposed
+      to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day you must
+      consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall hereafter
+      recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
+      content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0023">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IT was two o’clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just brought
+      in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down thinking to
+      eat—had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken glass,
+      instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more signal
+      failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food which I could
+      not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then demanded, “What
+      shall I do till evening?” for before six P.M. it would be vain to seek the
+      Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me it had but one) was
+      detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the streets of Brussels,
+      and I walked in my own room from two o’clock till six; never once in that
+      space of time did I sit down. I was in my chamber when the last-named hour
+      struck; I had just bathed my face and feverish hands, and was standing
+      near the glass; my cheek was crimson, my eye was flame, still all my
+      features looked quite settled and calm. Descending swiftly the stair and
+      stepping out, I was glad to see Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade
+      was to me like a grateful screen, and the chill of latter Autumn,
+      breathing in a fitful wind from the north-west, met me as a refreshing
+      coolness. Still I saw it was cold to others, for the women I passed were
+      wrapped in shawls, and the men had their coats buttoned close.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
+      worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
+      tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had seen
+      her, six since I had heard from her, or of her. I had answered her letter
+      by a brief note, friendly but calm, in which no mention of continued
+      correspondence or further visits was made. At that hour my bark hung on
+      the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on what shoal the
+      onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would not then attach her
+      destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if doomed to split on the rock,
+      or run aground on the sand-bank, I was resolved no other vessel should
+      share my disaster: but six weeks was a long time; and could it be that she
+      was still well and doing well? Were not all sages agreed in declaring that
+      happiness finds no climax on earth? Dared I think that but half a street
+      now divided me from the full cup of contentment—the draught drawn
+      from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the stairs; the
+      lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I looked for the neat
+      green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Signal of hope!” I said, and advanced. “But I will be a little calmer; I
+      am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly.” Forcibly staying my
+      eager step, I paused on the mat.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What an absolute hush! Is she in? Is anybody in?” I demanded to myself. A
+      little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate, replied; a movement—a
+      fire was gently stirred; and the slight rustle of life continuing, a step
+      paced equably backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the
+      apartment. Fascinated, I stood, more fixedly fascinated when a voice
+      rewarded the attention of my strained ear—so low, so self-addressed,
+      I never fancied the speaker otherwise than alone; solitude might speak
+      thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken house.
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      “‘And ne’er but once, my son,’ he said,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">‘Was yon dark cavern trod;</span><br>
+      In persecution’s iron days,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">When the land was left by God.</span>
+     </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      From Bewley’s bog, with slaughter red,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">A wanderer hither drew;</span><br>
+      And oft he stopp’d and turn’d his head,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">As by fits the night-winds blew.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+      For trampling round by Cheviot-edge<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Were heard the troopers keen;</span><br>
+      And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">The death-shot flash’d between.’” &amp;c. &amp;c.
+      </span>
+</p>
+<p>
+      The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause ensued; then
+      another strain followed, in French, of which the purport, translated, ran
+      as follows:—
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     I gave, at first, attention close;<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Then interest warm ensued;</span><br>
+     From interest, as improvement rose,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Succeeded gratitude.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Obedience was no effort soon,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And labour was no pain;</span><br>
+     If tired, a word, a glance alone<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Would give me strength again.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     From others of the studious band,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Ere long he singled me;</span><br>
+     But only by more close demand,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And sterner urgency.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The task he from another took,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> From me he did reject;</span><br>
+     He would no slight omission brook,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And suffer no defect.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     If my companions went astray,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He scarce their wanderings blam’d;</span><br>
+     If I but falter’d in the way,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> His anger fiercely flam’d.</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+      Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be surprised
+      eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, and as hastily entered. Frances was just
+      before me; she had been walking slowly in her room, and her step was
+      checked by my advent: Twilight only was with her, and tranquil, ruddy
+      Firelight; to these sisters, the Bright and the Dark, she had been
+      speaking, ere I entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott’s voice, to her a
+      foreign, far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered itself in the first
+      stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and the substance, was the
+      language of her own heart. Her face was grave, its expression
+      concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye—an eye just returning
+      from abstraction, just awaking from dreams: well-arranged was her simple
+      attire, smooth her dark hair, orderly her tranquil room; but what—with
+      her thoughtful look, her serious self-reliance, her bent to meditation and
+      haply inspiration—what had she to do with love? “Nothing,” was the
+      answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it seemed to say, “I
+      must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is to be my support and
+      the other my solace through life. Human affections do not bloom, nor do
+      human passions glow for me.” Other women have such thoughts. Frances, had
+      she been as desolate as she deemed, would not have been worse off than
+      thousands of her sex. Look at the rigid and formal race of old maids—the
+      race whom all despise; they have fed themselves, from youth upwards, on
+      maxims of resignation and endurance. Many of them get ossified with the
+      dry diet; self-control is so continually their thought, so perpetually
+      their object, that at last it absorbs the softer and more agreeable
+      qualities of their nature; and they die mere models of austerity,
+      fashioned out of a little parchment and much bone. Anatomists will tell
+      you that there is a heart in the withered old maid’s carcass—the
+      same as in that of any cherished wife or proud mother in the land. Can
+      this be so? I really don’t know; but feel inclined to doubt it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I came forward, bade Frances “good evening,” and took my seat. The chair I
+      had chosen was one she had probably just left; it stood by a little table
+      where were her open desk and papers. I know not whether she had fully
+      recognized me at first, but she did so now; and in a voice, soft but
+      quiet, she returned my greeting. I had shown no eagerness; she took her
+      cue from me, and evinced no surprise. We met as we had always met, as
+      master and pupil—nothing more. I proceeded to handle the papers;
+      Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room, brought a
+      candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain over the lattice,
+      and having added a little fresh fuel to the already bright fire, she drew
+      a second chair to the table and sat down at my right hand, a little
+      removed. The paper on the top was a translation of some grave French
+      author into English, but underneath lay a sheet with stanzas; on this I
+      laid hands. Frances half rose, made a movement to recover the captured
+      spoil, saying, that was nothing—a mere copy of verses. I put by
+      resistance with the decision I knew she never long opposed; but on this
+      occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper. I had quietly to unloose
+      them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her hand shrunk away; my own would
+      fain have followed it, but for the present I forbade such impulse. The
+      first page of the sheet was occupied with the lines I had overheard; the
+      sequel was not exactly the writer’s own experience, but a composition by
+      portions of that experience suggested. Thus while egotism was avoided, the
+      fancy was exercised, and the heart satisfied. I translate as before, and
+      my translation is nearly literal; it continued thus:—
+    </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+     When sickness stay’d awhile my course,<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">He seem’d impatient still,</span><br>
+     Because his pupil’s flagging force<br>
+      <span class="poemindent">Could not obey his will.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     One day when summoned to the bed<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Where pain and I did strive,</span><br>
+     I heard him, as he bent his head,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Say, “God, she <em>must</em> revive!”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     I felt his hand, with gentle stress,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A moment laid on mine,</span><br>
+     And wished to mark my consciousness<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> By some responsive sign.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     But pow’rless then to speak or move,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I only felt, within,</span><br>
+     The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Their healing work begin.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     And as he from the room withdrew,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My heart his steps pursued;</span><br>
+     I long’d to prove, by efforts new;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My speechless gratitude.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     When once again I took my place,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Long vacant, in the class,</span><br>
+     Th’ unfrequent smile across his face<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Did for one moment pass.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The lessons done; the signal made<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Of glad release and play,</span><br>
+     He, as he passed, an instant stay’d,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> One kindly word to say.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Jane, till to-morrow you are free<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> From tedious task and rule;</span><br>
+     This afternoon I must not see<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> That yet pale face in school.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Seek in the garden-shades a seat,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Far from the play-ground din;</span><br>
+     The sun is warm, the air is sweet:<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Stay till I call you in.”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     A long and pleasant afternoon<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I passed in those green bowers;</span><br>
+     All silent, tranquil, and alone<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> With birds, and bees, and flowers.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Yet, when my master’s voice I heard<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Call, from the window, “Jane!”</span><br>
+     I entered, joyful, at the word,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The busy house again.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He, in the hall, paced up and down;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He paused as I passed by;</span><br>
+     His forehead stern relaxed its frown:<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> He raised his deep-set eye.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Not quite so pale,” he murmured low.<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> “Now Jane, go rest awhile.”</span><br>
+     And as I smiled, his smoothened brow<br>
+     <span class="poemindent">Returned as glad a smile.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     My perfect health restored, he took<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> His mien austere again;</span><br>
+     And, as before, he would not brook<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The slightest fault from Jane.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The longest task, the hardest theme<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Fell to my share as erst,</span><br>
+     And still I toiled to place my name<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In every study first.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He yet begrudged and stinted praise,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> But I had learnt to read</span><br>
+     The secret meaning of his face,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> And that was my best meed.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Even when his hasty temper spoke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In tones that sorrow stirred,</span><br>
+     My grief was lulled as soon as woke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> By some relenting word.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     And when he lent some precious book,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Or gave some fragrant flower,</span><br>
+     I did not quail to Envy’s look,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Upheld by Pleasure’s power.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     At last our school ranks took their ground,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The hard-fought field I won;</span><br>
+     The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My throbbing forehead on.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     Low at my master’s knee I bent,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The offered crown to meet;</span><br>
+     Its green leaves through my temples sent<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A thrill as wild as sweet.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The strong pulse of Ambition struck<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> In every vein I owned;</span><br>
+     At the same instant, bleeding broke<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> A secret, inward wound.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     The hour of triumph was to me<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The hour of sorrow sore;</span><br>
+     A day hence I must cross the sea,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Ne’er to recross it more.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     An hour hence, in my master’s room<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> I with him sat alone,</span><br>
+     And told him what a dreary gloom<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> O’er joy had parting thrown.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     He little said; the time was brief,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> The ship was soon to sail,</span><br>
+     And while I sobbed in bitter grief,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> My master but looked pale.</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+     They called in haste; he bade me go,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Then snatched me back again;</span><br>
+     He held me fast and murmured low,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent">“Why will they part us, Jane?”</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “Were you not happy in my care?<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Did I not faithful prove?</span><br>
+     Will others to my darling bear<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> As true, as deep a love?</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “O God, watch o’er my foster child!<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> O guard her gentle head!</span><br>
+     When minds are high and tempests wild<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Protection round her spread!</span>
+    </p>
+<p class="poem">
+    “They call again; leave then my breast;<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Quit thy true shelter, Jane;</span><br>
+     But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,<br>
+     <span class="poemindent"> Come home to me again!”</span>
+ </p>
+<p>
+      I read—then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil;
+      thinking all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my
+      side; no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart
+      affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were far
+      away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the Master’s
+      manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no
+      further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress
+      its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted to suffer the outward
+      revelation of the inward glow—to seek, demand, elicit an answering
+      ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass on Hermon never drank
+      the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my feelings drank the bliss
+      of this hour.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire, which
+      did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little ornaments on the
+      mantelpiece; her dress waved within a yard of me; slight, straight, and
+      elegant, she stood erect on the hearth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control us,
+      because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere we have
+      seen them. Perhaps, though, such impulses are seldom altogether bad;
+      perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that is finished
+      ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed. Instinct meditates, and
+      feels justified in remaining passive while it is performed. I know I did
+      not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, whereas one moment I was
+      sitting solus on the chair near the table, the next, I held Frances on my
+      knee, placed there with sharpness and decision, and retained with
+      exceeding tenacity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur!” cried Frances, and was still: not another word escaped her
+      lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few
+      moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor
+      fury: after all, she was only a little nearer than she had ever been
+      before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might
+      have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where
+      resistance was useless.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, how much regard have you for me?” was my demand. No answer; the
+      situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this
+      consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her
+      silence, though impatient of it: presently, I repeated the same
+      question—probably, not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my face,
+      doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of
+      tranquillity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Do speak,” I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, vous me faîtes mal; de grâce lâchez un peu ma main droite.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      In truth I became aware that I was holding the said “main droite” in a
+      somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time, asked
+      more gently—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, how much regard have you for me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon maître, j’en ai beaucoup,” was the truthful rejoinder.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?—to
+      accept me as your husband?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw “the purple light of love” cast
+      its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I desired to consult the
+      eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur,” said the soft voice at last,—“Monsieur désire savoir si
+      je consens—si—enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Justement.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu’il a été bon maître?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I will try, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice—an
+      inflexion which provoked while it pleased me—accompanied, too, by a
+      “sourire à la fois fin et timide” in perfect harmony with the tone:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “C’est à dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entêté exigeant,
+      volontaire—?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have I been so, Frances?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais oui; vous le savez bien.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Have I been nothing else?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mais oui; vous avez été mon meilleur ami.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And what, Frances, are you to me?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Votre dévouée élève, qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now,
+      Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly, ran
+      thus:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to see
+      you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very
+      superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but you
+      are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they are not
+      clever. Master, I should be <em>glad</em> to live with you always;” and
+      she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but
+      restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis—“Master, I
+      consent to pass my life with you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Very well, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her lips,
+      thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she and I
+      were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances’ thoughts, during this
+      interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not occupied
+      in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure.
+      The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained
+      her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long as no opposition
+      tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was measuring its own
+      content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth fathomless.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur,” at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her happiness
+      as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely lifted her
+      head.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Frances?” I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to
+      overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly
+      importunate caresses.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur est raisonnable, n’est-ce pas?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do you
+      ask me? You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not
+      tranquil enough?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ce n’est pas cela—” began Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “English!” I reminded her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course, to
+      retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose,
+      monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, yes! It is all I have to depend on.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bon!—I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I
+      like that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours—will
+      they not, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You are laying plans to be independent of me,” said I.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you—no burden in any
+      way.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have left
+      M. Pelet’s; and after nearly a month’s seeking, I have got another place,
+      with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily double
+      by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless for you
+      to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand francs you
+      and I can live, and live well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man’s
+      strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of
+      becoming the providence of what he loves—feeding and clothing it, as
+      God does the lilies of the field. So, to decide her resolution, I went
+      on:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you
+      require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very
+      important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn
+      it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the
+      happiness of giving you rest.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue;
+      instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
+      sighed and said,—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “How rich you are, monsieur!” and then she stirred uneasy in my arms.
+      “Three thousand francs!” she murmured, “While I get only twelve hundred!”
+       She went on faster. “However, it must be so for the present; and,
+      monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my place? Oh
+      no! I shall hold it fast;” and her little fingers emphatically tightened
+      on mine.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do it;
+      and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close, noisy
+      school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering at
+      home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and you
+      would soon tire of me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, you could read and study—two things you like so well.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an active
+      life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have taken
+      notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other’s company for
+      amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so
+      highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You speak God’s truth,” said I at last, “and you shall have your own way,
+      for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent, give me a
+      voluntary kiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing, she
+      brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my forehead; I took
+      the small gift as a loan, and repaid it promptly, and with generous
+      interest.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time I first
+      saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was singularly
+      changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the dejected and joyless
+      countenance I remembered as her early attributes, were quite gone, and now
+      I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint rounded its
+      contours and brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a
+      flattering idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular
+      perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not rich, she was
+      not even accomplished, yet was she my life’s treasure; I must then be a
+      man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes opened on the mistake I had
+      made; I began to suspect that it was only my tastes which were unique, not
+      my power of discovering and appreciating the superiority of moral worth
+      over physical charms. For me Frances had physical charms: in her there was
+      no deformity to get over; none of those prominent defects of eyes, teeth,
+      complexion, shape, which hold at bay the admiration of the boldest male
+      champions of intellect (for women can love a downright ugly man if he be
+      but talented); had she been either “édentée, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue,”
+      my feelings towards her might still have been kindly, but they could never
+      have been impassioned; I had affection for the poor little misshapen
+      Sylvie, but for her I could never have had love. It is true Frances’
+      mental points had been the first to interest me, and they still retained
+      the strongest hold on my preference; but I liked the graces of her person
+      too. I derived a pleasure, purely material, from contemplating the
+      clearness of her brown eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of
+      her well-set teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure
+      I could ill have dispensed with. It appeared, then, that I too was a
+      sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey fresh
+      from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious; taste
+      then a little gall—just a drop, by way of change.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily
+      forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and
+      drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all day,
+      and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a fortnight
+      past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few hours had
+      been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long after
+      midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed. At last I
+      dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, and my waking
+      was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face, and like him,
+      “the hair of my flesh stood up.” I might continue the parallel, for in
+      truth, though I saw nothing, yet “a thing was secretly brought unto me,
+      and mine ear received a little thereof; there was silence, and I heard a
+      voice,” saying—“In the midst of life we are in death.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many would
+      have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the effect
+      of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was my mortal
+      nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred and gave a
+      false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an aim, had
+      overstrained the body’s comparative weakness. A horror of great darkness
+      fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, but
+      had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to hypochondria.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I had
+      entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had
+      her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out
+      with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit
+      together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky
+      and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom,
+      and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such
+      hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would discourse to
+      me of her own country—the grave—and again and again promise to
+      conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink of a black,
+      sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal with mound,
+      monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight.
+      “Necropolis!” she would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, “It
+      contains a mansion prepared for you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister; and
+      there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress, finding me
+      lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few objects,
+      glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and slender
+      hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance, and lure me
+      to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells <em>then</em> had
+      power; but <em>now</em>, when my course was widening, my prospect
+      brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding
+      wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of
+      fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
+      hand—why did hypochondria accost me now?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
+      embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
+      sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
+      Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
+      returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all the
+      time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad when
+      the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, and sit
+      at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0024">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
+      made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
+      being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
+      under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary. Frances
+      was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her; and I was just
+      thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her tongue, when she
+      stopped and remarked—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+      passing—Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
+      features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden; he
+      was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
+      grimace at me, and passed on.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Who is he?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “A person I knew in England.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, he does know you, in his way.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade her
+      to adopt any more familiar term.)
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So you
+      have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of your
+      kind!’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; he was so soon gone.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me
+      this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt he
+      will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your rooms?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If you please, monsieur—I have no objection; I think, indeed, I
+      should rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he
+      said was:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your
+      appointment to —— College, and all that; Brown has told me.”
+       Then he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two
+      since; afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame
+      Pelet-Reuter with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to
+      utter a rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself,
+      and, seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I
+      see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with
+      another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up
+      in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But the lady?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better
+      than you—no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to
+      see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These
+      foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She
+      has not been married to him three months—he must be a spoon!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always
+      talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraïde
+      yourself!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraïde?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; nor Madame Zoraïde either.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why did you tell a lie, then?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine—a
+      Swiss girl.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Married! I think I shall—if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer.
+      That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me
+      careless of your hothouse grapes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Stop! No boasting—no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To
+      what <em>caste</em> does she belong?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word <em>caste</em>,
+      and, in fact, republican, lord-hater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of
+      his old ——shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable
+      and respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of
+      his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have
+      thought of taking a wife from a <em>caste</em> inferior to his own, as a
+      Stanley would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I
+      should give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and
+      leaning over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed
+      glee, I said concisely—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “She is a lace-mender.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden examined me. He did not <em>say</em> he was surprised, but
+      surprised he was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he
+      suspected I was going to take some very rash step; but repressing
+      declamation or remonstrance, he only answered—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may make
+      a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care to
+      ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or station,
+      she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think most likely
+      to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “None in Brussels.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I cannot
+      but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a bore to
+      you to your life’s end.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was
+      quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which
+      he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me
+      that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined and
+      thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or indeed
+      for anything but indulgence and forbearance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face
+      looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your
+      future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious
+      soul.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity
+      of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, that is the name! Yes—if it would be convenient, I should like
+      to see her—but——.” He hesitated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Well?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should on no account wish to intrude.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a rash,
+      imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart, in her
+      poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real
+      gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the harsh
+      husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked
+      affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been
+      so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the
+      stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair
+      which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He turned;
+      in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at having made the
+      mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive us;
+      her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but withal very
+      distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing to beauty, but much
+      to dignity; the finish of the white collar and manchettes sufficed for a
+      relief to the merino gown of solemn black; ornament was forsworn. Frances
+      curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as she always did, when one first
+      accosted her, more a woman to respect than to love; I introduced Mr.
+      Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness at making his acquaintance in
+      French. The pure and polished accent, the low yet sweet and rather full
+      voice, produced their effect immediately; Hunsden spoke French in reply; I
+      had not heard him speak that language before; he managed it very well. I
+      retired to the window-seat; Mr. Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation,
+      occupied a chair near the hearth; from my position I could see them both,
+      and the room too, at a glance. The room was so clean and bright, it looked
+      like a little polished cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre
+      of the table, a fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an
+      air of <i lang="fr">fête</i>. Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden
+      subdued, but both
+      mutually polite; they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics
+      were discussed with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen
+      two such models of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the
+      foreign tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his
+      sentences, with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
+      mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
+      she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach of
+      sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
+      glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
+      complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
+      before, she had only looked ladylike.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+      island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
+      ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
+      this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
+      snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
+      before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+      forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
+      interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at once
+      to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself; as Frances
+      was herself, and in none but his own language would he now address her.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You understand English?” was the prefatory question.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “A little.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not much
+      more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me with his
+      thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little country
+      called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in your
+      looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible that
+      anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a mere
+      name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five minutes
+      ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort of Swiss
+      sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “England is your country?” asked Frances.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you don’t like it?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
+      nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in ——shire), and
+      helpless pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices
+      everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St.
+      Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works.
+      Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk in
+      blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English
+      cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black
+      hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of Infamy
+      wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her favourite
+      paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched hovels——”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was
+      thinking of the good side—of what is elevated in your character as a
+      nation.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There is no good side—none at least of which you can have any
+      knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+      achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness of
+      education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you from
+      understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical
+      associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you
+      alluded to such humbug.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “But I did partly.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden laughed—his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such
+      associations give no pleasure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its
+      length, breadth, weight, value—ay, <em>value</em>? What price will it
+      bring in the market?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+      association, be without price.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely,
+      too, somewhere; for he coloured—a thing not unusual with him, when
+      hit unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened his
+      eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his
+      antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as he would
+      like to be loved—some one whose love he could unreservedly return.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer
+      wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is,
+      and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can
+      conceive, and angels the most elevated existences—if one of them—if
+      Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly
+      stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth
+      from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+      hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned ‘with retorted scorn.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and it was
+      when the word “hell” twanged off from her lips, with a somewhat startling
+      emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one slight glance of admiration.
+      He liked something strong, whether in man or woman; he liked whatever
+      dared to clear conventional limits. He had never before heard a lady say
+      “hell” with that uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound pleased him
+      from a lady’s lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike the string
+      again, but it was not in her way. The display of eccentric vigour never
+      gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice or flashed in her
+      countenance when extraordinary circumstances—and those generally
+      painful—forced it out of the depths where it burned latent. To me,
+      once or twice, she had in intimate conversation, uttered venturous
+      thoughts in nervous language; but when the hour of such manifestation was
+      past, I could not recall it; it came of itself and of itself departed.
+      Hunsden’s excitations she put by soon with a smile, and recurring to the
+      theme of disputation, said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect her so?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should have thought no child would have asked that question,” replied
+      Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without reproving for
+      stupidity those who asked it of him. “If you had been my pupil, as I
+      suppose you once had the misfortune to be that of a deplorable character
+      not a hundred miles off, I would have put you in the corner for such a
+      confession of ignorance. Why, mademoiselle, can’t you see that it is our
+      <em>gold</em> which buys us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss
+      servility?” And he sneered diabolically.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Swiss?” said Frances, catching the word “servility.” “Do you call my
+      countrymen servile?” and she started up. I could not suppress a low laugh;
+      there was ire in her glance and defiance in her attitude. “Do you abuse
+      Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden? Do you think I have no associations? Do
+      you calculate that I am prepared to dwell only on what vice and
+      degradation may be found in Alpine villages, and to leave quite out of my
+      heart the social greatness of my countrymen, and our blood-earned freedom,
+      and the natural glories of our mountains? You’re mistaken—you’re
+      mistaken.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Social greatness? Call it what you will, your countrymen are sensible
+      fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you is an abstract
+      idea; they have, ere this, sold their social greatness and also their
+      blood-earned freedom to be the servants of foreign kings.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You never were in Switzerland?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes—I have been there twice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You know nothing of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I do.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says ‘Poor Poll,’ or as
+      the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or as the French accuse
+      them of being perfidious: there is no justice in your dictums.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There is truth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an
+      unpractical woman, for you don’t acknowledge what really exists; you want
+      to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as an atheist
+      would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their existence.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Where are you flying to? You are off at a tangent—I thought we were
+      talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “We were—and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary
+      to-morrow (which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You would be mad, then—mad as a March hare—to indulge in a
+      passion for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and ice.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not so mad as you who love nothing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “There’s a method in my madness; there’s none in yours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make manure of the
+      refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You cannot reason at all,” said Hunsden; “there is no logic in you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Better to be without logic than without feeling,” retorted Frances, who
+      was now passing backwards and forwards from her cupboard to the table,
+      intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at least on hospitable deeds, for
+      she was laying the cloth, and putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without feeling?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and those of
+      other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of this, that, and
+      the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be suppressed because you
+      imagine it to be inconsistent with logic.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I do right.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry; she soon
+      reappeared.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You do right? Indeed, no! You are much mistaken if you think so. Just be
+      so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I have something to
+      cook.” (An interval occupied in settling a casserole on the fire; then,
+      while she stirred its contents:) “Right! as if it were right to crush any
+      pleasurable sentiment that God has given to man, especially any sentiment
+      that, like patriotism, spreads man’s selfishness in wider circles” (fire
+      stirred, dish put down before it).
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Were you born in Switzerland?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And where did you get your English features and figure?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I have a
+      right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an interest in two
+      noble, free, and fortunate countries.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You had an English mother?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from Utopia,
+      since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your interest?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “On the contrary, I’m a universal patriot, if you could understand me
+      rightly: my country is the world.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow: will you have the
+      goodness to come to table. Monsieur” (to me who appeared to be now
+      absorbed in reading by moonlight)—“Monsieur, supper is served.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been
+      bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden—not so short, graver and softer.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no intention of
+      staying.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have only
+      the alternative of eating it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small but tasty
+      dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad and
+      “fromage Français,” completed it. The business of eating interposed a
+      brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper disposed of
+      than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute ran on the spirit
+      of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to exist strongly in
+      Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment of the Swiss to
+      freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of it, not only because she
+      was unskilled to argue, but because her own real opinions on the point in
+      question happened to coincide pretty nearly with Mr. Hunsden’s, and she
+      only contradicted him out of opposition. At last she gave in, confessing
+      that she thought as he thought, but bidding him take notice that she did
+      not consider herself beaten.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No more did the French at Waterloo,” said Hunsden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There is no comparison between the cases,” rejoined Frances; “mine was a
+      sham fight.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Sham or real, it’s up with you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a case where
+      my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere to it when I had not
+      another word to say in its defence; you should be baffled by dumb
+      determination. You speak of Waterloo; your Wellington ought to have been
+      conquered there, according to Napoleon; but he persevered in spite of the
+      laws of war, and was victorious in defiance of military tactics. I would
+      do as he did.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I’ll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the same sort
+      of stubborn stuff in you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and I’d scorn
+      the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the much-enduring nature of our
+      heroic William in his soul.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Does not <em>ass</em> mean <em>baudet</em>?” asked Frances, turning to
+      me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No, no,” replied I, “it means an <i lang="fr">esprit-fort</i>; and now,”
+      I continued, as I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing between
+      these two, “it is high time to go.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden rose. “Good bye,” said he to Frances; “I shall be off for this
+      glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months or more before I
+      come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I’ll seek you out, and you
+      shall see if I don’t find means to make you fiercer than a dragon. You’ve
+      done pretty well this evening, but next interview you shall challenge me
+      outright. Meantime you’re doomed to become Mrs. William Crimsworth, I
+      suppose; poor young lady? but you have a spark of spirit; cherish it, and
+      give the Professor the full benefit thereof.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Are you married, Mr. Hunsden?” asked Frances, suddenly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a Benedict by my
+      look.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, whenever you marry don’t take a wife out of Switzerland; for if you
+      begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons—above all, if
+      you mention the word <em>ass</em> in the same breath with the name Tell
+      (for ass <em>is</em> baudet, I know; though Monsieur is pleased to
+      translate it <i lang="fr">esprit-fort</i>) your mountain maid will some
+      night smother her Breton-bretonnant, even as your own Shakspeare’s Othello
+      smothered Desdemona.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I am warned,” said Hunsden; “and so are you, lad,” (nodding to me). “I
+      hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his gentle lady, in which
+      the parts shall be reversed according to the plan just sketched—you,
+      however, being in my nightcap. Farewell, mademoiselle!” He bowed on her
+      hand, absolutely like Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron;
+      adding—“Death from such fingers would not be without charms.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Mon Dieu!” murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting her
+      distinctly arched brows; “c’est qu’il fait des compliments! je ne m’y suis
+      pas attendu.” She smiled, half in ire, half in mirth, curtsied with
+      foreign grace, and so they parted.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “And that is your lace-mender?” said he; “and you reckon you have done a
+      fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her? You, a scion of
+      Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social distinctions by taking up
+      with an <i lang="fr">ouvrière</i>! And I pitied the fellow, thinking his
+      feelings had misled him, and that he had hurt himself by contracting a low
+      match!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Just let go my collar, Hunsden.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him round the
+      waist. It was dark; the street lonely and lampless. We had then a tug for
+      it; and after we had both rolled on the pavement, and with difficulty
+      picked ourselves up, we agreed to walk on more soberly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, that’s my lace-mender,” said I; “and she is to be mine for life—God
+      willing.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “God is not willing—you can’t suppose it; what business have you to
+      be suited so well with a partner? And she treats you with a sort of
+      respect, too, and says, ‘Monsieur’ and modulates her tone in addressing
+      you, actually, as if you were something superior! She could not evince
+      more deference to such a one as I, were she favoured by fortune to the
+      supreme extent of being my choice instead of yours.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Hunsden, you’re a puppy. But you’ve only seen the title-page of my
+      happiness; you don’t know the tale that follows; you cannot conceive the
+      interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement of the narrative.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden—speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+      street—desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+      dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting. I laughed till my
+      sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he entered it, he said—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Don’t be vainglorious. Your lace-mender is too good for you, but not good
+      enough for me; neither physically nor morally does she come up to my ideal
+      of a woman. No; I dream of something far beyond that pale-faced, excitable
+      little Helvetian (by-the-by she has infinitely more of the nervous, mobile
+      Parisienne in her than of the the robust ‘jungfrau’). Your Mdlle. Henri is
+      in person <i lang="fr">chétive</i>, in mind
+      <i lang="fr">sans caractère</i>, compared with the queen of my visions.
+      You, indeed, may put up with that <i lang="fr">minois chiffoné</i>; but
+      when I marry I must have straighter and more harmonious features, to say
+      nothing of a nobler and better developed shape than that perverse,
+      ill-thriven child can boast.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will,”
+       said I, “and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless,
+      fullest-blooded of Ruben’s painted women—leave me only my Alpine
+      peri, and I’ll not envy you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither
+      said “God bless you;” yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
+    </p>
+</div><p><!--end chapter-->
+</p><div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<a id="link2HCH0025">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<h2  class="no-break">
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </h2>
+<p>
+      IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for her
+      aunt. One January morning—the first of the new year holidays—I
+      went in a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten, to the Rue Notre
+      Dame aux Neiges, and having alighted alone and walked upstairs, I found
+      Frances apparently waiting for me, dressed in a style scarcely appropriate
+      to that cold, bright, frosty day. Never till now had I seen her attired in
+      any other than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+      window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous texture; her
+      array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked imposing and festal
+      because it was so clear, full, and floating; a veil shadowed her head, and
+      hung below her knee; a little wreath of pink flowers fastened it to her
+      thickly tressed Grecian plait, and thence it fell softly on each side of
+      her face. Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when I asked her
+      if she were ready, she said “Yes, monsieur,” with something very like a
+      checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the table, and folded
+      it round her, not only did tear after tear course unbidden down her cheek,
+      but she shook to my ministration like a reed. I said I was sorry to see
+      her in such low spirits, and requested to be allowed an insight into the
+      origin thereof. She only said, “It was impossible to help it,” and then
+      voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting her hand into mine, accompanied me
+      out of the room, and ran downstairs with a quick, uncertain step, like one
+      who was eager to get some formidable piece of business over. I put her
+      into the fiacre. M. Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside
+      himself; we drove all together to the Protestant chapel, went through a
+      certain service in the Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out married.
+      M. Vandenhuten had given the bride away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful obscurity of
+      our station, and the pleasant isolation of our circumstances, did not
+      exact that additional precaution. We repaired at once to a small house I
+      had taken in the faubourg nearest to that part of the city where the scene
+      of our avocations lay.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested of her
+      bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer materials, a
+      piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with some finishing decoration
+      of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the carpet of a neatly furnished though
+      not spacious parlour, arranging on the shelves of a chiffonière some
+      books, which I handed to her from the table. It was snowing fast out of
+      doors; the afternoon had turned out wild and cold; the leaden sky seemed
+      full of drifts, and the street was already ankle-deep in the white
+      downfall. Our fire burned bright, our new habitation looked brilliantly
+      clean and fresh, the furniture was all arranged, and there were but some
+      articles of glass, china, books, &amp;c., to put in order. Frances found
+      in this business occupation till tea-time, and then, after I had
+      distinctly instructed her how to make a cup of tea in rational English
+      style, and after she had got over the dismay occasioned by seeing such an
+      extravagant amount of material put into the pot, she administered to me a
+      proper British repast, at which there wanted neither candles nor urn,
+      firelight nor comfort.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Our week’s holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to labour. Both
+      my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion that we were working
+      people, destined to earn our bread by exertion, and that of the most
+      assiduous kind. Our days were thoroughly occupied; we used to part every
+      morning at eight o’clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but into what
+      sweet rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline! Looking down the
+      vista of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little parlour like a
+      long string of rubies circling the dusky brow of the past. Unvaried were
+      they as each cut gem, and like each gem brilliant and burning.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      A year and a half passed. One morning (it was a <i lang="fr">fête</i>, and
+      we had the day to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness
+      peculiar to her when she had been thinking long on a subject, and at last,
+      having come to a conclusion, wished to test its soundness by the
+      touchstone of my judgment:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t work enough.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What now?” demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had been
+      deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a walk I proposed
+      to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it was June), to a certain
+      farmhouse in the country, where we were to dine. “What now?” and I saw at
+      once, in the serious ardour of her face, a project of vital importance.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am not satisfied,” returned she; “you are now earning eight thousand
+      francs a year” (it was true; my efforts, punctuality, the fame of my
+      pupils’ progress, the publicity of my station, had so far helped me on),
+      “while I am still at my miserable twelve hundred francs. I <em>can</em> do
+      better, and I <em>will</em>.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am convinced
+      of it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “You wish to change—you have a plan for progress in your mind; go
+      and put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall tell me of
+      it.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She went—as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious
+      mixture of tractability and firmness: I sat thinking about her, and
+      wondering what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, I have given Minnie” (our bonne) “leave to go out too, as it is
+      so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the door, and take the
+      key with you?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth,” was my not very apposite reply; but she looked
+      so engaging in her light summer dress and little cottage bonnet, and her
+      manner in speaking to me was then, as always, so unaffectedly and suavely
+      respectful, that my heart expanded at the sight of her, and a kiss seemed
+      necessary to content its importunity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “There, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Why do you always call me ‘Monsieur’? Say, ‘William.’”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I cannot pronounce your W; besides, ‘Monsieur’ belongs to you; I like it
+      best.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set out,
+      leaving the house solitary and silent—silent, at least, but for the
+      ticking of the clock. We were soon clear of Brussels; the fields received
+      us, and then the lanes, remote from carriage-resounding
+      <i lang="fr">chaussées</i>. Ere
+      long we came upon a nook, so rural, green, and secluded, it might have
+      been a spot in some pastoral English province; a bank of short and mossy
+      grass, under a hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting to be declined; we
+      took it, and when we had admired and examined some English-looking
+      wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances’ attention and my own
+      to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What was her plan?” A natural one—the next step to be mounted by
+      us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her profession. She
+      proposed to begin a school. We already had the means for commencing on a
+      careful scale, having lived greatly within our income. We possessed, too,
+      by this time, an extensive and eligible connection, in the sense
+      advantageous to our business; for, though our circle of visiting
+      acquaintance continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in
+      schools and families as teachers. When Frances had developed her plan, she
+      intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the future. If we only
+      had good health and tolerable success, me might, she was sure, in time
+      realize an independency; and that, perhaps, before we were too old to
+      enjoy it; then both she and I would rest; and what was to hinder us from
+      going to live in England? England was still her Promised Land.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was not one
+      who could live quiescent and inactive, or even comparatively inactive.
+      Duties she must have to fulfil, and important duties; work to do—and
+      exciting, absorbing, profitable work; strong faculties stirred in her
+      frame, and they demanded full nourishment, free exercise: mine was not the
+      hand ever to starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in offering them
+      sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You have conceived a plan, Frances,” said I, “and a good plan; execute
+      it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever my assistance is
+      wanted, ask and you shall have.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Frances’ eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or two, soon
+      brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and held it for some
+      time very close clasped in both her own, but she said no more than “Thank
+      you, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full summer moon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting wings; years
+      of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in which I and my wife,
+      having launched ourselves in the full career of progress, as progress
+      whirls on in European capitals, scarcely knew repose, were strangers to
+      amusement, never thought of indulgence, and yet, as our course ran side by
+      side, as we marched hand in hand, we neither murmured, repented, nor
+      faltered. Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us up; harmony of thought
+      and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally, success bestowed every
+      now and then encouraging reward on diligence. Our school became one of the
+      most popular in Brussels, and as by degrees we raised our terms and
+      elevated our system of education, our choice of pupils grew more select,
+      and at length included the children of the best families in Belgium. We
+      had too an excellent connection in England, first opened by the
+      unsolicited recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who having been over, and
+      having abused me for my prosperity in set terms, went back, and soon after
+      sent a leash of young ——shire heiresses—his cousins; as
+      he said “to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become another
+      woman, though in another she remained unchanged. So different was she
+      under different circumstances. I seemed to possess two wives. The
+      faculties of her nature, already disclosed when I married her, remained
+      fresh and fair; but other faculties shot up strong, branched out broad,
+      and quite altered the external character of the plant. Firmness, activity,
+      and enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling and fervour;
+      but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and dewy under the
+      umbrage of later growth and hardier nature: perhaps I only in the world
+      knew the secret of their existence, but to me they were ever ready to
+      yield an exquisite fragrance and present a beauty as chaste as radiant.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by Madame the
+      directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much anxious thought on
+      her large brow; much calculated dignity in her serious mien: immediately
+      after breakfast I used to part with this lady; I went to my college, she
+      to her schoolroom; returning for an hour in the course of the day, I found
+      her always in class, intently occupied; silence, industry, observance,
+      attending on her presence. When not actually teaching, she was overlooking
+      and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared vigilant and solicitous.
+      When communicating instruction, her aspect was more animated; she seemed
+      to feel a certain enjoyment in the occupation. The language in which she
+      addressed her pupils, though simple and unpretending, was never trite or
+      dry; she did not speak from routine formulas—she made her own
+      phrases as she went on, and very nervous and impressive phrases they
+      frequently were; often, when elucidating favourite points of history, or
+      geography, she would wax genuinely eloquent in her earnestness. Her
+      pupils, or at least the elder and more intelligent amongst them,
+      recognized well the language of a superior mind; they felt too, and some
+      of them received the impression of elevated sentiments; there was little
+      fondling between mistress and girls, but some of Frances’ pupils in time
+      learnt to love her sincerely, all of them beheld her with respect; her
+      general demeanour towards them was serious; sometimes benignant when they
+      pleased her with their progress and attention, always scrupulously refined
+      and considerate. In cases where reproof or punishment was called for she
+      was usually forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that
+      forbearance, which sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like
+      severity taught the culprit the extent of the mistake committed. Sometimes
+      a gleam of tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but this was rare;
+      only when a pupil was sick, or when it pined after home, or in the case of
+      some little motherless child, or of one much poorer than its companions,
+      whose scanty wardrobe and mean appointments brought on it the contempt of
+      the jewelled young countesses and silk-clad misses. Over such feeble
+      fledglings the directress spread a wing of kindliest protection: it was to
+      their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was after them
+      she looked in winter to see that they always had a comfortable seat by the
+      stove; it was they who by turns were summoned to the salon to receive some
+      little dole of cake or fruit—to sit on a footstool at the fireside—to
+      enjoy home comforts, and almost home liberty, for an evening together—to
+      be spoken to gently and softly, comforted, encouraged, cherished—and
+      when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss of true tenderness. As to Julia
+      and Georgiana G——, daughters of an English baronet, as to
+      Mdlle. Mathilde de ——, heiress of a Belgian count, and sundry
+      other children of patrician race, the directress was careful of them as of
+      the others, anxious for their progress, as for that of the rest—but
+      it never seemed to enter her head to distinguish them by a mark of
+      preference; one girl of noble blood she loved dearly—a young Irish
+      baroness—lady Catherine ——; but it was for her
+      enthusiastic heart and clever head, for her generosity and her genius, the
+      title and rank went for nothing.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of an hour
+      that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment, and with which she
+      would not dispense. She said that I must spend that time amongst her
+      pupils to learn their characters, to be “<i lang="fr">au courant</i>”
+      with everything that
+      was passing in the house, to become interested in what interested her, to
+      be able to give her my opinion on knotty points when she required it, and
+      this she did constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils to fall
+      asleep, and never making any change of importance without my cognizance
+      and consent. She delighted to sit by me when I gave my lessons (lessons in
+      literature), her hands folded on her knee, the most fixedly attentive of
+      any present. She rarely addressed me in class; when she did it was with an
+      air of marked deference; it was her pleasure, her joy to make me still the
+      master in all things.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      At six o’clock P.M. my daily labours ceased. I then came home, for my home
+      was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our private sitting-room,
+      the lady-directress vanished from before my eyes, and Frances Henri, my
+      own little lace-mender, was magically restored to my arms; much
+      disappointed she would have been if her master had not been as constant to
+      the tryst as herself, and if his truthfull kiss had not been prompt to
+      answer her soft, “Bon soir, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had for her
+      wilfulness. I fear the choice of chastisement must have been injudicious,
+      for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed to encourage its renewal.
+      Our evenings were our own; that recreation was necessary to refresh our
+      strength for the due discharge of our duties; sometimes we spent them all
+      in conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was thoroughly
+      accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved him too absolutely
+      to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so unlimited that topics of
+      conversation could no more be wanting with him than subjects for communion
+      with her own heart. In those moments, happy as a bird with its mate, she
+      would show me what she had of vivacity, of mirth, of originality in her
+      well-dowered nature. She would show, too, some stores of raillery, of
+      “malice,” and would vex, tease, pique me sometimes about what she called
+      my “bizarreries anglaises,” my “caprices insulaires,” with a wild and
+      witty wickedness that made a perfect white demon of her while it lasted.
+      This was rare, however, and the elfish freak was always short: sometimes
+      when driven a little hard in the war of words—for her tongue did
+      ample justice to the pith, the point, the delicacy of her native French,
+      in which language she always attacked me—I used to turn upon her
+      with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased me. Vain
+      idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf was gone; the
+      provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown eyes, and a ray of
+      gentle homage shone under the lids in its place. I had seized a mere
+      vexing fairy, and found a submissive and supplicating little mortal woman
+      in my arms. Then I made her get a book, and read English to me for an hour
+      by way of penance. I frequently dosed her with Wordsworth in this way, and
+      Wordsworth steadied her soon; she had a difficulty in comprehending his
+      deep, serene, and sober mind; his language, too, was not facile to her;
+      she had to ask questions, to sue for explanations, to be like a child and
+      a novice, and to acknowledge me as her senior and director. Her instinct
+      instantly penetrated and possessed the meaning of more ardent and
+      imaginative writers. Byron excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only
+      she puzzled at, wondered over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased me in
+      French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with wit, or
+      inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or listened with
+      attention; whether she smiled <em>at</em> me or <em>on</em> me, always
+      at nine o’clock I was left abandoned.
+      She would extricate herself from my arms, quit my side,
+      take her lamp, and be gone. Her mission was upstairs; I have followed her
+      sometimes and watched her. First she opened the door of the dortoir (the
+      pupils’ chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room between the two
+      rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any were wakeful,
+      especially if any were sad, spoke to them and soothed them; stood some
+      minutes to ascertain that all was safe and tranquil; trimmed the
+      watch-light which burned in the apartment all night, then withdrew,
+      closing the door behind her without sound. Thence she glided to our own
+      chamber; it had a little cabinet within; this she sought; there, too,
+      appeared a bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face (the night I
+      followed and observed her) changed as she approached this tiny couch; from
+      grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand the lamp she held in
+      the other; she bent above the pillow and hung over a child asleep; its
+      slumber (that evening at least, and usually, I believe) was sound and
+      calm; no tear wet its dark eyelashes; no fever heated its round cheek; no
+      ill dream discomposed its budding features. Frances gazed, she did not
+      smile, and yet the deepest delight filled, flushed her face; feeling
+      pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole frame, which still was
+      motionless. I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her lips were a little apart,
+      her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the child smiled; then at last the
+      mother smiled too, and said in low soliloquy, “God bless my little son!”
+       She stooped closer over him, breathed the softest of kisses on his brow,
+      covered his minute hand with hers, and at last started up and came away. I
+      regained the parlour before her. Entering it two minutes later she said
+      quietly as she put down her extinguished lamp—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Victor rests well: he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile, monsieur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year of our
+      marriage: his Christian name had been given him in honour of M.
+      Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and well-beloved friend.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her a good,
+      just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had she married a
+      harsh, envious, careless man—a profligate, a prodigal, a drunkard,
+      or a tyrant—is another question, and one which I once propounded to
+      her. Her answer, given after some reflection, was—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile; and when I
+      found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left my torturer
+      suddenly and silently.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if law or might had forced you back again?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an unjust
+      fool?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his vice and
+      my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left him again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I don’t know,” she said, hastily. “Why do you ask me, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in her eye,
+      whose voice I determined to waken.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to,
+      marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and
+      though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though
+      the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must
+      be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would resist as
+      far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be sure
+      of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from bad laws and their
+      consequences.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Voluntary death, Frances?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “No, monsieur. I’d have courage to live out every throe of anguish fate
+      assigned me, and principle to contend for justice and liberty to the
+      last.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I see you would have made no patient Grizzle. And now, supposing fate had
+      merely assigned you the lot of an old maid, what then? How would you have
+      liked celibacy?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Not much, certainly. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and
+      vapid—her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should have
+      spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I should
+      have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no
+      account, like other single women. But I’m not an old maid,” she added
+      quickly. “I should have been, though, but for my master. I should never
+      have suited any man but Professor Crimsworth—no other gentleman,
+      French, English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or handsome;
+      and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation of many
+      others, if I could have obtained it. Now, I have been Professor
+      Crimsworth’s wife eight years, and what is he in my eyes? Is he
+      honourable, beloved ——?” She stopped, her voice was cut off,
+      her eyes suddenly suffused. She and I were standing side by side; she
+      threw her arms round me, and strained me to her heart with passionate
+      earnestness: the energy of her whole being glowed in her dark and then
+      dilated eye, and crimsoned her animated cheek; her look and movement were
+      like inspiration; in one there was such a flash, in the other such a
+      power. Half an hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where
+      all that wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+      her glance so thrilling and ardent—her action so rapid and strong.
+      She looked down, smiling softly and passively:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur,” said she, “but I know that,
+      whenever it is wanted, it will come back again.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized an
+      independency. The rapidity with which we attained this end had its origin
+      in three reasons:— Firstly, we worked so hard for it; secondly, we
+      had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly, as soon as we had capital
+      to invest, two well-skilled counsellors, one in Belgium, one in England,
+      viz. Vandenhuten and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice as to the sort
+      of investment to be chosen. The suggestion made was judicious; and, being
+      promptly acted on, the result proved gainful—I need not say how
+      gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten and Hunsden; nobody
+      else can be interested in hearing them.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed of, we
+      both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in
+      which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and
+      our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on—abundance
+      to leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which,
+      properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might help
+      philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of charity.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely; Frances
+      realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole summer and autumn in
+      travelling from end to end of the British islands, and afterwards passed a
+      winter in London. Then we thought it high time to fix our residence. My
+      heart yearned towards my native county of ——shire; and it is
+      in ——shire I now live; it is in the library of my own home I
+      am now writing. That home lies amid a sequestered and rather hilly region,
+      thirty miles removed from X——; a region whose verdure the
+      smoke of mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure, whose
+      swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between them the
+      very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken, her blue-bells, her
+      scents of reed and heather, her free and fresh breezes. My house is a
+      picturesque and not too spacious dwelling, with low and long windows, a
+      trellised and leaf-veiled porch over the front door, just now, on this
+      summer evening, looking like an arch of roses and ivy. The garden is
+      chiefly laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills, with herbage
+      short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers, tiny and
+      starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine foliage. At the
+      bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket, which opens upon a lane as
+      green as the lawn, very long, shady, and little frequented; on the turf of
+      this lane generally appear the first daisies of spring—whence its
+      name—Daisy Lane; serving also as a distinction to the house.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+      wood—chiefly oak and beech—spreads shadowy about the vicinage of a very
+      old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much larger, as well as
+      more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and residence of an individual
+      familiar both to me and to the reader. Yes, in Hunsden Wood—for so
+      are those glades and that grey building, with many gables and more
+      chimneys, named—abides Yorke Hunsden, still unmarried; never, I
+      suppose, having yet found his ideal, though I know at least a score of
+      young ladies within a circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to
+      assist him in the search.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years since; he
+      has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient to pay off some
+      incumbrances by which the family heritage was burdened. I say he abides
+      here, but I do not think he is resident above five months out of the
+      twelve; he wanders from land to land, and spends some part of each winter
+      in town: he frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to ——shire,
+      and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has a German
+      metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a dissatisfied and
+      savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor played, and of whom Frances
+      affirmed that he had “tout l’air d’un conspirateur.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of Birmingham or
+      Manchester—hard men, seemingly knit up in one thought, whose talk is
+      of free trade. The foreign visitors, too, are politicians; they take a
+      wider theme—European progress—the spread of liberal sentiments
+      over the Continent; on their mental tablets, the names of Russia, Austria,
+      and the Pope, are inscribed in red ink. I have heard some of them talk
+      vigorous sense—yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in
+      the old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular insight
+      was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds respecting old
+      northern despotisms, and old southern superstitions: also, I have heard
+      much twaddle, enounced chiefly in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.
+      Hunsden himself tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical men
+      he seemed leagued hand and heart.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens) he
+      generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy Lane. He has a
+      philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his cigar in our porch on summer
+      evenings; he says he does it to kill the earwigs amongst the roses, with
+      which insects, but for his benevolent fumigations, he intimates we should
+      certainly be overrun. On wet days, too, we are almost sure to see him;
+      according to him, it gets on time to work me into lunacy by treading on my
+      mental corns, or to force from Mrs. Crimsworth revelations of the dragon
+      within her, by insulting the memory of Hofer and Tell.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances relish a
+      visit there highly. If there are other guests, their characters are an
+      interesting study; their conversation is exciting and strange; the absence
+      of all local narrowness both in the host and his chosen society gives a
+      metropolitan, almost a cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the talk.
+      Hunsden himself is a polite man in his own house: he has, when he chooses
+      to employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his very
+      mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the passages
+      legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows of diamond-paned
+      lattices, have an old-world, haunted air: in his travels he has collected
+      stores of articles of <i lang="fr">virtu</i>, which are well and
+      tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried rooms: I have seen there
+      one or two pictures, and one or two pieces of statuary which many an
+      aristocratic connoisseur might have envied.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden, he often
+      walks home with us. His wood is large, and some of the timber is old and
+      of huge growth. There are winding ways in it which, pursued through glade
+      and brake, make the walk back to Daisy Lane a somewhat long one. Many a
+      time, when we have had the benefit of a full moon, and when the night has
+      been mild and balmy, when, moreover, a certain nightingale has been
+      singing, and a certain stream, hid in alders, has lent the song a soft
+      accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one hamlet in a district of
+      ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of the wood left us at our
+      porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours, and far more quiet and
+      gentle than in the day-time and before numbers. He would then forget
+      politics and discussion, and would dwell on the past times of his house,
+      on his family history, on himself and his own feelings—subjects each
+      and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they were each and all unique.
+      One glorious night in June, after I had been taunting him about his ideal
+      bride and asking him when she would come and graft her foreign beauty on
+      the old Hunsden oak, he answered suddenly—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there cannot be a
+      shadow without a substance.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He had led us from the depth of the “winding way” into a glade from whence
+      the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an unclouded moon poured
+      her light into this glade, and Hunsden held out under her beam an ivory
+      miniature.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to me—still,
+      however, pushing her little face close to mine, and seeking in my eyes
+      what I thought of the portrait. I thought it represented a very handsome
+      and very individual-looking female face, with, as he had once said,
+      “straight and harmonious features.” It was dark; the hair, raven-black,
+      swept not only from the brow, but from the temples—seemed thrust
+      away carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay, despised
+      arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an independent,
+      determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as fine; the chin ditto. On
+      the back of the miniature was gilded “Lucia.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “That is a real head,” was my conclusion.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Hunsden smiled.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I think so,” he replied. “All was real in Lucia.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “And she was somebody you would have liked to marry—but could not?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I <em>have</em> not
+      done so is a proof that I <em>could</em> not.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances’ hand, and
+      put it away.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “What do <em>you</em> think of it?” he asked of my wife, as he buttoned
+      his coat over it.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them,” was the strange answer.
+      “I do not mean matrimonial chains,” she added, correcting herself, as if
+      she feared mis-interpretation, “but social chains of some sort. The face
+      is that of one who has made an effort, and a successful and triumphant
+      effort, to wrest some vigorous and valued faculty from insupportable
+      constraint; and when Lucia’s faculty got free, I am certain it spread wide
+      pinions and carried her higher than—” she hesitated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Than what?” demanded Hunsden.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Than ‘les convenances’ permitted you to follow.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I think you grow spiteful—impertinent.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Lucia has trodden the stage,” continued Frances. “You never seriously
+      thought of marrying her; you admired her originality, her fearlessness,
+      her energy of body and mind; you delighted in her talent, whatever that
+      was, whether song, dance, or dramatic representation; you worshipped her
+      beauty, which was of the sort after your own heart: but I am sure she
+      filled a sphere from whence you would never have thought of taking a
+      wife.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Ingenious,” remarked Hunsden; “whether true or not is another question.
+      Meantime, don’t you feel your little lamp of a spirit wax very pale,
+      beside such a girandole as Lucia’s?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied with the
+      dim light you give?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Will you, monsieur?”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances,” and we had now
+      reached the wicket.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it is—there
+      has been a series of lovely days, and this is the loveliest; the hay is
+      just carried from my fields, its perfume still lingers in the air. Frances
+      proposed to me, an hour or two since, to take tea out on the lawn; I see
+      the round table, loaded with china, placed under a certain beech; Hunsden
+      is expected—nay, I hear he is come—there is his voice, laying
+      down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances replies; she
+      opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor, of whom Hunsden
+      affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs. Crimsworth retaliates:—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden,
+      calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become a
+      fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and going,
+      no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy till she
+      had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off; for that
+      with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin a score of
+      children.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my desk—but
+      it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver on porcelain.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man, or his
+      mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large eyes, as dark as
+      those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine. His shape is symmetrical
+      enough, but slight; his health is good. I never saw a child smile less
+      than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable brow when sitting over a
+      book that interests him, or while listening to tales of adventure, peril,
+      or wonder, narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself. But though still,
+      he is not unhappy—though serious, not morose; he has a
+      susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it amounts
+      to enthusiasm. He learned to read in the old-fashioned way out of a
+      spelling-book at his mother’s knee, and as he got on without driving by
+      that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy him ivory letters, or to
+      try any of the other inducements to learning now deemed indispensable.
+      When he could read, he became a glutton of books, and is so still. His
+      toys have been few, and he has never wanted more. For those he possesses,
+      he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to affection; this
+      feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of the house,
+      strengthens almost to a passion.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after the
+      donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however, was much
+      modified by the companionship and caresses of its young master. He would
+      go nowhere, do nothing without Yorke; Yorke lay at his feet while he
+      learned his lessons, played with him in the garden, walked with him in the
+      lane and wood, sat near his chair at meals, was fed always by his own
+      hand, was the first thing he sought in the morning, the last he left at
+      night. Yorke accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X——, and was
+      bitten in the street by a dog in a rabid state. As soon as Hunsden had
+      brought him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into the
+      yard and shot him where he lay licking his wound: he was dead in an
+      instant; he had not seen me level the gun; I stood behind him. I had
+      scarcely been ten minutes in the house, when my ear was struck with sounds
+      of anguish: I repaired to the yard once more, for they proceeded thence.
+      Victor was kneeling beside his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its
+      bull-like neck, and lost in a passion of the wildest woe: he saw me.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Oh, papa, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive you!” was his
+      exclamation. “You shot Yorke—I saw it from the window. I never
+      believed you could be so cruel—I can love you no more!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern necessity
+      of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and bitter accent which I
+      cannot render, but which pierced my heart, repeated—
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “He might have been cured—you should have tried—you should
+      have burnt the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave
+      no time; and now it is too late—he is dead!”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently a long
+      while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then I lifted him in
+      my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that she would comfort him
+      best. She had witnessed the whole scene from a window; she would not come
+      out for fear of increasing my difficulties by her emotion, but she was
+      ready now to receive him. She took him to her kind heart, and on to her
+      gentle lap; consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft embrace,
+      for some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him that Yorke had
+      felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to expire naturally,
+      his end would have been most horrible; above all, she told him that I was
+      not cruel (for that idea seemed to give exquisite pain to poor Victor),
+      that it was my affection for Yorke and him which had made me act so, and
+      that I was now almost heart-broken to see him weep thus bitterly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+      considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a tone—married
+      to caresses so benign, so tender—to looks so inspired with pitying
+      sympathy—produced no effect on him. They did produce an effect: he
+      grew calmer, rested his face on her shoulder, and lay still in her arms.
+      Looking up, shortly, he asked his mother to tell him over again what she
+      had said about Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not being cruel; the
+      balmy words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek on her breast, and
+      was again tranquil.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave him, and
+      desired to be reconciled. I drew the lad to my side, and there I kept him
+      a good while, and had much talk with him, in the course of which he
+      disclosed many points of feeling and thought I approved of in my son. I
+      found, it is true, few elements of the “good fellow” or the “fine fellow”
+       in him; scant sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash over the wine
+      cup, or which kindles the passions to a destroying fire; but I saw in the
+      soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs of compassion, affection,
+      fidelity. I discovered in the garden of his intellect a rich growth of
+      wholesome principles—reason, justice, moral courage, promised, if
+      not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I bestowed on his large forehead, and
+      on his cheek—still pale with tears—a proud and contented kiss,
+      and sent him away comforted. Yet I saw him the next day laid on the mound
+      under which Yorke had been buried, his face covered with his hands; he was
+      melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year elapsed before he would
+      listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first
+      year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his
+      home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not
+      suit him—but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of
+      success, will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a
+      strong repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch,
+      and transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the
+      subject, I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to
+      some fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her
+      fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be taken,
+      and it <em>shall</em> be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of
+      her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance, a
+      congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as I
+      also see, a something in Victor’s temper—a kind of electrical ardour and
+      power—which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it his
+      spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of the
+      offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not <em>whipped</em>
+      out of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of any
+      amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him
+      radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this
+      <em>something</em> in her son’s marked character
+      no name; but when it appears in the grinding of his teeth, in the
+      glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of feeling against
+      disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed injustice, she folds
+      him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her alone in the wood; then
+      she reasons with him like any philosopher, and to reason Victor is ever
+      accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of love, and by love Victor
+      can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason or love be the weapons with
+      which in future the world will meet his violence? Oh, no! for that flash
+      in his black eye—for that cloud on his bony brow—for that
+      compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will some day get blows
+      instead of blandishments—kicks instead of kisses; then for the fit
+      of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden his soul; then for the
+      ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of which he will come (I
+      trust) a wiser and a better man.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn under the
+      beech; Hunsden’s hand rests on the boy’s collar, and he is instilling God
+      knows what principles into his ear. Victor looks well just now, for he
+      listens with a sort of smiling interest; he never looks so like his mother
+      as when he smiles—pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely! Victor has
+      a preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+      considerably more potent, decided, and indiscriminating, than any I ever
+      entertained for that personage myself. Frances, too, regards it with a
+      sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son leans on Hunsden’s knee, or
+      rests against his shoulder, she roves with restless movement round, like a
+      dove guarding its young from a hovering hawk; she says she wishes Hunsden
+      had children of his own, for then he would better know the danger of
+      inciting their pride and indulging their foibles.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle which
+      half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I continue busy she
+      enters the room, comes near me quietly, and puts her hand on my shoulder.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Monsieur est trop appliqué.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I shall soon have done.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have finished; her
+      presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume of the fresh hay and
+      spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering sun, as the repose of the
+      midsummer eve are to my senses.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending through the
+      lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine with unsparing hand,
+      disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+      “Crimsworth! I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand, mistress,
+      and make him lift up his head.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Well, Hunsden? I hear you—”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “I was at X—— yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer
+      than Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece Hall a
+      stag of ten; and I have heard from Brown. M. and Madame Vandenhuten and
+      Jean Baptiste talk of coming to see you next month. He mentions the Pelets
+      too; he says their domestic harmony is not the finest in the world, but in
+      business they are doing ‘on ne peut mieux,’ which circumstance he
+      concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little crosses
+      in the affections. Why don’t you invite the Pelets to ——shire,
+      Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraïde. Mistress,
+      don’t be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a
+      fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you’ve lost,
+      Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea, Victor
+      and I will begin without you.”
+     </p>
+<p>
+      “Papa, come!”
+     </p>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte
+[Published under the name Currer Bell; see Etext #771 for details]
+#6 in our series by the Brontes
+
+
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+
+Title: The Professor
+
+Author: Charlotte Bronte
+
+Release Date: August, 1997  [Etext #1028]
+[Most recently updated on June 30, 2007]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte
+******This file should be named tprof10.txt or tprof10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tprof11.txt.
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+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR
+by Charlotte Bronte
+[Published under the name Currer Bell, see Etext #771 for details]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This little book was written before either "Jane Eyre" or
+"Shirley," and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the
+plea of a first attempt.  A first attempt it certainly was not,
+as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn a good deal in
+a practice of some years. I had not indeed published anything
+before I commenced "The Professor," but in many a crude effort,
+destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such
+taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant
+composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.  At
+the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject
+of incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory,
+but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often
+procures for an author more surprise than pleasure.
+
+I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as
+I had seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get
+a shilling he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift
+him in a moment to wealth and high station; that whatever small
+competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow;
+that, before he could find so much as an arbour to sit down in,
+he should master at least half the ascent of "the Hill of
+Difficulty;" that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a
+lady of rank.  As Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and
+drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
+
+In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general
+scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something
+more imaginative and poetical--something more consonant with a
+highly wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments
+more tender, elevated, unworldly.   Indeed, until an author has
+tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind, he can never know
+what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he
+would not have suspected of casketing such treasures.  Men in
+business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the
+idea will be often found fallacious:  a passionate preference for
+the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and
+harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober
+surface.
+
+Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have
+reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative
+must have gone through some struggles--which indeed it has.  And
+after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come
+but it takes comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a
+moderate  expectation--and mutters under its breath, while
+lifting its eye to that of the public,
+
+"He that is low need fear no fall."
+
+CURRER BELL.
+
+
+The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
+publication of "The Professor," shortly after the appearance of
+"Shirley."  Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress
+made some use of the materials in a subsequent work--"Villette,"
+As, however, these two stories are in most respects unlike, it
+has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold "The
+Professor" from the public.  I have therefore consented to its
+publication.
+
+A. B. NICHOLLS
+
+Haworth Parsonage,
+September 22nd, 1856.
+
+*
+
+
+
+T H E  P R O F E S S O R
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the
+following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old
+school acquaintance:--
+
+"DEAR CHARLES,
+"I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of
+us what could be called popular characters:  you were a
+sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own
+portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that
+it was a strikingly attractive one--can you? What animal
+magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly I never
+experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for
+you, and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were
+equally free from all romantic regard to me.  Still, out of
+school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the
+theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we
+understood each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of
+affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object,
+whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness
+did not move me.  I felt myself superior to that check THEN as I
+do NOW.
+
+"It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time
+since I saw you.  Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county
+the other day, my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of
+old times; to run over the events which have transpired since we
+separated; and I sat down and commenced this letter.  What you
+have been doing I know not; but you shall hear, if you choose to
+listen, how the world has wagged with me.
+
+"First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal
+uncles, Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe.   They asked me
+if I would enter the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me
+the living of Seacombe, which is in his gift, if I would; then my
+other uncle, Mr. Seacombe, hinted that when I became rector of
+Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps be allowed to take, as
+mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of my six
+cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
+
+"I declined both the Church and matrimony.  A good clergyman is a
+good thing, but I should have made a very bad one.  As to the
+wife--oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for
+life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and
+pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs,
+touches a chord in my bosom.  To think of passing the winter
+evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with
+one of them--for instance, the large and well-modelled statue,
+Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such  circumstances,
+as well as a bad clergyman.
+
+"When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me 'what I
+intended to do?' I said I should reflect.   They reminded me that
+I had no fortune, and no expectation  of any, and, after a
+considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, 'Whether I
+had thoughts of following my father's steps and engaging in
+trade?' Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort.  I do not think
+that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my
+taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the
+scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale's countenance as he pronounced
+the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I
+was instantly decided.  My father was but a name to me, yet that
+name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very
+face.  I answered then, with haste and warmth, 'I cannot do
+better than follow in my father's steps; yes, I will be a
+tradesman.'  My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted
+with mutual disgust.  In reviewing this transaction, I find that
+I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedale's
+patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
+reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable,
+and which certainly was yet untried.
+
+"I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother,
+ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and
+now possessor of the mill and business which was my father's
+before he failed.  You are aware that my father-once reckoned a
+Croesus of wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his
+death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six
+months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom
+she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the
+----shire manufacturer.  At the end of the six months she brought
+me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should
+think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
+her.
+
+"My father's relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me,
+till I was nine years old.  At that period it chanced that the
+representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant;
+Mr. Seacombe stood for it.  My uncle Crimsworth, an astute
+mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter
+to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not
+consent to do something towards the support of their sister's
+orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
+conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the
+circumstances against Mr. Seacombe's election.  That gentleman
+and Lord T. knew well enough that the Crimsworths were an
+unscrupulous and determined race; they knew also that they had
+influence in the borough of X----; and, making a virtue of
+necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education.
+I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which
+space of time Edward and I never met.  He, when he grew up,
+entered into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence,
+ability, and success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was
+fast making a fortune.  Of this I was apprised by the occasional
+short letters I received from him, some three or four times a
+year; which said letters never concluded without some expression
+of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and some
+reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that
+house.  At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand
+why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles
+Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and
+heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till
+death evinced by them against my father--of the sufferings of my
+mother--of all the wrongs, in short, of our house--then did I
+conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a
+resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to
+minister to the necessities of my dying mother.  It was by these
+feelings I was  influenced when I refused the Rectory of
+Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
+
+"An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and
+myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and
+informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a
+tradesman.  I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment.
+His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I
+might come down to ----shire, if I liked, and he would 'see what
+could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.'  I
+repressed all--even mental comment on his note--packed my trunk
+and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
+
+"After two days' travelling (railroads were not then in
+existence) I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of
+X----.  I had always understood that Edward lived in this town,
+but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr. Crimsworth's mill and
+warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben
+Close; his RESIDENCE lay four miles out, in the country.
+
+"It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the
+habitation designated to me as my brother's.  As I advanced up
+the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the
+dark gloomy mists which deepened those shades, that the house was
+large, and the grounds  surrounding it sufficiently spacious.  I
+paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning my back against
+a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with interest on
+the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
+
+"Edward is rich," thought I to myself.  'I believed him to be
+doing well--but I did not know he was master of a mansion like
+this.'  Cutting short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture,
+&c., I advanced to the front door and rang.  A man-servant opened
+it--I announced myself--he relieved me of my wet cloak and
+carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room furnished as a library,
+where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table;
+he informed me that his master was not yet returned from X----
+market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of
+half an hour.
+
+"Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered
+with red morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes
+watched the flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders
+fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in
+conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place.  Amidst
+much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there
+was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no danger of
+encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of
+my expectations guaranteed me.  I anticipated no overflowings of
+fraternal tenderness; Edward's letters had always been such as to
+prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort.
+Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I
+cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp
+of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with
+which impatience would fain have shaken it.
+
+"I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering
+whether Edward's indifference would equal the cold disdain I had
+always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open:
+wheels approached the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and
+after the lapse of some minutes, and a brief dialogue between
+himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the
+library door--that tread alone announced the master of the house.
+
+"I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was
+ten years ago--a tall, wiry, raw youth; NOW, as I rose from my
+seat and turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking
+and powerful man, light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic
+proportions; the first glance made me aware of an air of
+promptitude and sharpness, shown as well in his movements as in
+his port, his eye, and the general expression of his face.  He
+greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands,
+scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco
+covered arm-chair, and motioned me to another sent.
+
+"'I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the
+Close,' said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent,
+probably habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern
+tone, which sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery
+utterance of the South.
+
+"'The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me
+here,' said I.  'I doubted at first the accuracy of his
+information, not being aware that you had such a residence as
+this.'
+
+"'Oh, it is all right!' he replied, 'only I was kept half an hour
+behind time, waiting for you--that is all.   I thought you must
+be coming by the eight o'clock coach.'
+
+"I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer,
+but stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience;
+then he scanned me again.
+
+"I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first
+moment of meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I
+had saluted this man with a quiet and steady phlegm.
+
+"'Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?' he asked
+hastily.
+
+"'I do not think I shall have any further communication with
+them; my refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a
+barrier against all future intercourse.'
+
+"'Why,' said he, 'I may as well remind you at the very outset of
+our connection, that "no man can serve two masters."
+Acquaintance with Lord Tynedale will be incompatible with
+assistance from me.'  There was a kind of gratuitous menace in
+his eye as he looked at me in finishing this observation.
+
+"Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with
+an inward speculation on the differences which exist in the
+constitution of men's minds.  I do not know what inference Mr.
+Crimsworth drew from my silence--whether he considered it a
+symptom of contumacity or an evidence of my being cowed by his
+peremptory manner.  After a long and hard stare at me, he rose
+sharply from his seat.
+
+"'To-morrow,' said he, 'I shall call your attention to some
+other points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs. Crimsworth is
+probably waiting; will you come?'
+
+"He strode from the room, and I followed.  In crossing the hall,
+I wondered what Mrs. Crimsworth might be.  'Is she,' thought I,
+'as alien to what I like as Tynedale,  Seacombe, the Misses
+Seacombe--as the affectionate relative now striding before me? or
+is she better than these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel
+free to show something of my real nature; or --' Further
+conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room.
+
+"A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome
+apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by
+the fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a
+lady; she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was
+handsome and fashionable:  so much my first glance sufficed to
+ascertain.  A gay salutation passed between her and Mr.
+Crimsworth; she chid him, half playfully, half poutingly, for
+being late; her voice (I always take voices into the account in
+judging of character) was lively--it indicated, I thought, good
+animal spirits.  Mr. Crimsworth soon checked her animated
+scolding with a kiss--a kiss that still told of the bridegroom
+(they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat at the
+supper-table in first-rate spirits.  Perceiving me, she begged my
+pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me,
+as ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be
+cheerful to all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance.
+It was now further obvious to me that she had a good complexion,
+and features sufficiently marked but agreeable; her hair was red
+--quite red.  She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of
+playful contention; she was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that
+he had that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made
+light of her fears.  Sometimes she appealed to me.
+
+"'Now, Mr. William, isn't it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says
+he will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown
+him twice already.
+
+"She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish.
+I soon saw also that there was more than girlish--a somewhat
+infantine expression in her by no means small features; this lisp
+and expression were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward's eyes,
+and would be so to those:  of most men, but they were not to
+mine.  I sought her eye, desirous to read there the intelligence
+which I could not discern in her face or hear in her
+conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw
+vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I
+watched in vain for a glimpse of soul.  I am no Oriental; white
+necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not
+suffice for me without that Promethean spark which will live
+after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished hair grown
+grey.  In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well; but
+how many wet days are there in life--November seasons of
+disaster, when a man's hearth and home would be cold indeed,
+without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
+
+"Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Crimsworth's face, a deep,
+involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a
+homage to her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his
+rich and handsome young wife, threw on me a glance--half
+ridicule, half ire.
+
+"I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I
+saw two pictures set in the oak panelling--one on each side the
+mantel-piece.  Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation
+that flowed on between Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth, I bent my
+thoughts to the examination of these pictures.  They were
+portraits--a lady and a gentleman, both costumed in the fashion
+of twenty years ago.  The gentleman was in the shade.  I could
+not see him well.  The lady had the benefit of a full beam from
+the softly shaded lamp.  I presently recognised her; I had seen
+this picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the
+companion picture being the only heir-looms saved out of the sale
+of my father's property.
+
+"The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did
+not understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in
+the world, and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle
+expression.  The serious grey eye possessed for me a strong
+charm, as did certain lines in the features indicative of most
+true and tender feeling.  I was sorry it was only a picture.
+
+"I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth to themselves; a servant
+conducted me to my bed-room; in closing my chamber-door, I shut
+out all intruders--you, Charles, as well as the rest.
+
+"Good-bye for the present,
+"WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH."
+
+To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend
+received it, he had accepted a Government appointment in one of
+the colonies, and was already on his way to the scene of his
+official labours.  What has become of him since, I know not.
+
+The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to
+employ for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of
+the public at large.  My narrative is not exciting, and above
+all, not marvellous; but it may interest some individuals, who,
+having toiled in the same vocation as myself, will find in my
+experience frequent reflections of their own.  The above letter
+will serve as an introduction.  I now proceed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FINE October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had
+witnessed my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early
+up and walking in the large park-like meadow surrounding the
+house.  The autumn sun, rising over the ----shire hills,
+disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and mellow varied the
+fields from which the harvest had been lately carried; a river,
+gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat
+cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals
+along the banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost
+like slender round towers, indicated the factories which the
+trees half concealed; here and there mansions, similar to
+Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable sites on the hill-side; the
+country wore, on the whole, a cheerful, active, fertile look.
+Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from it all romance and
+seclusion.  At a distance of five miles, a valley, opening
+between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X----.
+A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality--there lay
+Edward's "Concern."
+
+I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to
+dwell on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no
+pleasurable emotion to my heart--that it stirred in me none of
+the hopes a man ought to feel, when he sees laid before him the
+scene of his life's career--I said to myself, "William, you are a
+rebel against circumstances; you are a fool, and know not what
+you want; you have chosen trade and you shall be a tradesman.
+Look!"  I continued mentally--"Look at the sooty smoke in that
+hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream,
+you cannot speculate and theorize--there you shall out and
+work!"
+
+Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house.  My brother was in
+the breakfast-room.  I met him collectedly--I could not meet him
+cheerfully; he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire--how
+much did I read in the expression of his eye as my glance
+encountered his, when I advanced to bid him good morning; how
+much that was contradictory to my nature!  He said "Good morning"
+abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather than took, a
+newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air of a
+master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with
+an underling.  It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for
+a time, or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable
+the disgust I had just been endeavouring to subdue.  I looked at
+him:  I measured his robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw
+my own reflection in the mirror over the mantel-piece; I amused
+myself with comparing the two pictures.  In face I resembled him,
+though I was not so handsome; my features were less regular; I
+had a darker eye, and a broader brow--in form I was greatly
+inferior--thinner, slighter, not so tall.  As an animal, Edward
+excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind as in
+person I must be a slave--for I must expect from him no
+lion-like generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold,
+avaricious eye, his stern, forbidding manner told me he would not
+spare.  Had I then force of mind to cope with him?  I did not
+know; I had never been tried.
+
+Mrs. Crimsworth's entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment.
+She looked well, dressed in white, her face and her attire
+shining in morning and bridal freshness.  I addressed her with
+the degree of ease her last night's careless gaiety seemed to
+warrant, but she replied with coolness and restraint:  her
+husband had tutored her; she was not to be too familiar with his
+clerk.
+
+As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Crimsworth intimated to me that
+they were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five
+minutes he should expect me to be ready to go down with him to
+X----.  I did not keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a
+rapid rate along the road. The horse he drove was the same
+vicious animal about which Mrs. Crimsworth had expressed her
+fears the night before.  Once or twice Jack seemed disposed to
+turn restive, but a vigorous and determined application of the
+whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon compelled him to
+submission, and Edward's dilated nostril expressed his triumph in
+the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the
+whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to
+damn his horse.
+
+X---- was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the
+clean streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops,
+churches, and public buildings; we left all these, and turned
+down to a region of mills and warehouses; thence we passed
+through two massive gates into a great paved yard, and we were in
+Bigben Close, and the mill was before us, vomiting soot from its
+long chimney, and quivering through its thick brick walls with
+the commotion of its iron bowels.  Workpeople were passing to and
+fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces.  Mr. Crimsworth looked
+from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all
+that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to
+the care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand,
+he bid me follow him to the counting-house.  We entered it; a
+very different place from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall--a
+place for business, with a bare, planked floor, a safe, two high
+desks and stools, and some chairs.  A person was seated at one of
+the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr. Crimsworth
+entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his  occupation
+of writing or calculating--I know not which.
+
+Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the
+fire.  I remained standing near the hearth; he said presently--
+
+"Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to
+transact with this gentleman.  Come back when you hear the bell."
+
+The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as
+he went out.  Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his
+arms, and sat a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow
+knit.  I had nothing to do but to watch him--how well his
+features were cut! what a handsome man he was! Whence, then, came
+that air of contraction--that narrow and hard aspect on his
+forehead, in all his lineaments?
+
+Turning to me he began abruptly:
+
+"You are come down to ----shire to learn to be a tradesman?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Have you made up your mind on the point?  Let me know that at
+once."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here
+vacant, if you are qualified for it.  I will take you on trial.
+What can you do?  Do you know anything besides that useless trash
+of college learning--Greek, Latin, and so forth?"
+
+"I have studied mathematics."
+
+"Stuff! I dare say you have."
+
+"I can read and write French and German."
+
+"Hum!"  He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk
+near him took out a letter, and gave it to me.
+
+"Can you read that?" he asked.
+
+It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not
+tell whether he was gratified or not--his countenance remained
+fixed.
+
+ "It is well;" he-said, after a pause, "that you are acquainted
+with something useful, something that may enable you to earn your
+board and lodging:  since you know French and German, I will take
+you as second clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the
+house.  I shall give you a good salary--90l. a year--and now," he
+continued, raising his voice, "hear once for all what I have to
+say about our relationship, and all that sort of humbug!  I must
+have no nonsense on that point; it would never suit me.  I shall
+excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother; if I find you
+stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults
+detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as
+I would any other clerk.  Ninety pounds a year are good wages,
+and I expect to have the full value of my money out of you;
+remember, too, that things are on a practical footing in my
+establishment--business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit
+me best.  Do you understand?"
+
+"Partly," I replied.  "I suppose you mean that I am to do my work
+for my wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on
+you for any help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on
+these terms I will consent to be your clerk."
+
+I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did
+not consult his face to learn his opinion:  what it was I do not
+know, nor did I then care.  After a silence of some minutes he
+recommenced:--
+
+"You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at
+Crimsworth Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig.  I wish
+you, however, to be aware that such an arrangement would be quite
+inconvenient to me.  I like to have the seat in my gig at liberty
+for any gentleman whom for business reasons I may wish to take
+down to the hall for a night or so.  You will seek out lodgings
+in X----."
+
+Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
+
+"Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X----," I answered.  "It
+would not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall."
+
+My tone was quiet.  I always speak quietly.  Yet Mr. Crimsworth's
+blue eye became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly.
+Turning to me he said bluntly--
+
+"You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till
+your quarter's salary becomes due?"
+
+"I shall get on," said I.
+
+"How do you expect to live?"  he repeated in a louder voice.
+
+"As I can, Mr. Crimsworth."
+
+"Get into debt at your peril! that's all," he answered. "For
+aught I know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits:  if
+you have, drop them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I
+will never give you a shilling extra,  whatever liabilities you
+may incur--mind that."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory."
+
+I said no more.  I did not think the time was come for much
+parley.  I had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to
+let one's temper effervesce often with such a man as Edward.  I
+said to myself, "I will place my cup under this continual
+dropping; it shall stand there still and steady; when full, it
+will run over of itself--meantime patience.  Two things are
+certain.  I am capable of performing the work Mr. Crimsworth has
+set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those wages are
+sufficient to enable me to live.  As to the fact of my brother
+assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the
+fault is his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling,
+turn me at once aside from the path I have chosen?  No; at least,
+ere I deviate, I will advance far enough to see whither my career
+tends.  As yet I am only pressing in at the entrance--a strait
+gate enough; it ought to have a good terminus."  While I thus
+reasoned, Mr. Crimsworth rang a bell; his first clerk, the
+individual dismissed previously to our conference,
+re-entered.
+
+"Mr. Steighton," said he, "show Mr. William the letters from
+Voss, Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he
+will translate them."
+
+Mr. Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once
+sly and heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the
+letters on the desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in
+rendering the English answers into German.  A sentiment of keen
+pleasure accompanied this first effort to earn my own living--a
+sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened by the presence of the
+taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some time as I wrote.  I
+thought he was trying to read my character, but I felt as secure
+against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the visor
+down-or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence
+that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek;
+he might see lines, and trace characters, but he could make
+nothing of them; my nature was not his nature, and its signs were
+to him like the words of an unknown tongue.  Ere long he turned
+away abruptly, as if baffled, and left the counting-house; he
+returned to it but twice in the course of that day; each time he
+mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water, the materials
+for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side of the
+fireplace; having glanced at my translations--he could read both
+French and German--he went out again in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually,
+diligently.  What was given me to do I had the power and the
+determination to do well.  Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for
+defects, but found none; he set Timothy Steighton, his favourite
+and head man, to watch also.  Tim was baffled; I was as exact as
+himself, and quicker.  Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to how I
+lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts with my landlady
+were always straight.  I had hired small lodgings, which I
+contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated
+savings of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been
+abhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistance, I had early
+acquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthly
+allowance with anxious care, in order to obviate the danger of
+being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to beg
+additional aid.  I remember many called me miser at the time, and
+I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to be
+misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter.  At this day I had my
+reward; I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated
+uncles one of them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note,
+which I was able to leave there,  saying that my travelling
+expenses were already provided for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim
+to find out whether my landlady had any complaint to make on the
+score of my morals; she answered that she believed I was a very
+religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I had
+any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she said,
+she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing
+equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was "a religious
+man" himself; indeed, he was "a joined Methodist," which did not
+(be it understood) prevent him from being at the same time an
+engrained rascal, and he came away much posed at hearing this
+account of my piety.  Having imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that
+gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship, and owned
+no God but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of attack
+against the equability of my temper.  He commenced a series of
+covert sneers, of which I did not at first perceive the drift,
+till my landlady happened to relate the conversation she had had
+with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to the
+counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner's
+blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of
+impenetrable indifference.  Ere long he tired of wasting his
+ammunition on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he
+only kept them quiet in his quiver.
+
+Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall;
+it was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the
+master's birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his
+clerks on similar anniversaries, and could not well pass me over;
+I was, however, kept strictly in the background.  Mrs.
+Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming in
+youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressed
+by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never spoke to me; I
+was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,
+enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in
+array against me on the opposite side of a long and large room;
+in fact, I was fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the
+shining ones from affar, and when weary of such a dazzling scene,
+turn for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern.
+Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by the
+marble mantelpiece, and about him a group of very pretty girls,
+with whom he conversed gaily--Mr. Crimsworth, thus placed,
+glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept down like some
+desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.
+
+Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced
+to some pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and
+opportunity to show that I could both feel and communicate the
+pleasure of social intercourse--that I was not, in short, a
+block, or a piece of furniture, but an acting, thinking, sentient
+man.  Many smiling faces and graceful figures glided past me, but
+the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the figures sustained by
+other hands than mine.  I turned away tantalized, left the
+dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No fibre
+of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked
+for and found my mother's picture.  I took a wax taper from a
+stand, and held it up.  I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to
+the image.  My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of
+her features and countenance--her forehead, her eyes, her
+complexion.  No regular beauty pleases egotistical human beings
+so much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves; for
+this reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments of
+their daughters' faces, where frequently their own similitude is
+found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacy
+of outline.  I was just wondering how that picture, to me so
+interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice
+close behind me pronounced the words--
+
+"Humph! there's some sense in that face."
+
+I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably
+five or six years older than I--in other respects of an
+appearance the opposite to common place; though just now, as I am
+not disposed to paint his portrait in detail, the reader must be
+content with the silhouette I have just thrown off; it was all I
+myself saw of him for the moment:  I did not investigate the
+colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either; I saw his
+stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, his
+fastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in
+number, and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed,
+for they enabled me to recognize him.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Hunsden," muttered I with a bow, and then,
+like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why?
+Simply because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner,
+and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from my
+superior.  I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, where
+he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr. Crimsworth,
+but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him a
+sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been
+the tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the
+conviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave,
+wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and eschew his
+conversation.
+
+"Where are you going?"  asked he, as I edged off sideways.  I had
+already noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of
+speech, and I perversely said to  myself--
+
+"He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood
+is not, perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom
+pleases me not at all."
+
+I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than  courteous, and
+continued to move away.  He coolly planted himself in my path.
+
+"Stay here awhile," said he:  "it is so hot in the dancing-room;
+besides, you don't dance; you have not had a partner to-night."
+
+He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner
+displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not
+addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired
+to the cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one
+to talk to, by way of temporary amusement.  I hate to be
+condescended to, but I like well enough to oblige; I stayed.
+
+"That is a good picture," he continued, recurring to the
+portrait.
+
+"Do you consider the face pretty?"  I asked.
+
+"Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow
+cheeks? but it is peculiar; it seems to think.  You could have a
+talk with that woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than
+dress, visiting, and compliments."
+
+I agreed with him, but did not say so.  He went on.
+
+"Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and
+force; there's too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it,
+curling his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there
+is Aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure; I
+hate your aristocrats."
+
+"You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read
+in a distinctive cast of form and features?"
+
+"Patrician descent be hanged!  Who doubts that your lordlings may
+have their 'distinctive cast of form and features' as much as we
+----shire tradesmen have ours? But which is the best?  Not theirs
+assuredly.  As to their women, it is a little different:  they
+cultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may by care and
+training attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point,
+just like the oriental odalisques.  Yet even this superiority is
+doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs. Edward
+Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?"
+
+I replied quietly:  "Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth,
+Mr Hunsden."
+
+"Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he
+has a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these
+advantages--if they are advantages--he did not inherit from his
+mother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who,
+MY father says, was as veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever
+put indigo in a vat yet withal the handsomest man in the three
+Ridings.  It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of your
+family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brother
+by long chalk."
+
+There was something in Mr. Hunsden's point-blank mode of speech
+which rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my
+ease.  I continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
+
+"How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother?  I
+thought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light
+of a poor clerk."
+
+"Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk?  You do
+Crimsworth's work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are,
+too."
+
+I was silent.  Hunsden's language now bordered on the
+impertinent, still his manner did not offend me in the least--it
+only piqued my curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did in
+a little while.
+
+"This world is an absurd one," said he.
+
+"Why so, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"I wonder you should ask:  you are yourself a strong proof of the
+absurdity I allude to."
+
+I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord,
+without my pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.
+
+"Is it your intention to become a tradesman?"  he inquired
+presently.
+
+"It was my serious intention three months ago."
+
+"Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a
+practical business-like face you have!"
+
+"My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden."
+
+"The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good
+can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem,
+conscientiousness, do you here?  But if you like Bigben Close,
+stay there; it's your own affair, not mine."
+
+"Perhaps I have no choice."
+
+"Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to
+me what you do or where you go; but I'm cool now--I want to dance
+again; and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the
+sofa there by her mamma; see if I don't get her for a partner in
+a jiffy!  There's Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won't I cut
+him out?"
+
+And Mr. Hunsden strode away.  I watched him through the open
+folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the
+fine girl, and led her off triumphant.  She was a tall,
+well-made, full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in
+the style of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the
+waltz with spirit; he kept at her side during the remainder of
+the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance
+that he succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable.  The
+mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs. Lupton by name)
+looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably flattered her
+inward eye.  The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful as
+Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be of
+the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and
+fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high
+lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X----,
+concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not
+one in a thousand knew his own grandfather.  Moreover the
+Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent; and report affirmed
+that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, to restore to
+pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his house.
+These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad face might
+well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of
+Hunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling
+Sarah Martha.  I, however, whose observations being less anxious,
+were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds for
+maternal self-congratulation were slight indeed; the gentleman
+appeared to me much more desirous of making, than susceptible of
+receiving an impression.  I know not what it was in Mr. Hunsden
+that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do), suggested to
+me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner.  In form and
+features he might be pronounced English, though even there one
+caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness:
+he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself
+quite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity to
+intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or
+pleasure.  Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could not
+be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled no one else
+I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated complete,
+sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an
+indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance,
+and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward
+doubt of himself, his words and actions-an energetic discontent
+at his life or his social position, his future prospects or his
+mental attainments--I know not which; perhaps after all it might
+only be a bilious caprice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the
+choice of his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will
+row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry
+out, "I am baffled!"  and submits to be floated passively back to
+land.  From the first week of my residence in X---- I felt my
+occupation irksome. The thing itself--the work of copying and
+translating business-letters--was a dry and tedious task enough,
+but had that been all, I should long have borne with the
+nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the
+double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and
+others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should
+have endured in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties;
+I should not have whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for
+liberty; I should have pent in every sigh by which my heart might
+have ventured to intimate its distress under the closeness,
+smoke, monotony and joyless tumult of Bigben Close, and its
+panting desire for freer and fresher scenes; I should have set up
+the image of Duty, the fetish of Perseverance, in my small
+bedroom at Mrs. King's lodgings, and they two should have been my
+household gods, from which my darling, my cherished-in-secret,
+Imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by
+softness or strength, have severed me.  But this was not all; the
+antipathy which had sprung up between myself and my employer
+striking deeper root and spreading denser shade daily, excluded
+me from every glimpse of the sunshine of life; and I began to
+feel like a plant growing in humid darkness out of the slimy
+walls of a well.
+
+Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward
+Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure,
+involuntary, and which was liable to be excited by every, the
+most trifling movement, look, or word of mine.  My southern
+accent annoyed him; the degree of education evinced in my
+language irritated him; my punctuality, industry, and accuracy,
+fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant
+relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a
+successful tradesman.  Had I been in anything inferior to him, he
+would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he
+knew, and, what was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock
+of silence on mental wealth in which he was no sharer.  If he
+could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying position,
+he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three
+faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as
+was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of
+these, my natural sentinels.  Day by day did his malice watch my
+tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on
+its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.
+
+I had received my first quarter's wages, and was returning to my
+lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that
+the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that
+hard-earned pittance--(I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth
+as my brother--he was a hard, grinding master; he wished to be an
+inexorable tyrant:  that was all).  Thoughts, not varied but
+strong, occupied my mind; two voices spoke within me; again and
+again they uttered the same monotonous phrases.  One said:
+"William, your life is intolerable."  The other:  "What can you
+do to alter it?"  I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night
+in January; as I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general
+view of my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my
+fire would be out; looking towards the window of my sitting-room,
+I saw no cheering red gleam.
+
+"That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual," said I, "and
+I shall see nothing but pale ashes if I go in; it is a fine
+starlight night--I will walk a little farther."
+
+It WAS a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for
+X----; there was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the
+parish church tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in
+all quarters of the sky.
+
+Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country; I had got
+into Grove-street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim
+trees at the extremity, round a suburban house, when a person
+leaning over the iron gate of one of the small gardens which
+front the neat dwelling-houses in this street, addressed me as I
+was hurrying with quick stride past.
+
+"What the deuce is the hurry?  Just so must Lot have left Sodom,
+when he expected fire to pour down upon it, out of burning brass
+clouds."
+
+I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker.  I smelt the
+fragrance, and saw the red spark of a cigar; the dusk outline of
+a man, too, bent towards me over the wicket.
+
+"You see I am meditating in the field at eventide," continued
+this shade.  "God knows it's cool work! especially as instead of
+Rebecca on a camel's hump, with bracelets on her arms and a ring
+in her nose, Fate sends me only a counting-house clerk, in a grey
+tweed wrapper."  The voice was familiar to me--its second
+utterance enabled me to seize the speaker's identity.
+
+"Mr. Hunsden! good evening."
+
+"Good evening, indeed! yes, but you would have passed me without
+recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first."
+
+"I did not know you."
+
+"A famous excuse!  You ought to have known me; I knew you, though
+you were going ahead like a steam-engine.  Are the police after
+you?"
+
+"It wouldn't be worth their while; I'm not of consequence enough
+to attract them.
+
+"Alas, poor shepherd!  Alack and well-a-day!  What a theme for
+regret, and how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the
+sound of your voice!  But since you're not running from the
+police, from whom are you running? the devil?"
+
+"On the contrary, I am going post to him."
+
+"That is well--you're just in luck:  this is Tuesday evening;
+there are scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford
+to-night; and he, or some of his, have a seat in all regularly;
+so, if you'll step in and sit half-an-hour in my bachelor's
+parlour, you may catch him as he passes without much trouble.  I
+think though you'd better let him alone to-night, he'll have so
+many customers to serve; Tuesday is his busy day in X---- and
+Dinneford; come in at all events."
+
+He swung the wicket open as he spoke.
+
+"Do you really wish me to go in?"  I asked.
+
+"As you please--I'm alone; your company for an hour or two would
+be agreeable to me; but, if you don't choose to favour me so far,
+I'll not press the point.  I hate to bore any one."
+
+It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to
+give it.  I passed through the gate, and followed him to the
+front door, which he opened; thence we traversed a passage, and
+entered his parlour; the door being shut, he pointed me to an
+arm-chair by the hearth; I sat down, and glanced round me.
+
+It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome; the bright
+grate was filled with a genuine ----shire fire, red, clear, and
+generous, no penurious South-of-England embers heaped in the
+corner of a grate.  On the table a shaded lamp diffused around a
+soft, pleasant, and equal light; the furniture was almost
+luxurious for a young bachelor, comprising a couch and two very
+easy chairs; bookshelves filled the recesses on each side of the
+mantelpiece; they were well-furnished, and arranged with perfect
+order.  The neatness of the room suited my taste; I hate
+irregular and slovenly habits.  From what I saw I concluded that
+Hunsden's ideas on that point corresponded with my own.  While he
+removed from the centre-table to the side-board a few pamphlets
+and periodicals, I ran my eye along the shelves of the book-case
+nearest me.  French and German works predominated, the old French
+dramatists, sundry modern authors, Thiers, Villemain, Paul de
+Kock, George Sand, Eugene Sue; in German--Goethe, Schiller,
+Zschokke, Jean Paul Richter; in English there were works on
+Political Economy.  I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden
+himself recalled my attention.
+
+"You shall have something," said he, "for you ought to feel
+disposed for refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on
+such a Canadian night as this; but it shall not be
+brandy-and-water, and it shall not be a bottle of port, nor ditto
+of sherry.  I keep no such poison.  I have Rhein-wein for my own
+drinking, and you may choose between that and coffee."
+
+Here again Hunsden suited me:  if there was one generally
+received practice I abhorred more than another, it was the
+habitual imbibing of spirits and strong wines.  I had, however,
+no fancy for his acid German nectar, but I liked coffee, so I
+responded--
+
+"Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden."
+
+I perceived my answer pleased him; he had doubtless expected to
+see a chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he
+would give me neither wine nor spirits; he just shot one
+searching glance at my face to ascertain whether my cordiality
+was genuine or a mere feint of politeness.  I smiled, because I
+quite understood him; and, while I honoured his conscientious
+firmness, I was amused at his mistrust; he seemed satisfied, rang
+the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently brought; for
+himself, a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something sour
+sufficed.  My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed
+the shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me.
+He did not answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark.   At
+that moment one of those momentary eclipses I before alluded to
+had come over his face, extinguishing his smile, and replacing,
+by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily shrewd,
+bantering glance of his eye.  I employed the interval of silence
+in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy.  I had never observed him
+closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered
+only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised
+now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine,
+were his lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his
+voice and general bearing, had impressed me with the notion of
+something powerful and massive; not at all:--my own features were
+cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his.  I discerned that
+there would be contrasts between his inward and outward man;
+contentions, too; for I suspected his soul had more of will and
+ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. Perhaps, in these
+incompatibilities of the "physique" with the "morale," lay the
+secret of that fitful gloom; he WOULD but COULD not, and the
+athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion.  As to
+his good looks, I should have liked to have a woman's opinion on
+that subject; it seemed to me that his face might produce the
+same effect on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though
+scarcely pretty, female face would on a man.  I have mentioned
+his dark locks--they were brushed sideways above a white and
+sufficiently expansive forehead; his cheek had a rather hectic
+freshness; his features might have done well on canvas, but
+indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character had set a
+stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and
+strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a
+morose bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more
+frequently, the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite
+countenance they made.
+
+Starting from his silent fit, he began:--
+
+"William!  what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings
+of Mrs. King's, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street,
+and have a garden like me!"
+
+"I should be too far from the mill."
+
+"What of that?  It would do you good to walk there and back two
+or three times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you
+never wish to see a flower or a green leaf?"
+
+"I am no fossil."
+
+"What are you then?  You sit at that desk in Crimsworth's
+counting-house day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen
+on paper, just like an automaton; you never get up; you never say
+you are tired; you never ask for a holiday; you never take change
+or relaxation; you give way to no excess of an evening; you
+neither keep wild company, nor indulge in strong drink."
+
+"Do you, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"Don't think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine
+are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to
+draw a parallel.  I say, that when a man endures patiently what
+ought to be unendurable, he is a fossil."
+
+"Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?"
+
+"Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery?  The other night you
+seemed surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now
+you find subject for wonderment in my calling you patient.  What
+do you think I do with my eyes and ears?  I've been in your
+counting-house more than once when Crimsworth has treated you
+like a dog; called for a book, for instance, and when you gave
+him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the wrong one,
+flung it back almost in your face; desired you to shut or open
+the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing of your
+position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither
+place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby
+hanger-on; and how patient you were under each and all of these
+circumstances!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?"
+
+"I can hardly tell you what then; the conclusion to be drawn as
+to your character depends upon the nature of the motives which
+guide your conduct; if you are patient because you expect to make
+something eventually out of Crimsworth, notwithstanding his
+tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you are what the world calls
+an interested and mercenary, but may be a very wise fellow; if
+you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with
+submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for
+my money; if you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic,
+flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of
+resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all
+means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you."
+
+Mr. Hunsden's eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the
+smooth and oily order.  As he spoke, he pleased me ill.  I seem
+to recognize in him one of those characters who, sensitive enough
+themselves, are selfishly relentless towards the sensitiveness of
+others.  Moreover, though he was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord
+Tynedale, yet he was acrid, and, I suspected, overbearing in his
+way:  there was a tone of despotism in the urgency of the very
+reproaches by which, he aimed at goading the oppressed into
+rebellion against the oppressor.  Looking at him still more
+fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a
+resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it
+might often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours.  I
+rapidly ran over these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and
+involuntary laugh, moved thereto by a slight inward revelation of
+the inconsistency of man.  It was as I thought:  Hunsden had
+expected me to take with calm his incorrect and offensive
+surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts; and himself was chafed
+by a laugh, scarce louder than a whisper.
+
+His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
+
+"Yes," he began, "I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who
+but an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such
+a look?  A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous;
+gentlemanlike irony, patrician resentment.  What a nobleman you
+would have made, William Crimsworth!  You are cut out for one;
+pity Fortune has baulked Nature!  Look at the features, figure,
+even to the hands--distinction all over--ugly distinction!
+Now, if you'd only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a
+title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of
+your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
+peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people,
+support your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade
+knee-deep in churls' blood; as it is, you've no power; you can
+do nothing; you're wrecked and stranded on the shores of
+commerce; forced into collision with practical men, with whom
+you cannot cope, for YOU'LL NEVER BE A TRADESMAN."
+
+The first part of Hunsden's speech moved me not at all, or, if it
+did, it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice
+had twisted his judgment of my character; the concluding
+sentence, however, not only moved, but shook me; the blow it gave
+was a severe one, because Truth wielded the weapon.  If I smiled
+now, it, was only in disdain of myself.
+
+Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.
+
+"You'll make nothing by trade," continued he; "nothing more than
+the crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you
+now live; your only chance of getting a competency lies in
+marrying a rich widow, or running away with an heiress."
+
+"I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise
+them," said I, rising.
+
+"And even that is hopeless," he went on coolly.  "What widow
+would have you?  Much less, what heiress?  You're not bold and
+venturesome enough for the one, nor handsome and fascinating
+enough for the other.  You think perhaps you look intelligent and
+polished; carry your intellect and refinement to market, and tell
+me in a private note what price is bid for them."
+
+Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he
+struck was out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to
+discord, of which I had enough every day and all day long, I
+concluded, at last, that silence and solitude were preferable to
+jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
+
+"What!  Are you going, lad?  Well, good-night:  you'll find the
+door."  And he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the
+room and the house.  I had got a good way on my return to my
+lodgings before I found out that I was walking very fast, and
+breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost stuck into the
+palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast; on
+making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws,
+but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
+my mind to slacken their tide.  Why did I make myself a
+tradesman?  Why did I enter Hunsden's house this evening?  Why,
+at dawn to-morrow, must I repair to Crimsworth's mill?  All that
+night did I ask myself these questions, and all that night
+fiercely demanded of my soul an answer.  I got no sleep; my head
+burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells rang, and I
+sprang from my bed with other slaves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as
+well as to every position in life.  I turned this truism over in
+my mind as, in the frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried
+down the steep and now icy street which descended from Mrs.
+King's to the Close.  The factory workpeople had preceded me by
+nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted up and in full
+operation when I reached it.  I repaired to my post in the
+counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as yet
+only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived.  I shut the door and
+sat down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in  half-frozen
+water, were still numb; I could not write till they had regained
+vitality, so I went on thinking, and still the theme of my
+thoughts was the "climax."  Self-dissatisfaction troubled
+exceedingly the current of my meditations.
+
+"Come, William Crimsworth," said my conscience, or whatever it is
+that within ourselves takes ourselves to task--"come, get a clear
+notion of what you would have, or what you would not have.  You
+talk of a climax; pray has your endurance reached its climax?  It
+is not four months old.  What a fine resolute fellow you imagined
+yourself to be when you told Tynedale you would tread in your
+father's steps, and a pretty treading you are likely to make of
+it!  How well you like X----!  Just at this moment how redolent
+of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops, its
+warehouses, its factories!  How the prospect of this day cheers
+you!  Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
+letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find
+pleasure in Brown's, nor Smith's, nor Nicholl's, nor Eccle's
+company; and as to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be
+derived from his society--he! he! how did you like the taste you
+had of him last night? was it sweet?  Yet he is a talented, an
+original-minded man, and even he does not like you; your
+self-respect defies you to like him; he has always seen you to
+disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage; your
+positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your minds
+could not; assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of
+friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant.  Hello, Crimsworth!
+where are your thoughts tending?  You leave the recollection of
+Hunsden as a bee would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your
+aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions where,
+now in advancing daylight--in X---- daylight--you dare to dream
+of congeniality, repose, union.  Those three you will never meet
+in this world; they are angels.  The souls of just men made
+perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will never be
+made perfect.  Eight o'clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get
+to work!"
+
+"Work?  why should I work?"  said I sullenly:  "I cannot please
+though I toil like a slave."  "Work, work!"  reiterated the inward
+voice.  "I may work, it will do no good," I growled; but
+nevertheless I drew out a packet of letters and commenced my
+task--task thankless and bitter as that of the Israelite crawling
+over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in search of straw and stubble
+wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
+
+About ten o'clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth's gig turn into the
+yard, and in a minute or two he entered the counting-house.  It
+was his custom to glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang
+up his mackintosh, stand a minute with his back to the fire, and
+then walk out. Today he did not deviate from his usual habits;
+the only difference was that when he looked at me, his brow,
+instead of being merely hard, was surly; his eye, instead of
+being cold, was fierce.  He studied me a minute or two longer
+than usual, but went out in silence.
+
+Twelve o'clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour;
+the workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too,
+departed, desiring me to lock the counting-house door, and take
+the key with me.  I was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting
+them in their place, preparatory to closing my desk, when
+Crimsworth reappeared at the door, and entering closed it behind
+him.
+
+"You'll stay here a minute," said he, in a deep, brutal voice,
+while his nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister
+fire.
+
+Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering
+that forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and
+careful forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
+
+"It is time to go home," I said, turning the key in my desk.
+
+"You'll stay here!"  he reiterated.  "And take your hand off that
+key!  leave it in the lock!"
+
+"Why?"  asked I. "What cause is there for changing my usual
+plans?"
+
+"Do as I order," was the answer, "and no questions! You are my
+servant, obey me!  What have you been about--?"  He was going on
+in the same breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had
+for the moment got the better of articulation.
+
+"You may look, if you wish to know," I replied.  "There is the
+open desk, there are the papers."
+
+"Confound your insolence!  What have you been about?"
+
+"Your work, and have done it well."
+
+"Hypocrite and twaddler!  Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!"
+(this last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to
+the horn of black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended
+to cart-wheels, and employed for greasing the same.)
+
+"Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this.  It is time you and I
+wound up accounts.  I have now given your service three months'
+trial, and I find it the most nauseous slavery under the sun.
+Seek another clerk.  I stay no longer."
+
+"What I do you dare to give me notice?  Stop at least for your
+wages."  He took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his
+mackintosh.
+
+I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no
+pains to temper or hide.  His fury boiled up, and when he had
+sworn half-a-dozen vulgar, impious oaths, without, however,
+venturing to lift the whip, he continued:
+
+"I've found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
+lickspittle!  What have you been saying all over X---- about me?
+answer me that!"
+
+"You?  I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about
+you."
+
+"You lie!  It is your practice to talk about me; it is your
+constant habit to make public complaint of the treatment you
+receive at my hands.  You have gone and told it far and near that
+I give you low wages and knock you about like a dog.  I wish you
+were a dog!  I'd set-to this minute, and never stir from the spot
+till I'd cut every strip of flesh from your bones with this whip."
+
+He flourished his tool.  The end of the lash just touched my
+forehead.  A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood
+seemed to give abound, and then raced fast and hot along its
+channels.  I got up nimbly, came round to where he stood, and
+faced him.
+
+"Down with your whip!"  said I, "and explain this instant what you
+mean."
+
+"Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?"
+
+"To you.  There is no one else present, I think.  You say I have
+been calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad
+treatment.  Give your grounds for these assertions."
+
+Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an
+explanation, he gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
+
+"Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may
+see your brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved
+to be a liar and a hypocrite.  At a public meeting in the
+Town-hall yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing myself
+insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the question under
+discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant about
+monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such
+trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the
+filthy mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to
+detect the quarter in which this base attack had originated. When
+I looked round, I saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as
+fugleman.  I detected you in close conversation with Hunsden at
+my house a month ago, and I know that you were at Hunsden's rooms
+last night.  Deny it if you dare."
+
+"Oh, I shall not deny it!  And if Hunsden hounded on the people
+to hiss you, he did quite right.  You deserve popular execration;
+for a worse man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you
+are has seldom existed."
+
+"Sirrah! sirrah!"  reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his
+apostrophe, he cracked the whip straight over my head.
+
+A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces,
+and throw it under the grate.  He made a headlong rush at me,
+which I evaded, and said--
+
+"Touch me, and I'll have you up before the nearest magistrate."
+
+Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate
+something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be
+brought before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I
+said.  After an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and
+amazed, he seemed to bethink himself that, after all, his money
+gave him sufficient superiority over a beggar like me, and that
+he had in his hands a surer and more dignified mode of revenge
+than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement.
+
+"Take your hat," said he.  "Take what belongs to you, and go out
+at that door; get away to your parish, you pauper:  beg, steal,
+starve, get transported, do what you like; but at your peril
+venture again into my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot
+on an inch of ground belonging to me, I'll hire a man to cane
+you."
+
+"It is not likely you'll have the chance; once off your premises,
+what temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I
+leave a tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie
+before me, so no fear of my coming back."
+
+"Go, or I'll make you!"  exclaimed Crimsworth.
+
+I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents
+as were my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk,
+and placed the key on the top.
+
+"What are you abstracting from that desk?"  demanded the
+millowner.  "Leave all behind in its place, or I'll send for a
+policeman to search you."
+
+"Look sharp about it, then," said I, and I took down my hat, drew
+on my gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house
+--walked out of it to enter it no more.
+
+I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before
+Mr. Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I
+had had rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat
+impatiently to hear the signal of feeding time.  I forgot it now,
+however; the images of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced
+from my mind by the stir and tumult which the transaction of the
+last half-hour had there excited.  I only thought of walking,
+that the action of my muscles might harmonize with the action of
+my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far.  How could I do
+otherwise?  A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and
+liberated.  I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of
+resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced
+circumstances; circumstances had freed me.  Life was again open
+to me; no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall
+surrounding Crimsworth's mill.  Two hours had elapsed before my
+sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm enough to
+remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged that
+sooty girdle.  When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay
+Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of X----. The
+short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was
+already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising from
+the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I
+had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear
+icy blue of the January sky.  There was a great stillness near
+and far; the time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people
+were all employed within-doors, the hour of evening release from
+the factories not being yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing
+water alone pervaded the air, for the river was deep and
+abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow.  I stood awhile,
+leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current:  I watched
+the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and
+permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future
+years.  Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld
+the last of that day's sun, glinting red through the leafless
+boughs of some very old oak trees surrounding the church--its
+light coloured and characterized the picture as I wished.  I
+paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound of the bell had
+quite died out of the air; then ear, eye and feeling satisfied, I
+quitted the wall and once more turned my face towards X----.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+I RE-ENTERED the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten
+recurred seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick
+step and sharp appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to
+my lodgings.  It was dark when I opened the front door and walked
+into the house.  I wondered how my fire would be; the night was
+cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a grate full of
+sparkless cinders.  To my joyful surprise, I found, on entering
+my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth.  I had hardly
+noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject
+for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was
+already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his
+chest, and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I
+am, doubtful as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment's
+examination enabled me to recognize in this person my
+acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden.  I could not of course be much pleased
+to see him,  considering the manner in which I had parted from
+him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred the
+fire, and said coolly, "Good evening," my demeanour evinced as
+little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what
+had brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had
+induced him to interfere so actively between me and Edward; it
+was to him, it appeared, that I owed my welcome dismissal; still
+I could not bring myself to ask him questions, to show any
+eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to explain, he might, but the
+explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part; I
+thought he was entering upon it.
+
+"You owe me a debt of gratitude," were his first words.
+
+"Do I?"  said I; "I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too
+poor to charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind."
+
+"Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a
+ton weight at least.  When I came in I found your fire out, and I
+had it lit again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and
+blow at it with the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now,
+say 'Thank you!'"
+
+"Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I
+am so famished."
+
+I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
+
+"Cold meat!"  exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door,
+"what a glutton you are; man!  Meat with tea! you'll die of
+eating too much."
+
+"No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not."  I felt a necessity for
+contradicting him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at
+seeing him there, and irritated at the continued roughness of his
+manner.
+
+"It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered," said he.
+
+"How do you know?"  I demanded.  "It is like you to give a
+pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the
+circumstances of the case; I have had no dinner."
+
+What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only
+replied by looking in my face and laughing.
+
+"Poor thing!"  he whined, after a pause.  "It has had no dinner,
+has it?  What!  I suppose its master would not let it come home.
+Did Crimsworth order you to fast by way of punishment, William!"
+
+"No, Mr. Hunsden.  Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was
+brought in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold
+beef directly.  Having cleared a plateful, I became so far
+humanized as to intimate to Mr. Hunsden that he need not sit
+there staring, but might come to the table and do as I did, if he
+liked."
+
+"But I don't like in the least," said he, and therewith he
+summoned the servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and
+intimated a desire to have a glass of toast-and-water. "And some
+more coal," he added; "Mr. Crimsworth shall keep a good fire
+while I stay."
+
+His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the
+table, so as to be opposite me.
+
+"Well," he proceeded.  "You are out of work, I suppose."
+
+"Yes," said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt
+on this point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the
+subject as though I considered myself aggrieved rather than
+benefited by what had been done.  "Yes--thanks to you, I am.
+Crimsworth turned me off at a minute's notice, owing to some
+interference of yours at a public meeting, I understand."
+
+"Ah!  what!  he mentioned that?  He observed me signalling the
+lads, did he?  What had he to say about his friend Hunsden
+--anything sweet?"
+
+"He called you a treacherous villain."
+
+"Oh, he hardly knows me yet!  I'm one of those shy people who
+don't come out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make
+my acquaintance, but he'll find I've some good qualities
+--excellent ones!  The Hunsdens were always unrivalled at
+tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable villain is their
+natural prey--they could not keep off him wherever they met him;
+you used the word pragmatical just now--that word is the property
+of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
+generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a
+mile off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was
+impossible for me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to
+come into weekly contact with him, to witness some of his conduct
+to you (for whom personally I care nothing; I only consider the
+brutal injustice with which he violated your natural claim to
+equality)--I say it was impossible for me to be thus situated and
+not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work within me.  I
+followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain."
+
+Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out
+Hunsden's character, and because it explained his motives; it
+interested me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat
+silent, pondering over a throng of ideas it had suggested.
+
+"Are you grateful to me?"  he asked, presently.
+
+In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked
+him at the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had
+done was not out of regard for me.  But human nature is perverse.
+Impossible to answer his blunt question in the affirmative, so I
+disclaimed all tendency to gratitude, and advised him if he
+expected any reward for his championship, to look for it in a
+better world, as he was not likely to meet with it here.  In
+reply he termed me "a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp," whereupon
+I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth.
+
+"Your bread was dirty, man!"  cried Hunsden--"dirty and
+unwholesome!  It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell
+you Crimsworth is a tyrant,--a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant
+to his clerks, and will some day be a tyrant to his wife."
+
+"Nonsense!  bread is bread, and a salary is a salary.  I've lost
+mine, and through your means."
+
+"There's sense in what you say, after all," rejoined Hunsden.  "I
+must say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so
+practical an observation as that last.  I had imagined now, from
+my previous observation of your character, that the sentimental
+delight you would have taken in your newly regained liberty
+would, for a while at least, have effaced all ideas of
+forethought and prudence.  I think better of you for looking
+steadily to the needful."
+
+"Looking steadily to the needful!  How can I do otherwise?  I
+must live, and to live I must have what you call 'the needful,'
+which I can only get by working.  I repeat it, you have taken my
+work from me."
+
+"What do you mean to do?"  pursued Hunsden coolly. "You have
+influential relations; I suppose they'll soon provide you with
+another place."
+
+"Influential relations?  Who?  I should like to know their
+names."
+
+"The Seacombes."
+
+"Stuff!  I have cut them,"
+
+Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
+
+"I have," said I, "and that definitively."
+
+"You must mean they have cut you, William."
+
+"As you please.  They offered me their patronage on condition of
+my entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the
+recompence; I withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred
+throwing myself into my elder brother's arms, from whose
+affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel intermeddling of
+a stranger--of yourself, in short."
+
+I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
+demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on
+Hunsden's lips.
+
+"Oh, I see!"  said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he
+did see right down into my heart.  Having sat a minute or two
+with his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the
+continued perusal of my countenance, he went on:
+
+"Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?"
+
+"Yes, rejection and repulsion.  Why do you ask me twice?  How can
+hands stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the
+grease of a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into
+contact with aristocratic palms?"
+
+"There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a
+complete Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost
+manner, I wonder they should disown you."
+
+"They have disowned me; so talk no more about it."
+
+"Do you regret it, William?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not, lad?"
+
+"Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
+sympathy."
+
+"I say you are one of them."
+
+"That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am
+my mother's son, but not my uncles' nephew."
+
+"Still--one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure
+and not a very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable:
+you should consider worldly interest."
+
+"Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden.  You know or may know that even had I
+desired to be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped
+with a good enough grace ever to have won their favour.  I should
+have sacrificed my own comfort and not have gained their
+patronage in return."
+
+"Very likely--so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow
+your own devices at once?"
+
+"Exactly.  I must follow my own devices--I must, till the day of
+my death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out
+those of other people."
+
+Hunsden yawned.  "Well," said he, "in all this, I see but one
+thing clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of
+mine."  He stretched himself and again yawned. "I wonder what
+time it is," he went on:  "I have an appointment for seven
+o'clock."
+
+"Three quarters past six by my watch."
+
+"Well, then I'll go." He got up.  "You'll not meddle with trade
+again?"  said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.
+
+"No; I think not."
+
+"You would be a fool if you did.  Probably, after all, you'll
+think better of your uncles' proposal and go into the Church."
+
+"A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and
+outer man before I do that.  A good clergyman is one of the best
+of men."
+
+"Indeed!  Do you think so?"  interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.
+
+"I do, and no mistake.  But I have not the peculiar points which
+go to make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession
+for which I have no vocation, I would endure extremities of
+hardship from poverty."
+
+"You're a mighty difficult customer to suit.  You won't be a
+tradesman or a parson; you can't be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a
+gentleman, because you've no money.  I'd recommend you to
+travel."
+
+"What! without money?"
+
+"You must travel in search of money, man.  You can speak French--
+with a vile English accent, no doubt--still, you can speak it.
+Go on to the Continent, and see what will turn up for you there."
+
+"God knows I should like to go!"  exclaimed I with involuntary
+ardour.
+
+"Go:  what the deuce hinders you?  You may get to Brussels, for
+instance, for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with
+economy."
+
+"Necessity would teach me if I didn't."
+
+"Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get
+there.  I know Brussels almost as well as I know X----, and I am
+sure it would suit such a one as you better than London."
+
+"But occupation, Mr. Hunsden!  I must go where occupation is to
+be had; and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or
+employment at Brussels?"
+
+"There speaks the organ of caution.  You hate to advance a step
+before you know every inch of the way. You haven't a sheet of
+paper and a pen-and-ink?"
+
+"I hope so," and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for
+I guessed what he was going to do.  He sat down, wrote a few
+lines, folded, sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to
+me.
+
+"There, Prudence, there's a pioneer to hew down the first rough
+difficulties of your path.  I know well enough, lad, you are not
+one of those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing
+how they are to get it out again, and you're right there.  A
+reckless man is my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me
+to meddle with the concerns of such a one.  Those who are
+reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their
+friends."
+
+"This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?"  said I, taking the
+epistle.
+
+"Yes.  With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding
+yourself in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you
+will regard as a degradation--so should I, for that matter.  The
+person to whom you will present it generally has two or three
+respectable places depending upon his recommendation."
+
+"That will just suit me," said I.
+
+"Well, and where's your gratitude?"  demanded Mr. Hunsden; "don't
+you know how to say 'Thank you?'"
+
+"I've fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I
+never saw, gave me eighteen years ago," was my rather irrelevant
+answer; and I further avowed myself a happy man, and professed
+that I did not envy any being in Christendom.
+
+"But your gratitude?"
+
+"I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden--to-morrow, if all be
+well:  I'll not stay a day longer in X---- than I'm obliged."
+
+"Very good--but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for
+the assistance you have received; be quick!  It is just going to
+strike seven:  I'm waiting to be thanked."
+
+"Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden:  I want a key
+there is on the corner of the mantelpiece.  I'll pack my
+portmanteau before I go to bed."
+
+The house clock struck seven.
+
+"The lad is a heathen," said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a
+sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself.  I had half an
+inclination to follow him:  I really intended to leave X---- the
+next morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity
+of bidding him good-bye.  The front door banged to.
+
+"Let him go," said I, "we shall meet again some day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium?  Haply you don't know
+the physiognomy of the country?  You have not its lineaments
+defined upon your memory, as I have them on mine?
+
+Three--nay four--pictures line the four-walled cell where are
+stored for me the records of the past.  First, Eton.  All in that
+picture is in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly
+coloured, green, dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering
+yet showery clouds; for my childhood was not all sunshine--it had
+its overcast, its cold, its stormy hours.  Second, X----, huge,
+dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds;
+no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs blighted and
+sullied--a very dreary scene.
+
+Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the
+fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or
+may not, as suits my convenience and capacity.  At any rate, for
+the present it must hang undisturbed.  Belgium! name unromantic
+and unpoetic, yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a
+sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other assemblage of
+syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce.  Belgium! I
+repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight.  It stirs my
+world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves
+unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that
+slept, are seen by me ascending from the clouds--haloed most of
+them--but while I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to
+ascertain definitely their outline, the sound which wakened them
+dies, and they sink, each and all, like a light wreath of mist,
+absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, resealed in monuments.
+Farewell, luminous phantoms!
+
+This is Belgium, reader.  Look! don't call the picture a flat or
+a dull one--it was neither flat nor dull to me when I first
+beheld it.  When I left Ostend on a mild February morning, and
+found myself on the road to Brussels, nothing could look vapid to
+me.  My sense of enjoyment possessed an edge whetted to the
+finest, untouched, keen, exquisite.  I was young; I had good
+health; pleasure and I had never met; no indulgence of hers had
+enervated or sated one faculty of my nature. Liberty I clasped in
+my arms for the first time, and the influence of her smile and
+embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.  Yes, at
+that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that
+from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sunrise;
+what if the track be strait, steep, and stony? he sees it not;
+his eyes are fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and
+gilded, and having gained it he is certain of the scene beyond.
+He knows that the sun will face him, that his chariot is even now
+coming over the eastern horizon, and that the herald breeze he
+feels on his cheek is opening for the god's career a clear, vast
+path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl and warm as flame.
+Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained by energy,
+drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot no
+hardship.  I mounted now the hill in shade; there were pebbles,
+inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the
+crimson peak above; my imagination was with the refulgent
+firmament beyond, and I thought nothing of the stones turning
+under my feet, or of the thorns scratching my face and hands.
+
+I gazed often, and always with delight, from the window of the
+diligence (these, be it remembered, were not the days of trains
+and railroads).  Well! and what did I see?  I will tell you
+faithfully.  Green, reedy swamps; fields fertile but flat,
+cultivated in patches that made them look like magnified
+kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as pollard willows,
+skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by the
+road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a
+gray, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops:  not a
+beautiful, scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the
+whole route; yet to me, all was beautiful, all was more than
+picturesque.  It continued fair so long as daylight lasted,
+though the moisture of many preceding damp days had sodden the
+whole country; as it grew dark, however, the rain recommenced,
+and it was through streaming and starless darkness my eye caught
+the first gleam of the lights of Brussels.  I saw little of the
+city but its lights that night. Having alighted from the
+diligence, a fiacre conveyed me to the Hotel de ----, where I had
+been advised by a fellow-traveller to put up; having eaten a
+traveller's supper, I retired to bed, and slept a traveller's
+sleep.
+
+Next morning I awoke from prolonged and sound repose with the
+impression that I was yet in X----, and  perceiving it to be
+broad daylight I started up, imagining that I had overslept
+myself and should be behind time at the counting-house.  The
+momentary and painful sense of restraint vanished before the
+revived and reviving consciousness of freedom, as, throwing back
+the white curtains of my bed, I looked forth into a wide, lofty
+foreign chamber;  how different from the small and dingy, though
+not uncomfortable, apartment I had occupied for a night or two at
+a respectable inn in London while waiting for the sailing of the
+packet!  Yet far be it from me to profane the memory of that
+little dingy room!  It, too, is dear to my soul; for there, as I
+lay in quiet and darkness, I first heard the great bell of St.
+Paul's telling London it was midnight, and well do I recall the
+deep, deliberate tones, so full charged with colossal phlegm and
+force.  From the small, narrow window of that room, I first saw
+THE dome, looming through a London mist.  I suppose the
+sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt
+but once; treasure them, Memory; seal them in urns, and keep them
+in safe niches!  Well--I rose.  Travellers talk of the apartments
+in foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable; I thought my
+chamber looked stately and cheerful.  It had such large windows
+--CROISEES that opened like doors, with such broad, clear panes
+of glass; such a great looking-glass stood on my dressing-table
+--such a fine mirror glittered over the mantelpiece--the painted
+floor looked so clean and glossy; when I had dressed and was
+descending the stairs, the broad marble steps almost awed me, and
+so did the lofty hall into which they conducted.  On the first
+landing I met a Flemish housemaid: she had wooden shoes, a short
+red petticoat, a printed cotton bedgown, her face was broad, her
+physiognomy eminently stupid; when I spoke to her in French, she
+answered me in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil; yet I
+thought her charming; if she was not pretty or polite, she was, I
+conceived, very picturesque; she reminded me of the female
+figures in certain Dutch paintings I had seen in other years at
+Seacombe Hall.
+
+I repaired to the public room; that, too, was very large and very
+lofty, and warmed by a stove; the floor was black, and the stove
+was black, and most of the furniture was black:  yet I never
+experienced a freer sense of exhilaration than when I sat down at
+a very long, black table (covered, however, in part by a white
+cloth), and, having ordered breakfast, began to pour out my
+coffee from a little black coffee-pot.  The stove might be
+dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it was indisputably
+very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by it talking in
+French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or comprehend
+much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the mouths
+of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
+of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears.  One of these
+gentlemen presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt
+from the fashion in which I addressed the waiter; for I would
+persist in speaking French in my execrable South-of-England
+style, though the man understood English.  The gentleman, after
+looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted me in very
+good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
+French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed
+me for the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan
+character of the capital I was in; it was my first experience of
+that skill in living languages I afterwards found to be so
+general in Brussels.
+
+I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was
+there on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to
+me, I was a free, independent traveller; but at last the things
+were removed, the two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the
+illusion ceased, reality and business came back.  I, a bondsman
+just released from the yoke, freed for one week from twenty-one
+years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume the fetters of
+dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being without a
+master when duty issued her stern mandate:  "Go forth and seek
+another service."  I never linger over a painful and necessary
+task; I never take pleasure before business, it is not in my
+nature to do so; impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the
+city, though I perceived the morning was very fine, until I had
+first presented Mr. Hunsden's letter of introduction, and got
+fairly on to the track of a new situation.  Wrenching my mind
+from liberty and delight, I seized my hat, and forced my
+reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign street.
+
+It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
+stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding
+out "Mr. Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale," for so my letter was
+addressed.  By dint of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at
+the desired door, knocked, asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
+
+Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the
+presence of an elderly gentleman--very grave, business-like, and
+respectable-looking.  I presented Mr. Hunsden's letter; he
+received me very civilly.  After a little desultory conversation
+he asked me if there was anything in which his advice or
+experience could be of use. I said, "Yes," and then proceeded to
+tell him that I was not a gentleman of fortune, travelling for
+pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who wanted employment
+of some kind, and that immediately too.  He replied that as a
+friend of Mr. Hunsden's he would be willing to assist me as well
+as he could.  After some meditation he named a place in a
+mercantile house at Liege, and another in a bookseller's shop at
+Louvain.
+
+"Clerk and shopman!"  murmured I to myself.  "No."  I shook my
+head.  I had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there
+were other occupations that would suit me better; besides I did
+not wish to leave Brussels.
+
+"I know of no place in Brussels," answered Mr. Brown, "unless
+indeed you were disposed to turn your attention to teaching.  I
+am acquainted with the director of a large establishment who is
+in want of a professor of English and Latin."
+
+I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
+
+"The very thing, sir!"  said I.
+
+"But," asked he, "do you understand French well enough to teach
+Belgian boys English?"
+
+Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative;
+having studied French under a Frenchman, I could speak the
+language intelligibly though not fluently.  I could also read it
+well, and write it decently.
+
+"Then," pursued Mr. Brown, "I think I can promise you the place,
+for Monsieur Pelet will not refuse a professor recommended by me;
+but come here again at five o'clock this afternoon, and I will
+introduce you to him."
+
+The word "professor" struck me.  "I am not a professor," said I.
+
+"Oh," returned Mr. Brown, "professor, here in Belgium, means a
+teacher, that is all."
+
+My conscience thus quieted, I thanked Mr. Brown, and, for the
+present, withdrew.  This time I stepped out into the street with
+a relieved heart; the task I had imposed on myself for that day
+was executed.  I might now take some hours of holiday.  I felt
+free to look up.  For the first time I remarked the sparkling
+clearness of the air, the deep blue of the sky, the gay clean
+aspect of the white-washed or painted houses; I saw what a fine
+street was the Rue Royale, and, walking leisurely along its broad
+pavement, I continued to survey its stately hotels, till the
+palisades, the gates, and trees of the park appearing in sight,
+offered to my eye a new attraction.  I remember, before entering
+the park, I stood awhile to contemplate the statue of General
+Belliard, and then I advanced to the top of the great staircase
+just beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back street, which I
+afterwards learnt was called the Rue d'Isabelle.  I well
+recollect that my eye rested on the green door of a rather large
+house opposite, where, on a brass plate, was inscribed,
+"Pensionnat de Demoiselles."  Pensionnat!  The word excited an
+uneasy sensation in my mind; it seemed to speak of restraint.
+Some of the demoiselles, externats no doubt, were at that moment
+issuing from the door--I looked for a pretty face amongst them,
+but their close, little French bonnets hid their features; in a
+moment they were gone.
+
+I had traversed a good deal of Brussels before five o'clock
+arrived, but punctually as that hour struck I was again in the
+Rue Royale.  Re-admitted to Mr. Brown's breakfast-room, I found
+him, as before, seated at the table, and he was not alone--a
+gentleman stood by the hearth. Two words of introduction
+designated him as my future master.  "M. Pelet, Mr. Crimsworth;
+Mr. Crimsworth, M. Pelet" a bow on each side finished the
+ceremony.  I don't know what sort of a bow I made; an ordinary
+one, I suppose, for I was in a tranquil, commonplace frame of
+mind; I felt none of the agitation which had troubled my first
+interview with Edward Crimsworth.  M. Pelet's bow was extremely
+polite, yet not theatrical, scarcely French; he and I were
+presently seated opposite to each other.  In a pleasing voice,
+low, and, out of consideration to my foreign ears, very distinct
+and deliberate, M. Pelet intimated that he had just been
+receiving from "le respectable M. Brown," an account of my
+attainments and character, which relieved him from all scruple as
+to the propriety of engaging me as professor of English and Latin
+in his establishment; nevertheless, for form's sake, he would put
+a few questions to test; my powers.  He did, and expressed in
+flattering terms his satisfaction at my answers.  The subject of
+salary next came on; it was fixed at one thousand francs per
+annum, besides board and lodging. "And in addition," suggested M.
+Pelet, "as there will be some hours in each day during which
+your services will not be required in my establishment, you may,
+in time, obtain employment in other seminaries, and thus turn
+your vacant moments to profitable account."
+
+I thought this very kind, and indeed I found afterwards that the
+terms on which M. Pelet had engaged me were really liberal for
+Brussels; instruction being extremely cheap there on account of
+the number of teachers.  It was further arranged that I should be
+installed in my new post the very next day, after which M. Pelet
+and I parted.
+
+Well, and what was he like? and what were my impressions
+concerning him?  He was a man of about forty years of age, of
+middle size, and rather emaciated figure; his face was pale, his
+cheeks were sunk, and his eyes hollow; his features were pleasing
+and regular, they had a French turn (for M. Pelet was no Fleming,
+but a Frenchman both by birth and parentage), yet the degree of
+harshness inseparable from Gallic lineaments was, in his case,
+softened by a mild blue eye, and a melancholy, almost suffering,
+expression of countenance; his physiognomy was "fine et
+spirituelle." I use two French words because they define better
+than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his
+features were imbued.  He was altogether an interesting and
+prepossessing personage.  I wondered only at the utter absence of
+all the ordinary characteristics of his profession, and almost
+feared he could not be stern and resolute enough for a
+schoolmaster. Externally at least M. Pelet presented an absolute
+contrast to my late master, Edward Crimsworth.
+
+Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I
+was a good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my
+new employer's house, and being admitted to a first view of what
+was to be the sphere of my future labours, namely the large,
+lofty, and well lighted schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous
+assemblage of pupils, boys of course, whose collective appearance
+showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, and well-disciplined
+seminary. As I traversed the classes in company with M. Pelet, a
+profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance a murmur
+or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this most
+gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly.  It was astonishing, I
+thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual.  When I
+had perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet
+turned and said to me--
+
+"Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing
+their proficiency in English?"
+
+The proposal was unexpected.  I had thought I should have been
+allowed at least 3 days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to
+commence any career by hesitation, so I just stepped to the
+professor's desk near which we stood, and faced the circle of my
+pupils.  I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and likewise to
+frame in French the sentence by which I proposed to open
+business.  I made it as short as possible:--
+
+"Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture."
+
+"Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?"  demanded a thickset, moon-faced
+young Flamand in a blouse.  The answer was fortunately easy:--
+
+"Anglais."
+
+I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this
+lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with
+the delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too
+open to the criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative
+to whom I felt already it would be necessary at once to take up
+an advantageous position, and I proceeded to employ means
+accordingly.
+
+"Commencez!"  cried I, when they had all produced their books.
+The moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards
+learnt) took the first sentence. The "livre de lecture" was the
+"Vicar of Wakefield," much used in foreign schools because it is
+supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English; it
+might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the
+words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary
+use amongst the natives of Great Britain.  My God! how he did
+snuffle, snort, and wheeze!  All he said was said in his throat
+and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but I heard him to
+the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of correction,
+whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt,
+that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred
+"Anglais."  In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in
+rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss,
+and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
+
+"Arretez!"  said I.  There was a pause, during which I regarded
+them all with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared
+at hard enough and long enough, will show symptoms of
+embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians.
+Perceiving that some of the faces before me were beginning to
+look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands, and
+ejaculated in a deep "voix de poitrine"--
+
+"Comme c'est affreux!"
+
+They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels;
+they were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the
+way I wished them to be.  Having thus taken them down a peg in
+their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their
+estimation; not a very easy thing, considering that I hardly
+dared to speak for fear of betraying my own deficiencies.
+
+"Ecoutez, messieurs!"  said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my
+accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched
+by the extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited
+his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid.  I then began at the
+very beginning of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and read, in a slow,
+distinct voice, some twenty pages, they all the while sitting
+mute and listening with fixed attention; by the time I had done
+nearly an hour had elapsed.  I then rose and said:--
+
+"C'est assez pour aujourd'hui, messieurs; demain nous
+recommencerons, et j'espere que tout ira bien."
+
+With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet
+quitted the school-room.
+
+"C'est bien! c'est tres bien!" said my principal as we entered
+his parlour.  "Je vois que monsieur a de l'adresse; cela, me
+plait, car, dans l'instruction, l'adresse fait tout autant que le
+savoir."
+
+From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my
+"chambre," as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency.
+It was a very small room, with an excessively small bed, but M.
+Pelet gave me to understand that I was to occupy it quite alone,
+which was of course a great comfort.  Yet, though so limited in
+dimensions, it had two windows.  Light not being taxed in
+Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into their houses;
+just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS, for one
+of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into the
+boys' playground.  I glanced at the other, as wondering what
+aspect it would present if disencumbered of the boards.  M. Pelet
+read, I suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:--
+
+"La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un
+pensionnat de demoiselles," said he, "et les convenances exigent
+--enfin, vous comprenez--n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
+
+"Oui, oui," was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied;
+but when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the
+first thing I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards,
+hoping to find some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and
+so get a peep at the consecrated ground.  My researches were
+vain, for the boards were well joined and strongly nailed.  It is
+astonishing how disappointed I felt.  I thought it would have
+been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with
+flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at
+their play; to have studied female character in a variety of
+phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin
+curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some
+old duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking
+at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous "pas de geant" in the
+middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a boys'
+school-house round.  Not only then, but many a time after,
+especially in moments of weariness and low spirits, did I look
+with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing board, longing to
+tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region which I
+imagined to lie beyond.  I knew a tree grew close up to the
+window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often
+heard at night the tapping of branches against the panes.  In the
+daytime, when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through
+the boards, the voices of the demoiselles in their hours of
+recreation, and, to speak the honest truth, my sentimental
+reflections were occasionally a trifle disarranged by the not
+quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen sounds, which, rising
+from the unseen paradise below, penetrated clamorously into my
+solitude.  Not to mince matters, it really seemed to me a
+doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter's girls or those
+of M. Pelet's boys were the strongest, and when it came to
+shrieking the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow.  I forgot
+to say, by-the-by, that Reuter was the name of the old lady who
+had had my window bearded up.  I say old, for such I, of course,
+concluded her to be, judging from her cautious, chaperon-like
+proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of her as young. I
+remember I was very much amused when I first heard her Christian
+name; it was Zoraide--Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter.  But the
+continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of
+names, such as we sober English never run into.  I think, indeed,
+we have too limited a list to choose from.
+
+Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me.  I, in a
+few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from
+the commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired
+as much facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my
+pupils; and as I had encountered them on a right footing at the
+very beginning, and continued tenaciously to retain the advantage
+I had early gained, they never attempted mutiny, which
+circumstance, all who are in any degree acquainted with the
+ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the relation in which
+professors and pupils too frequently stand towards each other in
+those establishments, will consider an important and uncommon
+one.  Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
+system I pursued with regard to my classes:  my experience may
+possibly be of use to others.
+
+It did not require very keen observation to detect the character
+of the youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact
+to adopt one's measures to their capacity.  Their intellectual
+faculties were generally weak, their animal propensities strong;
+thus there was at once an impotence and a kind of inert force in
+their natures; they were dull, but they were also singularly
+stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, most difficult to move.
+Such being the case, it would have been truly absurd to exact
+from them much in the way of mental exertion; having short
+memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
+recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close
+study or deep thought.  Had the abhorred effort been extorted
+from them by injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of
+the Professor, they would have resisted as obstinately, as
+clamorously, as desperate swine; and though not brave singly,
+they were relentless acting EN MASSE.
+
+I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet's establishment,
+the combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the
+dismissal of more than one English master.  It was necessary then
+to exact only the most moderate application from natures so
+little qualified to apply--to assist, in every practicable way,
+understandings so opaque and contracted--to be ever gentle,
+considerate, yielding even, to a certain point, with dispositions
+so irrationally perverse; but, having reached that culminating
+point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it, root it in
+rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a step
+--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
+gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive
+proofs of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant
+saliva and handfuls of Low Country mud.  You might smooth to the
+utmost the path of learning, remove every pebble from the track;
+but then you must finally insist with decision on the pupil
+taking your arm and allowing himself to be led quietly along the
+prepared road.  When I had brought down my lesson to the lowest
+level of my dullest pupil's capacity--when I had shown myself the
+mildest, the most tolerant of masters--a word of impertinence, a
+movement of disobedience, changed me at once into a despot.  I
+offered then but one alternative--submission and acknowledgment
+of error, or ignominious expulsion.  This system answered, and my
+influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. "The
+boy is father to the man," it is said; and so I often thought
+when looked at my boys and remembered the political history of
+their ancestors.  Pelet's school was merely an epitome of the
+Belgian nation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AND Pelet himself?  How did I continue to like him?  Oh,
+extremely well!  Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike,
+and even friendly, than his demeanour to me.  I had to endure
+from him neither cold neglect, irritating interference, nor
+pretentious assumption of superiority.  I fear, however, two
+poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment could not
+have said as much; to them the director's manner was invariably
+dry, stern, and cool.  I believe he perceived once or twice that
+I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and
+me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic
+smile--
+
+"Ce ne sont que des Flamands--allez!"
+
+And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the
+painted floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands
+certainly they were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy,
+where intellectual inferiority is marked in lines none can
+mistake; still they were men, and, in the main, honest men; and I
+could not see why their being aboriginals of the flat, dull soil
+should serve as a pretext for treating them with perpetual
+severity and contempt.  This idea, of injustice somewhat poisoned
+the pleasure I might otherwise have derived from Pelet's soft
+affable manner to myself.  Certainly it was agreeable, when the
+day's work was over, to find one's employer an intelligent and
+cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic
+and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover
+that his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of
+reality--if I did occasionally suspect the existence of flint or
+steel under an external covering of velvet--still we are none of
+us perfect; and weary as I was of the atmosphere of brutality and
+insolence in which I had constantly lived at X----, I had no
+inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer regions, to
+institute at once a prying search after defects that were
+scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was
+willing to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him
+benevolent and friendly until some untoward event should prove
+him otherwise.  He was not married, and I soon perceived he had
+all a Frenchman's, all a Parisian's notions about matrimony and
+women.  I suspected a degree of laxity in his code of morals,
+there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone whenever he
+alluded to what he called "le beau sexe;" but he was too
+gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was
+really intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of
+discourse, he and I always found enough to talk about, without
+seeking themes in the mire.  I hated his fashion of mentioning
+love; I abhorred, from my soul, mere licentiousness.  He felt the
+difference of our notions, and, by mutual consent, we kept off
+ground debateable.
+
+Pelet's house was kept and his kitchen managed by his mother, a
+real old Frenchwoman; she had been handsome--at least she told me
+so, and I strove to believe her; she was now ugly, as only
+continental old women can be; perhaps, though, her style of dress
+made her look uglier than she really was.  Indoors she would go
+about without cap, her grey hair strangely dishevelled; then,
+when at home, she seldom wore a gown--only a shabby cotton
+camisole; shoes, too, were strangers to her feet, and in lieu of
+them she sported roomy slippers, trodden down at the heels.  On
+the other hand, whenever it was her pleasure to appear abroad, as
+on Sundays and fete-days, she would put on some very
+brilliant-coloured dress, usually of thin texture, a silk bonnet
+with a wreath of flowers, and a very fine shawl.  She was not, in
+the main, an ill-natured old woman, but an incessant and most
+indiscreet talker; she kept chiefly in and about the kitchen, and
+seemed rather to avoid her son's august presence; of him, indeed,
+she evidently stood in awe.  When he reproved her, his reproofs
+were bitter and unsparing; but he seldom gave himself that
+trouble.
+
+Madame Pelet had her own society, her own circle of chosen
+visitors, whom, however, I seldom saw, as she generally
+entertained them in what she called her "cabinet," a small den of
+a place adjoining the kitchen, and descending into it by one or
+two steps.  On these steps, by-the-by, I have not unfrequently
+seen Madame Pelet seated with a trencher on her knee, engaged in
+the threefold employment of eating her dinner, gossiping with her
+favourite servant, the housemaid, and scolding her antagonist,
+the cook; she never dined, and seldom indeed took any meal with
+her son; and as to showing her face at the boys' table, that was
+quite out of the question.  These details will sound very odd in
+English ears, but Belgium is not England, and its ways are not
+our ways.
+
+Madame Pelet's habits of life, then, being taken into
+consideration, I was a good deal surprised when, one Thursday
+evening (Thursday was always a half-holiday), as I was sitting
+all alone in my apartment, correcting a huge pile of English and
+Latin exercises, a servant tapped at the door, and, on its being
+opened, presented Madame Pelet's compliments, and she would be
+happy to see me to take my "gouter" (a meal which answers to our
+English "tea") with her in the dining-room.
+
+"Plait-il?"  said I, for I thought I must have misunderstood, the
+message and invitation were so unusual; the same words were
+repeated.  I accepted, of course, and as I descended the stairs,
+I wondered what whim had entered the old lady's brain; her son
+was out--gone to pass the evening at the Salle of the Grande
+Harmonie or some other club of which he was a member.  Just as I
+laid my hand on the handle of the dining-room door, a queer idea
+glanced across my mind.
+
+"Surely she's not going to make love to me," said I. "I've heard
+of old Frenchwomen doing odd things in that line; and the gouter?
+They generally begin such affairs with eating and drinking, I
+believe."
+
+There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited
+imagination, and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I
+should no doubt have cut there and then, rushed back to my
+chamber, and bolted myself in; but whenever a danger or a horror
+is veiled with uncertainty, the primary wish of the mind is to
+ascertain first the naked truth, reserving the expedient of
+flight for the moment when its dread anticipation shall be
+realized.  I turned the door-handle, and in an instant had
+crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and stood
+in the presence of Madame Pelet.
+
+Gracious heavens!  The first view of her seemed to confirm my
+worst apprehensions.  There she sat, dressed out in a light green
+muslin gown, on her head a lace cap with flourishing red roses in
+the frill; her table was carefully spread; there were fruit,
+cakes, and coffee, with a bottle of something--I did not know
+what.  Already the cold sweat started on my brow, already I
+glanced back over my shoulder at the closed door, when, to my
+unspeakable relief, my eye, wandering mildly in the direction of
+the stove, rested upon a second figure, seated in a large
+fauteuil beside it.  This was a woman, too, and, moreover, an old
+woman, and as fat and as rubicund as Madame Pelet was meagre and
+yellow; her attire was likewise very fine, and spring flowers of
+different hues circled in a bright wreath the crown of her
+violet-coloured velvet bonnet.
+
+I had only time to make these general observations when Madame
+Pelet, coming forward with what she intended should be a graceful
+and elastic step, thus accosted me:
+
+"Monsieur is indeed most obliging to quit his books, his studies,
+at the request of an insignificant person like me--will Monsieur
+complete his kindness by allowing me to present him to my dear
+friend Madame Reuter, who resides in the neighbouring house--the
+young ladies' school."
+
+"Ah!"  thought I, "I knew she was old," and I bowed and took my
+seat.  Madame Reuter placed herself at the table opposite to me.
+
+"How do you like Belgium, Monsieur?"  asked she, in an accent of
+the broadest Bruxellois.  I could now well distinguish the
+difference between the fine and pure Parisian utterance of M.
+Pelet, for instance, and the guttural enunciation of the
+Flamands.  I answered politely, and then wondered how so coarse
+and clumsy an old woman as the one before me should be at the
+head of a ladies' seminary, which I had always heard spoken of in
+terms of high commendation.  In truth there was something to
+wonder at.  Madame Reuter looked more like a joyous, free-living
+old Flemish fermiere, or even a maitresse d'auberge, than a
+staid, grave, rigid directrice de pensionnat. In general the
+continental, or at least the Belgian old women permit themselves
+a licence of manners, speech, and aspect, such as our venerable
+granddames would recoil from as absolutely disreputable, and
+Madame Reuter's jolly face bore evidence that she was no
+exception to the rule of her country; there was a twinkle and
+leer in her left eye; her right she kept habitually half shut,
+which I thought very odd indeed.  After several vain attempts to
+comprehend the motives of these two droll old creatures for
+inviting me to join them at their gouter, I at last fairly gave
+it up, and resigning myself to inevitable mystification, I sat
+and looked first at one, then at the other, taking care meantime
+to do justice to the confitures, cakes, and coffee, with which
+they amply supplied me.  They, too, ate, and that with no
+delicate appetite, and having demolished a large portion of the
+solids, they proposed a "petit verre."  I declined.  Not so
+Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought
+rather a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near
+the stove, they drew up their chairs to that convenience, and
+invited me to do the same.  I obeyed; and being seated fairly
+between them, I was thus addressed first by Madame Pelet, then by
+Madame Reuter.
+
+"We will now speak of business," said Madame Pelet, and she went
+on to make an elaborate speech, which, being interpreted, was to
+the effect that she had asked for the pleasure of my company that
+evening in order to give her friend Madame Reuter an opportunity
+of broaching an important proposal, which might turn out greatly
+to my advantage.
+
+"Pourvu que vous soyez sage," said Madame Reuter, "et a vrai
+dire, vous en avez bien l'air.  Take one drop of the punch" (or
+ponche, as she pronounced it); "it is an agreeable and wholesome
+beverage after a full meal."
+
+I bowed, but again declined it.  She went on:
+
+"I feel," said she, after a solemn sip--"I feel profoundly the
+importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has
+entrusted me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter
+who directs the establishment in the next house?"
+
+"Ah!  I thought it was yourself, madame." Though, indeed, at that
+moment I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame
+Reuter's pensionnat.
+
+"I!  Oh, no!  I manage the house and look after the servants, as
+my friend Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more.
+Ah!  you thought I gave lessons in class--did you?"
+
+And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her
+fancy amazingly.
+
+"Madame is in the wrong to laugh," I observed; "if she does not
+give lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;"  and I
+whipped out a white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a
+French grace, past my nose, bowing at the name time.
+
+"Quel charmant jeune homme!"  murmured Madame Pelet in a low
+voice.  Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand
+and not French, only laughed again.
+
+"You are a dangerous person, I fear," said she; "if you can forge
+compliments at that rate, Zoraide will positively be afraid of
+you; but if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell
+her how well you can flatter.  Now, listen what sort of a
+proposal she makes to you.  She has heard that you are an
+excellent professor, and as she wishes to get the very beet
+masters for her school (car Zoraide fait tout comme une reine,
+c'est une veritable maitresse-femme), she has commissioned me to
+step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the
+possibility of engaging you. Zoraide is a wary general; she never
+advances without first examining well her ground I don't think
+she would be pleased if she knew I had already disclosed her
+intentions to you; she did not order me to go so far, but I
+thought there would be no harm in letting you into the secret,
+and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion.  Take care, however,
+you don't betray either of us to Zoraide--to my daughter, I mean;
+she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot understand
+that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little--"
+
+"C'est absolument comme mon fils!"  cried Madame Pelet.
+
+"All the world is so changed since our girlhood!"  rejoined the
+other:  "young people have such old heads now. But to return,
+Monsieur.  Madame Pelet will mention the subject of your giving
+lessons in my daughter's establishment to her son, and he will
+speak to you; and then to-morrow, you will step over to our
+house, and ask to see my daughter, and you will introduce the
+subject as if the first intimation of it had reached you from M.
+Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I would
+not displease Zoraide on any account.
+
+"Bien! bien!"  interrupted I--for all this chatter and
+circumlocution began to bore me very much; "I will  consult M.
+Pelet, and the thing shall be settled as you desire. Good
+evening, mesdames--I am infinitely obliged to you."
+
+"Comment! vous vous en allez deja?"  exclaimed Madame Pelet.
+
+"Prenez encore quelquechose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des
+biscuits, encore une tasse de cafe?"
+
+"Merci, merci, madame--au revoir."  And I backed at last out of
+the apartment.
+
+Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind
+the incident of the evening.  It seemed a queer affair
+altogether, and queerly managed; the two old women had made quite
+a little intricate mess of it; still I found that the uppermost
+feeling in my mind on the  subject was one of satisfaction.  In
+the first place it would be a change to give lessons in another
+seminary, and then to teach young ladies would be an occupation
+so interesting--to be admitted at all into a ladies'
+boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life.  Besides,
+thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, "I shall now at
+last see the mysterious garden:  I shall gaze both on the angels
+and their Eden."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+M. PELET could not of course object to the proposal made by
+Mdlle. Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment,
+should it offer, having formed an article of the terms on which
+he had engaged me.  It was, therefore, arranged in the course of
+next day that I should be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle.
+Reuter's establishment four afternoons in every week.
+
+When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a
+conference with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not
+had time to pay the visit before, having been all day closely
+occupied in class.  I remember very well that before quitting my
+chamber, I held a brief debate with myself as to whether I should
+change my ordinary attire for something smarter.  At last I
+concluded it would be a waste of labour.  "Doubtless," thought I,
+"she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of Madame
+Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if
+it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not
+handsome, and no dressing can make me so, therefore I'll go as I
+am."  And off I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed
+the toilet-table, surmounted by a looking-glass:  a thin
+irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square
+forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction; something
+young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady's love, no butt
+for the shafts of Cupid.
+
+I was soon at the entrance of the pensionnat, in a moment I had
+pulled the bell; in another moment the door was opened, and
+within appeared a passage paved alternately with black and white
+marble; the walls were painted in imitation of marble also; and
+at the far end opened a glass door, through which I saw shrubs
+and a grass-plat, looking pleasant in the sunshine of the mild
+spring evening-for it was now the middle of April.
+
+This, then, was my first glimpse of the garden; but I had not
+time to look long, the portress, after having answered in the
+affirmative my question as to whether her mistress was at home,
+opened the folding-doors of a room to the left, and having
+ushered me in, closed them behind me.  I found myself in a salon
+with a very well-painted, highly varnished floor; chairs and
+sofas covered with white draperies, a green porcelain stove,
+walls hung with pictures in gilt frames, a gilt pendule and other
+ornaments on the mantelpiece, a large lustre pendent from the
+centre of the ceiling, mirrors, consoles, muslin curtains, and a
+handsome centre table completed the inventory of furniture. All
+looked extremely clean and glittering, but the general effect
+would have been somewhat chilling had not a second large pair of
+folding-doors, standing wide open, and disclosing another and
+smaller salon, more snugly furnished, offered some relief to the
+eye.  This room was carpeted, and therein was a piano, a couch,
+a chiffonniere--above all, it contained a lofty window with a
+crimson curtain, which, being undrawn, afforded another glimpse
+of the garden, through the large, clear panes, round which some
+leaves of ivy, some tendrils of vine were trained.
+
+"Monsieur Creemsvort, n'est ce pas?"  said a voice behind me; and,
+starting involuntarily, I turned.  I had been so taken up with
+the contemplation of the pretty little salon that I had not
+noticed the entrance of a person into the larger room.  It was,
+however, Mdlle. Reuter who now addressed me, and stood close
+beside me; and when I had bowed with instantaneously recovered
+sang-froid--for I am not easily embarrassed--I commenced the
+conversation by remarking on the pleasant aspect of her little
+cabinet, and the advantage she had over M. Pelet in possessing a
+garden.
+
+"Yes," she said, "she often thought so;" and added, "it is my
+garden, monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I
+should probably have removed to larger and more commodious
+premises long since; but you see I could not take my garden with
+me, and I should scarcely find one so large and pleasant anywhere
+else in town."
+
+I approved her judgment.
+
+"But you have not seen it yet," said she, rising; "come to the
+window and take a better view." I followed her; she opened the
+sash, and leaning out I saw in full the enclosed demesne which
+had hitherto been to me an unknown region.  It was a long, not
+very broad strip of cultured ground, with an alley bordered by
+enormous old fruit trees down the middle; there was a sort of
+lawn, a parterre of rose-trees, some flower-borders, and, on the
+far side, a thickly planted copse of lilacs, laburnums, and
+acacias.  It looked pleasant, to me--very pleasant, so long a
+time had elapsed since I had seen a garden of any sort. But it
+was not only on Mdlle. Reuter's garden that my eyes dwelt; when
+I had taken a view of her well-trimmed beds and budding
+shrubberies, I allowed my glance to come back to herself, nor did
+I hastily withdraw it.
+
+I had thought to see a tall, meagre, yellow, conventual image in
+black, with a close white cap, bandaged under the chin like a
+nun's head-gear; whereas, there stood by me a little and roundly
+formed woman, who might indeed be older than I, but was still
+young; she could not, I thought, be more than six or seven and
+twenty; she was as fair as a fair Englishwoman; she had no cap;
+her hair was nut-brown, and she wore it in curls; pretty her
+features were not, nor very soft, nor very regular, but neither
+were they in any degree plain, and I already saw cause to deem
+them expressive.  What was their predominant cast?  Was it
+sagacity?--sense?  Yes, I thought so; but I could scarcely as yet
+be sure.  I discovered, however, that there was a certain
+serenity of eye, and freshness of complexion, most pleasing to
+behold.  The colour on her cheek was like the bloom on a good
+apple, which is as sound at the core as it is red on the rind.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter and I entered upon business.  She said she was not
+absolutely certain of the wisdom of the step she was about to
+take, because I was so young, and parents might possibly object
+to a professor like me for their daughters:  "But it is often
+well to act on one's own judgment," said she, "and to lead
+parents, rather than be led by them.  The fitness of a professor
+is not a matter of age; and, from what I have heard, and from
+what I observe myself, I would much rather trust you than M.
+Ledru, the music-master, who is a married man of near fifty."
+
+I remarked that I hoped she would find me worthy of her good
+opinion; that if I knew myself, I was incapable of betraying any
+confidence reposed in me.  "Du reste," said she, "the
+surveillance will be strictly attended to."  And then she
+proceeded to discuss the subject of terms. She was very cautious,
+quite on her guard; she did not absolutely bargain, but she
+warily sounded me to find out what my expectations might be; and
+when she could not get me to name a sum, she reasoned and
+reasoned with a fluent yet quiet circumlocution of speech, and at
+last nailed me down to five hundred francs per annum--not too
+much, but I agreed.  Before the negotiation was completed, it
+began to grow a little dusk.  I did not hasten it, for I liked
+well enough to sit and hear her talk; I was amused with the sort
+of business talent she displayed.  Edward could not have shown
+himself more practical, though he might have evinced more
+coarseness and urgency; and then she had so many reasons, so many
+explanations; and, after all, she succeeded in proving herself
+quite disinterested and even liberal.  At last she concluded, she
+could say no more, because, as I acquiesced in all things, there
+was no further ground for the exercise of her parts of speech.  I
+was obliged to rise.  I would rather have sat a little longer;
+what had I to return to but my small empty room? And my eyes had
+a pleasure in looking at Mdlle. Reuter, especially now, when the
+twilight softened her features a little, and, in the doubtful
+dusk, I could fancy her forehead as open as it was really
+elevated, her mouth touched with turns of sweetness as well as
+defined in lines of sense. When I rose to go, I held out my hand,
+on purpose, though I knew it was contrary to the etiquette of
+foreign habits; she smiled, and said--
+
+"Ah! c'est comme tous les Anglais," but gave me her hand very
+kindly.
+
+"It is the privilege of my country, Mademoiselle," said I; "and,
+remember, I shall always claim it."
+
+She laughed a little, quite good-naturedly, and with the sort of
+tranquillity obvious in all she did--a tranquillity which soothed
+and suited me singularly, at least I thought so that evening.
+Brussels seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again
+into the street, and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful,
+upward-tending career were even then opening to me, on that
+selfsame mild, still April night.  So impressionable a being is
+man, or at least such a man as I was in those days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEXT day the morning hours seemed to pass very slowly at M.
+Pelet's; I wanted the afternoon to come that I might go again to
+the neighbouring pensionnat and give my first lesson within its
+pleasant precincts; for pleasant they appeared to me.  At noon
+the hour of recreation arrived; at one o'clock we had lunch; this
+got on the time, and at last St. Gudule's deep bell, tolling
+slowly two, marked the moment for which I had been waiting.
+
+At the foot of the narrow back-stairs that descended from my
+room, I met M. Pelet.
+
+"Comme vous avez l'air rayonnant!"  said he.  "Je ne vous ai
+jamais vu aussi gai.  Que s'est-il donc passe?"
+
+"Apparemment que j'aime les changements," replied I.
+
+"Ah! je comprends--c'est cela-soyez sage seulement. Vous etes
+bien jeune--trop jeune pour le role que vous allez jouer; il faut
+prendre garde--savez-vous?"
+
+"Mais quel danger y a-t-il?"
+
+"Je n'en sais rien--ne vous laissez pas aller a de vives
+impressions--voila tout."
+
+I laughed:  a sentiment of exquisite pleasure played over my
+nerves at the thought that "vives impressions" were likely to be
+created; it was the deadness, the sameness of life's daily
+ongoings that had hitherto been my bane; my blouse-clad "eleves"
+in the boys' seminary never stirred in me any "vives impressions"
+except it might be occasionally some of anger.  I broke from M.
+Pelet, and as I strode down the passage he followed me with one
+of his laughs--a very French, rakish, mocking sound.
+
+Again I stood at the neighbouring door, and soon was re-admitted
+into the cheerful passage with its clear dove-colour imitation
+marble walls.  I followed the portress, and descending a step,
+and making a turn, I found myself in a sort of corridor; a
+side-door opened, Mdlle. Reuter's little figure, as graceful as
+it was plump, appeared.  I could now see her dress in full
+daylight; a neat, simple mousseline-laine gown fitted her compact
+round shape to perfection--delicate little collar and manchettes
+of lace, trim Parisian brodequins showed her neck, wrists, and
+feet, to complete advantage; but how grave was her face as she
+came suddenly upon me!  Solicitude and business were in her eye
+--on her forehead; she looked almost stern.  Her "Bon jour,
+monsieur," was quite polite, but so orderly, so commonplace, it
+spread directly a cool, damp towel over my "vives impressions."
+The servant turned back when her mistress appeared, and I walked
+slowly along the corridor, side by side with Mdlle. Reuter.
+
+"Monsieur will give a lesson in the first class to-day," said
+she; "dictation or reading will perhaps be the best thing to
+begin with, for those are the easiest forms of communicating
+instruction in a foreign language; and, at the first, a master
+naturally feels a little unsettled."
+
+She was quite right, as I had found from experience; it only
+remained for me to acquiesce.  We proceeded now in silence.  The
+corridor terminated in a hall, large, lofty, and square; a glass
+door on one side showed within a long narrow refectory, with
+tables, an armoire, and two lamps; it was empty; large glass
+doors, in front, opened on the playground and garden; a broad
+staircase ascended spirally on the opposite side; the remaining
+wall showed a pair of great folding-doors, now closed, and
+admitting: doubtless, to the classes.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter turned her eye laterally on me, to ascertain,
+probably, whether I was collected enough to be ushered into her
+sanctum sanctorum.  I suppose she judged me to be in a tolerable
+state of self-government, for she opened the door, and I followed
+her through.  A rustling sound of uprising greeted our entrance;
+without looking to the right or left, I walked straight up the
+lane between two sets of benches and desks, and took possession
+of the empty chair and isolated desk raised on an estrade, of one
+step high, so as to command one division; the other division
+being under the surveillance of a maitresse similarly elevated.
+At the back of the estrade, and attached to a moveable partition
+dividing this schoolroom from another beyond, was a large tableau
+of wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white
+chalk lay on my desk for the convenience of elucidating any
+grammatical or verbal obscurity which might occur in my lessons
+by writing it upon the tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the
+chalk, to enable me to efface the marks when they had served the
+purpose intended.
+
+I carefully and deliberately made these observations before
+allowing myself to take one glance at the benches before me;
+having handled the crayon, looked back at the tableau, fingered
+the sponge in order to ascertain that it was in a right state of
+moisture, I found myself cool enough to admit of looking calmly
+up and gazing deliberately round me.
+
+And first I observed that Mdlle. Reuter had already glided away,
+she was nowhere visible; a maitresse or teacher, the one who
+occupied the corresponding estrade to my own, alone remained to
+keep guard over me; she was a little in the shade, and, with my
+short sight, I could only see that she was of a thin bony figure
+and rather tallowy complexion, and that her attitude, as she sat,
+partook equally of listlessness and affectation.  More obvious,
+more prominent, shone on by the full light of the large window,
+were the occupants of the benches just before me, of whom some
+were girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women from
+eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest
+attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent
+in all; and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and
+brilliant eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound.
+I did not bear the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my
+eyes fell, and in a voice somewhat too low I murmured--
+
+"Prenez vos cahiers de dictee, mesdemoiselles."
+
+Not so had I bid the boys at Pelet's take their reading-books. A
+rustle followed, and an opening of desks; behind the lifted lids
+which momentarily screened the heads bent down to search for
+exercise-books, I heard tittering and whispers.
+
+"Eulalie, je suis prete a pamer de rire," observed one.
+
+"Comme il a rougi en parlant!"
+
+"Oui, c'est un veritable blanc-bec."
+
+"Tais-toi, Hortense--il nous ecoute."
+
+And now the lids sank and the heads reappeared; I had marked
+three, the whisperers, and I did not scruple to take a very
+steady look at them as they emerged from their temporary eclipse.
+It is astonishing what ease and courage their little phrases of
+flippancy had given me; the idea by which I had been awed was
+that the youthful beings before me, with their dark nun-like
+robes and softly braided hair, were a kind of half-angels.  The
+light titter, the giddy whisper, had already in some measure
+relieved my mind of that fond and oppressive fancy.
+
+The three I allude to were just in front, within half a yard of
+my estrade, and were among the most womanly-looking present.
+Their names I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they
+were Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline.  Eulalie was tall, and very
+finely shaped:  she was fair, and her features were those of a
+Low Country Madonna; many a "figure de Vierge" have I seen in
+Dutch pictures exactly resembling hers; there were no angles in
+her shape or in her face, all was curve and roundness--neither
+thought, sentiment, nor passion disturbed by line or flush the
+equality of her pale, clear skin; her noble bust heaved with her
+regular breathing, her eyes moved a little--by these evidences of
+life alone could I have distinguished her from some large
+handsome figure moulded in wax.  Hortense was of middle size and
+stout, her form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and
+brilliant than Eulalie's, her hair was dark brown, her complexion
+richly coloured; there were frolic and mischief in her eye:
+consistency and good sense she might possess, but none of her
+features betokened those qualities.
+
+Caroline was little, though evidently full grown; raven-black
+hair, very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a
+colourless olive complexion, clear as to the face and sallow
+about the neck, formed in her that assemblage of points whose
+union many persons regard as the perfection of beauty.  How, with
+the tintless pallor of her skin and the classic straightness of
+her lineaments, she managed to look sensual, I don't know.  I
+think her lips and eyes contrived the affair between them, and
+the result left no uncertainty on the beholder's mind.  She was
+sensual now, and in ten years' time she would be coarse--promise
+plain was written in her face of much future folly.
+
+If I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me
+with still less.  Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and
+seemed to expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to
+her majestic charms.  Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at
+the same time, while she said, with an air of impudent freedom--
+
+"Dictez-nous quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur."
+
+Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but somewhat coarse
+hair over her rolling black eyes; parting her lips, as full as
+those of a hot-blooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth
+sparkling between them, and treated me at the same time to a
+smile "de sa facon."  Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at
+the moment scarcely purer than Lucrece de Borgia.  Caroline was
+of noble family. I heard her lady-mother's character afterwards,
+and then I ceased to wonder at the precocious accomplishments of
+the daughter.  These three, I at once saw, deemed themselves the
+queens of the school, and conceived that by their splendour they
+threw all the rest into the shade.  In less than five minutes
+they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than
+five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely
+indifference, and let down a visor of impassible austerity.
+
+"Take your pens and commence writing," said I, in as dry and
+trite a voice as if I had been addressing only Jules Vanderkelkov
+and Co.
+
+The dictee now commenced.  My three belles  interrupted me
+perpetually with little silly questions and uncalled-for remarks,
+to some of which I made no answer, and to others replied very
+quietly and briefly. "Comment dit-on point et virgule en Anglais,
+monsieur?"
+
+"Semi-colon, mademoiselle."
+
+"Semi-collong?  Ah, comme c'est drole!"  (giggle.)
+
+"J'ai une si mauvaise plume--impossible d'ecrire!"
+
+"Mais, monsieur--je ne sais pas suivre--vous allez si vite."
+
+"Je n'ai rien compris, moi!"
+
+Here a general murmur arose, and the teacher, opening her lips
+for the first time, ejaculated--
+
+"Silence, mesdemoiselles!"
+
+No silence followed--on the contrary, the three ladies in front
+began to talk more loudly.
+
+"C'est si difficile, l'Anglais!"
+
+"Je deteste la dictee."
+
+"Quel ennui d'ecrire quelquechose que l'on ne comprend pas!"
+
+Some of those behind laughed:  a degree of confusion began to
+pervade the class; it was necessary to take prompt measures.
+
+"Donnez-moi votre cahier," said I to Eulalie in an abrupt tone;
+and bending over, I took it before she had time to give it.
+
+"Et vous, mademoiselle-donnez-moi le votre,"  continued I, more
+mildly, addressing a little pale, plain looking girl who sat in
+the first row of the other division, and whom I had remarked as
+being at once the ugliest and the most attentive in the room; she
+rose up, walked over to me, and delivered her book with a grave,
+modest curtsey.  I glanced over the two dictations; Eulalie's was
+slurred, blotted, and full of silly mistakes--Sylvie's (such was
+the name of the ugly little girl) was clearly written, it
+contained no error against sense, and but few faults of
+orthography.  I coolly read aloud both exercises, marking the
+faults--then I looked at Eulalie:
+
+"C'est honteux!"  said I, and I deliberately tore her dictation
+in four parts, and presented her with the fragments.  I returned
+Sylvie her book with a smile, saying--
+
+"C'est bien--je suis content de vous."
+
+Sylvie looked calmly pleased, Eulalie swelled like an incensed
+turkey, but the mutiny was quelled:  the conceited coquetry and
+futile flirtation of the first bench were exchanged for a
+taciturn sullenness, much more convenient to me, and the rest of
+my lesson passed without interruption.
+
+A bell clanging out in the yard announced the moment for the
+cessation of school labours.  I heard our own bell at the same
+time, and that of a certain public college immediately after.
+Order dissolved instantly; up started every pupil, I hastened to
+seize my hat, bow to the maitresse, and quit the room before the
+tide of externats should pour from the inner class, where I knew
+near a hundred were prisoned, and whose rising tumult I already
+heard.
+
+I had scarcely crossed the hall and gained the corridor, when
+Mdlle. Reuter came again upon me.
+
+"Step in here a moment," said she, and she held open the door of
+the side room from whence she had issued on my arrival; it was a
+SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire
+vitree, filled with glass and china, which formed part of its
+furniture.  Ere she had closed the door on me and herself, the
+corridor was already filled with day-pupils, tearing down their
+cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from the wooden pegs on which they
+were suspended; the shrill voice of a maitresse was heard at
+intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some sort of order;
+vainly, I say:  discipline there was none in these rough ranks,
+and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in
+Brussels.
+
+"Well, you have given your first lesson," began Mdlle. Reuter in
+the most calm, equable voice, as though quite unconscious of the
+chaos from which we were separated only by a single wall.
+
+"Were you satisfied with your pupils, or did any circumstance in
+their conduct give you cause for complaint? Conceal nothing from
+me, repose in me entire confidence."
+
+Happily, I felt in myself complete power to manage my pupils
+without aid; the enchantment, the golden haze which had dazzled
+my perspicuity at first, had been a good deal dissipated.  I
+cannot say I was chagrined or downcast by the contrast which the
+reality of a pensionnat de demoiselles presented to my vague
+ideal of the same community; I was only enlightened and amused;
+consequently, I felt in no disposition to complain to Mdlle.
+Reuter, and I received her considerate invitation to confidence
+with a smile.
+
+"A thousand thanks, mademoiselle, all has gone very smoothly."
+
+She looked more than doubtful.
+
+"Et les trois demoiselles du premier banc?"  said she.
+
+"Ah! tout va au mieux!"  was my answer, and Mdlle. Reuter ceased
+to question me; but her eye--not large, not brilliant, not
+melting, or kindling, but astute, penetrating, practical, showed
+she was even with me; it let out a momentary gleam, which said
+plainly, "Be as close as you like, I am not dependent on your
+candour; what you would conceal I already know."
+
+By a transition so quiet as to be scarcely perceptible, the
+directress's manner changed; the anxious business-air passed from
+her face, and she began chatting about the weather and the town,
+and asking in neighbourly wise after M. and Madame Pelet.  I
+answered all her little questions; she prolonged her talk, I went
+on following its many little windings; she sat so long, said so
+much, varied so often the topics of discourse, that it was not
+difficult to perceive she had a particular aim in thus detaining
+me.  Her mere words could have afforded no clue to this aim, but
+her countenance aided; while her lips uttered only affable
+commonplaces, her eyes reverted continually to my face. Her
+glances were not given in full, but out of the corners, so
+quietly, so stealthily, yet I think I lost not one.  I watched
+her as keenly as she watched me; I perceived soon that she was
+feeling after my real character; she was searching for salient
+points, and weak; points, and eccentric points; she was applying
+now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some chink,
+some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand
+upon my neck--mistress of my nature, Do not mistake me, reader,
+it was no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it
+was only the power of the politician to which she aspired; I was
+now installed as a professor in her establishment, and she wanted
+to know where her mind was superior to mine--by what feeling or
+opinion she could lead me.
+
+I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion;
+sometimes I gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly,
+when her shrewd eye would light up--she thought she had me;
+having led her a little way, I delighted to turn round and finish
+with sound, hard sense, whereat her countenance would fall.  At
+last a servant entered to announce dinner; the conflict being
+thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having gained any
+advantage on either side:  Mdlle. Reuter had not even given me an
+opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to
+baffle her little schemes of craft.  It was a regular drawn
+battle.  I again held out my hand when I left the room, she gave
+me hers; it was a small and white hand, but how cool!  I met her
+eye too in full--obliging her to give me a straightforward look;
+this last test went against me:  it left her as it found her
+--moderate, temperate, tranquil; me it disappointed.
+
+"I am growing wiser," thought I, as I walked back to M. Pelet's.
+"Look at this little woman; is she like the women of novelists
+and romancers?  To read of female character as depicted in Poetry
+and Fiction, one would think it was made up of sentiment, either
+for good or bad--here is a specimen, and a most sensible and
+respectable specimen, too, whose staple ingredient is abstract
+reason. No Talleyrand was ever more passionless than Zoraide
+Reuter!"  So I thought then; I found afterwards that blunt
+susceptibilities are very consistent with strong propensities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER  XI.
+
+I HAD indeed had a very long talk with the crafty little
+politician, and on regaining my quarters, I found that dinner was
+half over.  To be late at meals was against a standing rule of
+the establishment, and had it been one of the Flemish ushers who
+thus entered after the removal of the soup and the commencement
+of the first course, M. Pelet would probably have greeted him
+with a public rebuke, and would certainly have mulcted him both
+of soup and fish; as it was, that polite though partial gentleman
+only shook his head, and as I took my place, unrolled my napkin,
+and said my heretical grace to myself, he civilly despatched a
+servant to the kitchen, to bring me a plate of "puree aux
+carottes" (for this was a maigre-day), and before sending away
+the first course, reserved for me a portion of the stock-fish of
+which it consisted.  Dinner being over, the boys rushed out for
+their evening play; Kint and Vandam (the two ushers) of course
+followed them.  Poor fellows! if they had not looked so very
+heavy, so very soulless, so very indifferent to all things in
+heaven above or in the earth beneath, I could have pitied them
+greatly for the obligation they were under to trail after those
+rough lads everywhere and at all times; even as it was, I felt
+disposed to scout myself as a privileged prig when I turned to
+ascend to my chamber, sure to find there, if not enjoyment, at
+least liberty; but this evening (as had often happened before) I
+was to be still farther distinguished.
+
+"Eh bien, mauvais sujet!"  said the voice of M. Pelet behind me,
+as I set my foot on the first step of the stair, "ou allez-vous?
+Venez a la salle-a-manger, que je vous gronde un peu."
+
+"I beg pardon, monsieur," said I, as I followed him to his
+private sitting-room, "for having returned so late--it was not
+my fault."
+
+"That is just what I want to know," rejoined M. Pelet, as he
+ushered me into the comfortable parlour with a good wood-fire
+--for the stove had now been removed for the season.  Having rung
+the bell he ordered "Coffee for two," and presently he and I
+were seated, almost in English comfort, one on each side of the
+hearth, a little round table between us, with a coffee-pot, a
+sugar-basin, and two large white china cups.  While M. Pelet
+employed himself in choosing a cigar from a box, my thoughts
+reverted to the two outcast ushers, whose voices I could hear
+even now crying hoarsely for order in the playground.
+
+"C'est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance," observed
+I.
+
+"Plait-il?"  dit M. Pelet.
+
+I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must
+sometimes be a little fatigued with their labours.
+
+"Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme," murmured scornfully
+the director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
+
+"Servez-vous mon garcon," said he blandly, when I had put a
+couple of huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup.  "And now
+tell me why you stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter's.  I know that
+lessons conclude, in her establishment as in mine, at four
+o'clock, and when you returned it was past five."
+
+"Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur."
+
+"Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask."
+
+"Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur."
+
+"A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the
+schoolroom, before the pupils?"
+
+"No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour."
+
+"And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother's gossip, was
+there, of course?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with
+mademoiselle."
+
+"C'est joli--cela," observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked
+into the fire.
+
+"Honi soit qui mal y pense," murmured I, significantly.
+
+"Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous."
+
+"In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out
+what was mademoiselle's reason for making me sit before her sofa
+one mortal hour, listening to the most copious and fluent
+dissertation on the merest frivolities."
+
+"She was sounding your character."
+
+"I thought so, monsieur."
+
+"Did she find out your weak point?"
+
+"What is my weak point?"
+
+"Why, the sentimental.  Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough,
+will at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy
+breast, Crimsworth."
+
+I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
+
+"Some women might, monsieur."
+
+"Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number?  Come, speak frankly, mon fils;
+elle est encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste
+asset pour unir la tendresse d'une petite maman a l'amour d'une
+epouse devouee; n'est-ce pas que cela t'irait superieurement?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half
+my mother."
+
+"She is then a little too old for you?"
+
+"No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other
+things."
+
+"In what does she not suit you, William?  She is personally
+agreeable, is she not?"
+
+"Very; her hair and complexion are just what I admire; and her
+turn of form, though quite Belgian, is full of grace."
+
+"Bravo! and her face? her features?  How do you like them?"
+
+"A little harsh, especially her mouth."
+
+"Ah, yes! her mouth," said M. Pelet, and he chuckled inwardly.
+"There is character about her mouth--firmness--but she has a very
+pleasant smile; don't you think so?"
+
+"Rather crafty."
+
+"True, but that expression of craft is owing to her eyebrows;
+have you remarked her eyebrows?"
+
+I answered that I had not.
+
+"You have not seen her looking down then?"  said he.
+
+"No."
+
+"It is a treat, notwithstanding.  Observe her when she has some
+knitting, or some other woman's work in hand, and sits the image
+of peace, calmly intent on her needles and her silk, some
+discussion meantime going on around her, in the course of which
+peculiarities of character are being developed, or important
+interests canvassed; she takes no part in it; her humble,
+feminine mind is wholly with her knitting; none of her features
+move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown
+disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their
+unpretending task; if she can only get this purse finished, or
+this bonnet-grec  completed, it is enough for her.  If gentlemen
+approach her chair, a deeper quiescence, a meeker modesty settles
+on her features, and clothes her general mien; observe then her
+eyebrows, et dites-moi s'il n'y a pas du chat dans l'un et du
+renard dans l'autre."
+
+"I will take careful notice the first opportunity," said I.
+
+"And then," continued M. Pelet, "the eyelid will flicker, the
+light-coloured lashes be lifted a second, and a blue eye,
+glancing out from under the screen, will take its brief, sly,
+searching survey, and retreat again."
+
+I smiled, and so did Pelet, and after a few minutes' silence, I
+asked:
+
+"Will she ever marry, do you think?"
+
+"Marry!  Will birds pair?  Of course it is both her intention and
+resolution to marry when she finds a suitable match, and no one
+is better aware than herself of the sort of impression she is
+capable of producing; no one likes better to captivate in a quiet
+way.  I am mistaken if she will not yet leave the print of her
+stealing steps on thy heart, Crimsworth."
+
+"Of her steps?  Confound it, no!  My heart is not a plank to be
+walked on."
+
+"But the soft touch of a patte de velours will do it no harm."
+
+"She offers me no patte de velours; she is all form and reserve
+with me."
+
+"That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the
+first floor, love the superstructure; Mdlle. Reuter is a skilful
+architect."
+
+"And interest, M. Pelet--interest.  Will not mademoiselle
+consider that point?"
+
+"Yes, yes, no doubt; it will be the cement between every stone.
+And now we have discussed the directress, what of the pupils?
+N'y-a-t-il pas de belles etudes parmi ces jeunes tetes?"
+
+"Studies of character?  Yes; curious ones, at least, I imagine;
+but one cannot divine much from a first interview."
+
+"Ah, you affect discretion; but tell me now, were you not a
+little abashed before these blooming young creatures?
+
+"At first, yes; but I rallied and got through with all due
+sang-froid."
+
+"I don't believe you."
+
+"It is true, notwithstanding.  At first I thought them angels,
+but they did not leave me long under that delusion; three of the
+eldest and handsomest undertook the task of setting me right, and
+they managed so cleverly that in five minutes I knew them, at
+least, for what they were--three arrant coquettes."
+
+"Je les connais!"   exclaimed M. Pelet.  "Elles sont toujours au
+premier rang a l'eglise et a la promenade; une blonde superbe,
+une jolie espiegle, une belle brune."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Lovely creatures all of them--heads for artists; what a group
+they would make, taken together! Eulalie (I know their names),
+with her smooth braided hair and calm ivory brow.  Hortense, with
+her rich chesnut locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted,
+as if she did not know how to dispose of all their abundance,
+with her vermilion lips, damask cheek, and roguish laughing eye.
+And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is beauty! beauty in
+perfection.  What a cloud of sable curls about the face of a
+houri!  What fascinating lips!  What glorious black eyes!  Your
+Byron would have worshipped her, and you--you cold, frigid
+islander!--you played the austere, the insensible in the presence
+of an Aphrodite so exquisite?"
+
+I might have laughed at the director's enthusiasm had I believed
+it real, but there was something in his tone which indicated
+got-up raptures.  I felt he was only affecting fervour in order
+to put me off my guard, to induce me to come out in return, so I
+scarcely even smiled.  He went on:
+
+"Confess, William, do not the mere good looks of Zoraide Reuter
+appear dowdyish and commonplace compared with the splendid charms
+of some of her pupils?"
+
+The question discomposed me, but I now felt plainly that my
+principal was endeavouring (for reasons best known to himself--at
+that time I could not fathom them) to excite ideas and wishes in
+my mind alien to what was right and honourable.  The iniquity of
+the instigation proved its antidote, and when he further added:--
+
+"Each of those three beautiful girls will have a handsome
+fortune; and with a little address, a gentlemanlike, intelligent
+young fellow like you might make himself master of the hand,
+heart, and purse of any one of the trio."
+
+I replied by a look and an interrogative "Monsieur?"  which
+startled him.
+
+He laughed a forced laugh, affirmed that he had only been joking,
+and demanded whether I could possibly have thought him in
+earnest.  Just then the bell rang; the play-hour was over; it was
+an evening on which M. Pelet was accustomed to read passages from
+the drama and the belles lettres to his pupils.  He did not wait
+for my answer, but rising, left the room, humming as he went some
+gay strain of Beranger's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle.
+Reuter, did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the
+real.  What had I known of female character previously to my
+arrival at Brussels?  Precious little.  And what was my notion of
+it?  Something vague, slight, gauzy, glittering; now when I came
+in contact with it I found it to be a palpable substance enough;
+very hard too sometimes, and often heavy; there was metal in it,
+both lead and iron.
+
+Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human
+flowers, just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a
+sketch or two, pencilled after nature.  I took these sketches in
+the second-class schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter's establishment,
+where about a hundred specimens of the genus "jeune fille"
+collected together, offered a fertile variety of subject.  A
+miscellaneous assortment they were, differing both in caste and
+country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced over the long range
+of desks, I had under my eye French, English, Belgians,
+Austrians, and Prussians.  The majority belonged to the class
+bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the
+daughters of two generals and of several colonels, captains, and
+government EMPLOYES; these ladies sat side by side with young
+females destined to be demoiselles de magasins, and with some
+Flamandes, genuine aborigines of the country.  In dress all were
+nearly similar, and in manners there was small difference;
+exceptions there were to the general rule, but the majority gave
+the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
+boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance
+towards each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each
+individual of her own interest and convenience; and a coarse
+indifference to the interest and convenience of every one else.
+Most of them could lie with audacity when it appeared
+advantageous to do so.  All understood the art of speaking fair
+when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate skill
+and at a moment's notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
+civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling
+ever took place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were
+universal.  Close friendships were forbidden by the rules of the
+school, and no one girl seemed to cultivate more regard for
+another than was just necessary to secure a companion when
+solitude would have been irksome.  They were each and all
+supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
+The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
+innumerable.  How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls
+having attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face
+with modesty and propriety?  An air of bold, impudent flirtation,
+or a loose, silly leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary
+glance from a masculine eye.  I know nothing of the arcana of the
+Roman Catholic religion, and I am not a bigot in matters of
+theology, but I suspect the root of this precocious impurity, so
+obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to be found in the
+discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.  I record
+what I have seen:  these girls belonged to what are called the
+respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought
+up, yet was the mass of them mentally depraved.  So much for the
+general view:  now for one or two selected specimens.
+
+The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German
+fraulein, or rather a half-breed between German and Russian.  She
+is eighteen years of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish
+her education; she is of middle size, stiffly made, body long,
+legs short, bust much developed but not compactly moulded, waist
+disproportionately compressed by an inhumanly braced corset,
+dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured into small
+bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and gummed
+to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
+grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather
+high-cheek bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably
+good complexion.  So much for person.  As to mind, deplorably
+ignorant and ill-informed: incapable of writing or speaking
+correctly even German, her native tongue, a dunce in French, and
+her attempts at learning English a mere farce, yet she has been
+at school twelve years; but as she invariably gets her exercises,
+of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and reads her
+lessons off a book; concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
+that her progress has been so snail-like.  I do not know what
+Aurelia's daily habits of life are, because I have not the
+opportunity of observing her at all times; but from what I see of
+the state of her desk, books, and papers, I should say she is
+slovenly and even dirty; her outward dress, as I have said, is
+well attended to, but in passing behind her bench, I have
+remarked that her neck is gray for want of washing, and her hair,
+so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as one feels tempted
+to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers through.
+Aurelia's conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
+something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish
+innocence. The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next
+neighbour and indulges in a half-suppressed laugh.  As I take my
+seat on the estrade, she fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved
+to attract, and, if possible, monopolize my notice: to this end
+she launches at me all sorts of looks, languishing, provoking,
+leering, laughing.  As I am found quite proof against this sort
+of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly offered
+--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
+she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate
+sounds, for which language has no name.  If, in walking up the
+schoolroom, I pass near her, she puts out her foot that it may
+touch mine; if I do not happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my
+boot comes in contact with her brodequin, she affects to fall
+into convulsions of suppressed laughter; if I notice the snare
+and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in sullen
+muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
+with an intolerable Low German accent.
+
+Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele
+Dronsart:  this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form
+heavy, with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white
+complexion, features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of
+a clear brown colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much
+above fifteen, but as full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of
+twenty.  This portrait gives the idea of a somewhat dumpy but
+good-looking damsel, does it not?  Well, when I looked along the
+row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at this of Adele's;
+her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently succeeded
+in arresting it.  She was an unnatural-looking being--so young,
+fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like.  Suspicion, sullen
+ill-temper were on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye,
+envy and panther-like deceit about her mouth.  In general she sat
+very still; her massive shape looked as if it could not bend
+much, nor did her large head--so broad at the base, so narrow
+towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her short neck.
+She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one a
+forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most
+pernicious and perfidious smile.  She was shunned by her
+fellow-pupils, for, bad as many of them were, few were as bad as
+she.
+
+Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class;
+the second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna
+Trista.  This girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her
+Flemish mother was dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant
+residing in the ---- Isles, where Juanna had been born and whence
+she was sent to Europe to be educated.  I wonder that any one,
+looking at that girl's head and countenance, would have received
+her under their roof.  She had precisely the same shape of skull
+as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs of benevolence,
+veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were singularly
+small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness,
+combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the
+penthouse shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent
+behind; she had rather good, though large and marked features;
+her temperament was fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and
+dark, hair and eyes black, form angular and rigid but
+proportionate, age fifteen.
+
+Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her
+"regard" was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it
+presented space enough for the legible graving of two words,
+Mutiny and Hate; in some one of her other lineaments I think the
+eye--cowardice had also its distinct cipher.  Mdlle. Trista
+thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a coarse work-day
+sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like a horse,
+she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
+and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
+Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of
+person and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low
+Countries would seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as
+to induce degeneracy of the human mind and body; these, I soon
+found, were completely under her influence, and with their aid
+she got up and sustained a swinish tumult, which I was
+constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two of her tools
+to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing five
+minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom:  the
+accomplices into a large place adjoining called the grands salle;
+the principal into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and
+pocketed the key.  This judgment I executed in the presence of
+Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much aghast at beholding so decided a
+proceeding--the most severe that had ever been ventured on in her
+establishment.  Her look of affright I answered with one of
+composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps flattered, and
+certainly soothed her.  Juanna Trista remained in Europe long
+enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
+done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the
+---- Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have
+slaves, whom, as she said, she could kick and strike at will.
+
+These three pictures are from the life.  I possess others, as
+marked and as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the
+exhibition of them.
+
+Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of
+contrast, to show something charming; some gentle virgin head,
+circled with a halo, some sweet personification of innocence,
+clasping the dove of peace to her bosom.  No:  I saw nothing of
+the sort, and therefore cannot portray it. The pupil in the
+school possessing the happiest disposition was a young girl from
+the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently benevolent and
+obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered; moreover, the
+plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
+principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their
+names.  The least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie
+I have mentioned once before.  Sylvie was gentle in manners,
+intelligent in mind; she was even sincere, as far as her religion
+would permit her to be so, but her physical organization was
+defective; weak health stunted her growth and chilled her
+spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister, her
+whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame,
+trained subjection of her manner, one read that she had already
+prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up her
+independence of thought and action into the hands of some
+despotic confessor.  She permitted herself no original opinion,
+no preference of companion or employment; in everything she was
+guided by another.  With a pale, passive, automaton air, she went
+about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she liked,
+or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do.  The
+poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the
+dictates of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to
+the will of her spiritual director.  She was the model pupil of
+Mdlle. Reuter's establishment; pale, blighted image, where life
+lingered feebly, but whence the soul had been conjured by Romish
+wizard-craft!
+
+A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might
+be divided into two classes.  1st. The continental English--the
+daughters chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour
+had driven from their own country.  These poor girls had never
+known the advantages of settled homes, decorous example, or
+honest Protestant education; resident a few months now in one
+Catholic school, now in another, as their parents wandered from
+land to land--from France to Germany, from Germany to Belgium
+--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad habits,
+losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
+morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment
+that can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an
+habitual look of sullen dejection, the result of crushed
+self-respect and constant browbeating from their Popish
+fellow-pupils, who hated them as English, and scorned them as
+heretics.
+
+The second class were British English.  Of these I did not
+encounter half a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at
+the seminary; their characteristics were clean but careless
+dress, ill-arranged hair (compared with the tight and trim
+foreigners), erect carriage, flexible figures, white and taper
+hands, features more irregular, but also more intellectual than
+those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, a general
+air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
+alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the
+PROTEGEE of Jesuistry:  proud, too, was the aspect of these
+British girls; at once envied and ridiculed by their continental
+associates, they warded off insult with austere civility, and met
+hate with mute disdain; they eschewed company-keeping, and in the
+midst of numbers seemed to dwell isolated.
+
+The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in
+number, all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and
+Suzette; the two last were commonplace personages enough; their
+look was ordinary, their manner was ordinary, their temper was
+ordinary, their thoughts, feelings, and views were all ordinary
+--were I to write a chapter on the subject I could not elucidate
+it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more distinguished in
+appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette, but in
+character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
+dry-hearted.  A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to
+come daily to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or
+some such flimsy art; but of her I never had more than a passing
+glimpse, as she sat in the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen
+of the elder pupils about her, consequently I had no opportunity
+of studying her character, or even of observing her person much;
+the latter, I remarked, had a very English air for a maitresse,
+otherwise it was not striking; of character I should think; she
+possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly "en
+revolte" against her authority.  She did not reside in the house;
+her name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
+
+Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and
+defective, much that was vicious and repulsive (by that last
+epithet many would have described the two or three stiff, silent,
+decently behaved, ill-dressed British girls), the sensible,
+sagacious, affable directress shone like a steady star over a
+marsh full of Jack-o'-lanthorns; profoundly aware of her
+superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
+which sustained her under all the care and responsibility
+inseparable from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow
+smooth, her manner tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on
+entering the school-room, to feel that her sole presence sufficed
+to diffuse that order and quiet which all the remonstrances, and
+even commands, of her underlings frequently failed to enforce;
+she liked to stand in comparison, or rather--contrast, with those
+who surrounded her, and to know that in personal as well as
+mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed palm of
+preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
+managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on
+herself the office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to
+her subalterns every invidious task of blame and punishment, that
+they all regarded her with deference, if not with affection; her
+teachers did not love her, but they submitted because they were
+her inferiors in everything; the various masters who attended her
+school were each and all in some way or other under her
+influence; over one she had acquired power by her skilful
+management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
+to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a
+fourth--a timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere
+decision of mien; me, she still watched, still tried by the most
+ingenious tests--she roved round me, baffled, yet persevering; I
+believe she thought I was like a smooth and bare precipice, which
+offered neither jutting stone nor tree-root, nor tuft of grass to
+aid the climber.  Now she flattered with exquisite tact, now she
+moralized, now she tried how far I was accessible to mercenary
+motives, then she disported on the brink of affection--knowing
+that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked excellent
+sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment. I
+found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it
+was sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to
+smile in her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her
+scarcely veiled, though mute mortification.  Still she
+persevered, and at last, I am bound to confess it, her finger,
+essaying, proving every atom of the casket, touched its secret
+spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she laid her hand
+on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or whether
+the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
+shall know.
+
+It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was
+indisposed; I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours' incessant
+talking left me very hoarse and tired; as I quitted the
+schoolroom, and was passing along the corridor, I met Mdlle.
+Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that I looked very
+pale and tired.  "Yes," I said, "I was fatigued;" and then, with
+increased interest, she rejoined, "You shall not go away till you
+have had some refreshment."  She persuaded me to step into the
+parlour, and was very kind and gentle while I stayed.  The next
+day she was kinder still; she came herself into the class to see
+that the windows were closed, and that there was no draught; she
+exhorted me with friendly earnestness not to over-exert myself;
+when I went away, she gave me her hand unasked, and I could not
+but mark, by a respectful and gentle pressure, that I was
+sensible of the favour, and grateful for it.  My modest
+demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance; I
+thought her almost charming.  During the remainder of the
+evening, my mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the
+next day to arrive, that I might see her again.
+
+I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole
+of my subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with
+affection.  At four o'clock she accompanied me out of the
+schoolroom, asking with solicitude after my health, then scolding
+me sweetly because I spoke too loud and gave myself too much
+trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into the garden,
+to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a very
+fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I
+looked at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy.  The
+day-scholars began to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
+
+"Will you go into the garden a minute or two," asked she, "till
+they are gone?"
+
+I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as
+much as to say--
+
+"You will come with me?"
+
+In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side
+down the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms
+were then in full blow as well as their tender green leaves.  The
+sky was blue, the air still, the May afternoon was full of
+brightness and fragrance.  Released from the stifling class,
+surrounded with flowers and foliage, with a pleasing, smiling,
+affable woman at my side--how did I feel?  Why, very enviably.
+It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had suggested
+of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
+boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley
+shut out the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M.
+Pelet's mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other
+houses, rising amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my
+arm to Mdlle. Reuter, and led her to a garden-chair, nestled
+under some lilacs near.  She sat down; I took my place at her
+side.  She went on talking to me with that ease which
+communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned in my
+mind that I was on the brink of falling in love.  The dinner-bell
+rang, both at her house and M. Pelet's; we were obliged to part;
+I detained her a moment as she was moving away.
+
+"I want something," said I.
+
+"What?"  asked Zoraide naively.
+
+"Only a flower."
+
+"Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like."
+
+"No--one will do-but you must gather it, and give it to me."
+
+"What a caprice!"   she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her
+tip-toes, and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it
+to me with grace.  I took it, and went away, satisfied for the
+present, and hopeful for the future.
+
+Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in
+moonlight night of summer warmth and serenity.  I remember this
+well; for, having sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs,
+and feeling weary and a little oppressed with the closeness of my
+small room, I opened the often-mentioned boarded window, whose
+boards, however, I had persuaded old Madame Pelet to have removed
+since I had filled the post of professor in the pensionnat de
+demoiselles, as, from that time, it was no longer "inconvenient"
+for me to overlook my own pupils at their sports.  I sat down in
+the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill, and leaned out:
+above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless night sky
+--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the stars
+--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep
+shade, and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from
+the closed blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the
+night was breezeless.  My window looked directly down upon a
+certain walk of Mdlle. Reuter's garden, called "l'allee
+defendue," so named because the pupils were forbidden to enter it
+on account of its proximity to the boys' school.  It was here
+that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick; this was the
+most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened the
+garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
+directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her
+as I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the
+walks and borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed
+front of the house which rose white beyond the masses of foliage.
+I wondered in what part of the building was situated her
+apartment; and a single light, shining through the persiennes of
+one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.
+
+"She watches late," thought I, "for it must be now near midnight.
+She is a fascinating little woman," I continued in voiceless
+soliloquy; "her image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know
+she is not what the world calls pretty--no matter, there is
+harmony in her aspect, and I like it; her brown hair, her blue
+eye, the freshness of her cheek, the whiteness of her neck, all
+suit my taste.  Then I respect her talent; the idea of marrying a
+doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me:  I know that a pretty
+doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but
+when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood
+laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to
+remember that I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know
+that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature
+incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I
+thought, or of sympathizing with what I felt!  "Now, Zoraide
+Reuter," thought I, "has tact, CARACTERE, judgment, discretion;
+has she heart?  What a good, simple little smile played about her
+lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs!  I have thought her
+crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may
+not much that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct
+be only the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly
+perplexing difficulties?  And as to interest, she wishes to make
+her way in the world, no doubt, and who can blame her?  Even if
+she be truly deficient in sound principle, is it not rather her
+misfortune than her fault?  She has been brought up a Catholic:
+had she been born an Englishwoman, and reared a Protestant, might
+she not have added straight integrity to all her other
+excellences?  Supposing she were to marry an English and
+Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is,
+quickly acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency,
+honesty over policy?  It would be worth a man's while to try the
+experiment; to-morrow I will renew my observations.  She knows
+that I watch her: how calm she is under scrutiny! it seems rather
+to gratify than annoy her."  Here a strain of music stole in upon
+my monologue, and suspended it; it was a bugle, very skilfully
+played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I thought, or on the
+Place Royale.  So sweet were the tones, so subduing their effect
+at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the quiet reign
+of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
+intently.  The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was
+soon gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of
+midnight once more.  No.  What murmur was that which, low, and
+yet near and approaching nearer, frustrated the expectation of
+total silence?  It was some one conversing--yes, evidently, an
+audible, though subdued voice spoke in the garden immediately
+below me.  Another answered; the first voice was that of a man,
+the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw coming
+slowly down the alley.  Their forms were at first in shade, I
+could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight
+met them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my
+very nose, and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle.
+Zoraide Reuter, arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with
+my principal, confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet.  And
+M. Pelet was saying--
+
+"A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?"
+
+And Mdlle. Reuter answered--
+
+"Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu'il me serait impossible de me
+marier avant les vacances."
+
+"June, July, August, a whole quarter!"  exclaimed the director.
+"How can I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at
+your feet with impatience!"
+
+"Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any
+trouble about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order
+a slight mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than
+the nuptial trousseau."
+
+"Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
+devotedly as I do:  my torment is your sport; you scruple not to
+stretch my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you
+will, I am certain you have cast encouraging glances on that
+school-boy, Crimsworth; he has presumed to fall in love, which he
+dared not have done unless you had given him room to hope."
+
+"What do you say, Francois?  Do you say Crimsworth is in love
+with me?"
+
+"Over head and ears."
+
+"Has he told you so?"
+
+"No--but I see it in his face:  he blushes whenever your name is
+mentioned."  A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle.
+Reuter's gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a
+lie, by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all).
+M. Pelet proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me,
+intimating pretty plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was
+nonsense for her to think of taking such a "blanc-bec" as a
+husband, since she must be at least ten years older than I (was
+she then thirty-two? I should not have thought it).  I heard her
+disclaim any intentions on the subject--the director, however,
+still pressed her to give a definite answer.
+
+"Francois," said she, "you are jealous," and still she laughed;
+then, as if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not
+consistent with the character for modest dignity she wished to
+establish, she proceeded, in a demure voice: "Truly, my dear
+Francois, I will not deny that this young Englishman may have
+made some attempts to ingratiate himself with me; but, so far
+from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated him
+with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility;
+affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes;
+believe me, dear friend."  Still Pelet uttered murmurs of
+distrust--so I judged, at least, from her reply.
+
+"What folly!  How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you?
+And then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear
+comparison with you either physically or mentally; he is not a
+handsome man at all; some may call him gentleman-like and
+intelligent-looking, but for my part--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair,
+rising from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away.
+I waited their return, but soon the opening and shutting of a
+door informed me that they had re-entered the house; I listened
+a little longer, all was perfectly still; I listened more than an
+hour--at last I heard M. Pelet come in and ascend to his chamber.
+Glancing once more towards the long front of the garden-house, I
+perceived that its solitary light was at length extinguished; so,
+for a time, was my faith in love and friendship.  I went to bed,
+but something feverish and fiery had got into my veins which
+prevented me from sleeping much that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEXT morning I rose with the dawn, and having dressed myself and
+stood half-an-hour, my elbow leaning on the chest of drawers,
+considering what means I should adopt to restore my spirits,
+fagged with sleeplessness, to their ordinary tone--for I had no
+intention of getting up a scene with M. Pelet, reproaching him
+with perfidy, sending him a challenge, or performing other
+gambadoes of the sort--I hit at last on the expedient of walking
+out in the cool of the morning to a neighbouring establishment of
+baths, and treating myself to a bracing plunge.  The remedy
+produced the desired effect.  I came back at seven o'clock
+steadied and invigorated, and was able to greet M. Pelet, when he
+entered to breakfast, with an unchanged and tranquil countenance;
+even a cordial offering of the hand and the flattering
+appellation of "mon fils," pronounced in that caressing tone with
+which Monsieur had, of late days especially, been accustomed to
+address me, did not elicit any external sign of the feeling
+which, though subdued, still glowed at my heart.  Not that I
+nursed vengeance--no; but the sense of insult and treachery lived
+in me like a kindling, though as yet smothered coal.  God knows I
+am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I can
+no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings
+are of the vacillating order--they are not of that sand-like sort
+where impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced.  Once
+convinced that my friend's disposition is incompatible with my
+own, once assured that he is indelibly stained with certain
+defects obnoxious to my principles, and I dissolve the
+connection.  I did so with Edward.  As to Pelet, the discovery
+was yet new; should I act thus with him?  It was the question I
+placed before my mind as I stirred my cup of coffee with a
+half-pistolet (we never had spoons), Pelet meantime being seated
+opposite, his pallid face looking as knowing and more haggard
+than usual, his blue eye turned, now sternly on his boys and
+ushers, and now graciously on me.
+
+"Circumstances must guide me," said I; and meeting Pelet's false
+glance and insinuating smile, I thanked heaven that I had last
+night opened my window and read by the light of a full moon the
+true meaning of that guileful countenance.  I felt half his
+master, because the reality of his nature was now known to me;
+smile and flatter as he would, I saw his soul lurk behind his
+smile, and heard in every one of his smooth phrases a voice
+interpreting their treacherous import.
+
+But Zoraide Reuter?  Of course her defection had cut me to the
+quick?  That stint; must have gone too deep for any consolations
+of philosophy to be available in curing its smart?  Not at all.
+The night fever over, I looked about for balm to that wound also,
+and found some nearer home than at Gilead.  Reason was my
+physician; she began by proving that the prize I had missed was
+of little value: she admitted that, physically, Zoraide might
+have suited me, but affirmed that our souls were not in harmony,
+and that discord must have resulted from the union of her mind
+with mine.  She then insisted on the suppression of all repining,
+and commanded me rather to rejoice that I had escaped a snare.
+Her medicament did me good.  I felt its strengthening effect when
+I met the directress the next day; its stringent operation on the
+nerves suffered no trembling, no faltering; it enabled me to face
+her with firmness, to pass her with ease.  She had held out her
+hand to me--that I did not choose to see.  She had greeted me
+with a charming smile--it fell on my heart like light on stone.
+I passed on to the estrade, she followed me; her eye, fastened on
+my face, demanded of every feature the meaning of my changed and
+careless manner.  "I will give her an answer," thought I; and,
+meeting her gaze full, arresting, fixing her glance, I shot into
+her eyes, from my own, a look, where there was no respect, no
+love, no tenderness, no gallantry; where the strictest analysis
+could detect nothing but scorn, hardihood, irony.  I made her
+bear it, and feel it; her steady countenance did not change, but
+her colour rose, and she approached me as if fascinated. She
+stepped on to the estrade, and stood close by my side; she had
+nothing to say.  I would not relieve her embarrassment, and
+negligently turned over the leaves of a book.
+
+"I hope you feel quite recovered to-day," at last she said, in a
+low tone.
+
+"And I, mademoiselle, hope that you took no cold last night in
+consequence of your late walk in the garden."
+
+Quick enough of comprehension, she understood me directly; her
+face became a little blanched--a very little--but no muscle in
+her rather marked features moved; and, calm and self-possessed,
+she retired from the estrade, taking her seat quietly at a little
+distance, and occupying herself with netting a purse.  I
+proceeded to give my lesson; it was a "Composition," i.e., I
+dictated certain general questions, of which the pupils were to
+compose the answers from memory, access to books being forbidden.
+While Mdlle. Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline, &c., were pondering
+over the string of rather abstruse grammatical interrogatories I
+had propounded, I was at liberty to employ the vacant half hour
+in further observing the directress herself.  The green silk
+purse was progressing fast in her hands; her eyes were bent upon
+it; her attitude, as she sat netting within two yards of me, was
+still yet guarded; in her whole person were expressed at once,
+and with equal clearness, vigilance and repose--a rare union!
+Looking at her, I was forced, as I had often been before, to
+offer her good sense, her wondrous self-control, the tribute of
+involuntary admiration.  She had felt that I had withdrawn from
+her my esteem; she had seen contempt and coldness in my eye, and
+to her, who coveted the approbation of all around her, who
+thirsted after universal good opinion, such discovery must have
+been an acute wound.  I had witnessed its effect in the momentary
+pallor of her cheek-cheek unused to vary; yet how quickly, by
+dint of self-control, had she recovered her composure!  With what
+quiet dignity she now sat, almost at my side, sustained by her
+sound and vigorous sense; no trembling in her somewhat
+lengthened, though shrewd upper lip, no coward shame on her
+austere forehead!
+
+"There is metal there," I said, as I gazed.  "Would that there
+were fire also, living ardour to make the steel glow--then I
+could love her."
+
+Presently I discovered that she knew I was watching her, for she
+stirred not, she lifted not her crafty eyelid; she had glanced
+down from her netting to her small foot, peeping from the soft
+folds of her purple merino gown; thence her eye reverted to her
+hand, ivory white, with a bright garnet ring on the forefinger,
+and a light frill of lace round the wrist; with a scarcely
+perceptible movement she turned her head, causing her nut-brown
+curls to wave gracefully.  In these slight signs I read that the
+wish of her heart, the design of her brain, was to lure back the
+game she had scared.  A little incident gave her the opportunity
+of addressing me again.
+
+While all was silence in the class--silence, but for the rustling
+of copy-books and the travelling of pens over their pages--a leaf
+of the large folding-door, opening from the hall, unclosed,
+admitting a pupil who, after making a hasty obeisance, ensconced
+herself with some appearance of trepidation, probably occasioned
+by her entering so late, in a vacant seat at the desk nearest the
+door.  Being seated, she proceeded, still with an air of hurry
+and embarrassment, to open her cabas, to take out her books; and,
+while I was waiting for her to look up, in order to make out her
+identity--for, shortsighted as I was, I had not recognized her at
+her entrance--Mdlle. Reuter, leaving her chair, approached the
+estrade.
+
+"Monsieur Creemsvort," said she, in a whisper:  for when the
+schoolrooms were silent, the directress always moved with velvet
+tread, and spoke in the most subdued key, enforcing order and
+stillness fully as much by example as precept:  "Monsieur
+Creemsvort, that young person, who has just entered, wishes to
+have the advantage of taking lessons with you in English; she is
+not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, a
+teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little
+varieties of ornamental needle-work.  She very properly proposes
+to qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has
+asked permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her
+knowledge of English, in which language she has, I believe,
+already made some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in
+an effort so praiseworthy; you will permit her then to benefit by
+your instruction--n'est ce pas, monsieur?"  And Mdlle. Reuter's
+eyes were raised to mine with a look at once naive, benign, and
+beseeching.
+
+I replied, "Of course," very laconically, almost abruptly.
+
+"Another word," she said, with softness:  "Mdlle. Henri has not
+received a regular education; perhaps her natural talents are not
+of the highest order:  but I can assure you of the excellence of
+her intentions, and even of the amiability of her disposition.
+Monsieur will then, I am sure, have the goodness to be
+considerate with her at first, and not expose her backwardness,
+her inevitable deficiencies, before the young ladies, who, in a
+sense, are her pupils. Will Monsieur Creemsvort favour me by
+attending to this hint?"  I nodded.  She continued with subdued
+earnestness--
+
+"Pardon me, monsieur, if I venture to add that what I have just
+said is of importance to the poor girl; she already experiences
+great difficulty in impressing these giddy young things with a
+due degree of deference for her authority, and should that
+difficulty be increased by new discoveries of her incapacity, she
+might find her position in my establishment too painful to be
+retained; a circumstance I should much regret for her sake, as
+she can ill afford to lose the profits of her occupation here."
+
+Mdlle. Reuter possessed marvellous tact; but tact the most
+exclusive, unsupported by sincerity, will sometimes fail of its
+effect; thus, on this occasion, the longer she preached about the
+necessity of being indulgent to the governess pupil, the more
+impatient I felt as I listened.  I discerned so clearly that
+while her professed motive was a wish to aid the dull, though
+well-meaning Mdlle. Henri, her real one was no other than a
+design to impress me with an idea of her own exalted goodness and
+tender considerateness; so having again hastily nodded assent to
+her remarks, I obviated their renewal by suddenly demanding the
+compositions, in a sharp accent, and stepping from the estrade, I
+proceeded to collect them.  As I passed the governess-pupil, I
+said to her--
+
+"You have come in too late to receive a lesson to-day; try to be
+more punctual next time."
+
+I was behind her, and could not read in her face the effect of my
+not very civil speech.  Probably I should not have troubled
+myself to do so, had I been full in front; but I observed that
+she immediately began to slip her books into her cabas again;
+and, presently, after I had returned to the estrade, while I was
+arranging the mass of compositions, I heard the folding-door
+again open and close; and, on looking up, I perceived her place
+vacant. I thought to myself, "She will consider her first attempt
+at taking a lesson in English something of a failure;" and I
+wondered whether she had departed in the sulks, or whether
+stupidity had induced her to take my words too literally, or,
+finally, whether my irritable tone had wounded her feelings.  The
+last notion I dismissed almost as soon as I had conceived it, for
+not having seen any appearance of sensitiveness in any human face
+since my arrival in Belgium, I had begun to regard it almost as a
+fabulous quality. Whether her physiognomy announced it I could
+not tell, for her speedy exit had allowed me no time to ascertain
+the circumstance.  I had, indeed, on two or three previous
+occasions, caught a passing view of her (as I believe has been
+mentioned before); but I had never stopped to scrutinize either
+her face or person, and had but the most vague idea of her
+general appearance.  Just as I had finished rolling up the
+compositions, the four o'clock bell rang; with my accustomed
+alertness in obeying that signal, I grasped my hat and evacuated
+the premises.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+IF I was punctual in quitting Mdlle. Reuter's domicile, I was at
+least equally punctual in arriving there; I came the next day at
+five minutes before two, and on reaching the schoolroom door,
+before I opened it, I heard a rapid, gabbling sound, which warned
+me that the "priere du midi" was not yet concluded.  I waited the
+termination thereof; it would have been impious to intrude my
+heretical presence during its progress.  How the repeater of the
+prayer did cackle and splutter!  I never before or since heard
+language enounced with such steam-engine haste.  "Notre Pere qui
+etes au ciel" went off like a shot; then followed an address to
+Marie "vierge celeste, reine des anges, maison d'or, tour
+d'ivoire!"  and then an invocation to the saint of the day; and
+then down they all sat, and the solemn (?) rite was over; and I
+entered, flinging the door wide and striding in fast, as it was
+my wont to do now; for I had found that in entering with aplomb,
+and mounting the estrade with emphasis, consisted the grand
+secret of ensuring immediate silence.  The folding-doors between
+the two classes, opened for the prayer, were instantly closed; a
+maitresse, work-box in hand, took her seat at her appropriate
+desk; the pupils sat still with their pens and books before them;
+my three beauties in the van, now well humbled by a demeanour of
+consistent coolness, sat erect with their hands folded quietly on
+their knees; they had given up giggling and whispering to each
+other, and no longer ventured to utter pert speeches in my
+presence; they now only talked to me occasionally with their
+eyes, by means of which organs they could still, however, say
+very audacious and coquettish things.  Had affection, goodness,
+modesty, real talent, ever employed those bright orbs as
+interpreters, I do not think I could have refrained from giving a
+kind and encouraging, perhaps an ardent reply now and then; but
+as it was, I found pleasure in answering the glance of vanity
+with the gaze of stoicism.  Youthful, fair, brilliant, as were
+many of my pupils, I can truly say that in me they never saw any
+other bearing than such as an austere, though just guardian,
+might have observed towards them.  If any doubt the accuracy of
+this assertion, as inferring more conscientious self-denial or
+Scipio-like self-control than they feel disposed to give me
+credit for, let them take into consideration the following
+circumstances, which, while detracting from my merit, justify my
+veracity.
+
+Know, O incredulous reader!  that a master stands in a somewhat
+different relation towards a pretty, light-headed, probably
+ignorant girl, to that occupied by a partner at a ball, or a
+gallant on the promenade.  A professor does not meet his pupil to
+see her dressed in satin and muslin, with hair perfumed and
+curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial lace, round white arms
+circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the gliding dance.  It
+is not his business to whirl her through the waltz, to feed her
+with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of
+gratified vanity.  Neither does he encounter her on the
+smooth-rolled, tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny
+park, whither she repairs clad in her becoming walking dress, her
+scarf thrown with grace over her shoulders, her little bonnet
+scarcely screening her curls, the red rose under its brim adding
+a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her face and eyes,
+too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the sunshine
+of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his
+office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to
+carry her parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to
+lead in a ribbon her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound.  No:
+he finds her in the schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books
+before her.  Owing to her education or her nature books are to
+her a nuisance, and she opens them with aversion, yet her teacher
+must instil into her mind the contents of these books; that mind
+resists the admission of grave information, it recoils, it grows
+restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns spoil the
+symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace from
+the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native
+and ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice.
+Where the temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish,
+an unconquerable dullness opposes every effort to instruct.
+Where there is cunning but not energy, dissimulation, falsehood,
+a thousand schemes and tricks are put in play to evade the
+necessity of application; in short, to the tutor, female youth,
+female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which the wrong side
+is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees the
+smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long
+stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a
+temptation to admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright
+colours exposed to general view.
+
+Our likings are regulated by our circumstances.  The artist
+prefers a hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a
+flat one because it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what
+he calls "a fine woman"--she suits him; the fashionable young
+gentleman admires the fashionable young lady--she is of his kind;
+the toil-worn, fagged, probably irritable tutor, blind almost to
+beauty, insensible to airs and graces, glories chiefly in certain
+mental qualities:  application, love of knowledge, natural
+capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, are the charms
+that attract his notice and win his regard.  These he seeks, but
+seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain retain
+for ever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if
+some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb.  Such
+being the case, and the case it is, my readers will agree with me
+that there was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous
+in the integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter's
+pensionnat de demoiselles.
+
+My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of
+places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of
+the compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as
+usual, by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I
+have described before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil
+in the establishment; the second place had fallen to the lot of a
+certain Leonie Ledru, a diminutive, sharp-featured, and
+parchment-skinned creature of quick wits, frail conscience, and
+indurated feelings; a lawyer-like thing, of whom I used to say
+that, had she been a boy, she would have made a model of an
+unprincipled, clever attorney.  Then came Eulalie, the proud
+beauty, the Juno of the school, whom six long years of drilling
+in the simple grammar of the English language had compelled,
+despite the stiff phlegm of her intellect, to acquire a
+mechanical acquaintance with most of its rules.  No smile, no
+trace of pleasure or satisfaction appeared in Sylvie's nun-like
+and passive face as she heard her name read first.  I always felt
+saddened by the sight of that poor girl's absolute quiescence on
+all occasions, and it was my custom to look at her, to address
+her, as seldom as possible; her extreme docility, her assiduous
+perseverance, would have recommended her warmly to my good
+opinion; her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to
+feel most kindly--most affectionately towards her,
+notwithstanding the almost ghastly plainness of her features, the
+disproportion of her form, the corpse-like lack of animation in
+her countenance, had I not been aware that every friendly word,
+every kindly action, would be reported by her to her confessor,
+and by him misinterpreted and poisoned.  Once I laid my hand on
+her head, in token of approbation; I thought Sylvie was going to
+smile, her dim eye almost kindled; but, presently, she shrank
+from me; I was a man and a heretic; she, poor child! a destined
+nun and devoted Catholic:  thus a four-fold wall of separation
+divided her mind from mine.  A pert smirk, and a hard glance of
+triumph, was Leonie's method of testifying her gratification;
+Eulalie looked sullen and envious--she had hoped to be first.
+Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on hearing
+their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the
+brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no
+disgrace, their hopes for the future being based solely on their
+personal attractions.
+
+This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed.  During a
+brief interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my
+eye, ranging carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first
+time, that the farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually
+vacant--was again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so
+ostentatiously recommended to me by the directress.  To-day I had
+on my spectacles; her appearance, therefore, was clear to me at
+the first glance; I had not to puzzle over it.  She looked young;
+yet, had I been required to name her exact age, I should have
+been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her figure might have
+suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied expression
+of face seemed the indication of riper years.  She was dressed,
+like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her
+features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more
+defined, yet scarcely regular.  The shape of her head too was
+different, the superior part more developed, the base
+considerably less. I felt assured, at first sight, that she was
+not a Belgian; her complexion, her countenance, her lineaments,
+her figure, were all distinct from theirs, and, evidently, the
+type of another race--of a race less gifted with fullness of
+flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, unthinking.
+When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly down,
+her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude
+till I commenced the lesson.  None of the Belgian girls would
+have retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the
+same length of time.  Yet, having intimated that her appearance
+was peculiar, as being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I
+have little more to say respecting it; I can pronounce no
+encomiums on her beauty, for she was not beautiful; nor offer
+condolence on her plainness, for neither was she plain; a
+careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding moulding of
+the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise, but
+these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less
+crotchety observer.
+
+Now, reader, though I have spent more than a page in describing
+Mdlle. Henri, I know well enough that I have left on your mind's
+eye no distinct picture of her; I have not painted her
+complexion, nor her eyes, nor her hair, nor even drawn the
+outline of her shape.  You cannot tell whether her nose was
+aquiline or retrousse, whether her chin was long or short, her
+face square or oval; nor could I the first day, and it is not my
+intention to communicate to you at once a knowledge I myself
+gained by little and little.
+
+I gave a short exercise:  which they all wrote down.  I saw the
+new pupil was puzzled at first with the novelty of the form and
+language; once or twice she looked at me with a sort of painful
+solicitude, as not comprehending at all what I meant; then she
+was not ready when the others were, she could not write her
+phrases so fast as they did; I would not help her, I went on
+relentless.  She looked at me; her eye said most plainly, "I
+cannot follow you."  I disregarded the appeal, and, carelessly
+leaning back in my chair, glancing from time to time with a
+NONCHALANT air out of the window, I dictated a little faster.  On
+looking towards her again, I perceived her face clouded with
+embarrassment, but she was still writing on most diligently; I
+paused a few seconds; she employed the interval in hurriedly
+re-perusing what she had written, and shame and discomfiture were
+apparent in her countenance; she evidently found she had made
+great nonsense of it.  In ten minutes more the dictation was
+complete, and, having allowed a brief space in which to correct
+it, I took their books; it was with a reluctant hand Mdlle. Henri
+gave up hers, but, having once yielded it to my possession, she
+composed her anxious face, as if, for the present she had
+resolved to dismiss regret, and had made up her mind to be
+thought unprecedentedly stupid.  Glancing over her exercise, I
+found that several lines had been omitted, but what was written
+contained very few faults; I instantly inscribed "Bon" at the
+bottom of the page, and returned it to her; she smiled, at first
+incredulously, then as if reassured, but did not lift her eyes;
+she could look at me, it seemed, when perplexed and bewildered,
+but not when gratified; I thought that scarcely fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+SOME time elapsed before I again gave a lesson in the first
+class; the holiday of Whitsuntide occupied three days, and on the
+fourth it was the turn of the second division to receive my
+instructions.  As I made the transit of the CARRE, I observed, as
+usual, the band of sewers surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were
+only about a dozen of them, but they made as much noise as might
+have sufficed for fifty; they seemed very little under her
+control; three or four at once assailed her with importunate
+requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but in
+vain.  She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger
+should witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to
+entreat order--her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she
+compressed her lips and contracted her brow; and her countenance,
+if I read it correctly, said--"I have done my best; I seem to
+merit blame notwithstanding; blame me then who will."  I passed
+on; as I closed the school-room door, I heard her say, suddenly
+and sharply, addressing one of the eldest and most turbulent of
+the lot--
+
+"Amelie Mullenberg, ask me no question, and request of me no
+assistance, for a week to come; during that space of time I will
+neither speak to you nor help you."
+
+The words were uttered with emphasis--nay, with vehemence--and a
+comparative silence followed; whether the calm was permanent, I
+know not; two doors now closed between me and the CARRE.
+
+Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I
+found the directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two
+estrades, and before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an
+attitude (as it seemed to me) of somewhat reluctant attention.
+The directress was knitting and talking at the same time.  Amidst
+the hum of a large school-room, it was easy so to speak in the
+ear of one person, as to be heard by that person alone, and it
+was thus Mdlle. Reuter parleyed with her teacher.  The face of
+the latter was a little flushed, not a little troubled; there was
+vexation in it, whence resulting I know not, for the directress
+looked very placid indeed; she could not be scolding in such
+gentle whispers, and with so equable a mien; no, it was presently
+proved that her discourse had been of the most friendly tendency,
+for I heard the closing words--
+
+"C'est assez, ma bonne amie; a present je ne veux pas vous
+retenir davantage."
+
+Without reply, Mdlle. Henri turned away; dissatifaction was
+plainly evinced in her face, and a smile, slight and brief, but
+bitter, distrustful, and, I thought, scornful, curled her lip as
+she took her place in the class; it was a secret, involuntary
+smile, which lasted but a second; an air of depression succeeded,
+chased away presently by one of attention and interest, when I
+gave the word for all the pupils to take their reading-books.  In
+general I hated the reading-lesson, it was such a torture to the
+ear to listen to their uncouth mouthing of my native tongue, and
+no effort of example or precept on my part ever seemed to effect
+the slightest improvement in their accent.  To-day, each in her
+appropriate key, lisped, stuttered, mumbled, and jabbered as
+usual; about fifteen had racked me in turn, and my auricular
+nerve was expecting with resignation the discords of the
+sixteenth, when a full, though low voice, read out, in clear
+correct English.
+
+"On his way to Perth, the king was met by a Highland woman,
+calling herself a prophetess; she stood at the side of the ferry
+by which he was about to travel to the north, and cried with a
+loud voice, 'My lord the king, if you pass this water you will
+never return again alive!'"--(VIDE the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND).
+
+I looked up in amazement; the voice was a voice of Albion; the
+accent was pure and silvery; it only wanted firmness, and
+assurance, to be the counterpart of what any well-educated lady
+in Essex or Middlesex might have enounced, yet the speaker or
+reader was no other than Mdlle. Henri, in whose grave, joyless
+face I saw no mark of consciousness that she had performed any
+extraordinary feat.  No one else evinced surprise either.  Mdlle.
+Reuter knitted away assiduously; I was aware, however, that at
+the conclusion of the paragraph, she had lifted her eyelid and
+honoured me with a glance sideways; she did not know the full
+excellency of the teacher's style of reading, but she perceived
+that her accent was not that of the others, and wanted to
+discover what I thought; I masked my visage with indifference,
+and ordered the next girl to proceed.
+
+When the lesson was over, I took advantage of the confusion
+caused by breaking up, to approach Mdlle. Henri; she was standing
+near the window and retired as I advanced; she thought I wanted
+to look out, and did not imagine that I could have anything to
+say to her.  I took her exercise-book; out of her hand; as I
+turned over the leaves I addressed her:--
+
+"You have had lessons in English before?"  I asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"No!  you read it well; you have been in England?"
+
+"Oh, no!"  with some animation.
+
+"You have been in English families?"
+
+Still the answer was "No." Here my eye, resting on the flyleaf of
+the book, saw written, "Frances Evan Henri."
+
+"Your name?"  I asked
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+My interrogations were cut short; I heard a little rustling
+behind me, and close at my back was the directress, professing to
+be examining the interior of a desk.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, looking up and addressing the teacher,
+"Will you have the goodness to go and stand in the corridor,
+while the young ladies are putting on their things, and try to
+keep some order?"
+
+Mdlle. Henri obeyed.
+
+"What splendid weather!"  observed the directress cheerfully,
+glancing at the same time from the window. I assented and was
+withdrawing.  "What of your new pupil, monsieur?"  continued she,
+following my retreating steps.  "Is she likely to make progress
+in English?"
+
+"Indeed I can hardly judge.  She possesses a pretty good accent;
+of her real knowledge of the language I have as yet had no
+opportunity of forming an opinion."
+
+"And her natural capacity, monsieur?  I have had my fears about
+that:  can you relieve me by an assurance at least of its average
+power?"
+
+"I see no reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but
+really I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the
+calibre of her capacity.  I wish you a very good afternoon."
+
+She still pursued me.  "You will observe, monsieur, and tell me
+what you think; I could so much better rely on your opinion than
+on my own; women cannot judge of these things as men can, and,
+excuse my pertinacity, monsieur, but it is natural I should feel
+interested about this poor little girl (pauvre petite); she has
+scarcely any relations, her own efforts are all she has to look
+to, her acquirements must be her sole fortune; her present
+position has once been mine, or nearly so; it is then but natural
+I should sympathize with her; and sometimes when I see the
+difficulty she has in managing pupils, I reel quite chagrined.  I
+doubt not she does her best, her intentions are excellent; but,
+monsieur, she wants tact and firmness.  I have talked to her on
+the subject, but I am not fluent, and probably did not express
+myself with clearness; she never appears to comprehend me.  Now,
+would you occasionally, when you see an opportunity, slip in a
+word of advice to her on the subject; men have so much more
+influence than women have--they argue so much more logically than
+we do; and you, monsieur, in particular, have so paramount a
+power of making yourself obeyed; a word of advice from you could
+not but do her good; even if she were sullen and headstrong
+(which I hope she is not), she would scarcely refuse to listen to
+you; for my own part, I can truly say that I never attend one of
+your lessons without deriving benefit from witnessing your
+management of the pupils.  The other masters are a constant
+source of anxiety to me; they cannot impress the young ladies
+with sentiments of respect, nor restrain the levity natural to
+youth:  in you, monsieur, I feel the most absolute confidence;
+try then to put this poor child into the way of controlling our
+giddy, high-spirited  Brabantoises.  But, monsieur, I would add
+one word more; don't alarm her AMOUR PROPRE; beware of inflicting
+a wound there.  I reluctantly admit that in that particular she
+is blameably--some would say ridiculously--susceptible.  I fear I
+have touched this sore point inadvertently, and she cannot get
+over it."
+
+During the greater part of this harangue my hand was on the lock
+of the outer door; I now turned it.
+
+"Au revoir, mademoiselle," said I, and I escaped.  I saw the
+directress's stock of words was yet far from exhausted.  She
+looked after me, she would fain have detained me longer.  Her
+manner towards me had been altered ever since I had begun to
+treat her with hardness and indifference: she almost cringed to
+me on every occasion; she consulted my countenance incessantly,
+and beset me with innumerable little officious attentions.
+Servility creates despotism.  This slavish homage, instead of
+softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and exacting
+in its mood.  The very circumstance of her hovering round me like
+a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of
+stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments
+confirmed my reserve.  At times I wondered what she meant by
+giving herself such trouble to win me, when the more profitable
+Pelet was already in her nets, and when, too, she was aware that
+I possessed her secret, for I had not scrupled to tell her as
+much:  but the fact is that as it was her nature to doubt the
+reality and under-value the worth of modesty, affection,
+disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of
+character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride,
+hardness, selfishness, as proofs of strength.  She would trample
+on the neck of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain;
+she would meet tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she
+would woo with ceaseless assiduities.  Benevolence, devotedness,
+enthusiasm, were her antipathies; for dissimulation and
+self-interest she had a preference--they were real wisdom in her
+eyes; moral and physical degradation, mental and bodily
+inferiority, she regarded with indulgence; they were foils
+capable of being turned to good account as set-offs for her own
+endowments.  To violence, injustice, tyranny, she succumbed--they
+were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate, no
+impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in
+some hearts was unknown in hers.  From all this it resulted that
+the false and selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased
+termed her charitable, the insolent and unjust dubbed her
+amiable, the conscientious and benevolent generally at first
+accepted as valid her claim to be considered one of themselves;
+but ere long the plating of pretension wore off, the real
+material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a deception.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of
+Frances Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion
+of her character.  I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable
+degree of at least two good points, viz., perseverance and a
+sense of duty; I found she was really capable of applying to
+study, of contending with  difficulties.  At first I offered her
+the same help which I had always found it necessary to confer on
+the others; I began with unloosing for her each knotty point, but
+I soon discovered that such help was regarded by my new pupil as
+degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud impatience.
+Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve
+alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task
+with serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour,
+eagerly demanded more.  So much for her perseverance; as to her
+sense of duty, it evinced itself thus:  she liked to learn, but
+hated to teach; her progress as a pupil depended upon herself,
+and I saw that on herself she could calculate with certainty; her
+success as a teacher rested partly, perhaps chiefly, upon the
+will of  others; it cost her a most painful effort to enter into
+conflict with this foreign will, to endeavour to bend it into
+subjection to her own; for in what regarded people in general the
+action of her will was impeded by many scruples; it was as
+unembarrassed as strong where her own affairs were concerned, and
+to it she could at any time subject her inclination, if that
+inclination went counter to her convictions of right; yet when
+called upon to wrestle with the propensities, the habits, the
+faults of others, of children especially, who are deaf to reason,
+and, for the most part, insensate to persuasion, her will
+sometimes almost refused to act; then came in the sense of duty,
+and forced the reluctant will into operation.  A wasteful expense
+of energy and labour was frequently the consequence; Frances
+toiled for and with her pupils like a drudge, but it was long ere
+her conscientious exertions were rewarded by anything like
+docility on their part, because they saw that they had power over
+her, inasmuch as by resisting her painful attempts to convince,
+persuade, control--by forcing her to the employment of coercive
+measures--they could inflict upon her exquisite suffering.
+Human beings--human children especially--seldom deny themselves
+the pleasure of exercising a power which they are conscious of
+possessing, even though that power consist only in a capacity to
+make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are duller than
+those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and his
+bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over
+that instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly,
+because the very young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know
+neither how to sympathize nor how to spare.  Frances, I fear,
+suffered much; a continual weight seemed to oppress her spirits;
+I have said she did not live in the house, and whether in her own
+abode, wherever that might be, she wore the same preoccupied,
+unsmiling, sorrowfully resolved air that always shaded her
+features under the roof of Mdlle. Reuter, I could not tell.
+
+One day I gave, as a devoir, the trite little anecdote of Alfred
+tending cakes in the herdsman's hut, to be related with
+amplifications.  A singular affair most of the pupils made of it;
+brevity was what they had chiefly studied; the majority of the
+narratives were perfectly unintelligible; those of Sylvie and
+Leonie Ledru alone pretended to anything like sense and
+connection.  Eulalie, indeed, had hit, upon a clever expedient
+for at once ensuring accuracy and saving trouble; she had
+obtained access somehow to an abridged history of England, and
+had copied the anecdote out fair.  I wrote on the margin of her
+production "Stupid and deceitful," and then tore it down the
+middle.
+
+Last in the pile of single-leaved devoirs, I found one of several
+sheets, neatly written out and stitched together; I knew the
+hand, and scarcely needed the evidence of the signature "Frances
+Evans Henri" to confirm my conjecture as to the writer's
+identity.
+
+Night was my usual time for correcting devoirs, and my own room
+the usual scene of such task--task most onerous hitherto; and it
+seemed strange to me to feel rising within me an incipient sense
+of interest, as I snuffed the candle and addressed myself to the
+perusal of the poor teacher's manuscript.
+
+"Now," thought I, "I shall see a glimpse of what she really is; I
+shall get an idea of the nature and extent of her powers; not
+that she can be expected to express herself well in a foreign
+tongue, but still, if she has any mind, here will be a reflection
+of it."
+
+The narrative commenced by a description of a Saxon peasant's
+hut, situated within the confines of a great, leafless, winter
+forest; it represented an evening in December; flakes of snow
+were falling, and the herdsman foretold a heavy storm; he
+summoned his wife to aid him in collecting their flock, roaming
+far away on the pastoral banks of the Thone; he warns her that it
+will be late ere they return.  The good woman is reluctant to
+quit her occupation of baking cakes for the evening meal; but
+acknowledging the primary importance of securing the herds and
+flocks, she puts on her sheep-skin mantle; and, addressing a
+stranger who rests half reclined on a bed of rushes near the
+hearth, bids him mind the bread till her return.
+
+"Take care, young man," she continues, "that you fasten the door
+well after us; and, above all, open to none in our absence;
+whatever sound you hear, stir not, and look not out.  The night
+will soon fall; this forest is most wild and lonely; strange
+noises are often heard therein after sunset; wolves haunt these
+glades, and Danish warriors infest the country; worse things are
+talked of; you might chance to hear, as it were, a child cry, and
+on opening the door to afford it succour, a greet black bull, or
+a shadowy goblin dog, might rush over the threshold; or, more
+awful still, if something flapped, as with wings, against the
+lattice, and then a raven or a white dove flew in and settled on
+the hearth, such a visitor would be a sure sign of misfortune to
+the house; therefore, heed my advice, and lift the latchet for
+nothing."
+
+Her husband calls her away, both depart.  The stranger, left
+alone, listens awhile to the muffled snow-wind, the remote,
+swollen sound of the river, and then he speaks.
+
+"It is Christmas Eve," says he, "I mark the date; here I sit
+alone on a rude couch of rushes, sheltered by the thatch of a
+herdsman's hut; I, whose inheritance was a kingdom, owe my
+night's harbourage to a poor serf; my throne is usurped, my crown
+presses the brow of an invader; I have no friends; my troops
+wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless robbers spoil my
+country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts crushed by the
+heel of the brutal Dane.  Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now
+thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade.
+Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live,
+why I still hope.  Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence,
+and so cannot succumb to thy power.  My God, whose Son, as on
+this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed
+to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest
+thou canst not strike a stroke.  My God is sinless, eternal,
+all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped and crushed by
+thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not
+despair, I cannot despair:  were the lance of Guthrum now wet
+with my blood, I should not despair.  I watch, I toil, I hope, I
+pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will aid."
+
+I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the
+same strain.  There were errors of orthography, there were
+foreign idioms, there were some faults of construction, there
+were verbs irregular transformed into verbs regular; it was
+mostly made up, as the above example shows, of short and somewhat
+rude sentences, and the style stood in great need of polish and
+sustained dignity; yet such as it was, I had hitherto seen
+nothing like it in the course of my professorial experience.  The
+girl's mind had conceived a picture of the hut, of the two
+peasants, of the crownless king; she had imagined the wintry
+forest, she had recalled the old Saxon ghost-legends, she had
+appreciated Alfred's courage under calamity, she had remembered
+his Christian education, and had shown him, with the rooted
+confidence of those primitive days, relying on the scriptural
+Jehovah for aid against the mythological Destiny.  This she had
+done without a hint from me:  I had given the subject, but not
+said a word about the manner of treating it.
+
+"I will find, or make, an opportunity of speaking to her," I said
+to myself as I rolled the devoir up; "I will learn what she has
+of English in her besides the name of Frances Evans; she is no
+novice in the language, that is evident, yet she told me she had
+neither been in England, nor taken lessons in English, nor lived
+in English families."
+
+In the course of my next lesson, I made a report of the other
+devoirs, dealing out praise and blame in very small retail
+parcels, according to my custom, for there was no use in blaming
+severely, and high encomiums were rarely merited.  I said nothing
+of Mdlle. Henri's exercise, and, spectacles on nose, I
+endeavoured to decipher in her countenance her sentiments at the
+omission.  I wanted to find out whether in her existed a
+consciousness of her own talents.  "If she thinks she did a
+clever thing in composing that devoir, she will now look
+mortified," thought I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her
+face; as usual, her eyes were fastened on the cahier open before
+her; there was something, I thought, of expectation in her
+attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the last devoir, and
+when, casting it from me and rubbing my hands, I bade them take
+their grammars, some slight change did pass over her air and
+mien, as though she now relinquished a faint prospect of pleasant
+excitement; she had been waiting for something to be discussed in
+which she had a degree of interest; the discussion was not to
+come on, so expectation sank back, shrunk and sad, but attention,
+promptly filling up the void, repaired in a moment the transient
+collapse of feature; still, I felt, rather than saw, during the
+whole course of the lesson, that a hope had been wrenched from
+her, and that if she did not show distress, it was because she
+would not.
+
+At four o'clock, when the bell rang and the room was in immediate
+tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I
+sat still a moment.  I looked at Frances, she was putting her
+books into her cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her
+head; encountering my eye, she made a quiet, respectful
+obeisance, as bidding good afternoon, and was turning to
+depart:--
+
+"Come here," said I, lifting my finger at the same time. She
+hesitated; she could not hear the words amidst the uproar now
+pervading both school-rooms; I repeated the sign; she approached;
+again she paused within half a yard of the estrade, and looked
+shy, and still doubtful whether she had mistaken my meaning.
+
+"Step up," I said, speaking with decision.  It is the only way of
+dealing with diffident, easily embarrassed characters, and with
+some slight manual aid I presently got her placed just where I
+wanted her to be, that is, between my desk and the window, where
+she was screened from the rush of the second division, and where
+no one could sneak behind her to listen.
+
+"Take a seat," I said, placing a tabouret; and I made her sit
+down.  I knew what I was doing would be considered a very strange
+thing, and, what was more, I did not care.  Frances knew it also,
+and, I fear, by an appearance of agitation and trembling, that
+she cared much.  I drew from my pocket the rolled-up devoir.
+
+"This it, yours, I suppose?"  said I, addressing her in English,
+for I now felt sure she could speak English.
+
+"Yes," she answered distinctly; and as I unrolled it and laid it
+out flat on the desk before her with my hand upon it, and a
+pencil in that hand, I saw her moved, and, as it were, kindled;
+her depression beamed as a cloud might behind which the sun is
+burning.
+
+"This devoir has numerous faults," said I.  "It will take you
+some years of careful study before you are in a condition to
+write English with absolute correctness. Attend:  I will point
+out some principal defects." And I went through it carefully,
+noting every error, and demonstrating why they were errors, and
+how the words or phrases ought to have been written.  In the
+course of this sobering process she became calm.  I now went on:
+
+"As to the substance of your devoir, Mdlle. Henri, it has
+surprised me; I perused it with pleasure, because I saw in it
+some proofs of taste and fancy.  Taste and fancy are not the
+highest gifts of the human mind, but such as they are you possess
+them--not probably in a paramount degree, but in a degree beyond
+what the majority can boast.  You may then take courage;
+cultivate the faculties that God and nature have bestowed on you,
+and do not fear in any crisis of suffering, under any pressure of
+injustice, to derive free and full consolation from the
+consciousness of their strength and rarity."
+
+"Strength and rarity!" I repeated to myself; "ay, the words are
+probably true," for on looking up, I saw the sun had dissevered
+its screening cloud, her countenance was transfigured, a smile
+shone in her eyes--a smile almost triumphant; it seemed to say--
+
+"I am glad you have been forced to discover so much of my nature;
+you need not so carefully moderate your language.  Do you think I
+am myself a stranger to  myself?  What you tell me in terms so
+qualified, I have known fully from a child."
+
+She did say this as plainly as a frank and flashing glance could,
+but in a moment the glow of her complexion, the radiance of her
+aspect, had subsided; if strongly conscious of her talents, she
+was equally conscious of her harassing defects, and the
+remembrance of these obliterated for a single second, now
+reviving with sudden force, at once subdued the too vivid
+characters in which her sense of her powers had been expressed.
+So quick was the revulsion of feeling, I had not time to check
+her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown
+she had become serious and almost mournful-looking.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said she, rising.  There was gratitude both in
+her voice and in the look with which she accompanied it.  It was
+time, indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I
+glanced around, behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had
+departed) were congregated within a yard or two of my desk, and
+stood staring with eyes and mouths wide open; the three
+maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner, and, close at
+my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair, calmly
+clipping the tassels of her finished purse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AFTER all I had profited but imperfectly by the opportunity I had
+so boldly achieved of speaking to Mdlle. Henri; it was my
+intention to ask her how she came to be possessed of two English
+baptismal names, Frances and Evans, in addition to her French
+surname, also whence she derived her good accent.  I had
+forgotten both points, or, rather, our colloquy had been so brief
+that I had not had time to bring them forward; moreover, I had
+not half tested her powers of speaking English; all I had drawn
+from her in that language were the words "Yes," and "Thank you,
+sir."  "No matter," I reflected.  "What has been left incomplete
+now, shall be finished another day."  Nor did I fail to keep the
+promise thus made to myself.  It was difficult to get even a few
+words of particular conversation with one pupil among so many;
+but, according to the old proverb, "Where there is a will, there
+is a way;" and again and again I managed to find an opportunity
+for exchanging a few words with Mdlle. Henri, regardless that
+envy stared and detraction whispered whenever I approached her.
+
+"Your book an instant." Such was the mode in which I often began
+these brief dialogues; the time was always just at the conclusion
+of the lesson; and motioning to her to rise, I installed myself
+in her place, allowing her to stand deferentially at my side; for
+I esteemed it wise and right in her case to enforce strictly all
+forms ordinarily in use between master and pupil; the rather
+because I perceived that in proportion as my manner grew austere
+and magisterial, hers became easy and self-possessed--an odd
+contradiction, doubtless, to the ordinary effect in such cases;
+but so it was.
+
+"A pencil," said I, holding out my hand without looking at her.
+(I am now about to sketch a brief report of the first of these
+conferences.) She gave me one, and while I underlined some errors
+in a grammatical exercise she had written, I observed--
+
+"You are not a native of Belgium?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor of France?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where, then, is your birthplace?"
+
+"I was born at Geneva."
+
+"You don't call Frances and Evans Swiss names, I presume?"
+
+"No, sir; they are English names."
+
+"Just so; and is it the custom of the Genevese to give their
+children English appellatives?"
+
+"Non, Monsieur; mais--"
+
+"Speak English, if you please."
+
+"Mais--"
+
+"English--"
+
+"But" (slowly and with embarrassment) "my parents were not all
+the two Genevese."
+
+"Say BOTH, instead of 'all the two,' mademoiselle."
+
+"Not BOTH Swiss:  my mother was English."
+
+"Ah! and of English extraction?"
+
+"Yes--her ancestors were all English."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"He was Swiss."
+
+"What besides?  What was his profession?"
+
+"Ecclesiastic--pastor--he had a church."
+
+"Since your mother is an Englishwoman, why do you not speak
+English with more facility?"
+
+"Maman est morte, il y a dix ans."
+
+"And you do homage to her memory by forgetting her language.
+Have the goodness to put French out of your mind so long as I
+converse with you--keep to English."
+
+"C'est si difficile, monsieur, quand on n'en a plus l'habitude."
+
+"You had the habitude formerly, I suppose?  Now answer me in your
+mother tongue."
+
+"Yes, sir, I spoke the English more than the French when I was a
+child."
+
+"Why do you not speak it now?"
+
+"Because I have no English friends."
+
+"You live with your father, I suppose?"
+
+"My father is dead."
+
+"You have brothers and sisters?"
+
+"Not one."
+
+"Do you live alone?"
+
+"No--I have an aunt--ma tante Julienne."
+
+"Your father's sister?"
+
+"Justement, monsieur."
+
+"Is that English?"
+
+"No--but I forget--"
+
+"For which, mademoiselle, if you were a child I should certainly
+devise some slight punishment; at your age--you must be two or
+three and twenty, I should think?"
+
+"Pas encore, monsieur--en un mois j'aurai dix-neuf ans."
+
+"Well, nineteen is a mature age, and, having attained it, you
+ought to be so solicitous for your own improvement, that it
+should not be needful for a master to remind you twice of the
+expediency of your speaking English whenever practicable."
+
+To this wise speech I received no answer; and, when I looked up,
+my pupil was smiling to herself a much-meaning, though not very
+gay smile; it seemed to say, "He talks of he knows not what:" it
+said this so plainly, that I determined to request information on
+the point concerning which my ignorance seemed to be thus tacitly
+affirmed.
+
+"Are you solicitous for your own improvement?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"How do you prove it, mademoiselle?"
+
+An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile.
+
+"Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive--am I?  I learn my lessons
+well--"
+
+"Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?"
+
+"What more can I do?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as
+well as a pupil?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You teach lace-mending?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A dull, stupid occupation; do you like it?"
+
+"No--it is tedious."
+
+"Why do you pursue it?  Why do you not rather teach history,
+geography, grammar, even arithmetic?"
+
+"Is monsieur certain that I am myself thoroughly acquainted with
+these studies?"
+
+"I don't know; you ought to be at your age."
+
+"But I never was at school, monsieur--"
+
+"Indeed!  What then were your friends--what was your aunt about?
+She is very much to blame."
+
+"No monsieur, no--my aunt is good--she is not to blame--she does
+what she can; she lodges and nourishes me" (I report Mdlle.
+Henri's phrases literally, and it was thus she translated from
+the French).  "She is not rich; she has only an annuity of twelve
+hundred francs, and it would be impossible for her to send me to
+school."
+
+"Rather," thought I to myself on hearing this, but I continued,
+in the dogmatical tone I had adopted:--
+
+"It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance
+of the most ordinary branches of education; had you known
+something of history and grammar you might, by degrees, have
+relinquished your lace-mending drudgery, and risen in the world."
+
+"It is what I mean to do."
+
+"How?  By a knowledge of English alone?  That will not suffice;
+no respectable family will receive a governess whose whole stock
+of knowledge consists in a familiarity with one foreign
+language."
+
+"Monsieur, I know other things."
+
+"Yes, yes, you can work with Berlin wools, and embroider
+handkerchiefs and collars--that will do little for you."
+
+Mdlle. Henri's lips were unclosed to answer, but she checked
+herself, as thinking the discussion had been sufficiently
+pursued, and remained silent.
+
+"Speak," I continued, impatiently; "I never like the appearance
+of acquiescence when the reality is not there; and you had a
+contradiction at your tongue's end."
+
+"Monsieur, I have had many lessons both in grammar, history,
+geography, and arithmetic.  I have gone through a course of each
+study."
+
+"Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not
+afford lo send you to school?"
+
+"By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much."
+
+"Truly!  And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for
+you to explain to me in English how such a result was produced by
+such means."
+
+"Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon
+after we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a
+trade which was easily learnt, and by which I could earn some
+money very soon.  I learnt it in a few days, and I quickly got
+work, for all the Brussels ladies have old lace--very precious
+--which must be mended all the times it is washed.  I earned
+money a little, and this money I grave for lessons in the studies
+I have mentioned; some of it I spent in buying books, English
+books especially; soon I shall try to find a place of governess,
+or school-teacher, when I can write and speak English well; but
+it will be difficult, because those who know I have been a
+lace-mender will despise me, as the pupils here despise me.
+Pourtant j'ai mon projet," she added in a lower tone.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I will go and live in England; I will teach French there."
+
+The words were pronounced emphatically.  She said "England" as
+you might suppose an Israelite of Moses' days would have said
+Canaan.
+
+"Have you a wish to see England?"
+
+"Yes, and an intention."
+
+And here a voice, the voice of the directress, interposed:
+
+"Mademoiselle Henri, je crois qu'il va pleuvoir; vous feriez
+bien, ma bonne amie, de retourner chez vous tout de suite."
+
+In silence, without a word of thanks for this officious warning,
+Mdlle. Henri collected her books; she moved to me respectfully,
+endeavoured to move to her superior, though the endeavour was
+almost a failure, for her head seemed as if it would not bend,
+and thus departed.
+
+Where there is one grain of perseverance or wilfulness in the
+composition, trifling obstacles are ever known rather to
+stimulate than discourage.  Mdlle. Reuter might as well have
+spared herself the trouble of giving that intimation about the
+weather (by-the-by her prediction was falsified by the event--it
+did not rain that evening).  At the close of the next lesson I
+was again at Mdlle. Henri's desk. Thus did I accost her:--
+
+"What is your idea of England, mademoiselle?  Why do you wish to
+go there?"
+
+Accustomed by this time to the calculated abruptness of my
+manner, it no longer discomposed or surprised her, and she
+answered with only so much of hesitation as was rendered
+inevitable by the difficulty she experienced in improvising the
+translation of her thoughts from French to English.
+
+"England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea
+of it is vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear,
+definite."
+
+"Hum!  How much of England do you suppose you could see if you
+went there in the capacity of a teacher?  A strange notion you
+must have of getting a clear and definite idea of a country!
+All you could see of Great Britain would be the interior of a
+school, or at most of one or two private dwellings."
+
+"It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings."
+
+"Indisputably; but what then?  What would be the value of
+observations made on a scale so narrow?"
+
+"Monsieur, might not one learn something by analogy?
+An-echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the
+whole; besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they
+not?  All my life would perhaps seem narrow in your eyes--all the
+life of a--that little animal subterranean--une taupe--comment
+dit-on?"
+
+"Mole."
+
+"Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to
+me."
+
+"Well, mademoiselle--what then?  Proceed."
+
+"Mais, monsieur, vous me comprenez."
+
+"Not in the least; have the goodness to explain."
+
+"Why, monsieur, it is just so.  In Switzerland I have done but
+little, learnt but little, and seen but little; my life there was
+in a circle; I walked the same round every day; I could not get
+out of it; had I rested--remained there even till my death, I
+should never have enlarged it, because I am poor and not skilful,
+I have not great acquirements; when I was quite tired of this
+round, I begged my aunt to go to Brussels; my existence is no
+larger here, because I am no richer or higher; I walk in as
+narrow a limit, but the scene is changed; it would change again
+if I went to England.  I knew something of the bourgeois of
+Geneva, now I know something of the bourgeois of Brussels; if I
+went to London, I would know something of the bourgeois of
+London.  Can you make any sense out of what I say, monsieur, or
+is it all obscure?"
+
+"I see, I see--now let us advert to another subject; you propose
+to devote your life to teaching, and you are a most unsuccessful
+teacher; you cannot keep your pupils in order."
+
+A flush of painful confusion was the result of this harsh remark;
+she bent her head to the desk, but soon raising it replied--
+
+"Monsieur, I am not a skilful teacher, it is true, but practice
+improves; besides, I work under difficulties; here I only teach
+sewing, I can show no power in sewing, no superiority--it is a
+subordinate art; then I have no associates in this house, I am
+isolated; I am too a heretic, which deprives me of influence."
+
+"And in England you would be a foreigner; that too would deprive
+you of influence, and would effectually separate you from all
+round you; in England you would have as few connections, as
+little importance as you have here."
+
+"But I should be learning something; for the rest, there are
+probably difficulties for such as I everywhere, and if I must
+contend, and perhaps:  be conquered, I would rather submit to
+English pride than to Flemish coarseness; besides, monsieur--"
+
+She stopped--not evidently from any difficulty in finding words
+to express herself, but because discretion seemed to say, "You
+have said enough."
+
+"Finish your phrase," I urged.
+
+"Besides, monsieur, I long to live once more among Protestants;
+they are more honest than Catholics; a Romish school is a
+building with porous walls, a hollow floor, a false ceiling;
+every room in this house, monsieur, has eyeholes and ear-holes,
+and what the house is, the inhabitants are, very treacherous;
+they all think it lawful to tell lies; they all call it
+politeness to profess friendship where they feel hatred."
+
+"All?" said I; "you mean the pupils--the mere children
+--inexperienced, giddy things, who have not learnt to distinguish
+the difference between right and wrong?"
+
+"On the contrary, monsieur--the children are the most sincere;
+they have not yet had time to become accomplished in duplicity;
+they will tell lies, but they do it inartificially, and you know
+they are lying; but the grown-up people are very false; they
+deceive strangers, they deceive each other--"
+
+A servant here entered:--
+
+"Mdlle. Henri--Mdlle. Reuter vous prie de vouloir bien conduire
+la petite de Dorlodot chez elle, elle vous attend dans le cabinet
+de Rosalie la portiere--c'est que sa bonne n'est pas venue la
+chercher--voyez-vous."
+
+"Eh bien! est-ce que je suis sa bonne--moi?" demanded Mdlle.
+Henri; then smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had
+seen on her lips once before, she hastily rose and made her exit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE young Anglo-Swiss evidently derived both pleasure and profit
+from the study of her mother-tongue.  In teaching her I did not,
+of course, confine myself to the ordinary school routine; I made
+instruction in English a channel for instruction in literature.
+I prescribed to her a course of reading; she had a little
+selection of English classics, a few of which had been left her
+by her mother, and the others she had purchased with her own
+penny-fee. I lent her some more modern works; all these she read
+with avidity, giving me, in writing, a clear summary of each work
+when she had perused it.  Composition, too, she delighted in.
+Such occupation seemed the very breath of her nostrils, and soon
+her improved productions wrung from me the avowal that those
+qualities in her I had termed taste and fancy ought rather to
+have been denominated judgment and imagination.  When I intimated
+so much, which I did as usual in dry and stinted phrase, I looked
+for the radiant and exulting smile my one word of eulogy had
+elicited before; but Frances coloured.  If she did smile, it was
+very softly and shyly; and instead of looking up to me with a
+conquering glance, her eyes rested on my hand, which, stretched
+over her shoulder, was writing some directions with a pencil on
+the margin of her book.
+
+"Well, are you pleased that I am satisfied with your progress?" I
+asked.
+
+"Yes," said she slowly, gently, the blush that had half subsided
+returning.
+
+"But I do not say enough, I suppose?" I continued. "My praises
+are too cool?"
+
+She made no answer, and, I thought, looked a little sad. I
+divined her thoughts, and should much have liked to have
+responded to them, had it been expedient so to do.  She was not
+now very ambitious of my admiration--not eagerly desirous of
+dazzling me; a little affection--ever so little--pleased her
+better than all the panegyrics in the world. Feeling this, I
+stood a good while behind her, writing on the margin of her book.
+I could hardly quit my station or relinquish my occupation;
+something retained me bending there, my head very near hers, and
+my hand near hers too; but the margin of a copy-book is not an
+illimitable space--so, doubtless, the directress thought; and she
+took occasion to walk past in order to ascertain by what art I
+prolonged so disproportionately the period necessary for filling
+it.  I was obliged to go.  Distasteful effort--to leave what we
+most prefer!
+
+Frances did not become pale or feeble in consequence of her
+sedentary employment; perhaps the stimulus it communicated to her
+mind counterbalanced the inaction it imposed on her body.  She
+changed, indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for
+the better.  When I first saw her, her countenance was sunless,
+her complexion colourless; she looked like one who had no source
+of enjoyment, no store of bliss anywhere in the world; now the
+cloud had passed from her mien, leaving space for the dawn of
+hope and interest, and those feelings rose like a clear morning,
+animating what had been depressed, tinting what had been pale.
+Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they
+with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now,
+lit by a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed
+irids of bright hazel--irids large and full, screened with long
+lashes; and pupils instinct with fire.  That look of wan
+emaciation which anxiety or low spirits often communicates to a
+thoughtful, thin face, rather long than round, having vanished
+from hers; a clearness of skin almost bloom, and a plumpness
+almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of her features.
+Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became rounder,
+and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of
+the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did
+not regret) the absence of confirmed fulness, in contours, still
+slight, though compact, elegant, flexible--the exquisite turning
+of waist, wrist, hand, foot, and ankle satisfied completely my
+notions of symmetry, and allowed a lightness and freedom of
+movement which corresponded with my ideas of grace.
+
+Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri began to take a
+new footing in the school; her mental power, manifested gradually
+but steadily, ere long extorted recognition even from the
+envious; and when the young and healthy saw that she could smile
+brightly, converse gaily, move with vivacity and alertness, they
+acknowledged in her a sisterhood of youth and health, and
+tolerated her as of their kind accordingly.
+
+To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches
+the growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even
+as the said gardener contributes to the development of his
+favourite.  To me it was not difficult to discover how I could
+best foster my pupil, cherish her starved feelings, and induce
+the outward manifestation of that inward vigour which sunless
+drought and blighting blast had hitherto forbidden to expand.
+Constancy of attention--a kindness as mute as watchful, always
+standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and
+making its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest,
+or a cordial and gentle word; real respect masked with seeming
+imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her
+too, and that with devoted care:  these were the means I used,
+for these means best suited Frances' feelings, as susceptible as
+deep vibrating--her nature at once proud and shy.
+
+The benefits of my system became apparent also in her altered
+demeanour as a teacher; she now took her place amongst her pupils
+with an air of spirit and firmness which assured them at once
+that she meant to be obeyed--and obeyed she was.  They felt they
+had lost their power over her.  If any girl had rebelled, she
+would no longer have taken her rebellion to heart; she possessed
+a source of comfort they could not drain, a pillar of support
+they could not overthrow:  formerly, when insulted, she wept;
+now, she smiled.
+
+The public reading of one of her devoirs achieved the revelation
+of her talents to all and sundry; I remember the subject--it was
+an emigrant's letter to his friends at home.  It opened with
+simplicity; some natural and graphic touches disclosed to the
+reader the scene of virgin forest and great, New-World river
+--barren of sail and flag--amidst which the epistle was supposed
+to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that attend a
+settler's life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on that
+subject, Mdlle. Henri failed not to render audible the voice of
+resolve, patience, endeavour.  The disasters which had driven him
+from his native country were alluded to; stainless honour,
+inflexible independence, indestructible self-respect there took
+the word.  Past days were spoken of; the grief of parting, the
+regrets of absence, were touched upon; feeling, forcible and
+fine, breathed eloquent in every period.  At the close,
+consolation was suggested; religious faith became there the
+speaker, and she spoke well.
+
+The devoir was powerfully written in language at once chaste and
+choice, in a style nerved with vigour and graced with harmony.
+
+Mdlle. Reuter was quite sufficiently acquainted with English to
+understand it when read or spoken in her presence, though she
+could neither speak nor write it herself.  During the perusal of
+this devoir, she sat placidly busy, her eyes and fingers occupied
+with the formation of a "riviere" or open-work hem round a
+cambric handkerchief; she said nothing, and her face and
+forehead, clothed with a mask of purely negative expression, were
+as blank of comment as her lips.  As neither surprise, pleasure,
+approbation, nor interest were evinced in her countenance, so no
+more were disdain, envy, annoyance, weariness; if that
+inscrutable mien said anything, it was simply this--
+
+"The matter is too trite to excite an emotion, or call forth an
+opinion."
+
+As soon as I had done, a hum rose; several of the pupils,
+pressing round Mdlle. Henri, began to beset her with compliments;
+the composed voice of the directress was now heard:--
+
+"Young ladies, such of you as have cloaks and umbrellas will
+hasten to return home before the shower becomes heavier" (it was
+raining a little), "the remainder will wait till their respective
+servants arrive to fetch them." And the school dispersed, for it
+was four o'clock.
+
+"Monsieur, a word," said Mdlle. Reuter, stepping on to the
+estrade, and signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she
+wished me to relinquish, for an instant, the castor I had
+clutched.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort
+in young people by making conspicuous the progress of any
+particularly industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the
+present instance, Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a
+concurrent with the other pupils? She is older than most of them,
+and has had advantages of an exclusive nature for acquiring a
+knowledge of English; on the other hand, her sphere of life is
+somewhat beneath theirs; under these circumstances, a public
+distinction, conferred upon Mdlle. Henri, may be the means of
+suggesting comparisons, and exciting feelings such as would be
+far from advantageous to the individual forming their object.
+The interest I take in Mdlle. Henri's real welfare makes me
+desirous of screening her from annoyances of this sort; besides,
+monsieur, as I have before hinted to you, the sentiment of
+AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat marked preponderance in her
+character; celebrity has a tendency to foster this sentiment, and
+in her it should be rather repressed--she rather needs keeping
+down than bringing forward; and then I think, monsieur--it
+appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially, is not
+a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman:  would not
+Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that
+in the quiet discharge of social duties consists her real
+vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and
+publicity?  She may never marry; scanty as are her resources,
+obscure as are her connections, uncertain as is her health (for I
+think her consumptive, her mother died of that complaint), it is
+more than probable she never will. I do not see how she can rise
+to a position, whence such a step would be possible; but even in
+celibacy it would be better for her to retain the character and
+habits of a respectable decorous female."
+
+"Indisputably, mademoiselle," was my answer.  "Your opinion
+admits of no doubt;" and, fearful of the harangue being renewed,
+I retreated under cover of that cordial sentence of assent.
+
+At the date of a fortnight after the little incident noted above,
+I find it recorded in my diary that a hiatus occurred in Mdlle.
+Henri's usually regular attendance in class.  The first day or
+two I wondered at her absence, but did not like to ask an
+explanation of it; I thought indeed some chance word might be
+dropped which would afford me the information I wished to obtain,
+without my running the risk of exciting silly smiles and
+gossiping whispers by demanding it.  But when a week passed and
+the seat at the desk near the door still remained vacant, and
+when no allusion was made to the circumstance by any individual
+of the class--when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a
+marked silence on the point--I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to
+break the ice of this silly reserve.  I selected Sylvie as my
+informant, because from her I knew that I should at least get a
+sensible answer, unaccompanied by wriggle, titter, or other
+flourish of folly.
+
+"Ou donc est Mdlle. Henri?" I said one day as I returned an
+exercise-book I had been examining.
+
+"Elle est partie, monsieur."
+
+"Partie? et pour combien de temps?  Quand reviendra-t-elle?"
+
+"Elle est partie pour toujours, monsieur; elle ne reviendra
+plus."
+
+"Ah!" was my involuntary exclamation; then after a pause:--
+
+"En etes-vous bien sure, Sylvie?"
+
+"Oui, oui, monsieur, mademoiselle la directrice nous l'a dit
+elle-meme il y a deux ou trois jours."
+
+And I could pursue my inquiries no further; time, place, and
+circumstances forbade my adding another word.  I could neither
+comment on what had been said, nor demand further particulars.  A
+question as to the reason of the teacher's departure, as to
+whether it had been voluntary or otherwise, was indeed on my
+lips, but I suppressed it--there were listeners all round.  An
+hour after, in passing Sylvie in the corridor as she was putting
+on her bonnet, I stopped short and asked:--
+
+"Sylvie, do you know Mdlle. Henri's address?  I have some books
+of hers," I added carelessly, "and I should wish to send them to
+her."
+
+"No, monsieur," replied Sylvie; "but perhaps Rosalie, the
+portress, will be able to give it you."
+
+Rosalie's cabinet was just at hand; I stepped in and repeated the
+inquiry.  Rosalie--a smart French grisette--looked up from her
+work with a knowing smile, precisely the sort of smile I had been
+so desirous to avoid exciting. Her answer was prepared; she knew
+nothing whatever of Mdlle. Henri's address--had never known it.
+Turning from her with impatience--for I believed she lied and was
+hired to lie--I almost knocked down some one who had been
+standing at my back; it was the directress.  My abrupt movement
+made her recoil two or three steps.  I was obliged to apologize,
+which I did more concisely than politely.  No man likes to be
+dogged, and in the very irritable mood in which I then was the
+sight of Mdlle. Reuter thoroughly incensed me.  At the moment I
+turned her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her
+eyes were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry
+curiosity.  I had scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere
+it had vanished; a bland smile played on her features; my harsh
+apology was received with good-humoured facility.
+
+"Oh, don't mention it, monsieur; you only touched my hair with
+your elbow; it is no worse, only a little dishevelled."  She
+shook it back, and passing her fingers through her curls,
+loosened them into more numerous and flowing ringlets.  Then she
+went on with vivacity:
+
+"Rosalie, I was coming to tell you to go instantly and close the
+windows of the salon; the wind is rising, and the muslin curtains
+will be covered with dust."
+
+Rosalie departed.  "Now," thought I, "this will not do; Mdlle.
+Reuter thinks her meanness in eaves-dropping is screened by her
+art in devising a pretext, whereas the muslin curtains she speaks
+of are not more transparent than this same pretext."  An impulse
+came over me to thrust the flimsy screen aside, and confront her
+craft boldly with a word or two of plain truth.  "The rough-shod
+foot treads most firmly on slippery ground,"  thought I; so I
+began:
+
+"Mademoiselle Henri has left your establishment--been dismissed,
+I presume?"
+
+"Ah, I wished to have a little conversation with you, monsieur,"
+replied the directress with the most natural and affable air in
+the world; "but we cannot talk quietly here; will Monsieur step
+into the garden a minute?"  And she preceded me, stepping out
+through the glass-door I have before mentioned.
+
+"There," said she, when we had reached the centre of the middle
+alley, and when the foliage of shrubs and trees, now in their
+summer pride, closing behind end around us, shut out the view of
+the house, and thus imparted a sense of seclusion even to this
+little plot of ground in the very core of a capital.
+
+"There, one feels quiet and free when there are only pear-trees
+and rose-bushes about one; I dare say you, like me, monsieur, are
+sometimes tired of being eternally in the midst of life; of
+having human faces always round you, human eyes always upon you,
+human voices always in your ear.  I am sure I often wish
+intensely for liberty to spend a whole month in the country at
+some little farm-house, bien gentille, bien propre, tout entouree
+de champs et de bois; quelle vie charmante que la vie champetre!
+N'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
+
+"Cela depend, mademoiselle."
+
+"Que le vent est bon et frais!"  continued the directress;  and
+she was right there, for it was a south wind, soft and sweet.  I
+carried my hat in my hand, and this gentle breeze, passing
+through my hair, soothed my temples like balm.  Its refreshing
+effect, however, penetrated no deeper than the mere surface of
+the frame; for as I walked by the side of Mdlle. Reuter, my heart
+was still hot within me, and while I was musing the fire burned;
+then spake I with my tongue:--
+
+"I understand Mdlle. Henri is gone from hence, and will not
+return?"
+
+"Ah, true!  I meant to have named the subject to you some days
+ago, but my time is so completely taken up, I cannot do half the
+things I wish:  have you never experienced what it is, monsieur,
+to find the day too short by twelve hours for your numerous
+duties?"
+
+"Not often.  Mdlle. Henri's departure was not voluntary, I
+presume?  If it had been, she would certainly have given me some
+intimation of it, being my pupil."
+
+"Oh, did she not tell you? that was strange; for my part, I
+never thought of adverting to the subject; when one has so many
+things to attend to, one is apt to forget little incidents that
+are not of primary importance."
+
+"You consider Mdlle. Henri's dismission, then, as a very
+insignificant event?"
+
+"Dismission?  Ah!  she was not dismissed; I can say with truth,
+monsieur, that since I became the head of this establishment no
+master or teacher has ever been dismissed from it."
+
+"Yet some have left it, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Many; I have found it necessary to change frequently--a change
+of instructors is often beneficial to the interests of a school;
+it gives life and variety to the proceedings; it amuses the
+pupils, and suggests to the parents the idea of exertion and
+progress."
+
+"Yet when you are tired of a professor or maitresse, you scruple
+to dismiss them?"
+
+"No need to have recourse to such extreme measures, I assure you.
+Allons, monsieur le professeur--asseyons-nous; je vais vous
+donner une petite lecon dans votre etat d'instituteur." (I wish I
+might write all she said to me in French--it loses sadly by being
+translated into English.) We had now reached THE garden-chair;
+the directress sat down, and signed to me to sit by her, but I
+only rested my knee on the seat, and stood leaning my head and
+arm against the embowering branch of a huge laburnum, whose
+golden flowers, blent with the dusky green leaves of a
+lilac-bush, formed a mixed arch of shade and sunshine over the
+retreat.  Mdlle. Reuter sat silent a moment; some novel movements
+were evidently working in her mind, and they showed their nature
+on her astute brow; she was meditating some CHEF D'OEUVRE of
+policy.  Convinced by several months' experience that the
+affectation of virtues she did not possess was unavailing to
+ensnare me--aware that I had read her real nature, and would
+believe nothing of the character she gave out as being hers--she
+had determined, at last, to try a new key, and see if the lock of
+my heart would yield to that; a little audacity, a word of truth,
+a glimpse of the real.  "Yes, I will try," was her inward
+resolve; and then her blue eye glittered upon me--it did not
+flash--nothing of flame ever kindled in its temperate gleam.
+
+"Monsieur fears to sit by me?" she inquired playfully.
+
+"I have no wish to usurp Pelet's place," I answered, for I had
+got the habit of speaking to her bluntly--a habit begun in anger,
+but continued because I saw that, instead of offending, it
+fascinated her.  She cast down her eyes, and drooped her eyelids;
+she sighed uneasily; she turned with an anxious gesture, as if
+she would give me the idea of a bird that flutters in its cage,
+and would fain fly from its jail and jailer, and seek its natural
+mate and pleasant nest.
+
+"Well--and your lesson?" I demanded briefly.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, recovering herself, "you are so young, so
+frank and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so
+disdainful of vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then:  far
+more is to be done in this world by dexterity than by strength;
+but, perhaps, you knew that before, for there is delicacy as well
+as power in your character--policy, as well as pride?"
+
+"Go on," said I; and I could hardly help smiling, the flattery
+was so piquant, so finely seasoned.  She caught the prohibited
+smile, though I passed my hand over my month to conceal it; and
+again she made room for me to sit beside her.  I shook my head,
+though temptation penetrated to my senses at the moment, and once
+more I told her to go on.
+
+"Well, then, if ever you are at the head of a large
+establishment, dismiss nobody.  To speak truth, monsieur (and to
+you I will speak truth), I despise people who are always making
+rows, blustering, sending off one to the right, and another to
+the left, urging and hurrying circumstances.  I'll tell you what
+I like best to do, monsieur, shall I?"  She looked up again; she
+had compounded her glance well this time--much archness, more
+deference, a spicy dash of coquetry, an unveiled consciousness of
+capacity.  I nodded; she treated me like the great Mogul; so I
+became the great Mogul as far as she was concerned.
+
+"I like, monsieur, to take my knitting in my hands, and to sit
+quietly down in my chair; circumstances defile past me; I watch
+their march; so long as they follow the course I wish, I say
+nothing, and do nothing; I don't clap my hands, and cry out
+'Bravo!  How lucky I am!' to attract the attention and envy of my
+neighbours--I am merely passive; but when events fall out ill
+--when circumstances become adverse--I watch very vigilantly; I
+knit on still, and still I hold my tongue; but every now and
+then, monsieur, I just put my toe out--so--and give the
+rebellious circumstance a little secret push, without noise,
+which sends it the way I wish, and I am successful after all, and
+nobody has seen my expedient.  So, when teachers or masters
+become troublesome and inefficient--when, in short, the interests
+of the school would suffer from their retaining their places--I
+mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide past; I
+see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render
+untenable the post I wish to have vacated--the deed is done--the
+stumbling-block removed--and no one saw me:  I have not made an
+enemy, I am rid of an incumbrance."
+
+A moment since, and I thought her alluring; this speech
+concluded, I looked on her with distaste.  "Just like you," was
+my cold answer.  "And in this way you have ousted Mdlle. Henri?
+You wanted her office, therefore you rendered it intolerable to
+her?"
+
+"Not at all, monsieur, I was merely anxious about Mdlle. Henri's
+health; no, your moral sight is clear and piercing, but there you
+have failed to discover the truth. I took--I have always taken a
+real interest in Mdlle. Henri's welfare; I did not like her going
+out in all weathers; I thought it would be more advantageous for
+her to obtain a permanent situation; besides, I considered her
+now qualified to do something more than teach sewing. I reasoned
+with her; left the decision to herself; she saw the correctness
+of my views, and adopted them."
+
+"Excellent! and now, mademoiselle, you will have the goodness to
+give me her address."
+
+"Her address!"  and a sombre and stony change came over the mien
+of the directress.  "Her address?  Ah?--well--I wish I could
+oblige you, monsieur, but I cannot, and I will tell you why;
+whenever I myself asked her for her address, she always evaded
+the inquiry.  I thought--I may be wrong--but I THOUGHT her motive
+for doing so, was a natural, though mistaken reluctance to
+introduce me to some, probably, very poor abode; her means were
+narrow, her origin obscure; she lives somewhere, doubtless, in
+the 'basse ville.'"
+
+ "I'll not lose sight of my best pupil yet," said I, "though she
+were born of beggars and lodged in a cellar; for the rest, it is
+absurd to make a bugbear of her origin to me--I happen to know
+that she was a Swiss pastor's daughter, neither more nor less;
+and, as to her narrow means, I care nothing for the poverty of
+her purse so long as her heart overflows with affluence."
+
+"Your sentiments are perfectly noble, monsieur," said the
+directress, affecting to suppress a yawn; her sprightliness was
+now extinct, her temporary candour shut up; the little,
+red-coloured, piratical-looking pennon of audacity she had
+allowed to float a minute in the air, was furled, and the broad,
+sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low over the citadel.
+I did not like her thus, so I cut short the TETE-A-TETE and
+departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+NOVELISTS should never allow themselves to weary of the study of
+real life.  If they observed this duty conscientiously, they
+would give us fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of
+light and shade; they would seldom elevate their heroes and
+heroines to the heights of rapture--still seldomer sink them to
+the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the fulness of joy
+in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid bitterness of
+hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have plunged like beasts
+into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, stimulated, again
+overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties for
+enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support,
+robbed of hope.  Our agony is great, and how can it end?  We have
+broken the spring of our powers; life must be all suffering--too
+feeble to conceive faith--death must be darkness--God, spirits,
+religion can have no place in our collapsed minds, where linger
+only hideous and polluting recollections of vice; and time brings
+us on to the brink of the grave, and dissolution flings us in--a
+rag eaten through and through with disease, wrung together with
+pain, stamped into the churchyard sod by the inexorable heel of
+despair.
+
+But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs.  He
+loses his property--it is a blow--he staggers a moment; then, his
+energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy;
+activity soon mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes
+patience--endures what he cannot cure.  Acute pain racks him; his
+writhing limbs know not where to find rest; he leans on Hope's
+anchors. Death takes from him what he loves; roots up, and tears
+violently away the stem round which his affections were twined--a
+dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but some morning Religion
+looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in
+another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again.
+She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that
+life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily
+strengthens her consolation by connecting with it two ideas
+--which mortals cannot comprehend, but on which they love to
+repose--Eternity, Immortality; and the mind of the mourner, being
+filled with an image, faint yet glorious, of heavenly hills all
+light and peace--of a spirit resting there in bliss--of a day
+when his spirit shall also alight there, free and disembodied--of
+a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he takes
+courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the
+duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden
+from his mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
+
+Well--and what suggested all this? and what is the inference to
+be drawn therefrom?  What suggested it, is the circumstance of my
+best pupil--my treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put
+away out of my reach; the inference to be drawn from it is--that,
+being a steady, reasonable man, I did not allow the resentment,
+disappointment, and grief, engendered in my mind by this evil
+chance, to grow there to any monstrous size; nor did I allow them
+to monopolize the whole space of my heart; I pent them, on the
+contrary, in one strait and secret nook. In the daytime, too,
+when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent system; and
+it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber at night
+that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose
+nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then,
+in revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me
+awake with their long, midnight cry.
+
+A week passed.  I had said nothing more to Mdlle. Reuter.  I had
+been calm in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard.
+When I looked at her, it was with the glance fitting to be
+bestowed on one who I knew had consulted jealousy as an adviser,
+and employed treachery as an instrument--the glance of quiet
+disdain and rooted distrust.  On Saturday evening, ere I left the
+house, I stept into the SALLE-A-MANGER, where she was sitting
+alone, and, placing myself before her, I asked, with the same
+tranquil tone and manner that I should have used had I put the
+question for the first time--
+
+"Mademoiselle, will you have the goodness to give me the address
+of Frances Evans Henri?"
+
+A little surprised, but not disconcerted, she smilingly
+disclaimed any knowledge of that address, adding, "Monsieur has
+perhaps forgotten that I explained all about that circumstance
+before--a week ago?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," I continued, "you would greatly oblige me by
+directing me to that young person's abode."
+
+She seemed somewhat puzzled; and, at last, looking up with an
+admirably counterfeited air of naivete, she demanded, "Does
+Monsieur think I am telling an untruth?"
+
+Still avoiding to give her a direct answer, I said, "It is not
+then your intention, mademoiselle, to oblige me in this
+particular?"
+
+"But, monsieur, how can I tell you what I do not know?"
+
+"Very well; I understand you perfectly, mademoiselle, and now I
+have only two or three words to say.  This is the last week in
+July; in another month the vacation will commence, have the
+goodness to avail yourself of the leisure it will afford you to
+look out for another English master--at the close of August, I
+shall be under the necessity of resigning my post in your
+establishment."
+
+I did not wait for her comments on this announcement, but bowed
+and immediately withdrew.
+
+That same evening, soon after dinner, a servant brought me a
+small packet; it was directed in a hand I knew, but had not hoped
+so soon to see again; being in my own apartment and alone, there
+was nothing to prevent my immediately opening it; it contained
+four five-franc pieces, and a note in English.
+
+"MONSIEUR,
+"I came to Mdlle. Reuter's house yesterday, at the time when I
+knew you would be just about finishing your lesson, and I asked
+if I might go into the schoolroom and speak to you.  Mdlle.
+Reuter came out and said you were already gone; it had not yet
+struck four, so I thought she must be mistaken, but concluded it
+would be vain to call another day on the same errand.  In one
+sense a note will do as well--it will wrap up the 20 francs, the
+price of the lessons I have received from you; and if it will not
+fully express the thanks I owe you in addition--if it will not
+bid you good-bye as I could wish to have done--if it will not
+tell you, as I long to do, how sorry I am that I shall probably
+never see you more--why, spoken words would hardly be more
+adequate to the task.  Had I seen you, I should probably have
+stammered out something feeble and unsatisfactory--something
+belying my feelings rather than explaining them; so it is perhaps
+as well that I was denied admission to your presence.  You often
+remarked, monsieur, that my devoirs dwelt a great deal on
+fortitude in bearing grief--you said I introduced that theme too
+often:  I find indeed that it is much easier to write about a
+severe duty than to perform it, for I am oppressed when I see and
+feel to what a reverse fate has condemned me; you were kind to
+me, monsieur--very kind; I am afflicted--I am heart-broken to be
+quite separated from you; soon I shall have no friend on earth.
+But it is useless troubling you with my distresses.  What claim
+have I on your sympathy?  None; I will then say no more.
+
+"Farewell, Monsieur.
+"F. E. HENRI."
+
+I put up the note in my pocket-book.  I slipped the five-franc
+pieces into my purse--then I took a turn through my narrow
+chamber.
+
+"Mdlle. Reuter talked about her poverty," said I, "and she is
+poor; yet she pays her debts and more.  I have not yet given her
+a quarter's lessons, and she has sent me a quarter's due.  I
+wonder of what she deprived herself to scrape together the twenty
+francs--I wonder what sort of a place she has to live in, and
+what sort of a woman her aunt is, and whether she is likely to
+get employment to supply the place she has lost.  No doubt she
+will have to trudge about long enough from school to school, to
+inquire here, and apply there--be rejected in this place,
+disappointed in that.  Many an evening she'll go to her bed tired
+and unsuccessful.  And the directress would not let her in to bid
+me good-bye?  I might not have the chance of standing with her
+for a few minutes at a window in the schoolroom and exchanging
+some half-dozen of sentences--getting to know where she lived
+--putting matters in train for having all things arranged to my
+mind?  No address on the note"--I continued, drawing it again
+from the pocket-book and examining it on each side of the two
+leaves:  "women are women, that is certain, and always do
+business like women; men mechanically put a date and address to
+their communications. And these five-franc pieces?"--(I hauled
+them forth from my purse)--"if she had offered me them herself
+instead of tying them up with a thread of green silk in a kind of
+Lilliputian packet, I could have thrust them back into her little
+hand, and shut up the small, taper fingers over them--so--and
+compelled her shame, her pride, her shyness, all to yield to a
+little bit of determined Will--now where is she?  How can I get
+at her?"
+
+Opening my chamber door I walked down into the kitchen.
+
+"Who brought the packet?" I asked of the servant who had
+delivered it to me.
+
+"Un petit commissionaire, monsieur."
+
+"Did he say anything?"
+
+"Rien."
+
+And I wended my way up the back-stairs, wondrously the wiser for
+my inquiries.
+
+"No matter," said I to myself, as I again closed the door. "No
+matter--I'll seek her through Brussels."
+
+And I did.  I sought her day by day whenever I had a moment's
+leisure, for four weeks; I sought her on Sundays all day long; I
+sought her on the Boulevards, in the Allee Verte, in the Park; I
+sought her in Ste. Gudule and St. Jacques; I sought her in the
+two Protestant chapels; I attended these latter at the German,
+French, and English services, not doubting that I should meet her
+at one of them.  All my researches were absolutely fruitless; my
+security on the last point was proved by the event to be equally
+groundless with my other calculations.  I stood at the door of
+each chapel after the service, and waited till every individual
+had come out, scrutinizing every gown draping a slender form,
+peering under every bonnet covering a young head.  In vain; I saw
+girlish figures pass me, drawing their black scarfs over their
+sloping shoulders, but none of them had the exact turn and air of
+Mdlle. Henri's; I saw pale and thoughtful faces "encadrees" in
+bands of brown hair, but I never found her forehead, her eyes,
+her eyebrows.  All the features of all the faces I met seemed
+frittered away, because my eye failed to recognize the
+peculiarities it was bent upon; an ample space of brow and a
+large, dark, and serious eye, with a fine but decided line of
+eyebrow traced above.
+
+"She has probably left Brussels--perhaps is gone to England, as
+she said she would," muttered I inwardly, as on the afternoon of
+the fourth Sunday, I turned from the door of the chapel-royal
+which the door-keeper had just closed and locked, and followed in
+the wake of the last of the congregation, now dispersed and
+dispersing over the square.  I had soon outwalked the couples of
+English gentlemen and ladies.  (Gracious goodness! why don't they
+dress better?  My eye is yet filled with visions of the
+high-flounced, slovenly, and tumbled dresses in costly silk and
+satin, of the large unbecoming collars in expensive lace; of the
+ill-cut coats and strangely fashioned pantaloons which every
+Sunday, at the English service, filled the choirs of the
+chapel-royal, and after it, issuing forth into the square, came
+into disadvantageous contrast with freshly and trimly attired
+foreign figures, hastening to attend salut at the church of
+Coburg.) I had passed these pairs of Britons, and the groups of
+pretty British children, and the British footmen and
+waiting-maids; I had crossed the Place Royale, and got into the
+Rue Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain--an old
+and quiet street.  I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and
+not desiring to go back and take my share of the "gouter," now on
+the refectory-table at Pelet's--to wit, pistolets and water--I
+stepped into a baker's and refreshed myself on a  COUC(?)--it is
+a Flemish word, I don't know how to spell it--A CORINTHE-ANGLICE,
+a currant bun--and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on
+towards the Porte de Louvain.  Very soon I was out of the city,
+and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I took
+my time; for the afternoon, though cloudy, was very sultry, and
+not a breeze stirred to refresh the atmosphere. No inhabitant of
+Brussels need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move
+half a league from his own city and he will find her brooding
+still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so fertile,
+spread out treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant.
+Having gained the summit of the hill, and having stood and looked
+long over the cultured but lifeless campaign, I felt a wish to
+quit the high road, which I had hitherto followed, and get in
+among those tilled grounds--fertile as the beds of a
+Brobdignagian kitchen-garden--spreading far and wide even to the
+boundaries of the horizon, where, from a dusk green, distance
+changed them to a sullen blue, and confused their tints with
+those of the livid and thunderous-looking sky.  Accordingly I
+turned up a by-path to the right; I had not followed it far ere
+it brought me, as I expected, into the fields, amidst which, just
+before me, stretched a long and lofty white wall enclosing, as it
+seemed from the foliage showing above, some thickly planted
+nursery of yew and cypress, for of that species were the branches
+resting on the pale parapets, and crowding gloomily about a
+massive cross, planted doubtless on a central eminence and
+extending its arms, which seemed of black marble, over the
+summits of those sinister trees.  I approached, wondering to what
+house this well-protected garden appertained; I turned the angle
+of the wall, thinking to see some stately residence; I was close
+upon great iron gates; there was a hut serving for a lodge near,
+but I had no occasion to apply for the key--the gates were open;
+I pushed one leaf back--rain had rusted its hinges, for it
+groaned dolefully as they revolved.  Thick planting embowered the
+entrance.  Passing up the avenue, I saw objects on each hand
+which, in their own mute language of inscription and sign,
+explained clearly to what abode I had made my way.  This was the
+house appointed for all living; crosses, monuments, and garlands
+of everlastings announced, "The Protestant Cemetery, outside the
+gate of Louvain."
+
+The place was large enough to afford half an hour's strolling
+without the monotony of treading continually the same path; and,
+for those who love to peruse the annals of graveyards, here was
+variety of inscription enough to occupy the attention for double
+or treble that space of time.  Hither people of many kindreds,
+tongues, and nations, had brought their dead for interment; and
+here, on pages of stone, of marble, and of brass, were written
+names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in English, in
+French, in German, and Latin.  Here the Englishman had erected a
+marble monument over the remains of his Mary Smith or Jane Brown,
+and inscribed it only with her name. There the French widower had
+shaded the grave:  of his Elmire or Celestine with a brilliant
+thicket of roses, amidst which a little tablet rising, bore an
+equally bright testimony to her countless virtues.  Every nation,
+tribe, and kindred, mourned after its own fashion; and how
+soundless was the mourning of all!  My own tread, though slow and
+upon smooth-rolled paths, seemed to startle, because it formed
+the sole break to a silence otherwise total.  Not only the winds,
+but the very fitful, wandering airs, were that afternoon, as by
+common consent, all fallen asleep in their various quarters; the
+north was hushed, the south silent, the east sobbed not, nor did
+the west whisper.  The clouds in heaven were condensed and dull,
+but apparently quite motionless.  Under the trees of this
+cemetery nestled a warm breathless gloom, out of which the
+cypresses stood up straight and mute, above which the willows
+hung low and still; where the flowers, as languid as fair, waited
+listless for night dew or thunder-shower; where the tombs, and
+those they hid, lay impassible to sun or shadow, to rain or
+drought.
+
+Importuned by the sound of my own footsteps, I turned off upon
+the turf, and slowly advanced to a grove of yews; I saw something
+stir among the stems; I thought it might be a broken branch
+swinging, my short-sighted vision had caught no form, only a
+sense of motion; but the dusky shade passed on, appearing and
+disappearing at the openings in the avenue.  I soon discerned it
+was a living thing, and a human thing; and, drawing nearer, I
+perceived it was a woman, pacing slowly to and fro, and evidently
+deeming herself alone as I had deemed myself alone, and
+meditating as I had been meditating.  Ere long she returned to a
+seat which I fancy she had but just quitted, or I should have
+caught sight of her before.  It was in a nook, screened by a
+clump of trees; there was the white wall before her, and a little
+stone set up against the wall, and, at the foot of the stone, was
+an allotment of turf freshly turned up, a new-made grave.  I put
+on my spectacles, and passed softly close behind her; glancing at
+the inscription on the stone, I read," Julienne Henri, died at
+Brussels, aged sixty.  August 10th, 18--." Having perused the
+inscription, I looked down at the form sitting bent and
+thoughtful just under my eyes, unconscious of the vicinity of any
+living thing; it was a slim, youthful figure in mourning apparel
+of the plainest black stuff, with a little simple, black crape
+bonnet; I felt, as well as saw, who it was; and, moving neither
+hand nor foot, I stood some moments enjoying the security of
+conviction.  I had sought her for a month, and had never
+discovered one of her traces--never met a hope, or seized a
+chance of encountering her anywhere.  I had been forced to loosen
+my grasp on expectation; and, but an hour ago, had sunk slackly
+under the discouraging thought that the current of life, and the
+impulse of destiny, had swept her for ever from my reach; and,
+behold, while bending suddenly earthward beneath the pressure of
+despondency--while following with my eyes the track of sorrow on
+the turf of a graveyard--here was my lost jewel dropped on the
+tear-fed herbage, nestling in the messy and mouldy roots of
+yew-trees.
+
+Frances sat very quiet, her elbow on her knee, and her head on
+her hand.  I knew she could retain a thinking attitude a long
+time without change; at last, a tear fell; she had been looking
+at the name on the stone before her, and her heart had no doubt
+endured one of those constrictions with which the desolate
+living, regretting the dead, are, at times, so sorely oppressed.
+Many tears rolled down, which she wiped away, again and again,
+with her handkerchief; some distressed sobs escaped her, and
+then, the paroxysm over, she sat quiet as before.  I put my hand
+gently on her shoulder; no need further to prepare her, for she
+was neither hysterical nor liable to fainting-fits; a sudden
+push, indeed, might have startled her, but the contact of my
+quiet touch merely woke attention as I wished; and, though she
+turned quickly, yet so lightning-swift is thought--in some minds
+especially--I believe the wonder of what--the consciousness of
+who it was that thus stole unawares on her solitude, had passed
+through her brain, and flashed into her heart, even before she
+had effected that hasty movement; at least, Amazement had hardly
+opened her eyes and raised them to mine, ere Recognition informed
+their irids with most speaking brightness.  Nervous surprise had
+hardly discomposed her features ere a sentiment of most vivid joy
+shone clear and warm on her whole countenance.  I had hardly time
+to observe that she was wasted and pale, ere called to feel a
+responsive inward pleasure by the sense of most full and
+exquisite pleasure glowing in the animated flush, and shining in
+the expansive light, now diffused over my pupil's face.  It was
+the summer sun flashing out after the heavy summer shower; and
+what fertilizes more rapidly than that beam, burning almost like
+fire in its ardour?
+
+I hate boldness--that boldness which is of the brassy brow and
+insensate nerves; but I love the courage of the strong heart, the
+fervour of the generous blood; I loved with passion the light of
+Frances Evans' clear hazel eye when it did not fear to look
+straight into mine; I loved the tones with which she uttered the
+words--
+
+"Mon maitre! mon maitre!"
+
+I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand;
+I loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a
+sensualist charmless, for me a treasure--my best object of
+sympathy on earth, thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling
+such feelings as I felt; my ideal of the shrine in which to seal
+my stores of love; personification of discretion and forethought,
+of diligence and perseverance, of self-denial and self-control
+--those guardians, those trusty keepers of the gift I longed to
+confer on her--the gift of all my affections; model of truth and
+honour, of independence and conscientiousness--those refiners and
+sustainers of an honest life; silent possessor of a well of
+tenderness, of a flame, as genial as still, as pure as
+quenchless, of natural feeling, natural passion--those sources of
+refreshment and comfort to the sanctuary of home.  I knew how
+quietly and how deeply the well bubbled in her heart; I knew how
+the more dangerous flame burned safely under the eye of reason; I
+had seen when the fire shot up a moment high and vivid, when the
+accelerated heat troubled life's current in its channels; I had
+seen reason reduce the rebel, and humble its blaze to embers.  I
+had confidence in Frances Evans; I had respect for her, and as I
+drew her arm through mine, and led her out of the cemetery, I
+felt I had another sentiment, as strong as confidence, as firm as
+respect, more fervid than either--that of love.
+
+"Well, my pupil," said I, as the ominous sounding gate swung to
+behind us--"Well, I have found you again:  a month's search has
+seemed long, and I little thought to have discovered my lost
+sheep straying amongst graves."
+
+Never had I addressed her but as "Mademoiselle" before, and to
+speak thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me.  Her
+answer suprised me that this language ruffled none of her
+feelings, woke no discord in her heart:
+
+"Mon maitre," she said, "have you troubled yourself to seek me?
+I little imagined you would think much of my absence, but I
+grieved bitterly to be taken away from you.  I was sorry for that
+circumstance when heavier troubles ought to have made me forget
+it."
+
+"Your aunt is dead?"
+
+"Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I
+could not chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during
+the last night of her existence, 'Frances, you will be so lonely
+when I am gone, so friendless:' she wished too that she could
+have been buried in Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her
+in her old age to leave the banks of Lake Leman, and to come,
+only as it seems to die, in this flat region of Flanders.
+Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and taken her
+remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I was
+forced to lay her here."
+
+"She was ill but a short time, I presume?"
+
+"But three weeks.  When she began to sink I asked Mdlle. Reuter's
+leave to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave."
+
+"Do you return to the pensionnat!" I demanded hastily.
+
+"Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle. Reuter called
+one evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into
+her room to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as
+she always is; afterwards she came and sat with me a long time,
+and just as she rose to go away, she said:  "Mademoiselle, I
+shall not soon cease to regret your departure from my
+establishment, though indeed it is true that you have taught your
+class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished in
+the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the
+slightest need of further instruction; my second teacher must in
+future supply your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as
+well as she can, though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you,
+and doubtless it will be your part now to assume a higher
+position in your calling; I am sure you will everywhere find
+schools and families willing to profit by your talents.' And then
+she paid me my last quarter's salary.  I asked, as mademoiselle
+would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to discharge
+me from the establishment.  She smiled at my inelegance of
+speech, and answered that 'our connection as employer and
+employed was certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to
+retain the pleasure of my acquaintance; she should always be
+happy to see me as a friend;' and then she said something about
+the excellent condition of the streets, and the long continuance
+of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful."
+
+I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress--so like
+what I had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the
+exposure and proof of her lie, unconsciously afforded by
+Frances:--"She had frequently applied for Mdlle. Henri's
+address," forsooth; "Mdlle. Henri had always evaded giving it,"
+&c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very house of
+whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
+
+Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil's
+communication, were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops
+on our faces and on the path, and by the muttering of a distant
+but coming storm.  The warning obvious in stagnant air and leaden
+sky had already induced me to take the road leading back to
+Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and those of my
+companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly.
+There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops
+before heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through
+the Porte de Louvain, and were again in the city.
+
+"Where do you live?" I asked; "I will see you safe home,"
+
+"Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges," answered Frances.
+
+It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the
+doorsteps of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with
+loud peal and shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their
+livid folds in a torrent, heavy, prone, and broad.
+
+"Come in! come in!"  said Frances, as, after putting her into the
+house, I paused ere I followed:  the word decided me; I stepped
+across the threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing,
+whitening storm, and followed her upstairs to her apartments.
+Neither she nor I were wet; a projection over the door had warded
+off the straight-descending flood; none but the first, large
+drops had touched our garments; one minute more and we should not
+have had a dry thread on us.
+
+Stepping over a little mat of green wool, I found myself in a
+small room with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in
+the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright
+and exquisitely clean; order reigned through its narrow limits
+--such order as it soothed my punctilious soul to behold.  And I
+had hesitated to enter the abode, because I apprehended after all
+that Mdlle. Reuter's hint about its extreme poverty might be too
+well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the lace-mender by
+entering her lodgings unawares!  Poor the place might be; poor
+truly it was; but its neatness was better than elegance, and had
+but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should
+have deemed it more attractive than a palace.  No fire was there,
+however, and no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was
+unable to allow herself that indulgence, especially now when,
+deprived by death of her sole relative, she had only her own
+unaided exertions to rely on.  Frances went into an inner room to
+take off her bonnet, and she came out a model of frugal neatness,
+with her well-fitting black stuff dress, so accurately defining
+her elegant bust and taper waist, with her spotless white collar
+turned back from a fair and shapely neck, with her plenteous
+brown hair arranged in smooth bands on her temples, and in a
+large Grecian plait behind:  ornaments she had none--neither
+brooch, ring, nor ribbon; she did well enough without them
+--perfection of fit, proportion of form, grace of carriage,
+agreeably supplied their place.  Her eye, as she re-entered the
+small sitting-room, instantly sought mine, which was just then
+lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at once the sort of
+inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of that
+hearth stirred in my soul:  quick to penetrate, quick to
+determine, and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment
+tied a holland apron round her waist; then she disappeared, and
+reappeared with a basket; it had a cover; she opened it, and
+produced wood and coal; deftly and compactly she arranged them in
+the grate.
+
+"It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of
+hospitality," thought I.
+
+"What are you going to do?" I asked:  "not surely to light a fire
+this hot evening?  I shall be smothered."
+
+"Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began;
+besides, I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on
+Sundays; you will be obliged to try and bear the heat."
+
+She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and
+truly, when contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the
+tempest without, that peaceful glow which began to beam on the
+now animated hearth, seemed very cheering.  A low, purring sound,
+from some quarter, announced that another being, besides myself,
+was pleased with the change; a black cat, roused by the light
+from its sleep on a little cushioned foot-stool, came and rubbed
+its head against Frances' gown as she knelt; she caressed it,
+saying it had been a favourite with her "pauvre tante Julienne."
+
+The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a
+very antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen
+in old farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame,
+Frances' hands were washed, and her apron removed in an instant
+then she opened a cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she
+had soon arranged a china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and
+size, denoted a remote antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver
+spoon was deposited in each saucer; and a pair of silver tongs,
+equally old-fashioned, were laid on the sugar-basin; from the
+cupboard, too, was produced a tidy silver cream-ewer, not larger
+then an egg-shell.  While making these preparations, she chanced
+to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes, she smiled and
+asked--
+
+"Is this like England, monsieur?"
+
+"Like the England of a hundred years ago," I replied.
+
+"Is it truly?  Well, everything on this tray is at least a
+hundred years old:  these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all
+heirlooms; my great-grandmother left them to my grandmother, she
+to my mother, and my mother brought them with her from England to
+Switzerland, and left them to me; and, ever since I was a little
+girl, I have thought I should like to carry them back to England,
+whence they came."
+
+She put some pistolets on the table; she made the tea, as
+foreigners do make tea--i.e., at the rate of a teaspoonful to
+half-a-dozen cups; she placed me a chair, and, as I took it, she
+asked, with a sort of exaltation--
+
+"Will it make you think yourself at home for a moment?"
+
+"If I had a home in England, I believe it would recall it,"  I
+answered; and, in truth, there was a sort of illusion in seeing
+the fair-complexioned English-looking girl presiding at the
+English meal, and speaking in the English language.
+
+"You have then no home?" was her remark.
+
+"None, nor ever have had.  If ever I possess a home, it must be
+of my own making, and the task is yet to begin."  And, as I
+spoke, a pang, new to me, shot across my heart:  it was a pang of
+mortification at the humility of my position, and the inadequacy
+of my means; while with that pang was born a strong desire to do
+more, earn more, be more, possess more; and in the increased
+possessions, my roused and eager spirit panted to include the
+home I had never had, the wife I inwardly vowed to win.
+
+Frances' tea was little better than hot water, sugar, and milk;
+and her pistolets, with which she could not offer me butter, were
+sweet to my palate as manna.
+
+The repast over, and the treasured plate and porcelain being
+washed and put by, the bright table rubbed still brighter, "le
+chat de ma tante Julienne" also being fed with provisions brought
+forth on a plate for its special use, a few stray cinders, and a
+scattering of ashes too, being swept from the hearth, Frances at
+last sat down; and then, as she took a chair opposite to me, she
+betrayed, for the first time, a little embarrassment; and no
+wonder, for indeed I had unconsciously watched her rather too
+closely, followed all her steps and all her movements a little
+too perseveringly with my eyes, for she mesmerized me by the
+grace and alertness of her action--by the deft, cleanly, and even
+decorative effect resulting from each touch of her slight and
+fine fingers; and when, at last, she subsided to stillness, the
+intelligence of her face seemed beauty to me, and I dwelt on it
+accordingly.  Her colour, however, rising, rather than settling
+with repose, and her eyes remaining downcast, though I kept
+waiting for the lids to be raised that I might drink a ray of the
+light I loved--a light where fire dissolved in softness, where
+affection tempered penetration, where, just now at least,
+pleasure played with thought--this expectation not being
+gratified, I began at last to suspect that I had probably myself
+to blame for the disappointment; I must cease gazing, and begin
+talking, if I wished to break the spell under which she now sat
+motionless; so recollecting the composing effect which an
+authoritative tone and manner had ever been wont to produce on
+her, I said--
+
+"Get one of your English books, mademoiselle, for the rain yet
+falls heavily, and will probably detain me half an hour longer."
+
+Released, and set at ease, up she rose, got her book, and
+accepted at once the chair I placed for her at my side.  She had
+selected "Paradise Lost" from her shelf of classics, thinking, I
+suppose, the religious character of the book best adapted it to
+Sunday; I told her to begin at the beginning, and while she read
+Milton's invocation to that heavenly muse, who on the "secret top
+of Oreb or Sinai" had taught the Hebrew shepherd how in the womb
+of chaos, the conception of a world had originated and ripened, I
+enjoyed, undisturbed, the treble pleasure of having her near me,
+hearing the sound of her voice--a sound sweet and satisfying in
+my ear--and looking, by intervals, at her face:  of this last
+privilege, I chiefly availed myself when I found fault with an
+intonation, a pause, or an emphasis; as long as I dogmatized, I
+might also gaze, without exciting too warm a flush.
+
+"Enough," said I, when she had gone through some half dozen pages
+(a work of time with her, for she read slowly and paused often to
+ask and receive information)--"enough; and now the rain is
+ceasing, and I must soon go."  For indeed, at that moment,
+looking towards the window, I saw it all blue; the thunder-clouds
+were broken and scattered, and the setting August sun sent a
+gleam like the reflection of rubies through the lattice.  I got
+up; I drew on my gloves.
+
+"You have not yet found another situation to supply the place of
+that from which you were dismissed by Mdlle. Reuter?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I have made inquiries everywhere, but they all ask
+me for references; and to speak truth, I do not like to apply to
+the directress, because I consider she acted neither justly nor
+honourably towards me; she used underhand means to set my pupils
+against me, and thereby render me unhappy while I held my place
+in her establishment, and she eventually deprived me of it by a
+masked and hypocritical manoeuvre, pretending that she was acting
+for my good, but really snatching from me my chief means of
+subsistence, at a crisis when not only my own life, but that of
+another, depended on my exertions:  of her I will never more ask
+a favour."
+
+"How, then, do you propose to get on?  How do you live now?"
+
+"I have still my lace-mending trade; with care it will keep me
+from starvation, and I doubt not by dint of exertion to get
+better employment yet; it is only a fortnight since I began to
+try; my courage or hopes are by no means worn out yet."
+
+"And if you get what you wish, what then? what are your ultimate
+views?"
+
+"To save enough to cross the Channel:  I always look to England
+as my Canaan."
+
+"Well, well--ere long I shall pay you another visit; good evening
+now," and I left her rather abruptly; I had much ado to resist a
+strong inward impulse, urging me to take a warmer, more
+expressive leave:  what so natural as to fold her for a moment in
+a close embrace, to imprint one kiss on her cheek or forehead?  I
+was not unreasonable--that was all I wanted; satisfied in that
+point, I could go away content; and Reason denied me even this;
+she ordered me to turn my eyes from her face, and my steps from
+her apartment--to quit her as dryly and coldly as I would have
+quitted old Madame Pelet.  I obeyed, but I swore rancorously to
+be avenged one day.  "I'll earn a right to do as I please in this
+matter, or I'll die in the contest.  I have one object before me
+now--to get that Genevese girl for my wife; and my wife she shall
+be--that is, provided she has as much, or half as much regard for
+her master as he has for her.  And would she be so docile, so
+smiling, so happy under my instructions if she had not? would she
+sit at my side when I dictate or correct, with such a still,
+contented, halcyon mien?"  for I had ever remarked, that however
+sad or harassed her countenance might be when I entered a room,
+yet after I had been near her, spoken to her a few words, given
+her some directions, uttered perhaps some reproofs, she would,
+all at once, nestle into a nook of happiness, and look up serene
+and revived.  The reproofs suited her best of all:  while I
+scolded she would chip away with her pen-knife at a pencil or a
+pen; fidgetting a little, pouting a little, defending herself by
+monosyllables, and when I deprived her of the pen or pencil,
+fearing it would be all cut away, and when I interdicted even the
+monosyllabic defence, for the purpose of working up the subdued
+excitement a little higher, she would at last raise her eyes and
+give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and pointed with
+defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had ever
+done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know
+it), her subject, if not her slave.  After such little scenes her
+spirits would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, as
+I remarked before, her health therefrom took a sustenance and
+vigour which, previously to the event of her aunt's death and her
+dismissal, had almost recreated her whole frame.
+
+It has taken me several minutes to write these last sentences;
+but I had thought all their purport during the brief interval of
+descending the stairs from Frances' room.  Just as I was opening
+the outer door, I remembered the twenty francs which I had not
+restored; I paused:  impossible to carry them away with me;
+difficult to force them back on their original owner; I had now
+seen her in her own humble abode, witnessed the dignity of her
+poverty, the pride of order, the fastidious care of conservatism,
+obvious in the arrangement and economy of her little home; I was
+sure she would not suffer herself to be excused paying her debts;
+I was certain the favour of indemnity would be accepted from no
+hand, perhaps least of all from mine:  yet these four five-franc
+pieces were a burden to my self-respect, and I must get rid of
+them. An expedient--a clumsy one no doubt, but the best I could
+devise-suggested itself to me.  I darted up the stairs, knocked,
+re-entered the room as if in haste:--
+
+"Mademoiselle, I have forgotten one of my gloves; I must have
+left it here."
+
+She instantly rose to seek it; as she turned her back, I--being
+now at the hearth--noiselessly lifted a little vase, one of a set
+of china ornaments, as old-fashioned as the tea-cups--slipped the
+money under it, then saying--"Oh here is my glove!  I had dropped
+it within the fender; good evening, mademoiselle," I made my
+second exit.
+
+ Brief as my impromptu return had been, it had afforded me time
+to pick up a heart-ache; I remarked that Frances had already
+removed the red embers of her cheerful little fire from the
+grate:  forced to calculate every item, to save in every detail,
+she had instantly on my departure retrenched a luxury too
+expensive to be enjoyed alone.
+
+"I am glad it is not yet winter," thought I; "but in two months
+more come the winds and rains of November; would to God that
+before then I could earn the right, and the power, to shovel
+coals into that grate AD LIBITUM!"
+
+Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze stirred
+the air, purified by lightning; I felt the West behind me, where
+spread a sky like opal; azure immingled with crimson:  the
+enlarged sun, glorious in Tyrian tints, dipped his brim already;
+stepping, as I was, eastward, I faced a vast bank of clouds, but
+also I had before me the arch of an evening rainbow; a perfect
+rainbow--high, wide, vivid.  I looked long; my eye drank in the
+scene, and I suppose my brain must have absorbed it; for that
+night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long time, watching
+the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
+retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last
+fell asleep; and then in a dream were reproduced the setting sun,
+the bank of clouds, the mighty rainbow.  I stood, methought, on a
+terrace; I leaned over a parapeted wall; there was space below
+me, depth I could not fathom, but hearing an endless dash of
+waves, I believed it to be the sea; sea spread to the horizon;
+sea of changeful green and intense blue:  all was soft in the
+distance; all vapour-veiled.  A spark of gold glistened on the
+line between water and air, floated up, approached, enlarged,
+changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth, under
+the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dusk clouds diffused
+behind.  It hovered as on wings; pearly, fleecy, gleaming air
+streamed like raiment round it; light, tinted with carnation,
+coloured what seemed face and limbs; A large star shone with
+still lustre on an angel's forehead; an upraised arm and hand,
+glancing like a ray, pointed to the bow overhead, and a voice in
+my heart whispered--
+
+"Hope smiles on Effort!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim
+and resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the
+mark.  With August the school-year (l'annee scolaire) closed, the
+examinations concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools
+dispersed, the gates of all colleges, the doors of all
+pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till the beginning or middle
+of October.  The last day of August was at hand, and what was my
+position?  Had I advanced a step since the commencement of the
+past quarter?  On the contrary, I had receded one.  By renouncing
+my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter's establishment,
+I had voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had
+diminished my 60l. per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now
+held by a very precarious tenure.
+
+It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The
+moonlight walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this
+narrative where that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure:  the
+fact is, since that event, a change had come over the spirit of
+our intercourse.  He, indeed, ignorant that the still hour, a
+cloudless moon, and an open lattice, had revealed to me the
+secret of his selfish love and false friendship, would have
+continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as a
+porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a
+smile for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his
+invitations to take coffee with him in his parlour were
+invariably rejected, and very stiffly and sternly rejected too;
+his jesting allusions to the directress (which he still
+continued) were heard with a grim calm very different from the
+petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite.  For a long
+time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently; he even
+increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing
+politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in
+his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance
+became suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet
+brooding aspect of his brow, a constant examination and
+comparison of premises, and an anxious endeavour to draw thence
+some explanatory inference. Ere long, I fancy, he succeeded, for
+he was not without penetration; perhaps, too, Mdlle. Zoraide
+might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at any rate I
+soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from his
+manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he
+adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite
+deportment.  This was the point to which I had wished to bring
+him, and I was now again comparatively at my ease.  I did not, it
+is true, like my position in his house; but being freed from the
+annoyance of false professions and double-dealing I could endure
+it, especially as no heroic sentiment of hatred or jealousy of
+the director distracted my philosophical soul; he had not, I
+found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so soon
+and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for the
+treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting
+mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in
+the dark.
+
+This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and
+then there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an
+hour after his usual time, in a state of unequivocal
+intoxication, a thing anomalous with him; for if he had some of
+the worst faults of his countrymen, he had also one at least of
+their virtues, i.e. sobriety.  So drunk, however, was he upon
+this occasion, that after having roused the whole establishment
+(except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes in a
+building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of
+the reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and
+ordering lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it
+was noon, whereas the city bells had just tolled midnight; after
+having furiously rated the servants for their want of
+punctuality, and gone near to chastise his poor old mother, who
+advised him to go to bed, he began raving dreadfully about "le
+maudit Anglais, Creemsvort." I had not yet retired; some German
+books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the uproar
+below, and could distinguish the director's voice exalted in a
+manner as appalling as it was unusual.  Opening my door a little,
+I became aware of a demand on his part for "Creemsvort" to be
+brought down to him that he might cut his throat on the
+hall-table and wash his honour, which he affirmed to be in a
+dirty condition, in infernal British blood.  "He is either mad or
+drunk," thought I, "and in either case the old woman and the
+servants will be the better of a man's assistance," so I
+descended straight to the hall.  I found him staggering about,
+his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just
+medium between the fool and the lunatic.
+
+"Come, M. Pelet," said I, "you had better go to bed," and I took
+hold of his arm.  His excitement, of course, increased greatly at
+sight and touch of the individual for whose blood he had been
+making application:  he struggled and struck with fury--but a
+drunken man is no match for a sober one; and, even in his normal
+state, Pelet's worn out frame could not have stood against my
+sound one.  I got him up-stairs, and, in process of time, to bed.
+During the operation he did not fail to utter comminations which,
+though broken, had a sense in them; while stigmatizing me as the
+treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he, in the same
+breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her "femme sotte
+et vicieuse," who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself
+away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the
+last appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me.  I
+left him in the act of bounding elastically out of the bed into
+which I had tucked him; but, as I took the precaution of turning
+the key in the door behind me, I retired to my own room, assured
+of his safe custody till the morning, and free to draw
+undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just witnessed.
+
+Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung
+by my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the
+preference she suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen
+into a snare of her own laying--was herself caught in the meshes
+of the very passion with which she wished to entangle me.
+Conscious of the state of things in that quarter, I gathered,
+from the condition in which I saw my employer, that his lady-love
+had betrayed the alienation of her affections--inclinations,
+rather, I would say; affection is a word at once too warm and too
+pure for the subject--had let him see that the cavity of her
+hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by that of
+his usher.  It was not without some surprise that I found myself
+obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with his old
+-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a match
+--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered
+mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a
+moment over worldly advantage:  yet, it was evident, from what
+Pelet said, that, not only had she repulsed him, but had even let
+slip expressions of partiality for me.  One of his drunken
+exclamations was, "And the jade doats on your youth, you raw
+blockhead! and talks of your noble deportment, as she calls your
+accursed English formality--and your pure morals, forsooth!  des
+moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!"  Hers, I thought, must be a
+curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural tendency to
+estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the sardonic
+disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
+impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering
+assiduities of a prosperous CHEF D'INSTITUTION.  I smiled
+inwardly; and strange to say, though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited
+not disagreeably by the conquest, my better feelings remained
+untouched.  Next day, when I saw the directress, and when she
+made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my notice
+by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could not
+love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly some
+interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern
+bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for
+some time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me:
+they sealed up all that was good elicited all that was noxious in
+my nature; sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always
+hardened my heart.  I was aware of the detriment done, and
+quarrelled with myself for the change.  I had ever hated a
+tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a slave, self-given, went
+near to transform me into what I abhorred!  There was at once a
+sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious incense from
+an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating sense
+of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she
+stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once
+barbarous and sensual as a pasha.  I endured her homage
+sometimes; sometimes I rebuked it.  My indifference or harshness
+served equally to increase the evil I desired to check.
+
+"Que le dedain lui sied bien!" I once overheard her say to her
+mother:  "il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air
+hautain."
+
+And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter
+was bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me,
+except being straight and without deformity.  "Pour moi," she
+continued, "il me fait tout l'effet d'un chat-huant, avec ses
+besicles."
+
+Worthy old girl!  I could have gone and kissed her had she not
+been a little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible,
+truthful words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid
+illusions of her daughter.
+
+When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained
+no recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his
+mother fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing
+him that I had been a witness of his degradation.  He did not
+again have recourse to wine for curing his griefs, but even in
+his sober mood he soon showed that the iron of jealousy had
+entered into his soul.  A thorough Frenchman, the national
+characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted by nature in
+compounding the ingredients of his character; it had appeared
+first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
+demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
+character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
+contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his
+light blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine.  He
+absolutely avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the
+falsehood of his politeness. In this state of our mutual
+relations, my soul rebelled sometimes almost ungovernably,
+against living in the house and discharging the service of such a
+man; but who is free from the constraint of circumstances?  At
+that time, I was not:  I used to rise each morning eager to shake
+off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau under my arm, if a
+beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when I came back
+from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice in
+my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so
+reflective, yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character,
+at once proud and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and
+ardent, in my head; a certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest,
+refined and practical, pure and powerful, delighting and
+troubling my memory--visions of new ties I longed to contract, of
+new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the rover and the
+rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot in the
+light of a Spartan virtue.
+
+But Pelet's fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise,
+progress, and extinction:  in that space of time the dismissal of
+the obnoxious teacher had been effected in the neighbouring
+house, and in the same interval I had declared my resolution to
+follow and find out my pupil, and upon my application for her
+address being refused, I had summarily resigned my own post.
+This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle. Reuter to her
+senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
+fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the
+moment that delusion vanished.  By the right track, I do not mean
+the steep and difficult path of principle--in that path she never
+trod; but the plain highway of common sense, from which she had
+of late widely diverged.  When there she carefully sought, and
+having found, industriously pursued the trail of her old suitor,
+M. Pelet.  She soon overtook him. What arts she employed to
+soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both in
+allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon
+proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have
+managed to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a
+rival of his, for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in
+a fit of exceeding graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a
+dash of exulting self-complacency, more ludicrous than
+irritating.  Pelet's bachelor's life had been passed in proper
+French style with due disregard to moral restraint, and I thought
+his married life promised to be very French also.  He often
+boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain husbands of
+his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult to
+pay him back in his own coin.
+
+The crisis drew on.  No sooner had the holidays commenced than
+note of preparation for some momentous event sounded all through
+the premises of Pelet:  painters, polishers, and upholsterers
+were immediately set to work, and there was talk of "la chambre
+de Madame,"  "le salon de Madame."  Not deeming it probable that
+the old duenna at present graced with that title in our house,
+had inspired her son with such enthusiasm of filial piety, as to
+induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her use, I
+concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the
+kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was
+destined to be the tenant of these gay chambers.
+
+Presently official announcement of the coming event was put
+forth.  In another week's time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and
+Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in
+the bands of matrimony.  Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact
+to me; terminating his communication by an obliging expression of
+his desire that I should continue, as heretofore, his ablest
+assistant and most trusted friend; and a proposition to raise my
+salary by an additional two hundred francs per annum.  I thanked
+him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and, when he had left
+me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out on a long
+walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to
+cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas
+into some order.  In fact, I had just received what was virtually
+my dismissal.  I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal
+from myself the conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle.
+Reuter was destined to become Madame Pelet it would not do for me
+to remain a dependent dweller in the house which was soon to be
+hers.  Her present demeanour towards me was deficient neither in
+dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former feeling was
+unchanged.  Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
+Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation
+would shiver their restraints.
+
+I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility:  in short, if I
+stayed, the probability was that, in three months' time, a
+practical modern French novel would be in full process of
+concoction under the roof of the unsuspecting Pelet.  Now, modern
+French novels are not to my taste, either practically or
+theoretically.  Limited as had yet been my experience of life, I
+had once had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an
+example of the results produced by a course of interesting and
+romantic domestic treachery.  No golden halo of fiction was about
+this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very loathsome.
+I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by the
+habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the
+infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul.  I had suffered
+much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle; those
+sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection
+acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation.  They had
+inscribed on my reason the  conviction that unlawful pleasure,
+trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed
+pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison
+cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.
+
+From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet's,
+and that instantly; "but," said Prudence, "you know not where to
+go, nor how to live;" and then the dream of true love came over
+me:  Frances Henri seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist
+to invite my arm; her hand to court my hand; I felt it was made
+to nestle in mine; I could not relinquish my right to it, nor
+could I withdraw my eyes for ever from hers, where I saw so much
+happiness, such a correspondence of heart with heart; over whose
+expression I had such influence; where I could kindle bliss,
+infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and
+sometimes waken pleasurable dread.  My hopes to will and possess,
+my resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and
+here I was about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution;
+"and all this," suggested an inward voice, "because you fear an
+evil which may never happen!"  "It will happen; you KNOW it
+will," answered that stubborn monitor, Conscience.  "Do what you
+feel is right; obey me, and even in the sloughs of want I will
+plant for you firm footing."  And then, as I walked fast along
+the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea of some
+Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence
+desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and
+evil in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His
+voice, heard in the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to
+the sophisms by which His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil
+--sought to lead me astray.  Rough and steep was the path
+indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way
+along which Temptation strewed flowers; but whereas, methought,
+the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists, would smile
+well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself to the
+rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the
+velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow
+of the man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned
+round; fast I retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at
+M. Pelet's:  I sought him in his study; brief parley, concise
+explanation sufficed; my manner proved that I was resolved; he,
+perhaps, at heart approved my decision.  After twenty minutes'
+conversation, I re-entered my own room, self-deprived of the
+means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present home, with
+the short notice of a week in which to provide another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DIRECTLY as I closed the door, I saw laid on the table two
+letters; my thought was, that they were notes of invitation from
+the friends of some of my pupils; I had received such marks of
+attention occasionally, and with me, who had no friends,
+correspondence of more interest was out of the question; the
+postman's arrival had never yet been an event of interest to me
+since I came to Brussels.  I laid my hand carelessly on the
+documents, and coldly and slowly glancing at them, I prepared to
+break the seals; my eye was arrested and my hand too; I saw what
+excited me, as if I had found a vivid picture where I expected
+only to discover a blank page:  on one cover was an English
+postmark; on the other, a lady's clear, fine autograph; the last
+I opened first:--
+
+"MONSIEUR,
+"I FOUND out what you had done the very morning after your visit
+to me; you might be sure I should dust the china, every day; and,
+as no one but you had been in my room for a week, and as
+fairy-money is not current in Brussels, I could not doubt who
+left the twenty francs on the chimney-piece.  I thought I heard
+you stir the vase when I was stooping to look for your glove
+under the table, and I wondered you should imagine it had got
+into such a little cup.  Now, monsieur, the money is not mine,
+and I shall not keep it; I will not send it in this note because
+it might be lost--besides, it is heavy; but I will restore it to
+you the first time I see you, and you must make no difficulties
+about taking it; because, in the first place, I am sure,
+monsieur, you can understand that one likes to pay one's debts;
+that it is satisfactory to owe no man anything; and, in the
+second place, I can now very well afford to be honest, as I am
+provided with a situation.  This last circumstance is, indeed,
+the reason of my writing to you, for it is pleasant to
+communicate good news; and, in these days, I have only my master
+to whom I can tell anything.
+
+"A week ago, monsieur, I was sent for by a Mrs. Wharton, an
+English lady; her eldest daughter was going to be married, and
+some rich relation having made her a present of a veil and dress
+in costly old lace, as precious, they said, almost as jewels, but
+a little damaged by time, I was commissioned to put them in
+repair.  I had to do it at the house; they gave me, besides, some
+embroidery to complete, and nearly a week elapsed before I had
+finished everything.  While I worked, Miss Wharton often came
+into the room and sat with me, and so did Mrs. Wharton; they made
+me talk English; asked how I had learned to speak it so well;
+then they inquired what I knew besides--what books I had read;
+soon they seemed to make a sort of wonder of me, considering me
+no doubt as a learned grisette.  One afternoon, Mrs. Wharton
+brought in a Parisian lady to test the accuracy of my knowledge
+of French; the result of it:  was that, owing probably in a great
+degree to the mother's and daughter's good humour about the
+marriage, which inclined them to do beneficent deeds, and partly,
+I think, because they are naturally benevolent people, they
+decided that the wish I had expressed to do something more than
+mend lace was a very legitimate one; and the same day they took
+me in their carriage to Mrs. D.'s, who is the directress of the
+first English school at Brussels.  It seems she happened to be in
+want of a French lady to give lessons in geography, history,
+grammar, and composition, in the French language. Mrs. Wharton
+recommended me very warmly; and, as two of her younger daughters
+are pupils in the house, her patronage availed to get me the
+place.  It was settled that I am to attend six hours daily (for,
+happily, it was not required that I should live in the house; I
+should have been sorry to leave my lodgings), and, for this, Mrs.
+D. will give me twelve hundred francs per annum.
+
+"You see, therefore, monsieur, that I am now rich; richer almost
+than I ever hoped to be:  I feel thankful for it, especially as
+my sight was beginning to be injured by constant working at fine
+lace; and I was getting, too, very weary of sitting up late at
+nights, and yet not being able to find time for reading or study.
+I began to fear that I should fall ill, and be unable to pay my
+way; this fear is now, in a great measure, removed; and, in
+truth, monsieur, I am very grateful to God for the relief; and I
+feel it necessary, almost, to speak of my happiness to some one
+who is kind-hearted enough to derive joy from seeing others
+joyful.  I could not, therefore, resist the temptation of writing
+to you; I argued with myself it is very pleasant for me to write,
+and it will not be exactly painful, though it may be tiresome to
+monsieur to read.  Do not be too angry with my circumlocution and
+inelegancies of expression, and, believe me
+
+"Your attached pupil,
+"F. E. HENRI."
+
+Having read this letter, I mused on its contents for a few
+moments--whether with sentiments pleasurable or otherwise I will
+hereafter note--and then took up the other.  It was directed in a
+hand to me unknown--small, and rather neat; neither masculine nor
+exactly feminine; the seal bore a coat of arms, concerning which
+I could only decipher that it was not that of the Seacombe
+family, consequently the epistle could be from none of my almost
+forgotten, and certainly quite forgetting patrician relations.
+From whom, then, was it?  I removed the envelope; the note folded
+within ran as follows:
+
+"I have no doubt in the world that you are doing well in that
+greasy Flanders; living probably on the fat of the unctuous land;
+sitting like a black-haired, tawny-skinned, long-nosed Israelite
+by the flesh-pots of Egypt; or like a rascally son of Levi near
+the brass cauldrons of the sanctuary, and every now and then
+plunging in a consecrated hook, and drawing out of the sea, of
+broth the fattest of heave-shoulders and the fleshiest of
+wave-breasts.  I know this, because you never write to any one in
+England. Thankless dog that you are!  I, by the sovereign
+efficacy of my recommendation, got you the place where you are
+now living in clover, and yet not a word of gratitude, or even
+acknowledgment, have you ever offered in return; but I am coming
+to see you, and small conception can you, with your addled
+aristocratic brains, form of the sort of moral kicking I have,
+ready packed in my carpet-bag, destined to be presented to you
+immediately on my arrival.
+
+"Meantime I know all about your affairs, and have just got
+information, by Brown's last letter, that you are said to be on
+the point of forming an advantageous match with a pursy, little
+Belgian schoolmistress--a Mdlle. Zenobie, or some such name.
+Won't I have a look at her when I come over!  And this you may
+rely on:  if she pleases my taste, or if I think it worth while
+in a pecuniary point of view, I'll pounce on your prize and bear
+her away triumphant in spite of your teeth. Yet I don't like
+dumpies either, and Brown says she is little and stout--the
+better fitted for a wiry, starved-looking chap like you.
+"Be on the look-out, for you know neither the day nor hour when
+your ---- (I don't wish to blaspheme, so I'll leave a blank)
+--cometh.
+
+"Yours truly,
+"HUNSDEN YORKE HUNSDEN."
+
+"Humph!" said I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced
+at the small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a
+mercantile man, nor, indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself.
+They talk of affinities between the autograph and the character:
+what affinity was there here? I recalled the writer's peculiar
+face and certain traits I suspected, rather than knew, to
+appertain to his nature, and I answered, "A great deal."
+
+Hunsden, then, was coming to Brussels, and coming I knew not
+when; coming charged with the expectation of finding me on the
+summit of prosperity, about to be married, to step into a warm
+nest, to lie comfortably down by the side of a snug, well-fed
+little mate.
+
+"I wish him joy of the fidelity of the picture he has painted,"
+thought I.  "What will he say when, instead of a pair of plump
+turtle doves, billing and cooing in a bower of roses, he finds a
+single lean cormorant, standing mateless and shelterless on
+poverty's bleak cliff?  Oh, confound him!  Let him come, and let
+him laugh at the contrast between rumour and fact.  Were he the
+devil himself, instead of being merely very like him, I'd not
+condescend to get out of his way, or to forge a smile or a
+cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm."
+
+Then I recurred to the other letter:  that struck a chord whose
+sound I could not deaden by thrusting my fingers into my ears,
+for it vibrated within; and though its swell might be exquisite
+music, its cadence was a groan.
+
+That Frances was relieved from the pressure of want, that the
+curse of excessive labour was taken off her, filled me with
+happiness; that her first thought in prosperity should be to
+augment her joy by sharing it with me, met and satisfied the wish
+of my heart.  Two results of her letter were then pleasant, sweet
+as two draughts of nectar; but applying my lips for the third
+time to the cup, and they were excoriated as with vinegar and
+gall.
+
+Two persons whose desires are moderate may live well enough in
+Brussels on an income which would scarcely afford a respectable
+maintenance for one in London:  and that, not because the
+necessaries of life are so much dearer in the latter capital, or
+taxes so much higher than in the former, but because the English
+surpass in folly all the nations on God's earth, and are more
+abject slaves to custom, to opinion, to the desire to keep up a
+certain appearance, than the Italians are to priestcraft, the
+French to vain-glory, the Russians to their Czar, or the Germans
+to black beer.  I have seen a degree of sense in the modest
+arrangement of one homely Belgian household, that might put to
+shame the elegance, the superfluities, the luxuries, the strained
+refinements of a hundred genteel English mansions.  In Belgium,
+provided you can make money, you may save it; this is scarcely
+possible in England; ostentation there lavishes in a month what
+industry has earned in a year. More shame to all classes in that
+most bountiful and beggarly country for their servile following
+of Fashion; I could write a chapter or two on this subject, but
+must forbear, at least for the present.  Had I retained my 60l.
+per annum I could, now that Frances was in possession of 50l.,
+have gone straight to her this very evening, and spoken out the
+words which, repressed, kept fretting my heart with fever; our
+united income would, as we should have managed it, have sufficed
+well for our mutual support; since we lived in a country where
+economy was not confounded with meanness, where frugality in
+dress, food, and furniture, was not synonymous with vulgarity in
+these various points.  But the placeless usher, bare of resource,
+and unsupported by connections, must not think of this; such a
+sentiment as love, such a word as marriage, were misplaced in his
+heart, and on his lips.  Now for the first time did I truly feel
+what it was to be poor; now did the sacrifice I had made in
+casting from me the means of living put on a new aspect; instead
+of a correct, just, honourable act, it seemed a deed at once
+light and fanatical; I took several turns in my room, under the
+goading influence of most poignant remorse; I walked a quarter of
+an hour from the wall to the window; and at the window,
+self-reproach seemed to face me; at the wall, self-disdain:  all
+at once out spoke Conscience:--
+
+"Down, stupid tormenters!"  cried she; "the man has done his
+duty; you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have
+been; he relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a
+permanent and certain evil he did well.  Let him reflect now, and
+when your blinding dust and deafening hum subside, he will
+discover a path."
+
+I sat down; I propped my forehead on both my hands; I thought and
+thought an hour-two hours; vainly.  I seemed like one sealed in a
+subterranean vault, who gazes at utter blackness; at blackness
+ensured by yard-thick stone walls around, and by piles of
+building above, expecting light to penetrate through granite, and
+through cement firm as granite.  But there are chinks, or there
+may be chinks, in the best adjusted masonry; there was a chink in
+my cavernous cell; for, eventually, I saw, or seemed to see, a
+ray--pallid, indeed, and cold, and doubtful, but still a ray, for
+it showed that narrow path which conscience had promised after
+two, three hours' torturing research in brain and memory, I
+disinterred certain remains of circumstances, and conceived a
+hope that by putting them together an expedient might be framed,
+and a resource discovered.  The circumstances were briefly these:
+
+Some three months ago M. Pelet had, on the occasion of his fete,
+given the boys a treat, which treat consisted in a party of
+pleasure to a certain place of public resort in the outskirts of
+Brussels, of which I do not at this moment remember the name, but
+near it were several of those lakelets called etangs; and there
+was one etang, larger than the rest, where on holidays people
+were accustomed to amuse themselves by rowing round it in little
+boats. The boys having eaten an unlimited quantity of "gaufres,"
+and drank several bottles of Louvain beer, amid the shades of a
+garden made and provided for such crams, petitioned the director
+for leave to take a row on the etang.  Half a dozen of the eldest
+succeeded in obtaining leave, and I was commissioned to accompany
+them as surveillant.  Among the half dozen happened to be a
+certain Jean Baptiste Vandenhuten, a most ponderous young
+Flamand, not tall, but even now, at the early age of sixteen,
+possessing a breadth and depth of personal development truly
+national. It chanced that Jean was the first lad to step into the
+boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat revolted at his
+weight and capsized.  Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose, sank
+again.  My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not
+been brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten
+long years for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to
+leap to the rescue.  The lads and the boatmen yelled; they
+thought there would be two deaths by drowning instead of one; but
+as Jean rose the third time, I clutched him by one leg and the
+collar, and in three minutes more both he and I were safe landed.
+To speak heaven's truth, my merit in the action was small indeed,
+for I had run no risk, and subsequently did not even catch cold
+from the wetting; but when M. and Madame Vandenhuten, of whom
+Jean Baptiste was the sole hope, came to hear of the exploit,
+they seemed to think I had evinced a bravery and devotion which
+no thanks could sufficiently repay.  Madame, in particular, was
+"certain I must have dearly loved their sweet son, or I would not
+thus have hazarded my own life to save his."  Monsieur, an
+honest-looking, though phlegmatic man, said very little, but he
+would not suffer me to leave the room, till I had promised that
+in case I ever stood in need of help I would, by applying to him,
+give him a chance of discharging the obligation under which he
+affirmed I had laid him.  These words, then, were my glimmer of
+light; it was here I found my sole outlet; and in truth, though
+the cold light roused, it did not cheer me; nor did the outlet
+seem such as I should like to pass through.  Right I had none to
+M. Vandenhuten's good offices; it was not on the ground of merit
+I could apply to him; no, I must stand on that of necessity:  I
+had no work; I wanted work; my best chance of obtaining it lay in
+securing his recommendation.  This I knew could be had by asking
+for it; not to ask, because the request revolted my pride and
+contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of false
+and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my
+life; I would not then be guilty of it.
+
+That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten's; but I had bent the bow
+and adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke.  I rang the
+bell at the great door (it was a large, handsome house in an
+expensive part of the town); a manservant opened; I asked for M.
+Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten and family were all out of town
+--gone to Ostend--did not know when they would be back.  I left
+my card, and retraced my steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was
+solemnized at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet,
+NEE Reuter; and, in about an hour after this transformation, "the
+happy pair," as newspapers phrase it, were on their way to Paris;
+where, according to previous arrangement, the honeymoon was to be
+spent.  The next day I quitted the pensionnat. Myself and my
+chattels (some books and clothes) were soon transferred to a
+modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off.  In half an
+hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf,
+and the "flitting" was effected.  I should not have been unhappy
+that day had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue
+Notre Dame aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward
+resolve to avoid that street till such time as the mist of doubt
+should clear from my prospects.
+
+It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had
+nothing to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally
+released from occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing
+for her master, I knew I wished for my pupil.  Imagination began
+with her low whispers, infusing into my soul the soft tale of
+pleasures that might be.
+
+"You will find her reading or writing," said she; "you can take
+your seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue
+excitement; you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action
+or language.  Be as you always are; look over what she has
+written; listen while she reads; chide her, or quietly approve;
+you know the effect of either system; you know her smile when
+pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused; you have
+the secret of awakening that expression you will, and you can
+choose amongst that pleasant variety.  With you she will sit
+silent as long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her
+under a potent spell:  intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can
+be, you can seal her lips, and veil her bright countenance with
+diffidence; yet, you know, she is not all monotonous mildness;
+you have seen, with a sort of strange pleasure, revolt, scorn,
+austerity, bitterness, lay energetic claim to a place in her
+feelings and physiognomy; you know that few could rule her as you
+do; you know she might break, but never bend under the hand of
+Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide her by
+a sign.  Try their influence now.  Go--they are not passions;
+you may handle them safely."
+
+"I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is
+master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it.  Could I
+seek Frances to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet
+room, and address her only in the language of Reason and
+Affection?"
+
+"No," was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had
+conquered and now controlled me.
+
+Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch
+ticked, but I thought the hands were paralyzed.
+
+"What a hot evening!" I cried, throwing open the lattice; for,
+indeed, I had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending
+the common stair, I wondered whether the "locataire," now
+mounting to his apartments, were as unsettled in mind and
+condition as I was, or whether he lived in the calm of certain
+resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings.  What! was
+he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in
+inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY
+door; a smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him
+in, he was over the threshold, and had closed the door behind
+him.
+
+"And how are you?" asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the
+English language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or
+introduction, put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his
+hat, and drawing the only armchair the room afforded a little
+forward, seated himself tranquilly therein.
+
+"Can't you speak?" he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
+nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing
+whether I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to
+have recourse to my good friends "les besicles;" not exactly to
+ascertain the identity of my visitor--for I already knew him,
+confound his impudence! but to see how he looked--to get a clear
+notion of his mien and countenance.  I wiped the glasses very
+deliberately, and put them on quite as deliberately; adjusting
+them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose or get entangled in
+my short tufts of dun hair.  I was sitting in the window-seat,
+with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a position he
+would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he
+preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized.  Yes, it was HE, and
+no mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting
+attitude; with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet
+collar, his gray pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the
+most original one Nature ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively
+so; not one feature that could be termed marked or odd, yet the
+effect of the whole unique.  There is no use in attempting to
+describe what is indescribable.  Being in no hurry to address
+him, I sat and stared at my ease.
+
+"Oh, that's your game--is it?" said he at last.  "Well, we'll see
+which is soonest tired." And he slowly drew out a fine
+cigar-case, picked one to his taste, lit it, took a book from the
+shelf convenient to his hand, then leaning back, proceeded to
+smoke and read as tranquilly as if he had been in his own room,
+in Grove-street, X---shire, England.  I knew he was capable of
+continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he conceived the
+whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I said,--
+
+"You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it."
+
+"It is silly and dull," he observed, "so I have not lost much;"
+then the spell being broken, he went on.  "I thought you lived at
+Pelet's; I went there this afternoon expecting to be starved to
+death by sitting in a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told
+me you were gone, had departed this morning; you had left your
+address behind you though, which I wondered at; it was a more
+practical and sensible precaution than I should have imagined you
+capable of.  Why did you leave?"
+
+"Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr.
+Brown assigned to me as my wife."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" replied Hunsden with a short laugh; "so you've lost
+both your wife and your place?"
+
+"Precisely so."
+
+I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he
+marked its narrow limits, its scanty furniture:  in an instant he
+had comprehended the state of matters--had absolved me from the
+crime of prosperity.  A curious effect this discovery wrought in
+his strange mind; I am morally certain that if he had found me
+installed in a handsome parlour, lounging on a soft couch, with a
+pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he would have hated me; a brief,
+cold, haughty visit, would in such a case have been the extreme
+limit of his civilities, and never would he have come near me
+more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on its
+surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless
+solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what
+softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere
+he spoke again.
+
+"You have got another place?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are in the way of getting one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That is bad; have you applied to Brown?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful
+information in such matters."
+
+"He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not
+in the humour to bother him again."
+
+"Oh, if you're bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
+commission me.  I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word."
+
+"I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you
+did me an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a
+den where I was dying:  that service I have never repaid, and at
+present I decline positively adding another item to the account."
+
+"If the wind sits that way, I'm satisfied.  I thought my
+unexampled generosity in turning you out of that accursed
+counting-house would be duly appreciated some day:  'Cast your
+bread on the waters, and it shall be found after many days,' say
+the Scriptures.  Yes, that's right, lad--make much of me--I'm a
+nonpareil:  there's nothing like me in the common herd.  In the
+meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for a few
+moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what
+is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand
+that offers it."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
+something else.  What news from X----?"
+
+"I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to
+settle before we get to X----.  Is this Miss Zenobie" (Zoraide,
+interposed I)--"well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?"
+
+"I tell you yes--and if you don't believe me, go and ask the cure
+of St. Jacques."
+
+"And your heart is broken?"
+
+"I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual."
+
+"Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be;
+you must be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack
+without staggering under it."
+
+"Staggering under it?  What the deuce is there to stagger under
+in the circumstance of a Belgian  schoolmistress marrying a
+French schoolmaster?  The progeny will doubtless be a strange
+hybrid race; but that's their Look out--not mine."
+
+"He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced
+one!"
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"Brown."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip."
+
+"He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less
+than fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide
+--why, O youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in
+consequence of her becoming Madame Pelet?"
+
+"Because--" I felt my face grow a little hot; "because--in
+short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions," and
+I plunged my hands deep in my breeches pocket.
+
+Hunsden triumphed:  his eyes--his laugh announced victory.
+
+"What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?"
+
+"At your exemplary composure.  Well, lad, I'll not bore you; I
+see how it is:  Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer,
+as any sensible woman would have done if she had had the chance."
+
+I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to
+enter into an explanation of the real state of things, and as
+little to forge a false account; but it was not easy to blind
+Hunsden; my very silence, instead of convincing him that he had
+hit the truth, seemed to render him doubtful about it; he went
+on:--
+
+"I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always
+are amongst rational people:  you offered her your youth and your
+talents-such as they are--in exchange for her position and money:
+I don't suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into
+the account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown
+says, rather sensible-looking than beautiful.  She, having then
+no chance of making a better bargain, was at first inclined to
+come to terms with you, but Pelet--the head of a flourishing
+school--stepped in with a higher bid; she accepted, and he has
+got her:  a correct transaction--perfectly  so--business-like and
+legitimate.  And now we'll talk of something else."
+
+"Do," said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad
+to have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed,
+I had baffled it; for though his words now led away from the
+dangerous point, his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still
+preoccupied with the former idea.
+
+"You want to hear news from X----?  And what interest can you
+have in X----?  You left no friends there, for you made none.
+Nobody ever asks after you--neither man nor woman; and if I
+mention your name in company, the men look as if I had spoken of
+Prester John; and the women sneer covertly.  Our X---- belles
+must have disliked you.  How did you excite their displeasure?"
+
+"I don't know.  I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me.
+I considered them only as something to be glanced at from a
+distance; their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to
+the eye:  but I could not understand their conversation, nor even
+read their countenances. When I caught snatches of what they
+said, I could never make much of it; and the play of their lips
+and eyes did not help me at all."
+
+"That was your fault, not theirs.  There are sensible, as well as
+handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man's while to
+talk to, and with whom I can talk with pleasure:  but you had and
+have no pleasant address; there is nothing in you to induce a
+woman to be affable.  I have remarked you sitting near the door
+in a room full of company, bent on hearing, not on speaking; on
+observing, not on entertaining; looking frigidly shy at the
+commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about the middle,
+and insultingly weary towards the end.  Is that the way, do you
+think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest?  No; and
+if you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be
+so."
+
+"Content!" I ejaculated.
+
+"No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back
+on you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe
+all that is desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will
+for ever to you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis:  you'll
+look up at them; they will tantalize in you the lust of the eye;
+but they are out of reach:  you have not the address to fetch a
+ladder, and you'll go away calling them sour."
+
+Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances,
+they drew no blood now.  My life was changed; my experience had
+been varied since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this;
+he had seen me only in the character of Mr. Crimsworth's clerk--a
+dependant amongst wealthy strangers, meeting disdain with a hard
+front, conscious of an unsocial and unattractive exterior,
+refusing to sue for notice which I was sure would be withheld,
+declining to evince an admiration which I knew would be scorned
+as worthless.  He could not be aware that since then youth and
+loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied
+them at leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of
+truth under the embroidery of appearance; nor could he,
+keen-sighted as he was, penetrate into my heart, search my
+brain, and read my peculiar sympathies and antipathies; he had
+not known me long enough, or well enough, to perceive how low my
+feelings would ebb under some influences, powerful over most
+minds; how high, how fast they would flow under other influences,
+that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, because
+they acted on me alone.  Neither could he suspect for an instant
+the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to
+him and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation;
+her blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me
+only were they known; but they had changed me, for they had
+proved that I COULD impress.  A sweeter secret nestled deeper in
+my heart; one full of tenderness and as full of strength:  it
+took the sting out of Hunsden's sarcasm; it kept me unbent by
+shame, and unstirred by wrath.  But of all this I could say
+nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed my lips,
+and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
+Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly
+misjudged by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been
+rather too hard upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of
+his upbraidings; so to re-assure me he said, doubtless I should
+mend some day; I was only at the beginning of life yet; and since
+happily I was not quite without sense, every false step I made
+would be a good lesson.
+
+Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
+twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last
+ten minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I
+moved, however, he caught an expression which he thus
+interpreted:--
+
+"Confound it!  How doggedly self-approving the lad looks!  I
+thought he was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning
+smiles, as good as to say, 'Let the world wag as it will, I've
+the philosopher's stone in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir
+of life in my cupboard; I'm independent of both Fate and
+Fortune.'"
+
+"Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like
+better than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing
+wild, which I have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather
+and taste.  It is of no use your offering me the draught of
+bitterness, or threatening me with death by thirst:  I have the
+anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the hope of freshness on
+my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the exhausting."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of
+success will be a treasure after my own heart, I'll bring a
+bull's strength to the struggle."
+
+"Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe,
+the fury dogs you:  you were born with a wooden spoon in your
+mouth, depend on it."
+
+"I believe you; sad I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of
+some people's silver ladles:  grasped firmly, and handled nimbly,
+even a wooden spoon will shovel up broth."
+
+Hunsden rose:  "I see," said he; "I suppose you're one of those
+who develop best unwatched, and act best unaided-work your own
+way.  Now, I'll go."  And, without another word, he was going; at
+the door he turned:--
+
+"Crimsworth Hall is sold," said he.
+
+"Sold!" was my echo.
+
+"Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months
+ago?"
+
+"What!  Edward Crimsworth?"
+
+"Precisely; and his wife went home to her fathers; when affairs
+went awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I
+told you he would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--"
+
+"Ay, as to him--what is become of him?"
+
+"Nothing extraordinary--don't be alarmed; he put himself under
+the protection of the court, compounded with his creditors
+--tenpence in the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back
+his wife, and is flourishing like a green bay-tree."
+
+"And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?"
+
+"Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin."
+
+"And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?"
+
+"Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held
+more sacred than those of any other?"
+
+"And the pictures?"
+
+"What pictures?  Crimsworth had no special collection that I know
+of--he did not profess to be an amateur."
+
+"There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you
+cannot have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of
+the lady--"
+
+"Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
+drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the
+other things.  If you had been rich, you might have bought it,
+for I remember you said it represented your mother:  you see what
+it is to be without a sou."
+
+I did.  "But surely," I thought to myself, "I shall not always be
+so poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who
+purchased it?  do you know?"  I asked.
+
+"How is it likely?  I never inquired who purchased anything;
+there spoke the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is
+interested in what interests himself!  Now, good night--I'm off
+for Germany to-morrow morning; I shall be back here in six weeks,
+and possibly I may call and see you again; I wonder whether
+you'll be still out of place!" he laughed, as mockingly, as
+heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so laughing, vanished.
+
+Some people, however indifferent they may become after a
+considerable space of absence, always contrive to leave a
+pleasant impression just at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference
+with him affected one like a draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed
+a concentration of the specially harsh, stringent, bitter;
+whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely knew.
+
+A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the
+night after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but
+hardly had my slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by
+hearing a noise in my sitting room, to which my bed-room
+adjoined--a step, and a shoving of furniture; the movement lasted
+barely two minutes; with the closing of the door it ceased.  I
+listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I had dreamt it; perhaps a
+locataire had made a mistake, and entered my apartment instead of
+his own.  It was yet but five o'clock; neither I nor the day were
+wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did rise,
+about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the
+first thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it;
+just pushed in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing
+on end, was a wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but
+shallow; a porter had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no
+occupant of the room, had left it at the entrance.
+
+"That is none of mine," thought I, approaching; "it must be meant
+for somebody else." I stooped to examine the address:--
+
+"Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels."
+
+ I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain
+information was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the
+case.  Green baize enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the
+sides; I ripped the pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as
+the seam gave way, glimpses of gilding appeared through the
+widening interstices.  Boards and baize being at length removed,
+I lifted from the case a large picture, in a magnificent frame;
+leaning it against a chair, in a position where the light from
+the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I had
+mounted my spectacles.  A portrait-painter's sky (the most sombre
+and threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional
+depth of hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking
+female face, shadowed with soft dark hair, almost blending with
+the equally dark clouds; large, solemn eyes looked reflectively
+into mine; a thin cheek rested on a delicate little hand; a
+shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half showed a slight
+figure.  A listener (had there been one) might have heard me,
+after ten minutes' silent gazing, utter the word "Mother!" I
+might have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud
+in soliloquy rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy
+people talk to themselves, and then I think out my monologue,
+instead of speaking it.  I had thought a long while, and a long
+while had contemplated the intelligence, the sweetness, and
+--alas! the sadness also of those fine, grey eyes, the mental
+power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility of that serious
+mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a narrow
+billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
+the canvas.  Then I first asked, "Who sent this picture?  Who
+thought of me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and
+now commits it to the care of its natural keeper?" I took the
+note from its niche; thus it spoke:--
+
+"There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a
+fool his bells, a dog a bone.  You are repaid by seeing the child
+besmear his face with sugar; by witnessing how the fool's ecstasy
+makes a greater fool of him than ever; by watching the dog's
+nature come out over his bone. In giving William Crimsworth his
+mother's picture, I give him sweets, bells, and bone all in one;
+what grieves me is, that I cannot behold the result; I would have
+added five shillings more to my bid if the auctioneer could only
+have promised me that pleasure.
+
+"H. Y. H.
+
+"P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another
+item to your account with me; don't you think I've saved you that
+trouble?"
+
+I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to
+the case, and having transported the whole concern to my
+bed-room, put it out of sight under my bed.  My pleasure was now
+poisoned by pungent pain; I determined to look no more till I
+could look at my ease.  If Hunsden had come in at that moment, I
+should have said to him, "I owe you nothing, Hunsden--not a
+fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself in taunts!"
+
+Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner
+breakfasted, than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten's,
+scarcely hoping to find him at home; for a week had barely
+elapsed since my first call:  but fancying I might be able to
+glean information as to the time when his return was expected.
+A better result awaited me than I had anticipated, for though
+the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over to
+Brussels on business for the day.  He received me with the quiet
+kindness of a sincere though not excitable man.  I had not sat
+five minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware
+of a sense of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced
+with strangers.  I was surprised at my own composure, for, after
+all, I had come on business to me exceedingly painful--that of
+soliciting a favour.  I asked on what basis the calm rested--I
+feared it might be deceptive.  Ere long I caught a glimpse of the
+ground, and at once I felt assured of its solidity; I knew where
+it was.
+
+M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor,
+despised and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as
+members of the world's society; but to each other, as a pair of
+human beings, our positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was
+not Flamand, but pure Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense
+intelligence, though sound and accurate judgment; the Englishman
+far more nervous, active, quicker both to plan and to practise,
+to conceive and to realize.  The Dutchman was benevolent, the
+Englishman susceptible; in short our characters dovetailed, but
+my mind having more fire and action than his, instinctively
+assumed and kept the predominance.
+
+This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed
+him on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness
+which full confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him
+to be so appealed to; he thanked me for giving him this
+opportunity of using a little exertion in my behalf.  I went on
+to explain to him that my wish was not so much to be helped, as
+to be put into the way of helping myself; of him I did not want
+exertion--that was to be my part--but only information and
+recommendation.  Soon after I rose to go.  He held out his hand
+at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners
+than with Englishmen.  As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought
+the benevolence of his truthful face was better than the
+intelligence of my own.  Characters of my order experience a
+balm-like solace in the contact of such souls as animated the
+honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
+
+The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my
+existence during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those
+autumnal nights which are specially haunted by meteors and
+falling stars.  Hopes and fears, expectations and
+disappointments, descended in glancing showers from zenith to
+horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift each
+vanishing apparition.  M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set
+me on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to
+secure them for me; but for a long time solicitation and
+recommendation were vain--the door either shut in my face when I
+was about to walk in, or another candidate, entering before me,
+rendered my further advance useless.  Feverish and roused, no
+disappointment arrested me; defeat following fast on defeat
+served as stimulants to will.  I forgot fastidiousness, conquered
+reserve, thrust pride from me:  I asked, I persevered, I
+remonstrated, I dunned.  It is so that openings are forced into
+the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round.  My
+perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked.  I
+was inquired about; my former pupils' parents, gathering the
+reports of their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and
+they echoed the word:  the sound, bandied about at random, came
+at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never
+have reached; and at the very crisis when I had tried my last
+effort and knew not what to do, Fortune looked in at me one
+morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate deliberation on
+my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old acquaintance
+--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a prize
+into my lap.
+
+In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of
+English professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels,
+with a salary of three thousand francs per annum; and the
+certainty of being able, by dint of the reputation and publicity
+accompanying the position, to make as much more by private means.
+The official notice, which communicated this information,
+mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation of M.
+Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in
+my favour.
+
+No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M.
+Vandenhuten's bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and
+when he had perused it, took both his hands, and thanked him with
+unrestrained vivacity.  My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved
+his Dutch calm to unwonted sensation.  He said he was happy--glad
+to have served me; but he had done nothing meriting such thanks.
+He had not laid out a centime--only scratched a few words on a
+sheet of paper.
+
+Again I repeated to him--
+
+"You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do
+not feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do
+not feel disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour;
+from this day you must consent to admit me to your intimate
+acquaintance, for I shall hereafter recur again and again to the
+pleasure of your society."
+
+"Ainsi soit-il," was the reply, accompanied by a smile of
+benignant content.  I went away with its sunshine in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IT was two o'clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner,
+just brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I
+sat down thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with
+potsherds and broken glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots,
+I could not have made a more signal failure:  appetite had
+forsaken me.  Impatient of seeing food which I could not taste, I
+put it all aside into a cupboard, and then demanded, "What shall
+I do till evening?" for before six P.M. it would be vain to seek
+the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me it had but
+one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere.  I walked in the
+streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o'clock
+till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down.  I was
+in my chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed
+my face and feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my
+cheek was crimson, my eye was flame, still all my features looked
+quite settled and calm.  Descending swiftly the stair and
+stepping out, I was glad to see Twilight drawing on in clouds;
+such shade was to me like a grateful screen, and the chill of
+latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from the north-west,
+met me as a refreshing coolness.  Still I saw it was cold to
+others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the
+men had their coats buttoned close.
+
+When are we quite happy?  Was I so then?  No; an urgent and
+growing dread worried my nerves, and had worried them since the
+first moment good tidings had reached me.  How was Frances?  It
+was ten weeks since I had seen her, six since I had heard from
+her, or of her. I had answered her letter by a brief note,
+friendly but calm, in which no mention of continued
+correspondence or further visits was made.  At that hour my bark
+hung on the topmost curl of a wave of fate, and I knew not on
+what shoal the onward rush of the billow might hurl it; I would
+not then attach her destiny to mine by the slightest thread; if
+doomed to split on the rock, or run a aground on the sand-bank, I
+was resolved no other vessel should share my disaster:  but six
+weeks was a long time; and could it be that she was still well
+and doing well?  Were not all sages agreed in declaring that
+happiness finds no climax on earth?  Dared I think that but half
+a street now divided me from the full cup of contentment--the
+draught drawn from waters said to flow only in heaven?
+
+I was at the door; I entered the quiet house; I mounted the
+stairs; the lobby was void and still, all the doors closed; I
+looked for the neat green mat; it lay duly in its place.
+
+"Signal of hope!" I said, and advanced.  "But I will be a little
+calmer; I am not going to rush in, and get up a scene directly."
+Forcibly staying my eager step, I paused on the mat.
+
+"What an absolute hush!  Is she in?  Is anybody in?" I demanded
+to myself.  A little tinkle, as of cinders falling from a grate,
+replied; a movement--a fire was gently stirred; and the slight
+rustle of life continuing, a step paced equably backwards and
+forwards, backwards and forwards, in the apartment.  Fascinated,
+I stood, more fixedly fascinated when a voice rewarded the
+attention of my strained ear--so low, so self-addressed, I never
+fancied the speaker otherwise than alone; solitude might speak
+thus in a desert, or in the hall of a forsaken house.
+
+"'And ne'er but once, my son,' he said,
+  'Was yon dark cavern trod;
+  In persecution's iron days,
+   When the land was left by God.
+  From Bewley's bog, with slaughter red,
+   A wanderer hither drew;
+  And oft he stopp'd and turn'd his head,
+   As by fits the night-winds blew.
+  For trampling round by Cheviot-edge
+   Were heard the troopers keen;
+  And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge
+   The death-shot flash'd between,'" &c. &c.
+
+The old Scotch ballad was partly recited, then dropt; a pause
+ensued; then another strain followed, in French, of which the
+purport, translated, ran as follows:--
+
+ I gave, at first, attention close;
+  Then interest warm ensued;
+ From interest, as improvement rose,
+  Succeeded gratitude.
+
+ Obedience was no effort soon,
+  And labour was no pain;
+ If tired, a word, a glance alone
+  Would give me strength again.
+
+ From others of the studious band,
+  Ere long he singled me;
+ But only by more close demand,
+  And sterner urgency.
+
+ The task he from another took,
+  From me he did reject;
+ He would no slight omission brook,
+  And suffer no defect.
+
+ If my companions went astray,
+  He scarce their wanderings blam'd;
+ If I but falter'd in the way,
+  His anger fiercely flam'd.
+
+Something stirred in an adjoining chamber; it would not do to be
+surprised eaves-dropping; I tapped hastily, And as hastily
+entered.  Frances was just before me; she had been walking slowly
+in her room, and her step was checked by my advent:  Twilight
+only was with her, and tranquil, ruddy Firelight; to these
+sisters, the Bright and the Dark, she had been speaking, ere I
+entered, in poetry. Sir Walter Scott's voice, to her a foreign,
+far-off sound, a mountain echo, had uttered itself in the first
+stanzas; the second, I thought, from the style and the substance,
+was the language of her own heart.  Her face was grave, its
+expression concentrated; she bent on me an unsmiling eye--an eye
+just returning from abstraction, just awaking from dreams:
+well-arranged was her simple attire, smooth her dark hair,
+orderly her tranquil room; but what--with her thoughtful look,
+her serious self-reliance, her bent to meditation and haply
+inspiration--what had she to do with love?  "Nothing," was the
+answer of her own sad, though gentle countenance; it seemed to
+say, "I must cultivate fortitude and cling to poetry; one is to
+be my support and the other my solace through life.  Human
+affections do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me."
+Other women have such thoughts.  Frances, had she been as
+desolate as she deemed, would not have been worse off than
+thousands of her sex.  Look at the rigid and formal race of old
+maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed themselves, from
+youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.  Many of
+them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so
+continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at
+last it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their
+nature; and they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a
+little parchment and much bone.  Anatomists will tell you that
+there is a heart in the withered old maid's carcase--the same as
+in that of any cherished wife or proud mother in the land.  Can
+this be so?  I really don't know; but feel inclined to doubt it.
+
+I came forward, bade Frances "good evening," and took my seat.
+The chair I had chosen was one she had probably just left; it
+stood by a little table where were her open desk and papers.  I
+know not whether she had fully recognized me at first, but she
+did so now; and in a voice, soft but quiet, she returned my
+greeting.  I had shown no eagerness; she took her cue from me,
+and evinced no surprise.  We met as me had always met, as master
+and pupil--nothing more.  I proceeded to handle the papers;
+Frances, observant and serviceable, stepped into an inner room,
+brought a candle, lit it, placed it by me; then drew the curtain
+over the lattice, and having added a little fresh fuel to the
+already bright fire, she drew a second chair to the table and sat
+down at my right hand, a little removed.  The paper on the top
+was a translation of some grave French author into English, but
+underneath lay a sheet with stanzas; on this I laid hands.
+Frances half rose, made a movement to recover the captured spoil,
+saying, that was nothing--a mere copy of verses.  I put by
+resistance with the decision I knew she never long opposed; but
+on this occasion her fingers had fastened on the paper.  I had
+quietly to unloose them; their hold dissolved to my touch; her
+hand shrunk away; my own would fain have followed it, but for the
+present I forbade such impulse.  The first page of the sheet was
+occupied with the lines I had overheard; the sequel was not
+exactly the writer's own experience, but a composition by
+portions of that experience suggested.  Thus while egotism was
+avoided, the fancy was exercised, and the heart satisfied.  I
+translate as before, and my translation is nearly literal; it
+continued thus:--
+
+ When sickness stay'd awhile my course,
+  He seem'd impatient still,
+ Because his pupil's flagging force
+  Could not obey his will.
+
+ One day when summoned to the bed
+  Where pain and I did strive,
+ I heard him, as he bent his head,
+  Say, "God, she must revive!"
+
+ I felt his hand, with gentle stress,
+  A moment laid on mine,
+ And wished to mark my consciousness
+  By some responsive sign.
+
+ But pow'rless then to speak or move,
+  I only felt, within,
+ The sense of Hope, the strength of Love,
+  Their healing work begin.
+
+ And as he from the room withdrew,
+  My heart his steps pursued;
+ I long'd to prove, by efforts new;
+  My speechless gratitude.
+
+ When once again I took my place,
+  Long vacant, in the class,
+ Th' unfrequent smile across his face
+  Did for one moment pass.
+
+ The lessons done; the signal made
+  Of glad release and play,
+ He, as he passed, an instant stay'd,
+  One kindly word to say.
+
+"Jane, till to-morrow you are free
+  From tedious task and rule;
+ This afternoon I must not see
+  That yet pale face in school.
+
+"Seek in the garden-shades a seat,
+  Far from the play-ground din;
+ The sun is warm, the air is sweet:
+  Stay till I call you in."
+
+ A long and pleasant afternoon
+  I passed in those green bowers;
+ All silent, tranquil, and alone
+  With birds, and bees, and flowers.
+
+ Yet, when my master's voice I heard
+  Call, from the window, "Jane!"
+ I entered, joyful, at the word,
+  The busy house again.
+
+ He, in the hall, paced up and down;
+  He paused as I passed by;
+ His forehead stern relaxed its frown:
+  He raised his deep-set eye.
+
+"Not quite so pale," he murmured low.
+  "Now Jane, go rest awhile."
+ And as I smiled, his smoothened brow
+  Returned as glad a smile.
+
+ My perfect health restored, he took
+  His mien austere again;
+ And, as before, he would not brook
+  The slightest fault from Jane.
+
+ The longest task, the hardest theme
+  Fell to my share as erst,
+ And still I toiled to place my name
+  In every study first.
+
+ He yet begrudged and stinted praise,
+  But I had learnt to read
+ The secret meaning of his face,
+  And that was my best meed.
+
+ Even when his hasty temper spoke
+  In tones that sorrow stirred,
+ My grief was lulled as soon as woke
+  By some relenting word.
+
+ And when he lent some precious book,
+  Or gave some fragrant flower,
+ I did not quail to Envy's look,
+  Upheld by Pleasure's power.
+
+ At last our school ranks took their ground,
+  The hard-fought field I won;
+ The prize, a laurel-wreath, was bound
+  My throbbing forehead on.
+
+ Low at my master's knee I bent,
+  The offered crown to meet;
+ Its green leaves through my temples sent
+  A thrill as wild as sweet.
+
+ The strong pulse of Ambition struck
+  In every vein I owned;
+ At the same instant, bleeding broke
+  A secret, inward wound.
+
+ The hour of triumph was to me
+  The hour of sorrow sore;
+ A day hence I must cross the sea,
+  Ne'er to recross it more.
+
+ An hour hence, in my master's room
+  I with him sat alone,
+ And told him what a dreary gloom
+  O'er joy had parting thrown.
+
+ He little said; the time was brief,
+  The ship was soon to sail,
+ And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
+  My master but looked pale.
+
+ They called in haste; he bade me go,
+  Then snatched me back again;
+ He held me fast and murmured low,
+ "Why will they part us, Jane?"
+
+"Were you not happy in my care?
+  Did I not faithful prove?
+ Will others to my darling bear
+  As true, as deep a love?
+
+"O God, watch o'er my foster child!
+  O guard her gentle head!
+ When minds are high and tempests wild
+  Protection round her spread!
+
+"They call again; leave then my breast;
+  Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
+ But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
+  Come home to me again!"
+
+I read--then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil;
+thinking all the while of other things; thinking that "Jane" was
+now at my side; no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might
+be mine, so my heart affirmed; Poverty's curse was taken off me;
+Envy and Jealousy were far away, and unapprized of this our quiet
+meeting; the frost of the Master's manner might melt; I felt the
+thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no further need for the
+eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress its expense
+into a stern fold:  it was now permitted to suffer the outward
+revelation of the inward glow--to seek, demand, elicit an
+answering ardour.  While musing thus, I thought that the grass on
+Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than
+my feelings drank the bliss of this hour.
+
+Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the
+fire, which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the
+little ornaments on the mantelpiece; her dress waved within a
+yard of me; slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on
+the hearth.
+
+There are impulses we can control; but there are others which
+control us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our
+masters ere we have seen them.  Perhaps, though, such impulses
+are seldom altogether bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief
+as quiet, a process that is finished ere felt, has ascertained
+the sanity of the deed Instinct meditates, and feels justified in
+remaining passive while it is performed.  I know I did not
+reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, whereas one moment I was
+sitting solus on the chair near the table, the next, I held
+Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and decision, and
+retained with exceeding tenacity.
+
+"Monsieur!" cried Frances, and was still:  not another word
+escaped her lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse
+of the first few moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror
+did not succeed, nor fury:  after all, she was only a little
+nearer than she had ever been before, to one she habitually
+respected and trusted; embarrassment might have impelled her to
+contend, but self-respect checked resistance where resistance was
+useless.
+
+"Frances, how much regard have you for me?"  was my demand.  No
+answer; the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit
+speech.  On this consideration, I compelled myself for some
+seconds to tolerate her silence, though impatient of it:
+presently, I repeated the same question--probably, not in the
+calmest of tones; she looked at me; my face, doubtless, was no
+model of composure, my eyes no still wells of tranquillity.
+
+"Do speak," I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch
+voice said--
+
+"Monsieur, vous me faites mal; de grace lachez un peu ma main
+droite."
+
+In truth I became aware that I was holding the said "main droite"
+in a somewhat ruthless grasp:  I did as desired; and, for the
+third time, asked more gently--
+
+"Frances, how much regard have you for me?"
+
+"Mon maitre, j'en ai beaucoup," was the truthful rejoinder.
+
+"Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?--to
+accept me as your husband?"
+
+I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw "the purple light of
+love" cast its glowing reflection on cheeks, temples, neck; I
+desired to consult the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade.
+
+"Monsieur," said the soft voice at last,--"Monsieur desire savoir
+si je consens--si--enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?"
+
+"Justement."
+
+"Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu'il a ete bon maitre?"
+
+"I will try, Frances."
+
+A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the
+voice--an inflexion which provoked while it pleased me
+--accompanied, too, by a "sourire a la fois fin et timide" in
+perfect harmony with the tone:--
+
+"C'est a dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entete exigeant,
+volontaire--?"
+
+"Have I been so, Frances?"
+
+"Mais oui; vous le savez bien."
+
+"Have I been nothing else?"
+
+"Mais oui; vons avez ete mon meilleur ami."
+
+"And what, Frances, are you to me?"
+
+"Votre devouee eleve, qui vous aime de tout son coeur."
+
+"Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me?  Speak English
+now, Frances."
+
+Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced
+slowly, ran thus:--
+
+"You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like
+to see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good,
+and very superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless
+and idle, but you are kind, very kind to the attentive and
+industrious, even if they are not clever.  Master, I should be
+GLAD to live with you always;" and she made a sort of movement,
+as if she would have clung to me, but restraining herself she
+only added with earnest emphasis--"Master, I consent to pass my
+life with you."
+
+"Very well, Frances."
+
+I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from
+her lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us;
+afterwards she and I were silent, nor was our silence brief.
+Frances' thoughts, during this interval, I know not, nor did I
+attempt to guess them; I was not occupied in searching her
+countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure.  The peace
+I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained
+her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long as no
+opposition tightened it.  My gaze was on the red fire; my heart
+was measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found
+the depth fathomless.
+
+"Monsieur," at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her
+happiness as a mouse in its terror.  Even now in speaking she
+scarcely lifted her head.
+
+"Well, Frances?" I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my
+way to overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry
+with selfishly importunate caresses.
+
+"Monsieur est raisonnable, n'eut-ce pas?"
+
+"Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English:  but
+why do you ask me?  You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my
+manner; am I not tranquil enough?"
+
+"Ce n'est pas cela--" began Frances.
+
+"English!" I reminded her.
+
+"Well, monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of
+course, to retain my employment of teaching.  You will teach
+still, I suppose, monsieur?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  It is all I have to depend on."
+
+"Bon!--I mean good.  Thus we shall have both the same profession.
+I like that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as
+yours--will they not, monsieur?"
+
+"You are laying plans to be independent of me," said I.
+
+"Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you--no burden in any
+way."
+
+"But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are.  I
+have left M. Pelet's; and after nearly a month's seeking, I have
+got another place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year,
+which I can easily double by a little additional exertion.  Thus
+you see it would be useless for you to fag yourself by going out
+to give lessons; on six thousand francs you and I can live, and
+live well."
+
+Frances seemed to consider.  There is something flattering to
+man's strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in
+the idea of becoming the providence of what he loves--feeding and
+clothing it, as God does the lilies of the field.  So, to decide
+her resolution, I went on:--
+
+"Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far,
+Frances; you require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs
+would not form a very important addition to our income, and what
+sacrifice of comfort to earn it!  Relinquish your labours:  you
+must be weary, and let me have the happiness of giving you rest."
+
+I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my
+harangue; instead of answering me with her usual respectful
+promptitude, she only sighed and said,--
+
+"How rich you are, monsieur!" and then she stirred uneasy in my
+arms.  "Three thousand francs!" she  murmured, "While I get only
+twelve hundred!" She went on faster.  "However, it must be so for
+the present; and, monsieur, were you not saying something about
+my giving up my place?  Oh no!  I shall hold it fast;" and her
+little fingers emphatically tightened on mine.
+
+"Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur!  I could
+not do it; and how dull my days would be!  You would be away
+teaching in close, noisy school-rooms, from morning till evening,
+and I should be lingering at home, unemployed and solitary; I
+should get depressed and sullen, and you would soon tire of me."
+
+"Frances, you could read and study--two things you
+like so well."
+
+"Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like
+an active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you.
+I have taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each
+other's company for amusement, never really like each other so
+well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together,
+and perhaps suffer together."
+
+"You speak God's truth," said I at last, "and you shall have your
+own way, for it is the best way.  Now, as a reward for such ready
+consent, give me a voluntary kiss."
+
+After some hesitation, natural to a novice in the art of kissing,
+she brought her lips into very shy and gentle contact with my
+forehead; I took the small gift as a loan, and repaid it
+promptly, and with generous interest.
+
+I know not whether Frances was really much altered since the time
+I first saw her; but, as I looked at her now, I felt that she was
+singularly changed for me; the sad eye, the pale cheek, the
+dejected and joyless countenance I remembered as her early
+attributes, were quite gone, and now I saw a face dressed in
+graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and
+brightened its hues.  I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering
+idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular
+perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not
+rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's
+treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment.  To-night
+my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that
+it was only my tastes which were unique, not my power of
+discovering and appreciating the superiority of moral worth over
+physical charms.  For me Frances had physical charms:  in her
+there was no deformity to get over; none of those prominent
+defects of eyes, teeth, complexion, shape, which hold at bay the
+admiration of the boldest male champions of intellect (for women
+can love a downright ugly man if he be but talented); had she
+been either "edentee, myope, rugueuse, ou bossue," my feelings
+towards her might still have been kindly, but they could never
+have been impassioned; I had affection for the poor little
+misshapen Sylvie, but for her I could never have had love.  It is
+true Frances' mental points had been the first to interest me,
+and they still retained the strongest hold on my preference; but
+I liked the graces of her person too. I derived a pleasure,
+purely material, from contemplating the clearness of her brown
+eyes, the fairness of her fine skin, the purity of her well-set
+teeth, the proportion of her delicate form; and that pleasure I
+could ill have dispensed with.  It appeared, then, that I too was
+a sensualist, in my temperate and fastidious way.
+
+Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you
+honey fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food
+so luscious; taste then a little gall--just a drop, by way of
+change.
+
+At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having
+temporarily forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those
+of eating and drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited
+and in action all day, and had tasted no food since eight that
+morning; besides, for a fortnight past, I had known no rest
+either of body or mind; the last few hours had been a sweet
+delirium, it would not subside now, and till long after midnight,
+broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed.  At last I
+dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, and
+my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his
+face, and like him, "the hair of my flesh stood up." I might
+continue the parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing, yet "a
+thing was secretly brought unto me, and mine ear received a
+little thereof; there was silence, and I heard a voice," saying
+--"In the midst of life we are in death."
+
+That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it,
+many would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at
+once as the effect of reaction.  Man is ever clogged with his
+mortality, and it was my mortal nature which now faltered and
+plained; my nerves, which jarred and gave a false sound, because
+the soul, of late rushing headlong to an aim, had overstrained
+the body's comparative weakness.  A horror of great darkness fell
+upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly,
+but had thought for ever departed.  I was temporarily a prey to
+hypochondria.
+
+She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in
+boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for
+that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with
+me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in
+woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where
+she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun,
+grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom,
+and holding me with arms of bone.  What tales she would tell me
+at such hours!  What songs she would recite in my ears!  How she
+would discourse to me of her own country--the grave--and again
+and again promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me
+to the very brink of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other
+side, shores unequal with mound, monument, and tablet, standing
+up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight.  "Necropolis!" she
+would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, "It contains
+a mansion prepared for you."
+
+But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or
+sister; and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a
+sorceress, finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many
+affections and few objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy
+prospects, strong desires and slender hopes, should lift up her
+illusive lamp to me in the distance, and lure me to her vaulted
+home of horrors.  No wonder her spells THEN had power; but NOW,
+when my course was widening, my prospect brightening; when my
+affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding wings,
+weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of
+fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a
+soft hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?
+
+I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine
+coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in
+vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day,
+and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to
+recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I
+was well.  I had gone about as usual all the time, and had said
+nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad when the evil
+spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, and sit
+at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long
+walk; we made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and,
+afterwards, Frances being a little tired, we sat down on one of
+those wayside seats placed under the trees, at intervals, for the
+accommodation of the weary.  Frances was telling me about
+Switzerland; the subject animated her; and I was just thinking
+that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her tongue, when she
+stopped and remarked--
+
+"Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you."
+
+I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
+passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by
+their features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized
+Mr. Hunsden; he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances;
+afterwards, he made a grimace at me, and passed on.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"A person I knew in England."
+
+"Why did he bow to me?  He does not know me."
+
+"Yes, he does know you, in his way."
+
+"How, monsieur?" (She still called me "monsieur"; I could not
+persuade her to adopt any more familiar term.)
+
+"Did you not read the expression of his eyes?"
+
+"Of his eyes?  No.  What did they say?"
+
+"To you they said, 'How do you do, Wilhelmina, Crimsworth?'
+To me, 'So you have found your counterpart at last; there she
+sits, the female of your kind!'"
+
+"Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; He was so
+soon gone."
+
+"I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call
+on me this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I
+have no doubt he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I
+bring him to your rooms?"
+
+"If you please, monsieur--I have no objection; I think, indeed, I
+should rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original."
+
+As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening.  The first
+thing he said was:--
+
+"You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know
+about your appointment to ---- College, and all that; Brown has
+told me."  Then he intimated that he had returned from Germany
+but a day or two since; afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether
+that was Madame Pelet-Reuter with whom he had seen me on the
+Boulevards.  I was going to utter a rather emphatic negative,
+but on second thoughts I checked myself, and, seeming to assent,
+asked what he thought of her?
+
+"As to her, I'll come to that directly; but first I've a word for
+you.  I see you are a scoundrel; you've no business to be
+promenading about with another man's wife. I thought you had
+sounder sense than to get mixed up in foreign hodge-podge of this
+sort."
+
+"But the lady?"
+
+"She's too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something
+better than you--no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I
+looked back to see you both walk away) I thought her figure and
+carriage good.  These foreigners understand grace.  What the
+devil has she done with Pelet?  She has not been married to him
+three months--he must be a spoon!"
+
+I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.
+
+"Pelet?  How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet!  You are
+always talking about them.  I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle.
+Zoraide yourself!"
+
+"Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?"
+
+"No; nor Madame Zoraide either."
+
+"Why did you tell a lie, then?"
+
+"I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry.  She is a pupil of
+mine--a Swiss girl."
+
+"And of course you are going to be married to her?  Don't deny
+that."
+
+"Married!  I think I shall--if Fate spares us both ten weeks
+longer.  That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose
+sweetness made me careless of your hothouse grapes."
+
+"Stop!  No boasting--no heroics; I won't hear them.  What is she?
+To what caste does she belong?"
+
+I smiled.  Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste,
+and, in fact, republican, lordhater as he was, Hunsden was as
+proud of his old ----shire blood, of his descent and family
+standing, respectable and respected through long generations
+back, as any peer in the realm of his Norman race and
+Conquest-dated title.  Hunsden would as little have thought of
+taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley
+would think of mating with a Cobden.  I enjoyed the surprise I
+should give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his
+theory; and leaning over the table, and uttering the words slowly
+but with repressed glee, I said concisely--
+
+"She is a lace-mender."
+
+Hunsden examined me.  He did not SAY he was surprised, but
+surprised he was; he had his own notions of good breeding.  I saw
+he suspected I was going to take some very rash step; but
+repressing declamation or remonstrance, he only answered--
+
+"Well, you are the best; judge of your own affairs.  A
+lace-mender may make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course
+you have taken care to ascertain thoroughly that since she has
+not education, fortune or station, she is well furnished with
+such natural qualities as you think most likely to conduce to
+your happiness.  Has she many relations?"
+
+"None in Brussels."
+
+"That is better.  Relations are often the real evil in such
+cases.  I cannot but think that a train of inferior connections
+would have been a bore to you to your life's end."
+
+After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and
+was quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate
+manner in which he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done
+before), convinced me that he thought I had made a terrible fool
+of myself; and that, ruined and thrown away as I was, it was no
+time for sarcasm or cynicism, or indeed for anything but
+indulgence and forbearance.
+
+"Good night, William," he said, in a really soft voice, while his
+face looked benevolently compassionate.  "Good night, lad.  I
+wish you and your future wife much prosperity; and I hope she
+will satisfy your fastidious soul."
+
+I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the
+magnanimous pity of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air,
+I said:--
+
+"I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?"
+
+"Oh, that is the name!  Yes--if it would be convenient, I should
+like to see her--but----." He hesitated.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should on no account wish to intrude."
+
+"Come, then," said I.  We set out.  Hunsden no doubt regarded me
+as a rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette
+sweetheart, in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he
+prepared to act the real gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel
+of that character, under the harsh husk it pleased him to wear by
+way of mental mackintosh.  He talked affably, and even gently, as
+we went along the street; he had never been so civil to me in his
+life.  We reached the house, entered, ascended the stair; on
+gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair which
+led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.
+
+"Here, Mr. Hunsden," said I quietly, tapping at Frances' door.
+He turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted
+at having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat,
+but he said nothing.
+
+We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to
+receive us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather
+conventual, but withal very distinguished look; its grave
+simplicity added nothing to beauty, but much to dignity; the
+finish of the white collar and manchettes sufficed for a relief
+to the merino gown of solemn black; ornament was forsworn.
+Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as she always did,
+when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect than to
+love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness
+at making his acquaintance in French.  The pure and polished
+accent, the low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their
+effect immediately; Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not
+heard him speak that language before; he managed it very well.  I
+retired to the window-seat; Mr. Hunsden, at his hostess's
+invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth; from my position I
+could see them both, and the room too, at a glance.  The room was
+so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished cabinet; a
+glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a fresh
+rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE,
+Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually
+polite; they got on at the French swimmingly:  ordinary topics
+were discussed with great state and decorum; I thought I had
+never seen two such models of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to
+the constraint of the foreign tongue) was obliged to shape his
+phrases, and measure his sentences, with a care that forbade any
+eccentricity.  At last England was mentioned, and Frances
+proceeded to ask questions.  Animated by degrees, she began to
+change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach of
+sunrise:  first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her
+eyes glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile;
+her subdued complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now
+looked pretty; before, she had only looked ladylike.
+
+She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
+island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of
+curiosity, which ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws
+a congealed viper.  I use this not very flattering comparison
+because he vividly reminded me of a snake waking from torpor, as
+he erected his tall form, reared his head, before a little
+declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
+forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which
+his interlocutor's tone of eagerness and look of ardour had
+sufficed at once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes:
+he was himself; as Frances was herself, and in none but his own
+language would he now address her.
+
+"You understand English?" was the prefatory question.
+
+"A little."
+
+"Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you've
+not much more sense than some others of my acquaintance"
+(indicating me with his thumb), "or else you'd never turn rabid
+about that dirty little country called England; for rabid, I see
+you are; I read Anglophobia in your looks, and hear it in your
+words.  Why, mademoiselle, is it possible that anybody with a
+grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a mere name,
+and that name England?  I thought you were a lady-abbess five
+minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are
+a sort of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church
+principles!"
+
+"England is your country?" asked Frances.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you don't like it?"
+
+"I'd be sorry to like it!  A little corrupt, venal,
+lord-and-king-cursed nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in
+----shire), and helpless pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten
+with prejudices!"
+
+"You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and
+prejudices everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in
+other countries."
+
+"Come to England and see.  Come to Birmingham and Manchester;
+come to St. Giles' in London, and get a practical notion of how
+our system works.  Examine the footprints of our august
+aristocracy; see how they walk in blood, crushing hearts as they
+go.  Just put your head in at English cottage doors; get a
+glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black hearthstones; of
+Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of Infamy wantoning
+viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her favourite
+paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched
+hovels----"
+
+"I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I
+was thinking of the good side--of what is elevated in your
+character as a nation."
+
+"There is no good side--none at least of which you can have any
+knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the
+achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science:
+narrowness of education and obscurity of position quite
+incapacitate you from understanding these points; and as to
+historical and poetical associations, I will not insult you,
+mademoiselle, by supposing that you alluded to such humbug."
+
+"But I did partly."
+
+Hunsden laughed--his laugh of unmitigated scorn.
+
+"I did, Mr. Hunsden.  Are you of the number of those to whom such
+associations give no pleasure?"
+
+"Mademoiselle, what is an association?  I never saw one.  What is
+its length, breadth, weight, value--ay, VALUE?  What price will
+it bring in the market?"
+
+"Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of
+association, be without price."
+
+That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather
+acutely, too, somewhere; for he coloured--a thing not unusual
+with him, when hit unawares on a tender point.  A sort of trouble
+momentarily darkened his eye, and I believe he filled up the
+transient pause succeeding his antagonist's home-thrust, by a
+wish that some one did love him as he would like to be loved
+--some one whose love he could unreservedly return.
+
+The lady pursued her temporary advantage.
+
+"If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no
+longer wonder that you hate England so.  I don't clearly know
+what Paradise is, and what angels are; yet taking it to be the
+most glorious region I can conceive, and angels the most elevated
+existences--if one of them--if Abdiel the Faithful himself" (she
+was thinking of Milton) "were suddenly stripped of the faculty of
+association, I think he would soon rush forth from 'the
+ever-during gates,' leave heaven, and seek what he had lost in
+hell. Yes, in the very hell from which he turned 'with retorted
+scorn.'"
+
+Frances' tone in saying this was as marked as her language, and
+it was when the word "hell" twanged off from her lips, with a
+somewhat startling emphasis, that Hunsden deigned to bestow one
+slight glance of admiration.  He liked something strong, whether
+in man or woman; he liked whatever dared to clear conventional
+limits.  He had never before heard a lady say "hell" with that
+uncompromising sort of accent, and the sound pleased him from a
+lady's lips; he would fain have had Frances to strike the string
+again, but it was not in her way.  The display of eccentric
+vigour never gave her pleasure, and it only sounded in her voice
+or flashed in her countenance when extraordinary circumstances
+--and those generally painful--forced it out of the depths where
+it burned latent.  To me, once or twice, she had in intimate
+conversation, uttered venturous thoughts in nervous language; but
+when the hour of such manifestation was past, I could not recall
+it; it came of itself and of itself departed.  Hunsden's
+excitations she put by soon with a smile, and recurring to the
+theme of disputation, said--
+
+"Since England is nothing, why do the continental nations respect
+her so?"
+
+"I should have thought no child would have asked that question,"
+replied Hunsden, who never at any time gave information without
+reproving for stupidity those who asked it of him.  "If you had
+been my pupil, as I suppose you once had the misfortune to be
+that of a deplorable character not a hundred miles off, I would
+have put you in the corner for such a confession of ignorance.
+Why, mademoiselle, can't you see that it is our GOLD which buys
+us French politeness, German good-will, and Swiss servility?"
+And he sneered diabolically.
+
+"Swiss?" said Frances, catching the word "servility." "Do you
+call my countrymen servile?" and she started up.  I could not
+suppress a low laugh; there was ire in her glance and defiance in
+her attitude.  "Do you abuse Switzerland to me, Mr. Hunsden?  Do
+you think I have no associations?  Do you calculate that I am
+prepared to dwell only on what vice and degradation may be found
+in Alpine villages, and to leave quite out of my heart the social
+greatness of my countrymen, and our blood-earned freedom, and the
+natural glories of our mountains?  You're mistaken--you're
+mistaken."
+
+"Social greatness?  Call it what you will, your countrymen are
+sensible fellows; they make a marketable article of what to you
+is an abstract idea; they have, ere this, sold their social
+greatness and also their blood-earned freedom to be the servants
+of foreign kings."
+
+"You never were in Switzerland?"
+
+"Yes--I have been there twice."
+
+"You know nothing of it."
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you say the Swiss are mercenary, as a parrot says 'Poor
+Poll,' or as the Belgians here say the English are not brave, or
+as the French accuse them of being perfidious: there is no
+justice in your dictums."
+
+"There is truth."
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I
+am an unpractical woman, for you don't acknowledge what really
+exists; you want to annihilate individual patriotism and national
+greatness as an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by
+denying their existence."
+
+"Where are you flying to?  You are off at a tangent--I thought we
+were talking about the mercenary nature of the Swiss."
+
+"We were--and if you proved to me that the Swiss are mercenary
+to-morrow (which you cannot do) I should love Switzerland still."
+
+"You would be mad, then--mad as a March hare--to indulge in a
+passion for millions of shiploads of soil, timber, snow, and
+ice."
+
+"Not so mad as you who love nothing."
+
+"There's a method in my madness; there's none in yours."
+
+"Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make
+manure of the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use."
+
+"You cannot reason at all," said Hunsden; "there is no logic in
+you."
+
+"Better to be without logic than without feeling," retorted
+Frances, who was now passing backwards and forwards from her
+cupboard to the table, intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at
+least on hospitable deeds, for she was laying the cloth, and
+putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
+
+"Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle?  Do you suppose I am without
+feeling?"
+
+"I suppose you are always interfering with your own feelings, and
+those of other people, and dogmatizing about the irrationality of
+this, that, and the other sentiment, and then ordering it to be
+suppressed because you imagine it to be inconsistent with logic."
+
+"I do right."
+
+Frances had stepped out of sight into a sort of little pantry;
+she soon reappeared.
+
+"You do right?  Indeed, no!  You are much mistaken if you think
+so.  Just be so good as to let me get to the fire, Mr. Hunsden; I
+have something to cook." (An interval occupied in settling a
+casserole on the fire; then, while she stirred its contents:)
+"Right! as if it were right to crush any pleasurable sentiment
+that God has given to man, especially any sentiment that, like
+patriotism, spreads man's selfishness in wider circles" (fire
+stirred, dish put down before it).
+
+"Were you born in Switzerland?"
+
+"I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?"
+
+"And where did you get your English features and figure?"
+
+"I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I
+have a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an
+interest in two noble, free, and fortunate countries."
+
+"You had an English mother?"
+
+"Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from
+Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your
+interest?"
+
+"On the contrary, I'm a universal patriot, if you could
+understand me rightly:  my country is the world."
+
+"Sympathies so widely diffused must be very shallow:  will you
+have the goodness to come to table.  Monsieur" (to me who
+appeared to be now absorbed in reading by moonlight)--"Monsieur,
+supper is served."
+
+This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had
+been bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden--not so short, graver and
+softer.
+
+"Frances, what do you mean by preparing, supper? we had no
+intention of staying."
+
+"Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you
+have only the alternative of eating it."
+
+The meal was a foreign one, of course; it consisted in two small
+but tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with
+nicety; a salad and "fromage francais," completed it.  The
+business of eating interposed a brief truce between the
+belligerents, but no sooner was supper disposed of than they were
+at it again.  The fresh subject of dispute ran on the spirit of
+religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to exist
+strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment
+of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had greatly the worst of
+it, not only because she was unskilled to argue, but because her
+own real opinions on the point in question happened to coincide
+pretty nearly with Mr. Hunsden's, and she only contradicted him
+out of opposition.  At last she gave in, confessing that she
+thought as he thought, but bidding him take notice that she did
+not consider herself beaten.
+
+"No more did the French at Waterloo," said Hunsden.
+
+"There is no comparison between the cases," rejoined Frances;
+"mine was a sham fight."
+
+"Sham or real, it's up with you."
+
+"No; though I have neither logic nor wealth of words, yet in a
+case where my opinion really differed from yours, I would adhere
+to it when I had not another word to say in its defence; you
+should be baffled by dumb determination. You speak of Waterloo;
+your Wellington ought to have been conquered there, according to
+Napoleon; but he persevered in spite of the laws of war, and was
+victorious in defiance of military tactics.  I would do as he
+did."
+
+"I'll be bound for it you would; probably you have some of the
+same sort of stubborn stuff in you.
+
+"I should be sorry if I had not; he and Tell were brothers, and
+I'd scorn the Swiss, man or woman, who had none of the
+much-enduring nature of our heroic William in his soul."
+
+"If Tell was like Wellington, he was an ass."
+
+"Does not ASS mean BAUDET?" asked Frances, turning to me.
+
+"No, no," replied I, "it means an ESPRIT-FORT; and now," I
+continued, as I saw that fresh occasion of strife was brewing
+between these two, "it is high time to go."
+
+Hunsden rose.  "Good bye," said he to Frances; "I shall be off
+for this glorious England to-morrow, and it may be twelve months
+or more before I come to Brussels again; whenever I do come I'll
+seek you out, and you shall see if I don't find means to make you
+fiercer than a dragon. You've done pretty well this evening, but
+next interview you shall challenge me outright.  Meantime you're
+doomed to become Mrs. William Crimsworth, I suppose; poor young
+lady? but you have a spark of spirit; cherish it, and give the
+Professor the full benefit thereof."
+
+"Are you married.  Mr. Hunsden?" asked Frances, suddenly.
+
+"No.  I should have thought you might have guessed I was a
+Benedict by my look."
+
+"Well, whenever you marry don't take a wife out of Switzerland;
+for if you begin blaspheming Helvetia, and cursing the cantons
+--above all, if you mention the word ASS in the same breath with
+the name Tell (for ass IS baudet, I know; though Monsieur is
+pleased to translate it ESPRIT-FORT) your mountain maid will some
+night smother her Breton-bretonnant, even as your own
+Shakspeare's Othello smothered Desdemona."
+
+"I am warned," said Hunsden; "and so are you, lad," (nodding to
+me).  "I hope yet to hear of a travesty of the Moor and his
+gentle lady, in which the parts shall be reversed according to
+the plan just sketched--you, however, being in my nightcap.
+Farewell, mademoiselle!"  He bowed on her hand, absolutely like
+Sir Charles Grandison on that of Harriet Byron; adding--"Death
+from such fingers would not be without charms."
+
+"Mon Dieu!" murmured Frances, opening her large eyes and lifting
+her distinctly arched brows; "c'est qu'il fait des compliments!
+je ne m'y suis pas attendu." She smiled, half in ire, half in
+mirth, curtsied with foreign grace, and so they parted.
+
+No sooner had we got into the street than Hunsden collared me.
+
+"And that is your lace-mender?" said he; "and you reckon you have
+done a fine, magnanimous thing in offering to marry her?  You, a
+scion of Seacombe, have proved your disdain of social
+distinctions by taking up with an ouvriere!  And I pitied the
+fellow, thinking his feelings had misled him, and that he had
+hurt himself by contracting a low match!"
+
+"Just let go my collar, Hunsden."
+
+"On the contrary, he swayed me to and fro; so I grappled him
+round the waist.  It was dark; the street lonely and lampless.
+We had then a tug for it; and after we had both rolled on the
+pavement, and with difficulty picked ourselves up, we agreed to
+walk on more soberly.
+
+"Yes, that's my lace-mender," said I; "and she is to be mine for
+life--God willing."
+
+"God is not willing--you can't suppose it; what business have you
+to be suited so well with a partner?  And she treats you with a
+sort of respect, too, and says, 'Monsieur' and modulates her tone
+in addressing you, actually, as if you were something superior!
+She could not evince more deference to such a one as I, were she
+favoured by fortune to the supreme extent of being my choice
+instead of yours."
+
+"Hunsden, you're a puppy.  But you've only seen the title-page of
+my happiness; you don't know the tale that follows; you cannot
+conceive the interest and sweet variety and thrilling excitement
+of the narrative."
+
+Hunsden--speaking low and deep, for we had now entered a busier
+street--desired me to hold my peace, threatening to do something
+dreadful if I stimulated his wrath further by boasting.  I
+laughed till my sides ached. We soon reached his hotel; before he
+entered it, he said--
+
+"Don't be vainglorious.  Your lace-mender is too good for you,
+but not good enough for me; neither physically nor morally does
+she come up to my ideal of a woman. No; I dream of something far
+beyond that pale-faced, excitable little Helvetian (by-the-by she
+has infinitely more of the nervous, mobile Parisienne in her than
+of the the robust 'jungfrau').  Your Mdlle. Henri is in person
+"chetive", in mind "sans caractere", compared with the queen of
+my visions.  You, indeed, may put up with that "minois chiffone";
+but when I marry I must have straighter and more harmonious
+features, to say nothing of a nobler and better developed shape
+than that perverse, ill-thriven child can boast."
+
+"Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you
+will," said I, "and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest,
+most boneless, fullest-blooded of Ruben's painted women--leave me
+only my Alpine peri, and I'll not envy you."
+
+With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other.
+Neither said "God bless you;" yet on the morrow the sea was to
+roll between us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+IN two months more Frances had fulfilled the time of mourning for
+her aunt.  One January morning--the first of the new year
+holidays--I went in a fiacre, accompanied only by M. Vandenhuten,
+to the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges, and having alighted alone and
+walked upstairs, I found Frances apparently waiting for me,
+dressed in a style scarcely appropriate to that cold, bright,
+frosty day.  Never till now had I seen her attired in any other
+than black or sad-coloured stuff; and there she stood by the
+window, clad all in white, and white of a most diaphanous
+texture; her array was very simple, to be sure, but it looked
+imposing and festal because it was so clear, full, and floating;
+a veil shadowed her head, and hung below her knee; a little
+wreath of pink flowers fastened it to her thickly tressed Grecian
+plait, and thence it fell softly on each side of her face.
+Singular to state, she was, or had been crying; when I asked her
+if she were ready, she said "Yes, monsieur," with something very
+like a checked sob; and when I took a shawl, which lay on the
+table, and folded it round her, not only did tear after tear
+course unbidden down her cheek, but she shook to my ministration
+like a reed.  I said I was sorry to see her in such low spirits,
+and requested to be allowed an insight into the origin thereof.
+She only said, "It was impossible to help it," and then
+voluntarily, though hurriedly, putting her hand into mine,
+accompanied me out of the room, and ran downstairs with a quick,
+uncertain step, like one who was eager to get some formidable
+piece of business over.  I put her into the fiacre.  M.
+Vandenhuten received her, and seated her beside himself; we drove
+all together to the Protestant chapel, went through a certain
+service in the Common Prayer Book, and she and I came out
+married.  M. Vandenhuten had given the bride away.
+
+We took no bridal trip; our modesty, screened by the peaceful
+obscurity of our station, and the pleasant isolation of our
+circumstances, did not exact that additional precaution.  We
+repaired at once to a small house I had taken in the faubourg
+nearest to that part of the city where the scene of our
+avocations lay.
+
+Three or four hours after the wedding ceremony, Frances, divested
+of her bridal snow, and attired in a pretty lilac gown of warmer
+materials, a piquant black silk apron, and a lace collar with
+some finishing decoration of lilac ribbon, was kneeling on the
+carpet of a neatly furnished though not spacious parlour,
+arranging on the shelves of a chiffoniere some books, which I
+handed to her from the table.  It was snowing fast out of doors;
+the afternoon had turned out wild and cold; the leaden sky seemed
+full of drifts, and the street was already ankle-deep in the
+white downfall.  Our fire burned bright, our new habitation
+looked brilliantly clean and fresh, the furniture was all
+arranged, and there were but some articles of glass, china,
+books, &c., to put in order.  Frances found in this business
+occupation till tea-time, and then, after I had distinctly
+instructed her how to make a cup of tea in rational English
+style, and after she had got over the dismay occasioned by seeing
+such an extravagant amount of material put into the pot, she
+administered to me a proper British repast, at which there wanted
+neither candies nor urn, fire-light nor comfort.
+
+Our week's holiday glided by, and we readdressed ourselves to
+labour.  Both my wife and I began in good earnest with the notion
+that we were working people, destined to earn our bread by
+exertion, and that of the most assiduous kind.  Our days were
+thoroughly occupied; we used to part every morning at eight
+o'clock, and not meet again till five P.M.; but into what sweet
+rest did the turmoil of each busy day decline!  Looking down the
+vista, of memory, I see the evenings passed in that little
+parlour like a long string of rubies circling the dusk brow of
+the past.  Unvaried were they as each cut gem, and like each gem
+brilliant and burning.
+
+A year and a half passed.  One morning (it was a FETE, and we had
+the day to ourselves) Frances said to me, with a suddenness
+peculiar to her when she had been thinking long on a subject, and
+at last, having come to a conclusion, wished to test its
+soundness by the touchstone of my judgment:--
+
+"I don't work enough."
+
+"What now?" demanded I, looking up from my coffee, which I had
+been deliberately stirring while enjoying, in anticipation, a
+walk I proposed to take with Frances, that fine summer day (it
+was June), to a certain farmhouse in the country, where we were
+to dine.  "What now?" and I saw at once, in the serious ardour of
+her face, a project of vital importance.
+
+"I am not satisfied" returned she:  "you are now earning eight
+thousand francs a year" (it was true; my efforts, punctuality,
+the fame of my pupils' progress, the publicity of my station, had
+so far helped me on), "while I am still at my miserable twelve
+hundred francs.  I CAN do better, and I WILL."
+
+"You work as long and as diligently as I do, Frances."
+
+"Yes, monsieur, but I am not working in the right way, and I am
+convinced of it."
+
+"You wish to change--you have a plan for progress in your mind;
+go and put on your bonnet; and, while we take our walk, you shall
+tell me of it."
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+She went--as docile as a well-trained child; she was a curious
+mixture of tractability and firmness:  I sat thinking about her,
+and wondering what her plan could be, when she re-entered.
+
+"Monsieur, I have given Minnie" (our bonne) "leave to go out too,
+as it is so very fine; so will you be kind enough to lock the
+door, and take the key with you?"
+
+"Kiss me, Mrs. Crimsworth," was my not very apposite reply; but
+she looked so engaging in her light summer dress and little
+cottage bonnet, and her manner in speaking to me was then, as
+always, so unaffectedly and suavely respectful, that my heart
+expanded at the sight of her, and a kiss seemed necessary to
+content its importunity.
+
+"There, monsieur."
+
+"Why do you always call me 'Monsieur?' Say, 'William.'"
+
+"I cannot pronounce your W; besides, 'Monsieur' belongs to you; I
+like it best."
+
+Minnie having departed in clean cap and smart shawl, we, too, set
+out, leaving the house solitary and silent--silent, at least, but
+for the ticking of the clock.  We were soon clear of Brussels;
+the fields received us, and then the lanes, remote from
+carriage-resounding CHAUSSEES.  Ere long we came upon a nook, so rural,
+green, and secluded, it might have been a spot in some pastoral
+English province; a bank of short and mossy grass, under a
+hawthorn, offered a seat too tempting to be declined; we took it,
+and when we had admired and examined some English-looking
+wild-flowers growing at our feet, I recalled Frances' attention
+and my own to the topic touched on at breakfast.
+
+"What was her plan?" A natural one--the next step to be mounted
+by us, or, at least, by her, if she wanted to rise in her
+profession.  She proposed to begin a school.  We already had the
+means for commencing on a careful scale, having lived greatly
+within our income.  We possessed, too, by this time, an extensive
+and eligible connection, in the sense advantageous to our
+business; for, though our circle of visiting acquaintance
+continued as limited as ever, we were now widely known in schools
+and families as teachers.  When Frances had developed her plan,
+she intimated, in some closing sentences, her hopes for the
+future.  If we only had good health and tolerable success, me
+might, she was sure, in time realize an independency; and that,
+perhaps, before we were too old to enjoy it; then both she and I
+would rest; and what was to hinder us from going to live in
+England?  England was still her Promised Land.
+
+I put no obstacle in her way; raised no objection; I knew she was
+not one who could live quiescent and inactive, or even
+comparatively inactive.  Duties she must have to fulfil, and
+important duties; work to do--and exciting, absorbing, profitable
+work; strong faculties stirred in her frame, and they demanded
+full nourishment, free exercise:  mine was not the hand ever to
+starve or cramp them; no, I delighted in offering them
+sustenance, and in clearing them wider space for action.
+
+"You have conceived a plan, Frances," said I, "and a good plan;
+execute it; you have my free consent, and wherever and whenever
+my assistance is wanted, ask and you shall have."
+
+Frances' eyes thanked me almost with tears; just a sparkle or
+two, soon brushed away; she possessed herself of my hand too, and
+held it for some time very close clasped in both her own, but she
+said no more than "Thank you, monsieur."
+
+We passed a divine day, and came home late, lighted by a full
+summer moon.
+
+Ten years rushed now upon me with dusty, vibrating, unresting
+wings; years of bustle, action, unslacked endeavour; years in
+which I and my wife, having launched ourselves in the full career
+of progress, as progress whirls on in European capitals, scarcely
+knew repose, were strangers to amusement, never thought of
+indulgence, and yet, as our course ran side by side, as we
+marched hand in hand, we neither murmured, repented, nor
+faltered.  Hope indeed cheered us; health kept us up; harmony of
+thought and deed smoothed many difficulties, and finally, success
+bestowed every now and then encouraging reward on diligence.  Our
+school became one of the most popular in Brussels, and as by
+degrees we raised our terms and elevated our system of education,
+our choice of pupils grew more select, and at length included the
+children of the best families in Belgium.  We had too an
+excellent connection in England, first opened by the unsolicited
+recommendation of Mr. Hunsden, who having been over, and having
+abused me for my prosperity in set terms, went back, and soon
+after sent a leash of young ----shire heiresses--his cousins; as
+he said "to be polished off by Mrs. Crimsworth."
+
+As to this same Mrs. Crimsworth, in one sense she was become
+another woman, though in another she remained unchanged.  So
+different was she under different circumstances. I seemed to
+possess two wives.  The faculties of her nature, already
+disclosed when I married her, remained fresh and fair; but other
+faculties shot up strong, branched out broad, and quite altered
+the external character of the plant.  Firmness, activity, and
+enterprise, covered with grave foliage, poetic feeling and
+fervour; but these flowers were still there, preserved pure and
+dewy under the umbrage of later growth and hardier nature:
+perhaps I only in the world knew the secret of their existence,
+but to me they were ever ready to yield an exquisite fragrance
+and present a beauty as chaste as radiant.
+
+In the daytime my house and establishment were conducted by
+Madame the directress, a stately and elegant woman, bearing much
+anxious thought on her large brow; much calculated dignity in her
+serious mien:  immediately after breakfast I used to part with
+this lady; I went to my college, she to her schoolroom; returning
+for an hour in the course of the day, I found her always in
+class, intently occupied; silence, industry, observance,
+attending on her presence.  When not actually teaching, she was
+overlooking and guiding by eye and gesture; she then appeared
+vigilant and solicitous.  When communicating instruction, her
+aspect was more animated; she seemed to feel a certain enjoyment
+in the occupation.  The language in which she addressed her
+pupils, though simple and unpretending, was never trite or dry;
+she did not speak from routine formulas--she made her own phrases
+as she went on, and very nervous and impressive phrases they
+frequently were; often, when elucidating favourite points of
+history, or geography, she would wax genuinely eloquent in her
+earnestness.  Her pupils, or at least the elder and more
+intelligent amongst them, recognized well the language of a
+superior mind; they felt too, and some of them received the
+impression of elevated sentiments; there was little fondling
+between mistress and girls, but some of Frances' pupils in time
+learnt to love her sincerely, all of them beheld her with
+respect; her general demeanour towards them was serious;
+sometimes benignant when they pleased her with their progress and
+attention, always scrupulously refined and considerate.  In cases
+where reproof or punishment was called for she was usually
+forbearing enough; but if any took advantage of that forbearance,
+which sometimes happened, a sharp, sudden and lightning-like
+severity taught the culprit the extent of the mistake committed.
+Sometimes a gleam of tenderness softened her eyes and manner, but
+this was rare; only when a pupil was sick, or when it pined after
+home, or in the case of some little motherless child, or of one
+much poorer than its companions, whose scanty wardrobe and mean
+appointments brought on it the contempt of the jewelled young
+countesses and silk-clad misses.  Over such feeble fledglings the
+directress spread a wing of kindliest protection:  it was to
+their bedside she came at night to tuck them warmly in; it was
+after them she looked in winter to see that they always had a
+comfortable seat by the stove; it was they who by turns were
+summoned to the salon to receive some little dole of cake or
+fruit--to sit on a footstool at the fireside--to enjoy home
+comforts, and almost home liberty, for an evening together--to be
+spoken to gently and softly, comforted, encouraged, cherished
+--and when bedtime came, dismissed with a kiss of true
+tenderness.  As to Julia and Georgiana G ----, daughters of an
+English baronet, as to Mdlle. Mathilde de ----, heiress of a
+Belgian count, and sundry other children of patrician race, the
+directress was careful of them as of the others, anxious for
+their progress, as for that of the rest--but it never seemed to
+enter her head to distinguish them by a mark of preference; one
+girl of noble blood she loved dearly--a young Irish baroness
+--lady Catherine ----; but it was for her enthusiastic heart and
+clever head, for her generosity and her genius, the title and
+rank went for nothing.
+
+My afternoons were spent also in college, with the exception of
+an hour that my wife daily exacted of me for her establishment,
+and with which she would not dispense. She said that I must spend
+that time amongst her pupils to learn their characters, to be AU
+COURANT with everything that was passing in the house, to become
+interested in what interested her, to be able to give her my
+opinion on knotty points when she required it, and this she did
+constantly, never allowing my interest in the pupils to fall
+asleep, and never making any change of importance without my
+cognizance and consent.  She delighted to sit by me when I gave
+my lessons (lessons in literature), her hands folded on her knee,
+the most fixedly attentive of any present.  She rarely addressed
+me in class; when she did it was with an air of marked deference;
+it was her pleasure, her joy to make me still the master in all
+things.
+
+At six o'clock P.M. my daily labours ceased.  I then came home,
+for my home was my heaven; ever at that hour, as I entered our
+private sitting-room, the lady-directress vanished from before my
+eyes, and Frances Henri, my own little lace-mender, was magically
+restored to my arms; much disappointed she would have been if her
+master had not been as constant to the tryste as herself, and if
+his truthfull kiss had not been prompt to answer her soft, "Bon
+soir, monsieur."
+
+Talk French to me she would, and many a punishment she has had
+for her wilfulness.  I fear the choice of chastisement must have
+been injudicious, for instead of correcting the fault, it seemed
+to encourage its renewal.  Our evenings were our own; that
+recreation was necessary to refresh our strength for the due
+discharge of our duties; sometimes we spent them all in
+conversation, and my young Genevese, now that she was thoroughly
+accustomed to her English professor, now that she loved him too
+absolutely to fear him much, reposed in him a confidence so
+unlimited that topics of conversation could no more be wanting
+with him than subjects for communion with her own heart.  In
+those moments, happy as a bird with its mate, she would show me
+what she had of vivacity, of mirth, of originality in her
+well-dowered nature.  She would show, too, some stores of
+raillery, of "malice," and would vex, tease, pique me sometimes
+about what she called my "bizarreries anglaises," my "caprices
+insulaires," with a wild and witty wickedness that made a perfect
+white demon of her while it lasted.  This was rare, however, and
+the elfish freak was always short:  sometimes when driven a
+little hard in the war of words--for her tongue did ample justice
+to the pith, the point, the delicacy of her native French, in
+which language she always attacked me--I used to turn upon her
+with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased
+me.  Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf
+was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown
+eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its
+place.  I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive
+and supplicating little mortal woman in my arms.  Then I made her
+get a book, and read English to me for an hour by way of penance.
+I frequently dosed her with Wordsworth in this way, and
+Wordsworth steadied her soon; she had a difficulty in
+comprehending his deep, serene, and sober mind; his language,
+too, was not facile to her; she had to ask questions, to sue for
+explanations, to be like a child and a novice, and to acknowledge
+me as her senior and director.  Her instinct instantly penetrated
+and possessed the meaning of more ardent and imaginative writers.
+Byron excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled
+at, wondered over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
+
+But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased
+me in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with
+wit, or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or
+listened with attention; whether she smiled at me or on me,
+always at nine o'clock I was left abandoned.  She would extricate
+herself from my arms, quit my side, take her lamp, and be gone.
+Her mission was upstairs; I have followed her sometimes and
+watched her.  First she opened the door of the dortoir (the
+pupils' chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room between
+the two rows of white beds, surveyed all the sleepers; if any
+were wakeful, especially if any were sad, spoke to them and
+soothed them; stood some minutes to ascertain that all was safe
+and tranquil; trimmed the watch-light which burned in the
+apartment all night, then withdrew, closing the door behind her
+without sound. Thence she glided to our own chamber; it had a
+little cabinet within; this she sought; there, too, appeared a
+bed, but one, and that a very small one; her face (the night I
+followed and observed her) changed as she approached this tiny
+couch; from grave it warmed to earnest; she shaded with one hand
+the lamp she held in the other; she bent above the pillow and
+hung over a child asleep; its slumber (that evening at least, and
+usually, I believe) was sound and calm; no tear wet its dark
+eyelashes; no fever heated its round cheek; no ill dream
+discomposed its budding features.  Frances gazed, she did not
+smile, and yet the deepest delight filled, flushed her face;
+feeling pleasurable, powerful, worked in her whole frame, which
+still was motionless.  I saw, indeed, her heart heave, her lips
+were a little apart, her breathing grew somewhat hurried; the
+child smiled; then at last the mother smiled too, and said in low
+soliloquy, "God bless my little son!" She stooped closer over
+him, breathed the softest of kisses on his brow, covered his
+minute hand with hers, and at last started up and came away.  I
+regained the parlour before her.  Entering it two minutes later
+she said quietly as she put down her extinguished lamp--
+
+"Victor rests well:  he smiled in his sleep; he has your smile,
+monsieur."
+
+The said Victor was of course her own boy, born in the third year
+of our marriage:  his Christian name had been given him in honour
+of M. Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and
+well-beloved friend.
+
+Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her
+a good, just, and faithful husband.  What she would have been had
+she married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a
+prodigal, a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one
+which I once propounded to her. Her answer, given after some
+reflection, was--
+
+"I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile;
+and when I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left
+my torturer suddenly and silently."
+
+"And if law or might had forced you back again?"
+
+"What, to a drunkard, a profligate, a selfish spendthrift, an
+unjust fool?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I would have gone back; again assured myself whether or not his
+vice and my misery were capable of remedy; and if not, have left
+him again."
+
+"And if again forced to return, and compelled to abide?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, hastily.  "Why do you ask me,
+monsieur?"
+
+I would have an answer, because I saw a strange kind of spirit in
+her eye, whose voice I determined to waken.
+
+"Monsieur, if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is
+wedded to, marriage must be slavery.  Against slavery all right
+thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance,
+torture must be dared:  though the only road to freedom lie
+through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for
+freedom is indispensable.  Then, monsieur, I would resist as far
+as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be
+sure of a refuge.  Death would certainly screen me both from bad
+laws and their consequences."
+
+"Voluntary death, Frances?"
+
+"No, monsieur.  I'd have courage to live out every throe of
+anguish fate assigned me, and principle to contend for justice
+and liberty to the last."
+
+"I see you would have made no patient Grizzle.  And now,
+supposing fate had merely assigned you the lot of an old maid,
+what then?  How would you have liked celibacy?"
+
+"Not much, certainly.  An old maid's life must doubtless be void
+and vapid--her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I
+should have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease
+the aching.  I should have probably failed, and died weary and
+disappointed, despised and of no account, like other single
+women.  But I'm not an old maid," she added quickly.  "I should
+have been, though, but for my master.  I should never have suited
+any man but Professor Crimsworth--no other gentleman, French,
+English, or Belgian, would have thought me amiable or handsome;
+and I doubt whether I should have cared for the approbation of
+many others, if I could have obtained it.  Now, I have been
+Professor Crimsworth's wife eight years, and what is he in my
+eyes?  Is he honourable, beloved ----?"  She stopped, her voice was
+cut off, her eyes suddenly suffused.  She and I were standing
+side by side; she threw her arms round me, and strained me to her
+heart with passionate earnestness:  the energy of her whole being
+glowed in her dark and then dilated eye, and crimsoned her
+animated cheek; her look and movement were like inspiration; in
+one there was such a flash, in the other such a power.  Half an
+hour afterwards, when she had become calm, I asked where all that
+wild vigour was gone which had transformed her ere-while and made
+her glance so thrilling and ardent--her action so rapid and
+strong.  She looked down, smiling softly and passively:--
+
+"I cannot tell where it is gone, monsieur," said she, "but I know
+that, whenever it is wanted, it will come back again."
+
+Behold us now at the close of the ten years, and we have realized
+an independency.  The rapidity with which we attained this end
+had its origin in three reasons:-- Firstly, we worked so hard for
+it; secondly, we had no incumbrances to delay success; thirdly,
+as soon as we had capital to invest, two well-skilled
+counsellors, one in Belgium, one in England, viz.  Vandenhuten
+and Hunsden, gave us each a word of advice as to the sort of
+investment to be chosen.  The suggestion made was judicious; and,
+being promptly acted on, the result proved gainful--I need not
+say how gainful; I communicated details to Messrs. Vandenhuten
+and Hunsden; nobody else can be interested in hearing them.
+
+Accounts being wound up, and our professional connection disposed
+of, we both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his
+service that in which we desired to spend our lives; as our
+desires were temperate, and our habits unostentatious, we had now
+abundance to live on--abundance to leave our boy; and should
+besides always have a balance on hand, which, properly managed by
+right sympathy and unselfish activity, might help philanthropy in
+her enterprises, and put solace into the hand of charity.
+
+To England we now resolved to take wing; we arrived there safely;
+Frances realized the dream of her lifetime. We spent a whole
+summer and autumn in travelling from end to end of the British
+islands, and afterwards passed a winter in London.  Then we
+thought it high time to fix our residence.  My heart yearned
+towards my native county of ----shire; and it is in ----shire I
+now live; it is in the library of my own home I am now writing.
+That home lies amid a sequestered and rather hilly region, thirty
+miles removed from X----; a region whose verdure the smoke of
+mills has not yet sullied, whose waters still run pure, whose
+swells of moorland preserve in some ferny glens that lie between
+them the very primal wildness of nature, her moss, her bracken,
+her blue-bells, her scents of reed and heather, her free and
+fresh breezes.  My house is a picturesque and not too spacious
+dwelling, with low and long windows, a trellised and leaf-veiled
+porch over the front door, just now, on this summer evening,
+looking like an arch of roses and ivy.  The garden is chiefly
+laid out in lawn, formed of the sod of the hills, with herbage
+short and soft as moss, full of its own peculiar flowers, tiny
+and starlike, imbedded in the minute embroidery of their fine
+foliage.  At the bottom of the sloping garden there is a wicket,
+which opens upon a lane as green as the lawn, very long, shady,
+and little frequented; on the turf of this lane generally appear
+the first daisies of spring--whence its name--Daisy Lane; serving
+also as a distinction to the house.
+
+It terminates (the lane I mean) in a valley full of wood; which
+wood--chiefly oak and beech--spreads shadowy about the vicinage
+of a very old mansion, one of the Elizabethan structures, much
+larger, as well as more antique than Daisy Lane, the property and
+residence of an individual familiar both to me and to the reader.
+Yes, in Hunsden Wood--for so are those glades and that grey
+building, with many gables and more chimneys, named--abides Yorke
+Hunsden, still unmarried; never, I suppose, having yet found his
+ideal, though I know at least a score of young ladies within a
+circuit of forty miles, who would be willing to assist him in the
+search.
+
+The estate fell to him by the death of his father, five years
+since; he has given up trade, after having made by it sufficient
+to pay off some incumbrances by which the family heritage was
+burdened.  I say he abides here, but I do not think he is
+resident above five months out of the twelve; he wanders from
+land to land, and spends some part of each winter in town:  he
+frequently brings visitors with him when he comes to ----shire,
+and these visitors are often foreigners; sometimes he has a
+German metaphysician, sometimes a French savant; he had once a
+dissatisfied and savage-looking Italian, who neither sang nor
+played, and of whom Frances affirmed that he had "tout l'air d'un
+conspirateur."
+
+What English guests Hunsden invites, are all either men of
+Birmingham or Manchester--hard men, seemingly knit up in one
+thought, whose talk is of free trade.  The foreign visitors, too,
+are politicians; they take a wider theme--European progress--the
+spread of liberal sentiments over the Continent; on their mental
+tablets, the names of Russia, Austria, and the Pope, are
+inscribed in red ink.  I have heard some of them talk vigorous
+sense--yea, I have been present at polyglot discussions in the
+old, oak-lined dining-room at Hunsden Wood, where a singular
+insight was given of the sentiments entertained by resolute minds
+respecting old northern despotisms, and old southern
+superstitions:  also, I have heard much twaddle, enounced chiefly
+in French and Deutsch, but let that pass.  Hunsden himself
+tolerated the drivelling theorists; with the practical men he
+seemed leagued hand and heart.
+
+When Hunsden is staying alone at the Wood (which seldom happens)
+he generally finds his way two or three times a week to Daisy
+Lane.  He has a philanthropic motive for coming to smoke his
+cigar in our porch on summer evenings; he says he does it to kill
+the earwigs amongst the roses, with which insects, but for his
+benevolent fumigations, he intimates we should certainly be
+overrun.  On wet days, too, we are almost sure to see him;
+according to him, it gets on time to work me into lunacy by
+treading on my mental corns, or to force from Mrs. Crimsworth
+revelations of the dragon within her, by insulting the memory of
+Hofer and Tell.
+
+We also go frequently to Hunsden Wood, and both I and Frances
+relish a visit there highly.  If there are other guests, their
+characters are an interesting study; their conversation is
+exciting and strange; the absence of all local narrowness both in
+the host and his chosen society gives a metropolitan, almost a
+cosmopolitan freedom and largeness to the talk.  Hunsden himself
+is a polite man in his own house:  he has, when he chooses to
+employ it, an inexhaustible power of entertaining guests; his
+very mansion too is interesting, the rooms look storied, the
+passages legendary, the low-ceiled chambers, with their long rows
+of diamond-paned lattices, have an old-world, haunted air:  in
+his travels he has collected stores of articles of VERTU, which
+are well and tastefully disposed in his panelled or tapestried
+rooms:  I have seen there one or two pictures, and one or two
+pieces of statuary which many an aristocratic connoisseur might
+have envied.
+
+When I and Frances have dined and spent an evening with Hunsden,
+he often walks home with us.  His wood is large, and some of the
+timber is old and of huge growth. There are winding ways in it
+which, pursued through glade and brake, make the walk back to
+Daisy Lane a somewhat long one.  Many a time, when we have had
+the benefit of a full moon, and when the night has been mild and
+balmy, when, moreover, a certain nightingale has been singing,
+and a certain stream, hid in alders, has lent the song a soft
+accompaniment, the remote church-bell of the one hamlet in a
+district of ten miles, has tolled midnight ere the lord of the
+wood left us at our porch.  Free-flowing was his talk at such
+hours, and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and
+before numbers.  He would then forget politics and discussion,
+and would dwell on the past times of his house, on his family
+history, on himself and his own feelings--subjects each and all
+invested with a peculiar zest, for they were each and all unique.
+One glorious night in June, after I had been taunting him about
+his ideal bride and asking him when she would come and graft her
+foreign beauty on the old Hunsden oak, he answered suddenly--
+
+"You call her ideal; but see, here is her shadow; and there
+cannot be a shadow without a substance."
+
+He had led us from the depth of the "winding way" into a glade
+from whence the beeches withdrew, leaving it open to the sky; an
+unclouded moon poured her light into this glade, and Hunsden held
+out under her beam an ivory miniature.
+
+Frances, with eagerness, examined it first; then she gave it to
+me--still, however, pushing her little face close to mine, and
+seeking in my eyes what I thought of the portrait.  I thought it
+represented a very handsome and very individual-looking female
+face, with, as he had once said, "straight and harmonious
+features." It was dark; the hair, raven-black, swept not only
+from the brow, but from the temples--seemed thrust away
+carelessly, as if such beauty dispensed with, nay, despised
+arrangement. The Italian eye looked straight into you, and an
+independent, determined eye it was; the mouth was as firm as
+fine; the chin ditto.  On the back of the miniature was gilded
+"Lucia."
+
+"That is a real head," was my conclusion.
+
+Hunsden smiled.
+
+"I think so," he replied.  "All was real in Lucia."
+
+"And she was somebody you would have liked to marry--but could
+not?"
+
+"I should certainly have liked to marry her, and that I HAVE not
+done so is a proof that I COULD not."
+
+He repossessed himself of the miniature, now again in Frances'
+hand, and put it away.
+
+"What do YOU think of it?" he asked of my wife, as he buttoned
+his coat over it.
+
+"I am sure Lucia once wore chains and broke them," was the
+strange answer.  "I do not mean matrimonial chains," she added,
+correcting herself, as if she feared mis-interpretation, "but
+social chains of some sort.  The face is that of one who has made
+an effort, and a successful and triumphant effort, to wrest some
+vigorous and valued faculty from insupportable constraint; and
+when Lucia's faculty got free, I am certain it spread wide
+pinions and carried her higher than--" she hesitated.
+
+"Than what?" demanded Hunsden.
+
+"Than 'les convenances' permitted you to follow."
+
+"I think you grow spiteful--impertinent."
+
+"Lucia has trodden the stage," continued Frances.  "You never
+seriously thought of marrying her; you admired her originality,
+her fearlessness, her energy of body and mind; you delighted in
+her talent, whatever that was, whether song, dance, or dramatic
+representation; you worshipped her beauty, which was of the sort
+after your own heart: but I am sure she filled a sphere from
+whence you would never have thought of taking a wife."
+
+"Ingenious," remarked Hunsden; "whether true or not is another
+question.  Meantime, don't you feel your little lamp of a spirit
+wax very pale, beside such a girandole as Lucia's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Candid, at least; and the Professor will soon be dissatisfied
+with the dim light you give?"
+
+"Will you, monsieur?"
+
+"My sight was always too weak to endure a blaze, Frances," and we
+had now reached the wicket.
+
+I said, a few pages back, that this is a sweet summer evening; it
+is--there has been a series of lovely days, and this is the
+loveliest; the hay is just carried from my fields, its perfume
+still lingers in the air.  Frances proposed to me, an hour or two
+since, to take tea out on the lawn; I see the round table, loaded
+with china, placed under a certain beech; Hunsden is expected
+--nay, I hear he is come--there is his voice, laying down the law
+on some point with authority; that of Frances replies; she
+opposes him of course.  They are disputing about Victor, of whom
+Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs.
+Crimsworth retaliates:--
+
+"Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he,
+Hunsden, calls 'a fine lad;' and moreover she says that if
+Hunsden were to become a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were
+not a mere comet, coming and going, no one knows how, when,
+where, or why, she should be quite uneasy till she had got Victor
+away to a school at least a hundred miles off; for that with his
+mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin a score of
+children."
+
+I have a word to say of Victor ere I shut this manuscript in my
+desk--but it must be a brief one, for I hear the tinkle of silver
+on porcelain.
+
+Victor is as little of a pretty child as I am of a handsome man,
+or his mother of a fine woman; he is pale and spare, with large
+eyes, as dark as those of Frances, and as deeply set as mine.
+His shape is symmetrical enough, but slight; his health is good.
+I never saw a child smile less than he does, nor one who knits
+such a formidable brow when sitting over a book that interests
+him, or while listening to tales of adventure, peril, or wonder,
+narrated by his mother, Hunsden, or myself.  But though still, he
+is not unhappy--though serious, not morose; he has a
+susceptibility to pleasurable sensations almost too keen, for it
+amounts to enthusiasm.  He learned to read in the old-fashioned
+way out of a spelling-book at his mother's knee, and as he got on
+without driving by that method, she thought it unnecessary to buy
+him ivory letters, or to try any of the other inducements to
+learning now deemed indispensable.  When he could read, he became
+a glutton of books, and is so still.  His toys have been few, and
+he has never wanted more.  For those he possesses, he seems to
+have contracted a partiality amounting to affection; this
+feeling, directed towards one or two living animals of the house,
+strengthens almost to a passion.
+
+Mr. Hunsden gave him a mastiff cub, which he called Yorke, after
+the donor; it grew to a superb dog, whose fierceness, however,
+was much modified by the companionship and caresses of its young
+master.  He would go nowhere,  do nothing without Yorke; Yorke
+lay at his feet while he learned his lessons, played with him in
+the garden, walked with him in the lane and wood, sat near his
+chair at meals, was fed always by his own hand, was the first
+thing he sought in the morning, the last he left at night.  Yorke
+accompanied Mr. Hunsden one day to X----, and was bitten in the
+street by a dog in a rabid state.  As soon as Hunsden had brought
+him home, and had informed me of the circumstance, I went into
+the yard and shot him where he lay licking his wound:  he was
+dead in an instant; he had not seen me level the gun; I stood
+behind him.  I had scarcely been ten minutes in the house, when
+my ear was struck with sounds of anguish:  I repaired to the yard
+once more, for they proceeded thence.  Victor was kneeling beside
+his dead mastiff, bent over it, embracing its bull-like neck, and
+lost in a passion of the wildest woe:  he saw me.
+
+"Oh, papa, I'll never forgive you!  I'll never forgive you!" was
+his exclamation.  "You shot Yorke--I saw it from the window.  I
+never believed you could be so cruel--I can love you no more!"
+
+I had much ado to explain to him, with a steady voice, the stern
+necessity of the deed; he still, with that inconsolable and
+bitter accent which I cannot render, but which pierced my heart,
+repeated--
+
+"He might have been cured--you should have tried--you should have
+burnt the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic.  You
+gave no time; and now it is too late--he is dead!"
+
+He sank fairly down on the senseless carcase; I waited patiently
+a long while, till his grief had somewhat exhausted him; and then
+I lifted him in my arms and carried him to his mother, sure that
+she would comfort him best.  She had witnessed the whole scene
+from a window; she would not come out for fear of increasing my
+difficulties by her emotion, but she was ready now to receive
+him. She took him to her kind heart, and on to her gentle lap;
+consoled him but with her lips, her eyes, her soft embrace, for
+some time; and then, when his sobs diminished, told him that
+Yorke had felt no pain in dying, and that if he had been left to
+expire naturally, his end would have been most horrible; above
+all, she told him that I was not cruel (for that idea seemed to
+give exquisite pain to poor Victor), that it was my affection for
+Yorke and him which had made me act so, and that I was now almost
+heart-broken to see him weep thus bitterly.
+
+Victor would have been no true son of his father, had these
+considerations, these reasons, breathed in so low, so sweet a
+tone--married to caresses so benign, so tender--to looks so
+inspired with pitying sympathy--produced no effect on him.  They
+did produce an effect:  he grew calmer, rested his face on her
+shoulder, and lay still in her arms.  Looking up, shortly, he
+asked his mother to tell him over again what she had said about
+Yorke having suffered no pain, and my not being cruel; the balmy
+words being repeated, he again pillowed his cheek on her breast,
+and was again tranquil.
+
+Some hours after, he came to me in my library, asked if I forgave
+him, and desired to be reconciled.  I drew the lad to my side,
+and there I kept him a good while, and had much talk with him,
+in the course of which he disclosed many points of feeling and
+thought I appoved of in my son.  I found, it is true, few
+elements of the "good fellow" or the "fine fellow" in him; scant
+sparkles of the spirit which loves to flash over the wine cup, or
+which kindles the passions to a destroying fire; but I saw in the
+soil of his heart healthy and swelling germs of compassion,
+affection, fidelity.  I discovered in the garden of his intellect
+a rich growth of wholesome principles--reason, justice, moral
+courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile bearing. So I
+bestowed on his large forehead, and on his cheek--still pale with
+tears--a proud and contented kiss, and sent him away comforted.
+Yet I saw him the next day laid on the mound under which Yorke
+had been buried, his face covered with his hands; he was
+melancholy for some weeks, and more than a year elapsed before he
+would listen to any proposal of having another dog.
+
+Victor learns fast.  He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect,
+his first year or two will be utter wretchedness:  to leave me,
+his mother, and his home, will give his heart an agonized wrench;
+then, the fagging will not suit him--but emulation, thirst after
+knowledge, the glory of success, will stir and reward him in
+time.  Meantime, I feel in myself a strong repugnance to fix the
+hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and transplant it
+far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject, I am
+heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some
+fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which
+her fortitude will not permit her to recoil.  The step must,
+however, be taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not
+make a milksop of her son, she will accustom him to a style of
+treatment, a forbearance, a congenial tenderness,  he will meet
+with from none else.  She sees, as I also see, a something in
+Victor's temper--a kind of electrical ardour and power--which
+emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it his spirit,
+and says it should not be curbed.  I call it the leaven of the
+offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not WHIPPED
+out of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be
+cheap of any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which
+will ground him radically in the art of self-control. Frances
+gives this something in her son's marked character no name; but
+when it appears in the grinding of his teeth, in the glittering
+of his eye, in the fierce revolt of feeling against
+disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed injustice,
+she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her alone
+in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and
+to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with
+eyes of love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated;
+but will reason or love be the weapons with which in future the
+world will meet his violence?  Oh, no! for that flash in his
+black eye--for that cloud on his bony brow--for that compression
+of his statuesque lips, the lad will some day get blows instead
+of blandishments--kicks instead of kisses; then for the fit of
+mute fury which will sicken his body and madden his soul; then
+for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of which he
+will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man.
+
+I see him now; he stands by Hunsden, who is seated on the lawn
+under the beech; Hunsden's hand rests on the boy's collar, and he
+is instilling God knows what principles into his ear.  Victor
+looks well just now, for he listens with a sort of smiling
+interest; he never looks so like his mother as when he smiles
+--pity the sunshine breaks out so rarely!  Victor has a
+preference for Hunsden, full as strong as I deem desirable, being
+considerably more potent decided, and indiscriminating, than any
+I ever entertained for that personage myself.  Frances, too,
+regards it with a sort of unexpressed anxiety; while her son
+leans on Hunsden's knee, or rests against his shoulder, she roves
+with restless movement round, like a dove guarding its young from
+a hovering hawk; she says she wishes Hunsden had children of his
+own, for then he would better know the danger of inciting their
+pride end indulging their foibles.
+
+Frances approaches my library window; puts aside the honeysuckle
+which half covers it, and tells me tea is ready; seeing that I
+continue busy she enters the room, comes near me quietly, and
+puts her hand on my shoulder.
+
+"Monsieur est trop applique."
+
+"I shall soon have done."
+
+She draws a chair near, and sits down to wait till I have
+finished; her presence is as pleasant to my mind as the perfume
+of the fresh hay and spicy flowers, as the glow of the westering
+sun, as the repose of the midsummer eve are to my senses.
+
+But Hunsden comes; I hear his step, and there he is, bending
+through the lattice, from which he has thrust away the woodbine
+with unsparing hand, disturbing two bees and a butterfly.
+
+"Crimsworth!  I say, Crimsworth! take that pen out of his hand,
+mistress, and make him lift up his head.
+
+"Well, Hunsden?  I hear you--"
+
+"I was at X---- yesterday! your brother Ned is getting richer
+than Croesus by railway speculations; they call him in the Piece
+Hall a stag of ten; and I have heard from Brown.  M. and Madame
+Vandenhuten and Jean Baptiste talk of coming to see you next
+month.  He mentions the Pelets too; he says their domestic
+harmony is not the finest in the world, but in business they are
+doing 'on ne peut mieux,' which circumstance he concludes will be
+a sufficient consolation to both for any little crosses in the
+affections.  Why don't you invite the Pelets to ----shire,
+Crimsworth?  I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide.
+Mistress, don't be jealous, but he loved that lady to
+distraction; I know it for a fact.  Brown says she weighs twelve
+stones now; you see what you've lost, Mr. Professor.  Now,
+Monsieur and Madame, if you don't come to tea, Victor and I will
+begin without you."
+
+"Papa, come!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte
+
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