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diff --git a/35278.txt b/35278.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5adb3d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/35278.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7844 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 3 of 3), by +Frederick William Robinson + +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: Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 3 of 3) + +Author: Frederick William Robinson + +Release Date: February 14, 2011 [EBook #35278] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 3 OF 3) *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Davies, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + + + + MATTIE:--A STRAY. + + BY F. W. ROBINSON + + THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN:-A WAIF," &c., &c. + + "By bestowing blessings upon others, we entail them on ourselves." + HORACE SMITH. + + IN THREE VOLUMES + + VOL. III. + + LONDON: + HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, + SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, + 18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. + 1864. + + _The right of Translation is reserved._ + + LONDON: + PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, + BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. + + + + +CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME. + + +BOOK VI. SIDNEY'S FRIENDS. + +I. MATTIE'S CHOICE + +II. MATTIE'S ADVISER + +III. THE OLD LOVERS + +IV. A NEW DECISION + +V. ANN PACKET EXPRESSES AN OPINION + +VI. MR. GRAY'S SCHEME + + +BOOK VII. SIDNEY'S GRATITUDE. + +I. MAURICE HINCHFORD IN SEARCH OF HIS COUSIN + +II. MAURICE RECEIVES PLENTY OF ADVICE + +III. A DECLARATION + +IV. MORE TALK OF MARRIAGE AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE + +V. MATTIE'S ANSWER + + +BOOK VIII. MORE LIGHT. + +I. A NEW HOPE + +II. MATTIE IS TAKEN INTO CONFIDENCE + +III. HALF THE TRUTH + +IV. ALL THE TRUTH + +V. STRUGGLING + +VI. SIGNS OF CHANGE + +VII. RETURNED + +VIII. DECLINED WITH THANKS + +IX. MATTIE, MEDIATRIX + +X. CONCLUSION + + + + +BOOK VI. + +SIDNEY'S FRIENDS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MATTIE'S CHOICE. + + +There are epochs in some lives when the heart cracks or hardens. When +humanity, wrung to its utmost, gives way, or ossifies. Both are +dangerous crises, and require more than ordinary care; the physician +must be skilful and understand human nature, or his efforts at cure will +only kill the patient who submits to his remedies. + +Man--we speak literally of the masculine gender at this point--though +born unto trouble, finds it hard to support in a philosophical way. A +great trouble that in nine cases out of ten shows woman at her best, +transforms man to his worst; if he be a man of the world, worldly, he is +dumbfounded by the calamity which has fallen upon him. It is +incomprehensible why _he_ should suffer--he of all men--and he wraps +himself in his egotism--his wounded self-love--and thinks of the +injustice and hardness that have shut him out from his labours. + +Such men, heavily oppressed, do not give in to the axiom, that it is +well for them to be afflicted; they will not bow to God's will, or +resign themselves to it--their outward calmness is assumed, and they +chafe at the Great Hand which has arrested them midway. Such men will +turn misanthropes and atheists, at times. + +Sidney Hinchford after all was a man of the world. In the world he had +lived and fought upwards. There had been a charm in making his way in +it, and the obstacles ahead had but nerved his arm to resist, and his +heart to endure. He had talents for success in the commercial +world--even a genius for making money. With time before him, possibly +Sidney Hinchford would have risen to greatness. + +To make money--and to keep it when made--requires as much genius as to +make poetry, rather more, perhaps. A genius of a different order, but a +very fine one notwithstanding, and one which we can admire at a +distance--on the kerb stones with our manuscripts under our arms, +waiting for the genius's carriage to pass, before we cross to our +publishers'. Is not that man a genius who in these latter days rises to +wealth by his own exertions, in lieu of having wealth thrust upon him? A +genius, with wondrous powers of discrimination, not to be led into a bad +thing, but seeing before other people the advantages to accrue from a +good one, and making his investments accordingly. A man who peers into +the future and beholds his own advancement, not the step before him, but +the apex in the clouds, lost to less keen-sighted folk fighting away at +the base--therefore, a wonderful man. + +We believe that Sidney Hinchford, like his uncle before him, would have +risen in the world; he believed it also, and throughout his past +career--though we have seen him anxious--he never lost his hope of +ultimate success. When he knew that there must come a period of +tribulation and darkness for him, he had trusted to have time left him +for position; and not till time was denied him, and the darkness set in +suddenly, did he give up the battle. And then he did not give way; he +hardened. + +Sidney had never been a religious man, therefore he sought no +consolation in his affliction, and believed not in the power of religion +to console. He had been pure-minded, honourable, earnest, everything +that makes the good worldly man, but he had never been grateful to God +for his endowments, and he bore God's affliction badly in consequence. +He felt balked in his endeavour to prosper, therefore, aggrieved, and +the darkness that had stolen over his senses seemed to find its way to +his heart and transform him. + +The clergyman, who had attended his father, attempted consolation with +him, but he would have "none of it." He did not complain, he said; he +had faced the worst--it was with him, and there was an end of it. Do not +weary him with trite bible-texts, but leave him to himself. + +And by himself he sat down to brood over the inevitable wrong that had +been done him; he, in the vigour of life and thought, shut apart from +action! Once he had looked forward to a consolation even in distress, +but that was to have been a long day hence. Now his day had been +shortened, and the consolation was denied him. He knew that _that_ was +lost, and he had thought of a fight with the world to benumb the +thoughts of the future; and then the world was shut away from him also, +and he was broken down, inactive and lost. + +He and his uncle were the only attendants at the funeral; he was +informed afterwards that Mattie had stood at the grave's edge, and seen +the last of her old friend and first patron; then his uncle had left +him, failing in all efforts to console him. Geoffry Hinchford offered +his nephew money, all the influence at his disposal in any way or shape, +but Sidney declined all coldly. He did not require help yet awhile, he +had saved money; he preferred being left to himself in that desolate +home; presently, when he had grown reconciled to these changes, he +should find courage to think what was best; meanwhile, those who loved +him--he even told Mattie that--would leave him to himself. + +Mattie made no effort to intrude upon him in the early days following +the double loss; she was perplexed as to her future course, her method +of fulfilling that promise made to Sidney's father on his death-bed. Her +common sense assured her that in the first moments of sorrow, intrusion +would be not only unavailing, but irritating--and her belief in becoming +of service to Sidney was but a small one at the best. In the good, +far-away time she might be a humble agent in bringing Harriet Wesden and +him together; Harriet who must love him out of very pity now, and forget +that wounded pride which had followed the annulment of engagement. + +Meanwhile, she remained quiet and watchful; busy at her dress-making, +busy in her father's home, attentive to that new father whom she had +found, and who was very kind to her, though he scarcely seemed to +understand her. Still, they agreed well together, for Mattie was +submissive, and Mr. Gray had more than a fair share of his own way; and +he was a man who liked his own way, and with whom it agreed vastly. But +we have seen that he was a jealous man, and that Mattie's interest in +Mr. Wesden had discomfited him. He was a good man we know, but jealousy +got the upper hand of him at times, when he was scarcely aware of it +himself, for he attributed his excitement, perhaps his envy, to very +different feelings. He was even jealous of a local preacher of his own +denomination, a man who had made a convert of a most vicious article--an +article that he had been seeking all his life, and had never found in +full perfection. + +Mr. Gray over his work said little concerning Ann Packet's occasional +visits to his domicile, but he objected to them notwithstanding, for +they drew his daughter's attention away from himself. He liked still +less Mattie's visits to Chesterfield Terrace--flying visits, when she +saw Ann Packet for an hour and Sidney Hinchford for a minute, looking in +at the last moment, and heralded by Ann exclaiming, + +"Here's Mattie come to see you, sir." + +"Ah, Mattie!" Sid would answer, turning his face towards the door whence +the voice issued, and attempting the feeblest of smiles. + +"Is there anything that I can do, sir, for you?" + +"No, girl, thank you." + +He would quickly relapse into that thought again, from which her +presence had aroused him--and it was a depth of thought upon which the +fugitive efforts of Mattie had no effect. Standing in the shadowy +doorway she would watch him for awhile, then draw the door to after her +and go away grieving at the change in him. + +The thought occurred to her that Harriet Wesden might even at that early +stage work some amount of good until she heard from Ann Packet that +Harriet and her father had called one day, and that Sidney had refused +an interview. He was unwell; some other day when he was better; it was +kind to call, but he could not be seen then, had been his excuses sent +out by the servant maid. Mattie, who had always found time do good, and +work many changes, left the result to time, until honest Ann one +evening, when Mr. Gray was at work at his old post, asserted her fears +that Sidney was getting worse instead of better. + +"I think he'll go melancholic mad like, poor dear," she said; "and it's +no good my trying to brighten him a bit--he's wus at that, which is +nat'ral, not being in my line, and wanting brightening up myself. He +does nothing but brood, brood, brood, sitting of a heap all day in that +chair!" + +"A month since his father died now," said Mattie, musing. + +"To the very day, Mattie." + +"He goes to church--you read the Bible to him?" asked Mr. Gray, +suddenly. + +"He can't go by hisself--he's not very handy with his blindness, like +those who have been brought up to it with a dog and a tin mug," said Ann +in reply; "but let's hope he'll get used to it, and find it a comfort to +him, sir." + +"I asked you also, young woman, if you ever read the Bible to him?" + +"Lor bless you, sir! I can't read fit enough for him--I take a blessed +lot of spelling with it, and it aggravates him. All the larning I've +ever had, has come from this dear gal of ours, and _he_ taught her first +of all!" + +"I think that I could do this young man good," said Mr. Gray, suddenly; +"I might impress him with the force of the truth--_convert him_." + +"I would not attempt to preach to him yet," suggested Mattie; "besides, +his is a strange character--you will never understand it." + +"You cannot tell what I may be able to understand," he replied, "and I +see that my duty lies in that direction. I have been seeking amongst the +poor and wretched for a convert, and perhaps it is nearer home--your +friend!" + +"I would not worry him in his distress," suggested Mattie anew. + +"Worry him!--Mattie, you shock me! Where's my Bible?--I'll go at once!" + +"We've got Bibles in the house, sir--we're not cannibals," snapped Ann. +Cannibals and heathens were of the same species to Ann Packet. + +"Come on, then!" + +Mattie half rose, as if with the intention of accompanying her father, +but he checked the movement. + +"I hope you will remain at home to-night, Mattie," he said; "I never +like the house entirely left. It's not business." + +Mattie sat down again. She was fidgety at the result of this impromptu +movement on her father's part, but saw no way to hinder it. Her father +was a man who meant well, but well-meaning men would not do for Sidney +Hinchford. Sidney had been well educated; his father was self-taught, +and brusque, and Sidney had grown very irritable. In her own little +conceited heart she believed that no one could manage Sidney Hinchford +save herself. Late in the evening, Mr. Gray returned in excellent +spirits, rubbing one hand over the other complacently. He had found a +new specimen worthy of his powers of conversion. + +"Have you seen him?" asked Mattie. + +"To be sure--I went to see him, and he could not keep me out of the +room, if I chose to enter. An obstinate young man--as obstinate a young +man as I ever remember to have met with in all my life!" + +"Did he speak to you?" + +"Only twice, once to ask how you were. The second time to tell me that +he did not require any preaching to. After that, I read the Bible to him +for an hour, locking the door first, to make sure that he did not run +for it, blind as he was. Then I gave him the best advice in my power, +bade him good night, and came away. He is as hard as the nether +millstone; it will be a glorious victory over the devil to touch his +heart and soften it!" + +"You are going the wrong way to work. You do not know him!" + +"My dear, I know that he's a miserable sinner." + +Mattie said no more on the question; she was not a good hand at +argument. At argument, sword's point to sword's point, possibly Mr. Gray +would have beaten most men; his ideas were always in order, and he could +pounce upon the right word, reason, or text, in an instant; but Mattie +was certain that her father's zeal very often outran his discretion. She +shuddered as she pictured Sidney Hinchford a victim to her father's +obtrusiveness--her father, oblivious to suffering, and full of belief in +the conversion he was attempting. She knew that her father was wrong, +and she felt vexed that Sidney had been intruded upon at a time wherein +she had not found the courage to face him herself. Things must be +altered, and her promise to Sid's father must not become a dead letter. +In all the world her heart told her she loved Sidney Hinchford best, and +that she could make any sacrifice for his sake; and yet Sidney was not +getting better, but worse, and her own father would make her hateful to +him. The next evening, Mr. Gray came home later than usual. He had been +sent for by his employers, had received their commissions, and then, +fraught with his new idea, had started for Chesterfield Terrace, to +strike a second moral blow at his new specimen. + +He came home late, as we have intimated, and began arranging his chimney +ornaments, and putting things a little straight, in his usual nervous +fashion. + +"Mattie, I shall have a job with that young man. He has forbidden me the +house; he actually--actually swore at me this evening, for praying for +his better heart and moral regeneration." + +Mattie compressed her lips, and looked thoughtfully before her for a +while. Then the dark eyes turned suddenly and unflinchingly upon her +father. + +"I have been thinking lately that if I were with him in that house--I, +who know him so well--I might do much good." + +"You, Mattie!--you?" + +"He is without a friend in the world. I knew his father, who was my +first friend, and I feel that I am neglecting the son." + +"You call there often enough, goodness knows!" Mr. Gray said, a little +sharply. + +"He is alone--he is blind. What are a few minutes in a long day to him?" + +"All this is very ridiculous, Mattie--speaks well for your kind heart, +and so on, but, of course, can't be----" + +"Of course, must be!" + +Mattie had a will of her own when it was needed. A little did not +disturb her, but a great deal of opposition could never shake that will +when once made up. She had resolved upon her next step, and would +proceed with it; we do not say that she was in the right; we will not +profess to constitute her a model heroine in the sight of our readers, +who have had enough of model heroines for awhile, and may accept our +stray for a change. We are even inclined to believe that Mattie was, in +this instance, just a little in the wrong--but then her early training +had been defective, and allowance must be made for it. All the evil +seeds that neglect has sown in the soil are never entirely +eradicated--ask the farmers of land, and the _farmers of souls_. + +"Must be!" repeated Mr. Gray, looking in a dreamy manner at his +daughter. + +"I promised his father to think of him--to study him by all the means in +my power. I see that no one understands him but me, and I hear that he +is sinking away from all that made him good and noble. I will do my best +for him, and there is no one who can stop me here." + +"Your father!" + +"--Is a new friend, who has been kind to me, and whom I love--but he +hasn't the power to make me break my promise to the dead. That man is +desolate, and heavily afflicted, and I will go to him!" + +"Against MY wish?" + +"Yes--against the wishes of all in the world--if they were uttered in +opposition to me!" cried Mattie. + +"Then," looking very firm and white, "you will choose between him and +me. He will be a friend the more, and I a daughter the less." + +"It cannot be helped." + +"You never loved me, or you would never thus defy me. Girl, you are +going into danger--the world will talk, and rob you of your good name." + +"Let it," said Mattie, proudly. "It has spoken ill before of me, and I +have lived it down. I shall not study it, when the interest and +happiness of a dear friend are at stake. He is being killed by all you!" +she cried, with a comprehensive gesture of her hand; "now let me try!" + +"Mattie, you are mad--wrong--wicked!--I have no patience with you--I +have done with you, if you defy me thus." + +"I am doing right--you cannot stop me. I have done wrong to remain idle +here so long; I will go at once." + +"At once!--breaking up this home--you will, then?" + +"If I remain here longer, you will set him against me--me, who would +have him look upon me as his sister, his one friend left to pray for +him, slave for him, and keep his enemies away!" + +"I won't hear any more of this rhodomontade--this voice of the devil on +the lips of my child," he said, snatching up his hat again. "Stay here +till I return, or go away for ever." + +Mr. Gray was in a passion, and, like most men in a passion, went the +wrong way to work. He was jealous of this new rival to his daughter's +love that had sprung up, and angered with Mattie's attempt to justify +her new determination. He believed in Mattie's obedience, and his own +power over her yet; and he was an obstinate man, whom it took a long +while to subdue. He went out of the room wildly gesticulating, and +Mattie sat panting for awhile, and trying to still the heaving of her +bosom. She had gone beyond herself--perhaps betrayed herself--but she +had expressed her intention, and nothing that had happened since had +induced her to swerve. If it were a choice between her father and +Sidney, why, it must be Sidney, if he would have her for his friend and +companion in the future. + +"I must go--I must go at once!" she whispered to herself; and then +hurriedly put on her bonnet and shawl, and made for the staircase. She +thought that she was doing right, and that good would come of it; and +she did not hesitate. Before her, in the distance, sat the solitary +figure of him she loved, friendless, alone, and benighted; and her +woman's heart yearned to go to him, and forgot all else. + +Thus forgetting, thus yearning to do good, Mattie made a false step, and +turned her back upon her father's home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTIE'S ADVISER. + + +Mattie reached Chesterfield Terrace as the clock was striking nine. Ann +Packet almost shouted with alarm at the sight of the new visitor, and +then looked intently over Mattie's shoulder. + +"_He_ hasn't come back again, has he? Mr. Sidney's been in such a +dreadful way about him, Mattie. Blind as he is, I think he'll try to +murder him." + +"I have come instead. He will see me, I hope." + +She did not wait to be announced, but turned the handle of the +parlour-door and entered. Sidney Hinchford, in a harsh voice, cried out, + +"Who's there?" + +"Only Mattie. May I come in?" + +"Mattie here at this hour! Come in, if you will. What is it?" + +He was seated in the great leathern arm-chair, that had been his +father's favourite seat, in the old attitude that Mattie knew so well +now. She shuddered at the change in him--the wreck of manhood that one +affliction had reduced him to, and the impulse that had brought her +there was strengthened. + +"Mr. Sidney," she said, approaching, "I have come to ask a favour of +you." + +"I am past dispensing favours, Mattie. Unless--unless it's to listen +patiently to that horrible father of yours. Then I say No--for he drives +me mad with his monotony." + +"I have come to defend you from him, if he call again--to live here, and +take care of you as a dear brother who requires care, and must not be +left entirely to strangers." + +"I am better by myself, Mattie--fit company only for myself." + +"No, the worst of company for that." + +"It must not be." + +"I can earn my own living; I shall be no burden to you; I have a +hope--such a grand hope, sir!--of making this home a different place to +you. Why, I can always make the best of it, I think--_he_ thought so, +too, before he died." + +"Who--my father?" asked Sidney, wondering. + +"Yes--he wished that I should come here, and I promised him. Oh! Mr. +Sidney, for a little while, before you have become resigned to this +great trouble, let me stay!" + +He might have read the truth--the whole truth--in that urgent pleading, +but he was shut away from light, and sceptical of any love for him +abiding anywhere throughout the world. + +"If he wished it, Mattie--stay. If your father says not No to this, why, +stay until you tire of me, and the utter wretchedness of such a life as +mine." + +"Why utterly wretched?" + +"I don't know--don't ask again." + +"Others have been afflicted like you before, sir, and borne their heavy +burden well." + +"Why do you 'sir' me? That's new." + +"I called your father sir,--you take your father's place," said Mattie, +hastily. + +"A strange reason--I wonder if it's true." + +Mattie coloured, but he could not see her blushes, and whether true or +false, mattered little to him then. A new suspicion seized him after +awhile, when he had thought more deeply of Mattie's presence there. + +"If this is a new trick of your father's to preach to me through you, I +warn you, Mattie." + +"I have told you why I am here." + +"No other reason but that promise to my father?" + +"Yes, one promise more--to myself. Mr. Hinchford," she said, noticing +his sudden start, "I promised my heart, when I was very young--when I +was a stray!--that it should never swerve from those who had befriended +me. It will not--it beats the faster with the hope of doing service to +all who helped me in my wilful girlhood." + +"I told a lie, and said you did not steal my brooch!" + +"That was not all, but that taught me gratitude. Say a lie, but it was a +lie that saved me from the prison--from the new life, worse, a thousand +times worse than the first." + +"You are a strange girl--you were always strange. I am curious to know +how soon you will tire of me, or I shall tire of you and this new freak. +When I confess you weary me--you will go?" + +"Yes." + +"Then stay--and God help you with your charge." + +His lip curled again, but it was with an effort. He was no true stoic, +and Mattie's earnestness had moved him more than he cared to evince. He +was curious to note the effect of Mattie's efforts to make the dull +world anything better than it was--he who knew how simple-minded and +ingenuous Mattie was, and how little she could fathom his thoughts, or +understand them. He had spent a month of horrible isolation, and it had +seemed long years to him--years in which he had aged and grown grey +perhaps, it was more likely than not. He felt like an old man, with whom +the world was a weary resting-place; and he was despondent enough to +wish to die, and end the tragedy that had befallen him. He had not +believed in any sacrifice for his sake, and Mattie had surprised him by +stealing in upon his solitude, and offering her help. He was more +surprised to think that he had accepted her services in lieu of turning +contemptuously away. It was something new to think of, and it did him +good. + +The next day life began anew under Mattie's supervision. She was the old +Mattie of Great Suffolk Street days--a brisk step and a cheerful voice, +an air of bustle and business about her, which it was pleasant to hear +in the distance. When the house duties were arranged for the day, Mattie +began her needlework in the parlour where Sidney sat; and though Sidney +spoke but little, and replied only in monosyllables to her, yet she +could see the change was telling upon him, and she felt that there would +come a time when he would be his dear old self again. When the day was +over, her own troubles began. In her own room, she thought of the father +whom she had abandoned--of _his_ loneliness, left behind at his work in +that front top room, which had been home to her. She was not sorry that +she had left him, for there was an old promise, an old love for Sidney, +to buoy her up; but she was very, very sorry that they had parted in +anger, and that her father had resented a step in which his Christian +charity should have at once encouraged her. By and bye it would all come +right; her father would understand her and her motives; by and bye, when +Sidney had become reconciled to his lot in life, and there were no more +duties to fulfil, she would return home, unasked even, and offer to be +again the daughter whom her father had professed to love. For the +present, life in Sidney's home, doing her duty by him whom she loved +best in the world; she could not let him suffer, and not do her best to +work a change in him. + +Mattie worked a change--a great one. The instinct that assured her she +possessed that power had not deceived her; and Sidney, though he became +never again his former self, altered for the better. This change +strengthened Mattie in her resolves, and made amends for her father's +silence. She had written to Mr. Gray a long letter a few days after she +had left his home, explaining her conduct more fully, entering more +completely into the details of her former relations to the Hinchfords +and the friends she had found in them; trusting that her father would +believe that she loved him none the less for the step which she had +taken--she who would have been more happy had he consented thereto--and +hoping for the better days when she could return and take once more her +place beside him. She had also asked in her letter that her box might be +sent her, and he had considered that request as the one object of her +writing, and responded to it by the transmission of the box and its +contents, keeping back all evidence of his own trouble and anger. She +had chosen her lot in life, he thought; she had preferred a stranger's +home to her own flesh and blood; in the face of the world's opinion she +had gone to nurse a man of three and twenty years of age. After all, she +had never loved her father; he had come too late in life before her, and +it was his fate never to gain affection from those on whose kind +feelings he had a claim. He had been unlucky in his loves, and he must +think no more of them. His troubles were earthly, and on earthly +affections he must not dwell too much--he must teach himself to soar +above them all. + +He read the Bible more frequently than ever, attended less to his work, +and more to his district society and local preaching; by all the means +in his power he turned his thoughts away from Mattie. When the thought +was too strong for him, he connected her with the wrong that she had +done him, and so thought uncharitably of her, as good men have done +before and since his time--good people being fallible and liable to err. + +Mattie knew nothing of her father's trouble, and judged him as she +had seen him last--angry and uncharitable and jealous! That is a bad +habit of connecting friends whom we have given up with the stormy +scene which cut the friendship adrift; of stereotyping the last +impression--generally the false one--and connecting _that_ with him and +her for ever afterwards. Think of the virtues that first drew us towards +them, and not of the angry frown and the bitter word that set us apart; +in the long run we shall find it answered, and have less wherewith to +accuse ourselves. + +Sidney Hinchford, whom we are forgetting, altered then for the better +slowly but surely--even imperceptibly to himself. Still, when Mattie had +been a month with him, and he looked back upon the feelings which had +beset him before she took her place in his home, the change struck him +at last. He could appreciate the kindness and self-denial that had +brought her there, gladdened his home, and made his heart lighter. He +could take pleasure in speaking with her of the old times, of his +father, of his early days in Suffolk Street--in hearing her read to him, +in being led into an argument with her, which promoted a healthy +excitation of the mind, in walking with her when the days were fine. He +was grateful for her services, and touched by them--she was his sister, +whom he loved very dearly, and whom to part with would be another trial +in store for him some day--and he had thought his trials were at an end +long since! + +Sidney Hinchford, be it observed here, made but a clumsy blind man; he +had little of that concentrativeness of the remaining senses, which make +amends for the deprivation of one faculty. He neither heard better, nor +was more sensitive to touch--and of this he complained a little +peevishly, as though he had been unfairly dealt with. + +"I haven't even been served like other blind folk," he said; "your voice +startles me at times as though it were strange to me." + +On one topic he would never dwell upon--the Wesdens. Mattie, true to the +dying wish of the old man, attempted to bring the subject round to +Harriet--Harriet, who was true to him yet, she believed--but the subject +vexed him, and evinced at once all that new irritability which had been +born with his affliction. + +"Let the past die--it is a bitter memory, and I dislike it," he would +say; "now let us talk of the business which you think of setting me up +in, and seeing me off in, before all the money is spent on +housekeeping." + +Mattie turned to that subject at his request--it was one that pleased +and diverted him. He was glad to speak of business; it sounded as if he +were not quite dead yet. Mattie and he had spent many an hour in +dilating upon the chances of opening a shop with the residue of the +money which Sidney had saved before his illness--what shop it should be, +and how it should be attended! He had only one reason for delaying the +prosecution of the scheme--Mattie had implied more than once that when a +shopkeeper was found, she should give up constant attendance upon him, +and only call now and then to make sure that he was well, and not being +imposed upon. + +"To think of turning shopkeeper in my old age!" he said one day, with +quite a cheerful laugh at his downfall; "I, Sidney Hinchford, bank +clerk, who had hoped to make a great name in the city. Well, it is +commerce still, and I shall have a fair claim to respectability, as the +wholesalers say, if I don't give short weight, or false measure, +Mattie." + +"To be sure you will. But why do you not settle your mind to one +business? Every day, Mr. Sidney, you think of a new one!" + +"You must not blame me for that, Mattie," he replied; "I want to make +sure of the most suitable, to find one in which I could take part +myself." + +"What do you think of the old business in which Mr. Wesden made +money?--think of that whilst I am gone." + +"Where are you going now?" he asked a little irritably. + +"To scold the butcher for yesterday's tough joint," said Mattie. + +"Butchers make money, but how the deuce could I chop up a sheep without +personal damage?" he said, rambling off to a new idea. + +Mattie hurried to the door. The butcher was certainly there; but, +crossing the road in the direction of the house, Mattie had seen Harriet +Wesden. The butcher was dismissed, and Harriet admitted silently into +the passage. + +"How long have _you_ been here?" Harriet exclaimed. + +"A month now. I promised his father that I would do my best for _him_ +left behind in trouble. You--you don't blame me?" + +"Blame you!--no. Why should I?" + +"My father thought that I was wrong to come here--exceeding my duty to +my neighbour, and outraging my duty towards him. But I am not sorry." + +"And Sid--how is he now? Why does he bear so much malice in his heart +against me, as to refuse me admittance to his house?" she asked. + +"He bears no malice, Harriet; but the past is painful to him. Presently +he will come round, and judge all things truly. Every day he is less +morbid--more resigned." + +"I am glad of that." + +"After all, everything has turned out for the best, Harriet," said +Mattie. + +"Prove that," was her quick answer. + +Mattie was attempting the difficult task of deciphering the real +thoughts of Harriet Wesden;--what she regretted, and what she rejoiced +at, now the picture was finished, and all its deep shadowing elaborated. + +"For the best that the engagement was ended, Harriet. Think of the +affliction that has befallen him, and which would have parted him and +you at last." + +"Why parted us?--do you think, had it befallen me, that he would have +turned away with horror--that he would not have loved me all the better, +and striven all the harder to render my trouble less heavy to be borne? +Mattie, I knew that this would come upon him years ago, and I did not +shrink from my engagement." + +"You could never have married him--he is a poor man, and may be poorer +yet; it is impossible to say." + +"It is all over now, and this is idle talk, Mattie. I have given up all +thought of him, as he has given up all thought of me--and perhaps it is +for the best," she added. + +"We will hope so, Harriet." + +"I was always a foolish and vain girl, prone to change my mind, and +scarcely knowing what that mind was," she said bitterly. "It is easy +enough to forget." + +Mattie scarcely understood her. She shook her head in dissent, and would +have turned the conversation by asking after her father's +health--Harriet's own health, which was not very evident on her pale +cheeks just then. Harriet darted away from the subject. + +"Well--all well," she said; "and how is Sidney in health, you have not +told me that?" + +"Better in health. I have said that his mind is more at ease." + +"Mattie, though I have given him up for ever, though I know that I am +nothing to him now, and deserve to be nothing, let me see him again! I +am going into the country with father for a week or two, and should like +to see him once more before I go." + +"Harriet, you love him still! You are not glad that it is all ended +between you!" + +"I should have been here in your place--I have a right to be here!" she +said, evasively. + +"Tell him so." + +Mattie had turned pale, but she pointed to the parlour with an imperious +hand. Harriet shrank from the boldness of the step, and turned pale +also. + +"I--I--" + +"This is no time for false delicacy between you and him," said Mattie; +"he loves you in his heart--he is only saddened by the past belief that +you loved Maurice Darcy--if you do not shrink to unite your fate with +his, and make his life new and bright again, ask him to be your husband. +In his night of life he dare not ask you now." + +"I cannot do that," murmured Harriet; "that is beyond my strength." + +"You and your father with him in his affliction, taking care of him and +rendering him happy! All in your hands, and you shrink back from him!" + +"Not from him, but from the bitterness of his reply to me," said +Harriet. "Would you dare so much in my place?" + +"I--I think so. But then," she added, "I do not understand what true +love is--you said so once, if you remember." + +Harriet detected something strange and new in Mattie's reply; she looked +at Mattie, who was flushed and agitated. For the first time in her life, +a vague far-off suspicion seemed to be approaching her. + +"I will go in and see him--I will be ruled by what he says to me. Leave +me with him, Mattie." + +With her own impulsiveness, which had led her right and wrong, she +turned the handle of the parlour door, and entered the room, where the +old lover, blind and helpless, sat. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE OLD LOVERS. + + +Yes, there he was, the old lover! The man whom she had once believed she +should marry and make happy--whom she had valued at his just worth when +he cast her off as unworthy of the love he had borne her. She had not +seen him since that time; he had held himself aloof from her, although +he had talked of remaining still her friend, and the change in him was +pitiable to witness. + +It was the same handsome face, for all its pallor, and deep intensity of +thought; the same intellectuality expressed therein, for all the +blindness which had come there, and given that strange unearthly look to +eyes still clear and bright, and which turned towards her, and startled +her with their expression yet. But he was thin and wasted, and his hand, +which rested on the table by his side, was an old man's hand, seared by +age, and trembling as with palsy. + +"What a time you have been, Mattie! Ah! you are growing tired of me at +last," he said, with the querulousness characteristic of illness, but +before then ever so uncharacteristic of him. + +"Miss--Miss Wesden called to ask how you were," said Harriet, in a low +voice. + +"Indeed!" he said, after a moment's deliberation of that piece of +information; "and you answered her, and let her go away, sparing me the +pain of replying for myself. That's well and kind of you, Mattie. We are +better by ourselves now." + +"Yes." + +Harriet dropped into a chair by the door, and clasped her hands +together; he spoke firmly; he spoke the truth as he thought, and she +accepted it for truth, and said no more. + +Sidney Hinchford, oblivious of the visitor facing him, and composed in +his blindness, detected no difference in the voice. Mattie's voice, we +have remarked at an earlier stage of this narrative, closely resembled +Harriet's, and acuteness of ear had not been acquired yet by the old +lover. + +"Mattie, I have been thinking of a new business for us, since you have +been gone." + +"For us?" gasped Harriet. + +"Ah! for us, if I can persuade you to remain my housekeeper, and induce +your father to extend his consent. I have no other friend--I look to +you, girl--you must not desert me yet!" + +"No." + +"I fancy the stationery business, with you to help me, Mattie, would be +best, after all. You are used to it, and I could sit in the parlour and +take stock, and help you with the figures in the accounts. I was always +clever at mental arithmetic, and it don't strike me that I shall be +quite a dummy. And then when I am used to the place--when I can find the +drawers, and know what is in them, I shall be an able custodian of the +new home, capable of minding shop while you go to your friends for +awhile. Upon my honour, Mattie, I'm quite high-spirited about this--say +it's a bargain, girl?" + +Harriet answered in the affirmative for Mattie. She had assumed her +character and could not escape. She had resolved to go away, and make no +sign to him of her propinquity; he cared not for her now; he dismissed +her with a passing nod; it was all Mattie--Mattie in whom he believed +and trusted, and on whose support in the future he built upon from that +day! She knew how the story would end for him and Mattie--a peaceful and +happy ending, and what both had already thought of, perhaps--let it be +so, she was powerless to act, and it was not her place to interfere. +Mattie had deceived her; it was natural--but she saw no longer darkly +through the glass; beyond there was the successful rival, whom Sidney +Hinchford would marry out of gratitude! + +Sidney continued to dilate upon the prospects in life before him. +Harriet had risen, and was standing with her hand upon the door, +watching her opportunity to escape. + +"Who would have dreamed of a man becoming resigned to an utter darkness, +Mattie? Who would have thought of me in particular, cut out for a man of +action, with no great love for books, or for anything that fastened me +down to the domesticities?" + +"You are resigned, then?" + +"Well--almost." + +"I am very glad." + +"Why are you standing by the door, Mattie? Why don't you sit down and +talk a little of this business of ours?" + +"Presently." + +"Now--just for a little while. Leave Ann Packet to the lower +regions--I'm as talkative to-day as an old woman of sixty. Why, you will +not balk me, Mattie?" + +"No." + +"Read this for me--I have been trying if I can write in the dark--my +first attempt at a benighted penmanship." + +He held a paper towards her, and Harriet left her post by the door to +receive it from his hands. + +The writing was large and irregular, but distinct. She shivered as she +read the words. The story she had seen so plainly, was more evident than +ever. + +"_Sidney Hinchford_," she read, "_saved from shipwreck by Mattie Gray!_" + +"And Mattie Gray here at my side accounts for my resignation," said he, +laying his hand upon Harriet's. "Mattie, the old friend--after all, the +best and truest!" + +Harriet did not reply; she shrank more and more, cowering from him as +though he saw her there, the unwelcome guest who had forced herself upon +him. + +"You are going out," he said, noticing the glove upon the hand he had +relinquished now. + +"Yes, for a little while." + +"Don't be long. Where are you going that I cannot accompany you?" + +"On business--I shall be back in an instant." + +"Very well," he said, with a half-sigh; "but remember that you have +chosen yourself to be my protector, sister, friend, and that I cannot +bear you too long away from me. I wish I were more worthy of your +notice--that I could return it in some way or fashion not distasteful to +you. Sometimes I wish----" + +"Say no more!" cried Harriet, with a vehemence that startled him; "I am +going away." + +The door clanged to and left him alone. She had hurried from the room, +shocked at the folly, the mockery of affection which had risen to his +lips. Ah! he was a fool still, he thought; he had frightened Mattie by +hovering on the verge of that proposal, which he had considered himself +bound to make perhaps, out of gratitude for the life of servitude Mattie +had chosen for herself. He had been wrong; he had taken a mean +advantage, and rendered Mattie's presence there embarrassing; his desire +to be grateful had scared her from him, as well it might--he, a blind +man, prating of affection! He had been a fool and coward; he would seal +his lips from that day forth, and be all that was wished of him--nothing +more. Harriet had made her escape into the narrow passage, had contrived +to open the street-door, and was preparing to hurry away, when Mattie +came towards her. + +"Going away without a good-bye, Harriet!" + +"I had forgotten," she said coldly. + +"What have you said to him?--have you--have you----" + +"I have said nothing at which you have reason to feel alarmed," said +Harriet; "I have not taken your advice. He thinks and speaks only of +you, and I did not break upon his thoughts by any harsh reminiscences." + +"You are excited, Harriet; don't go away yet, with that look. What does +it mean?" + +"Nothing." + +"Has he offended you?" + +"No." + +"Have I?" + +"No," was the cold reiteration. "I am not well. I ought not to have +intruded here. I see my mistake, and will not come again." + +"I hope you will, many, many times. I build upon you assisting me in the +good work I have begun here. You and I together, in the future, striving +for the old friend, Sidney Hinchford." + +"I am going away to-morrow--it is doubtful when I shall return, or what +use I shall be to either you or him. You understand him better than I." + +"I do not understand you this afternoon," said Mattie, surveying her +more intently; "what have I done? Don't you," she added, as a new +thought of hers seemed to give a clue to Harriet's, "think it right that +I should be here!" + +"If you think so, Mattie, it cannot matter what my opinion is." + +"Yes--to me." + +"You came hither with the hope of befriending him, as a sister might +come? On your honour, with no other motive?" + +"On my honour, with none other." + +"Why deceive him, then?" was the quick rejoinder; "why tell him that +your father gave his consent for your stay here, when he was so opposed +to it?" + +"He thought so from the first, and I did not undeceive him, lest he +should send me away. Have you seen my father?" + +"He called last night at our house. He is anxious and distressed about +you." + +"I am sorry." + +"He thinks that you have no right to be here--I think you have now." + +"Oh! Harriet, you do not think----" + +"Hush! say nothing. You are your own mistress, and I am not angry with +you. You have been too good a friend of mine, for me to envy any act of +kindness towards him I loved once. I don't love him now." + +"You said you did." + +"A romantic fancy--I have been romantic from a child. It is all passed +away now--remember that when he----" + +"When he--_what_?" + +"Asks you to be his wife, to become his natural protector; you alone can +save him now from desolation--never my task--never now my wish. +Good-bye." + +She swept away coldly and proudly, leaving the amazed Mattie watching +her departure. What did she mean?--what had Sidney said to her that she +should go away like that, distrusting her and the motives which had +brought her there--she, of all women in the world! + +Mattie went back to Sidney's room excited and trembling. Close to his +side before she startled him by her voice. + +"Mr. Sidney, long ago you were proud of being straightforward in your +speech--of telling the plain truth, without prevarication." + +"Time has not changed me, I hope, Mattie." + +"What have you said to Harriet Wesden?" + +"To whom!" + +The horror on his face expressed the facts of the case at once, before +the next words escaped him. + +"It was--Harriet Wesden then!" + +"Yes." + +"And she came in to see me, and assumed your character, Mattie?" he +said; "why did you let her in?" + +"I don't know," murmured Mattie; "she was anxious about you, and she had +come hither to make inquiries without intruding upon you, until I--I +advised her to come." + +"For what reason?" he asked in a low tone. + +"I thought that you two might become better friends again, and----" + +"Ah! no more of that," he interrupted; "that was like my good sister +Mattie, striving for everybody's happiness, except her own, perhaps. +Mattie, you talk as if I had my sight, and were strong enough to win my +way in life yet. You so quick of perception, and with such a knowledge +of the world--you!" he reiterated. + +"Misfortune will never turn Harriet Wesden away from any one whom she +has loved--it would not stand in the way of any true woman. And oh! sir, +if I may speak of her once again--just this once--" + +"You may not," was his fierce outcry; "Mattie, I ask you not, in mercy +to me!" + +"Why?" persisted Mattie. + +"I don't know--let me be in peace." + +It was his old sullenness--his old gloom. Back from the past, into which +Mattie's efforts had driven it, stole forth that morbid despondency +which had kept him weak and hopeless. The remainder of that day the old +enemy was too strong for any effort of Sidney's strange companion, and +Mattie felt disheartened by her ill success. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A NEW DECISION. + + +Sidney Hinchford rose the next morning in better spirits, and Mattie in +worse. Half the night in his own room Sidney had reflected on his +vexatious sullenness of the preceding day, and on the effect it most +have had on Mattie; half the night, Mattie in her room had pondered on +the strangeness of the incidents of the last four-and-twenty hours--on +that new demeanour of Harriet Wesden, which implied so much, and yet +explained so little. + +After all, Mattie thought, was she right in staying there? Had she +treated her father well in leaving him without a fair confession of that +truth which she had breathed into the ears of a dying man, and scarcely +owned till then unto herself? She had not come there with any sinister +design of winning, by force as it were, a place in Sidney Hinchford's +heart; she had never dreamed for an instant--she did not dream then!--of +ever becoming his wife, with a right to take her place at his side and +fight his battles for him. + +She had been actuated by motives the purest and the best--but who +believed her? Had not her father mistrusted her? Had not Harriet, who +understood her so well she thought, regarded her as one scheming for +herself?--she whose only scheme was to bring two lovers together once +more, and see them happy at each other's side. For an instant she had +not thought that she was "good enough" for Sidney Hinchford; she who had +been an outcast from society, an object of suspicion to the police, a +beggar, and a thief! No matter that she had been saved from destruction +and was now living an exemplary life, or that misfortune had altered +Sidney and rendered him dependent on another's help, he was still the +being above her by birth, education, position, and she could but offer +him disgrace. + +With that conviction impressed upon her, conscious that Sidney had +improved and would continue to improve, an object of distrust to her +best friends--why not to the neighbours who watched them about the +streets and talked about them?--only judged fairly and honourably by him +she served, was it right to stop--was there any need for further stay +there? + +She was thinking of this over breakfast--afterwards in her little +business round, during which period another visitor had forced himself +into Sidney's presence, without exercising much courtesy in the effort. +Ann Packet had opened the street-door, and looked inclined to shut it +again, had not the visitor forestalled her--she was never very quick in +her movements--by springing on to the mat, and thence with a bound to +the parlour door. + +"Oh, my goodness! you mustn't go in there. Master left word that you +were never to be shown into him again on any pertence." + +"Where's Mattie?" + +"Gone out for orders," said Ann. "Just step in this room, sir, and wait +a bit." + +"Young woman, I shall do nothing of the kind. When my daughter comes in, +tell her where I am. That's your business; mind it, if you please." + +Mr. Gray turned the handle of the door, and walked into the room. + +"Good morning, Mr. Hinchford." + +Sidney recognized that voice at least--the voice of a man who had +worried him to death with his religious opinions--and his face +lengthened. + +"You here?" + +"Yes, I have come again," he answered, drawing a chair close to the +table, and confronting Sidney. "I suppose you thought that I had given +you up as irreclaimable." + +"I had hoped so," was the dry answer. + +"Given my daughter up, too." + +"No; that wasn't likely." + +"Indeed--why not?" + +"We don't give up our best friends, those who have won upon our hearts +most, in a hurry." + +"Do you mean that for me, or is that another side to your confounded +obstinacy? Won't you give her up to me, her father?" + +"If you wish it. I cannot set myself in opposition to you. The +remembrance of a dear father of my own would not lead me, did I possess +the power, to stand in opposition to you." + +"You--will side with me, then, in telling her that it is not right to +stay here?" + +"Not right! You thought so once?" + +"Not for an instant." + +"She is here with your consent?" + +"Did she tell you that? Don't please say that my Mattie ever told you +that?" + +Sidney considered. No, she had not said so, he remembered. + +"She came against my will, full of a foolish idea of doing you good, and +no power of mine could stop her," said Gray. + +"Against your will?" + +"I said she did," said Mr. Gray, sharply; "don't you believe me?" + +"Yes--I believe you. But this is very singular." + +Sidney bit his nails, and reflected on this new discovery. After a few +moments he said, "Mr. Gray, I have been forgiving you all the past +torture for the sake of your kindness in allowing Mattie to constitute +herself my guardian." + +"Rubbish!" + +"My guardian angel, I might say; for she has saved me from despair, and +turned my thoughts away from many deep and bitter things. I was turning +against myself, my life, my God, in the very despair of being of use in +the world, and she saved me. Do you blame her coming now?" + +Mr. Gray took time to consider that question. He bit his nails in his +turn, and looked steadily at the young man, who had altered very much +for the better. + +"I don't find fault with the result--there!" and Mr. Gray looked as +though he had made a great concession. + +"You would not be a true minister if you did," said Sidney; "and you are +not a true father if you don't value the sterling gold in Mattie's +character. Pure gold, with no dross in the crucible--not an atom's +worth, as I'm a living sinner!" + +"We're all living sinners, young man," said he, getting up and beginning +to pace the room, as he had paced it, preaching meanwhile, a month ago, +and nearly driven Sidney Hinchford out of his mind. + +"Do you object to sitting down?" asked Sidney, after bearing with these +heavy perambulations for a time. + +"Presently; I am going to speak to you in a minute." + +"Not in the old fashion, please," said Sidney, quite plaintively; +"although I can put up with more now; for Mattie's sake I'll even listen +to a sermon, if you'll give me fair warning when you're going to begin, +and how long it is likely to last." + +"For your soul's sake, as well as Mattie's, you mean, I hope?" + +"Anything--anything you like!" + +"As careless of heavenly matters as ever, I believe. The task of +reformation still unperformed--perhaps left for me, unworthy instrument +that I am." + +"Exactly." + +"Eh?" + +"We are all unworthy instruments as well as living sinners, you know," +said Sidney, drily. + +"And flippant, too--and on such a subject! But we shall change you in +good time." + +"And this morning, now, you will let me off with a small sermon?" + +"I haven't come to sermonize to-day," replied Mr. Gray, severely, +"therefore do not give way to any groundless fears of torturing on my +part." + +"Thank you--thank you!" + +"I have come to test your sense of justice--fairness of what is due to +me from you, and Mattie." + +"Test it, friend." + +"Give me back my daughter!" + +"Why, that's what Brabantio says in the play; but I'll give you a more +gracious answer than he got. If you wish her to return with you--why, +she must. I would not stop her," he added, with a sigh, "if it were in +my power." + +"You will persuade her to return with me." + +"Was she happy with you?" + +"Until your father died--yes." + +"I will tell her," said Sidney; "that there is right on your +side--Mattie will see that. There was right on hers, too, for she had +made a solemn promise to a dying man, and she knew well enough that I +was desolate. I will persuade her even, if you wish it, but----" + +"Go on." + +"But what harm is she doing here?" + +"What harm!" echoed Mr. Gray, with an elevated voice; "why, harm to that +good name which she has kept for years. What do you fancy people think +of her being in this house?--her a stranger to you by blood, and you so +young! Sir, she has risked her character by staying here--and I very +much doubt if the world is likely to believe her own version of this +extraordinary freak." + +"Do you believe it?" asked Sidney. + +"Well--I do." + +"And I also--that makes two out of a very few for whose good opinion +Mattie Gray cares." + +"Whilst we are in the world we should care for the world's opinion, Mr. +Hinchford." + +"I think not, when it's a false one. You, a minister, telling me to +study the world!" + +"I never said that--how aggravating you are, to be sure!" + +"Pardon me," said Sidney, quickly; "a misinterpretation, Mr. Gray. And +we must study the world after all--you're right enough. Poor Mattie, +what would she think of this hiss of slander in her ears?" + +"I warned her of it--and she braved me." + +"Ah! a brave girl, whose reward will come in a brighter world than this. +Well," he added, sadly, "go she must. I agree with you." + +"I am very much obliged to you--I am going to shake hands with you." + +Mr. Gray and Sidney Hinchford shook hands. Sidney held the minister's +tightly in his grip whilst he uttered the next words. + +"You will bring her with you now and then, to hinder me from wholly +sinking back," he said; "remember that she is but the one old friend of +the past whom I care to know is by my side, and in whom I can trust. +Remember what she found me, what she leaves me, and if you are not +wholly selfish, you will not always keep her away." + +Mr. Gray was touched by this appeal--his old jealousy vanished +completely--he was proud in his heart of this young man's interest in +Mattie. + +"I promise that--until we go away, that is, of course." + +"Go away!--whither?" + +"Oh! nothing is settled--there was a little talk of appointing me a +missionary abroad some time ago--a preacher at a foreign station, where +the benighted require stirring words, and the preacher is expected to be +continually stirring--preaching, I mean. But it is only talk, +perhaps--they may have found a better man," he added, a little tetchily. + +"Should you care to leave England?" + +"Care, sir!--it is my great ambition to do good--to make amends for the +evil of my early life." + +"Ah!--yes." + +Sidney had become absent in his manner--Mr. Gray, who had become +voluble, discoursed at great length on his peculiar principle of doing +good, but Sidney heard but little of his argument, and was engrossed by +thoughts of the change coming unto him again, and to which he could not +offer opposition. Discoursing thus, and thinking thus, when Mattie +returned, and stood in the doorway, looking from father to friend. + +"Father," she ejaculated at last. + +"Don't say that you are sorry to see me, after this long parting!" he +exclaimed, as he rose in an excited manner, and went towards her with +both hands outstretched. + +"Not sorry--no--but very, very glad!" + +She held his hands, and leaned forward to kiss him. He caught her to his +heart then, and the tears welled into his eyes at this evidence of the +past parting having been forgotten and forgiven. + +"Mattie," he said, "I have been thinking of all this again--over and +over again, patiently, and not in anger--and I still think that it is +wrong to stay here." + +"And he--what does he think?" looking towards Sidney. + +Sidney answered for himself. + +"That, perhaps, we are both too young--blind though I am, and pure as +you are, Mattie--to keep house together after this fashion. For your +sake, I will ask you to go back with your father. I have been wrong and +selfish." + +"I said that I would go when you wished it, Mr. Sidney." + +"I wish it, then!" + +"Very well." + +"Go--to return again very frequently with your father, and see that I am +well, and likely to do well. Mattie, for ever after this understand that +I cannot do utterly without you. Wrong and selfish also in that wish, +perhaps, but I am sure of you forgiving me!" + +"Yes--yes," she said, hurriedly. "It is strange that we three should all +have been thinking of going away to-day--and perhaps," with a blush, "it +was scarcely right to come. But," evincing here her old rebellious +spirit, with a suddenness that made her father and Sidney leap again, +"if he were the same man I found here first, I would have stopped--mark +that!" + +"Yes, but he isn't, my dear!" said Mr. Gray, cowed into submission, and +afraid of Mattie talking herself into a change of mind; "so it's all +happened for the best, and we are all thankful, and--all friends!" + +"I will be ready when you wish, then." + +"I have ordered a cab to come round at twelve. You see I was sure that +you would not turn against me ever again." + +"I never turned against you--don't think that." + +Mattie went out of the room--was a long while gone--returned with her +eyes red and swollen, as though she had been weeping. The cab at the +same time rattled up to the door, and Ann Packet--with red and swollen +eyes also, if she could have been seen just then--was heard struggling +down-stairs with Mattie's box, which she had not allowed Mattie to +touch. + +"Go and talk to Mr. Sidney again, gal. You mayn't have another chance," +she had said, and Mattie had started and glared at her as at a phantom. +Surely it was time for her to go, when this faithful but dull-witted +woman saw through the veil which she believed had hidden her true heart +from every one on earth. But that must be fancy, she thought, and she +went back to the room to bid Sidney good-bye, and to check the thanks +with which he would have overwhelmed her. + +"No thanks, sir--only my duty to one whose last thoughts were of your +happiness, and how it was best to promote it. _He_ had faith in me, and +I have endeavoured to deserve it, as though he had been watching every +action of my own from heaven. Good-bye, Mr. Sidney." + +"Good-bye--best of friends. You will not desert me wholly?--your father +is on my side now." + +"Yes. I shall look in upon you very often, I hope--and you must keep +strong, and make up your mind about that business--and--and not think +yourself into that low estate ever again. Now I am ready to go." + +Mattie and her father left the house the former had brightened by her +presence. In the cab she struggled for awhile with her forced composure, +and then burst forth into irrepressible tears. + +"Patience, Mattie. I see the end to this. All's well." + +"You see the end to this? No, you cannot!" + +"Oh! yes--I can." + +Mr. Gray uttered not a syllable more during the remainder of the +journey; and Mattie, ashamed of her tears, dried her eyes, and asked no +further questions. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ANN PACKET EXPRESSES AN OPINION. + + +Sidney Hinchford knew that he should miss Mattie, and accordingly made +up his mind, as he thought, to the loss. But there is no making up one's +mind entirely to the absence of those we love, and upon whom we have +been dependent, and Sidney found himself no exception to the rule. + +In great things he had expected to miss her, but in the thousand minor +ones, wherein she had reigned dominant without his knowledge, he made no +calculation for, and a hundred times a day they suggested the absence of +the ruling genius. The house assumed an unnatural and depressing +stillness; he felt wholly shut from the world again--no one to whom he +could speak, or who, in reply, could assure him that his lot was not +worse than other people's, and that there lay before him many methods +for its amelioration. + +He became more dull and thoughtful; but he did not sink back to his past +estate--that was a promise which he had made Mattie, before she went +away. When she came again--he prayed it might be soon--she should not +find him the despondent, morbid being, from which her efforts had +transformed him. He tried to think the time away by dwelling upon that +business in which he intended to embark; but there came the grave +perplexity of the general management--and whom to trust, now Mattie had +returned to her father's home! Meanwhile, he was wasting money by +inaction, and he had always known the value of money, and money's +fugitive properties, if not carefully studied. + +We say that he tried to think of his new business life, for other +thoughts would force their way to the front, and take pre-eminence. He +could not keep the past ever in the background; before him would flit, +despite his efforts to escape it, the figure of his lost love, to whom +he had looked forward once as his solace in his blindness. Blindness, +with her at his side, had not appeared a life to be deplored, and it was +ever pleasant to picture what might have been, had the ties between them +never been sundered by his will. For he loved her still--the stern +interdict upon her name was even a part of his affection; and there were +times when he did not care to shut her from his mind--on the contrary, +loved to think of her as he had known her once. In these latter days, he +thought of both Harriet and Mattie--drew, as was natural to one in his +condition, the comparison between them--saw which was the truer, firmer, +better character, but loved the weaker for all that! That Harriet had +not loved him truly and firmly, did not matter; he had given her up for +his pride's sake, even for her own sake, but he loved her none the less. +She would have been unhappy with him after a while--she could not have +endured the place of nurse and comforter--she, who was made for the +brightness of life, and to be comforted herself when that brightness was +shut from her; she was not like Mattie, a woman of rare character and +energy. + +Mattie troubled him. She had awakened his gratitude; the last day her +father had aroused in him his fears that she had rendered herself open +to the suspicions of the world by her efforts in his service--he had not +thought of _that_ before! Mattie's character was worth studying--it was +so far apart from the common run of womankind--she had treasured every +past action that stood as evidence of kindness to her, and made return +for it a thousandfold. Who would have dreamed of all this years ago, +when he tracked her with the police to the Kent Street lodging-house, +and was moved to pity by her earnest eyes? Hers had been a strange life; +his had been exceptional--his had ended in blank monotony, that nothing +could change--what was in store for her? He thought of the mistake that +he had committed on the day that Harriet had personated her unwillingly, +and blushed for the error of the act. He had been moved too much by +gratitude, and had almost offered his blank life to Mattie, as he +thought; Mattie who would have shrunk from him like the rest, had she +believed that he had had such thoughts of _her_. His blindness had +affected his mind; he had grown heedless, foolish, wilful. Then his +thoughts revolved to Harriet Wesden again--to the girl who had not lost +her interest in him with her love, but had stolen to his solitary house, +to ask about him, and to note the change in him. She had been always a +generous-hearted girl--moved at any trouble, and anxious to take her +part in its alleviation--there was nothing remarkable in it. He was +still the old friend and playfellow, after all, and in the future days, +when their engagement lay further back from the present, he should be +glad to hear her voice of sympathy again. + +These thoughts, or thoughts akin to these, travelled in a circle round +the blind man's brain, hour after hour, day after day. Thoughts of +business, Mattie, Harriet Wesden--varied occasionally by the +reminiscences of the dead father, and the relations who had sought him +out, whom he had sought, and then turned away from. + +Mattie and her father came to see him three days after their formal +withdrawal from his home; that was a fair evening, which changed the +aspect of things, and which he remembered kindly afterwards, +notwithstanding a prayer of some duration, that Mr. Gray contrived to +introduce. Something new to think of was always Sidney Hinchford's +craving, and the day that followed any fresh incidents bore less heavily +upon him, as he rehearsed those incidents in his mind. + +Still they had said nothing of the business; they had been more anxious +to know how he had spent his time since their departure, and whether +Mattie's absence had made much difference to him. Sidney spoke the +truth, and Mattie was pleased at the confession. It was an evidence of +the good she had done by resisting her father's will, and she was woman +enough not to be sorry for the result. + +That evening, Ann Packet, bringing in the supper to her master, was +startled by the question which he put to her. + +"How is Mattie looking, Ann?" + +"Looking, sir!" + +"Has all this watching, studying my eccentricities, affected her?" + +"She's a little pale mayhap--but she has allus been pale since her last +illness." + +"I never gave a thought as to the effect which the constant study of a +monomaniac might produce upon her," he said half abruptly; "but she's +quit of me now, and will improve." + +"Oh! she was well enough here--like a bird chirping about the +house--Mattie likes something to do for some one. An extrornary girl, +Master Sidney, as was ever sent to be a blessing unto all she took to." + +"Yes--an extraordinary girl. Sit down." + +"No--it isn't for the likes of me to do that here, sir." + +"Sit down, and tell me what you think of her. We don't study appearances +in trouble--and a blind man loves the sound of a woman's voice." + +"Then you have altered werry much, sir." + +"Yes--thanks to Mattie again." + +"And to think that she was a little ragged gal about the streets, sir. +Many and many a time have I crept to the door after shop was shut, and +given her the odd pieces I could find, and she was allus grateful for +'em." + +"Always grateful--who can doubt that?" + +"She was waiting for the pieces when you came home and lost that +brooch--poor ignorant thing, then, sir!" + +"Through you then, Ann, we first knew Mattie Gray. Strangely things come +round!" + +"Ah! you don't know half her goodness, sir--she's just as kind to +anybody who wants kindness--_just_." + +"Yes, it is like her!" + +"It's a pity her father isn't less of a fidget--she ought to have had a +better un than that, or have never lighted on him, I think." + +"Is she not happy with him, then?" + +"She may be, she mayn't--but he _is_ a fidget, and Mattie ought to have +some one to take care of her now, and make her happy--like." + +"A husband, you mean?" + +"Yes, I think so." + +"Sit down, Ann. Perhaps you know of some one who is likely to take care +of Mattie in the way you think?" + +"I don't know." + +"Some one who calls and sees her, and in whom she is interested?" + +"Oh! no--no one calls to see _her_," said Ann, "her father's jealous of +her liking anybody save himself. I saw that long ago." + +"I should like to see--ah, ha! _to see!_" he cried--"Mattie happy. She +deserves it." + +"Those who think so little of theirselves seldom find happiness +though--do they, sir?" + +Sidney started at the axiom--it was deeper than Ann Packet's general run +of observations. + +"There are so few of those good folk in the world, Ann." + +"Mattie's one." + +"Yes--Mattie's one!" he repeated. + +"I've often wondered and a-wondered what would make her happy; do you +know, sir, sometimes I think that--that _you_ might, if you'll excuse an +ignorant woman saying so." + +"That I might!--what has made you think that? Sit down--why _don't_ you +sit down!" + +"Well, just to talk this over, and for my darling's sake, I will for +once demean myself;" and Ann Packet, red in the face with excitement, +seated herself on the verge of the horsehair chair. + +Ann Packet had broken through the ice at last; it had been a trouble of +long duration; she who knew Mattie's secret, guessed where Mattie's +chance of happiness rested, she thought. But it is delicate work to +strive for the happiness of other people, and leads to woful failures, +as a rule. + +Ann Packet was nervous; the plunge had been made, and the truth must +escape--she dashed into the subject, for "her gal's sake." + +"Lookee here, sir--it's no good my keeping back my 'pinion, that our +Mattie is really fond of you! When she was a girl in Suffolk Street, and +you a bit of a boy, she used to worry me about you, and yet I never +guessed it! When she growed bigger and you growed bigger, she showed her +liking less, but it peeped out at times unbeknown to herself, and yet I +never guessed it! But when she was ill in Tenchester Street, and I left +here to nus her, the truth came on me all of a heap, and mazed me +drefful!" + +"What made you think of this--this nonsense, then?" he asked. + +"She spoke about you in her fever, when her head was gone," said Ann; +"of how your happiness hadn't come, and yet she'd worked so hard for it. +And somehow I guessed it then--and when she came here, and was, for the +fust time, happy in her way--I knowed it!" + +"Folly! folly!" murmured Sidney. + +"And they who says that she had no right to come here, don't know the +rights of things--she liked you best of all, sir, and she comes here, +duty bound, to do her best. If they says a word aginst her in MY hearing +for her coming here, let 'em look out, that's all!" + +Sidney sat, with his fingers interlaced, thoughtful and grave. + +"You may go now, Ann--I'm sorry that you have put this into my head. It +can't be true." + +"True or not, just ask her some day when you feel that you can't do +without her help, and see who's wrong of us two. And you'll have to ask +her, mind that!" + +Ann rose and bustled towards the door. At the door a new form of +argument suggested itself, and she came back again. + +"You're blind enough not to care for good looks so much now--if you can +get a good heart think yourself lucky, sir. You've just the chance of +making one woman happy in your life, and in finding your life very +different to what it is now, with a blundering gal like me to worry you. +She won't think any the wus of you for being blind and helpless--she's +much too good for you!" + +"Well, that's true enough, Ann." + +"I don't say that I'm saying this for your sake, young man," said Ann +Packet in quite a maternal manner, "for you're no great catch to +anybody, and will be a sight of trouble. But I do think that Mattie took +a fancy to you ever so long ago, and that it didn't die away like other +people's because you came to grief. And if my opinion has discumfrumpled +you more than I expected, why, you asked for it, and I haven't many +words to pick and choose from, when I've made up my mind to speak. And +I'm not sorry now that I've spoke it any-ways." + +"I fear Mattie would not thank you, Ann." + +"Mattie never knowed what was good for herself so well as for t'other +people--I looks after her good like her mother--I don't know that any +one else would. And though I'm your servant, I'm her friend--and so I +asks you, if you've any intentions, to speak out like a gentleman!" + +Still suffering from nervous excitement, Ann Packet closed the door, and +ran down-stairs to indulge in an hysterical kind of croaking, with her +head in the dresser-drawer. It had been a great effort, but Ann had +succeeded in it. Her young master knew the whole truth now, and there +was no excuse for him. He must give up Mattie or marry her, she +thought--either way her girl would not be "worrited" out of her life any +longer! + +Meanwhile the young master left his supper untouched, and dwelt upon the +revelation. Something new to think of!--something to stir afresh the +sluggish current of his life. + +Was it true?--was it likely?--was it to be helped, if true or likely? +Could it be possible that it lay in his power to promote the happiness +of any living being still? Could he make happy, above all, the girl whom +he had known so long, and who had served him so faithfully? He did not +think of himself, or ask if it were possible to love her; possibly for +the first time in his life, he was wholly unselfish, and thought only of +a return for all the sacrifices _she_ had made. He could remember now +that hers had been a life of abnegation--that she had risked her good +name once for Harriet Wesden--once, and in the latter days, for himself. +All this simply Mattie's gratitude for the kindness extended in the old +days--nothing more. It was not likely that that ignorant woman below +could know all that had been unfathomable to brighter, keener +intellects. + +But if true, what better act on his part than to gladden her heart, and +add to the content of his own? He began a new existence with his loss of +sight--the old world vanished away completely, and left him but one +friend from it--let him not lose that one by his perversity or pride. +Still, let him do nothing hastily and shame both him and her. He would +wait! + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MR. GRAY'S SCHEME. + + +Mr. Gray and his daughter Mattie re-commenced housekeeping together on a +different principle. Mattie's flitting had impressed Mr. Gray with the +consciousness of his daughter possessing a will a trifle more inflexible +than his own, and he respected her opinions in consequence. He treated +her less like a child, and more like a woman whose remarks were worth +listening to. In plain truth, he had become a little afraid of Mattie. +He had learned to love her, and was afraid of losing her. Her stern +determination to keep her promise--even part with him, rather than break +it--had won his respect; for he was a firm man himself, and in his heart +admired firmness in others. + +Father and daughter settled down to home-matters, and worked together in +many things; if the daughter had one secret from her father, it was the +woman's natural aversion to confess to an attachment not likely to be +returned, and was scarcely a secret, considering that Mr. Gray had more +than an inkling of the truth. + +The father did not care to solve the problem that was so easy of +solution; he objected to showing any interest in such trivial mundane +matters as love-making. He had a soul himself above love-making; which +he considered vain, frivolous, and worldly, leading the thoughts astray +from things divine. He saw Mattie's perplexity, and even hoped in the +good time to alter it, if separation did not have its proper effect. +"Presently--we shall see," was Mr. Gray's motto; and though he had +spoken hopefully to Mattie, as Mattie had fancied, yet when they were at +home again--two prosaic home figures--he kept the subject in the +background. + +Still he was watchful, and when Mattie began to alter, to become more +grave and downcast, as though his home was not exactly the place where +she experienced happiness--when she brightened up at any suggestion to +visit Sidney Hinchford, he thought less of his own comfort, and more of +his daughter's, like a good father as he was, after all. + +One afternoon, without apprising that daughter of his intentions, he +walked over to Camberwell, to see Sidney Hinchford. That young gentleman +had ventured forth into the street, and therefore Mr. Gray had leisure +to put things in order during his absence; arrange the mantel-piece, and +wheel the table into the exact centre of the room. Anything out of order +always put him in an ill temper, and he wanted to discuss business +matters in an equable way, and with as little to disturb him as +possible. If anything besides business leaked forth in the course of +conversation, he should not be sorry; but he would take no mean +advantage of Sidney Hinchford's position. He had a scheme to propose, +which might be accepted or declined--what that scheme might end in, he +would not say just then. It might end in his daughter marrying Sidney, +or it might only tend to that singular young man's comfort and peace of +mind--at all events, harm could not evolve from it, and possibly some +personal advantage to himself, though he considered that _that_ need not +be taken into account. + +Sidney Hinchford returned, and his face lit up at the brisk "Good +afternoon" of Mr. Gray. He turned a little aside from him, as if +expecting a smaller, softer hand in his, a voice more musical, asking if +he were well, and then his face lost a great deal of its brightness with +his disappointment. + +"Alone?" he said. + +"This time, Mattie is very busy--has a large dress-making order to +fulfil." + +"She'll kill herself with that needlework," he remarked; "it is a +miserable profession, at the best." + +"You're quite right, Mr. Sidney. And talking about professions, have you +thought of yours lately?" + +"Oh! I have thought of a hundred things. I must invest my capital--such +as it is--in something." + +"Will you listen patiently to a little plan of mine? I am of the world, +worldly to-day, God forgive me!" he ejaculated, piously. + +"What plan is that? Let us sit down and talk it over." + +The local preacher, lithographer, &c., sat down facing Sidney, on whose +face was visible an expression of keen interest. In matters of religion, +Mr. Gray was long and prosy; in matters of business, quick and terse, a +man after Sidney's own heart. Two "straightforward" men like them got +through a deal of business in a little time. + +"How much money have you at command?" + +"A hundred pounds, perhaps." + +"So have I." + +"What's that to do with it?" + +"A great deal, if you like my scheme--nothing, if you don't." + +"Go on." + +"A hundred pounds might start a business, but it's a risk--two hundred +is better. How does Gray and Hinchford sound, now?" + +"A partnership?" + +"Why not? You're not fit to manage a business by yourself--I'm inclined +to think the two of us might make a success of it--the three of us, if +Mattie has to assist. I don't see why we should go on like this any +longer--you can't stand at this rent--one house may as well hold all of +us--why not?" + +"You are very kind. I shall be a great trouble to you." + +"I hope not. If you are--I like trouble. I shall make a bright light of +you in good time!" + +Sidney thought of the sermons in store for him, but hazarded no comment. +Beyond them, and before all, was the preacher's daughter--the woman who +understood him, and who had even rendered blindness endurable. + +"You were speaking a short while since of going abroad. Have you changed +your mind?" + +"They changed theirs at the chapel. Bless you! they thought they could +pitch upon a man so much more suitable! You hear that--so much more +suitable!" + +"Ah!--a good joke." + +"I don't see where the joke lies," he said quickly. + +"I beg pardon. No, not exactly a joke--was it?" + +"I should say not." + +"Well--and this business--what is it to be?" + +"I fancy the old idea of a bookseller and stationer's. I can bring a +little connection from our chapel together--and there's your friends at +the bank." + +"No--don't build on them--I have done with them." + +"Ah! I had forgotten. But we must not bear enmity in our hearts against +our fellow-men." + +"True--and this business--where is it to be?" + +"We'll look out, Mattie and I, at once." + +"Nothing settled yet, then?" said Sidney, with a sigh, who was anxious +to be stirring in life once more. + +"Nothing yet, of course. I did not know whether you would approve of the +scheme. Whether Mattie and I would be exactly fitting company for you." + +"Is that satire?" + +"My dear sir, I never said a satirical thing in my life." + +"The best of company, then--for you and Mattie are the only friends left +me, save that honest girl down-stairs." + +"Ah! Ann Packet--we must not forget her, or we shall have Mattie +scolding us." + +"I asked if it were satire, because you are doing me a great service, +and saving me from much anxiety. I have been thinking lately that it +would be better for me to find my way into some asylum or other, and +settle down there apart from the busy world without. You come forward to +save me from the streets I have been fearing." + +"As Mattie was saved," said Mr. Gray, solemnly; "remember that!" + +Mr. Gray shortly afterwards took his leave. The same night he +communicated the details of his scheme to his daughter; he could easily +read in her face that it was a plan that had her full concurrence. +Sidney at home again--Sidney to take care of, and screen from all those +ills to which his position was liable! + +In a short while a shop in the suburbs of London--not a great distance +from Peckham Rye--was found to let. It stood in a new neighbourhood, +with houses rising round it at every turn. A building mania had set in +that direction, and a populous district was springing up there. + +"I have always heard that to pitch one's camp in a new neighbourhood, if +one has the patience to wait, will always succeed. We three have +patience, and I think we'll try it." + +This was said to Mattie, after she and her father had inspected the +premises, and were walking by cross roads towards Camberwell, to gladden +Sidney with the latest news. + +"We'll try it--we'll begin home there, father." + +"Home in earnest--eh?" + +Mattie did not notice the meaning in his tones; she was full of other +thoughts. + +"It must be a home, that you and I will try to render happy for him--for +his own sake--for his dead father's," she said. + +"To be sure. And if he be not happy then, it will not be our fault." + +"I hope not!" + +"Hope not," said her father; "do you think we may fail in the attempt?" + +"If we be not careful. We must remember that he is weak and requires +support--that he is blind, and cannot escape us if we weary him too +much." + +"Oh! I see--I see," he said, a little aggrieved; "you are afraid that I +shall tire him with the Word of God. Mattie, he's not exactly a +Christian man yet, and I should certainly like to make him one. There +will be plenty of time for preaching the truth unto him." + +"And for leaving it alone." + +"Bless my soul!" he ejaculated, as though Mattie had fired a pistol in +his ear. + +"You will believe that I understand him best, and I think that it will +not do to attack him too often with our creed. His first disappointment +is over--he is teaching himself resignation--he will come round to a +great extent without our help--with our help, judiciously applied, he +will come round altogether." + +"You think a man may be told too often of the error of his ways?" + +"Yes." + +"Then we shall never agree upon that point." + +And they never did. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Gray remembered Mattie's +hint, and often curbed a rising attempt to preach to Sidney. When his +rigour carried him to preaching point, Sidney listened patiently; when +Sidney knew that Mr. Gray's energy was real, and that not one atom of +hypocrisy actuated his motives, he respected the preacher, and paid +attention to him. + +He altered rapidly for the better; he became again almost the Sidney +Hinchford of old times--the smile returned more frequently, the +brightness of his face was something new; it was pleasant to think that +he was not isolated from the world, and that there were friends in it +yet to care for him. + +He went to church every Sunday in lieu of chapel, somewhat to Mr. Gray's +dissatisfaction. He had gone in old days twice every Sunday with his +father, and he preferred adopting the old habits to frequenting the +chapel whither Mr. Gray desired to conduct him. Sometimes Mattie +accompanied him; more often, when he knew his ground, he went by +himself, leaving Mattie to her father's escort. + +Meanwhile business slowly but surely increased; the connection +extended--all went well with these three watchers--each watching for a +different purpose, with an equal degree of earnestness. + + +END OF THE SIXTH BOOK. + + + + +BOOK VII. + +SIDNEY'S GRATITUDE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MAURICE HINCHFORD IN SEARCH OF HIS COUSIN. + + +Nearly a year had passed away since the firm of Hinchford and Gray +started in business and astonished the suburbs. In search of that rising +firm, a young man, fresh from foreign travel, was wandering in the +outskirts of Peckham one February night. A man who had crossed deserts, +climbed mountains, and threaded mountain passes with comparative ease, +but who was quickly lost in the brick and mortar wilderness into which +he had ventured. + +This man, we may say at once, was Maurice Hinchford, a man who had seen +life and spent a fortune in an attempt to enjoy it. A Sybarite, who had +wandered from place to place, from kingdom to kingdom, until even +novelty had palled upon him, and he had returned back to his father and +his father's business. During this long holiday he had thought much of +his cousin Sidney, the man to whom he had taken no passing fancy, and +whose life he had helped to blight--whom, by way of atonement, he had +once wished to advance in the world. + +Sidney Hinchford had been constantly before him during his pilgrimage; +before him that indignant figure which had repelled all excuse, on the +night he reached his one and thirtieth year; he could see it hastening +away in the night shadows from the house to which it had been +unsuspiciously lured. + +On his return, not before, for he had wandered from place to place, and +many letters had miscarried--amongst them the missive which had told him +of his uncle's death and cousin's blindness--he heard of the calamity +which had befallen Sidney in his absence. + +He had been ever a feeling man, and forgetting the past rebuff he had +received--thinking, perhaps, that his cousin was in distress, he started +at once in search of him. To do Maurice Hinchford justice, it was on the +very day on which he had reached London, and before he had seen his +mother and sisters. No assurance of his father that Sidney was in good +hands contented him; he must judge for himself. He had the Hinchford +impetus to proceed at once straightforwardly to work; he was a man who +was sorry for the harm he had done in his life--one of those comfortable +souls, who are always sorry _afterwards_!--a loose liver, with a +conscience that would not keep quiet and let events flow on smoothly by +him. He had sobered down during his travels, too; he had met with many +acquaintances, but no friends--in all his life he had not found one true +friend who would have stood by him in adversity, and shared his +troubles, even his purse, with him. + +Fortunately Maurice Hinchford had not known adversity, and had shared +his purse with others instead. A rich man, an extravagant one, but a man +of observation, who knew tinsel from pure gold, and sighed very often +when he found himself compelled, perforce, to put up with the tinsel. +Life such as his had wearied him of late; men of his own class had sworn +eternal amity, and then laughed at him when his back was turned; men of +a grade inferior had toadied him, cringed to him, sponged upon him; +women had flattered him for his wealth's sake, not loved him for his +own--all had acknowledged him one of those good fellows, of which +society is always proud; but for _himself_ nobody cared save his own +flesh and blood--he could read that fact well enough, and its constant +reiteration on the faces of "his set" annoyed him more than he could +have believed. + +This favourite of fortune, then, annoyed with society's behaviour, had +started forth in search of Sidney an hour after the news was learned +from his father's lips. He had a great deal to say to Sidney; he had not +entered into any explanations in that letter which Sidney had coolly +responded to--he could say more _viva voce_; and now the storm was more +than a year old, his cousin would surely put up with more, and listen to +him. + +But firstly, Maurice Hinchford had to find his cousin; and having +wandered from the right track, it became a matter of some difficulty. He +had strayed into a "new neighbourhood"--a place always famous for its +intricacies--and he floundered about new streets, and half-finished +streets, asking manifold questions of the aborigines, and receiving +manifold directions, which he followed implicitly, and got lost anew in +consequence. + +The stragglers were few and far between, and Maurice waited patiently +for the next arrival--standing under a lamp-post at the corner of a +street. He had given up all hope in his own resources, and had resolved +to enlist the next nondescript in his service, be his terms whatever his +rapacity dictated. But the next nondescript was a woman, and he was +baffled again. A young woman in a great hurry, to whom he could not +offer money, and whose progress he scarcely liked to arrest, until the +horror of another vigil under that melancholy gas-lamp overcame his +reluctance to intrude. + +"I beg pardon," he said, hastily; "I am looking for Park Place. Will you +oblige me, Miss, by indicating in which direction it may lie _now_?" + +"As straight as you can go, sir." + +"Ah! but, confound it, I can't go straight. Not that I'm intoxicated," +he said quickly, seeing his auditor recoil, and make preparations for a +hasty retreat, "but these streets are incomprehensibly tortuous." + +The listener seemed to look very intently towards him for an instant. +The voice appeared to strike her. + +"Whom do you want in Park Place?" was the quick answer. + +"A Mr. Hinchford, of the business of Gray and Hinchford." + +"You are his cousin Maurice?" + +"By George!--yes. How did you know that?" + +"I guessed it--that's all." + +"You are a shrewd guesser, Miss," he said. "Yes, I am his cousin +Maurice, and you are----" + +"Mattie Gray, his partner's daughter." + +"Oh! indeed!" + +"I have seen you once before--you brought your father, some years ago, +to a stationer's shop in Great Suffolk Street." + +"Right--a retentive memory." + +"I seldom forget faces--it is not likely that I should have forgotten +yours." + +"Why not?" + +"I have heard so much of you since then," was the answer, cold and +cutting as the east wind that was swooping down the street that night. + +"Oh! have you?" + +Maurice walked on by her side; after a few moments Mattie said to him, + +"What do _you_ want with Sidney?" + +"Many things. I am anxious to see him--very anxious." + +"Your presence can but give him pain--why expose him to needless +suffering by this intrusion?" + +"I have a hope that it will not be considered an intrusion, Miss Gray," +said Maurice, stiffly. + +"I can see no reason why you should hope that." + +"I am his relation--his----" + +"Sir, I know what you are," said Mattie, sharply; "I know all your +history, and all the harm you have done to him, and Harriet Wesden, and +me." + +"And you!--_and you_, Miss!" he repeated harshly. + +"An evil action spreads evil in its turn, and there is no knowing where +it may end, Mr. Hinchford," said Mattie; "yours affected my character." + +"I don't see that--how was that possible?" + +"Whilst you were playing your villain's trick on Harriet Wesden, I was +searching the streets for her. I kept her secret after her return, and, +therefore, could not give my employer a fitting reason for my absence +from the business left in trust to me. I was discharged." + +"I am very sorry," said Maurice, energetically; "upon my soul, I had no +idea of all the harm my folly--my villainy, if you will--had caused till +now! Miss Gray, you don't know how sorry I am!" + +"I don't care." + +"Is that merciful or womanly?" + +"Perhaps not. But I will believe that you are sorry, if you will not +accompany me further." + +"Miss Gray, I must come. More than ever, I am resolved to see him +to-night." + +"Very well." + +They went on together, both walking at a brisk pace, Maurice a little +discomfited, and with his head bent down and his hands behind him. + +"May I ask," he said after some moments' silence, "if he be well?" + +"He is well." + +"Blind still?" + +"Yes." + +"May I ask you, as his friend, let me say, if his means be adequate to +his support?" + +"Ah! you have come to ask him that--to see that for yourself?" + +"Not exactly--it is one of many reasons." + +"Keep that from him, then," cried Mattie; "spare him that humiliation." + +"Why humiliation, Miss?" + +"It is humiliation, it is an insult, to offer help to the man whose life +you have embittered. You that have known Sidney, worked with him in your +office, professed to be his friend, should have fathomed that part of +his character, at least, which is based upon his pride. Sir, I doubt if +he esteem you very much, but he will certainly hate you if you talk of +money." + +"Then I'll not talk of it." + +"And you'll not go back?" + +"I never go back," said Maurice; "I'm a Hinchford." + +"All the Hinchfords whom I have known have been honest, earnest men, +striving to do good, and detesting cunning and disguise. I hope that you +are the first that has disgraced the name." + +"I hope so. Phew! how hot it is!" + +Maurice Hinchford felt exceedingly uncomfortable under these continued +attacks; still there was a novelty in all this dispraise and +plain-speaking. A brusque young woman this, whose character interested +him, and whose warmth in his cousin's service he respected, despite the +darts with which she transfixed him. + +He did not flinch from the purpose he had formed, however. He _was_ +anxious to see his cousin, to receive the attack in full, and defend +himself; to prove to Sidney, if it were possible, that he was not quite +the unprincipled villain that was generally supposed. So he kept on his +way, and this first little dash of the waters of opposition against him +did not affect him much. Mattie's energetic advice puzzled him, +certainly; she spoke warmly in Sidney's cause--as if she were interested +in him, and had a right to take his part--was there any reason for that +brisk attack upon him, save her own outraged dignity at the slander +which, by his means, had indirectly fallen upon her? He kept pace with +her, but did not speak again. She was not inclined to reply with any +"graciousness" to his questions; he saw that he had annoyed her already +by the object of his mission, and that it was the better policy, the +truer act of courtesy, to maintain a rigid silence. + +Mattie spoke first. + +"This is the house," she said, stopping before a shop already closed for +the night. "You are still of the same mind?" + +"Yes." + +"You cannot do good here--you may do harm." + +"Your pardon, but I am of a different opinion." + +"Very well then." + +Mattie gave a little impetuous tug to the bell; Ann Packet opened the +door, and Mattie and her unwilling escort passed into the shop, the +latter the object of immense attraction from the round-eyed, +open-mouthed serving-maid. Events flowed on so regularly and +monotonously in that quarter of the world, that the advent of a tall, +well-dressed stranger, was a thing to be remarked, and, Ann Packet +hoped, to be explained. + +Mattie ran at once into the parlour, where her father was sitting over +his work. He looked up with a bright smile as she entered. + +"Where's Sidney, father?" + +"In his own room." + +"Here is his cousin. Sidney must be prepared to see him, or to deny +himself to him." + +"What cousin is that?" Mr. Gray asked, a little irrelevantly, being +taken aback by the news. + +Mattie explained, and ran up-stairs. Mr. Gray pushed aside the stone +upon which he had been writing, turned up his coat-cuffs, and buttoned +his black coat to the chin. He knew the story in which that cousin had +played his part perfectly well; had he forgotten it, his remembrance of +old faces would not have betrayed him in this instance. Here was the man +to whom he had administered a fugitive lecture in the dead of night at +Ashford railway station, once more before him; here was a chance of +touching the heart of a most incorrigible sinner--a sinner worthy of +_his_ powers of conversion. He would tackle him at once; he would warn +him of the errors of his ways, and of the infallible results of them, if +he did not listen to the warning voice. He was just in the mood for +delivering a sermon, and there was no time like the present. Now for it! + +Mr. Gray turned the handle of the parlour door and skipped into the +shop. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MAURICE RECEIVES PLENTY OF ADVICE. + + +Maurice Hinchford had been told by Mattie to wait in the shop until she +returned; and, obedient to her mandate, he had taken his seat on a very +tall, uncomfortable stool, on which he could have remained perched more +at his ease had a balance-pole been provided. Here he had remained, +looking round the shop, and taking stock of its manifold +contents--glancing askance now and then at Ann Packet, whose curiosity +was not entirely satiated until Mr. Gray intruded on the scene. + +At the first click of the door-handle, Maurice looked round expecting to +see his cousin, but was disappointed by the presence of a small and +agile man in black, who leaped on to a second chair beside him, and +commenced nodding his head vigorously. + +"Good evening, sir," said Maurice. "Mr. Gray, I presume?" + +"We have met before, sir--my name is Gray." + +"Really!--I do not remember----" + +"Possibly not, sir; there are many unpleasant reminiscences we are +always glad to escape from," said Mr. Gray. "I am connected with one. +You and I met on the platform of the Ashford railway station, one +winter's night, when Miss Wesden claimed my protection from a snare that +had been laid for her." + +"Oh!" + +Maurice had dropped into a hornet's nest. Whom next was he to confront +before his cousin Sidney came upon the scene?--from whom else was he to +hear a sharp criticism on those actions of the past, which no one +regretted more than he. Luck was against him that night. + +"You remember me?" said Mr. Gray. "Before the train departed I gave you +a little counsel for your future course in life--a warning as to whither +a persistence in your evil habits would lead you--you remember?" + +"Oh! yes--I remember." + +"Have you taken that warning to heart?--I fear not. Have you been any +wiser, better, or more honest from that day?--I fear not. Have you not +rather proceeded on your evil course, despising the preaching of good +men, the warning of God's word, and gone on, on--down, down, without a +thought of the day when all your actions in this life would have to be +accounted for?" + +Bang came Mr. Gray's hard hand on the counter, startling Maurice +Hinchford's nerves somewhat, and causing innumerable articles in the +glass cases thereon to jump spasmodically with the shock. + +"I--" began Maurice. + +"Don't interrupt me, sir--I will not be interrupted!--you have come +hither of your own free will, seeking us out, and fearing not the +evidence of our displeasure, and now, sir, you must hear what is wrong +in your acts, and what will be good for your soul. Do you know, oh! +sinner, that that soul is in deadly peril?" + +"I know--" + +"Sir, I will not be interrupted!" cried Mr. Gray again; "I am not +accustomed to be interrupted when I am endeavouring to awaken a hardened +conscience to a sense of its condition, and I will not be now. And I +call upon you at this time--now is the accepted time, sir, now is the +day of salvation--to amend, amend, amend! You have been a spendthrift, +profligate, everything that is bad; you have studied yourself in every +action of life, and neglected the common duties due to your neighbour as +well as to your Maker. You have gone on smiling in your sinful course, +heeding not the outcry of religious men against your hideous career, +recking not of the abyss into which you must plunge, and on the brink of +which, you--a man, with an immortal soul committed to your charge--are +standing now! One step more, perhaps, one wilful step forward, and you +are lost for ever. _Lost!_" he shouted, with the frenzy of a fanatic, as +well as the vehemence of a good man carried away by his subject; and the +shrill cry made the glasses round the gas lamps ring again, and vibrated +unpleasantly through Maurice's system. This was becoming unendurable. + +"If you will allow me--" began Maurice. + +"Sir, I will not be interrupted!" shouted Mr. Gray, with more hammering +upon the counter; "I know what is good for you, and I insist upon a +patient hearing. You are a man in danger of destruction, and I cannot +let you go blindfold into danger, without bidding you stop whilst time +is mercifully before you. Let me divide the subject, in the first place, +into three heads." + +Maurice groaned inwardly, and stared at the preacher. There was no help +for it; there was no escape. He might jump to the floor and fly for his +life; or he might tip up Mr. Gray's chair, upset that gentleman, and +then gag him; but neither method would bring him nearer to that purpose +for which he had ventured thither; and until Sidney appeared there was +nothing to do but sit patiently under the infliction and listen to the +full particulars of his dangerous state. He put his hands on his knees, +surveyed the speaker, and submitted; in all his life he had never heard +such a bad opinion of himself, or listened to so sweeping a condemnation +of all his little infirmities. Mr. Gray ran on with great volubility, +pitching his voice unpleasantly high; Maurice's blood curdled, once he +was sure his hair rose upon his head, and more than once cold water +running down the curve of his back bone could not have more forcibly +expressed the sensations of the moment. And then those horrid bangs upon +the counter--always coming when least expected, and going off like +cannon shots in his ears; and the gesticulatory flourishes, and the +falsetto notes when more than usually excited, and, above all, the +unceasing flow of invective and persuasion--an unintermittent +shower-bath of the best advice, powerful enough to swamp a congregation. + +Maurice's head ached; his eyes watered; the shop grew dizzy; the books +and prints revolved slowly round him; the ceiling might be the floor, +and the floor the ceiling, with the gas branch screwed upside down in +it, for what he knew of the matter; he lost the thread of the discourse, +and found the heads thereof inextricably confused; he understood that he +was a miserable sinner--the worst of sinners--or he should not be +sitting there with all those horrible noises in his ears; the figure in +the chair before him, heaved up and down, moved its arms right and left, +possibly threw double summersaults; it was all over with the +listener--he was going silly, he scarcely knew now with what object he +had come thither--oh! his head!--oh! this never-ending, awfully rapid +Niagara of words! + +He made one feeble effort at resistance. + +"Look here, old fellow--if you'll let me off--I'll--I'll build a +tabernacle," he burst forth; and again that terrible "Sir, I will not be +interrupted!" stopped all further intrusion upon the subject of +discourse. + +Mr. Gray was delighted with that subject, with that listener--one of the +finest specimens of iniquity he had encountered for many years!--and he +did not think of stopping yet awhile. Where was the hurry?--time, +although valuable, could not be better spent than on that occasion--his +heart was in the task he had set himself, and he would do his very best! + +Mattie came to the rescue at last; she had been watching the delivery of +the sermon for some time over the parlour blind, informing Sidney, who +had entered the parlour, of the energy of the father, and the patient +endurance of his cousin. + +Disturbed as he had been by his cousin's arrival, and undecided for some +time as to the expediency of granting him an interview or not, Sid could +not refrain from a smile at Maurice's unenviable position. He remembered +Mr. Gray's first charge upon his sins, and the unsparing length to which +he had extended his remarks upon them; he could imagine the position of +Maurice Hinchford at that juncture, and realize the feelings with which +that gentleman heard and suffered. + +"I think I'll go to him now, Sidney," said Mattie. + +It had been Sidney and Mattie--as between brother and sister--for a long +time now. + +"Will your father admire the intrusion?" asked Sid, drily. + +"Perhaps he _is_ doing good," said Mattie, who regarded matters akin to +this more seriously than the blind man; "I'll wait a while." + +And all this time Maurice was praying for help. It had not been a very +pleasant idea, that of facing his cousin for the first time; but now the +thought occurred to him that he would rather face the very worst--even +that obnoxious being, of whom the preacher earnestly warned him--than +hear this man inveigh against his sins any more. + +Mattie quietly entered the shop. The spell was broken; Mr. Gray paused +with his right arm above his head--he was just coming down with another +bang on the counter--and Maurice leaped off his stool, to which he had +been transfixed, and shook hands violently with Mattie in his +bewilderment. + +"He will see me, Miss Gray?" + +"Yes. If you wish it." + +"Thank you--thank you! Is he in the parlour?" + +"Yes." + +"And so be warned, young man--there is no excuse left you--not one, now. +You have been warned of all the evils which a guilty life incurs upon +those who go on their way defiantly!" + +"Oh! yes--I have been warned, sir; there's not a doubt of it--I'm afraid +I have put you to a great deal of trouble?" said Maurice, not yet +recovered from his confusion. + +"In a good cause, I don't mind trouble." + +"Very kind of you, I'm sure. In the parlour, you said, Miss Gray?--then +I'll go to him at once. It must be getting very late." + +Mr. Gray was proceeding to follow Maurice, when Mattie touched him on +the arm and arrested his progress. + +"I think we had better leave them together. Their business is scarcely +ours." + +"What?--ah! exactly so, my dear. But I wish you had not interrupted me +quite so unceremoniously--the impression I was making upon that young +man was wonderful! Great heaven! if it is left for me to work his +regeneration at the last, how proud I shall be! Mattie, I think I have +moved him--he has already said something about building a tabernacle, a +chapel, or something; but I scarcely caught the words at the +moment--think of that man, so wicked, and perverse, and designing, +proceeding after all, in the straight and narrow way! It's wonderful!" + +In the meantime, Maurice Hinchford had entered the parlour, closed the +door behind him, and advanced towards the figure at the table, sitting +in the full light of the gas above his head. Maurice paused and looked +at him. + +Sidney had changed; he was looking older; there was a thread or two of +silver in the dark waving hair; and the eyes, which blindness had not +dimmed, had that melancholy vagueness of expression, by which such eyes +are always characterized. + +"Well, Sidney--I am here at last." + +"I am sorry that you have taken the trouble to call." + +"Indeed!--why?" + +"I think you and I are best apart. We know each other far too well, by +this time." + +"Have patience with me, Sidney. I think not." + +He drew a chair nearer his cousin, and sat down. He had not offered to +shake hands with Sidney; he felt that his cousin would have resented +that attempt; that he was regarded as a man who had done a grievous +wrong, and from whom no professions of friendship or cousinly regard +would be received. He had come with a faint hope of doing good--in some +way or other, he scarcely knew himself; of extenuating in some +way--almost as indefinite to him--the past conduct which had placed him +in so sinister a light. + +"Sidney," he said, "I wish that you had accepted that invitation to meet +me which I made you. I could have explained much." + +"No explanation, Maurice, would have been satisfactory to me at that +time." + +"Will it be now, then?" he asked, eagerly catching at the words which +implied possibly more than his cousin had wished to convey. + +"I would prefer dismissing the subject altogether," Sid replied. "If you +will tell me candidly and honestly that you are sorry for the past, I +will be glad to hear it--and believe it." + +"You bear me no malice, then?" + +"No--I have outlived it." + +"Then you will----" + +"I will do nothing, but remain with those good friends who have taken +pity on my helplessness," he said, sternly. + +"Sidney, pray understand me. I don't wish you to think me a wholly bad +man--God knows I am not that--I have never been that. I have had bad +friends, evil counsellors, if you will--mine was never a resolute +nature, but one easily led away from the first. I was an only son, +spoiled by an indulgent father, spoiled by the money which was lavished +on me, spoiled by the crowd which the spending of that money brought +about me--nothing more." + +"That is bad enough," said Sid. + +"I own that. I own that I was flattered to my moral ruin, Sidney--that +they, who called themselves my friends, cheered on that downfall, and +made it easy to me--scoffing at all worlds purer than their own. I was +young, vain, impressionable, and far from high-principled when I first +met Harriet Wesden at Brighton." + +"I would rather not hear the story," said Sidney, uneasily. + +Maurice paid no heed to the remark, but went on hastily; and Sidney, +suppressing his intention to arrest the narrative, sat still and +listened to its weaknesses, its mystery, and yet its truth. + +"Harriet Wesden was a romantic school-girl--a young woman who knew +little of life, or had read the fictions, highly-coloured, concerning +it, till she might have belonged to dream-land for the realities about +her. She was led away by a senior scholar, too, as romantic as herself, +and more designing; and she and I met, talked, corresponded--fell in +love with each other." + +"I deny that." + +"Patience, Sidney; on my soul we did! I was not a villain, but a man led +away by my vanity and this girl's preference for me, and I loved her. I +don't say that it was a very true or passionate love; but it _was_ a +love, which burned fiercely enough for a time--which would have been +purer and better, but for the evil counsellor and false friend who was +always with me, to treat life, and love, and honour as a jest." + +"The man I met at your house?" + +"No. A man who has died since then--thank God, I was almost adding, for +he worked me much evil, and death only freed me from him." + +"Go on." + +"When Harriet Wesden and I parted, I believe we truly loved each other. +I had assumed a false name at the outset, and had maintained it +throughout our strange courtship--fearing the discovery of governesses, +and not knowing the character of her to whom my folly had lured me. I +was to go abroad at my father's wish, and I left, fully resolving to +write to her, and own all, and ask her if she would wait for me. Then +came long absence, fresh scenes, new friends, new dissipations, a belief +that she would easily forget me, being but a child when I had seen her +last; and so the old, old story, varied scarcely from the many that have +gone before it. Sidney, she did forget me--did discover that, after all, +it was but a fleeting fancy of her own." + +"No." + +"I think the next part of my story proves that. I met her again after an +absence of a few years, in the streets, near her house in Suffolk +Street, whither I had conducted my father to see yours. All my old +passion for her revived--but it was a struggle with her to endure my +presence at first. Still I was from the old days; I revived in her +memory the one romance that had been hers--I had not played a false part +therein, and could easily excuse my long silence. I found out the +friends whom she visited in the neighbourhood of New Cross; I formed +their acquaintance, and met Harriet Wesden more frequently. Her old +assertion that she never wished to see me again--that she loved another, +whose name she would never confess to me--wavered. I saw it, and, +carried away by the impression created, I did my best to win her." + +"Away from me?--well, you succeeded. She wrote to me at that time, +confessing her inability to think of me longer as a lover." + +"She wrote, not knowing her own mind, I believe. At that time she was +disturbed in thought concerning us--she was often cold and repellent to +me, and it was difficult to understand her. Well, Sid, throughout all +this, I loved her." + +"Why keep to your false name, then?" + +"I was ready to confess the truth, at every interview; then I put off +the avowal, after my old fashion. I knew by that time that your father +and yourself were lodging at the stationer's shop, and I formed a shrewd +guess as to the rival I had in her affections. Finally, Sid, there came +that night at New Cross, when she was carried away to Ashford. As I hope +to be saved, I had no design against her then; in good faith, I was her +escort to the railway station; it was only as we approached that +station, that the ruse suggested itself--that the devil whispered in my +ear his temptation. I knew the time of the mail-train; I had been by it +_en route_ to Paris only a few weeks since; I led her along, +unsuspecting of evil, to the other side of the railway station. She was +with me in the carriage before I became conscious of the heinousness of +the act I had committed. Even then I intended her no harm; I trusted all +to circumstance; I was even prepared to marry her, rather than lose her; +I was under a spell, Sidney!" + +"Yes--the spell of the devil." + +"When she discovered the truth, I found that I had secured her hate, +rather than her love; at Ashford station she faced me like a tigress, +and, full of the honest indignation that possessed her, held me up to +the shame I deserved before a host of people--pointed me out as a coward +and knave who had sought to cruelly deceive her. She claimed the +protection of that--that terrible man in the shop there--he was at +Ashford as you know--and I was glad to hide my head in the railway +carriage, and be borne away from his withering contempt. That's the +story. I will not tell you of the sorrow which I experienced for the +harm that I had done her--of the shame that has remained with me since +then--of the turn which she even gave to my character. Sidney, I would +have made any reparation in my power--but I was baffled and degraded, +and dared not look upon her any more." + +"That man I met at your house--he knew the story?" + +"He knew the beginning of it; and for Harriet Wesden's sake--and to +redeem her character in the mind of a man who has not a high estimate of +women--I told the end." + +Sidney sat and thought for a while. Then he pronounced his verdict. + +"All this assures me that you are easily led away--that it is only +chance that has kept you from being wholly a bad man. You are weak, +vacillating, and unprincipled--you are no Hinchford." + +"I have tried to do my best all my life, but somehow failed," said +Maurice, ruefully; "impulse has led me wrong when my heart has meant +right--candidly, cousin, I have been a fool more than once. But you +cannot believe that I would do harm to any human being in cold blood?" + +"Possibly not. But what virtue is there in that?" + +"Let me add, Sidney, that I honestly believe that I have been altering +for the better for the last two years. I have seen the emptiness of all +my friends' professions; their greed of gain and love of self; have +turned heart-sick at their evil-speaking, lying, and slandering. I feel +that I haven't a friend; that I have 'used up' all the pleasures in the +world, and that there is nothing I care for in it." + +"Yours is a bad state, that leads to worse, as a rule, Maurice." + +"I know it--I feel it." + +"And you are truly sorry for all the harm that you have done us in +life--Harriet, I, and others?" + +"With all my heart--truly sorry." + +"I can forgive you, then. I have been taught by good friends to be more +charitable in my heart towards men's motives. A year ago, I thought I +should have hated you all my life." + +He held forth his hand, which Maurice took and shook heartily in his. + +"Understand me," said Sidney, still coldly, "I forgive you, but I do not +need your help, and your presence, under any circumstances, will always +give me pain. We shall never be true friends--we shall respect each +other better apart." + +"Is it fair to think that? You who have heard me declaim against my vain +and objectless life." + +"Yours is a life to rejoice at, and to do good with, not to mourn over. +Seek a wife, man, and settle down in your sphere, honoured by good men, +and honouring good things." + +"Ah! fair advice; but the wife will come for my money's sake, for the +good things which _I_ possess, and which she and her relations will +honour in their way, with all their heart, and soul, and strength!" + +"Timon of Athens!" said Sidney, almost satirically. + +"Sidney, I would give up all my chances for one or two true friends. You +don't know what a miserable wretch I am!" + +"You will be better presently. You have seen too much life lately, and +the reaction has rendered you _blase_. Patience and wait. As for the +wife----" + +"Well?" + +"Seek out Harriet Wesden again, and do her justice." + +"But you----" + +"She never loved me, Maurice; you were her first love, and her last. She +is leading a life that is unfit for her, and you can make amends for all +the shadows you have cast upon it." + +"I could never face her." + +"Then you are a greater coward than I thought." + +"It's odd advice," he muttered; "seek out Harriet Wesden again! Oh! I +know how that will end, and what 'good' will result from that. But _you_ +wish it?" + +"Yes," said Sidney, after a moment's further reflection. + +"And her address?" + +Sidney repeated it; he took it down in his pocket-book, and then rose to +depart. + +"I am going now. I may trouble you once again, Sidney, if you will allow +me." + +"As you will--if you think it necessary." + +Maurice Hinchford shuffled with his feet uneasily, keeping his eyes +fixed on his blind cousin. + +"May I ask," he said at last, "if--if you are happy here?" + +"Yes, as happy as it is possible for one in my condition to be." + +"They are kind to you?" + +"Very kind." + +"They are a sharp couple--father and daughter--they----" + +"Oh! don't speak ill of them, Maurice; you do not know them, and cannot +estimate them at their just worth." + +"I might endure the daughter, for hers is a pleasant sharpness that one +doesn't object to; but, oh! that dreadful vigorous little parson, or +whatever he is." + +"Good night," said Sidney, meaningly. + +"One moment--I'm off in a minute now, Sid. There's one thing I did wish +just to allude to--nothing about money, mind," he added hastily, +noticing Sidney's heightened colour and proud face, and remembering +Mattie's previous caution. + +"What is it?" asked Sidney. + +"I did wish to say how sorry I was to hear of the calamity, that had +befallen you--that the bad news, which was told me to-day for the first +time, has shocked me very much. But you'll not believe me--you still +think I'm hard, cruel, and indifferent." + +"No, I don't think that. But I don't care to dwell upon a painful +topic." + +"And about advice--what medical advice have you had, may I ask?" + +"Not any." + +"No advice!--why not?" + +"I was told long ago that when blindness seized me, it would be +irretrievable. I was warned of its approach by an eminent man, who was +not likely to make a mistake." + +"We are all liable to mistakes in life," said Maurice, "and it might +happen----" + +"Pray dismiss the subject, Maurice." + +"I met with a foreign oculist in Paris--he was an Italian, I +think--who----" + +"Good night--good night," said Sidney, hastily; "when a man has been +trying hard to teach himself resignation, it is not fair to disturb him +with ideas like these." + +"Your pardon, Sid--I am going at once. Good night." + +"Good night." + +Sidney did not extend his hand again, and Maurice made no attempt to +part in a more friendly manner than they had met; profuse civilities +could do no good, and though Maurice had gained his cousin's +forgiveness, he had not roused his respect, or won upon his sympathy. + +He passed into the shop, and took up his hat that he had left there on +the counter. Mr. Gray looked at him, as at a fine subject which adverse +fate was to snatch away from his experiments. + +"You are going, young man?" + +"Yes, sir--I hope I have not put you or your daughter to any +inconvenience." + +"No, sir," was his reply, beginning to turn up the collar of his coat +above his ears, "no inconvenience. You are a stranger to this +neighbourhood, and I'll just see you in the straight way, if you'll +allow me." + +"Oh! dear no, thank you," said the alarmed Maurice; "I'm well up in the +way now--I could not think of taking you away from home at this time of +night--thank you, thank you!" + +He seized his hat, dashed at the lock, wrenched open the door, and flew +for his life down the dark streets--no matter whither, or how far out of +his route, so that he escaped Mr. Gray's companionship. + +Half an hour afterwards, he was at New Cross railway station--the scene +of his old duplicity--arranging for a telegraphic message to a Dr. +Bario, resident in Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +A DECLARATION. + + +Harriet Wesden had settled down like the rest of the world, that is, +this little world wherein live and breathe--at least we hope so--these +characters of ours. + +She had settled down! Life had taken its sombre side with her; the force +of circumstances had set her apart from those for whom her heart +yearned; she became bound more to this dull home; disappointment had +wondrously sobered her; when her heart had been at its truest and best, +it had seemed as though the whole world had turned against her, and +misjudged her. + +There was no romance in her after that; her romance had begun early and +died early--for her share in it, she was heartily ashamed. To look back +upon that past, note her weakness, and whither it had led her, was to +make her cheeks flush, and her bosom heave; in those sober after-days +that had come to her, she could scarcely comprehend the past. + +Women change occasionally like this--more especially women whose hearts +are sound, but whose judgments have not always been correct. She had met +deceit face to face; her own presence of mind had only saved her perhaps +from betrayal; she had passed through a vortex--and, escaping it, the +shock had sobered her for life. + +Harriet Wesden turned "serious"--a very good turn for her, and for all +of us, if we could only think so. Still, serious people--more especially +serious young people--are inclined to dash headlong at religion, and +even neglect home duties, duties to friends, and neighbours, and +themselves, for religious ones. They verge on the extremes even in +sanctity, and extremes verge on the ridiculous. + +Harriet Wesden gave up life's frivolities, and became a trifle austere +in her manner; she had found a church to her taste, and a minister to +her taste--a minister who verged on extremes, too, and yet was one of +the best-meaning, purest-minded men in the world. + +Harriet Wesden became his model member of the flock, as he became her +model shepherd. She lived for him, and his services, and the bran span +new church he had built for himself in the square at the back. She +missed never a service, week-days or Sundays; early prayers, at +uncomfortable hours, when the curates were sleeping, and the pew-opener +audibly snored--daily sermons, evening services, special services for +special out-of-the-way saints, and Sunday services innumerable. + +Let it be written here, lest our meaning be misinterpreted, that Harriet +Wesden had improved vastly with all this--was a better, more energetic, +and devout woman. If she went _too often_ to church--that is quite +possible--if she were a trifle "high" and pinned her faith on +decorations, if she thought the world all vanity and vexation of spirit, +if she were a little proud of carrying outward and visible signs of her +own inward and spiritual grace, if she even neglected her father, at +times--poor old Wesden, who sadly needed cheerful society now--still the +end was good, and she was at her best then. Serious people _will_ appear +a little disagreeable to people who are not serious--but then what do +serious people think of their mundane critics, or care for them? + +Harriet Wesden fancied that she had set herself apart from the +world--that its vanities and belongings scarcely had power to arrest her +steady upward progress. It did not strike her that whilst she remained +in the world, the sorrows, joys, and histories of its denizens must have +power to affect her. + +Sidney Hinchford had mistrusted her--the man for whom she had been +anxious to make sacrifices, had refused them, and discredited their +genuineness; her only friend, in whom she thought there could not be a +possibility of guile, had supplanted her. From that hour let her set +herself apart from them; bear no ill-feeling towards them, but keep to +her new world. Her life was not their lives, and they were best away +from her. After that set in more strongly the seriousness to which we +have alluded, and all former trace of Harriet Wesden's old self +submerged for good--and all. + +Mattie and Harriet met at times; Mattie would not give up the old +friend, the girl she had loved so long and faithfully. Despite the new +reserve--even austerity--that had suddenly sprung up, Mattie called at +regular intervals, took her place between Harriet and Mr. Wesden, and +spoke for a while of the old times. Harriet's manner puzzled her, but +there seemed no chance of an explanation of it. Her quick observation +detected Harriet's new ideas of life's duties, and she did not intrude +upon them, or utter one word by way of argument, or in opposition. It +happened, sometimes, that Harriet would be absent during Mattie's +visits--"gone to church," old Wesden would say, ruefully--and Mattie +would take her place by the deserted father's side, and play the part of +daughter to him till Harriet's return. + +Harriet seldom spoke of Sidney Hinchford to our heroine--he did not +belong to her diminished world; she flattered herself that there was no +thought of him, or of what might have been, to perplex her with new +vanities. When the name of Sidney Hinchford intruded upon the subject of +discourse, she heard it coldly enough. She was always glad to learn that +Sidney was well, and doing well; it had even been a relief to her to +know that the business, after a stand-still of some months, had taken a +turn in the right direction; but, when all was well, what was there to +agitate _her_? If Sidney were ill, and needed her help, she would have +taken her place at his side, perhaps; if Mattie were ill even--though in +her heart she felt that she did not love Mattie so well as formerly--she +would have devoted herself to her service; but they were both well, +living under the same roof with Mattie's father, and all things had +changed so since Suffolk Street times. + +Harriet was from home at her usual devotions, and her father was +endeavouring to amuse himself, as he best might under the circumstances, +when a stranger, who preferred not to give his name, requested an +audience of Miss Wesden. Miss Wesden not being at home, Mr. Wesden would +do for the nonce, and the stranger was, therefore, shown into the +parlour. + +The _ci-devant_ stationer put on his spectacles, and looked suspiciously +at the new comer. Mr. Wesden was a man of the world, and hard to be +imposed upon. A man more nervous and irritable with every day, but +having his wits about him, as the phrase runs. + +"Good evening," said the stranger. + +"Good evening," responded Mr. Wesden. "Ahem--if it's a subscription for +anything, I don't think that I have anything to give away." + +"My name is Hinchford--Maurice Hinchford--possibly better known to you +by the unenviable _alias_ of Maurice Darcy." + +"Oh! you're that vagabond, are you?--well, what do you want? You haven't +come to torment my daughter again?" he said, in an excited manner; +"you've done enough mischief in your day." + +"I am aware of it, sir--I come to offer every reparation in my power." + +"We don't want any of that sort of stuff, Mr. Hinchford." + +"It's late in the day to offer an apology--to attempt an explanation of +my conduct in the past; but if you would favour me with a patient +hearing, I should be obliged, sir." + +"I've nothing better to do," said Mr. Wesden; "take a seat, sir." + +Maurice Hinchford seated himself opposite Mr. Wesden, and commenced his +narrative, disguising and extenuating nothing, but attempting to analyze +the real motives which had actuated his past conduct--motives which had +been a little incomprehensible, taken altogether, and were therefore +difficult to make clear before an auditor, as we have seen in our +preceding chapter. + +Mr. Wesden rubbed the back of his ear, stared hard over Maurice's head +at the opposite wall, till Maurice looked behind him to see what was +nailed up there; wound up by an emphatic "Humph!" when Maurice had +concluded. + +"Therefore, you see I was not so very much to blame, sir--that is, that +there were at least extenuating circumstances." + +"Were they, though?" + +"Why, surely I have proved that?" + +"Can't say you have--can't say that I plainly see it at all. But, then, +I haven't so clear a head as I used to have--oh! not by a long way!" + +"I hope at least you understand that I am heartily ashamed of my past +conduct?" + +"I am glad to hear that, sir." + +"I have become a different man." + +"Been in a reformatory, perhaps?" suggested Mr. Wesden. + +"I have found my reformatory in the world." + +"Lucky for you." + +"And the fact is, that as I have always loved your daughter--as only my +own wicked impulse turned your daughter's heart away from me, I have +come from abroad with the hope of making all the restitution in my +power, by offering her my hand and fortune!" + +"Have you, though?" + +Mr. Wesden stared harder than ever at this piece of information. Maurice +took another glance over his shoulder, and then commenced a second +series of explanations, speaking of his position and means, two things +to which Mr. Wesden had been never indifferent. + +"I don't know that it would be a bad thing for her," said Mr. Wesden; +"she never talked to me about her love affairs--girls never do to their +fathers--and very likely I haven't understood her all this time." + +"Very likely not." + +"Perhaps it is about you, and not the other one that has altered her so +much. Any nonsense alters a woman, if she dwells upon it." + +"Ahem!--exactly so." + +"You may as well wait till she comes in now," said Mr. Wesden; "that's +business." + +"Sir, I am obliged to you." + +"If you don't mind a pipe, I'll think it over myself, and you need not +talk any more just at present. We don't have much talk in this house, +and you've rather _gallied_ me, Mr. Hinchford." + +"Any commands I will attend to with pleasure." + +Maurice Hinchford crossed his arms and sat back in his chair to reflect +upon all this; for a lover he was sad and gloomy--scarcely satisfied +with the step which he had taken, and yet brought to it by his own +conscience, that had been roused from its inaction by his cousin Sidney. +Here a life had been shadowed by his means, and he thought that it was +in his power to brighten it; here was good to be done, and he felt that +it was his duty at least to attempt the performance of it. Mr. Wesden +sat and smoked his pipe at a little distance from him, and revolved in +his own mind the strange incident which had flashed athwart the monotony +of daily life, and scared him with its suddenness. In Harriet he had +probably been deceived, and it was this young man whom she had loved, +and whose eccentric courses had rendered her so difficult to comprehend. +All the past morbidity, the past variable moods, the fluctuations in her +health, were to be laid to this man's charge, and it was well that he +had come at last, perhaps. Harriet was a good daughter, an estimable +girl, who loved her Bible, and did good to others, but she was not a +happy girl. Sorrowful as well as serious, the holiness of her life had +not brightened her thoughts or lightened her heart, and was not +therefore true holiness, this old man felt assured. Behind the veil +there had been something hidden, and it was rather Maurice Hinchford +than his blind cousin who stood between her and the light. + +"I think you have done right to come," said Mr. Wesden, after half an +hour's deliberation. + +"I think so, too," was the response. + +At the same moment, a summons at the door announced Harriet Wesden's +return. + +"I'll open the door myself, and leave you to explain," he said; "don't +move." + +Maurice felt tight about the waistcoat now; the romance was coming back +again to the latter days; the heroine of it was at the threshold waiting +for him. This was a sensation romance, or the roots of his hair would +not have tingled so! + +Mr. Wesden opened the door for his daughter, and allowed her to proceed +half-way down the narrow passage before he gave utterance to the news. + +"There has been a visitor waiting for you these last two hours, +Harriet." + +"For me!" said Harriet, listlessly; and, dreaming not of so strange an +intrusion on her home, she turned the handle of the door and entered the +parlour. Then she stopped transfixed, scarcely believing her sight, +scarcely realizing the idea that it was Maurice Darcy standing there +before her in her father's house. + +Maurice had risen. + +"I fear that I have surprised you very much, Miss Wesden," said he, +hoarsely; "that possibly this was not the best method of once again +seeking a meeting with you. This time with your father's consent, at +least." + +"Sir, I do not comprehend; I cannot see that any valid reason has +brought you to this house." + +"I think it has--I hope it has." + +"Impossible!" + +"Miss Wesden, I have been relating a long story to your father--may I +beg you to listen to me in your turn?" + +"If it relate to the past, I must ask you to excuse me," was the cold +reply. + +"My guilty past it certainly relates to--I pray you for an honest +hearing. Ah! Miss Wesden, you are afraid of me, still." + +"Afraid!--no, sir." + +Harriet Wesden looked at him scornfully, with a quick, almost an +impatient hand removed her bonnet and shawl, and then passed to her +father's seat by the table, standing thereat still, by way of hint as to +the length of the interview. She was more beautiful than ever; more +grave and statuesque, perhaps, but very beautiful. It was the face that +he had loved in the days of his wild youth, and it shone before him once +again, a guiding star for the future stretching away beyond that little +room. + +He would have spoken, but she interrupted him. + +"Understand me, Mr. Darcy--Mr. Hinchford, I may say now, I presume--I +wish to hear no excuses for the past, no explanations of your wilful +conduct therein--I have done with that and you. If you be here to +apologize, I accept that apology, and request you to withdraw. If +matters foreign to the past have brought you hither, pray be speedy, and +spare me the pain of any longer interview than necessary." + +"Miss Wesden, I must, in the first place, speak of the past." + +"I will not have it!" cried Harriet, imperiously; "have I not said so?" + +The minister round the corner would have rubbed his eyes with amazement +at the fire in those of his neophyte. He would have thought the change +savoured too strongly of the earth from which he and her, and other +high-pressure members of his flock, had soared just a little above--say +a foot and a half, or thereabouts. + +"It is the past that brings me back to you, Harriet--the past which I +would atone for by giving you my name and calling you my wife. I have +been a miserable and guilty wretch--I ask you to raise me from my +self-abasement by your mercy and your love?" + +He moved towards her with all the fire of the old love in his +eyes--those eyes which had bewildered her like a serpent's, in the old +days. But the spell was at an end, and there was no power to bring her +once more to his arms. She recoiled from him with a suppressed scream; +her colour went and came upon her cheeks; she fought twice with her +utterance before she could reply to him. + +"Mr. Hinchford, you insult me!" + +"No, not that." + +"You insult me by your shameless presence here. I told you half a minute +ago that I forgave you all the evil in the past. _I don't forgive +it_--no true woman ever forgave it yet in her heart. I hate you!" + +The minister round the corner would have collapsed at this, as well he +might have done. Only that evening had he begged his congregation to +love their enemies, and return good for evil, and Harriet Wesden had +thought how irresistible his words were, and how apposite his +illustrations. And fresh from good counsel, this young woman who had +been unmoved for twelve long months, and during that time been about as +animate as the Medicean Venus, now told her listener there that she +hated him with all her heart! + +"Enough, Miss Wesden. I have but to express my sorrow for the past, and +take my leave. Forgive at least the motive which has led me to seek you +out again." + +"One moment--one moment!" said Harriet. + +She fought with her excitement for an instant, and then with a hand +pressed heavily upon her bosom, to still the passionate throbbing there, +she said: + +"You must not go till I have explained also; you have sought out a girl +whose young life you cruelly embittered by your perfidy--let her explain +something in defence. Mr. Hinchford, I never loved you--as I stand here, +and as this may be my last moment upon earth, I swear that I never loved +you in my life! There was a girl's vanity, in the first place--almost a +child's vanity, fostered by pernicious teaching of frivolous +companions--afterwards there was a foolish romantic incertitude--vanity +still perhaps--that led me to trust in you, and to give up one who loved +me, and for whom I ought to have died rather than have deserted--but +there was no love! I knew it directly that I guessed your cowardice, for +I despised you utterly then, and understood the value of the prize, my +own misconduct had nearly forfeited. I was a weak woman, and you saw my +weakness, and hastened to mislead me; but the wrong you would have done +me taught me what was right, and, thank God! I was strong enough to save +myself! There, sir, if only to have told you this, I am glad that you +have sought an interview. Now, if you are a gentleman--go!" + +He hesitated for an instant, as though he could have wished, even in the +face of her defiance, to tell his story for the third time; then he +turned away, and went slowly out of the room, defeated at all points, +his colours lowered and trailing in the dust. Outside he found Mr. +Wesden, standing with his back to the street door, smoking his pipe, and +regarding the hall mat abstractedly. He looked up eagerly as Maurice +Hinchford advanced. + +"Well?--well?" he asked feverishly. + +"Yes, it is well," was the enigmatic and gloomy answer; "I see what a +fool I have been, Mr. Wesden. I know myself for the first time--good +evening." + +Mr. Wesden opened the door for him, and he passed out; the old man +watched him for a while, and then returned to his favourite chair in the +back parlour. + +Harriet ran to him as he entered, and flung her arms round his neck. + +"I have you to love, and look to still. Not quite alone--even yet!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MORE TALK OF MARRIAGE AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE. + + +Maurice Hinchford passed away from this story's scene of action. +Suddenly and completely he disappeared once more, and they in the humble +ranks of life knew nothing of his whereabouts. From Paris his father had +received a letter that perplexed and even irritated him, for it was +mysterious, and the head of the house of Hinchford detested mystery. + +"I have run over here for a week or two--perhaps longer, perhaps less, +according to circumstances," Maurice wrote; "you who are ever indulgent +will excuse this flitting, which I will account for on my return. If +anything calls for my especial attention at the bank, telegraph to me, +and I will come back." + +No especial business was likely to demand Maurice's return; the bank +went on well without him, good man of business as he was when he set his +mind to it. His father's indulgence excused the flitting, though he +shook his head over his son's eccentricity, after the receipt of the +incomprehensible epistle. "Another of those little weaknesses to which +Maurice had been subject," thought the indulgent father; "time he grew +out of them now, and married and settled, like other young men of his +age. If he would only sow his wild oats, what an estimable man and +honoured member of society he would be. Poor Maurice!" + +Sidney Hinchford, who, from his cousin's hints, had anticipated a second +visit from Maurice, felt even a little disappointed at his +non-appearance. Sidney was curious; he would have liked to know the +result of Maurice's proposal to Harriet Wesden, but he kept his +curiosity to himself, and did not even mention to Mattie the advice +which he had bestowed upon his cousin. He knew how the matter had ended +well enough; Maurice was in earnest, and would beat down all doubts of +his better nature developing itself at last; the old love-story would be +resumed, and all would go merry as a marriage bell with those two. He +congratulated himself upon having done some good even at the eleventh +hour, in having helped to promote the true happiness of the girl he had +once loved. + +Once loved!--yes, he was sure that passion belonged to the past; that it +had died out of inaction, and left him free to act. He was not happy in +his freedom; his heart was growing heavier than ever, but he kept _that_ +fact back for his friends' sakes, and was, to them, a faint reflex of +the Sidney Hinchford whom they had known in better days. + +He fell no longer into gloomy reveries; he took part in the conversation +of the hour; there came, now and then, a pleasant turn of speech to his +lips, a laugh with him--the old rich, hearty laugh--was not a very rare +occurrence; he believed himself resigned to his affliction, content with +his position, and, for many mercies that had been vouchsafed unto him, +he was truly grateful. + +How to show his gratitude did not perplex him; he had made up his mind +after Ann Packet had given him a piece of hers--he had watched for +words, signs, sighs--he was only biding his time to speak. But he +remained in doubt; it was difficult to probe to the depths; he was a +blind man, and far from a clever one; he could only guess by sounds, and +test all by Mattie's voice, and he was, therefore, still unsettled. + +He resolved to end all, at last, in a quiet and methodical manner, +befitting a man like him. He was probably mistaken; he had no power to +make any one happy; his confession might dissolve the partnership +between Mr. Gray and himself--for how could Mattie and he live in the +same house together after his avowal and rejection? + +But he had made up his mind, and he went to work in his old +straightforward way one evening when Mattie was absent, and Mr. Gray was +busy at his work beside him. + +"Mr. Gray," said he, "I want to bespeak your sole attention for a few +minutes." + +"Certainly, Sidney," was the reply. "Shall I put my work away?" + +"If you do not mind, for awhile." + +"There, then!" + +Sidney was some time beginning, and Mr. Gray said-- + +"It's about the business--you're tired of it?" + +"On the contrary, I am pleased with it, and the work it throws in _my_ +way. But don't you find me a little bit of a nuisance always here?" + +"You know better than that. Next to my daughter, do you hold a place in +my heart." + +"Thank you. Now, have you ever thought of me marrying?" + +"Of _you_ marrying!" he echoed, in a surprised tone, that was somewhat +feigned. "Why, whom are you to marry, Sid?" + +"Mattie, if she'll have me." + +The lithographer rubbed his hands softly together--it was coming true at +last, this dream of Mattie and his own! + +"If she'll have you!" he echoed, again. "Well, you must ask her that." + +"Do you think she'll have me--a blind fellow like me? Is it quite right +that she should, even?" + +"I don't know--I have often thought about that," said Mr. Grey, +forgetting his previous expression of astonishment. "I don't see where +the objection is, exactly, Sidney. You're not like most blind men, +dulled by your affliction--and Mattie is very different from most girls. +If she thought that she could do more good by marrying you, make you +more happy, she would do it." + +"I don't want a sacrifice--I want to make her happy," said Sidney, a +little peevishly. "If she could not love me, as well as pity me, I +wouldn't marry her for all the world." + +"You must ask her, young friend--not me, then." + +"But you do not refuse your consent?" + +"No. My best wishes, young man, for your success with the dearest, best +of girls. I," laying his hand on Sidney's shoulder for a moment, "don't +wish her any better husband." + +Sidney had not exhibited any warmth of demeanour in breaking the news to +Mr. Gray; many men might have remarked his quiet way of entering upon +the subject. But Mr. Gray was of a quiet, unworldly sort himself, and +took Sidney's love for granted. How was it possible to know Mattie, to +live beneath the same roof with her, and not love her very passionately? + +"I think--mind, I only think--that Mattie will not refuse you, Sidney," +said Mr. Gray; "she understands you well, and knows thoroughly your +character. It's an unequal match, remembering all the bye-gones, +perhaps--but you are not likely to taunt her with them, or to think her +any the worse for them, knowing what she really is in these days, thanks +to God!" + +"Taunt her!--good heaven!" + +"Hush! that's profane. And the match is not very unequal, considering +the help you need--and what a true comforter she will be to you. We +Grays are of an origin lost in obscurity; you Hinchfords come of a grand +old stock--you don't consider this?" + +"Not a bit." + +"Nor I; but then, men who don't spring from old families are sure to say +so. I'm not particularly struck with the advantages of having possessed +a forefather who came over with the Conqueror. William the Norman +brought over a terrible gang of cut-throats and robbers, and there's not +a great deal to one's credit in being connected with that lot." + +Sidney laughed. + +"I never regarded it in that light before. What an attack on our old +gentility!" + +"Gentility will not be much affected, Sidney. Have you anything more to +tell me?" + +"Nothing now." + +"Not that if you marry Mattie, the crabbed, disputatious local preacher +may stop with you?" + +"I hope he will. He has been a good friend to me, and will keep so, for +his daughter's sake." + +"And for your own, young man. I'll go back to my work now." + +But the work was in his way after that, and all the effects of his +strong will could not make it endurable. Sidney's revelation had +disturbed his work; he would try a little silent praying to himself--a +selfish prayer he felt it was, and therefore no sound escaped him--that +this choice of Sidney's might bring comfort and happiness to his +daughter and himself. + +He was sitting with his large-veined hands spread before his face, and +Sidney was wrapt in thoughts of the change that might be in store for +him, when Mattie knocked at the door. + +"Sit here--I shan't come back yet awhile. We may as well end this part +of the business at once." + +Mattie entered, found her father busy behind the counter with his stock, +said a few words, and passed into the parlour. + +It was a second version of the proceedings at Camberwell. The father +holding aloof, and giving suitor and maiden fair play. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +MATTIE'S ANSWER. + + +Sidney Hinchford heard the door open, and knew that the end was come. In +a few minutes was to be decided the tenor of his after-life. He did not +move, but remained with his hands clasped upon the table--a grave and +silent figure in the lamp-light. + +"What makes you so thoughtful to-night, Sid?" + +The more formal Mr. Sidney had been dropped long since; Mattie had +resisted the encroachment as long as it was in her power, but the +friendship between them had been increased as well as their intimacy, +and the more familiar designation was the more natural of the two. + +"Am I looking very thoughtful, then, Mattie?" + +"Oh! so cross and black!" + +"Black?--eh!" he repeated; "that's a singular colour to seize upon a +man's countenance, when he is agitated and hopeful. Come and sit here by +my side, Mattie, and hear what news I have wherewith to startle you." + +"Not bad news?" she asked. + +"You shall judge." + +Mattie guessed the purport of the news, and there had been no necessity +for her last query. She knew all that was coming now, and so prepared +herself for a revelation that she had seen advancing months ago. Months +ago, she had wondered how she should act on this occasion, what manner +she should adopt, and in what way reply to him? She had rehearsed it in +her mind, with fear and trembling, and tear-dimmed eyes; she had dreamed +of it, and been very happy in her dreams; and now at last she was at +fault, and her resources not to be relied on. Very pale, with her mind +disturbed, and her heart throbbing, she took her place by his side, +shawled and bonneted as she was, and waited for the end. + +Sidney broke the ice. The first few words faltered somewhat on his lip, +but he gathered nerve as he proceeded, and finally related very +calmly--almost too calmly--and plainly, the state of his feelings +towards her. + +"Your father and I have been speaking of you during your absence; I have +suggested to him a change of life for myself and you--if you will only +consent to sacrifice a life for my sake! A selfish, and an inconsiderate +request, Mattie, which I should not have thought of, had I not fancied +that it was in my power to make you a good husband, a true and faithful +husband, and to love you more dearly as a wife than friend. But always +understand, Mattie, that on your side it will be a sacrifice--that no +after-repentance, only my death, can relieve you from the incubus--that +for life you are tied to a blind man, and that all natural positions of +life are reversed, when I ask you to be my guide, protector, comforter! +Always remember, too, Mattie, that without me you will be free, and your +own mistress; you, a young woman, to whom will come fairer and brighter +chances!" + +It was an odd manner of proposing; possibly Mattie thought so herself, +for she raised her eyes from the ground, and looked at him long and +steadily. + +"Sidney, have you well reflected on this step?" she asked. + +"I have." + +"Thought well of the sacrifice of all the past hopes you have had?--of +the _incubus_ that I may be to you some day--that without me you will be +free, and your own master--you, to whom the fairer, brighter chance may +come, when too late! Sidney, we know not what a day may bring forth!" + +"My fate is in your hands, Mattie." + +"What I have been, you know--you must have thought of lately. What I am +now, a poor, plain girl, self-taught and homely, who may shame you with +her ignorance--you know too. Sidney, I have dwelt upon this +lately--until this night, now I am face to face with the truth, I +thought that I had made up my mind." + +"To refuse me?" + +"No--to accept you. To be your loving wife through life, aiding you, and +keeping you from harm; but, now I shrink back from my answer!" + +"Ah!" he said, mournfully; "it is natural." + +"Not for my own sake," she added, quickly, "but for yours! For your +happiness, not mine! Sidney, you have _not_ settled down; you are not +resigned to this present lot in life; there is a restlessness which you +subdue now you are well and strong, but which may defeat you in the days +to come. Years hence, I may be a trouble to you, a regret--you, a +gentleman's son, and I--a stray! I may have made amends for my past +life, but I cannot forget it; there will come times when to you and me +the memory may be very bitter yet!" + +"No, no!" + +"Sidney, when I was that neglected child, I think I had a grateful +heart; for I appreciated all the kindness that helped me upwards, and +turned me from the dangerous path I was pursuing. I did not forget one +friend who stretched his helping hand towards me--I have remembered them +all in my progress, the agents of that good God, whose will it was that +I should not be lost! Sidney, I would marry you out of gratitude for +that past, if I honestly believed you built your happiness upon me; but +I could not let you marry _me_ out of gratitude, or think to make me +happy by a share of affection that had no real existence. I would do all +for you!" she said, vehemently; "but you must make no effort to raise +_me_ from any motives but your love!" + +Sidney started--coloured. Had he misunderstood Mattie until that +day?--was he the victim of his own treacherous thoughts after all?--the +dupe of an illusion which he had hoped to foster by believing in +himself? + +"Sidney, I will be patient and wait for the love--hope in it advancing +nearer and nearer every day--strive for it even, if you will, and it +lies in my power. But I am above all charity." + +"Mattie, you are not romantic? You do not anticipate from me, in my +desolate position, all the passionate protestations of a lover? You will +believe that I look forward to you as the wife in whom alone rests the +last chance of happiness for me?" + +"We cannot tell what is our last chance," said Mattie; "it is beyond our +foresight--God will give us many chances in life, and the best may not +have fallen to your share or mine. Sidney, there _was_ a chance of +happiness for you once--on which you built, and in which you never +thought of me--do you regret that now?" she asked, with a woman's +instinctive fear that the old love still lingered in his heart. + +"Mattie, I regret nothing in the past. And in the future, I am hopeful +of your aid and love. Can I say more?" + +"Sidney," said Mattie, after a second pause, "I will not give you my +answer to-night--I will not say that I will be your wife, for better for +worse, until this day month. It is a grave question, and I ought not to +decide this hastily. I must think--I _must_ think!" + +"Ah! Mattie, you don't love me, or it would be easy enough to say +'Yes,'" said Sidney. + +"No, not easy." + +"I can read my fate--eternal isolation!" he said gloomily. + +"Patience--you can trust me; let me think for a while if I can trust in +you. You do not wish my unhappiness, Sid?" + +"God forbid!" + +"We have been good friends hitherto--brother and sister. For one more +month, let us keep brother and sister still; there is no danger of our +teaching ourselves to love one another less in that period. In that +month will you think seriously of me--not of what will make me +happy--but what will render _you_ happy, as the fairy books say, for +ever afterwards? Remember that it is for ever in this life, and that I +am to sit by your side and take that place in your heart which you had +once reserved for another--think of all this, and be honest and fair +with me." + +"I see. You distrust my love. You have no faith in my stability." + +"I say nothing, Sidney, but that I feel it would be wrong to answer +hastily. Are you offended with my caution?" + +"No--God bless you, Mattie!--you are right enough." + +"This day month I will take my place at your side, and give you truly +and faithfully my answer. It is not a long while to wait--we shall have +both thought more intently of this change." + +She left him, to begin his thoughts anew; her reply had disturbed his +equanimity; he neither understood Mattie nor himself just then. What had +perplexed him?--what had come over the spirit of his dream to trouble +his mind, or conscience, in so strange a manner? + +Mattie went to her room and locked the door upon her thoughts, upon that +new wild sense of happiness which she had never known before, and which, +despite the character she had assumed--yes, assumed!--she could not keep +in the background of that matter-of-fact life, now vanishing away from +her. She knew that she had acted for the best in giving him time to +think again of the nature of his proposition--in restraining that +impulse to weep upon his shoulder, and feel those strong arms enfolding +her to his breast. The old days had startled her when he had spoken in +so firm and hard a manner; that figure of the past which had been all to +him flitted there still, and held her back, and stood between herself +and him, despite the new happiness she felt, and which no past could +wholly scare away. + +She believed in her own coming happiness; that he would love her better +for the delay--understand more fully why she hesitated. When the time +came to answer "Yes!" she would explain all that had perplexed her, +arrested her assent midway, and filled her with the fears of his want of +love for her, his future discontent when irrevocably bound to her. Twice +in life now he had offered his hand in marriage; twice had the answer +been deferred, for reasons unakin to each other. It was singular; but +this time all would end happily. He would love her with his whole heart, +as he had loved Harriet Wesden, and she would be his proud and happy +wife, cheering his prospects, elevating his thoughts, doing her best to +throw across his darkened life a gleam or two of sunshine, in which he +might rejoice. + +She was very happy--for the doubts that had kept her answer back, went +farther and farther away as she dwelt upon all this. There was a +restless beating at her heart, which robbed her of calmness for awhile, +but it was not fear that precipitated its action, and the noises in her +ears might be the distant clash of marriage bells, which she had never +dreamed would ring for him and her! + + +END OF BOOK THE SEVENTH. + + + + +BOOK VIII. + +MORE LIGHT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A NEW HOPE. + + +Whether Sidney Hinchford gave much ulterior thought to his proposal, is +a matter of some doubt. He had made up his mind before his conversation +with Mr. Gray and daughter, and had there been no real love in his +heart, he would not have drawn back from his offer. His life apart from +business was akin to his business life in _that_; reflection on what was +best, just and honourable, and then his decision, which no adverse fate +was ever afterwards to shake. He did not believe in any motive force +that could keep him from a purpose--it was a vain delusion, unworthy of +a Hinchford! + +On the morning of the following day, the cousin of whom he had thought +more than once entered again upon the scene of action; at an early hour, +when Mattie was busy in the shop, and Mr. Gray was absent on a preaching +expedition. Maurice Hinchford's first inquiry was if Mr. Gray were +within, and very much relieved in mind he appeared to be upon receiving +the information that that formidable Christian was not likely to be at +home till nightfall. Maurice did not come unattended; he brought a +friend with him, whom he asked to wait in the shop for awhile, whilst he +exchanged a few words with Sidney. + +Mattie looked at the stranger, a tall, lank man, with an olive face, and +long black hair, which he tucked in at the back between his coat and +waistcoat in a highly original manner. He was a man who took no interest +in passing events, but sat "all of a heap" on that high chair which had +been Maurice Hinchford's stool of repentance, carefully counting his +fingers, to make sure that he had not lost any coming along. + +"Good morning, Sidney," said Maurice, on entering. "Not lost yet, old +fellow!" + +"Good morning, Maurice." + +"I have brought the latest news--I have been abroad since my last visit +here." + +"Abroad again?" + +"I'll tell you about that presently. If you're not too busy this +morning, and I'm not too unwelcome an intruder, I should be glad to +inform you how I fared by following your advice." + +"You are not unwelcome, Maurice, though I cannot say that there is any +great amount of pleasure experienced by your visit to me." + +"Still cold--still unapproachable, after forgiving all the past!" + +"But not forgetting, Maurice. You bring the past in with you--I hear it +in every accent of your voice; all the figures belonging to it start +forth like spectres to dismay me." + +"Your past has no reproaches--what is it to mine?" + +"A regret is as keen as a reproach." + +"Ah! you regret the past!--some act in it, perhaps?" said Maurice, with +curiosity. + +"We should scarcely be mortal if we could look back without regrets, I +think." + +"Ah! but what is the keenest--bitterest?" + +"That is a leading question, as the lawyers say." + +"Then I'll not press it--I'll speak of my own regrets instead. I regret +having followed your advice, Sidney." + +"We are all liable to err--I meant it for the best." + +"I called the following evening on Harriet Wesden--I offered her my +hand, as an earnest of that affection which only needed her presence to +revive again--I asked pardon for my past, and spoke of my atonement in +the future. Could I do more?" + +"No." + +Sidney was nervously anxious to learn the result, but he merely +compressed his lips, and waited for the sequel. He would not ask how +this had ended--his pride held back his curiosity. + +"And she refused me, as you and I might have expected, had we more +seriously considered the matter. By George, I shall never forget her +fiery eyes, her angry gestures, her contempt, which seemed withering me +up--I knew that it was all over with every shadow of hope, then." + +"A man should never despair." + +"It would be difficult to help it in the face of that clincher, Sidney. +Well, it served me right; I might have expected it; I might have guessed +the truth, had I given it a moment's thought; but I put my trust in you, +Sidney, and a nice mess I have made of it! Upon my honour, I would +rather bear two--say three--of Mr. Gray's sermons, than face Harriet +Wesden again." + +"Still, you should not be sorry at having offered all the reparation in +your power." + +"Well, now I come to think of it, Sidney, I'm not sorry. To confess the +real plain truth, I'm glad." + +"Indeed!" + +"Because I have made a discovery, and if you're half a Hinchford, you'll +profit by the hint. Harriet Wesden loves _you_." + +Sidney's hands grappled the arms of his chair, in which he half rose, +and then set down again. The red blood mounted to his face, even those +dreamy eyes flashed fire again--the avowal was too decided and +uncompromising not to affect him. + +"I do not wish to dwell upon this topic." + +"Ah! but I do. It has been bothering me all the way to Paris--all the +way back. I have been building fancy castles concerning it. I have been +one gigantic, unmitigated schemer since I saw you last, planning for a +happiness which is yours by a word, and which you deserve, Sid +Hinchford. I feel that your life might be greatly changed, and that it +is in your power to effect it." + +"Were it my wish, it is too late. As it is not my wish--as I do not +believe you," he added, bluntly--"as I have outlived my youthful +follies, and am sober, serious, and unromantic--as I have made my +choice, and know where my happiness lies, I will ask you not to pain +me--not to torture me, by a continuance of this subject." + +"Let me just give you a sketch of what she said to me." + +"I will hear no more!" he cried, with an impatient stamp of his foot. + +"I have done," said Maurice; "subject deferred _sine die_--or tied round +the neck with a big stone, and sunk for ever in the waters of oblivion. +By George, Sid, that's a neat phrase, isn't it?--only it reminds one of +drowning a puppy. And now to business." + +"What more?" asked Sidney, curtly. + +His cousin had annoyed him; stirred up the acrimony of his nature, and +destroyed all that placidity of demeanour which he had fostered lately. +He felt that he rather hated Maurice Hinchford again; that his cousin +was ever a dark blot in the landscape, with his robust health, loud +voice, and self-sufficiency. This man paraded his own knowledge of human +nature too obtrusively, and spoke as if his listener was a child; he +professed to have discerned in Harriet Wesden an affection for the old +lover to whom she had been engaged--as if he, Sidney Hinchford, had been +blind all his life, or was morally blind then! Sidney would be glad to +hear the last of him--to be left to himself once more; his cousin was an +intrusion--he desired no further speech with him, and he implied as much +by his last impatient query. + +"It's something entirely new, Sidney, and therefore you need not fear +any old topics being intruded on your notice. I have brought a friend to +see you." + +"Take him away again." + +"No, I'd rather not, thank you," was the aggravating response; "I made +my mind up to bring him, and he's waiting in the shop." + +"Maurice--you insult me!" + +"Pardon me, cousin, but the end must justify the means. He has come from +Paris to see you; he would have been here before, had not illness +prevented him." + +"Who is this man?" + +"The cleverest man in Europe, I'm told--an eccentric being, with a +wonderful mine of cleverness beneath his eccentricity. A man who has +made the defects of vision his one study, and has become great in +consequence. Sidney, you must see him!" + +"You bring him here at your own expense, to inspect a hopeless case; you +will shame me by being beholden to you--to you, of all men in the +world!" + +"I thought we had got over the past--forgiven it?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"But it can't be forgiven, Sid Hinchford, if you hinder me making an +effort to atone to you in my way." + +"With your purse?" was the cold reply. + +"No; with my respect for you--my regret for a friend whom I have lost." + +"A strange friend!" + +"And I have faith in this man. I remember a case similar to yours, +which----" + +"Stop! in the name of mercy, Maurice--this cannot be borne at least. I +am resigned to despair, but not to such a hope as yours. Let him come +in, and laugh at you for your folly in bringing him hither." + +"Bario!" called Maurice. + +The lank man came into the parlour, set his hat on a chair, and looked +at Sidney very intently. His vacuity of expression vanished, and a keen +intelligence took its place. + +"Good morning, sir," he said, in fair English; "you are the blind +gentleman Mr. Hinchford has requested me to see?" + +"The same, sir." + +"You are sure you're blind?" + +"Maurice, this man is a----" + +"Yes, very clever. You have heard of Dr. Bario--he has been resident in +Paris some years now." + +"Ah!" said Sidney, listlessly. + +"There is a blindness that be not blindness, sir--that's my theory," +said the Italian; "a something that comes suddenly like a blight--the +off-spring of much excitement, very often." + +"Mine had been growing upon me for years--I was prepared for it by a man +as skilful as yourself." + +"May I put to you his name." + +Sidney told him, and Dr. Bario gave his shoulders that odious French +shrug which implies so much. Such is the jealousy of all +professions--extending even to the disciples of the healing art. A never +thinks much of B, if he be jumping at the same prize on the +bay-tree--Dr. Bario had his weakness. + +"He might have mistaken the disease, and into this have half frightened +you. People, odd mistakes do make at times--I myself have not been +infallible." + +"Possibly not," said Sidney, drily. + +"In my youth of course," said the vain man, "when I listened a leetle +too much to the opinions of others--it was once my way." + +Sidney thought the speaker had altered considerably since then, but kept +his idea to himself. He was endeavouring to be cool, and uninfluenced by +this man's remarks; but they had set his heart beating, and his temples +painfully throbbing. He was a fool to feel unnerved at this; it was a +false step of his cousin's, and had given him much pain--but Maurice had +meant well, and he forgave him even then. + +"Do you mind turning just one piece more to the light?" asked the +doctor. + +Sidney turned like an automaton. Maurice drew up the back parlour blind; +the doctor bent over his patient, and there was a long silence--an +anxious pause in the action of three lives, for the doctor's interest +was as acute as the cousin's. + +"Well?" Maurice ejaculated at last, + +"There's a chance, I think." + +"A chance of sight!" cried Sidney; "do you mean that?--is it possible +that you can give me hope of that--now?" + +"I don't give hope, sir," said Dr. Bario; "it's a chance, that's +all--everything. It's one nice case for _me_--not you, young man." + +"What do you mean?" + +"There's danger in it--it's light, death, or madness! I do not you +advise to risk this--but there's one chance if you do!" + +"_I will chance it!_" + +He was not content with the present, then; it had been a false +placidity--he would risk his life for light; life without it, even with +Mattie, did not seem for an instant worth considering! + +"Very good. To-morrow I will you send for--you will have to place +yourself entire under my direction for more weeks than one, before the +final operation be attempted." + +"I agree to everything--may I accompany you now?" + +"To-morrow," was the answer again. + +"Oh! it will never come. Maurice," he said, offering his hand, "however +this ends, I am indebted to you." + +"Yes--but--but if it end badly?" + +"It will be God's will." + +"And if it end as I hope and trust--as I fancy it will, Sid--then you +must pay that debt, or I'll never forgive you." + +"In what way can I ever repay it?" + +"By taking your old place at the banker's desk, and showing me that the +past is really forgiven." + +"I will do that if--ah! what a mighty If this is!" + +"Keep hopeful--not nervous, above all the things," said the doctor; "if +you fear, it must not be attempted." + +With this final warning, the doctor and Maurice withdrew. Maurice left +the doctor to whisper confidentially to Mattie. + +"Miss Gray, I have brought a skilful oculist to look at my cousin Sid. +He reports not altogether unfavourably--he gives us hope--Sid will go +away with us to-morrow." + +"Go away!" + +"Yes, to submit himself for a week or two to Dr. Bario's treatment; he +says that he will chance the danger, and I think he's right. Keep him +strong and hopeful, Miss Gray--much depends upon that." + +"Yes--yes," gasped Mattie. + +She had not recovered her astonishment when the visitor had left the +shop; "hope for Sidney"--"going away!"--"keep him strong!"--was all this +a dream? + +"Mattie," called Sidney from the parlour, and our heroine rushed in at +once and found our hero walking up and down the room with a freer step +than she had witnessed in him since his blindness. + +"Mattie," he said in an agitated voice, "he tells me that there is a +chance of the light coming back to me--a chance that entails danger, but +which is surely worth the risk. Think of the daylight streaming in upon +my darkened senses, and my waking up once more to life!" + +"I am so glad!--I am so very glad!" cried Mattie; adding the instant +afterwards, "but the--the danger? What is that?" + +"A danger of death, or of my going mad, he left it doubtful which--I +don't care which--I can risk all for the one chance ahead of me. I will +keep strong, praying for the brightness of the new life." + +"Yes!" was the mournful response. In that brightness, one figure might +at least grow dim--in the darkness he had learned to love her, he said! +But he was not thinking of love then, or of her whose love he had +sought;--a new hope was bewildering him, and he could not escape it. + +"Keep him strong and hopeful," had been the caution given Mattie; there +was no need for it. He _was_ hopeful--far too hopeful--of the sunshine; +he thought nothing of the danger, or of a world a hundred times worse +than that of his benighted one--and he was strong in faith. He could +talk of nothing else, and Mattie made no effort to distract his mind +away from it. It was natural enough that he should forget her for +awhile; the time had not come for her to answer him, or to judge him; he +had said that his mind was made up, and that she possessed his +love--surely they were earnest words enough, to keep her hopeful in her +turn? + +And if the change in Sidney did result in Sidney's cure, she would +rejoice in it with all her heart--as his father would have rejoiced, had +he lived and known the troubles of his boy. + +The next day, Maurice Hinchford arrived in his father's carriage to take +Sidney away. Sidney was equipped for departure, and had been waiting for +his cousin the last two hours--agitating his mind with a hundred reasons +for the delay. + +The carriage at the door, and the evidence of wealth in Sidney's +relations, made Mattie's heart sink somewhat--his would be a world so +different from hers for ever after this! + +Mattie faced Maurice before he entered the parlour. She had been +watching for him also that day, and now arrested his progress. + +"Mr. Hinchford, you did me harm once; you were sorry at a later day that +it was not in your power, to make amends. Will you now?" + +"Willingly." + +"Let me know when Sidney runs his greatest risk--give me fair warning of +it, that his friends may be near him. If there be a risk of death, he +must not die without me there. You promise?" + +"I promise, Miss Gray." + +Mattie had no further request to urge, and he, after avoiding Mr. Gray +by a strategic movement, and a hurried "Good day, sir--hope you're +well!" entered the parlour with the words-- + +"Ready, Sid?" + +Sidney Hinchford took his friend's arm, Maurice signed to the footman at +the door to carry Sidney's portmanteau, and then the two cousins entered +the shop--both looking strangely alike, arm-in-arm, and shoulder to +shoulder thus. + +"One moment, Maurice." + +Sidney thought of Mattie at the last; in his own anxiety for self, he +did not forget her, as she had feared he would. + +"Where's Mattie?" + +"Here, Sidney." + +He drew her aside--away out of hearing, where neither Mr. Gray nor his +cousin could listen to his grateful words. + +"Mattie, dear," he said, "I know that I shall have your prayers for my +success--you, who have fought my battles, and been always ready at my +side. Pray for our bright future together; it will come now. Whatever +happens you and I together in life, my girl, unless, with that month's +reflection that I granted you, comes the want of trust in my sincerity!" + +"Never that, Sidney." + +"Good-bye." + +He stooped and kissed her, and Mattie shrank not away from him, though +it was the first time in his life that his lips had touched hers. He was +going away from that house for ever, perhaps; they might never know each +other again; and she loved him too dearly, and felt too happy in those +fleeting moments, to feel abashed at this evidence of his affection. + +So they parted, and Ann Packet, who had heard the story, rushed from the +side door to fling a shoe for luck, after the receding carriage. A +maniacal act, that the footman--who had _not_ heard the story--was +unable to account for, save as a personal insult to himself. + +"He had gone out of his spear to a place called Peckham," he said +afterwards in the servants' hall, "and had had old boots flung at him by +the lower horders!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTIE IS TAKEN INTO CONFIDENCE. + + +Sidney's departure made a difference in the house; it was scarcely home +without him now. Mattie and Mr. Gray took their usual places after the +day's business was over, and looked somewhat blankly at each other. The +father had become attached to Sidney, as well as the daughter; he was +nervous as to the result of the mysterious system under which his son, +by adoption, had placed himself. + +He had no faith in cures effected by men who were not of the true +faith--whatever that might mean in Mr. Gray's opinion--he would have +liked to see this Dr. Bario himself, and sound him as to his religious +convictions. If he were a Roman Catholic, Sidney's chance of success was +very small, he thought. + +Mattie did not take this narrow view of things; but she was anxious and +dispirited. Anxious for Sidney and the result--dispirited at a something +else which she could scarcely define. Sidney's last words were ringing +in her ears, but there was no comfort in them now; they were meant to +encourage, but they only perplexed--all was mystery beyond. She prayed +that Sidney would be well and strong again, but she felt that her +happiness--her best days--would lie further off when the light came back +to him. It might be fancy; the best days might be advancing to her as +well as to Sidney Hinchford, but the instinctive feeling of a great +change weighed upon her none the less heavily. + +She did not feel in suspense about a serious result to Sidney; Sidney +would get better, she thought, and the shadow of a darker life for him +did not fall heavily athwart her musings. + +When those whom we love are away, we are full of wonder concerning them; +speculations on their acts in the distance, bridge over the dreary space +between us and them. "I wonder what they are doing now!" and the +suggestions that follow this, wile away a great share of the time that +would seem dull and objectless without them. You who are loved and are +away from us, do justice to our thoughts of you, and keep worthy of the +fancy pictures wherein ye are so vividly portrayed! + +A week after Sidney's departure, Maurice Hinchford appeared once more in +the neighbourhood of Peckham. This was in the afternoon, and he had +reached Peckham in the morning, and therefore wasted a considerable +portion of the day. But then Mr. Gray had been at home in the morning, +and it had struck Maurice that that gentleman's excitable temperament +would not allow of a long sojourn in-doors, with no one to preach to but +his daughter. He would not chance meeting Mr. Gray yet a while; he would +wait and watch. + +Mr. Gray really found it dull work that afternoon, and business being +slack, he started immediately after his dinner in search of a convert of +whom he had heard in the neighbourhood of his chapel. Maurice, who had +noted him turn the corner of the street, uttered a short prayer of +thanks, and crossed over to the stationer's shop. + +Mattie turned very pale at the first sight of Maurice. + +"I am wanted--and, oh dear, my father has just gone out!" + +"No, you are not wanted yet a while, Miss Gray. Pray, compose yourself, +I bring you very little news." + +"Sidney--he is well?" + +"Very well--Dr. Bario has not given him notice to prepare for the great +experiment yet awhile," said Maurice; "but I thought that you might be +anxious about him, Miss Gray, and that any little news might be +acceptable." + +"You are very kind--yes, any news of Sidney is ever most acceptable." + +"Even from such a scamp as I am?" he said, with his eyes twinkling. + +"Sidney has forgiven you--that is enough, sir." + +"Ah! but yours was a left-handed wrong, and the heaviest share of it +might have fallen to your lot." + +"But it has not. Pray don't talk of it again." + +"All's well that ends well," said Maurice, taking his seat on the high +chair on the shop side of the counter, facing our heroine, "and if it +has ended in my doing no harm, and turning out a better fellow myself, +why there's not much to regret. And you would not believe to what an +extraordinary pitch of excellence I am attaining." + +"I shall believe nothing if you jest, sir." + +"It was not a jest--I've a way of talking like that." + +"It's a very stupid way." + +"Is it, though?--well, perhaps you're right enough." + +Mattie wondered what he was staying for; was even still a little nervous +that he had something more to communicate concerning Sidney. But he +continued talking in this new desultory way, and remained on his perch +there, observant of customers, the goods they purchased, and the remarks +they made, and showing no inclination to depart. He rendered Mattie +fidgety after a while, for he was in a fidgety humour himself, and +tilted his chair backwards and forwards, and examined everything +minutely on the counter, dropping an article or two on the floor, and +endeavouring to pick it up with his varnished boots, _a la_ Miss Biffin. + +"Does this business answer, Miss?" he asked at last. + +"It is improving--I think it will answer." + +"Rather slow for old Sid, it must have been." + +"We did our best to make him happy here, sir; I think that we +succeeded." + +"My dear Miss Gray, I do not doubt _that_, for an instant!" Maurice +hastened to apologize; "more than that, Sidney has told me the same +himself. But _was_ he happy?" + +"Have you any reason to think otherwise?" was Mattie's quick, almost +suspicious question. + +"Scarcely a reason, perhaps. Still _I_ don't think that he was happy." + +"I am sorry to hear you say so, Mr. Hinchford." + +"He tried to feel as happy as you wished to make him, but I think he +failed. Under the circumstances, heavily afflicted as he was, you must +own that that was natural." + +"I own that." + +"But his mind was never at ease--there was much to perplex it. Now, Miss +Gray," leaning over the counter very earnestly, "let me ask you if you +honestly believe that he has given up every thought of making Harriet +Wesden his wife?" + +"Every thought of it, I think he has." + +"You and he have been like brother and sister together, and the truth +must have escaped him," said Maurice, doubtfully; "or you are less +quick-witted than somehow I have given you credit for. You would promote +his true happiness, Miss Gray, by every means in your power, I am sure?" + +"Yes," answered Mattie. + +"Then you and I acting together, might bring about that match between +them yet." + +"You and I acting together for that purpose!" Mattie ejaculated. She +clutched the counter with her nervous fingers, and regarded Maurice +Hinchford attentively; she was no longer doubtful of that man's visit to +her; he had come to steal her Sidney away--to teach her, by his indirect +assertions, that it was better to resign her thoughts of happiness +rather than mar his cousin's. + +"There only requires one fair meeting between them--one candid +explanation of what was false, and what was true--to show each to the +other in a better light. That is my object in life now--I have done harm +to those two--I will do good if I can!" + +"You speak as though you were certain of the success of Dr. Bario's +remedies." + +"I am perfectly certain, Miss Gray! Dr. Bario is certain too--although +he speaks of the risk, and of the hundredth chance against him, rather +than of the ninety and nine in his favour. That's his way." + +"Suppose him successful, and Sidney well again--what are we to do?" +asked the curious Mattie. + +She was anxious to sift this theory to the bottom--to know upon what +facts, or fancies, Maurice Hinchford based his cruel idea. She spoke +coolly and sisterly now; no evidence of intense excitement was likely to +betray her again that day. On the inner heart had shut, with a clang +which vibrated still within her, the iron gates of her inflexible +resolve. + +"First of all, let me ask you a question. You have lived with Miss +Wesden--you understand her--you have loved her. You can assure me that +there was no doubt of her affection for him being true and fervent?" + +"There was no doubt of that." + +"I can answer for the present time." + +"You can?" said Mattie. She spoke very quickly, but her heart leaped +into her throat for an instant, and took away her breath. + +"Miss Wesden confessed to me, only a week back, that she loved Sidney +Hinchford still." + +"Impossible!" + +"You doubt my word, Miss Gray. Why should I attempt to deceive you?" + +"What possible object could she have in telling you that?" + +"I made her an offer of marriage," said Maurice, coolly, "and she +rejected me. She did not scruple to confess to me her reasons; she was +excited I must own, and, therefore, thrown off her guard." + +"What did she say?" + +"That she had never loved me, and that she would have died for Sidney. +That it was all my fault--my wickedness--which had parted them." + +"A singular confession for her to make," said Mattie, thoughtfully; "all +my life I have been endeavouring to find the truth--the whole truth--and +have always failed." + +"You were not the confidante that I believed, then?" + +"Harriet Wesden and I loved each other very dearly--in our hearts there +is no difference yet. For my sake, were I in danger, she would do much." + +"And for her sake--what would you do?" + +"Everything." + +"Well spoken," cried Maurice heartily; "I knew that I was not deceived +in you." + +"She is unhappy and loves Sidney. Sidney is unhappy and loves her, you +think. It is a story of the truth of which we must be certain in the +first place." + +"Yes, and then?" + +"Then we will do our best--God willing," murmured Mattie. + +"I rely upon you, Miss Gray--I am obliged by the evidence of interest in +those two old lovers, parted by mistake. Both very unhappy, and both +with a chance of being happy together, there is no difficulty in +guessing where our duty lies." + +"No." + +"Think of the gratitude of those two in the days when we have helped to +clear the mists away, Miss Gray. The last chapter in the novel; the last +scene in the five-act comedy, where the stern parent joins the hands of +the happy couple, will be nothing to the glorious ending of _our_ story. +Boundless gratitude to you, full forgiveness for me--and all going merry +as a marriage bell. Miss Gray, I engage your hand for the first dance in +the evening--we'll wind up with a ball that day--is it a bargain between +us?" + +"I make no hasty promises," said Mattie, with a faint smile. + +"Well, there will be time to talk of that idea," said Maurice, laughing; +"and, talking about time, how I have been absorbing yours, to be sure! +Still time is well wasted when it is employed for others' +happiness--your father could offer no objection to that sentiment. You +are on my side?" + +"On Sidney's, if he think of Harriet Wesden still." + +"If--why, haven't I proved it?--did you not say that you believed every +word?" + +"No, I did not say that. It--it _is_ true, perhaps--I shall know better +presently. Sir, I will find out the truth." + +"It will be easy for an acute woman to discover the truth both in Sidney +and Harriet; for the truth--for the better days, we are all waiting. +Good-bye." + +"Good-bye, sir; that promise to give me warning of the day which will be +life or death to Sidney--you will not forget?" + +"I never forget, Miss Gray. Rely upon me." + +Maurice Hinchford departed, full of his hope, dreaming not of the +despair that he had left behind in the heart of that simple-minded +woman. He had intended all for the best; he had known nothing of +Sidney's proposal to Mattie; he had relied on Mattie's sisterly +affection for the man and woman in whose happiness he was deeply +interested. He went on his way rejoicing--proud of the new volunteer he +had enlisted in his cause, and sanguine as to a result which should +bring peace to every one. + +Mattie sat behind the counter in her old position after Maurice +Hinchford had left her--rigid and motionless. This was the turning-point +of her life--the ordeal under which she would harden or utterly give +way. A customer entering the shop waited and stared and wondered at the +silent figure which faced him and took no heed of his presence--at her +who was finally roused to every-day life by his direct appeal to her. +Mattie served him, then dropped into her chair again, and the old stony +look settled once more upon her face. + +Fate was before her, and she rebelled against it; the whole truth--hard +and cruel--she could not believe in. "It's not true!" her white lips +murmured; "it's false, as he is! He has heard from Sidney all that +Sidney purposes, and is alarmed for the honour of his family. I see it +all now--a plot against me!" But "was it true?" sounded in her ears like +a far-off echo, from which she could not escape. + +It was a desperate struggle, and she was fighting that silent intense +battle still when her father returned. Hours ago she had prayed that he +might come back soon, and end that weary watch there--suffer her to +escape to her own room, and lock the door upon that world upon which the +mists were stealing. But when he returned, she did not go away from him; +a horror of being alone and giving way like a child kept her at her post +there, answering, and inwardly defying, all suspicious questions. + +"You're very white, Mattie? Has anything happened?" asked her father. + +"Sidney's cousin has been here. Sidney is well and hopeful." + +"Good hearing!--he will be back in the midst of us before we know where +we are. Mattie, I'm sure you have a headache?" + +"A little one--nothing to complain about." + +"Why don't you go for a walk?--it's not very late. What a time it is +since you have seen Mr. Wesden!" + +"I will go there." + +Mattie sprang to her feet. + +"Yes, I _will_ go--at once." + +Mattie ran up-stairs, quickly dressed herself, gave one frightened +glance at her own face in the dressing-glass, and then hurried +down-stairs away from the silence wherein she could not trust herself. + +"I am going now," she said, and hurried away. + +Mr. Gray was disturbed by Mattie's eagerness to depart, but explained it +by the rules he considered most natural. + +"She is unsettled by Sid's absence--by the danger he is in. Well, +there's nothing remarkable in that." + +He took his work into the shop and devoted himself to it, in the leisure +that his customers--few and far between after nightfall--afforded him. +When the shutters were up before the windows, and the gas turned low, he +stood at the door waiting for Mattie, who was late, and speculating as +to the advisability of proceeding in search of her. + +Mattie came swiftly towards him whilst he watched. She had been trying +to outwalk her thoughts, and failed--the odds were against her. + +"Ah! that is you, Mattie!--how are they?" + +"Well. I did not see Miss Wesden. She was not at home." + +"All the time with that old man?" he said, with a little of his past +weakness developing itself. + +"We have been speaking of old times--and Harriet. Oh! dear! I am very +tired. May I go up to my room at once?" + +"If you will--but supper is ready, Mattie." + +"Not any for me. Good night." + +Mattie thought that she had made good her escape, but she was mistaken; +on the stairs Ann Packet had been waiting to waylay her, and to talk of +the little events of that day--any talk whatever, so that she saw Mattie +for a while, after the day's labour was ended. Mattie was considerate +even in her distress; she stood on the stairs listening to Ann's +rambling accounts of minor things, waiting for the end of the narrative, +and only expressing her weariness by a little quivering sigh, now and +then. + +After the story there was Ann Packet to hold the candle closer to her +face, and see a change in Mattie also. Mattie had feared this--knowing +Ann's vigilance--but there was the old plea of a headache to urge, and +all the old receipts of which Ann Packet had ever heard for the headache +to listen to. Ann Packet knew an old woman of her workhouse days who had +had "drefful headaches," and this was how she cured hers--and off went +Ann Packet into more rambling incoherencies. + +All things have an end; Mattie was free at last. At last the door +locked, and the room she had longed for, feared, and longed for again, +engulphing her. Mattie took off her bonnet, opened noiselessly the +window for the air which she felt she needed, and then dropped into a +chair, and looked out at the dark sky, and the bright stars that were +shimmering up there, where all seemed peace! + +The battle was not over, and Mattie was unconvinced still. + +"Is it true?" she asked again; "is it ALL true!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HALF THE TRUTH. + + +Mattie, as we are already aware, had found Mr. Wesden the sole occupant +of that house in Camberwell, whither the stationer had retired from the +stirring business of life. He was alone, dull and dispirited; Harriet +had gone to a thanksgiving festival at her favourite church, and her +father, whom night-air affected now, was left to read his newspaper, or +to think of old times, as his inclination might suggest. + +Harriet always offered to remain at home to keep her father company, but +old Wesden was not a selfish man; he offered no objection to her +departure; it would do her good, and be a change for her. It had long +ago suggested itself to him that there was nothing like change to keep +Harriet well and all unpleasant thoughts away from her; and if it were +only the mild excitement of religious change, it was better than +brooding at home over events which had passed and left marks of their +ravages. + +Mr. Wesden brightened up at Mattie's visit; he had put away his pipe, +and was sitting with his feet on the fender and his hands on his knees, +thinking of his daughter and of the chance she had lost in not marrying +Maurice Hinchford, when Mattie intruded on his reverie. + +The old friends--friends who had quarrelled and made it up, and become +the best of friends again--sat down together and talked of the past, of +what a business that was in Suffolk Street once, slow, and sure, and +money-getting. Mr. Wesden was inclined to talk more in his old age, +Mattie fancied, and when he drifted to the usual subject with which all +topics invariably ended--his daughter--Mattie did not stop him. + +She had come to find out the truth, if possible--to make sure! Next to +Sidney Hinchford, stood Harriet Wesden in her regard; she remembered all +that Harriet had been to her, all that impulsiveness of action combined +with steadiness of love which had won Mattie towards her in the early +days, and was not likely to turn her from her then. + +But the truth had been hard to arrive at; Mr. Wesden spoke of Harriet's +new pursuits, of her indignation at Maurice Hinchford's offer; he could +tell her little more than Maurice Hinchford had done, save that there +were times when his daughter seemed very dull and thoughtful. + +"P'raps it's the church, Mattie," he had said; "I wish you'd come more +often and talk to her, like--like you used." + +"She does not think that I have neglected her--forgotten her?" + +"Oh! no." + +"When I meet her here, she seems very different to me--almost cold at +times," said Mattie. + +"Only her way, Mattie," explained the father, "she's very different to +all, now. She was more like herself after Mr. Hinchford called--Lor'! +that roused her for a day or two beautifully. It was quite a treat to +see her out of temper all the next day--flouting like!" + +Mattie waited till half-past eight, and then took her leave, thinking +that she would go home by the church-way and meet Harriet. But Harriet +had gone round by the main thoroughfare, having a call to make, and so +the old companions missed each other. + +Mattie scarcely knew what she should have said to Harriet on meeting +her, save the usual commonplace remarks; she fancied that she might have +told her story of Sidney's proposal, and watched the effect--might have +looked her sternly in the face, and asked if it were all true that +Maurice Hinchford had asserted. It depended upon circumstances what she +would have confessed or asserted; after all, did it matter what were +Harriet Wesden's feelings, if Sidney had ceased to love Harriet and +turned to Mattie Gray? + +But Sidney was blind _then_, and his heart, ever full of gratitude, had +deceived him. Perhaps he _had_ read her secret by some means, and taken +pity on her. _Pity!_--and she had told him that she scorned it! Well, +true or false, right or wrong, she must wait a few days longer--for +better, for worse, there was no keeping that truth back, unless it died +with Sidney. + +Mattie made the best of it, as usual. Hers was a mind of uncommon +strength, although her slight figure and gentle face suggested to an +observer the very reverse of a "strong-minded woman." The next day, she +was the Mattie that deceived even her father, who had been alarmed at +her yester-night. She had got over her headache, she said; she could +talk of business-matters, and of going to the warehouse for fresh stock, +of the customers on "the books," and of the customers--a few of them by +the laws of business--who were never likely to get off them. In the +morning, too, came an immense order, that staggered Mr. Gray--an order +for stationery, pens, ink, and paper, &c., from Hinchford and Son, +bankers. + +"They've given their relation a turn--I don't think Sid would like it +much," said Mr. Gray. + +Mattie affected an interest in these new customers, and Mr. Gray, who +admired large orders, though he was not a worldly man, trotted about the +shop and rubbed his hands. The first customer who entered, and told him +that it was a fine day, was assured that "Yes it was. A fine order, a +very fine order indeed!" + +Orders taken, delivered, and goods paid for; time making inroads into +the new week; people beginning to talk of coming spring, and of the cold +weather breaking up for good; Mattie waiting for the summons to Sidney +Hinchford's side, and wondering why Dr. Bario was so long; the hour in +which to answer Sidney approaching, and she still unresolved as to what +was best and just--for others, as well as for herself! + +The message came at last--by special messenger, and private cab; a +dashing Hansom, with the Hinchford crest on the panel, drawn by a +thorough-bred mare, which brought out all the horse-fanciers from the +livery-stables at the corner to look at and admire. + +Mattie opened Maurice Hinchford's hastily written note. + + "Dear Miss Gray," it ran, "we have resolved upon the operation + to-day. Sidney is prepared--calm and hopeful of the result. I + never knew a fellow with so little fear in him. Bring Miss + Wesden if you think fit. + + "Yours very truly, + + "MAURICE HINCHFORD." + +Bring Miss Wesden! Mattie had never thought of that, and for the first +time the woman's natural jealousy seized her. Take her rival to his +side, and let _her_ comfort him, and she standing aloof and +unacknowledged!--why should she do that? Thrust upon Sidney Hinchford's +thoughts, at such a time, the old love; let him _see_, perhaps, Harriet +Wesden's beauty and her own plain face side by side, the very instant +that he stepped back, as it were, to his old self! + +Then came better thoughts--thoughts more true to this high-minded stray +of ours. It was light, or madness, or death; if it were a failure, and +he should die, swiftly and suddenly--if till the last he had deceived +her, and his true nature were to assert itself, and he express a +wish--one last yearning wish to see Harriet Wesden--what could she +say?--in the future how that reproach of not having done her best would +crush her with remorse! + +She was in the cab; she had made up her mind; there was to be no longer +any hesitation. + +"Drive to Myer's Street, Camberwell." + +The thorough-bred mare stepped out and cleared the roadway; the shop and +the little excited man at its door were in the background, and Mattie +was being whirled along to Mr. Wesden's house. In a very little while, +Mattie was driven to the old friend's. Mr. Wesden was gardening in his +fore-court, or attempting something of the kind, with a little rake he +had bought at a toy-shop; he dropped his rake, and stared over the +private cab and its occupant at the up-stairs windows of the opposite +residence. + +"Mattie," he said, when she was at the gate, and had opened it and +entered before he had recovered his astonishment, "what's the matter? +Who's cab is that?--the stationery business won't stand cabs, yet +awhile, I know." + +"Where is Harriet?--not out again?" + +"No, in the parlour--this way." + +Mattie and Mr. Wesden entered the house. Harriet was in the front +parlour--the best room, which had been Mrs. Wesden's pride, and a dream +of the old lady's in business days,--working busily away at a pair of +crimson slippers, with large black crosses on the instep--High Church +slippers, every inch of them. Not slippers for a simpering curate to +receive anonymously, as a mark of esteem from a fair unknown--Harriet +was above that; but good colossal slippers, for the gouty feet of her +pastor and master, who could not wear tight boots in the house, and had +even been known to preach in something easy. + +Harriet, who had noted the arrival, was ready to receive Mattie. She ran +to her and kissed her. Harriet's first impulse was a kind and loving one +whenever she met Mattie first; only as the interview lengthened, did her +doubts--if they could be called doubts--step in and range themselves +formally beside her, and render her almost reserved. The kiss with which +they parted, always savoured more of the new Harriet, than of the +bright-faced beauty whom Sidney had _once_ loved, Mattie thought. + +"Harriet, I want you to come with me, if you will," said Mattie. + +"I am rather busy just now, Mattie," said Harriet; "where do you wish to +take me?" + +"To see Sidney Hinchford," was the calm reply. + +"To see _whom_!" ejaculated Harriet. + +Before Mattie could explain, Harriet added-- + +"What object can you have in taking me to him?--in coming in this +strange hurried manner for me? Has _he_ sent you?" + +"No." + +"He has no wish that I should be near him, I am sure. This is eccentric +and foolish--what do you mean by it?" + +Harriet's haughty gesture would have done more credit to royal blood +than to old Wesden's. + +Mattie caught her by the wrist, so that Harriet should not escape her, +or hide any sign of emotion which she might wish to conceal when all was +known. + +"You must come! There is no excuse. In a few hours Sidney Hinchford may +be dead!" + +Did the change upon that face tell all, or was it the natural result of +such news as Mattie had hissed forth? + +"Dead!--dead did you say?" asked Harriet, hastily. + +"I did not tell your father a few nights ago that Sidney had left us--I +reserved the news for you, and then missed you going home. He is in the +hands of clever and scientific men, who hope to cure him of his +blindness." + +"Yes--go on." + +"But there is a chance of failure, which Sidney risks, and thinks, +perhaps, too lightly of. That failure will not subject him to his old +estate, but drive him mad, or kill him." + +"And you have let him risk his life--_you_!" + +Away went the ecclesiastical slippers to the other end of the room; some +wool got entangled in her hands, and she snapped it impatiently in two +in preference to unwinding it; she turned to Mattie, full of reproach, +fear, and indignation. Yes, the love was living still! Mattie might have +known long ago that it had never died away, and that to keep it in +subjection had been the task which Harriet had set herself, and failed +in. + +"They will murder him!--you have let them take him away to work their +dangerous experiments upon, and you will have to answer for this!" + +"Sidney was resolved--his cousin wished it--I had no power to stop it." + +"Mattie, he loves you. He would have done as you wished." + +"Who says he loves me?" asked Mattie. "I have never uttered a word to +give you that belief, Harriet--have I?" + +"No--but----" + +"I don't own it now--I say nothing, but ask you to come with me. If I +loved him, or mistrusted you, should I be here?" + +"What am I to do?" asked the bewildered Harriet. "Oh! tell me, what can +I do?" + +"Maurice Hinchford thinks it possible--I think it possible--that Sidney +may wish to speak to you before or afterwards. We may retire and see him +not, or we may face him. If it should end as we all pray not, and hope +not, you, at least, must not be away!" + +"No, no!--I would not be away from him for all the world," cried +Harriet. "I will go with you at once." + +She darted out of the room, and Mr. Wesden seemed to take her place as +if by magic before Mattie. + +"What's it all mean, my girl?" + +Mattie had to struggle with many conflicting emotions, and sober down +sufficiently to relate the nature of her visit. Before she had half +finished her statement, Harriet was with them again. + +"Let us go at once, Mattie!--father will hear all when I return." + +She almost dragged Mattie from the room; they were both in the cab, and +rattling away from Camberwell, before Mr. Wesden fully comprehended that +they had left him. + +"Mattie, it is kind of you to think of me at this time," said Harriet. +"You have read me more truly than I have read myself. I am a wicked and +unjust woman." + +"No--that's not true." + +"I have had wicked thoughts of you--you that I have known so long, and +should have estimated so truly, knowing what you have ever been to me. +But, oh! Mattie, I have been so wretched and unhappy, that you _will_ +forgive me?" + +"Don't say any more, please." + +Harriet looked askance at the pale face beside her--the eyes were half +closed, and the thin lips compressed. + +"Do you feel ill?" + +"No--the excitement of all this may have been a little too much for +me--we will not talk of ourselves just now. Time enough for your +confession, and for mine, when we return." + +"How shall we return?--with what hopes or fears of him? What made his +cousin and you think of me being near him? Did _he_ wish it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Has _he_ thought of me all this while?--loved me despite all? Oh! if +that were true, Mattie." + +"If it were true, Harriet--what a difference!" + +"And now perhaps to die, and I never to know his real thoughts of me. +Well, I should die too--I'm sure of that now!" + +"Harriet, you can trust me again?" + +"Yes, with all my heart." + +"Patience, then--we _will_ say no more until we are sure that the truth +faces us." + +They were silent for the remainder of the way; people who passed on the +footpath, and glanced towards the occupants of that private cab, +wondered at the two pale, grave-faced women sitting side by side +therein. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ALL THE TRUTH. + + +The house wherein Sidney was waiting for the best or worst, was situated +in Bayswater. A house that had been taken at Maurice's expense, and by +Dr. Bario's suggestion. The Italian doctor was a man with a love of +effect--one of those stagey beings whom we meet occasionally in England, +and more often on the Continent. He was fond of mystery; it enhanced the +surprise, and gained him popularity. He was a clever man, but he was +also a vain one. + +His style of practice he kept to himself; whether his cures were +effected by the common methods of treatment, or by methods of his own, +were hard to arrive at; he bound his patients and his patients' friends +to secrecy; some of his English medical contemporaries called him a +quack, others a mad-man--a few, just a few, to leaven the mass, thought +that there _was_ something in him. Abroad he was at the top of the tree +and sought after--matter-of-fact England not being able to make him out, +eyed him suspiciously. + +Mattie and Harriet were ushered into a well-furnished room on the first +floor, where Maurice Hinchford awaited them. He went towards them at +once, and shook hands with them--even with Harriet Wesden, who had faced +him with such stern words during their last interview. There was a +common cause that bound all three together, and the past was forgotten. + +"We are in time?" asked Mattie. + +"Plenty of time, thank you." + +"Where is Sidney?" + +"In the room beyond there, where the curtain hangs before the door." + +"Have you told him that _we_ are here?" asked Mattie. + +"Yes, he is very anxious to speak with you both before he is left in Dr. +Bario's hands." + +"You are hopeful of good results?" asked Harriet. + +"Yes--very hopeful--are not you?" he asked curiously. + +"No--I fear the worst." + +"You have not considered the matter, Miss Wesden--this has come upon you +with the shock of a surprise, and hence the feeling that distresses you. +But I say he shall get better--we have all determined to make an +extraordinary case of him." + +"Hush, sir!--he is in God's hands, not yours," said Harriet. + +"I beg pardon--of course." + +Maurice withdrew, a little downcast at Harriet's reproof; he had assumed +an over-cheerful air to set them at their ease, and they had not +understood him. They fancied that he was not anxious, when he felt all a +brother's suspense. He had been with Sidney day and night; he had +studied Sid's wishes, sought to keep him cheerful, read to him, had +wound himself into Sid's heart, and by the act enlarged his own and +purified it. The cousins understood each other; all the past had been +atoned for now; there was no element of bitterness in the forgiveness +which Maurice had sought and Sidney granted. + +Maurice was called away, and presently returned with the Italian doctor, +to whom he introduced Miss Wesden. + +"What is there to fear, sir?" was Harriet's first question. + +She had heard all from Mattie, but was not satisfied until all had been +told her again from the doctor's lips. He still spoke of the chances for +and against success. + +Presently, and before he had concluded, Mr. Geoffry Hinchford was +ushered into the room and introduced to the ladies there. + +After a bow of the old-fashioned school, he said-- + +"This young lady," indicating Mattie, "I have had the pleasure of seeing +before. Some years ago, when she thought I had a design to rob a shop in +Suffolk Street. Am I right, Miss Gray?" + +He spoke in jest, but Mattie responded gravely enough. It was no time +for jesting, and she thought that Mr. Geoffry Hinchford's remarks were +strangely _mal-apropos_. His manner changed, when he faced Doctor Bario +in his turn. + +"You most cure this patient, sir, and name your own terms. My son and I +will chance your breaking the bank." + +"You are good--very," said the pleased doctor, "and I am much obliged." + +"We shall have him at his old post, I hope, ladies," said he, veering +round to the fair sex again. "A banking-house is his proper sphere--he +will rise to greatness with a fair chance. I do not know any man who +deserves greatness better--a true man of business--what a contrast to +his poor father!" + +Maurice had withdrawn, and now returned again. + +"He is ready to see the ladies now; keep him up, please, and speak +cheerfully of the future--that's right, doctor, I believe?" + +"Quite right." + +"One at a time. Mattie, he will see you first, he says." + +Mattie's heart leaped anew at this; she passed beneath the curtain which +Maurice Hinchford held above her head, and went through the door to a +large room where Sidney was awaiting her. The sun was shining through +the windows upon him--a pale, calm figure, sitting there. + +"Mattie," he said. + +"Yes--I have come." + +The door opened again, and Doctor Bario entered, taking up a position +where he could watch his patient's face. There must be nothing +calculated to excite his patient now. + +Sidney shook hands with Mattie, saying-- + +"It has come at last--and we shall know the worst or the best in a few +minutes." + +"You are not nervous of the result?--your pulse beats calmly, Sidney." + +"I have steeled my nerves to it--I shall not shrink, and I am hopeful." + +"Miss Wesden is here." + +"You fetched her hither, Maurice tells me," he answered. "You are not a +jealous woman, Mattie." + +"Have I a right to be jealous yet, before my mind is made up?" she +answered, lightly. + +"The month draws on apace--I am looking forward to the future." + +"Time," said Doctor Bario, and Mattie withdrew, after a silent pressure +of hands, given and returned. Mattie went towards the doctor instead of +the door. + +"These interviews must tend to excite him--his pulse is less regular +than it was, sir." + +"I am sorry for it," said Bario, coolly, "but he will have his way--he +is one man impetuous in that. He thinks it is better, in _case of +anything_!" + +Mattie backed from him in horror; did Sid fear the result of the +experiment himself now? Harriet was waiting anxiously for her return. + +"Be careful," whispered Mattie, as she passed in, and Mattie followed +her with her wistful eyes. They were a long while together, she thought; +longer than was necessary, or Doctor Bario should have allowed. What had +Harriet Wesden to say to him?--what would she say in moments like those? + +The curtain was drawn back, and Harriet, with flushed cheeks, and +tearful eyes, came rapidly towards Mattie. + +"What have you said to him?" asked Mattie, almost fiercely. + +"What I would have said to him had he been dying--as he will die!--oh! +as he will die, I am sure of it." + +"I pray God not," ejaculated Mattie. + +"I asked him if he had forgiven me--if he would believe that when he +gave me up I loved him with my whole heart, and looked for no happiness +without him." + +"You told him that!--you dared to tell him that at such a time!" + +"I could not have told him at any other, and he was about to be +sacrificed by his own will and these mad relations, who have persuaded +him to this! He will die, I am sure of it." + +"Don't say it again--I must hope, Harriet, and you drive me mad by this +excitability. What have you done?" + +"Strengthened his courage--been rewarded by the 'God bless you, +Harriet!' which escaped him." + +"Did he say no more?" + +"Nothing but 'Too late!' In his heart he must feel that he will _die_, +or he would not have said that. Oh! those awful words, which will ring +in our ears and be our torment when this is over. Mattie, I must stop +it!" + +Mattie held the excited girl in her own strong arms, and backed her to a +greater distance from the door of the room where Sidney was; at the same +moment the banker returned from his fugitive interview with his nephew, +and stood at the window taking snuff by wholesale. A confusion seemed to +suddenly pervade the scene; an assistant, then another entered, and +passed into Sidney's room; a third assistant ushered across the room +wherein they waited, a physician, with whom Mr. Geoffry Hinchford shook +hands, and took snuff for an instant. Maurice looked through the curtain +for an instant, held up his hand, and then withdrew again. The instant +afterwards the door was locked on the inner side, and a silence as of +death settled upon the three watchers without. + +All was still; the thick walls and the closed doors deadened every +sound. Once and only once Dr. Bario's voice giving some orders startled +the banker and the two girls cowering at the extremity of the room. + +"How still!" whispered Harriet at last, and Mattie bade her be silent. +Mattie was listening with strained ears for sounds from within, and the +fear that had beset Harriet settled at last upon herself and unnerved +her. How long would it be now, each thought and wondered--minutes, +hours, or what? + +"This waiting is very awful," said Mr. Geoffry Hinchford, suddenly, and +Mattie bade him hush also, in an angry tone that made him jump again. + +Suddenly the door was unlocked, and the three started up with clenched +hands and suspended breath. Two of the assistants came forth hurriedly, +and went out of the room. To the eager questions that were put to them +they answered something in Italian, and balked the longing of their +questioners. Then Maurice appeared, and cried, + +"Success!--success! A statue in gold for Dr. Bario! The----" + +"Hinchford," called the doctor from within, "come back--he calls you." + +"No, not me," said Maurice, whose ears caught the English accent more +perfectly, "_he calls Harriet_--may she come?" + +"Yes, for an instant--quick!" + +Harriet darted across the room with a suppressed cry; the old fear had +seized her again. + +"He is dying!--I knew it!" + +"No, no, he will live for you!" cried Mattie, wringing her hands +together; "go to him!" + +Harriet passed into the room, and recoiled for an instant at the utter +darkness and blackness of the place she had left so light. Maurice put +his hands upon her wrist, and drew her forwards. Dr. Bario's voice +arrested him. + +"He has fainted--take her out again. He must speak to no one any more +to-day." + +"But he will die!--oh! sir, will he not die?" cried Harriet. + +"He will live; he will be as well in three weeks as ever--please +withdraw." + +Harriet and Maurice Hinchford came back together. + +"There is no use in waiting," Maurice said; "the result is as successful +as I anticipated. Let me recommend you to return home at once, Miss +Wesden. Miss Gray will accompany you, I am sure." + +"Mattie, will you come with me?" asked Harriet, faintly. + +Mattie moved like an automaton towards her, and the two went out +together arm-in-arm, down the broad staircase to the hall, from the hall +to the street, where Maurice's cab still waited for them. + +"I am faint and ill, Mattie," said Harriet, sinking back. + +"Will you rest awhile?" + +"No--let us get home at once. How coldly and quietly you take this news, +Mattie!" she said, looking intently at her; "ah! if you had only loved +him like me all your life!" + +"If I had!" murmured Mattie, "_this_ would have broken my heart!" + +"Hearts don't break with joy, Mattie, or I should not see another +morning." + +"No. You are right--not with joy!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +STRUGGLING. + + +Had Harriet Wesden been less disturbed by all the trials of that day, +she might have wondered more at Mattie's manner, and have guessed more +shrewdly at the truth. But she had suspected unjustly; and feeling now +that Sidney loved her, and had always loved her, there were dissipated +for ever all bitter memories. It was Mattie's turn to change, but +Harriet did not notice it at that time; Mattie had become distant, +grave; in the first shock of the real truth--though Mattie had seen it +advancing, and thought herself prepared to meet it--it was impossible to +smile and feel content. Harriet was anxious that the old friend should +stay with her at Camberwell for awhile, but Mattie was firm in her +refusal. + +"I must get home--I am very weary!" she murmured. + +So they had parted, and Mattie had returned home to offer the great news +concerning Sidney, and then escape to her room and be seen no more that +night. What happened on that night--what resolves, what struggles, we +need not dwell on here; she was one who had been injured--the best of +women come in for the greatest injuries at times--and it was not a +night's thought or struggle which could set her right. She was a +heroine, but she was a woman--and women brood on matters which affect +the heart for a long, long time after we have been deceived by their +looks. + +Mattie did not blame Sidney; she saw how far he had been led to deceive +himself, and how far pity and gratitude had betrayed him; she knew that +he considered himself bound to her still, and that only her word could +release him from his. She felt that he was miserable like herself, and +she fretted impatiently for the day when she could let him go free to +his sphere, and to the only woman whom he had loved. + +But the change had not been good for her; she was not resigned yet; her +heart was in rebellion. Life before her seemed a dreary vista--a +blankness on which no light could shine; ever in the world ahead, she +traced her figure plodding onwards without a motive in life, or a hope +that had not been lost in it--from first to last, only in various +disguises, and on different roads, ever the Stray! + +Was she better off now than in the old, old days when she walked the +London streets bare-footed, and sang or begged for bread--even stole for +it once or twice? No one had loved her then, or taken heed of her; a few +had pitied her at that time as they might pity her in this, if she were +weak enough to tell her story to them. Her father would pity her, but +did he love her, she thought gloomily? She was not inclined to do him +justice in that dark estate of hers; he had never wholly understood her; +she had become a necessity to his existence, and he was grateful for it, +as Sidney had been grateful--nothing more! Yes, she stood alone--for the +love and generous hearts around her womanhood, she might be on a +mountain top, with the cold, unsympathetic winds freezing her as she +lingered there. Almost with regret she looked back at the past, and +wondered if it had been well to save her from the dangers that +surrounded her; she might have fought against them, and grown up more +ignorant perhaps, but more loved. In a different sphere she would have +made different friends, and known nothing of this _genteel_ life, where +there had been no happiness, and much trouble and remorse! + +Hence, by noting Mattie's thoughts, we arrive at the conclusion that +this was Mattie's darkest hour; that a change had befallen her which +time might remedy, or might harden within her to a wrong--it depended +upon the forces brought to bear upon her, and her own heart's strength. + +She had heard nothing of Sidney since the experiment in a direct manner. +Maurice had met her father in the streets, and informed him that all was +progressing well, and Sidney was gaining ground rapidly--that had been +"information enough for the Grays," Mattie thought, a little bitterly; +there was no occasion for further visits to out-of-the-way districts, +now the banker's son could exult over the result of his scheming! From +Harriet no news had reached her, and Mattie had not sallied forth in +search of her. The day on which Mattie was to have made up her mind and +answered Sidney came and went without anyone taking heed of it. When +would the sign come that he remembered her?--what would he do and say +when he was well again?--what would he think of _her_? + +Mr. Gray did not observe any particular change in his daughter; she was +graver and more thoughtful, but he attributed that to her concern for +Sidney's recovery. Once he was about to speak of Sidney's proposal to +Mattie, and was asked, almost imploringly, to say no more; but he was +not alarmed. Mattie was nervous still, and had not recovered the shock +yet. She was his dutiful daughter whom he loved, and though her grave +face did not become her years, still it was the face of a girl who took +things studiously and reverently, and he was proud of it. Serious people +suited Mr. Gray; his daughter was becoming every day more worthy of him, +thank God! + +Still there was one watcher on whom Mattie had not reckoned--a watcher +who knew all the story, and guessed more than Mattie could have +wished--to whom every change in Mattie was a thing of moment, which +affected her. This humble agent, who had watched thus, since the time +Mattie was a child, had some inkling of the truth--hearts that have but +one idol are sensitive enough. Through the stolidity, the inflexibility +of Mattie, Ann Packet read the despair, and charged it with her honest +force. + +One night, when Mattie thought that the house was quiet for +good--meaning by that, that her father and Ann Packet were in their +rooms, and asleep--she was sitting by her little toilet-table, dwelling +upon a hundred associations, that all verged to one common centre, when +a tapping on the panels of her door startled her. + +"Who's there?" she asked; "is that you, Ann?" + +"Yes--let me in." + +She demanded it as a right, rather than as a favour, but Mattie admitted +her without opposition. Ann Packet entered with her cap awry--hanging in +fact, by strange filaments, to her back comb--and she placed herself in +front of Mattie, with her arms akimbo, quite defiantly. + +"Now, what's the matter with _you_?" + +"Have I complained?--is there likely to be anything the matter, Ann?" + +"Yes, there is. And you'll just tell me, please, what is it!" + +"Ann, you forget yourself." + +"No, it's you who is forgetting yourself, and me, and all you had a +liking and a love for wunst. It's you as has altered so dreffully, that +I can only think of one thing to make you different." + +"Don't tell me!--don't tell me!" Mattie entreated. + +Ann Packet took no heed. + +"It's _him_!" she whispered. + +Mattie did not answer; she went back to her seat by the toilet-table, +and turned her head away from the one faithful to her, to the last. She +was vexed that she had not kept her secret closer, and deceived them +_all_! + +"It's no good telling me it ain't him, Mattie--cos it is!" Ann Packet +said, after following Mattie to the table, and taking another chair +facing her; "there's nothing else--there can't be nothing else, girl. +Well, I wouldn't grieve because his sight's come back--that's not +right!" + +"Do you think I grieve for that?" cried Mattie, fired into defence; "oh! +Ann, how can you ever think so badly of me!" + +"Then you're afraid that he won't like you any more?" + +"How do you know he ever liked me, or said he did?" + +"I--I guessed as much." + +Ann Packet, we know, possessed a secret as well as Mattie. + +"You guessed wrongly." + +"I guessed what you did, Mattie--there!" + +"I am not always in the right, Ann," was the hard answer; "I am a +foolish woman, ever ready to drop into the snare of a few fine words!" + +Ann scarcely understood her; but she went on resolutely-- + +"You think he's tired of you--that it won't come right now. Why not?" + +"Nothing can come right out of nothing," said Mattie, passionately, and +not too clearly; "I can't be worried like this, Ann. I have nothing to +tell you; I am what I have always been. If there be a difference, it is +only that I am getting older, and more world-worn. Won't you believe +me?" + +"No, I won't. I think I know you well enough by this time, and aren't to +be _done_ by any reason short of what's a true un. Oh! Mattie gal, +you're not happy; you, who have done so much for happiness to other +people--and this shan't be, if I can help it! You and Mr. Hinchford must +get married; and if there's been a quarrel, _that'll_ mend, it." + +"Mr. Hinchford and I will never marry, Ann." + +"You mean it?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't see why," said Ann, reflectively. + +"Mr. Hinchford will marry Harriet Wesden--they are old lovers, and true +ones." + +Ann Packet looked fixedly for awhile at Mattie, and then burst forth: + +"Let him! Pr'aps he's fitter for her than you, if he's weak-minded and +babyish, and can't tell what's best for him. Let him pack up his traps +and go--you can do without him." Ann Packet, carried away by the +feelings of the moment, went on, in a higher key. "You're too good for +him, and the likes of him, and ain't agoing begging because a pink-faced +gal is set afore ye. You're young yet. You've people to love you, and +take care on you--you shan't be lonely, and you shall get over all your +disappintments and be as happy as the day is long. It isn't for you, +Mattie, to fret yourself to death because a little trouble's come, and +you can't shake it off yet--you'll show 'em that you've never been a +fretting, and that you've got a consolation yet, that their goings on +can't take away!" + +"Well, Ann, where would be your consolation?" asked Mattie. + +"Where you taught me to find it, big words and all--where you will never +lose it, Mattie, good as you've growed." + +There was something touching in the manner with which Ann Packet +snatched from the toilet-table the little Bible that always had a place +there, and laid it suddenly in Mattie's lap. Mattie shivered, even +cowered somewhat at the demonstration; it had been unexpected as that +interview, and for the first time in her life Ann Packet took the +vantage ground, and Mattie looked up to _her_. + +"When you turned good, Mattie," said Ann, "you turned to _that_--you +read it to me, and tried to make me read it, telling me that there was +comfort to be found there for my loneliness. I found it--so will you, +child. _You_ can't miss what you found me!" + +"It does not follow," murmured Mattie. + +"Yes it does," said Ann, who would not abate one jot of her assertions; +"with _you_, who ain't like tother people, and who never was. You liked +tother people better than yourself, and so got posed upon--but you're +all the better for it--lor bless you!--you'll see that in _there_. And, +Mattie, there's your father and me, still--we shan't drop away from you. +The likes of me," she added, after a little more reflection, "isn't much +to brag on, but you'll find me allus true--that's something." + +"Everything!" + +"You ain't like me, with no one to look to--with no one but you in all +the world that would do me a good turn if I wished it ever so. With you +there isn't one but'd go anywhere to help you, knowing what a contented +soul you are. And when it comes to you, allus so cheerful, getting +mopish--you, who finds somethin' good in things that others fret at, and +makes us warm and comfurble instead o' shivering with fright--why, it's +sixes and sevens all a topsy turvy anyhow, and no one to look up to +nowhere!" + +"I must come back to my old self, if I have wandered from it so much +that your honest heart is touched by the change, Ann," said Mattie. +"Perhaps I have been gloomy without a cause--perhaps you are right and I +am wrong--though I don't confess to all your implications, mind--and +from you I can bear to hear my lesson better than from others at this +time. Ann, I'm not going to break my heart." + +"God bless you! I knew that." + +"I'm going to be just my old self again--nothing more. Not quite that, +suddenly, but finding my way back, as it were. There, you'll leave me +now--to think." + +"Only to think?" said Ann, with a wistful look at the holy volume in her +lap; "it's too much thinking that has done this harm." + +"To think what is best, Ann," said Mattie, rising, "and, failing that, +to pray for it; there, leave me now. Don't fear for me ever again." + +"And I haven't done wrong in talking of all this--you were angry when I +first comed in, Mattie?" + +"I am glad that you came now--I must have been aging very rapidly to +have alarmed one who always had such trust in me. It's all over now!" + +When Ann Packet had withdrawn, Mattie clasped her hands together and +cried again, "It is all over!" as though for ever some hope had been +dismissed rather than some fear. Hopes and fears had perhaps gone down +the stream of time together, and it was impossible to arrest the sighs +for the fair blossoms which had been once. But she was stronger from +that day; Mattie was not likely to harden, and it had only needed one +warm-hearted counsellor to turn her from the wrong path she was +pursuing. The right counsellor had come--a humble messenger, but a true +one; one to whom Mattie could listen without shame. + +"I was never fit for him--in his new estate, I might have brought him +shame rather than happiness--and it was his happiness I tried for, not +my own!" + +She sank down on her knees and prayed as honest Ann had wished. But she +did not pray for the best to happen as she had promised. She knew what +was best for her and others--so far as it is possible to know that--and +she asked for strength to do her best. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +SIGNS OF CHANGE. + + +Mr. Gray, though he had not remarked any change that was prejudicial to +his daughter Mattie, was quick enough to detect the new difference in +her manner. He knew then that she had not been "her old self," as Ann +Packet had termed it, by the old manner which was now substituted. She +was more gentle, less distracted, kinder in her way altogether, more +thoughtful of what his requirements consisted, and which was the best +way to expedite them. If she smiled with an effort still, _that_ he did +not remark; he felt the benefit of the change and was content with it; +he knew no reason why there should be any effort in her looks. + +He expected to hear all on the first day that Mattie had received good +news of Sidney Hinchford; that he was quite well perhaps, and coming +back to his old home for a while--coming back to settle _that_ +engagement. He did not suggest the name however; he waited for +suggestions. Mattie had shown that she was tenacious on that question of +engagement, and far from disposed to state her ultimate intentions. He +could afford to wait, knowing that all was well! + +In the evening his forbearance was rewarded by Mattie speaking of +Sidney. She knew that to hold that name for ever in the background was +unnatural. She was anxious to keep it a well known name, and not shrink +at an allusion to it, as though she feared to think of Sid, or would +consign him for ever to oblivion. + +"It's almost time we heard how Sidney was, father," she said. + +"Ah! it is. His cousin said that we should see him very shortly." + +"It depends upon the doctor, I suppose," said Mattie; "he has promised +to obey Doctor Bario implicitly." + +"That's the reason, doubtless," said Mr. Gray; "well, I shall be glad to +hear from him--a long silence between friends is always unsatisfactory, +and often leads to unsatisfactory results. We shall hear from him very +shortly, I feel certain. That young man, his cousin, might have +called--I have much to tell him about his future course in life, if he +will only listen to me. I mark progress in him, and he must not falter +in the narrow way." + +Mattie thought that Maurice Hinchford might have called more frequently +if it had not been for the good advice that lay in wait for him, but she +did not tell her father so. Her father meant well, and she seldom +attacked his "best intentions." He was a man who had done much +good--chiefly in a darker sphere than his own, where hard words are +wanted for hard hearts--and she respected his opinions. She had not +understood him very quickly--such men are always hard to understand--but +she knew his genuineness, and it was not difficult to love him. + +"What should I have done without him in this strait?" she often thought; +and for his presence there--showing that there was some one to love, and +some one who loved her--she was deeply grateful. + +"Every day I expect visitors now," continued Mr. Gray, "and think it +very singular that no one calls. You will be glad to see Sidney, +Mattie?" + +"Very glad." + +That same evening a letter arrived for Mr. Gray, informing him that the +elders of his chapel would be very glad to see him on the following +afternoon--a letter that turned the subject of discourse for that day, +and took Mr. Gray away upon the next. During his absence the first +visitor arrived. + +Mattie was in the shop, when Maurice Hinchford entered, walked at once +to his high chair, and assumed his customary position there. Remembering +what had happened since then, Mattie winced somewhat. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Gray," he said, shaking hands with her. "Given up +for lost, and considered the most ungrateful of human kind, I am sure?" + +"No, sir." + +"To tell you the truth, we have had a bother with that cousin of mine. +He's so horribly obstinate, we don't exactly know what to do with him." + +"He's no worse?" asked Mattie, eagerly. + +"Worse!--he's so much better that we cannot keep him quiet. We locked +him up a week in the dark, and then gave him light in homoeopathic +doses--globules of light, in fact--and so brought him round to a natural +state of things. He is told to be cautious, and we catch him writing a +letter to you, and we foil the attempt, and get sauced at for our pains. +Then he wants to come back here directly, on business, he says; and we +take him _nolens volens_ to Red-Hill, and lock him up in our rooms +there, with my sisters to see after him during our absence, and at +length he is pacified a bit, and resigned to country air." + +"Have you come at his request, sir?" asked Mattie. + +"Yes. I promised faithfully to call to-day, and assure you that he is +nearly well, and will shortly surprise you by a visit. He is very, very +anxious to see old friends. That's my commission; and now, Miss Gray, +about this conspiracy of ours--will it succeed?" + +Mattie drew a long breath, and then prepared herself. She knew where his +interest lay, and how unconscious he was whither her thoughts had +drifted once, but she was prepared to meet all now. It was for every +one's content, save hers. Only herself shut out from the general +rejoicing in the cold ante-room wherein no warmth could steal! + +"It will succeed, I think--I hope." + +"Yes, but how are we to begin?" + +"Harriet Wesden and Sidney must meet and explain all that they have +thought concerning each other--that's all." + +"Ah! that's all! Quite enough, considering how difficult it is to bring +them together. Difficult, but not impossible, Miss Gray; we shall skim +round to the proper method in due course. Harriet Wesden's appearance +roused him, did it not?" + +"I think so. Has--has he ever spoken of it since?" + +"A very little--he's plaguey quiet on matters in that quarter. He was +very anxious to know what he said when he saw her, what she said, and +you said; and after he had got all that _he_ wanted, you might as well +have tried to elicit confidence from an oyster. I try every day to bring +the topic round, but he dances away from it, or curtly tells me to shut +up. And now, may I ask a question?" + +"If you will," said Mattie, a little nervously. + +"What does Miss Wesden think?--you have seen her very frequently since +the meeting at Doctor Bario's?" + +"On the contrary, I have not seen her at all." + +"Miss Gray! Miss Gray!" he said, reproachfully, "you are not working +heart and soul with me! Here are two human beings who love each other, +and will never be happy without each other, and we are letting time go +by and harden them." + +"I thought that Miss Wesden would have called here, and that we might +have proceeded on _our_ plan with less formality. But if she do not come +shortly, I must visit her." + +"Thank you--just sound her, if you can. She's a girl that will not be +ashamed to own what impression the meeting with Sidney has made upon +her; and after that, we'll set to work in earnest." + +"I will write to her this evening, asking her to spend an hour with me." + +"Ah! that's a good plan--looks better than calling. Now I will just tell +you how we might manage to bring Sidney and her together--you're not +busy?" + +"No." + +"Nor I. I have given myself the whole day to mature this plan, and if +you consider it feasible, why we will carry it out, and chance the +_denouement_." + +He tilted his chair on to its front legs, and leaned across the counter +to more closely impress Mattie with his logic; at the same instant the +door opened, and Mr. Gray entered and gave him good day. + +"Pleased to see you, Mr. Hinchford; you bring good news, I hope, of my +absent partner?" + +"The best of news, sir," answered Maurice; "your daughter will tell you +how well he is progressing, and whither we have taken him. You are at +home for the day, I suppose, sir?" + +"Yes--will you step into the parlour, and take a quiet cup of tea with +us. We shall be proud of your company, and I shall be glad to have a +little talk with you afterwards." + +"Thank you, I have not dined yet, and--and I am very much pressed for +time to-day, or nothing would have given me greater pleasure. Some other +time, I hope, I shall be more fortunate. Please excuse this hasty visit, +but business must be attended to--good-bye, sir--good-bye, Miss +Gray--how late it is, to be sure!" + +And backing and bowing politely, Maurice Hinchford reached the +shop-door, darted through it, and dashed away from his tormentor. + +"That young man is always in a terrible hurry," said Mr. Gray; "a good +man of business, with a knowledge of the value of time, I daresay. Still +he should not give up serious thoughts for thoughts of money-making +entirely. I hope to find him more at his leisure shortly." + +But Mr. Gray never did. Maurice Hinchford reformed, but it was after his +own method, not Mr. Gray's; and being a fair repentance, we need not +cavil at it. He was ever truly sorry for that past, and all the wrong +that he had done in it; he sobered down, fell in love once more, and in +"real earnest;" married well, and made the best of husbands and fathers. +The reader, who will meet with him no more on this little stage, whereon +our characters are preparing to make their final bows, will I trust be +glad to hear of Maurice Hinchford's better life, and to forgive him all +his past iniquities. He has been the villain of our story; bad enough +for real life, but in these latter days scarcely villain enough for the +pages of a novel. Let us take him for what he is worth, and so dismiss +him from our pages. + +Father and daughter went into the parlour. + +"Now let us hear all about Sidney," Mr. Gray said in the first place. + +Mattie told him all that she knew, and he listened, rubbed his hands one +over the other complacently, and exulted, like a good man as he was, +over the well-doing of others. He indulged in a short prayer also for +all the goodness and mercies vouchsafed to Sidney; and Mattie, who had +never become reconciled to these sudden and spasmodic prayers, yet +joined in this one with all her heart. + +"Now," said he, suddenly assuming his every-day briskness, "for _my_ +news. But in the first place, don't excite yourself, Mattie--because it +ends in nothing." + +"Indeed!" + +"I am not fond of exciting situations, and therefore I begin with the +end, in order that I may not be excited myself. The end is, that I +declined their offer, Mattie." + +"What offer?" + +"We'll come to that next. They wanted to see me at the chapel--there's a +great scheme afoot for a further extension of the missionary project; +they want a very energetic man for Africa--just such a man as I am," he +added, with that old naive conceit which set well and conveniently upon +him, because he spoke the truth after all; "and they've altered their +opinion of that other man, who, if you remember, stepped into my shoes +some time ago." + +"Yes, I remember." + +"But they were too late--I told them so. I said that though my daughter +was about to marry and have a home of her own, yet I had learned to love +her so dearly that I did not care, in my old age, as it will be +presently, to begin life afresh without her. I thought that I could do +my Master's service here as elsewhere, and that I would rather give up +that good chance than give up you, and go away for ever." + +"For ever!--why?" + +"I was to settle down at the Cape--minister at a chapel there that will +be completed before the next vessel arrives--and I felt too weak of +purpose, Heaven forgive me, to leave you altogether." + +"And you declined?" + +"Yes, firmly and decisively. Perhaps it was wrong." + +"Go back, then, at once--don't lose a moment, lest they should think of +another man whom they can put in your place!" + +"What!--what!--what!" he cried, jealously, "you wish to get rid of me +like that." + +"No--to go with you--share your life and labours there--be happy with +you!" + +"Mattie!--what does this mean?" + +He held her at arm's length, and looked into her tear-dimmed eyes; he +read the truth at last there, and, though unable to account for it, he +folded his stricken daughter to his heart, and even wept with her. A man +who had known little of earth's romance, or of the tenderness of life, +and yet who understood it, now it was face to face with him, and could +appreciate the loneliness of her whose life had become linked with his +own. + +"So," he said, at last, "you do not--you do not love Sidney well enough +to become his wife?" + +"Yes, I do. I love him too well ever to make him unhappy by becoming so, +and standing between him and one he loves so much better than me. Some +day I will tell you the whole story--explain it more minutely--you will +spare me now, and keep my secret ever?" + +"Ever," he responded. + +"He will never know how I have loved him, therefore his memory will not +be embittered by thinking that I--I felt this separation very much. I +shall give him up--that's all! I don't think that he will care for any +explanation--and after that, I should very much like to go away with you +to a new world." + +"Beginning life anew, and leaving all old troubles behind us--well, if +it must end like this, so much the better, Mattie!" + +Mattie was silent for awhile, then said suddenly-- + +"You will go back now, and tell them that your daughter is anxious to go +with you--to serve you there, and be your faithful servant in the good +work lying before us both." + +"If it's certain that you----" + +"Father, there can be no alteration in _me_." + +Mr. Gray took up his hat again and prepared to depart. He would have +liked to attempt consolation to his daughter, but he felt, probably for +the first time, that his efforts would have resulted in no good--that +she was already resigned, and that the utterance of trite aphorisms +would only unnecessarily wound her. + +He departed, and Mattie, true to her old business habits, took once more +her place in the shop. She was glad that there was no business doing +that afternoon--that Peckham in the aggregate was undisturbed with +thoughts of stationery. She could sit there and deliberate upon her +plans for bringing Harriet and Sidney together--they must be happy at +least, and she must not go away from England uncertain about their +future. Two old sweethearts, whose liking for each other had only been +temporarily disturbed--for whose happiness she had made many efforts, +and did not flinch at this one. After all, she thought, their happiness +would be hers--and she should go away content. + +Then there rose before her that future for herself, and she could see in +the new life, in the new world, that which her father had prophesied. +All the old troubles would be left behind on the old battle-ground; she +would make up her mind to that, and thus life would be different with +her, and happiness for her, perhaps, follow in due course. She had no +idea of being unhappy all her life, because she had discovered that +Sidney Hinchford's heart had been true to its first love; on the +contrary, she was certain now that she should get over all her romantic +difficulties in a very little time. At the bottom of all this was the +woman's pride to be above all petty sorrowing for those who had never +really loved her,--as she deserved to be loved,--and that would keep her +strong, she knew. + +Afar, then, she saw herself happy enough in the new world--with the +familiar faces of her father and Ann Packet to remind her of the old. +New friends, new pursuits, new incentives to do good, and defeat evil at +every turn of her life--her young life still--with scope for energy and +a fair time given her, not entirely alone, and never unloved, there +would be nothing to disturb, and much to gladden, the future progress of +the stray. + +When her father returned in the evening, he found her very anxious to +learn the result of his second journey to London. + +"Were you in time?" she asked. + +"Yes. It's all settled, my dear." + +"I am very glad of that," she murmured; "there is no uncertainty about +our next step." + +"No--we must see Sidney now, dissolve partnership, and put the shutters +up, Mattie." + +"We must write to him in a day or two about the partnership--I would +prefer that they know nothing of our intentions until the last +instant--until we are ready to go--perhaps until we _are_ gone. I don't +think I could stand up against all their good-byes and best wishes--I +would rather go away quietly, with you and Ann." + +"Ann!" + +"We must not forget her." + +"She'll never go to the Cape, my dear--she can't go to Finsbury to bank +her wages without hysterics, now." + +"Because she's nervous, and I don't go with her," said Mattie. + +"Ah! I see--you're right, my child. Ann Packet will have no fear about +accompanying _us_. And she'll make a much handier servant than a Zulu +Kaffir." + +"And we'll go away quietly," said Mattie again. + +"Yes my dear, if you wish it. I object to anything in the dark, but as +it's for your sake--I promise." + +"Thank you," whispered Mattie. + +Whilst Mattie was writing a letter to Harriet Wesden, as she had +promised Maurice Hinchford--Mr. Gray broke the news to Ann Packet, and +impressed secrecy upon her. Ann Packet was asked to state her wishes, +and Mattie looked up from her desk and smiled at the old faithful +servant. + +"Anywhere's you like," said Ann, without a moment's hesitation; "black +men or brown men--I suppose they're one or tother there--won't matter +anythink to me. I'm too old to care about the colour on 'em. And, Miss +Mattie"--she always called our heroine Miss Mattie in Mr. Gray's +presence--"whilst you're at your desk, do'ee give notice at my bank +about my money." + +"Plenty of time, Ann," said Mr. Gray; "we shan't leave here for two +months yet, at least." + +"Then give 'em two months' notice," was Ann's rejoinder. "There's +thirty-seven pounds nine and sevenpence halfpenny in there, and they may +as well be told to get it ready for me. If they've been a speccilating +with it, it'll give 'em time to call it in." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +RETURNED. + + +Mattie dispatched her letter to Harriet that same evening; in her +epistle she expressed surprise that they had not seen each other since +the meeting at Dr. Bario's--should she visit her, or would Harriet walk +over to Peckham to-morrow afternoon? She would be entirely alone, her +father had business in town to attend to, and she was very anxious to +see her old friend. + +Mr. Gray's business in town did not take him from home till twelve in +the morning; prior to that he went to work at his stock. When he +returned home, he would endeavour to write a few lines to Sidney +Hinchford; and whilst he was thinking what he should say, and whilst, +despite his efforts to keep these thoughts back, they would intrude upon +his figures, and throw him out in his accounts, Sidney Hinchford himself +walked into the shop and stood before the counter, waiting for his +partner to look up. + +Mr. Gray, unmindful of Sid's propinquity, still bent over the books on +his counter, and scratched away with his pen; Sidney, with his glasses +on--the old Sidney of Suffolk Street days--stood very erect and still, +smiling to himself at the surprise he should create. + +Mr. Gray looked up at last. + +"God bless me!" he ejaculated, and swept pens, ink, and account books on +to the floor in his amazement, "it is you, then!--it _must_ be you!" + +"It looks like me somewhat, I hope," said Sidney, laughing and extending +his hand, which the other warmly shook. + +"Yes," said Mr. Gray, "and what a time it is since we have seen you! We +were beginning to think that you had quite forgotten us." + +"I never forget my best friends," Sidney replied, "and you and Mattie +are the best that ever I have had. Did Mattie think that I was likely to +forget her?" + +"Well, not exactly," said Mr. Gray, "and if you'll wait a moment I'll +run up-stairs and call her----" + +"No, you'll stay here," said Sidney, firmly; "don't disturb her on my +account. I shall see her presently, and I want to enjoy the luxury of +her surprise. Besides, there's no hurry." + +"Isn't there?" Mr. Gray asked dreamily. + +"Why should there be? I'm here for good." + +Mr. Gray had just stooped to pick up his books and inkstand; he dropped +them again at this, and then emerged like a phantom above the counter +once more. + +"You don't mean that?" + +"This is my home again. _They_ were very kind to me at Red-Hill, but it +wasn't like home, and it never felt like home to me. After Maurice had +left for London this morning, I told them my mind very plainly--it's no +good telling that harum-scarum fellow anything--expressed my thanks, my +gratitude for all that they had done for me, packed up and came away. I +was unsettled, dissatisfied, unhappy, somehow--and here I am." + +Mr. Gray sank behind the counter again, this time to hide his confusion, +which, it was evident, was visibly expressed on his countenance. Sidney +back again! Sidney, without preliminary warning, once more entering his +home as a friend who expected to be heartily welcomed, and as a partner +whom he had no right to ask to go away! Mr. Gray did not see his way +very clearly to the end; Sidney's "straightforward" habit of doing +things had completely discomfited him for the nonce. He must take his +time, and think of this! + +He re-emerged from his hiding-place, and laid the _debris_ he had +collected on the counter. + +"I was taking stock when you came in, Sidney," he said; "just seeing +what each share would be, and so on." + +"Indeed! what was that for?" + +"Why, you--you are going back to the bank again as clerk. I believe you +promised that," said Mr. Gray. + +"When my sight will allow me--that will be in a month or two's time--I +shall return to the old life, God willing. But what is that to do with +taking stock?" + +"We shall give up this partnership together, of course." + +"I don't see why," said Sidney; "I shall still want a home after +business-hours, and there is no home but this that I shall ever care +for. The business has not become so large an undertaking that Mattie and +you cannot manage it." + +"No, it's not that." + +"And when--when I am married, we can talk about giving it up then, or +making it over to you, or anything you like," said Sidney--"and so we'll +dismiss the subject." + +"For the present--we shall have to talk of it again. Mattie and I are +tired of it, and have thought of something new, Sidney. But, we'll +explain all presently. Mattie, I have no doubt, would rather tell you +herself." + +Sidney looked surprised, even discomfited. He did not comprehend the +hint which Mr. Gray had thrown out; he did not entirely see the drift of +Mr. Gray's conversation, or understand very clearly what was the +difference in his partner's manner, which rendered his return something +more than an agreeable surprise. He thought that he had discovered the +solution to the mystery, and said, + +"Old friend, you are vexed at my long silence; you have been harassing +yourself--perhaps Mattie and you together--about my anxiety to get away +from here, after God has pleased to give me back my sight. And I have +been struggling and scheming to get back, and escape the kindness of my +relations! Why, Mr. Gray, this will not do--this is not like you to +mistrust true friends, and think uncharitably of them after their backs +are turned! You should have known me better, and have had more faith in +me by this time." + +"My dear Sidney," exclaimed Mr. Gray, "I have never had an uncharitable +thought towards you. I knew that you would always think well of +us--that--that you were not likely to forget us. Until yesterday, I have +been building upon your return here, and thinking how happy we should +all be together." + +"Until yesterday--what happened yesterday?" + +"Mattie will tell you, Sidney--I cannot--I must not." + +"Very well, we will wait," said Sidney, gravely; "there is nothing she +can tell me which I cannot explain away." + +"Are you sure?" was the father's eager question. + +"Sure," he answered; but there was something in the tone which wavered, +and Mr. Gray fancied that he detected it. He said no more, however; he +was glad to see Sidney disinclined to elicit further information. Sidney +paced the shop once or twice, looked round it, and then went into the +parlour, without waiting for Mr. Gray's invitation, and looked carefully +and curiously round the room also. + +Mr. Gray followed him. + +"I see the home for the first time, if you remember," said Sidney; +"here, in the darkness, a fair life was spent, thanks to you and _her_. +Here you both first taught me that there was comfort even in affliction; +and here stood by my side, and fought my battle, two dear friends. What +has altered them?" + +"Nothing has altered their love and esteem for you, Sidney," said Mr. +Gray; "whatever happens, you must believe that." + +"And what has altered my love and esteem for them?" was the quick +rejoinder. + +"Nothing, I hope--I believe." + +"Then let us settle down into our old positions here. I have come in +search of peace and rest; of the old comforts which my uncle's grandeur +could not give me, and which by contrast only rendered me more restless. +I find them here, or nowhere. I take my stand here and expect them, or +the disappointment will be a bitter one. This is home!" + +He took off his hat, and seated himself by the table--a home-like +figure, which Mr. Gray felt was in its place again. He leaned his +forehead on his hand, and looked down thoughtfully--an old position in +his blindness, which Mr. Gray had often watched, and which drew again +more forcibly the heart of the watcher towards him. That heart might +have been a little estranged since yester-night; it had borne no malice, +but it had thrilled a little at his daughter's confession, and the +thought had crossed it that Sidney Hinchford might have spared Mattie an +avowal of such weak love as had been borne towards her. Sid had guessed +Mattie's secret, perhaps, and taken pity upon her; he was generous +enough for that, but he had forgotten that Mattie was not humble enough +to accept it. Mr. Gray could almost believe now that all had been a +mistake, which Sidney's presence there would satisfactorily explain; and +yet Sidney's thoughtfulness and restlessness forebade it. + +Sidney looked towards him suddenly. + +"What are you thinking of?" + +"Of the change in you, Sidney--and of the home that it really looks +again for a little while." + +"For a little while," echoed Sidney; "oh! you will not explain--call +Mattie, then, and let us end this. I always hated mystery," he added, a +little peevishly. + +Before Mr. Gray could cross the room to fulfil his partner's commands, +the door opened. Mattie entered, and paused upon the threshold with her +hands to her quickly-beating heart. + +"Sidney here--at last?" she faltered forth. + +"Yes, at last," he said, advancing towards her; "_at last_, as your +father has said, and now you. I have returned to find that you have both +lost confidence in me, and both misunderstood me cruelly." + +"I hope not, Sidney." + +They shook hands together, and looked one another long and steadily in +the face. + +"It is upwards of a year since I have seen you, Mattie. It is the same +hopeful, earnest face, that I have ever known--can there be a difference +in me?" + +"No, you are unchanged." + +"You both thought that I had forgotten you?" + +"No." + +"You must prove it by your old ways, then; or I shall never think this +place the dear home I left a month ago." + +"You have come back to----" + +"To stop! Why not?--don't you wish it?" + +"I--I will tell you presently--give me time, Sidney." + +"I am in no hurry," he answered, coldly. + +There _was_ a difference then!--they were inclined to resent his long +silence, by something more than a rebuke; they would not understand that +he had been kept away against his will, by his doctor's orders, and that +he had been cautioned not to write or read, or test his sight more than +he could help. They had not been satisfied with his messages sent by +Maurice Hinchford; they _had_ mistrusted him! It was all very strange, +and intensely disheartening; he could have trusted them all his life, +and he had believed that their faith would last as long as his. +Presently they would know him better, see that he had not wavered in one +thought or purpose, which he had formed before his sight came back; but +the consciousness that they had formed an estimate unworthy of his +character, would remain with him for ever, and no after-kindness, and +fresh faith, would obliterate it from his memory. There was an anxious +silence; then the father's and daughter's eyes met. + +"I think that I'll run into the City now," he suggested, feebly. He +scarcely liked to leave his daughter at this juncture; but he knew her +strength, her power to explain, and her wish that he should go. It did +not seem natural that he should leave her with that strange young man, +and, after he had risen to withdraw, he hesitated again. + +He went slowly into the shop, and Mattie followed him. + +She had read his thoughts correctly, for she said at once-- + +"I shall not give way before him. I am firm and cool--feel my pulse, it +does not throb more quickly because I have to tell him that I will not +be his wife. Before you come back, it will be all over, and I shall be +waiting for you--the calm, unmoved daughter, that you see me now!" + +"There'll be no scene, then?" + +"All commonplace, and matter of fact--I will have no scene," she said +firmly. + +"Then I'll go. God bless you, my child!--if I couldn't trust you +implicitly, I wouldn't move a step." + +He went away, and she returned to the parlour, where Sidney had been +sitting, a watcher of this whispered conference. + +"Now, Mattie," he said. + +Mattie sat down a little distance from him, and their eyes met steadily +once more, and flinched not. + +"Now, Sidney!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +"DECLINED WITH THANKS." + + +It had come at last, that day of explanation. Mattie would not give way +therein; she had long prepared for it, prayed for strength to sever all +past ties, and leave him ignorant, if possible, of her real thoughts +concerning him. Whatever happened, she would be firm, she thought; and +now with Sidney before her, she did not feel that she should waver. An +artificial strength it might be, but it would support her throughout +that interview, whatever might be the reaction after he had passed from +her sight, never to see her again, if she could hinder him. + +Ann Packet, who had been out on divers errands, stepped into the shop at +this juncture, marked the occupants of the parlour, and went immediately +behind the counter, to attend to business during that interview, and +confuse the accounts inextricably, supposing that there was any business +likely to drift that way just then. + +Mattie and Sidney had the little room all to themselves, and there was +no likelihood of being disturbed. "Now, Mattie"--"Now, Sidney," had been +said between them, and then each waited for the next words--as a +duellist might wait for the sword's-point aimed at his heart. + +Mattie spoke first. It was evident that Sidney Hinchford would have +waited all day. + +"A few days before you went away from here, Sidney," said Mattie, "you +asked me a question, and I promised that in good time, and with due +consideration, I would reply to it. Do you wish that question answered +now?" + +"I have come for it," was the reply. + +He knew by Mattie's manner what that answer would be, and he steeled +himself to meet a cold rejection of his offer. All was part and parcel +of the new incomprehensibility upon which he had intruded. + +"More than once, Sidney, I have thought of writing my answer to you, but +have found the difficulty of putting all I wish to say into words that +would not look cold and indifferent to the great honour you would have +done me." + +"This is satire," he said, hastily. + +"Forgive me, it is not intended for that. I would not wound you by a +word, if I could help it. And it was an honour to _me_." + +"I deny it," he answered, warmly. + +"Ever before you and me that past which there is no shutting from +us--which would have been talked about, and have often brought the blush +of shame to your cheeks for my sake. Ever before you what I have +been--what I am fit for!" + +"Fit for a higher station than it is in my power to raise you--no +position is too elevated for a good and pious woman. All this is +argument which I thought that I had combated long since--pardon me for +adding, all this foolish reasoning, utterly unworthy of you." + +"Still----" + +"It is no reason for declining my hand, Mattie," he interrupted, with +some sternness, "it is simply an excuse." + +Mattie winced for an instant, then her quiet voice, firm and even as the +way she had chosen for herself, replied to this-- + +"Let me proceed, Sidney. You will hear me out fairly, I am sure." + +"Why not say No at once?--you mean to tell me that you do not care to be +my wife, and share my home. Is not that your answer?" + +"Yes--but I cannot let you think that I have been insensible to your +offer, or not weighed it carefully in my mind before I thought that it +was not right that I should marry you. Sidney, had it pleased God never +to have restored your sight, I would have been your faithful wife, +serving you as I alone was able, perhaps, and rendering you content with +me." + +"I see. You would have taken pity on my loneliness--with that strange +idea of being grateful for past kindnesses of a trivial description, you +would have sacrificed your happiness in an attempt to attain mine. +Mattie, it would have been a terrible failure." + +"No." + +"I say a terrible failure, which would have embittered both lives in +lieu of promoting the happiness of either. I should have discovered the +motives which had placed you at my side, and felt too keenly the +encumbrance that I was upon you." + +"I think not!--I am sure not!" + +She was anxious to defend herself, to hold her best in his estimation +yet, but she feared the betrayal of her secret. She could have told him +how, for a few fleeting days, she had pictured her greatest happiness to +be ever near him, striving to brighten every thought, and vary the +monotony of every hour--sustaining, comforting, and worshipping. She +could have told him of the affection of a whole life that had been spent +in thinking of him, praying for him; but she held her peace, and let him +think that she had never loved him. In the end, she saw that it was best +to turn him from his purpose. + +"I would have married you, Sidney, in affliction--out of gratitude, if +you choose to word it so, but a gratitude that _you_ would have never +known from love," she ventured to say; "but now, when the new life, to +which you will shortly turn your steps, is far removed from mine, when +you require no help from me, and when there are others, fairer, better, +and so much more worthy of you, I cannot hold you to a promise of which +you must repent." + +"Why?" + +The position by some means had become suddenly reversed. It was she who +had to speak of his pity and gratitude for her. + +"Because you would discover that I was not fit to be your wife, that you +had not sought me out of love, but out of kindness towards me for my +services. You had pledged your word in one estate, and you would keep it +in another, like an honest man valuing a promise he had made, and +resolving to go through with it to the end, at whatever cost to his own +better chances. Therefore, Sidney, you must understand that I cannot be +your wife for pity's sake--that the man who is to become my husband, +must love me with all his heart, and soul, and strength, or he may go +his way for me!" + +"I said that my romance had died out long ago. That I was too old, and +had experienced too much sorrow to talk like a lover in a novel." + +"It seems to me--I do not know, Sid--that true love must belong partly +to romance. It is too pure--too full of fancies, if you will--to mingle +readily with business life; it is too deep down in the heart to rise to +an every-day surface--it is full of sacrifice as well as love. All this, +my idea, not yours, Sidney--I who would at least be romantic in that +fashion, and would care for no one but a romantic lover." + +"You have altered, Mattie--you are talking like a school-girl now. If +that be another reason for refusing me, it is unworthy of you." + +"It is another reason, for all that," replied Mattie; "let me dismiss it +at once, if you are ashamed of it. You have come hither +oppressed--burdened, I may say--with a sense of duty to me; let me raise +the load from you by saying, that I will not be your wife. If I would +have married you even out of pity myself," she added, a little +scornfully, "I will not take a man for a husband who would have had pity +upon me!" + +"Very well," he answered, moodily. + +"As your wife, never--but oh! Sidney, as the old friend and sister, +always! Don't think ill of me because I cannot see my way to +happiness--don't think that there is any difference in me, or that I +value you less than I ever did. You understand me?" + +"Scarcely, Mattie--you have altered very much." + +"You must not think that--I have not altered in any one respect--I would +be ever your friend, ever hold a place in your heart, ever be remembered +as the poor girl who would have died to make you happy!" + +"But would not have married me for the same purpose," answered Sidney, +in a kinder tone; "is that it, Mattie?" + +"My marriage with you would have rendered you wretched--don't deny it +again, Sid--I am sure of that!" + +"Hence your answer. Well, if it must be, I will rest content. I will +believe that it is all for the best." + +"Let me tell you another reason--the last--why I would not answer Yes to +you. May I?" + +"I am interested in every reason," he said. + +"Because you were bound to another whom you loved once--_whom you love +still_." + +He sprang to his feet, and then dropped back into his place, as though +shot at by a pistol. + +"Do you believe that I would come here with a mask on--a robber, and a +liar?" + +"Not intentionally, Sidney; because you have fought hard to keep the old +love back, and to believe that it was gone for ever. You have fostered +that idea by thinking uncharitably of _her_, by turning away from that +true happiness which only marriage with her will ever bring to you. You +are a man who has never changed; and in attempting to live down the +past, have but more clearly discovered the secret of your life." + +"What--what makes you think this?" + +"I cannot explain it, but it is as true as that you and I will never +marry one another for love, for gratitude, for anything," she answered. +"Harriet Wesden and you should never have parted, but have understood +each other better, and had more faith. You turned from her, and her +pride kept her apart from you; but, Sidney, through all, and before all, +she holds that love still." + +"I cannot believe that." + +"Your cousin Maurice has told you so--now let me. You will never be +happy without her--do justice to her, if you are the Sidney Hinchford +whom I have ever known. Sidney, you _do_ love her--are you not man +enough to own it?" + +"I love her as one who is dead to me--passed away out of my sphere of +action, and never likely to cross it again!" he answered. "I have always +thought so--I would have told you that these were my thoughts, had you +asked me on that night I sought your hand. She was dead to me--gone from +me--some one apart from the girl who lives and breathes in her place." + +"That was romance--and that _was_ love!" cried Mattie quickly; "for she +was not dead, her love was not dead, and you were likely to meet in +better faith at any moment unforeseen. Sidney, you _did_ meet--you were +affected by her visit, her evidence of the old tie still existent. Why +deny this to me, to spare my feelings now! I am living for you and +her,--I do not love you, but I am interested in your welfare, and +anxious--oh! so anxious, Sid, to advance it." + +"Harriet Wesden and I met under peculiar circumstances, that must have +touched both hearts a little--all was over in an instant, like a +lightning-flash, and here's the sober life again!" + +"You _will_ deceive yourself--until two lives are wholly blighted by +your obduracy, you will go on asserting this dreamy theory, and +believing in it." + +"You are a strange girl--stranger and more incomprehensible to me than +you have ever been, Mattie," he said wondering. "What can you think of +me, that you coolly ask me to sit here and confess to a passion for +another, after coming for an answer to a love-suit tendered you. By +heaven! it is a mystery, or a dream!" + +"When I was a little girl, untutored, and run wild, I used to fancy that +you two would marry; when we shared the same house together, I saw how +fitting you both were for each other--how, in your strength of mind and +purpose, one weak woman would always find support and love. When you +were engaged, I felt a portion of your happiness, understood that you +had chosen well, and knew--knew how proud and happy she must be in your +affection! That was _my_ dream--let it in the end come true, for Harriet +Wesden's sake, for yours--even for the sake of the woman here at your +side, the sister and friend to tell you what is best." + +"You are very kind, Mattie, but--but I cannot own to anything. It is not +fear, not shame--God knows what it is, or what I am, or what I really +wish!" he exclaimed irritably. + +"Leave it to me." + +"No, for myself, my own battles. I will have no woman's interference, no +friend's advice. I will go on to the end my own way." + +"It is not ordered so. Look there--is this _chance_ which has brought +her hither to-day, at this hour?" + +"Let me go away!" cried Sidney, starting to his feet. + +Mattie, flushed and excited, caught him by the wrist; he could have +wrested himself away from her grasp, but he would have hurt her in the +effort, and a something in his own will held him spellbound there. + +His sight was weak yet, and though he had guessed to whom Mattie +alluded, he could but dimly distinguish a female figure advancing +towards him, as from the mists of that past sphere of which he had +spoken. It came towards him slowly, even falteringly at last; and he +remained motionless, awaiting the end of all that might ensue on that +strange day. + +It was the past coming back to him, to make or mar him. He shivered as +he thought of all the folly he had committed, if, after all, Mattie and +Maurice were right, and even his own heart had misled him. He was a man +whose judgment had been sound through life--why should he have erred so +greatly in this instance? + +"Mattie--Mattie!" gasped Harriet, on entering, "what does this mean?" + +"That Sidney has been waiting for you," said Mattie, quickly, "to thank +you for all past interest in him. Shake hands, you two, and let me--let +me go away!" + +"No, no, don't leave me, Mattie! You must remain. I have been ill. I--I +am very weak." + +"If you wish it, for a little while. You two are not enemies now--let me +see you shake hands, then?" + +The old sweethearts shook hands together at Mattie's wish, and then +stood shyly looking at each other, each too discomfited, even troubled, +to say a word. Mattie had one more part to play before she could escape +them. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MATTIE, MEDIATRIX. + + +Harriet Wesden was strangely afraid of the old lover--what he would say +to her in the first moments of meeting, whether he would speak of the +past in which she had been misjudged, of the present hour which had +brought them face to face, or of the future for them both, and what it +would be like from that day. + +She was afraid to speak, afraid to trust herself with him, and she clung +closer to the skirt of the old friend, a child still in moments of +emergency, as she had ever been. Sidney Hinchford stood perplexed, +amazed--what could he say in the presence of the woman to whom he had +been talking about marriage?--what dared he say were she even to leave +them to fight out their explanations their own way? + +Mattie read the fear of one, and exaggerated in her imagination the +reserve of the other; even then all might be marred, and all her efforts +end in nothing, if she were not quick to act. + +"I asked Sidney, as you entered, Harriet, if it were not something more +than chance that brought you two together to-day--that brought him +hither, in particular," she said; "I think it is--I trust that from +to-day a brighter life opens for you both. Why should it not?--you who +have kept so long asunder from each other, only require an honest +mediator to pave the way for a fair explanation. Both of you will have +faith in Mattie!" + +Neither answered, but Mattie did not take silence for dissent. + +"When Sidney was blind, Harriet, the thought did cross me once or twice +that I had better marry him and save him from his utter loneliness--and +I think that he was desperate, and would even have married me! When +Sidney or I relate this story some day, we three shall have cause to +laugh at it heartily, and think what a narrow escape we all have +had--even I, who have never been able to understand Sidney like +yourself--as you know! I have only seen, Harriet, that this Sidney of +whom we are speaking has become a desperate man, soured by contact with +himself, and full of vain regrets for much trouble that his own rashness +has brought on him--that he wants one true friend to aid him now, more +than ever he did!" + +"Pardon me, Mattie, but you must not speak for me," said Sidney, +blushing; "if I have injured Miss Wesden by any hasty action, I will +explain it, and take my leave of her and you." + +"You will explain of course," said Mattie; "and if you part again after +that explanation, it will be your own faults, and I will never have +confidence in either of you any more. For you two--both friends and +benefactors, whose childish hands were first held out towards me--I must +see happy; I have striven hard for it, and I hope not to find this last +disappointment the keenest and the heaviest. Remember old days, and the +old hope you had together in them." + +"Mattie, you mast be a very happy woman some day!" cried Sidney, "you +think so much of making others happy." + +"I hope I shall," said Mattie cheerfully--almost too cheerfully, save +for those two preoccupied ones from whom she hastened to withdraw. +Harriet Wesden made no further movement to stay her; she sank into a +chair, covered her face with her hands, and trembled very much; in her +heart was a strange fluttering of fear and hope, and the struggle for +pre-eminence was too much for her. + +Yes, she was a weak woman--not strong and resolute, and with the will to +conquer difficulties like Mattie; but still a woman very lovable and +beautiful, and with a heart that was true enough to all who had been +ever cherished therein. From the moment that she had understood it, it +never swerved from Sidney Hinchford; it had known its greatest trial +when Sidney turned away from her, sceptical as to the reality of any +love for _him_. + +She had doubted his love for her until that day when Mattie came to draw +her into the old vortex, and then her faith in him came back, and life +took fairer colours--she knew not wherefore, save that the reflex of +that day's brightness might have shone upon her from the distance. For +it was a bright day for both these old lovers; Mattie had augured well +that one explanation--a few words, true and gentle, that scarcely stood +for explanation even--would be sufficient, and disperse all clouds that +had hung heavily above them. Both had had much time for thought and +regret--both had found little solace on the paths of life they had +pursued, and looked back very often at the life they had given up +together. + +But the worst was over, and the fairer time--the old love, almost, if +that were possible--was coming back once more. Sidney had believed it, +when Mattie had stolen into the shop and closed the door upon them; he +had felt all his old love return at Harriet's appearance, at her fear of +him; at her strange half-sad, half-reproachful look towards him when +they had first met that day; he knew, then, how wrong he had been, and +how rightfully Mattie had read him--what love he bore to the weak girl +still, and what a poor substitute for love he would have offered the +stronger, _better_ woman. Will our readers think that Mattie Gray was +worth a dozen Harriet Wesdens?--that Sidney made a bad choice, and that +the hero--if we dare call him so--should have married the heroine +according to established rule? Or will they believe, with us, that he +made his proper choice, and that Harriet and he were the most fitting +couple to live happy ever afterwards? If he did not treat Mattie as +fairly as she should have been treated, it was an error of judgment on +his part, and we are all liable to errors of a similar description. He +believed that he was acting for the best; he had taught himself in the +first instance to believe in his love for her, and when he had awakened +to the truth his honour would not let him draw back, until Mattie's +pride had released him. Later in life he fancied, once or twice, that he +caught a glimpse of the real truth, but he kept the idea to himself, +like a sensible man; he had succeeded in life, and was his cousin's +partner then--perhaps more conceited than in the old days. And if Mattie +suffered for awhile, why, heroines are born unto trouble, or where would +be the subscribers to our story-books? + +This was Mattie's great day of suffering--for ever to be remembered as a +landmark standing out sharp and rugged in life's retrospect. No one ever +guessed half the terrible battle which she fought that day; and how she +came forth smiling and victorious, with the deep wounds hidden, lest her +distress should affect others who were happier than she. + +When she returned to that room again, they had forgotten her, as they +had forgotten all the doubts, fears, jealousies, harsh words that had +stood between them, preventing their reunion. They were lovers again, +and were happy once more--for the first time, since he had taunted +Harriet with pitying _him_, as Mattie had taunted him that very day! + +Mattie forgave them--asked to be forgiven for intruding on their +reverie, and bringing them back to thoughts of others sat down with +them, and listened to their stories of what their future was to be--to +really be this time!--and how, in their generous hearts, they had built +a plan for Mattie's share in it. They saw only Mattie's effort to bring +them together, nothing else, in that hour; and they were very grateful, +and not selfish in their joy. + +"To think it has all ended as you wished at last--as you have prophesied +it would end!" said Harriet; "and to think that I even mistrusted you at +one time, and was cold towards you, who sacrificed so much for me, in +the old days." + +"_In the old days!_" thought Mattie. + +"It makes a great difference when one is unhappy," said Harriet; "we +look at things sceptically, and are mistrustful of all good intentions." + +"For awhile!" added Mattie. + +"Ah! for awhile!" repeated Sidney, "for we are three together now in +heart, and there is no mystery or misconception in the midst of us. For +ever after this--the sunshine!" + + * * * * * + +Sidney and Harriet were there when Mr. Gray returned; they spoke of +their reconciliation, and Mattie's share in it, and he listened very +patiently, betraying but little animation at the recital. He was more +anxious to speak of giving up the business, having other views, he +said--and still more anxious to see Sidney, the young man whom he had +loved like a son, and who had done such irreparable mischief, out of the +house. He knew Mattie would have to endure more, if Sidney called that +place home ever again; and Sidney, who thought of the natural +embarrassments which would attend his further stay there, was ready to +return to Red-Hill, and his uncle's home, after he had accompanied +Harriet to her father's. + +They were gone at last, and Mattie and her father were facing each +other. Mattie's face was white, and her lip was quivering just a little +as they went out together. + +"Courage, Mattie," he said, "we shall not give way now. We have fought +well, and the worst is over." + +"Yes, the very worst!" + +"You will not envy them their happiness--two weak addlepated mortals, +only fitted for each other. You will keep strong!" + +"For ever after to-day. But you must not be too critical with me now +that he is gone, and I have no longer any occasion to keep firm. Oh! +father, I loved him very, very much!" + +"It is hard to lose him, I know that," said he, as Mattie flung herself +into his arms, and wept there. + +"Harder to think that he never loved me after all!" + +"Courage!" he repeated, "God knows what is best for you. He will bring +you peace, I am sure!" + +And in good time, when Mattie was young still, the peace of God, which +passeth all understanding, rested on her, and rendered her content. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +CONCLUSION. + + +Linger not, O novel-writer, at the helm when the ship sails into the +harbour, or your readers will escape you. When the end is known, and the +facts and fancies pieced together, remarks are wearisome. The lovers +have made it up, and good fortune awaits them; _bon voyage!_--what's the +next story, who writes it, and is the heroine fair or dark, ugly or +handsome? The readers are off to fresh leaves and pastures new, in much +the same hurry as playhouse folk, who scent the conclusion and the tag, +are scrambling over their seats whilst paterfamilias is giving his +blessing to the young couple, who haven't agreed very well till the last +two minutes. + +Who would care at this late stage for Mr. Wesden's surprise at his +daughter's companion, or for his delight at things "coming comfortably +round?" The end is known; there is no room for fresh disasters--Sidney +Hinchford marries Harriet Wesden, and there's an end of _that_ book! + +And yet there is another scene with which we would fain conclude--those +readers who are in no hurry will be tolerant of our prolixity. It is a +fair picture, and we will very briefly sketch it whilst our guests +retire. + +A scene on shipboard--the ship outward-bound--the new minister and his +daughter standing on the deck, exchanging farewell greetings with +visitors that have surprised them by their presence there; Ann Packet, +with her money sewed in her stays, in the background. Two months have +passed since the events related in our last chapter--the partnership has +been dissolved, the business sold, friends taken leave of in a very +quiet manner by Mattie, who knows that it is for ever, and yet would +deceive them all by an equable demeanour, and a talk of going away for a +little while. + +The task is beyond her strength, and she betrays herself a little, and +suggests doubts, which resolve themselves to certainties, and lead to +this. + +She is glad now that they have found out the truth; she would have +spared herself a little pain, but lost a bright reminiscence--it is as +well to say "Good-bye" honestly and fairly, and not steal away from them +in the dark, and leave her name finally associated with a regret. + +They are all there who have ever cared for Mattie, or been indebted to +her. Sidney Hinchford and Harriet, and Harriet's father, very feeble +now, and more inclined to stare over people's heads than ever. They are +gently upbraiding Mattie for her vain deception, and speaking of the +sorrow they feel at losing her. The tears are in Mattie's eyes, and she +trembles and clings to the stout arm of her father, whilst she offers +her excuses. + +"I had not the courage to look you all steadily in the face and say that +I was going away for ever--I preferred to see you all one by one, as +though nothing was about to happen to separate us, and to leave to the +letters, which are already in the post-office, the last news which you +have thus forestalled." + +"You speaking of want of courage! said Harriet. + +"I am stronger now--I am glad now to see you all--I can bear to say +good-bye to you." + +She says it well and stoutly, too, when the time comes, and friends are +warned to let the ship proceed upon its course, and not delay it by +their presence there. With Sidney, facing him with her hands in his, she +gives way somewhat; she lets him stoop and kiss her--for the second time +in life--the last! + +"God bless you, Mattie!--best of women!" he murmurs. + +"God bless you, Sidney!--with this dear girl!" + +She flings herself into Harriet's arms, and cries there for a little +while--there is no jealousy now--Harriet is the little girl of old, old +days, the first of all these friends she has learned to love, and is +learning now to part with. + +"To lose _you_, Mattie--the friend, sister, counsellor, whose good words +and strong love have kept me from sinking more than once--it _is_ hard!" + +"In a few months, a wiser, better, and more natural counsellor than +I--trust in each other, and have no secrets--don't forget me!" + +Thus they parted--thus hoping for the best, and believing that the best +had come for all, Mattie is borne away to the new world, wherein her +father had prophesied would come new friends, new happiness. And they +came; for Mattie made no enemies in life, and won much love, and was +rewarded for much labour in God's service, by that good return, even on +earth, which renders labour sweet and profitable. + + +THE END. + + + + +MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S LIST OF NEW WORKS. + + +COURT AND SOCIETY FROM ELIZABETH TO ANNE, Edited from the Papers at +Kimbolton, by the Duke of Manchester. Second Edition, Revised. + +Opinions of the Press. + + + From The Athanaeum.--"The Duke of Manchester has done a welcome + service to the lover of gossip and secret history by publishing + these family papers. Persons who like to see greatness without + the plumes and mail in which history presents it, will accept + these volumes with hearty thanks to their noble editor. In them + will be found something new about many men and women in whom + the reader can never cease to feel an interest--much about the + divorce of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Arragon--a great + deal about the love affairs of Queen Elizabeth--something about + Bacon and (indirectly) about Shakspeare--more about Lord Essex + and Lady Rich--the very strange story of Walter Montagu, poet, + profigate, courtier, pervert, secret agent, abbot--many details + of the Civil War and Cromwell's Government, and of the + Restoration--much that is new about the Revolution and the + Settlement, the exiled Court of St Germains, the wars of + William of Orange, the campaigns of Marlborough, the intrigues + of Duchess Sarah, and the town life of fine ladies and + gentlemen during the days of Anne. With all this is mingled a + good deal of gossip about the loves of great poets, the + frailties of great beauties, the rivalries of great wits, the + quarrels of great peers." + + From The Times.--"These volumes are sure to excite curiosity. A + great deal of interesting matter is here collected, from + sources which are not within everybody's reach." + + From The Morning Post.--"The public are indebted to the noble + author for contributing, from the archives of his ancestral + seat, many important documents otherwise inaccessible to the + historical inquirer, as well as for the lively, picturesque, + and piquant sketches of Court and Society, which render his + work powerfully attractive to the general reader. The work + contains varied information relating to secret Court intrigues, + numerous narratives of an exciting nature, and valuable + materials for authentic history. Scarcely any personage whose + name figured before the world during the long period embraced + by the volumes is passed over in silence." + + From The Morning Herald.--"In commending these volumes to our + readers, we can assure them that they will find a great deal of + very delightful and very instructive reading." + + From The Daily News,--"The merits of the Duke of Manchester's + work are numerous. The substance of the book is new; it ranges + over by far the most interesting and important period of our + history; it combines in its notice of men and things infinite + variety; and the author has command of a good style, graceful, + free, and graphic." + + From The Star.--"The reading public are indebted to the Duke of + Manchester for two very interesting and highly valuable + volumes. The Duke has turned to good account the historical + treasures of Kimbolton. We learn a good deal in these volumes + about Queen Elizabeth and her love affairs, which many grave + historical students may have ignored. A chapter full of + interest is given to Penelope Devereux, the clever, charming, + and disreputable sister of the Earl of Essex. The Montagu or + Manchester family and their fortunes are traced out in the + volumes, and there are anecdotes, disclosures, reminiscences, + or letters, telling us something of James and Charles I., of + Oliver Cromwell, of Buckingham, of 'Sacharissa,' of Prior, + Peterborough, and Boling-broke, of Swift, Addison, and Harley, + of Marlborough and Shovel, of Vanbrugh and Congreve, of Court + lords and fine ladies, of Jacobites and Williamites, of + statesmen and singers, of the Council Chamber and the Opera + House. Indeed, it would not be easy to find a work of our day + which contains so much to be read and so little to be passed + over." + + From The Observer.--"These valuable volumes will be eagerly + read by all classes, who will obtain from them not only + pleasant reading and amusement, but instruction given in an + agreeable form. The Duke of Manchester has done good service to + the literary world, and merits the highest praise for the + admirable manner in which he has carried out his plan." + + + +THE LIFE OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING, Minister of the National Scotch +Church, London. Illustrated by his Journal and Correspondence. By Mrs. +Oliphant. Third and Cheaper Edition. + + + "We who read these memoirs must own to the nobility of Irving's + character, the grandeur of his aims, and the extent of his + powers. His friend Carlyle bears this testimony to his + worth:--'I call him, on the whole, the best man I have ever, + after trial enough, found in this world, or hope to find.' A + character such as this is deserving of study, and his life + ought to be written. Mrs. Oliphant has undertaken the work, and + has produced a biography of considerable merit. The author + fully understands her hero, and sets forth the incidents of his + career with the skill of a practised hand. The book is a good + book on a most interesting theme."--_Times._ + + "Mrs. Oliphant's 'Life of Edward Irving' supplies a long-felt + desideratum. It is copious, earnest, and eloquent. On every + page there is the impress of a large and masterly + comprehension, and of a bold, fluent, and poetic skill of + portraiture. Irving as a man and as a pastor is not only fully + sketched, but exhibited with many broad, powerful, and + life-like touches, which leave a strong + impression."--_Edinburgh Review._ + + "We thank Mrs. Oliphant for her beautiful and pathetic + narrative. Hers is a book which few of any creed can read + without some profit, and still fewer will close without regret. + It is saying much, in this case, to say that the biographer is + worthy of the man. * * * The journal which Irving kept is one + of the most remarkable records that was ever given to the + public, and must be read by any who would form a just + appreciation of his noble and simple character."--_Blackwood's + Magazine._ + + "A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. Irving's life + ought to have a niche in every gallery of religious biography. + There are few lives that will be fuller of instruction, + interest, and consolation."--_Saturday Review._ + + "A highly instructive and profoundly interesting life of Edward + Irving."--_Scotsman._ + + + +CHEAP EDITION of LES MISERABLES. By VICTOR HUGO. THE AUTHORIZED +COPYRIGHT ENGLISH TRANSLATION, Illustrated by Millais, forming a Volume +of Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library of Cheap Editions of Popular +Modern Works. + + + "We think it will be seen on the whole that this work has + something more than the beauties of an exquisite style or the + word-compelling power of a literary Zeus to recommend it to the + tender care of a distant posterity; that in dealing with all + the emotions, passions, doubts, fears, which go to make up our + common humanity, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon every page the + hall mark of genius and the loving patience and conscientious + labour of a true artist. But the merits of 'Les Miserables' do + not merely consist in the conception of it as a whole, it + abounds page after page with details of unequalled + beauty."--_Quarterly Review._ + + "'Les Miserables' is one of those rare works which have a + strong personal interest in addition to their intrinsic + importance. It is not merely the work of a truly great man, but + it is his great and favourite work--the fruit of years of + thought and labour. Victor Hugo is almost the only French + imaginative writer of the present century who is entitled to be + considered as a man of genius. He has wonderful poetical power, + and he has the faculty which hardly any other French novelist + possesses, of drawing beautiful as well as striking pictures. + Another feature for which Victor Hugo's book deserves high + praise is its perfect purity. Anyone who reads the Bible and + Shakspeare may read 'Les Miserables.' The story is admirable, + and is put together with unsurpassable art, care, life, and + simplicity. Some of the characters are drawn with consummate + skill."--_Daily News._ + + + +A YOUNG ARTIST'S LIFE. + + + "This very charming story is a perfect poem in prose. Lovingly + and tenderly is the career of the young artist depicted by one + who apparently knew and appreciated him well. Many will + recognise in the biographer a writer who has on more than one + occasion found favour with the public, but never has he written + more freshly, more charmingly, than in the pages of this + pathetic romance of real life."--_Sun._ + + + A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THIRTEEN YEARS' SERVICE AMONGST THE + WILD TRIBES OF KHONDISTAN, FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF HUMAN + SACRIFICE. By Major-General John Campbell, with Illustrations. + + + "Major-General Campbell's book is one of thrilling interest, + and must be pronounced the most remarkable narrative of the + present season."--_Athenaeum._ + + + +THE DESTINY OF NATIONS, as indicated in Prophecy. By the Rev. John +Cumming. + + + "Among the subjects expounded by Dr. Cumming in this + interesting volume are The Little Horn, or, The Papacy; The + Waning Crescent, Turkey; The Lost Ten Tribes; and the Future of + the Jews and Judea, Africa, France, Russia, America, Great + Britain, &c."--_Observer._ "One of the most able of Dr. + Cumming's works."--_Messenger._ + + + +MEMOIRS OF JANE CAMERON, FEMALE CONVICT. By a Prison Matron, Author of +"Female Life in Prison." + + + "This narrative, as we can well believe, is truthful in every + important particular--a faithful chronicle of a woman's fall + and rescue. It is a book that ought to be widely + read."--_Examiner._ "There can be no doubt as to the interest + of the book, which, moreover, is very well + written."--_Athenaeum._ + + "Once or twice a-year one rises from reading a book with a + sense of real gratitude to the author, and this book is one of + these. There are many ways in which it has a rare value. The + artistic touches in this book are worthy of De Foe."--_Reader._ + + + +TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF AN OFFICER'S WIFE IN INDIA, CHINA, AND NEW +ZEALAND. By Mrs. Muter, Wife of Lieut-Colonel D. D. Muter, 13th (Prince +Albert's) Light Infantry. + + + + "Mrs. Muter's travels deserve to be recommended, as combining + instruction and amusement in a more than ordinary degree. The + work has the interest of a romance added to that of + history."--_Athenaeum._ + + + +TRAVELS ON HORSEBACK IN MANTCHU TARTARY: being a Summer's Ride beyond +the Great Wall of China, By George Fleming, Military Train. With Map and +50 Illustrations. + + + "Mr. Fleming's narrative is a most charming one. He has an + untrodden region to tell of, and he photographs it and its + people and their ways. Life-like descriptions are interspersed + with personal anecdotes, local legends, and stories of + adventure, some of them revealing no common artistic + power."--_Spectator._ + + "Mr. Fleming has many of the best qualities of the + traveller--good spirits, an excellent temper, sound sense, the + faculty of observation, and a literary culture which has + enlarged his sympathies with men and things. He has rendered us + his debtor for much instruction and amusement. The value of his + book is greatly enhanced by the illustrations, as graphic as + copious and well executed, which is saying much."--_Reader._ + + + +ADVENTURES AND RESEARCHES among the ANDAMAN ISLANDERS. By Dr. Mouat, +F.R.G.S., &c. with Illustrations. + + + "Dr. Mouat's book, whilst forming a most important and valuable + contribution to ethnology, will be read with interest by the + general reader."--_Athenaeum._ + + + +MEMOIRS OF QUEEN HORTENSE, MOTHER OF NAPOLEON III. Cheaper Edition, in +one vol. + + + "A biography of the beautiful and unhappy Queen, more + satisfactory than any we have yet met with."--_Daily News._ + + +A LADY'S VISIT TO MANILLA & JAPAN. By Anna D'A, with Illustration. + + + "This book is written in a lively, agreeable, natural style, + and we cordially recommend it as containing a fund of varied + information connected with the Far East, not to be found + recorded in so agreeable a manner in any other volume with + which we are acquainted."--_Press._ + + + +THE WANDERER IN WESTERN FRANCE. By G. T. Lowth. Esq., Author of "The +Wanderer in Arabia." Illustrated by the Hon. Eliot Yorke. + + + + "Mr. Lowth reminds us agreeably of Washington + Irving."--_Athenaeum._ + + "If Mr. Lowth's conversation is only half as good as his book, + he must be a very charming acquaintance. The art of gossiping + in his style, never wearying the listener, yet perpetually + conveying to him valuable information, is a very rare one, and + he possesses it in perfection. No one will quit his volume + without feeling that he understands Brittany and La + Vendee."--_Spectator._ + + +THE LAST DECADE of a GLORIOUS REIGN; completing "THE HISTORY of HENRY +IV., King of France and Navarre," from Original and Authentic Sources. +By M. W. Freer, with Portraits. + + + "The best and most comprehensive work on the reign of Henry IV. + available to English readers."--_Examiner._ + + + +A WINTER IN UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT. By G. A. Hoskins, Esq., F.R.G.S., +with Illustrations. + + + + "An eminently interesting and attractive book, containing much + valuable information. Intending Nile travellers, whether for + science, health, or recreation, could not have a better + companion. Mr. Hoskins's descriptions are vigorous and graphic, + and have the further merit of being fresh and recent, and of + presenting many striking pictures of Egypt and its people in + our own days."--_Herald._ + + + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS. Being the Narrative of a Winter Residence and +Summer Travel in Greece and its Islands. By Fredrika Bremer. Translated +by Mary Howitt. 2 vols. + + + + "The best book of travels which this charming authoress has + given to the public."--_Athenaeum._ + + +POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ART. By His Eminence Cardinal +Wiseman. + + + + "Cardinal Wiseman's interesting work contains suggestions of + real value. It is divided into three heads, treating + respectively of painting, sculpture, and architecture. The + cardinal handles his subject in a most agreeable manner."--_Art + Journal._ + + + +HEROES, PHILOSOPHERS, AND COURTIERS of the TIME of LOUIS XVI. 2 vols. + + + "This work is full of amusing and interesting anecdote, and + supplies many links in the great chain of events of a most + remarkable period."--_Examiner._ + + + +MEMOIRS OF CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN. By Henry Woodhead. 2 vols, with +Portrait. + + + "An impartial history of the life of Queen Christina and + portraiture of her character are placed before the public in + these valuable and interesting volumes."--_Press._ + + + +LIFE AMONG CONVICTS. By the Rev. C. B. Gibson, M.R.I.A., Chaplain in the +Convict Service. 2 vols. + + + "All concerned in that momentous question--the treatment of our + convicts--may peruse with interest and benefit the very + valuable information laid before them by Mr. Gibson in the most + pleasant and lucid manner possible."--_Sun._ + + + +ENGLISH WOMEN OF LETTERS. By Julia Kavanagh, Author of "Nathalie," +"Adele," "French Women of Letters," "Queen Mab," &c. 2 vols. + + +HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE DISGRACE OF +CHIEF JUSTICE COKE. By Samuel Rawson Gardiner, late Student of +Christchurch. 2 vols. + + +ITALY UNDER VICTOR EMMANUEL. A Personal Narrative. By Count Charles +Arrivabene. + + + "Whoever wishes to gain an insight into the Italy of the + present moment, and to know what she is, what she has done, and + what she has to do, should consult Count Arrivabene's ample + volumes, which are written in a style singularly vivid and + dramatic."--_Dicken's All the Year Round._ + + + +THE PRIVATE DIARY OF RICHARD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHANDOS, K.G. 3 +vols. + + +MAN; or, THE OLD AND NEW PHILOSOPHY: Being Notes and Facts for the +Curious, with especial reference to recent writers on the subject of the +Antiquity of Man. By the Rev. B. W. Savile, M.A., 1 vol. + + +DRIFTWOOD, SEAWEED, AND FALLEN LEAVES. By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. 2 +vols. + + +THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, R.A., from Original Letters and Papers +furnished by his Friends, and Fellow Academicians. By Walter Thornbury. +2 vols. with Portraits and other Illustrations. + + +TRAVELS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA; with the Narrative of a Yacht Voyage round +Vancouver's Island. By Captain C. E. Barrett Lennard. 1 vol. + + +THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCHES; or, THE PAPACY AND THE TEMPORAL POWER. By +Dr. Doellinger. Translated, by W. B. Mac Cabe. + + +THE OKAVANGO RIVER; A NARRATIVE OF TRAVEL, EXPLORATION, AND ADVENTURE. +By Charles John Andersson, Author of "Lake Ngami." 1 vol., with Portrait +and numerous Illustrations. + + +TRAVELS IN THE REGIONS OF THE AMOOR, and the Russian Acquisitions on the +Confines of India and China. By T. W. Atkinson, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Author +of "Oriental and Western Siberia." Dedicated, by permission, to Her +Majesty. Second Edition. With Map and 88 Illustrations. + + +THIRTY YEARS' MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS. By Henry F. Chorley. 2 vols., with +Portraits. + + +LOST AND SAVED. By The Hon. Mrs. Norton. Cheap Edition. Illustrated by +Millais. + + +Under The Especial Patronage of her Majesty. + +_Published annually in One Vol._ + +LODGE'S PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE, CORRECTED BY THE NOBILITY, THE +THIRTY-THIRD EDITION FOR 1864 IS NOW READY. + + + Lodge's Peerage and Baronetage is acknowledged to be the most + complete, as well as the most elegant, work of the kind. As an + established and authentic authority on all questions respecting + the family histories, honours, and connections of the titled + aristocracy, no work has ever stood so high. It is published + under the especial patronage of Her Majesty, and is annually + corrected throughout, from the personal communications of the + Nobility. It is the only work of its class in which, _the type + being kept constantly standing_, every correction is made in + its proper place to the date of publication, an advantage which + gives it supremacy over all its competitors. Independently of + its full and authentic information respecting the existing + Peers and Baronets of the realm, the most sedulous attention is + given in its pages to the collateral branches of the various + noble families, and the names of many thousand individuals are + introduced, which do not appear in other records of the titled + classes. For its authority, correctness, and facility of + arrangement, and the beauty of its typography and binding, the + work is justly entitled to the place it occupies on the tables + of Her Majesty and the Nobility. + + + LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS + + Historical View of the Peerage. + Parliamentary Roll of the House of Lords. + + English, Scotch, and Irish Peers, in their + orders of Precedence. + + Alphabetical List of Peers of Great Britain + and the United Kingdom, holding superior + rank in the Scotch or Irish Peerage. + + Alphabetical List of Scotch and Irish Peers, + holding superior titles in the Peerage of + Great Britain and the United Kingdom. + + A Collective List of Peers, in their order of + Precedence. + + Table of Precedency among Men. + + Table of Precedency among Women. + + The Queen and the Royal Family. + + Peers of the Blood Royal. + + The Peerage, alphabetically arranged. + + Families of such Extinct Peers as have left + Widows or Issue. + + Alphabetical List of the Surnames of all the + Peers. + + The Archbishops and Bishops of England, + Ireland, and the Colonies. + + The Baronetage, alphabetically arranged. + + Alphabetical List of Surnames assumed by + members of Noble Families. + + Alphabetical List of the Second Titles of + Peers, usually borne by their Eldest + Sons. + + Alphabetical Index to the Daughters of + Dukes, Marquises, and Earls, who, having + married Commoners, retain the title + of Lady before their own Christian and + their Husbands' Surnames, + + Alphabetical Index to the Daughters of + Viscounts and Barons, who, having married + Commoners, are styled Honourable + Mrs.; and, in case of the husband being + a Baronet or Knight, Honourable Lady. + + Mottoes alphabetically arranged and translated. + + "Lodge's Peerage must supersede all other works of the kind, + for two reasons: first, it is on a better plan; and secondly, + it is better executed. We can safely pronounce it to be the + readiest, the most useful, and exactest of modern works on the + subject."--_Spectator._ + + "A work which corrects all errors of former works. It is a most + useful publication."--_Times._ + + "As perfect a Peerage as we are ever likely to see + published."--_Herald._ + + + + + +MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S LIST OF NEW WORKS + +_In Preparation._ + +THE LIFE OF JOSIAH WEDGWOOD; from his Private Correspondence and Family +Papers, in the possession of Joseph Mayer, Esq., F.S.A., and other +Authentic Sources. By Eliza Meteyard. With fine Portraits and numerous +Illustrations. + +WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. By Victor Hugo. Authorized English Translation. 1 +vol. (Now Ready.) + + +A JOURNEY FROM LONDON TO PERSEPOLIS--INCLUDING A SUMMER'S WANDERINGS IN +THE CAUCASUS, THROUGH GEORGIA AND THE MOUNTAINS OF DAGHESTAN; with the +Narrative of a Ride through Armenia and Babylonia to the Persian Gulf, +returning through Persia and Asia Minor to the shores of the Black Sea. +By J. Ussher, Esq., F.R.G.S., with numerous beautiful Illustrations. + + +REMINISCENCES OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SIR GEORGE BURDETT +L'ESTRANGE: a Westminster Boy, an Officer in the Peninsula, a Guardsman, +Sportsman, Man of Business, and Chamberlain to Seven Viceroys of +Ireland. Written by Himself. Dedicated, by permission, to His Excellency +the Earl of Carlisle, K.G., Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 2 vols., with +fine Portraits. + + +JOHN GRESWOLD. By the Author of "Paul Ferrol," &c. 2 vols. (Now Ready.) + + +MY LIFE AND RECOLLECTIONS. By the Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley. 2 vols., +with Portrait. + + +NOT DEAD YET. By J. C. Jeaffreson, Author of "Live it Down," &c. 3 vols. + + +REMINISCENCES OF THE OPERA. By Benjamin Lumley, Twenty Years' Director +of Her Majesty's Theatre. 1 vol., with Portrait. + + +MATTIE: A STRAY. By the Author of "No Church," "Owen: a Waif," &c. 3 +vols. + +BRIGANDS AND BRIGANDAGE IN SOUTHERN ITALY. By Count Maffei. 2 vols. + +A GUARDIAN ANGEL. By the Author of "A Trap to Catch a Sunbeam," &c. 2 +vols. + + + + +THE NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS, PUBLISHED BY HURST & BLACKETT. + + +JANITA'S CROSS. By the Author of "St. Olave's." 3 vols. + + +ADELA CATHCART. By George MacDonald, M.A., Author of "David Elginbrod," +&c. 3 vols. + + + "'Adela Cathcart' is a delightful book. Written in purest + English, quaint, sparkling, and graceful, anon delighting us + with flashes of humour, or winning us with true and subtle + pathos, it may at once take up its position among the + masterpieces of modern English fiction."--_Sunday Times._ + + + +DR. JACOB. By the Author of "John and I." + + + "There is much freshness and originality of conception about + this book. Fraulein Fink, with her school and her literary + tattle, the chaplain and his family, the professors and the + thousand and one little touches which make up the picture of + every-day easy genial life in Germany, have much of the + picturesque force and vivid reality of 'Villette.'"--_Saturday + Review._ + + +PECULIAR. A TALE OF THE GREAT TRANSITION. Edited by William Howitt. 3 +vols. + + + "Since Mrs. Stowe's 'Uncle Tom' we have had no tale of a + similar nature so true, so life-like, till the present + publication of 'Peculiar.'"--_Observer._ + + + +BARBARA'S HISTORY. By Amelia B. Edwards. Second Edition. + + + "It is not often that we light upon a new novel of so much + merit and interest as 'Barbara's History.' It is a work + conspicuous beyond the average for taste and literary culture, + and felicitous in its delineation of some very delicate and + refined shades of character. It is a very graceful and charming + book, with a well-managed story, clearly-cut characters, and + sentiments expressed with an exquisite elocution. The dialogues + especially sparkle with repartee. It is a book which the world + will like, and which those who commence it will care to finish. + This is high praise of a work of art, and so we intend + it."--_The Times._ + + "If Miss Edwards goes on writing such stories as 'Barbara's + History,' she will on some bright day of a lucky season wake up + and find herself famous. Miss Edwards has qualities superior to + mere literary facility; she has humour, insight into character, + and an extensive knowledge of books. We give her full credit + for having written a thoroughly-readable and deeply-interesting + novel."--_Athenaeum._ + + + +WILDFIRE. By Walter Thornbury. 3 vols. + + + "An excellent tale, imbued with the strongest + interest."--_Daily News._ + + + +RATHLYNN. By the Author of "The Saxon in Ireland." 3 vols. + + +MY STEPFATHER'S HOME. By Lady Blake. 3 v. + + +A WOMAN'S RANSOM. By F. W. Robinson, Author of "Grandmother's Money," +&c. 3 vols. + + +ELLA NORMAN; OR, A WOMAN'S PERILS. By Elizabeth A. Murray. Dedicated to +the Duchess of Athole. + + +FOR EVER. By A Clergyman. 3 vols. + + +QUEEN MAB. By Julia Kavanagh, Author of "Nathalie," "Adele," &c. Second +Edition. 3 vols. + + +THE WIFE'S EVIDENCE. By W. G. Wills. + +LIVE IT DOWN. By J. C. Jeaffreson, Third Edition. Revised. 3 vols. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 3 of 3), by +Frederick William Robinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 3 OF 3) *** + +***** This file should be named 35278.txt or 35278.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/7/35278/ + +Produced by Louise Davies, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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