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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 2 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 2 of 3)
+
+Author: Frederick William Robinson
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2011 [EBook #35291]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 2 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. II.
+
+    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 SECOND VOLUME.
+
+
+BOOK III. UNDER SUSPICION.--CONTINUED.
+
+IX. THE CLOUDS THICKEN
+
+X. MATTIE IN SEARCH
+
+XI. EXPLANATIONS
+
+XII. A SHORT WARNING
+
+XIII. LEAVE-TAKINGS
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+"WANT PLACES."
+
+I. ONE AND TWENTY
+
+II. SIDNEY'S CONFESSION
+
+III. A FLYING VISIT TO NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+IV. HIS TURN
+
+V. THE NEW BERTH
+
+
+BOOK V. STORM SIGNALS.
+
+I. CAST DOWN
+
+II. IN WHICH SEVERAL DISCOVERIES COME TOGETHER
+
+III. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+IV. ONLY PITY
+
+V. AN UNAVAILING EFFORT
+
+VI. MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED
+
+VII. A DINNER PARTY
+
+VIII. MATTIE'S CONFESSION
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CONTINUED.
+
+UNDER SUSPICION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CLOUDS THICKEN.
+
+
+Mattie had fully anticipated a visit from Mr. Wesden on the day
+following Sidney Hinchford's departure, but the master appeared not at
+the little shop in Great Suffolk Street. It was not till the following
+day that he arrived--at six in the morning, as the boy was taking down
+the shutters. Mattie's heart began beating painfully fast; she had
+become very nervous concerning Mr. Wesden, and his thoughts of her.
+Appearances had been against her of late, and he was a man who did not
+think so charitably as he acted sometimes.
+
+He gave a gruff good morning, and came behind the counter.
+
+"You can do what you like to-day," he said. "I'll mind the shop."
+
+"Very well, sir. I--I suppose," she added, hastily, "Miss Harriet has
+told you what happened the day before yesterday?"
+
+"I know all about it. I don't want to talk about it."
+
+"But I do, sir!"
+
+Mr. Wesden stared over Mattie's head after his old fashion. His will had
+been law so long, that disputing it rather took him aback.
+
+"I know that these losses put you out, Mr. Wesden," said Mattie, firmly;
+"that they are due to my own carelessness--to having been taken off my
+guard after all my watch here, all my interest in everything connected
+with the business. I dream of the shop,--I would not neglect it for the
+world,--and it _is_ hard to be so unfortunate as I have been. Mr.
+Wesden, you wouldn't let me repay back the money which was taken away
+from the house; but I must pay the value of that parcel stolen from
+before my very eyes."
+
+"It was large enough to see," he added, "and I expect you to pay for it,
+Mattie."
+
+"What was it worth?"
+
+"You shall have the bill to settle, if you've saved as much--it will
+come in next week. And now, just understand, once for all, that I don't
+want to talk about it--that I object very much to talk about it."
+
+"Very well."
+
+The subject was dropped; Mattie felt herself in disgrace, and, intensely
+sorrowful at heart, she went down-stairs to tell Ann Packet all that her
+carelessness had brought upon her.
+
+"He's an old savage, my dear--don't mind him."
+
+"No, Ann--he's a dear old friend, and his anger is just enough. It was
+all my fault!"
+
+"Well, he's not such a bad master as he might be, pr'aps; but he isn't
+what he used to be before my ankles took to swelling, nothing like it."
+
+"It will soon blow over, I hope," said Mattie.
+
+"Bless your heart!--puffed away in a breath, it'll be."
+
+Mattie, ever ready to console others, received consolation in her turn;
+and hoped for the best.
+
+Late in the evening, Mr. Wesden departed, and early next day, much to
+Mattie's surprise, Harriet Wesden, with a box or two, arrived in a cab
+to the house.
+
+Mattie watched the entrance of the boxes, and looked very closely into
+the face of the young mistress. Harriet, with a smile that was well got
+up for the occasion, advanced to her.
+
+"Think, Mattie, of my coming here to spend a week with you--of being
+your companion. Why, it'll be the old times back again."
+
+"I should be more glad to see you if I thought there were no other
+reason, Miss Harriet," said Mattie--"but there is!"
+
+"Why, what can there----"
+
+Mattie caught her by the sleeve.
+
+"Your father suspects that I am not honest--the past life has come a
+little closer, and made him repent of all the past kindness--is not that
+it?"
+
+"No, no, Mattie, dear--you must not think that!"
+
+"He has grown suspicious of me--I can see it in his looks, in his
+altered manner; and, oh! I can do nothing to stop it--to show him that I
+am as honest as the day."
+
+"Patience, Mattie, dear," said Harriet, "we will soon prove that to him,
+if he require proof. If I have come at his wish, it was at my own, too,
+and you are exaggerating the reasons that have brought me hither."
+
+"I wonder why I stop here now," said Mattie, thoughtfully. "I, who am a
+young woman, and can get my own living. If he is tired of me, I have no
+right to stop."
+
+"You will stop for the sake of those who love you, and who have trust in
+you, Mattie; you will not think of going away."
+
+"Well, not yet awhile. I think," dashing a rebellious tear from her dark
+eyes, "that I can bear more than this before I leave you all. And if
+things _do_ look a little dark just now, I shall live them down, with
+God's help!"
+
+"There's nothing dark--it's three-fourths fancy. Think of my sorrows,
+Mattie, and thank heaven that you have never been in love!"
+
+"Dreadful sorrows yours are, Miss Harriet, I must say!"
+
+"People never think much of other people's sorrows," remarked Harriet,
+sententiously.
+
+Thus it came about that Harriet Wesden and Mattie were thrown into
+closer companionship for awhile, and that Mattie began to think that the
+constant presence of the girl she loved most in the world made ample
+amends for the suspicions which had placed her there, for the absence of
+Sidney Hinchford, and the mystery by which it had been characterized.
+
+"It's astonishing how I miss Mr. Sidney," Mattie said, confidently, to
+Harriet, "though we did not say much more than 'good morning,' and 'good
+evening,' from one week's end to another--but he has been so long here,
+and become so long a part of home, that it does seem strange to have the
+place without him."
+
+"And the letter--he never got the letter, after all," sighed Harriet.
+
+"There it is, on the drawing-room mantel-piece," said Mattie; "bad news
+awaiting his return. I see it every morning there, and think of his
+coming disappointment."
+
+"He'll soon get over it--men soon get over it," replied Harriet, "they
+have so much to do in the world, and so many things therein to distract
+them. It's not like us poor girls, who think of nothing else but whom it
+is best to love, and who will love _us_ best."
+
+"Speak for your own romantic self, Miss Harriet," said Mattie, laughing.
+
+"You never think of these things!--you, close on eighteen years of age!"
+
+"Never," said Mattie, fearlessly; "I seem a little out of the way of
+it--it's not in my line. But--I understand it well enough."
+
+"Or you would have never taken my part against poor old Sid," said
+Harriet.
+
+"And that reminds me that I am neglecting poor old Sid's father, and I
+promised not."
+
+Sid's father required no small amount of attention Mattie very quickly
+discovered; the absence of his son preyed upon the old gentleman, and
+left him entirely alone. The place was a desert without "the boy;"--with
+all his love for him, he could not have imagined that his absence would
+have led to such a blank. He thought that he could have put up with it,
+and jogged along in his old methodical way until Sid's return; but the
+horrors seized him in the attempt, and it was more of a struggle to keep
+time from killing him, than to kill the hoary enemy by distraction of
+pursuits.
+
+He became absent over the account-books at the builder's office, and the
+clerks laughed at him and his mistakes; whilst the employers, who had
+found him slow in his movements for some time, thought he was getting
+past work and becoming unendurable. These old-fashioned clerks will get
+in the way, when the hand grows feeble, and the memory betrays them.
+Commerce has no fine feelings, and must sweep them aside for better men
+without compunction.
+
+Mattie, remembering her promise to Sidney, and favoured in the
+performance of it by Harriet's extra service, played her cards well, and
+helped to wile away many hours that would have weighed heavily with Mr.
+Hinchford. An excuse to enter the room led to a remark concerning
+Sidney, which rendered the old gentleman voluble--and the presence of
+Harriet Wesden down-stairs, his son's future wife, formed a good excuse
+to lure him into the parlour, and persuade him to smoke his pipe there.
+Then Mattie began to think that she should like to know backgammon, and
+Mr. Hinchford condescended to instruct her, as he had instructed her,
+when she was younger, in orthography and syntax. And finally, when he
+was becoming excited about Sidney's non-appearance, and resolved one
+night to sit up for him, as he was positive of his return, Mattie
+essayed that difficult and delicate task which Sidney had confided to
+her--a task which Harriet was inclined to take upon herself--and
+somewhat jealous of Mattie being entrusted with it in her stead.
+
+"He wrote to me the night he left--why didn't he ask me to console his
+father, I wonder?"
+
+Mattie thought it was for the reason that consolation might be required
+at any moment, and that Sidney was ignorant of Harriet's intention to
+stay a few weeks at Great Suffolk Street--but Harriet Wesden on the
+scene was no reason for Mattie to relinquish her rights. Besides, she
+had confidence in her own powers of breaking the news--and the unopened
+death-warrant on the mantel-piece was evidence of Harriet Wesden's
+rights being at an end.
+
+The story was told by degrees then--what Mr. Sidney had said to Mattie
+and wished her to do,--told with a gentleness and earnestness which did
+credit to Mattie's powers, and proved what a thoughtful, gentle woman
+she was becoming. Under the circumstances, also, she made the best of
+it, and though Mr. Hinchford pulled at his stock, and ruffled his white
+hair, and took a long while to understand it, yet it was a successful
+revelation.
+
+"Always considerate, Mr. Sidney is," said Mattie, in conclusion; "most
+sons would have spoken out the truth at once, and gone away, leaving
+their fathers wholly miserable; he went at the subject like a daughter
+almost--didn't he, sir?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford had felt inclined to believe himself treated childishly,
+till Mattie put the question in this new light.
+
+"Ah! he did----" he burst forth with; "he's a dear lad! What a lucky
+girl that Harriet Wesden is!"
+
+Time passed on, and no Sidney's return. The nights drew in closer yet,
+and with their lengthier darkness deepened the shadows round the lives
+of all our characters. Sidney had stated his intention to write no
+letters, but they were expected nevertheless, and Harriet began to fancy
+that it was a little strange--as strange as her interest in Sidney and
+his movements, now that she had given him up for ever! A letter for
+herself, from Miss Eveleigh, diverted her attention somewhat--it had
+been sent to Camberwell and posted on by her father.
+
+"Miss Eveleigh is very anxious to see me for a few minutes," said
+Harriet. "She and her mother think of getting up some private
+theatricals at New-Cross, and they want my assistance and advice."
+
+"Private theatricals!--that's playing at being actors and actresses,
+isn't it, Miss Harriet?"
+
+"Oh! yes. Such capital fun!"
+
+"For the people who come to see you as well?" asked Mattie, guessing by
+intuition where the shoe must pinch.
+
+"To be sure," responded Harriet; "they wouldn't come if they did not
+like, my dear; and the change will do me good, and I think I'll go."
+
+Mattie detected a heightened colour in Harriet's cheek.
+
+"You will see Mr. Darcy there?"
+
+"Well--perhaps I shall," said Harriet; "and I have a right to think
+about him now, or let him think about me, if he will. Mattie, you don't
+mind me going?"
+
+"Mind!--why have I a right to stop you?"
+
+"No; only I shall leave you all alone with that wearisome old man."
+
+"He'll not weary me. Old friends never do."
+
+"That sounds like a reproach, but you don't mean it, Mattie," said
+Harriet; "and, after all, I shall not be very long away. I shall take
+the train from London Bridge, and be there and back by eight o'clock."
+
+Harriet hurried away to dress for her expedition; she came down in a
+flutter of high spirits, a very different being from the despondent,
+lackadaisical girl of a few weeks since. She had made up her mind to
+begin life and love afresh; uncertainty was over with her, and she was
+as gay and bright as the sunshine. But hers was a nature fit only for
+sunshine--the best and most loveable of girls when the shadows of
+every-day life were not cast on her track.
+
+"By eight o'clock, Mattie; good-bye, my dear. Any advice?" she asked,
+pausing, with a saucy look about her mouth.
+
+"Yes. Don't fall too deeply in love with Mr. Darcy, before you are sure
+that he is falling in love with you!"
+
+"I can bring him to my feet with a look," she said; "bring him home here
+with a chain round his neck, like an amiable terrier."
+
+"Let me have an opportunity of admiring your choice soon--we're all in
+the dark at present."
+
+"Yes, father and mother too, until poor Sid," suddenly becoming grave,
+"breaks the seal of that letter it gave me grey hairs to write. Upon my
+word, Mattie, I found two in my head when I had finished it. I was _so_
+dreadfully shocked!"
+
+"Well, the troubles are over."
+
+"I think so--I hope so. Good-bye, my dear. Tell father where I have
+gone, if he should look in to-night. Home very early!"
+
+She fluttered away, pausing to look in at the window and laugh through
+at Mattie once more.
+
+"Perhaps it was as well she gave Sidney up," Mattie thought; "for she
+has been happier since, and all her dear bright looks are back again.
+What a wonderful man this Mr. Darcy must be! How I should like to see my
+darling's choice--the man that she thinks good enough for her! He must
+be a very good man, too; for with all her weakness, my Harriet despises
+deceit in any form, and would only love that which was honourable and
+true. But, then, why didn't she love Sidney Hinchford more; that's what
+puzzles me so dreadfully!"
+
+She clutched her elbows with her hands, and bent herself into a Mother
+Bunch-like figure in the seat behind the counter, and went off into
+dream-land. Strange dream-land, belonging to the border-country of the
+mists lying between the present and the future. A land of things beyond
+the present, and yet which could never appertain to any future, map it
+as she might in the brain that went to work so busily. Figures flitted
+before her of Harriet and Mr. Darcy--of Sidney Hinchford in his
+desolation, so strange a contrast to the happiness which he had
+sought--of herself passing from one to the other and endeavouring to do
+good and make others happy, the one ambition of this generous little
+heart. And her sanguine nature wound up the story--if it were a
+story--with the general happiness of all her characters, just as we
+finish a story, if we wish to please our readers and win their
+patronage. Even Mr. Wesden would sink his suspicions in the deep water,
+and be the grave-faced, but kind-hearted patron again, in that border
+country wherein her thoughts were wandering.
+
+Mr. Hinchford came home early to give her a lesson in backgammon, and
+was sadly disappointed to find Mattie on full duty in the shop that
+evening. He wandered about the shop himself for a while, and then went
+up-stairs early to bed, discontented with his lonely position in
+society; and his place was taken by Ann Packet, who had got "the
+creeps," and had a craving for "company." Ann Packet's ankles were very
+bad again, and it was dull work mourning over their decadence in the
+kitchen, with no one to pity her condition, or promise to call upon her,
+when she was carried to "St. Tummas's." Even she went to bed early also;
+for the customers came in frequently, and kept Mattie's attention
+employed, and it was scarcely worth while sitting in a draught on the
+shop steps, for the chance of getting in a word now and then, not to
+mention the probability of Mr. Wesden turning up, and scolding her for
+coming into the shop at all, an act he had never allowed in his time.
+
+At eight o'clock, Mattie was left alone to superintend business; the
+supper tray for her and Harriet was left upon the parlour table by Ann
+Packet; in a few minutes Harriet would be back again.
+
+At half-past eight, Mattie went to the door to watch her coming up the
+street, a habit with nervous people who would expedite the arrival of
+the loved one by these means. The action reminded her of Mr. Hinchford,
+when Sidney was late, and when a few rain drops were blown towards her
+by a restless wind abroad that night, the remembrance of waiting for
+Sidney Hinchford startled her. "Just such a night as this when we sat up
+for him, and he came home at last, so wild and stern--when we had almost
+given up the hope of coming home at all--what a strange coincidence!"
+thought Mattie.
+
+When the rain came suddenly and heavily down, the coincidence was more
+remarkable; and when the clock scored nine, then half-past, then ten, it
+was the old suspense again.
+
+"What nonsense!" thought Mattie; "she's stopping up for the rain. It is
+not very late, and I am only fanciful as usual. Nothing can be
+wrong--it's not likely!"
+
+Those customers who strayed in still, wondered why she looked so often
+at the clock, and stared so vacantly at them when they expressed their
+verdict on the weather; and the policeman on duty outside observed her
+frequent visits to the door, and her wild gaze down the street towards
+the Borough. Yes, the old story over again--an absent friend, an anxious
+watcher, a night of wind and rain in Suffolk Street. The boy came to
+close the shop as usual, the door was shut _en regle_, and now it was
+Harriet's time to come back, rain or no rain, mystery or no mystery with
+her, and end the story _a la Sidney Hinchford_.
+
+Mattie consulted a Bradshaw from the window, and found that the New
+Cross trains ran as late as twelve o'clock to London; this relieved her;
+Harriet was only waiting for the rain to clear up after all. But even
+midnight dragged its way towards her; and then the time passed in which
+she should have returned, and still no Harriet.
+
+At one o'clock Mattie went to the door and looked out; the pavement was
+glistening yet, but the rain had abated, and the clouds were breaking up
+overhead. There had been nothing to stop her--even if Mattie had
+believed for a moment that Harriet would have stayed away for the rain.
+When she gave her up--when it was close on two o'clock--the stars were
+shining brightly again, although the air felt damp and cold.
+
+"She'll never come back any more!" moaned Mattie; "she has met with
+danger--I am sure of it! She has come to harm, and I am powerless to
+help her. I should not feel like this, if something had not happened!"
+
+"Two," struck the clock of St. Georges, Southwark; in the stillness of
+the streets it echoed towards her, and sounded like a death-bell. Mattie
+covered her face with her hands, and prayed silently for help, for one
+away from home. Then she sprung up again, piled some more coals on the
+fire, stirred it, and sat down before it.
+
+"I'll not believe any of these horrible things yet a while. It will all
+be explained--she'll be back presently, to laugh at me for this
+foolishness!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MATTIE IN SEARCH.
+
+
+How does the time contrive to steal away from us when we are sitting up,
+feverish with fear for him, or her, who returns not? The dial that we
+stare at so often, marks fresh hours, and still further alarms us; but
+the night is long and tedious, and there's a stab in every tick of that
+sepulchral clock on the landing. We disguise our alarm from the
+servants, even from ourselves, and sit down patiently for the coming
+one--nervous at the footfalls in the streets without, and feeling
+heart-sick as they pass our door, and die away in the distance. We set
+our books and newspapers aside at last, and _wait_--we give up
+pretension to coolness, and watch with our hearts also.
+
+Mattie waited, tried to hope, then to pray again; gave up wholly after
+three in the morning, and cried as for one lost to her for ever. There
+was a reasonable hope in Harriet having missed the train, or in her
+having been induced to stay the night at the Eveleighs'; a reasonable
+fear--in these times of railway mismanagement and error--of an accident
+having occurred to the up-train. But these hopes and fears were not
+Mattie's; they flashed by her once or twice, but she felt that Harriet's
+absence was not to be accounted for by them. At four in the morning she
+took the big key from the lock, put on her bonnet and shawl, and then
+paused on the stairs, hesitating in her mind whether to apprise Ann
+Packet of her new intention or not.
+
+Ann Packet would hear a knock if Harriet returned, which was unlikely
+now; she would not alarm Ann, or betray her friend unnecessarily. It
+might be necessary, who knows, to keep this ever a secret--she could not
+tell, all was mystery, dark and unfathomable.
+
+"It's not a runaway match, either," thought Mattie, "for there was no
+occasion to run away, when Harriet and her lover could have married
+quietly and without any opposition, at least on _their_ side. Harriet
+knows that, and is not a girl to be led away if she did not. Weak in
+many ways, but not in that, I know."
+
+Mattie disliked mystery.
+
+"I'll follow this to the end!" she cried with a stamp of her foot--"to
+the very end if possible."
+
+Mattie might have been spelling over a sensation novel, wherein the hero
+or heroine--_i.e._ the villain catcher--goes through the last two
+volumes on the detective principle; and it might have possibly struck
+her that if the "catcher" had started earlier and gone a less roundabout
+way to work--certainly a bad way for the volumes!--the matter might have
+been more expeditiously arranged. She could always see to the end pretty
+clearly--why not the 'cute-minded party in search?
+
+Mattie closed the street-door behind her, and went out into the cold
+morning. The pavement was still wet and clammy; there was no
+"drying-air" in the streets, although the stars looked bright and
+aggravatingly frosty.
+
+Mattie turned to the left at the end of Great Suffolk Street, and
+proceeded at a rapid pace towards the railway station; there were
+stragglers still in the Borough--a broad thoroughfare, that never rests,
+but is ever alive with sound. Life still at the great terminus; a train
+hissing and fuming from its long journey, a handful of passengers by the
+mail, a few cabmen still looking out for fares, guards full of bustle as
+usual, one Kent Street gamin out on business, and dodging the policeman
+behind a Patent Safety.
+
+Mattie went to business at once.
+
+"Has any accident happened on the line to-night, sir?"
+
+"Not any."
+
+"What is the next train from New Cross that will reach here?"
+
+"No train calls at New Cross till six in the morning."
+
+"What is the next train that will leave here and call at New Cross?"
+
+"Twenty minutes to six."
+
+"Oh! dear."
+
+A short spasmodic sigh, and then Mattie turned away and went back to
+Great Suffolk Street, opened the door, and stole cautiously up-stairs to
+the room wherein Harriet had been sleeping. Not there--still away from
+home!
+
+"If anything has happened, I must be the first to find it out," thought
+Mattie, descending the stairs, listening at the foot thereof, and then
+passing out into the street again, closing the shop-door very cautiously
+behind her.
+
+She had made up her mind to walk at once to New Cross, to seek out the
+Eveleighs, whose address she thought that she remembered. She went on at
+a rapid pace, with her veil thrown back, and her face full of
+interest--not a woman in the streets, hurrying like herself on special
+missions, or lurking at street corners, but Mattie glanced at for an
+instant as she sped along. She was a quick walker and lost no time;
+after all, New Cross was not a great distance away; she was not easily
+tired, and once in action, her fears for Harriet went further into the
+distance. She began to think, almost to hope, that Harriet would be at
+the Eveleighs', and all would end with a wild fancy on her part, at
+which Harriet and she would laugh later in the day. Down the Dover Road,
+past the Bricklayer's Arms, and along the Old Kent Road, till the long
+lines of closed shops ended in long lines of private houses, the railway
+station and the Royal Naval School--that model of good management, by
+which we recommend all directors of seedy institutions to profit.
+
+Near the railway station Mattie found a policeman, who directed her to
+the particular terrace wherein the Eveleighs were located. It was nearly
+half-past five when she read by the light of the street lamp the name of
+Eveleigh on the brass plate affixed to the iron gate. With her hands
+upon the gate, Mattie held a council of war with herself as to the best
+method of procedure.
+
+Mattie had soon arranged her plan of action; hers was a mind that jumped
+rapidly at conclusions--was quick to see the best way. Arousing the
+house would create an alarm, and if Harriet were not there--of which in
+her heart she was already assured--it would only set the people within
+talking about her. That would be to cast the first stone at her poor
+friend, and set the tongues of gossips wagging--that must not be! Mattie
+resolved to wait till some signs about the Eveleigh window blinds
+indicated a servant stirring in the house; she thought with a shudder of
+the shop in Great Suffolk Street, and the customers waiting for their
+papers; of Ann Packet's alarm, and Mr. Hinchford's perplexity; of the
+food for scandal which her absence would afford to a few inquisitive
+neighbours. Still all that might be easily explained, and it was only
+she who would receive the blame, if all turned out better than she
+dreamed; and if the worst were known, why, alas! her actions would
+readily be guessed at.
+
+Fortune favoured Mattie in the most unromantic way that morning: the
+Eveleighs had resolved upon having their kitchen chimney swept at
+half-past five, and young Erebus, true to the minute, came round the
+corner with his soot-bag, went up the fore-court towards the side gate,
+rang the bell, and gave vent to his doleful cry. The maid-servant,
+however, was not prompt in her responses, and Mattie stood and watched
+in the distance, until the sweep, becoming impatient, rang again, and
+rattled with his brush against the side of the door steps. From Mattie's
+post of vigilance she could just make him out in the darkness--a shadowy
+figure, that might have represented evil to her and hers.
+
+Presently the bolts of the side gate were withdrawn, and Mattie with
+hasty steps, crossed the road and hurried up the path. The sweep was
+being admitted at that time, and a red-eyed, white-faced, sulky-looking
+servant-maid of not more than sixteen years of age, was closing the
+door, when Mattie called to her to wait.
+
+Surprised at this strange apparition at so early an hour, the girl
+waited and stared.
+
+Mattie's plan of action would have done credit to a detective policeman;
+her questions seemed so wide of the mark, and kept suspicion back from
+her whom she loved so well. Certainly they implicated another, and drew
+attention to him in a marked manner; but he was a man, and could bear
+it, thought Mattie, and if he were at the bottom of the mystery, there
+was no need to study _him_--rather to track him out and come face to
+face with him!
+
+"Will you tell Mr. Darcy that I wish to speak a few words with him
+immediately?"
+
+"Mr. Darcy don't live here," said the astonished servant.
+
+"He visits here--he stayed here last night."
+
+"No, he didn't," was the abrupt reply; "he went away at ten o'clock."
+
+"With Miss Wesden, of course," was the apparently careless answer.
+
+"Yes, with Miss Wesden. He never stops here."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"I don't know--somewhere about here, I believe."
+
+"Ask his address of your mistress," cried Mattie, becoming excited as
+the truth seemed to loom before her with all its horror; "I must see
+him!"
+
+The servant-maid's eyes became rounder, and she gasped forth--
+
+"I'll--I'll wake missus."
+
+"Ask her to oblige me with Mr. Darcy's address--and please make haste."
+
+The servant withdrew, leaving Mattie standing in the draughty side
+passage, dark and dense as the fate of her whom she loved appeared to be
+from that day. She could hear the sweep bustling and bundling about the
+kitchen noisily; it seemed an age before the servant's feet came
+clumpeting down the stairs again.
+
+"It's number fourteen, St. Olave's Terrace, Old Kent Road."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Mattie turned away, and ran down the fore court at a rapid pace.
+
+"Well--I _never_!" ejaculated the amazed domestic. "What's Mr. Darcy
+gone and done, I wonder!"
+
+Mattie darted backward on her homeward route; her plans of action were
+at sea now; she only wished to know the worst, and feel the strength to
+face it for others' sakes, not for her own. There were an old man and an
+old woman to comfort in their latter days, to become a daughter to in
+the place of her who had been spirited away--give her strength to solace
+them in the deep misery upon its way.
+
+People were stirring in the streets although the day was dark, and the
+sky above still full of stars. Mattie made many inquiries, and at last
+found St. Olave's Terrace, a row of large, gloomy houses, of red brick.
+At No. 14 Mattie knocked long and vigorously, until a window was opened
+in the first floor, and a boy's head protruded--the unkempt head of a
+page.
+
+"What's the row down there?" he shouted.
+
+"Mr. Darcy--is he at home?"
+
+"He ain't at home--he didn't come back last night."
+
+"Are you sure?--are you quite sure?"
+
+"I should think I was," replied young Impudence. "Who shall I say
+called--Walker?"
+
+"No matter--no matter."
+
+Mattie turned and hurried away again. Close upon six o'clock, and an
+empty cab before a public-house door. Mattie ran into the public-house,
+and found the cabman drinking neat gin at the bar, and bewailing the
+hardness of the times to the barman, who was yawning fearfully.
+
+"Is your cab engaged?"
+
+"Where do you want to go, Miss?" asked the cabman. "If it's Greenwich
+way, I've got a party to take up in five minutes time!"
+
+"Suffolk Street, Borough. I--I don't mind what I pay to get there
+quickly."
+
+"Jump in, Miss--I'll drive you there in no time."
+
+Mattie entered the cab, the cabman mounted the box, and away they went
+down the Old Kent Road. The cabman had been up all night, calling at
+many night-houses in his route, and always taking gin with despatch and
+gusto. He was reckless with his whip, unmerciful to his horse, and
+disregardful of the cab, which he had out on hire. He was just
+intoxicated enough to be confidential, mysterious, and sympathizing. He
+lowered the glass window at his back, and looked through at Mattie.
+
+"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said,
+suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat
+with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your
+mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore--she was young herself
+once, I daresay!"
+
+"Drive on, please!--drive on!"
+
+"I'm driving my hardest, my child--cutting off all the corners--that's
+only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child--soon be home now. They
+won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once
+'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal--that's on'y another
+kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the
+bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now--don't cry any more--I
+hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!"
+
+And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at
+Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his
+quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half
+between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street.
+
+At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street;
+she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The
+shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door,
+muffled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid
+her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red
+with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her.
+
+"Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where _have_ you been?--what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing much--don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?"
+
+"I overslept myself--oh! dear, dear, dear!--and just got up in a
+fright--that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the
+door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!--I found the shop all dark, and just let
+him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are--oh! where
+_have_ you been?"
+
+"I'l tell you presently--let me think a bit--I'm not well, Ann."
+
+"You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to
+you? You came back in a cab--you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be
+so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your
+mind, perhaps--for you always was a strange gal, and like nobody else,
+wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?"
+
+"No, no--_not for the world_! Go down-stairs and make haste with the
+coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped
+Mattie, "but take the shutters down."
+
+Ann scuttled down-stairs, forgetful of her ankles, in her excitement at
+the novel position of affairs; the boy took down the shutters and
+disclosed the cabman still before the door, carefully examining his
+horse, and rather evilly disposed towards himself for the damage he had
+done the animal and cab in his excitement. Mattie went into the parlour,
+where the gas burned still, and stood by the table reflecting on the
+end--what was to be done now?--whether it were better to keep up the
+mystery, to allege some reason for Harriet's absence, frame some white
+lie that might keep Ann Packet and Mr. Hinchford appeased, and save
+_her_ name for a short while longer?
+
+When the boy came staggering in with the third shutter, a new thought--a
+forlorn hope--suggested itself.
+
+"Wait here and mind the shop till I come down, William," she said.
+
+She went up-stairs in her bonnet and shawl, and pushed open the door of
+Harriet Wesden's room. Empty and unoccupied, as she might have known,
+and yet which, in defiance of possibilities, she had gone up to explore
+again. The blind was undrawn, and the faint glimmer of the late dawning
+was stealing into the room, and scaring the shadows back.
+
+Mattie gave way at the desolation of the place; and flung herself upon
+her knees at the bed's foot.
+
+"Oh! my darling, God forgive you, and watch over you--oh! my darling,
+whom I loved more than a sister, and who is for ever--for ever--lost to
+me!"
+
+"_No_--NO--Mattie!"
+
+Mattie leaped to her feet, and with a cry scarcely human, rushed towards
+the speaker in the doorway--the speaker who, white and trembling, opened
+her arms and received her on her throbbing breast. Harriet Wesden had
+come back again!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+EXPLANATIONS.
+
+
+Mattie shed many tears of joy at Harriet's return; she was a
+strong-minded young woman in her way, but the tension of nerve, and the
+reaction which followed it, had been too much for her, and she was, for
+a short while, a child in strength and self-command. For awhile they had
+changed places, Mattie and Harriet--Mattie becoming the agitated and
+weak girl, Harriet remaining firm, and maintaining an equable demeanour.
+
+"Courage, Mattie!--what have you to give way at?" she said, at last.
+
+"There, I'm better now," said Mattie, looking up into Harriet's face,
+and keeping her hands upon her shoulders; "and now, will you trust in
+me?--tell me the whole truth--keep nothing back."
+
+"From you--nothing!"
+
+"And if he has been coward enough to lead you away by the snares of your
+affection----"
+
+"Affection!" cried Harriet. "I hate him! Coward enough!--he is coward
+enough for anything that would degrade me--and villain enough to spare
+no pains to place me in his power. Oh! Mattie--Mattie--what had I done
+to make him think so meanly of me?--to lead him on to plot against me in
+so poor and miserable a fashion?"
+
+"You have escaped from him?"
+
+"Thank God, yes!"
+
+Mattie could have cried again with joy, but Harriet's excitement
+recalled her to self-command--Harriet, who stood there with her whole
+frame quivering with passion and outraged pride--a woman whom Mattie had
+not seen till then.
+
+"Mattie," she said, "that man, Maurice Darcy, thought that if I were
+weak enough to love him, I was weak enough to fly with him, forget my
+woman's pride, my father, home, honour, and fling all away for his sake.
+He did not know me, or understand me; my God! he did not think that
+there were any good thoughts in me, or he would not have acted as he
+did. I have been blind--I have been a fool until to-night!"
+
+She stamped her foot upon the floor until everything in the room
+vibrated; she caught Mattie's inquiring, earnest looks towards her and
+went on again--
+
+"You and I, Mattie, must keep this ever a secret between us; for my
+sake, I am sure you will--for the sake of my good name, which that man's
+trickery has tarnished, however completely I have baffled him and shamed
+him. Mattie, he was at the Eveleighs' last night with his guilty plans
+matured. I had every confidence in him and his affection for me. I was
+off my guard, and believed that he was free from guile himself. At ten
+o'clock--beyond my time--I left the Eveleighs'; he was my escort to the
+railway station; he spoke of his love for me for the first time, and I
+was agitated and blinded by his seeming fervour. I told him of my
+promise to Sidney, and what I had done for his sake. I led him to
+think--fool that I was--that he had won my love long since. At the
+railway station he told me the story of his life--a lie from beginning
+to end--of his father's pride, of the secrecy with which our future
+marriage must be kept for awhile, away from that father--talking,
+protesting, explaining, until the train came up and he had placed me in
+the carriage."
+
+"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Mattie.
+
+"He followed me at the last moment, stating that he had business in
+London, and then the train moved on--FOR DOVER!"
+
+"Yes, he _was_ a villain and coward!" cried Mattie, setting her teeth
+and clenching her hands spasmodically; "go on!"
+
+"In less then five minutes I was aware of the deception that had been
+practised on me. I woke suddenly to the whole truth, to my own folly in
+believing in this man. He would have feigned it to be a mistake at
+first--a mistake on his own part--and for my own safety, alone with him
+there, and the train shrieking along into the night, I professed to
+believe him, and mourned over the clumsy blunder which was taking us
+away from home; but I was on my guard, and my reserve, my alarm, kept
+him cautious. I sat cowering from him in the extreme corner of the
+carriage, and he sat maturing his plans, and marking out, as he thought,
+his way. He confessed at last that it was a deeply-laid scheme to secure
+what he called his happiness. He swore to be a brother to me, a faithful
+friend in whom every trust might be put until we were married at Calais;
+but the mask had dropped, and my heart, throbbing with my humiliation,
+had turned utterly against him. I lowered the carriage window, and sat
+watchful of him, knowing every word he uttered then to be a lie, and
+feeling that he looked upon me as a girl easily to be led astray--a
+shop-keeper's daughter, whose self-respect was quickly deadened, and
+whose vanity was sufficient to lead her on to ruin. But I bade him keep
+his seat away from me, and give me time to think of what he had
+said--time to believe in him! We were silent the rest of the way to
+Ashford. My throat was choking with the angry words which burned to leap
+forth and denounce him for his knavery--he who sat smiling at the
+success in store for him. At Ashford, thank God! the train stopped."
+
+"Thank God!" whispered Mattie also.
+
+"I opened the door suddenly, Mattie, and leaped forth like a madwoman;
+he followed me to the platform, when I turned upon him like--like a
+she-wolf!" she cried, vehemently, "and denounced him for the cowardly
+wretch he had been to me. There were a few guards about, and one
+gentleman, and they were my audience. I claimed their protection from
+the man; I told them how I had been tricked into that train and led away
+from home; I asked them if they had daughters whom they loved to protect
+me and send me back again secure from him. Mattie, I shamed him to his
+soul!"
+
+"Bravo!--bravo!" cried Mattie, giving two leaps in the air in her
+excitement; "that's my own darling, whose heart was ever strong and true
+enough!"
+
+"Only her head a little weak, and likely to be turned--eh, Mattie?" said
+Harriet, in a less excited strain; "well, I am sobered now for ever--and
+every scrap of romantic feeling has been torn to shreds. I must have
+been under a spell, for it seems like an evil dream now that I could
+ever have thought of loving that man."
+
+"And they took your part at the station?"
+
+"Yes,--and gave me advice, and were kind to me, and he who attempted to
+deceive me skulked back into the carriage, muttering a hundred excuses,
+which I did not hear. The gentleman who had listened to my story, and
+been prepared to defend me, had it been necessary, followed Mr. Darcy to
+the carriage, added a few stern words, and then returned to offer me
+advice how to proceed. He was a strange, eccentric man, very harsh even
+with me in his speech, and disposed to preach a sermon on the warning I
+had had, as though I were not likely to take a lesson from my
+over-confidence, after all that had happened. But he was very kind in
+act, and meant all for my good, though he might have spared me just a
+little more. He consulted the railway time-tables for me, made many
+inquiries of the guards, whom he appeared to disbelieve, for he went
+back to the time-tables again; finally told me that there was no train
+till a quarter past five by which I could reach home. He showed me an
+hotel adjacent to the station, and left me there, after again upbraiding
+me for my want of judgment; and at a quarter past five--what an age it
+seemed before that time came round!--I left Ashford once again for
+home."
+
+"And are here safe from danger--to make my heart light again with the
+sight of you. Well, my dear, we'll think it all an ugly dream--and shut
+_him_ away in it for ever."
+
+"And now--what will the world think of me?--how much of the story will
+it believe, Mattie?" was the scornful answer.
+
+"What will the world know of it? You and I can keep the secret between
+us. Mr. Darcy will not boast of his humiliation. The old people need not
+be harassed and perplexed by all that has happened this night."
+
+"No, no--all an ugly dream, as you say, Mattie!" remarked Harriet;
+"perhaps it is best, and a woman's fame is hard to establish, on her own
+explanation of such a history as mine. Let it sink. I am verily ashamed
+of it. My blood will boil at every chance allusion that associates
+itself with last night. Oh! my poor, dear, truthful Sid, to think of
+turning away from _you_ and believing in a heartless villain."
+
+"Ah! Sidney!" exclaimed Mattie.
+
+"Whatever happens--whatever the future may bring--that letter, Mattie,
+must be destroyed. It is a false statement. We must secure it and
+destroy it. With time before me, and the dark memory shut out, how I
+will love that faithful heart!"
+
+"Trust the letter to me--trust--oh! the shop, the shop all this
+while!--and I haven't told you my story."
+
+"Presently then, Mattie. I would go down now."
+
+"Yes, I will go down. I have been very neglectful of business in my joy
+at seeing you again. It did not seem possible a few hours ago that all
+would have ended fairly like this. I am so happy--so very happy now,
+dear Harriet!"
+
+She shook Harriet by both hands, kissed her once more, and even cried a
+little before she made a hasty dash from the room to the stairs. At the
+second landing, outside Mr. Hinchford's apartments, she remembered the
+letter--the evidence of Harriet's past romance in which Sidney Hinchford
+played no part.
+
+Mattie pictured the future as very bright and glowing after this--the
+two who had been ever kind to her, and helped so greatly towards her
+better life, would come together after all, and make the best and truest
+couple in the world!
+
+Mattie's training--moral training it may be called--was scarcely a
+perfect one. She had been taught what was honest and truthful; she was
+far away for ever from the old life; but the fine feelings--the
+sensitiveness to the _minutiae_ of goodness--were wanting just then. The
+means to the end were not particularly to be studied, so that the end
+was good. Harriet had done no wrong, merely been duped by a specious
+scamp for awhile; but keep the story dark for the sake of the suspicions
+it cast on minds inclined to doubt good in anything--and for the sake of
+general peace, make away with the letter--Sidney Hinchford's property as
+much as the locket she stole from him when she was eleven years of age.
+
+Harriet Wesden was silent from fear and shame; her nature was a timid
+one, and shrank back from painful avowals; Mattie did not look at the
+subject in the best light, and thought of promoting happiness by
+secrecy, a dangerous experiment, that may tend at any moment to an
+explosion. Mattie opened the drawing-room door softly and looked in. Mr.
+Hinchford had not appeared yet, and she entered and went direct to the
+mantel-piece, on which the letter had lain ever since its arrival. The
+letter was gone!
+
+"Oh! dear!--oh! dear!--what's to be done now?" cried Mattie, looking
+from the centre table to the side table on which was Sidney's desk,
+unlocked. Mattie did not think of appearances when she opened the desk
+and began turning over its contents with a hasty hand--a
+suspicious-looking operation, in which she was discovered by Mr.
+Hinchford, who entered the room suddenly.
+
+"Mattie," he said, sternly, "I should not have thought that you would
+have been guilty of this meanness."
+
+Mattie, with her bonnet and shawl on, and awry from her past movements,
+with her face pale and haggard from want of sleep, remained with her
+hands in the desk, looking hard at the new comer. Her instinct was to
+tell the truth--there was no harm in it.
+
+"I am looking for the letter which came for Mr. Sidney--I want it back."
+
+"Want it back!--what letter?"
+
+"The letter which has been on the mantel-piece all the week--it was Miss
+Harriet's--she wishes to have it back, to put something else in it."
+
+"Bless my soul!--very odd," said Mr. Hinchford; "I'll give it to Miss
+Harriet myself--there's no occasion to rummage my boy's desk about. I
+don't like it, Mattie--I am extremely displeased."
+
+"I am very sorry," said Mattie, submissively; "I did not think what I
+was doing. And you will give the letter to Miss Harriet?"
+
+"It's in the breast-pocket of my coat--I'll give it her."
+
+Mattie cowered before the flushed face, and the stern look thereon; this
+man was a friend of hers, too--one of the rescuers!--whom she would
+always bear in kind remembrance; she went softly across the room to the
+door, veering suddenly round to lay her hands upon his arm.
+
+"I'm very sorry, Mr. Hinchford," she said; "it was all done without a
+moment's thought. You, for the first time in your life, will not be
+angry with me?"
+
+"No, no, no, no," repeated the old gentleman, taken aback by this
+appeal, and softening at once; "I don't suppose you meant anything
+wrong, Mattie."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Mattie went down-stairs in a better frame of mind, and yet ashamed at
+having been detected in a crooked action by a gentleman who always spoke
+so much of straightforwardness, and had a son who excelled in that
+difficult accomplishment. She was vexed at the impulse now--what would
+any man less generous in his ideas have thought of her?
+
+"Never mind," was Mattie's consolation, "I meant no harm--I meant well.
+And all will end well now, and everybody be so happy. What a change from
+the terrible thoughts of only a few hours ago!"
+
+She could think of nothing but Harriet Wesden's safety, and her own
+minor _escapade_ was of little consequence. Thinking of Harriet again,
+and rejoicing in the brighter thoughts which the last hours had brought
+with it, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs and went at once
+into the shop.
+
+Mr. Wesden was standing behind the counter, waiting upon a customer, as
+though he had never left Great Suffolk Street, and retiring from
+business had been only a dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A SHORT WARNING.
+
+
+Mattie stood in her disordered walking-dress, gazing at the stationer,
+for whose presence she could not account; Mr. Wesden looked across the
+counter at her.
+
+"Will you go into the parlour, please?" he said at last.
+
+"In the parlour!--ye--es, sir."
+
+There was something wrong--radically and irretrievably wrong this time;
+however greatly Mr. Wesden had changed, he had never looked so strangely
+or spoken so harshly as he did at that time. Even the customer whom he
+was serving, and who knew Mattie, turned round and glanced also in her
+direction.
+
+"Robbery!--there--there's been no more robbery!" gasped Mattie, her
+thoughts darting off at a tangent in the direction of her old trouble.
+
+"You can go into the parlour," he repeated, as harshly as before; "I'll
+be with you in a minute."
+
+Mattie went into the parlour, took off the bonnet and shawl that, she
+had so long forgotten, and which must have added to Mr. Wesden's
+perplexity, and then sat down, with her face towards the shop, to await
+her master's pleasure--and displeasure! There was trouble in store for
+her--perhaps for Harriet--Mr. Wesden had discovered a great deal, and
+she had to bear the first shock of the storm. She could see Mr. Wesden's
+face from her position; even at that distance it seemed as if the
+innumerable lines in it had been cut deeper since she had seen it last,
+and the heavy grey brows shadowed more completely the eyes. He was not
+his usual self either--the quick glance of the watcher noticed how his
+hands shook as he served the customer, and that he fumbled with the
+change in a manner very new and uncharacteristic for him. His habits, or
+his caution, had even undergone a change; for, as the news-boy came in
+at the street-door, he told him to go behind the counter and attend to
+the customers till he returned. Then he entered the parlour, still
+flushed and trembling, yet so stern, and leaned his two hands on the
+table till it creaked beneath the pressure which he put upon it.
+
+"Mattie," he said at last, "I think it's quite time that you and I said
+good-bye to one another!"
+
+"Oh! sir!--_what_?" Mattie could only ejaculate.
+
+"I've been thinking it over for some time--putting it off--giving you
+another trial--hoping that I was even mistaken in you--but things get
+worse and worse, and this last news _is_ a settler!"
+
+"Mr. Wesden, there must be some mistake."
+
+"No, there isn't--don't interrupt me--don't make any more excuses, for I
+shan't believe 'em."
+
+"Go on, sir," said Mattie, impetuously, "I don't understand."
+
+"You need not fly in a passion, if you don't," he corrected.
+
+"I'm not in a passion, Mr. Wesden--you _will_ think wrongly of me."
+
+"Just listen to this--just deny this if you can. You left my house in
+the middle of the night--you have been up all night, and God knows
+where--you did not come back to this house--you, who have no friends to
+go to--until half-past six o'clock this morning."
+
+Mattie sat thunderstruck at this charge, so true in its assertion, and
+yet the suspicions which it led to so easily refuted, or--she drew a
+long breath and held her peace at the thought--so easily transferred!
+
+"You can't deny this," continued Mr. Wesden, in the same hard manner;
+"how long it's been going on, or what bad company has led you astray, I
+can't say. But you haven't acted like a young woman who meant
+well--you've been getting worse and worse with every day."
+
+"It isn't true!" cried Mattie, indignantly; "I----"
+
+She paused again.
+
+"Ah! don't give me excuses," he said; "I'm an old man who knows the
+world, and won't believe in them. I wouldn't believe in my own daughter,
+if she acted as you have done, or was ever so ready at excuses. No
+honest girl--I'm sorry to say it, Mattie--would ever, without a fair
+reason, be walking the streets, friendless and alone, at such unnatural
+hours."
+
+"Will you not believe me, when I tell you truly, without a blush in my
+face, that as God's my judge, I went out with a motive of which even you
+would approve."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"I--I cannot tell you that yet. Presently, perhaps--if you will only
+give me time--not now."
+
+Mr. Wesden shook his head.
+
+"Mattie," he replied, "it won't do! It isn't what I've been used to, and
+I can't wait till you have invented a story and----"
+
+"Invented!" shrieked Mattie, leaping to her feet, "what more!--what more
+have you to charge an innocent girl, who has thought of nothing but
+serving you honestly from the time you took pity on her wretchedness?
+You have turned against me; if you are tired of me, tell me so
+plainly--but don't talk as if I were a liar and a thief still--I will
+not have it!"
+
+"You put a bold face upon it, and that's a bad sign," said Mr. Wesden;
+"where there's no shame, only _bounce_, it takes away all the pity of
+the thing, and makes me firmer."
+
+The table creaked once more with the extra pressure of his hands; the
+flush died away from the face, whereon settled an expression more steely
+and invulnerable.
+
+"Oh! sir--how you have altered! What do you think that I have done!"
+cried the perplexed Mattie.
+
+"See here," said Mr. Wesden; "I don't wish to rake up everything, but as
+you put it to me, I'll just show you how foolish it is to brave it out
+like this. I'm very sorry; I can't make it out, altering for the better
+as you had--it's bad company, I suppose. First," he removed his hands
+from the table, and began checking off the items on his fingers,
+"there's money missing up-stairs--a cash-box opened, and only----"
+
+"My God!--has that thought rankled so long?" interrupted Mattie; "I
+don't wonder at the rest, if you begin like that with me. I'll go
+away--I'll go away!"
+
+"It didn't rankle--I gave you the benefit of the doubt," said Mr.
+Wesden; "I wouldn't believe it, but I fancied that you were altering,
+and that something was wrong somewhere. It looked at least as if you
+were careless, and I thought the house might get robbed, or catch fire,
+or anything after that--and it disturbed my mind much; I couldn't sleep
+for thinking of you--and one night I came over here very late, and you
+were up talking and laughing with a young man in the shop, in the dead
+of night."
+
+"That, too!" cried Mattie; "do you suspect _him_?"
+
+"I suspected _you_, that's enough to say just now."
+
+"More than enough!" was the bitter answer.
+
+"And then a parcel disappears, and there's a lame excuse for that--and a
+policeman finds you in Kent Street at a receiver's house--the house of a
+noted thief, that you must have known long ago----"
+
+"I went there--but no matter, you'll not believe me," said Mattie.
+
+"And so I was obliged to have you watched for my own protection's sake,
+and you were seen to leave the house last night, and come back in a cab
+after the shop was open. And if all that's not enough to drive a
+business man wild, why, I never was a man fit for business at all."
+
+Mattie gathered up her bonnet and shawl from the chair on which they had
+been placed, and proceeded to put them on again, keeping her dark eyes
+fixed on Mr. Wesden's face.
+
+"There's only one thing which I'll agree with, sir," she said, her voice
+faltering despite her effort to keep firm, "and that's the first speech
+you made me. It's quite time that you and I said 'good-bye' to one
+another!"
+
+"Well--it is!"
+
+"I don't know whether you wish it or not--I don't care!--but I will go
+away at once, trusting in Him whom your wife taught me first to pray to.
+I will go away without anger in my heart against you--for oh! you have
+been very good and kind to me, and I shall be grateful again when
+to-day's hard words go further and further back. I will hope in the time
+when you will know all, and be sorry that you lost your trust in me so
+soon. Better to doubt me than--_others_?"
+
+She corrected herself in time; she remembered her promise to Harriet.
+She saw how easy it was for a few errors, a few mistakes to make this
+strange man forget all the good efforts of a life--deceived in Mr.
+Wesden as she had been, she could not gauge in those excited moments the
+depths of his affection for his daughter.
+
+In the avowal there would be danger to Harriet; so, for Harriet's sake,
+let her take the blame and go away. Harriet could only have cleared up
+the last mystery--the rest affected herself. She had had never more than
+half a character--she rose from crime, and its antecedents rose again
+with her at the first suspicion against her truthful conduct. It was
+very hard to go away--but it was her only step, and he wished it
+also--he, who had been almost a father to her until then.
+
+"I'll pack my box, and leave at once, sir--if you don't mind."
+
+"No," was the gloomy response.
+
+He was deceived in Mattie still; he had hoped that she would have
+confessed to everything, to the new and awful temptations that had beset
+her lately, and prayed for his mercy and forgiveness--begged for his
+help and moral strength to lead her from the dark road she was pursuing.
+He was disappointed by her defiance--by her assumption of an innocence
+in which he could not believe; and he could only see that her plans were
+too readily formed, and that she had already fixed upon her future
+associates and home. He was amazed at her way of encountering his
+charges; and as he had been only a business-man all his life, he could
+not understand her.
+
+Mattie left the room, and he turned into his shop again, and dismissed
+the news-boy from his post of promotion. The matter had worried him, and
+was still worrying him. The _denouement_ was not satisfactory, and the
+world was hardening very much, or becoming too complex in its machinery
+for him. He had found Mattie out, and it had all ended just as he feared
+it would; and still his head ached, and his thoughts perplexed him!
+
+He counted the arrears of Mattie's salary, and put it on the back shelf,
+ready for her when she came down, knocking it all over the minute
+afterwards, and sending two shillings under the shop-board, where the
+shutters and gas-meter were. He made mistakes with the next customer in
+his change, and would not believe it was his error, although he paid the
+man rather than get into a fresh dispute at that instant; he rummaged
+from a whole packet of printed notices he dealt in, a "THIS SHOP AND
+BUSINESS TO BE DISPOSED OF," and stuck it with wafers in the window,
+upside down. He would retire from business in earnest, and not
+make-believe any longer; he should be more composed in mind--more happy,
+when all this was no longer a burden to him.
+
+He served his customers absently, and wondered--for he was a good and
+just man at heart--whether he was acting for the best after all; whether
+it was quite Christian-like to give up the child whom he had rescued
+from the cruel streets, five years ago, come Christmas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+LEAVE-TAKINGS.
+
+
+Mattie went to her room and packed her box with trembling hands. She was
+very agitated still; there were many conflicting thoughts to disturb her
+natural equanimity. Regret at going away from the home wherein had begun
+her better life; indignation at the false accusations that had been made
+against her, and made in so hard and uncharitable a fashion; doubts of
+the future stretching before her, impenetrable and dusky, and the life
+to begin again in some way, to which she tried to give a thought, even
+in those early moments, and failed in utterly.
+
+Over her box came honest Ann Packet to ask the latest news--to stare in
+a vague idiotic way when told it.
+
+"I am going away, Ann--don't you understand?"
+
+"Going away?--no, I don't yet. Going where did you say, Mattie?"
+
+"Going away from here, where I am no longer wanted, where I am suspected
+of being all that is vile and wrong. Going away for good!"
+
+"Oh I my gracious--not that! Because of last night--because of----"
+
+"Many things, Ann, which I dare not explain, and which, if explained,
+perhaps would not be believed in by--_him_. But you, Ann--what will you
+think of me when I'm gone, and they say behind my back how justly I was
+served?"
+
+"I say?--I say?"
+
+"You'll hear _their_ story, and I can't tell you mine. I can only say
+that since I have been here, there's not a bad thought had a place in my
+mind, and not a good one which I did not try, for _their_ sakes as well
+as my own, to cling to. I can only ask you, Ann--you who have always
+thought well of me--to keep your faith strong, for poor Mattie's sake."
+
+Ann Packet gave vent to a howl at this--wrung her fat red hands
+together, and then fell upon Mattie's box, as though our heroine had
+shot her.
+
+"You shan't pack up no more!" she screamed; "you can speak to them as to
+me, and they'll believe you, or they're made of stone. Why, it's a
+drefful shame to turn you off like this, as though you'd been found out
+in all that's bad."
+
+"Hush! you'll wake Miss Harriet, I daresay she--she's asleep still!--you
+will go now, Ann, please. I'm not unhappy--why, here's one to begin with
+who will always think the best of _me_!"
+
+"The very best--as you've been the very best and the goodest to me, who
+used to snap you so at first, and feel jealous like, because they put
+you over me--but you won't mind that now?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"And, Mattie, you don't want to go away and see nobody any more--to be
+quite alone and hear nothing of anybody? I may come and see you?"
+
+"Yes--to be sure."
+
+"And you'll write and tell me directly where you are."
+
+"Ah! where I am. Yes, you shall know that first. And when I can prove to
+him that I have always been honest and true, I'll see him and his again,
+_not before_."
+
+"And I shall call and tell you all the news--listen at all the keyholes
+to hear what they've got to talk about."
+
+"I hope not. But get up now, Ann, and go down-stairs, or they'll suspect
+something. I'll send for the box presently, when I'm settled."
+
+Ann rose with clenched hands and swollen eyes.
+
+"If I had the settling of _him_! I--I almost feel to hate him. He's a
+brute!"
+
+And before Mattie had time to reprove the faithful Ann for the outburst,
+Miss Packet had left the room, and gone down-stairs to cry afresh over
+the breakfast she had to prepare for Mr. Hinchford.
+
+Mattie passed into the other room, and found Harriet Wesden asleep, as
+she had fancied. The toil of yesternight, the excitement and suspense,
+had brought their reaction, and Harriet had flung herself, dressed as
+she was, upon the bed, where she had dropped off into slumber.
+
+Mattie stood for a moment irresolute whether to wake her or no; had it
+been simply to say "good-bye," she would have hesitated longer, though
+she might have awakened her at last.
+
+"Harriet--Harriet!" she whispered, as she bent over her.
+
+The fair girl started up and looked at Mattie.
+
+"What's happened now, dear?"
+
+"Nothing very important," said Mattie, who had determined how to
+proceed. "I have been thinking of our next step together concerning last
+night. Your father is down-stairs."
+
+"Oh! he must not know it--he must never know it!" exclaimed Harriet; "he
+is weaker in mind--more excitable, suspicious--what would he think of
+me, keeping the name of Maurice Darcy from him all my life?"
+
+"Harriet, promise me never to tell him--I am not frightened at the
+truth, but of their perversion of it, destroying for ever your good
+name--promise me!"
+
+"But why promise _you_, who----"
+
+"Promise it. I am very, very anxious, for your own sake and for mine."
+
+"I promise--I promise faithfully."
+
+"Whatever happens?"
+
+"Yes--whatever happens!"
+
+"I will tell you why now. In the first place, I have found out that the
+world will never accept _your_ statement, but believe the very worst of
+you."
+
+Harriet shuddered; her own trustfulness in others--her vanity, perhaps,
+allied thereto--had led her to the verge of the abyss--and "miraculous
+escapes" are only for penny-a-liners, and romancists. She thought that
+Mattie was right in binding her solemnly to secrecy, and she repeated
+her promise even more solemnly than before.
+
+"And in the second place----"
+
+Mattie paused; she recoiled from the explanation, the trial of another
+parting with this girl for whose happiness she was about to sacrifice
+herself, and the good name for which she had struggled. Harriet looked
+ill and worn now, and she could not tell her all the news, her heart was
+too full.
+
+"I would bathe my hands and face, and go down-stairs as soon as
+possible. It will prevent suspicion, and you _must_ stand up against the
+fatigue for awhile."
+
+"Yes, yes, I can do that."
+
+"Nothing can be helped now by confession; remember _that_ when the truth
+would leap to your lips in a generous impulse, of which hereafter you
+would be sorry. Good-bye now."
+
+Mattie stooped and kissed her--the quivering lips, the tear-brimming
+eyes, suggested a new trouble, and Harriet detected it at once.
+
+"There is something new, Mattie--don't deceive me!"
+
+"Very little--you will know all when you get down-stairs--be on your
+guard--God bless you!"
+
+And Mattie, feeling her voice deserting her, hurried away. She went at
+once to Mr. Hinchford's room. Mr. Hinchford was becoming fidgety about
+his breakfast, and walking up and down discontentedly.
+
+"They'll tell me I'm late again," he was muttering, when Mattie, _sans
+ceremonie_, made her appearance.
+
+"Mr. Hinchford, will you let Miss Harriet have that letter at once?
+She's waiting for it."
+
+"And I'm waiting for my breakfast, Mattie--it's really too bad!"
+
+"I'll tell Ann; and--and the letter?"
+
+"You're an odd girl; I'll get it you."
+
+He went into the next room, returning with a letter in his hand.
+
+"There!"
+
+Mattie dashed at it in her impatience, and tore it into twenty pieces,
+which she thrust into the pocket of her dress, lest a fragment of the
+news should remain as evidence of Harriet Wesden's want of judgment.
+
+"I say, my girl, that's not your letter, it's----"
+
+"It's better torn to pieces. Harriet wished it, sir."
+
+"She--she hasn't had a quarrel with my boy?"
+
+"No, sir, to be sure not."
+
+"I wonder how much longer he will be; there's--there's nothing further
+to break to an old man by degrees, Mattie?"
+
+"Nothing further. I have a little news to tell you about myself, that I
+hope you'll be sorry to hear."
+
+Mr. Hinchford's face assumed that perplexed look to which it had become
+prone of late years. Still he was not likely to be very much
+troubled--it was only about Mattie!
+
+"I am going away from here," Mattie explained in a hurried manner; "Mr.
+Wesden will tell you the whole story, and it's not to my credit, looking
+at it in his light. You'll believe it, perhaps?" she added wistfully.
+
+"Mr. Wesden is not accustomed to exaggeration, Mattie; but I will not
+believe anything that is wrong of you."
+
+"I hope you will not, however proof may seem to go against me," was the
+sad remark; "he thinks I'm wrong, and I dare not explain part, and
+cannot explain the rest, and so I'm going away this morning.
+
+"This morning!"
+
+Mr. Hinchford took a good haul of his stock at this.
+
+"He don't wish me to stop, and I would not if he did," said Mattie,
+proudly, "so we are both of one mind about my going. And now, sir,"
+holding out both hands to him, "try and think the best of me--never mind
+the desk this morning, that was nothing, remember--_do_ think well of
+one who will never forget you, and all the kindness you have shown me
+since I have been here."
+
+"Mattie, let me go down, and see if I can't set all this straight," said
+the old gentleman, moved by Mattie's appeal.
+
+"It could not be done, sir," said Mattie in reply; "you're very kind,
+but I know how much better it is to go. Why, sir, I have a great hope
+that they'll think better of me when I am gone!"
+
+"But--but----"
+
+"And so good-bye, sir."
+
+The old gentleman shook both her hands, stooped suddenly and kissed her
+on the forehead.
+
+"I can't make it all out, but I'll believe the best, Mattie."
+
+"Thank you--thank you."
+
+The tears were blinding her, so she hastened to the door, pausing there
+to add--
+
+"Tell Mr. Sidney--oh! tell him above all--to think of me, as I would
+think of him, whatever the world said and whoever was against him.
+Harriet will speak up for me when he has a doubt of my honesty, and he
+will believe her. Don't let my past life stand between you all and your
+better thoughts of me--good-bye."
+
+Mattie was gone; she had closed the door behind her, and shut in Mr.
+Hinchford, who forgot his breakfast for awhile in the sudden news that
+had been communicated. He was forgetful at times now; his memory, though
+he did not care to own it, would betray him when he least expected it.
+In the midst of his reverie, a flash of a new recollection took away his
+breath, and brought his hand again to his inflexible stock.
+
+"Good heaven!--not that letter, I hope."
+
+He bustled into the back room, and searched nervously in the pockets of
+coats, waistcoats, and trousers about there. A blank expression settled
+on his countenance as he drew from the side-pocket of the great coat he
+had worn yesternight, another letter--the letter which Mattie had
+demanded, and he thought that he had given her.
+
+"God bless me! she's torn up the letter that was given me to post last
+night!"
+
+He made a dash down-stairs, but Mattie had gone, and the double mistake
+could not be rectified.
+
+Mattie had made her final leave-taking by that time. She had gone
+straight from Mr. Hinchford's apartments into the shop, taking up her
+position on the street-side of the counter facing Mr. Wesden.
+
+"I'm--I'm ready to go now, sir!"
+
+"Very well. I--I didn't mean you to go in such a hurry; but as you have
+looked upon it in that light, why I can't stop you. There's your salary
+up to the month."
+
+He took it from the little back-shelf and laid it on the counter; Mattie
+hesitated for a moment; her face crimsoned, and there was an impulsive
+movement to sweep the money to the floor, checked by a second and better
+thought.
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+The money was dropped into her pocket; she looking steadily at Mr.
+Wesden meanwhile.
+
+"I shall send for my box when I've found a home," she said. "Let the man
+take it without being watched; some of you might like to know what has
+become of me, and I don't wish that yet awhile."
+
+"Where do you think of going?"
+
+"Anywhere I can be trusted," was the unintentional retort. "I am not
+particular, and I have a hope that God will send a friend to me. I think
+of going from here to Camberwell to bid one friend good-bye, at
+least--what do you think, sir?"
+
+"You had better not. She's ill."
+
+"You never said that before!" cried Mattie; "ill and alone!"
+
+"Harriet will return home when she gets up--she is just ill enough to be
+kept very quiet."
+
+"I'll not go to her, then."
+
+Mattie still fixed her dark eyes on Mr. Wesden; that steady, unflinching
+gaze was making the stationer feel uncomfortable.
+
+"I don't know that there is anything else to say," said Mattie, after a
+long pause; "and I suppose--you've nothing else to say to me?"
+
+"Nothing. Except," he added, after another pause on his part, "that I
+hope you will take care of yourself--that this will be a lesson to you."
+
+Mattie coloured once more, and took time to reply.
+
+"I would part friends with _you_," she said at last. "I have been trying
+hard to bear everything that you say, remembering past kindness. _You_
+saved me at the eleventh hour, when I was going back to ruin--_you_
+taught me what was good, and made this place my home; for _you_ and
+_yours_ I would do anything in the world that lay in my power. BUT!" she
+cried, her face kindling and her eyes flashing, "if it had been any one
+else who had spoken to me as you have done, who had cast such cruel
+slander at me, and believed in nothing but my vileness, I--I think I
+should have killed him!"
+
+Mr. Wesden had never seen Mattie in a passion before; her frenzy alarmed
+him, and he backed against the drawers behind him lest she should
+attempt some mischief. His confidence in the righteousness of his cause
+was more shaken also; but he did not know how to express it, having been
+ever a man whose ideas came slowly.
+
+"Upstairs, a little while ago, Mr. Wesden," continued Mattie, "I thought
+that we were quits with each other--that casting me back to the streets
+made amends for the rescue from them years ago. I thought almost that I
+could afford to hate you--but you must forgive me that--I was not myself
+then! I know better now; and if I go back alone and friendless, still I
+take with me all the good thoughts which the latter years have given me,
+and no misfortune is likely to rob me of."
+
+"But--but----"
+
+"But this is strange talk in a woman who cannot account for missing
+property, and keeps out all night," said Mattie; "you can't think any
+better of me now--some day you will. Good-bye, sir--may I shake hands
+with you?"
+
+"I--I don't bear any malice, Mattie. I--I wish you well, girl," he
+stammered, as he held forth his hand.
+
+Mattie's declamation had cowed him, softened him. He was the man of the
+past, who had faith in her, and whom late events had not changed so
+much. He thought it might be a mistake just then--he did not know--he
+understood nothing--his brain was in a whirl.
+
+Mattie shook hands with him, and then went away without another word.
+Outside in the streets the traffic was thickening--it was Saturday
+morning, when people sought the streets in greater numbers. Mattie's
+slight form was soon lost in the surging stream of human life; Mr.
+Wesden, who had followed her to the door, noticed how soon she was
+submerged.
+
+Five years ago he had taken her from the streets--a stray. Again in her
+womanhood, at his wish, he had cast her back to them a stray
+still--nothing more!
+
+A stray whom no one would claim as child, sister, friend; who went away
+characterless in a world ever ready to believe the worst. She had spoken
+of her strength to do battle now alone, but she did not know with what
+enemies she had to fight, or what deadly weapons to encounter; watching
+her from that shop door, she looked little more than the child God had
+once prompted him to save.
+
+He could have run after her again, as in the old times, and cried
+"Stop!"--he could have taken her to his heart again, and began anew with
+her, sinking the incomprehensible bygones for ever.
+
+But he moved not; and Mattie, the stray, drifted from his home, and went
+away to seek her fortunes.
+
+
+END OF THE THIRD BOOK.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+"WANT PLACES."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"ONE AND TWENTY."
+
+
+Mattie's box was fetched away from Great Suffolk Street; the man who
+called for it brought a note to Ann Packet, which she found a friend to
+read for her later in the day. It did not furnish Ann Packet with her
+address--"When I am settled, Ann," she promised, quoting her own words
+on that morning of departure, "and I am very unsettled yet awhile."
+
+Poor Ann Packet, who had looked forward to paying sundry flying visits
+to Mattie, and upon spending her holiday once a month with her, mourned
+over this evasion of Mattie's--"won't she trust even in me, or think of
+me a bit?" she said.
+
+In Mattie's letter was enclosed a smaller one to Harriet Wesden, who
+understood the _coup d'etat_ which had ensued by that time, and was
+agitated and unhappy concerning it. This was Mattie's letter to Harriet
+Wesden, _in extenso_:--
+
+"Keep your promise, dearest Harriet--never forget that your happiness,
+and that of others, depend upon it. Do not think that I have taken the
+blame, or am a victim--it is not only for my actions of that night that
+I have gone away. Sooner or later, it must have come. God bless you!--I
+hope to see you again soon. Your letter to Sidney is destroyed."
+
+Harriet pondered over this missive. For weeks she became more
+thoughtful, and aroused fresh anxiety in her father--for weeks went on
+an unknown and fierce struggle to break away from her promise and tell
+all.
+
+She had been afraid of the revelation, and what would be said and
+thought about it; she had seen her innocence construed as half-consent,
+and herself set down as an accomplice in Mr. Darcy's plot; she had
+feared losing the esteem and confidence of all who now respected her.
+But when Mattie had been sent away for keeping out all night--and though
+she had not heard the story, she guessed of whom Mattie had been in
+search--her sense of justice, her love for Mattie, led her more than
+once to the verge of the revelation. Keeping her own secret was one
+thing, but the blame to rest on another was very different, and despite
+her promise--into which she had been entrapped as it were--the avowal
+was ever trembling on her lips.
+
+After, all it was but the truth to confess--her father and mother would
+believe her; and if Sidney Hinchford turned away, why surely there was
+nothing to grieve at in that--she could not have loved Sidney, or that
+letter would never have been written to him! And yet let it be recorded
+here, Harriet Wesden's main incentive to keep her secret close was for
+Sidney Hinchford's sake. It tortured her to think that she should have
+ever entertained one feeling of love or liking for the Mr. Darcy who had
+sought her humiliation; the shock to her pride had not only turned her
+utterly away from Mr. Darcy, but the very contrast he presented to young
+Hinchford, had aroused the old, or given birth to a new affection for
+the latter.
+
+She valued Sidney Hinchford at his just due at last; she understood his
+patience, energy, and love; how he had been working for her from his
+boyhood, and what would have been the effect to him of losing her. She
+had made up her mind, when he returned, to give him all her heart, and
+sustain him by her love against those secret cares which lately had been
+shadowing him. She believed that her secret was for ever shut away from
+the light--that keeping it under lock and key would be better for
+Sidney, whose trust in her was so implicit. He had always believed in
+her devotion to himself; why should she break in upon that dream, now
+she felt that all girlish follies were over with her, and she had become
+a staid woman, whose hope was to be his wife?
+
+She was consoled by Mattie's letter: "It is not only for my actions of
+that night that I have gone away. Sooner or later it must have come."
+
+Mattie, ever a deep thinker, considered it best also--by her confession,
+even Mattie would be unhappy; so Harriet kept her secret for everybody's
+sake, and made her last mistake in life. Mattie and she had both
+regarded the subject from a narrow point of view, and were wrong; the
+best intentioned people are wrong sometimes, and from young women, with
+their heads disturbed concerning young men, we do not anticipate the
+judgment of Solomon.
+
+Harriet Wesden felt secure--knowing not of the letter in Mr. Hinchford's
+coat, of Mr. Hinchford's mistake and Mattie's. And yet the chances now
+were against the revelation, thanks to the treacherous memory of the old
+gentleman. He had mentioned his error in the counting-house to his
+employers the same day, and met with a reprimand and a supercilious
+shrug of the shoulders--"It was like old Hinchford," one partner had
+muttered to another, and there the subject ended for a while. Mr.
+Hinchford went home, resolving to restore the letter to Harriet Wesden,
+took the letter from his pocket and put it on the bedroom mantel-piece,
+to keep the matter in his remembrance until he saw Harriet again.
+
+There for two days the letter remained, till Ann Packet, in dusting the
+room, knocked it on the floor, picked it up and placed it on the
+dressing-glass, where Mr. Hinchford found it, and rather absently-shut
+it in the looking-glass drawer, as a safe place; and then the letter
+passed completely out of recollection, there being a great deal to
+trouble his mind just then.
+
+For they were not kind to him at his business, expected too much from
+him, and made no allowance for an old servant; and above all, and before
+all, the boy's birthday was drawing near--it was three days before
+Harriet Wesden's--and there was no sign of Sidney Hinchford on his way
+towards him.
+
+By that time Mr. Wesden had found a customer for his business, which was
+to change hands early in February; and in February what would become of
+him, and whither should he go himself, thought Mr. Hinchford? Good
+gracious! he would have to change his residence, and his son perhaps
+never be able to find him! A horrid thought, which only lasted till he
+thought of his son's business address, but _whilst_ it lasted, a trying
+one.
+
+When the birthday of Sidney Hinchford came round in January, the father
+grew excited; talked of his son at business all day, and worried the
+clerks about his son's accomplishments; returned in the evening to
+harass Mr. Wesden, always at his post behind the counter, for the few
+more days remaining of his business life.
+
+"I have brought a bottle of wine home with me in the hope of the lad's
+return," said Mr. Hinchford, placing that luxury on the counter; "his
+one and twentieth year must not pass without our wishing _bon voyage_ to
+his manhood. You and I, Mr. Wesden, will at least drink his health
+to-night."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"I'll come and keep you company, after tea, in the back parlour, Wesden,
+and we'll have a long talk about my boy and your girl. There should have
+been a formal betrothal to-night, with much rejoicing afterwards. To
+think of his being one-and-twenty to-day, and away from us!"
+
+"It must seem odd to you. Perhaps he'll come back to-night."
+
+"That's what I have been thinking, Wesden. I fancy if he were near his
+return journey he would make a push for it to-night, knowing the old
+father's wishes. I fancy, do you know, that if I had been your
+daughter----"
+
+"Well--what of her?"
+
+"If I had been Harriet, I should have remembered this day, and looked in
+for a few moments."
+
+"Her mother don't grow stronger; she is fidgety when she is away, and
+the servant we have is not of much use."
+
+"Then Harriet might have written, wishing him many happy returns of the
+day, or have come to congratulate me upon having such a son grown to
+man's estate."
+
+Having expressed this opinion, Mr. Hinchford went up-stairs to the tea
+which Ann Packet had prepared for him--spent an hour after tea in
+putting the room to rights, opening Sidney's desk and lighting the
+table-lamp at the side thereof.
+
+"Now, if he come home, and there's work to be done--and if it's to be
+done, his one-and-twentieth birthday will not stop it--there's
+everything ready to begin!"
+
+He went down-stairs to join Mr. Wesden in the parlour--the news-boy was
+perched on the chair in the shop, keeping guard over the goods that
+night--and found Harriet Wesden seated at the fireside.
+
+"Why, it's all coming true," cried the old gentleman, seizing both hands
+of Harriet, and shaking them up and down, "and he's coming home!"
+
+"Have you thought so, too?" asked Harriet.
+
+"Well, I have hoped so, at all events; and it seems as if we were
+waiting for him now, and he _must_ come. But don't talk too much about
+that, please," he said, with his characteristic tug at his stock, "or I
+shall feel as if something had happened when he keeps away. But we'll
+drink the boy's health, at all events, God bless him! and we'll have a
+game at whist, three and a dummy, and make quite a party of it in our
+little way. Sid one-and-twenty, Wesden! by all that's glorious, it's a
+fine thing to have a son come to maturity!"
+
+Wine-glasses were produced--even a pack of cards, a brand new pack from
+the stock--and Sid's health was drunk very quietly, without any musical
+honours, but very heartily, for all that.
+
+And five minutes after the health had been drunk, Sidney Hinchford,
+portmanteau in hand, entered the shop, and walked straight into the
+parlour.
+
+"I said he'd come!" exclaimed the father. "Many happy returns of the
+day, you runaway! God bless you, my boy, and grant you health and
+happiness!"
+
+He wound up his wishes by kissing him as though he had been a girl.
+Sidney blushed, and laughed at his father's impulsiveness, and then
+turned to his two remaining friends with whom he shook hands--we need
+not add with whom the longer time.
+
+"Finish your game at whist," he said; "I must not spoil the harmony of
+the evening. Here, shall I take dummy?"
+
+"If you like. But we want to know----"
+
+"Presently you shall know all--let us relapse into our old positions,
+just as if I had never been away, for awhile. How's Mattie--where is
+she?"
+
+All three looked somewhat blankly at him. Mattie's departure, and the
+reasons which had actuated it, were more or less a mystery, and
+difficult of explanation.
+
+Mr. Wesden acted as spokesman.
+
+"I'm sorry to say she has gone away under very disagreeable
+circumstances."
+
+"Gone away!--Mattie!"
+
+"Your father can tell you all about it some other time," said Mr.
+Wesden. "I don't think we need spoil the evening by a long, sad story."
+
+"Yes, but, dash it! disagreeable circumstances," said Sidney--"that's an
+awkward phrase, and don't sound affectionate. But, until to-morrow,
+we'll postpone all details. I'll take dummy, and be your partner,
+Harriet."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He did not know whether it were better to be Harriet's partner, or to be
+her father's, and sit by Harriet's side--that matter had always
+perplexed him the few times he had played at whist with them. It seemed
+somewhat strange his playing at whist at all that night--his arriving
+from a long journey, tired and travel-worn, as evident from his looks,
+and immediately sitting down to cards, as though there were an
+infatuation in the game, which under no circumstances it was in his
+power to resist. Harriet Wesden thought it strange at least, and now and
+then furtively regarded him. He played whist well, as he did everything
+well he undertook--but his heart was not in the game, and more than
+once, as he held the cards, close to his glasses, in the old
+near-sighted fashion, Harriet fancied that the face assumed a troubled
+expression. The game at whist was over at last, and with it Sidney
+Hinchford's power of endurance.
+
+"Now that is over, I think I'll tell you a story. I don't know three
+people in the world so well entitled to have the first hearing of it.
+I'll ask you, sir," turning to his father, "to give me courage, and see
+that I do not give way?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford senior stared, as well he might, at this--it placed him in
+a new position, and braced his nerves accordingly. Sidney had resolved
+upon these tactics on his homeward route; there was no chance of
+breaking _his_ news gradually--the world would be talking of it ere the
+morning.
+
+"I always hated dodging a truth," said Sidney, sturdily; "it's a bad
+habit, and don't answer. It's sneaking--isn't it, Mr. Wesden?"
+
+"Well--yes."
+
+"If there's good luck coming, go to meet it--if there's disappointment
+which you can't avoid, let it meet you, and not find you hiding away
+from the inevitable. Why, that's like a baby!"
+
+"To be sure it is," said the father; "wait a moment--I'm not a bit
+nervous about this--I'll see that you keep firm, my boy, but I'll just
+unfasten this buckle behind my neck a moment. Now, then!"
+
+"When I was one-and-twenty, there seemed reason to believe in a
+partnership in my masters' firm--my masters took a fancy to me when I
+was a lad, and very much obliged to them I was for it. By that hope in
+prospective," suddenly turning to Harriet Wesden, and leaning over the
+table towards her with a very anxious look upon his face, "I was led,
+Harriet, to think too much of you--to enter into a half-engagement, or a
+whole one, or a something that kept me ever thinking of you, hoping for
+you. When I was one-and-twenty, I was to come to your father, and say,
+'I am in a good position of life--may I consider Harriet as my future
+wife?'--he was to refer me to you if satisfied with my prospects, and
+you were--well, I did hope very much that you were then to say, 'Yes' in
+real earnest. All this, a pretty story, foolish for me to believe
+in--but a story ended now in an ugly fashion. Mr. Wesden," veering
+suddenly round to the stationer, "my prospects in life are infamously
+bad; my employers are bankrupts, and my services will not be required
+after this day month!"
+
+Mr. Hinchford flung himself back in his chair with a crash that brought
+the top rail off,--Sidney turned at once to him, and laid his hand upon
+his arm.
+
+"With my father to give me courage, I can bear this!"
+
+"That's--that's--that's well, my lad. Keep strong--oh! Lord have mercy
+upon us!--keep strong, my boy!"
+
+"I have been fighting hard to get the firm straight--I have been abroad
+to the foreign branch, working night and day there, my last chance and
+my employer's. I had a hope once of success, till the markets fell
+suddenly, and swamped everything--our weakness could not stand against
+anything new and unforeseen, and so we--_smashed_! It will be all over
+town to-morrow--but it was a good fight whilst it lasted."
+
+"It's very unfortunate news," said Mr. Wesden.
+
+"I'm not afraid for myself," said Sidney, proudly; "I think that with
+time, and health--ah! I must not forget that--I shall work my way
+somewhere, and to something in good time. But I shan't climb to
+greatness all of a sudden; and it may happen that at forty--even fifty
+years of age--I may be no better off than I am now. That I'm
+disappointed is natural enough, for I know money's value, and perhaps it
+was a little too near my heart, and this is my lesson; but the
+disappointment of losing you, Harriet--of giving up that chance, as any
+honourable man should--is the one loss which staggers me, and will be
+the hardest to surmount. I thought that I would make a clean breast of
+it, and begin my one-and-twentieth year free, as land-agents say, of all
+encumbrances."
+
+It was a poor attempt at _facetiae_--a very weak effort to carry things
+off with a high hand, like a Hinchford. But he played his part well; he
+did not break down; he confessed his inability to keep a wife, or think
+of a wife, and he spoke out like one who had reached man's estate, and
+felt strong to bear man's troubles.
+
+Mr. Wesden stared at Sidney long after he had concluded, and a pause had
+followed the outburst; Harriet Wesden, with a heightened colour, looked
+down at her white hands so tightly clasped together in her lap, and
+thought that it was a strange explanation--a strange hour for an
+explanation which he might have chosen his time to give to her alone.
+Surely she might have been offered an opportunity of giving an answer
+also, and spared that embarrassment with which his thoughtlessness had
+afflicted her. Could her father answer for _her_, as well as for
+himself!
+
+Mr. Wesden delivered his reply, after several moments' grave
+deliberation.
+
+"Mr. Sidney," said he, "I always did hate anything kept back, and
+doubted the honesty of anybody keeping it. The truth, however hard it
+may be to tell, will always bear the light upon it, I'm inclined to
+think."
+
+Harriet winced.
+
+"And you've spoken fair," he continued, "and given her up like a man.
+Now let her answer for herself; if she don't mind waiting till you're
+able to keep her--till you're forty or fifty, as you say," he added
+drily, "why, I shan't stand in opposition. The longer the engagement,
+the longer she'll be my daughter. There, can I put it in a fairer light
+than that that?"
+
+Sidney's harangue, or Sidney's father's port-wine, had rendered Mr.
+Wesden magnanimous as well as loquacious that evening; or else, in
+business, his better nature was developing anew.
+
+Now to such an answer as this, one can imagine Sidney Hinchford starting
+to his feet and wringing Mr. Wesden's hand, or turning suddenly to
+Harriet and looking earnestly, almost beseechingly, in her direction. On
+the contrary, he remained silent and moody; Mr. Wesden's answer was
+unprepared for, and his compliment to his straightforwardness brought a
+colour to Sidney's cheek--for, after all, he was keeping something back!
+
+There was a painful silence, broken at last by a low and faltering
+voice, the musical murmur of which drew Sidney's eyes towards her at
+last.
+
+"Has Mr. Sidney the patience to wait for me, or care for a long
+engagement, of which he may eventually tire?"
+
+"Patience!--care for an engagement!" he almost shouted.
+
+"Then when he asks me again," said Harriet, "I will give him my answer.
+But," with an arch smile towards him, "I will wait till I am asked."
+
+"Bless you, my dear girl!" exclaimed old Hinchford, "I feel like a
+father towards you already--as for waiting, every true boy and girl will
+wait for each other--why shouldn't they, if they love one another, eh,
+Sid?"
+
+His hand came heavily on Sid's shoulder, and knocked off his son's
+glasses.
+
+"Ah! why shouldn't they, if they are sure of love lasting all the long
+time between engagement and marriage. Harriet! dear Harriet!" he
+exclaimed, "I will ask you presently."
+
+"When the old fogies are out of the way, and the courtship can be
+carried on in the recondite style," cried his elated father; "a sly dog
+this, who will not be embarrassed by witnesses--eh, Wesden?"
+
+Wesden gave a short laugh--a double-knock species of laugh, in which he
+indulged when more than usually hilarious.
+
+"Ah! that's it!" he said; "and as for waiting, why Mrs. Wesden and I are
+an old couple, and mayn't keep you waiting so long as you fancy, Sidney.
+It isn't much money, but----"
+
+"That will do, sir," said Sidney, hastily; "I must support my wife, not
+let my wife support me. Harriet," turning to the daughter, with an
+impetuosity almost akin to fierceness, "is it not time to return to
+Camberwell?"
+
+"Oh! ho!--do you hear that, Wesden?" cried the father.
+
+Mr. Hinchford had forgotten the downfall of his son's air-built castle,
+in the happiness which he believed would make amends for it to Sidney.
+And if Sidney were content--why, he was.
+
+Harriet was glad of an excuse to escape. Two old gentlemen talking of
+love affairs--her love affairs--before the suitor, was scarcely fair,
+and her position was not enviable. And besides that, Sidney Hinchford's
+manner had not been comprehensible, and required explanation; she could
+almost believe that he did not desire an engagement; there was so little
+of the impassioned lover in his new demeanour. There was a mystery, and
+she would be glad to have it dissipated.
+
+Harriet went away, escorted by her lover, and the two fathers drew their
+chairs closer to the fire and drank the health of the happy couple as
+they went out at the door.
+
+"This is a proud day for you and me--to have such children, and to see
+them growing up fonder and fonder of each other every day--eh, Wesden?"
+
+"Yes. I have been uneasy about Harriet, and leaving her alone in the
+world. She will be always happy with him, and have a good protector."
+
+"That she will. How the little girl would have clapped her hands at
+this!"
+
+"What little girl?" asked Wesden.
+
+"Why, Mattie, to be sure. Mattie, who used to play the mother almost to
+those two, her seniors, and be always as interested as a mother in
+making a match between them."
+
+"Ah!--Mattie!--yes!"
+
+Mr. Wesden looked about for his pipe and his pipe-lights on the
+mantel-piece.
+
+Mr. Hinchford drew his favourite meerschaum from his coat-pocket. The
+two old men faced each other, and began to smoke vigorously.
+
+"I wonder where that girl has got to?" suggested Hinchford.
+
+"It's impossible to say. In good hands, I hope."
+
+"I'd lay a heavy wager that she knows whose birthday it is to-day,"
+commented Mr. Hinchford; "she was a girl who never forgot anything."
+
+"Ah--perhaps so!"
+
+"And I think she might have cleared up the fog, if you had waited a bit,
+Wesden."
+
+"Why didn't she, if she could?"
+
+"I don't know. I promised to believe in her, and somehow I do."
+
+"Can anything in the world account for a girl her age being out all
+night?" said Wesden.
+
+"Ah! that looks bad--I can't get over that!" said Mr. Hinchford, giving
+his head one sorrowful shake.
+
+Poor Mattie!--poor stray! whose actions, the best and most unselfish,
+were not to be accounted for, or done justice to in this world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SIDNEY'S CONFESSION.
+
+
+Sidney Hinchford escorted Harriet Wesden home to Camberwell. A most
+unromantic walk down the Newington Causeway--sacred to milliners and
+counter-skippers--the Walworth Road, Camberwell Road, and streets
+branching thence to melancholy suburbs--and yet a walk that was the
+happiest in the lives of these two, though looked back upon in after
+years through tear-dimmed eyes, and sighed for by hearts that had been
+sorely wrung. Such a walk as most of us may have taken once in
+life--seldom more than once--a walk away from sober realism into
+fairy-land, where everything apart from love was a something to be
+utterly despised, and where love first rose to fill our souls with
+promise. What if the story ended abruptly, and the waking came, and one
+or two of us fell heavily to earth--we did not die of the wounds, and we
+see now that the fall was the best thing that could have happened for
+us. We look back at the past, and regret not the sunshine that dazzled
+us there.
+
+And yet there was a stern story to relate, and Sidney had escorted
+Harriet Wesden home, believing in the darkness rather than the light
+upon his way. He went forth regarding life literally, and he found
+himself, after awhile, in the land of romance, wherein sober existence
+had no dwelling-place.
+
+Let him tell the story in his own way.
+
+Harriet and Sidney had not proceeded a long distance together before he
+began.
+
+"I think that I must have puzzled you very much, Harriet, by this
+evening's behaviour--by the way in which I received your kindness--more
+than kindness. There was a reason, and I am going to explain it."
+
+"Is it worth explanation?" asked Harriet.
+
+"I think so--you shall judge. It is an explanation that I cannot give my
+father, for it would break his heart, I think, with the long suspense
+which would follow it."
+
+"So serious an explanation as that, Sidney?"
+
+"Yes. Is it not odd that, with my character for straightforwardness, I
+should have been all my life keeping back the truth?"
+
+"From him--for his sake, only, Sidney?"
+
+"Perhaps for my own--to save myself from a host of inquisitive
+questions, and an attention that would irritate rather than soothe--I am
+a very selfish man."
+
+"I don't believe that yet awhile."
+
+"When I came home to-night, I had no other hope than that you and your
+father would consider that I had not made good my claim to become a
+favoured suitor, and that there was nothing left me but to make my
+statement and withdraw my rash pretensions. You will pardon me, Harriet,
+but it had never struck me that you were strong enough, or--pardon me
+again--that you had ever loved me well enough to attempt a _sacrifice_.
+
+"I was a girl--very vain and frivolous--you were right."
+
+"I come back and find you altered very much, Harriet. I find the old
+reserve that piqued my pride no longer there, and, instead, a something
+newer and more frank, a something that says, 'Trust me.' Is that a true
+reading?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured.
+
+"I am vain enough to believe in the heart growing fonder during my
+absence--though I have always fancied the experiment full of danger for
+the absent one. Say that the heart has done so--or that I did not
+understand you. Still the effect was the same, or I should not have the
+courage to tell you the great secret of my life. If I believed that you
+did not love me, or that you had ever loved any one else, I would not
+venture to put you to _this_ test."
+
+Harriet hung down her head, and her heart beat rapidly; the old story
+was before her, and his very words seemed now to forbid its revelation.
+His firm, self-reliant nature had never swerved from her, and he judged
+others by himself. His was a love that had begun from boyhood, and grown
+with his growth; should she raise the first suspicion against her by
+telling him all, when it was in her power--and only in _her_ power--to
+make him happy, to make amends for all by her new love for him? Let him
+test her how he liked now, she was a woman who looked at life seriously,
+and the follies of her youth were over!
+
+They walked on silently for awhile; they went on together, playing their
+love-dream out, and oblivious of the matter-of-fact world hustling them
+in their progress.
+
+"This is the love test--and it must be a strange, pure love to exist
+after I have told all," he said.
+
+"Do you doubt me, Sidney, already?"
+
+"I cannot tell. I cannot," he added, more passionately, "believe in any
+affection strong and deep enough to last; but I can forgive, and
+consider natural, any love that turns to pity at the truth. Do you
+comprehend me?"
+
+"Scarcely."
+
+"Well then--_I am going blind_!"
+
+An awful and unexpected revelation, which took her breath away, and
+seemed for an instant to stop her heart beating.
+
+"Oh! Sidney--my poor Sidney--it cannot be!"
+
+"Sooner or later, Harriet, it must be; mine is a hopeless case," he
+answered; "with care, and less night work, and quiet--that last means
+absence from all mental excitement--I may go on for a few years more;
+the last physician whom I have consulted even thinks he can give me ten
+years' grace. Now in ten years, ten of the best years of a young man's
+life, I ought to save, and I hope to save, sufficient to live upon. I
+may be over-sanguine, but if I get a good foothold I will try. And now
+where lives the girl who will accept a ten years' engagement, with the
+chance of a beggar or a blind man at the end of it?"
+
+Harriet pressed his arm.
+
+"Here," she answered.
+
+"You will! There is the faith to wait, the courage to endure, and the
+love to sustain me. You are not afraid?"
+
+"No--I have no fear," replied Harriet, warmly; "God knows that I _have_
+changed very much, and only lately learned to understand myself. I do
+not fear, Sidney, for I--I have learned to love you, and, by comparison,
+to see how noble and high-principled you are. But oh! if I were but more
+worthy of you, and your deep love for me!"
+
+"Worthy!" he echoed; "why, what have I done to deserve a life's devotion
+to me, save to love you, which was the most natural thing in the world.
+What have I ever done to deserve the happiness of winning your love--a
+long legged, near-sighted gawky like me!--and such a love as shrinks not
+from the dark prospect ahead, but will disperse it by its brightness,
+and keep me from despairing. Why, in ten years time we shall not be an
+old couple--I shall only be one-and-thirty, and you but nine-and-twenty.
+When the light goes out," he added solemnly, "you will place your hand
+in mine to make amends for it, and begin my new happiness by the wife's
+companionship; shall I be so very much to be pitied then, I wonder?"
+
+"I hope not, Sid."
+
+She had not called him by that name since he was a boy, and his heart
+thrilled at it, and took fresh hope from it.
+
+"All this on my part, I know is very selfish," he said. "I have told you
+already that I am a selfish man, to wish that your youth and beauty and
+love should be sacrificed to my affliction. I did not think of gaining
+them; I was content to pass away from you, and see you allied to one
+more deserving, more fitting, than myself; even now, I will go away
+resigned, thinking you are right to give me up, if but one doubt linger
+at your heart."
+
+"Not one," was the firm answer.
+
+"I can bear all now--afterwards, a doubt would strike me down--remember
+that."
+
+"Trust in me, Sid--ever."
+
+"I will."
+
+The hand that had rested on his arm was held in his now, and they walked
+on together, with their hearts as full of happiness as though blindness
+were a trifling calamity, scarcely worth considering under the
+circumstances.
+
+Sidney had pictured so dark a prospect ahead, that this sudden change
+made all bright, and Harriet Wesden was happy in being able to prove
+that her love was unselfish and strong. She did not believe that she had
+ever loved any one else then--she knew that hers was a different and
+more intense affection, something that felt like love, and that nothing
+in the world could destroy. Mr. Darcy was but a phantom, far back in the
+mists--his own dark efforts had utterly extinguished every ray of
+romance, in the false light of which he had luridly shone. Strengthened
+by her new love, she could have broken her promise to Mattie, and told
+all then, trusting in him to see the truth, and believe in her
+henceforth; but he had spoken of the danger of excitement to him, and
+once again--once for all--went the story back, never to hover on the
+brink of discovery again!
+
+It was a strange courtship--that of Sidney Hinchford and Harriet's--but
+they were happy. The calamity was in the distance, and their hearts were
+young and strong. Both had faith then--and of the chances and changes of
+life, it was not natural to dwell upon, after the one avowal had been
+uttered.
+
+"Then it _is_ an engagement," he had asked hoarsely, and she had
+answered "Yes," with his own frankness and boldness; and thus the path
+ahead seemed bright enough.
+
+Outside the suburban retreat of the Wesdens', Sidney Hinchford had a
+little struggle with duty and inclination--conquering inclination with
+that strong will of his.
+
+"I'll go back to the old gentleman," he said at last; "he is scarcely
+used to my reappearance yet, and a little makes him nervous. Good-bye,
+love."
+
+A lovers parting at the iron gate, to the intense edification of the
+potman coming up the street with the nine o'clock beer; and then Sidney
+tore himself homewards, thinking what a happy fellow he was, and how the
+business disappointments of life had been softened by the events that
+had followed them. The future could not be dark with Harriet; before
+this he had become resigned to his calamity, bent his strong mind to
+regard it as inevitable; now there was to come happiness with it, and he
+would be more than content, he thought.
+
+He was soon back in Suffolk Street. Mr. Wesden was in the shop talking
+to a short, thin man with a sallow complexion, a hooked nose, bright
+black eyes, and straight hair; a man dressed in black; with a rusty
+satin stock of the same colour, secured by an old-fashioned brooch of
+gold wire, in the shape of a heart.
+
+"And her name was Mattie, you say?"
+
+"That was the name she called herself, and went always by in this
+house."
+
+"And you don't know her whereabouts?"
+
+"I haven't an idea."
+
+"But you think she has gone wrong, don't you?" the man asked with no
+small eagerness.
+
+"Well, I hope not; but I think so."
+
+"Who? Mattie!" cried Sidney, suddenly thrusting himself into the
+conversation; "our Mattie--that be--_hanged_!"
+
+He checked himself in time to save scandalizing the ears of the
+gentleman in black, who twirled round with a tee-to-tum velocity and
+faced him.
+
+"What do you know of her, young man?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"What do you want to know for?" was the rejoinder.
+
+"I wish to find her--I am very anxious to find her."
+
+"I hope you may, if it's for her good."
+
+"Her moral and spiritual good, sir--without a doubt."
+
+"You can't improve her. There isn't a better or more unselfish girl in
+the world!"
+
+"_What!_" screamed the man in black.
+
+"Not a better girl, I verily believe. I haven't heard the reasons for
+her departure yet," he said, looking at Mr. Wesden; "but they're good
+ones, or I was never more mistaken in my life."
+
+"You are mistaken," said Mr. Wesden; "I've tried to think the best of
+Mattie, but I can't. There are no honest reasons for her conduct, or she
+would have told me."
+
+Sidney Hinchford paused,
+
+"It must be very unreasonable conduct then," said Sidney, "and she must
+have changed very much during my absence from this house. But, upon my
+soul!" he exclaimed vehemently, "I shan't believe any harm in her, for
+one!"
+
+The stranger regarded Sidney Hinchford attentively, then said--
+
+"You need not have brought your soul into question, sir. Pledge that in
+God's service--nothing else."
+
+"Oh!" said Sidney, taken aback at the reproof.
+
+"You speak warmly; and somehow I've a hope of her not being very bad--of
+reclaiming her by my own earnest efforts. Young man, I will thank you."
+
+He stretched forth an ungloved hand, which Sidney took--a hard hand,
+that gripped Sid forcibly and made him wince a little.
+
+"You all seem in doubt, more or less," he said; "and that gives me hope.
+Mr. Wesden and you don't agree in opinion, and that's something. Who's
+that white-haired man I see in the parlour!"
+
+"That's my father, sir," said Sidney, smiling at the sudden curiosity
+evinced.
+
+"Does he know anything about her?"
+
+"Not so much as myself," said Mr. Wesden.
+
+"Have you asked the servant--if you keep one?"
+
+"I have asked her everything, and she knows nothing," replied the
+stationer.
+
+"Then I'll go. I think I shall find her yet, mind you," he said in an
+excited manner. "I'm not a man to give up in a hurry, when I've taken an
+idea in my head. I've been sixteen years looking for that girl!"
+
+"Are you a relation?" asked Sidney.
+
+"Her father."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+The stranger began hammering the counter with his hard hand, till the
+money in the till underneath rattled again. He began to take small leaps
+in the air, also, during the progress of his harangue.
+
+"Her father--a poor man reclaimed from error, and knowing what it is to
+walk uprightly. A man who has, he trusts, done some good in his day--a
+man who now sets himself the task of finding that daughter he neglected
+once. And I'll find her and reclaim her--God will show me the way, I
+think. And you shall see her again, a shining light in the midst of
+ye--a brand from the burning, a credit to _me_! There's hope for her
+yet. Good night."
+
+And very abruptly the gentleman in black leaped out of the shop and
+disappeared.
+
+"That's an odd fish," remarked Sidney.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A FLYING VISIT TO NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR.
+
+
+Before Mr. Wesden had finally disposed of his business in Great Suffolk
+Street, he met with his greatest trouble in the loss of the companion,
+helpmate, wife, who had struggled with him for many years from indigence
+to moderate competence. Mrs. Wesden's health had been failing for some
+time, but her loss was still as unprepared for, and the husband bent
+lower and walked more feebly when his better half--his better self--was
+taken from him in his latter days.
+
+"You have still me, remember," said Harriet, when the undemonstrative
+nature gave way, and he sobbed like a child at his isolation; and he had
+answered, "Ah! _you_ mustn't desert me yet awhile--you must comfort me,"
+and refused to be comforted for many a long day. His character even
+altered once more--as characters alter in all cases, except in novels;
+and though the abruptness remained, and the silent fits were of longer
+duration, he became less harsh in his judgments, and more easily
+influenced for good. This was evident one day, when after an intense
+study of the fire before which he sat, he burst forth with----
+
+"I wonder if I acted well by Mattie--poor Mattie, who would be so sorry
+to hear all the sad news that has happened since she left us."
+
+Harriet, who had always taken Mattie's part to the verge of her own
+confession, answered warmly,
+
+"No, _we_ all acted very badly--very cruelly. When she comes again, as
+she will, I feel assured--I hope she will forgive us, father."
+
+"Forgive us?"
+
+Mr. Wesden had not arrived to that pitch of kind consideration yet, but
+Mattie's departure and long silence were troubles to him when he was
+left to think of the past, and of the business from which he had at last
+retired in earnest.
+
+The shop had changed proprietors, and the Hinchfords, father and son,
+had removed their furniture from Mr. Wesden's first floor to a little
+house Camberwell way, also. A very small domicile had this careful
+couple decided upon for their suburban retreat--one of a row of houses
+that we may designate Chesterfield Terrace, and the rents of which were
+two-and-twenty pounds per annum.
+
+Mr. Hinchford, we have already premised, had somewhat lofty notions,
+which adversity had kept in check, rather than subdued. The removal to
+Chesterfield Terrace was a blow to him. The rooms in Great Suffolk
+Street had been only borne with, scarcely resigned to; but though he had
+lived there many years, he had never considered himself as "settled
+down"--merely resting by the way, before he marched off to independence
+and the old Hinchford state. It had been a mythical dream, perhaps,
+until Sidney's star rose in the ascendant, and then he had quickly built
+his castles in the air, and bided his time more sanguinely. When that
+vision faded in its turn, the old gentleman was sorely tried; only his
+son's strategy in feigning to require consolation had turned him away
+from his own regrets to thoughts of how to make them less light for--the
+BOY.
+
+But 34, Chesterfield Terrace, Chesterfield Road, Camberwell New Road,
+was a blow to him. The air was fresher than in Great Suffolk Street, the
+large market gardens at the back of his house were pleasant in all
+seasons, except the cabbage season; there were three bed-rooms, two
+parlours, a wash-house at the back, and a long strip of garden,
+constituting a house and premises that were solely and wholly theirs,
+and entitled them to the glorious privilege of electing a member for
+incorruptible Lambeth; but the change was not all that Mr. Hinchford had
+looked forward to for so many years, and he grew despondent, and fancied
+that it could never be better now.
+
+The Hinchfords had taken into their service Ann Packet, of workhouse
+origin, and undiscoverable parentage; she had pleaded to be constituted
+their servant, at any wages, or no wages at all, rather than at her time
+of life to be sent forth in search of fresh faces and new homes.
+
+At this period, Mr. Wesden had required a servant also, and Ann Packet
+had begged Sidney Hinchford to engage her at once, before she should be
+asked to continue in the old service.
+
+"What! tired of them?" Sidney had said with some surprise.
+
+"They gave me warning," replied Ann, somewhat sullenly, "and I accepts
+the same. They turned poor Mattie away without warning at all, and I
+never forgives 'em that, sir."
+
+"Ah! you are on Mattie's side, too, Ann?"
+
+"There never was a girl who thought so little of herself, and so much of
+others!" cried Ann, "or who desarved less to be sent out into the
+streets. I gave up the Wesdens after that, sir."
+
+"But Miss Harriet is Mattie's champion also, and will defend her to the
+death, Ann."
+
+"And will she be a Wesden all her life, sir?" asked Ann Packet, with an
+archness for which she was only that once remarkable.
+
+Ann Packet became domestic servant at 34, Chesterfield Terrace, then,
+and congratulated herself on the kitchen being level with the parlours,
+which was good for her ankles, and spared her breath considerably.
+
+Meanwhile the shadows were stealing on towards the Hinchford
+dwelling-place; Sidney's month in service with his old employers had
+been extended to two months, after which the firm, utterly shattered by
+adversity, was to dissolve itself into its component atoms, and be never
+heard of more in the busy streets east of Temple Bar.
+
+Sidney, it need scarcely be said, had not sat idle during the time; he
+had looked keenly round him for a change of clerkship. His employers had
+interested themselves in a way not remarkable in employers, towards
+securing him a foothold in other and more stable establishments, but
+business was slack in the City, and there were no fresh hands wanted
+just at present.
+
+Sidney was not a young man to despair; he let no chance slip, and
+disappointment did not relax his efforts. He did not believe that the
+time would come and leave him wholly without "a berth." He had faith in
+his abilities, and he thought that they would work a way for him
+somewhere. And even a week or two "out of work" would not hurt him; he
+had saved money, and could pay his fair share towards the household
+expenses as well as his father, who kept his place longer than Sidney
+had ever believed he would.
+
+His father was more solicitous than himself; every evening he asked very
+anxiously if Sidney had heard of anything in the City, and was not
+greatly exhilarated by Sid's careless "Not yet." Things were getting
+serious when there was only a week more to spend at the old desk, where
+bright hopes had been born and collapsed; Sidney was even becoming
+grave, although his company manners were put on before the father, to
+keep the old gentleman's mind at ease.
+
+But Mr. Hinchford's mind was not likely to be at ease at that period; he
+was playing a part himself, and disguising his own troubles from his
+son, thereby causing a double game at disinterestedness between Sid and
+him.
+
+Three weeks before the son's time had expired at his office, Mr.
+Hinchford had received a week's notice to quit. His memory had again
+betrayed him, confused the accounts, and put the clerks out, and it was
+considered necessary to inform the old gentleman that his services were
+not likely to be required any longer. The notice came like a thunderbolt
+to Mr. Hinchford, whose belief in his own powers was still strong, and
+who had not had the remotest idea that long ago he had been tolerated by
+his employers, and set down for a troublesome, pompous, and disputatious
+old boy by the whipper-snappers round him. His salary had never been
+more than thirty-five shillings a week, and he had put up with it rather
+than been grateful for it, looking forward to the future rise of the
+Hinchfords above the paltry shillings and pence of every-day routine. He
+had not anticipated being turned off--pronounced worn-out in that
+service which a Hinchford had patronized.
+
+The poor old fellow's pride was touched, and he took his adieux and his
+last week's salary with a lordly air, looking to the life the gentleman
+that he had been once. He expressed no regret at the summary dismissal,
+but marched out of the office with his white head thrown a little more
+back than usual, and it was only as he neared Chesterfield Terrace that
+his courage gave way, and he began to think of the future prospects of
+Sid and himself.
+
+Sid was in trouble, and a little more bad news might be too much for
+him. He would try and keep his secret, until Sid had found a good berth
+for himself in the City. Affairs were looking desperate, and the
+revelation must come, but he could bear it himself, he thought--this
+weak old man with no faith in the strong son, whom an avalanche might
+affect, little else. Mr. Hinchford took Ann Packet into his confidence,
+and impressed her with the necessity of keeping Sid in the dark
+concerning the father's absence from business.
+
+"Don't tell him, Ann, that I keep away from office after he's left--it's
+easy for me to make an excuse for an early return, if he come back
+before his time. I wouldn't have that boy worried for the world, just
+now."
+
+Ann Packet, who took time to digest matters foreign to her ordinary
+business, was some days in comprehending the facts of the case, and then
+held counsel with herself as to whether it were expedient to keep Sidney
+in ignorance, considering how the old gentleman "went on" during his
+son's absence.
+
+"He'll fret himself to death, and I shall be hanged for not stopping it,
+p'raps," she thought.
+
+Once or twice she took the liberty of intruding into the parlour, and
+recommending Mr. Hinchford, senior, to try a walk, or a book, or a visit
+to Mr. Wesden; and, startled out of his maunderings, he would make an
+effort to follow one of the three counsels, seldom the last, because Mr.
+Wesden was Harriet's father, and saw Sid very frequently.
+
+He took many walks in search of a situation for himself, but the one
+refrain was, "Too old," and he began to see that he had overstepped the
+boundary, and was scarcely fit for a new place. He almost conceived an
+idea--just a foggy one, which, however, he never confessed to his dying
+day--that he _was_ a little forgetful at times; for Chesterfield Terrace
+lay in a net-work of newly-built streets at the back of the Camberwell
+New Road, and he was always taking the wrong turning, and losing
+himself. Still it was deep thought about Sid which led him in the wrong
+direction--presently his mind would be more composed; Sid would be in a
+good place, and he need not have one secret from him.
+
+The last day came round; Sidney's services were over for good; he had
+had a painful parting with his old masters, who had been more than
+commonly attached to him, and he came home looking a little grave,
+despite the best face on the matter which he had put on at the front
+door.
+
+"Anything new in the City, Sid?" asked the father.
+
+"No, nothing new," he replied. "What makes you home so early to-day?"
+
+Sid had turned in before the daylight was over, and found his father
+walking up and down the room with his hands behind him.
+
+"Early?" repeated the old man. "Oh! they're not particularly busy just
+now in the Bridge Road. Very slack, I may say."
+
+"Ah! I suppose so," said Sid, absently.
+
+"And there's nothing new at all then, Sid?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"You'll keep a stout heart, my boy," said the father, with a cheering
+voice, and yet with a lip that quivered in spite of him. "I suppose,
+now, you don't feel very dull?"
+
+"Dull, with my wits about me, and a hundred chances, perhaps, waiting
+for me in the City to-morrow!"
+
+"Yes, you'll have all day to-morrow--I had forgotten that," said Mr.
+Hinchford; "to be sure, all day now!"
+
+Sidney saw that his father was perplexed, even disturbed in mind, but he
+set down Mr. Hinchford's embarrassment to the same source as his own
+thoughts; he did not know that he had only inherited his unselfishness
+from his sire. Or rather, he did not remember, how an unselfish heart,
+allied to an unthinking head, had been the cause of the downfall in old
+times.
+
+On the morrow Sidney Hinchford had the day before him, but the result
+was bad. He had visited many of the houses heretofore in connection with
+the old firm, but luck was against him, and many objected to a clerk
+from a house that had collapsed. It had been a fair bankruptcy; one of
+those honourable "breaks up" which occur once or twice in a century, and
+are more completely break ups from sheer honesty of purpose than cases
+which make a "to do" in the Court, and march off with flying colours;
+but Sidney represented one of a staff that had come to grief somehow,
+and "there was nothing in his way, just at present."
+
+Three or four days passed like this, and matters were becoming serious
+to the Hinchfords--father and son seemed settling down to misfortune,
+although the son betrayed no anxiety, and the father's care were for the
+hours when the son's back was turned. In fact, Sidney Hinchford was not
+quickly dispirited; a little did not seriously affect him, and he went
+on doggedly and persistently, making the round of all the great firms
+that had had, once upon a time, dealings with his own; abashed seldom,
+dispirited never, firmly and stolidly proceeding on his way, and calmly
+waiting for the chance that would come in due time.
+
+Meanwhile the father went down to zero immediately the door closed
+behind Sidney. He felt that he was not acting fairly by keeping the
+secret of his discharge from Sid; but he was waiting for good news, that
+might counterbalance the bad which he had to communicate. He knew that
+in a day or two, at the utmost, all must come out, but he put off the
+evil day to the last--a characteristic weakness--weakness or good
+policy, which was it?--that he had adopted ever since there had been
+evil days to fret about.
+
+In the grey afternoon of an April day, he sat alone in his front
+parlour, more utterly dispirited than he had been since his wife's
+death, years ago. No good fortune had come either to father or son, and
+he was inclined to regard things in the future lugubriously; workhouses
+and parish funerals not being the least of his fancy sketches. He had
+taken his head between his hands, and was brooding very deeply before
+the scanty little fire-place, which he intended to heap up with coal a
+few minutes before Sidney's expected return, when Ann Packet came into
+the room, very confused, and speaking in a hoarse voice.
+
+"If you please, sir, here's a visitor!"
+
+"I can't see any visitors, Ann," he answered sharply, "unless--unless
+it's any one from----"
+
+"It's only Mattie, sir; she's come to see you for a moment!"
+
+"Mattie! bless my soul, has she turned up again?"
+
+"She turned up at the front door only a minute ago. Lord bless her! You
+might have knocked me down with a straw, sir!"
+
+"I'll see her--show her in."
+
+Mattie came in the instant afterwards; the hall of the Hinchfords was
+not so spacious but that anything spoken in the front room would reach
+the ears of one waiting in the passage. She heard the answer, and
+entered at once.
+
+"Well, Mattie, how are you?"
+
+"Pretty well, I thank you, sir," was returned in the old brisk accents.
+
+Mattie was not looking pretty well; on the contrary, very pale and thin,
+as though anxiety, or hard work, or both, had been her portion since she
+had left Great Suffolk Street. She was dressed in black, very neatly
+dressed, and possibly the dark trappings had some effect in increasing
+the pallor of her countenance.
+
+"We thought that we had lost you for good, Mattie."
+
+"Was it likely, sir, that I was going to lose sight of all those who had
+been kind to me?"
+
+"You're not looking very well," he said.
+
+"Ah! we musn't judge by people's looks," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I'm
+well enough, thank God! And you, sir?"
+
+"Well, Mattie, thank God, too!"
+
+"And Sidney, sir!"
+
+"As brave as ever. I wish he had been at home--he has been anxious to
+see you, Mattie."
+
+"He is very kind," she said, in a low voice, adding, "and what does _he_
+think?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford was not quick in catching a subject upon which Mattie had
+brooded now for some months.
+
+"Think of what?"
+
+"Of me! Mr. Wesden has--hasn't turned him against me, sir?"
+
+"Oh! no. He sticks up for you like a champion!"
+
+"I thought he would. He never spoke ill of any one in his life, and he
+always took the part of those who were unfortunate. I was sure he would
+not side against me!"
+
+"Sit down, Mattie, sit down!"
+
+"Thank you, no, sir! I shall never sit down in the house of any one who
+has heard ill news of me, until I can clear myself, or time clears me. I
+shall never go near Mr. Wesden's, although I feel for all the sorrow
+there."
+
+"You know what has happened, then?"
+
+"I have put on black, as for a lost mother. I was at the funeral, but
+they did not see me. Oh! sir, I know all about you--what should I do
+alone in the world, if I didn't think of those who _saved_ me when I was
+young?"
+
+"And what are you doing?"
+
+"Getting my living by needlework, by artificial flower making, or by
+anything that's honest which falls in my way. I keep at work, and hunt
+about for work, and there are some good people, I find, who take pity
+upon those situated like myself. I'm not afraid, sir, of doing well!"
+
+"Glad to hear it, Mattie."
+
+Mattie motioned Ann Packet to retire. Ann, who had been standing in the
+doorway all this time, open-mouthed and open-eared, withdrew at the
+hint. Mattie advanced and laid her hand upon Mr. Hinchford's arm.
+
+"He goes there very often--they are engaged!"
+
+Mr. Hinchford, who had always one thought uppermost, understood this at
+once--there was no necessity for any nominative cases--"Boy Sid" always
+understood!
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he don't go to business now--the business is over."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"I read it in the paper a lodger lends me sometimes. Mr. Sidney's out of
+work!"
+
+"At present--for a day or two."
+
+"He has heard of something that will better him?"
+
+"He will--in a day or two."
+
+"And you--you're out of work too, sir?"
+
+"That confounded Ann has told you----"
+
+"Not a word, sir--but I have had a habit of looking for you, when you
+passed the house where I lodged, twice a-day--and I couldn't settle
+down, or feel comfortable, until you _had_ passed. And when you did not
+come, I knew what had happened."
+
+"Still full of curiosity, Mattie," said Mr. Hinchford, feeling the tears
+in his eyes at this evidence of Mattie's interest in him.
+
+"Curious about all of you," she said, with a comprehensive gesture; "I
+don't feel so far away when I know what has happened, or is happening.
+And wanting to know the worst, or the best of everything, I come like an
+inquisitive little body, as I have always been, to take you by surprise
+like this!"
+
+"But--but, my good girl, I can't tell you that we're very lucky just
+now. But Sid must not hear that I am getting very uncomfortable, and
+becoming less able to bear up as I ought to do, just to keep him strong,
+do you see? And if all goes on like this much longer, both out of work,
+what will become of us? Oh! dear, dear, dear!--what a miserable old man
+I've been to him and myself, and everybody! Oh! to be comfortably out of
+the world, and a burden to no one!"
+
+"Sir," said Mattie, earnestly, "a blessing to some. Don't you remember
+when you were stronger, being a blessing to me--you, my first friend!
+And don't you know that you're a blessing to that good son of yours, and
+that he thinks so, and loves you as he ought to do? You mustn't make him
+unhappy by giving way at this time."
+
+"I don't give way before him, that's not likely. Strong as a rock,
+child!"
+
+The rock shook and trembled from summit to base, but Mattie did not
+smile at the contrast which his words suggested.
+
+"What are you doing for him now, sitting here, Mr. Hinchford, and trying
+to _look_ your best?"
+
+"Doing?--what can I do?"
+
+"That's what I have been thinking about, sir. When I'm at the
+flower-making--which I'm learning in over-time, because it don't pay
+just yet--I get, oh! such lots of time to think."
+
+"Well?" he asked eagerly.
+
+Mr. Hinchford always forgot disparity of age, and was content to be
+taught by Mattie, and receive advice from her. He wondered at it
+afterwards, but never when the spell of her presence was on him, when
+her young vigorous mind overpowered his weak efforts to rebel.
+
+"Well, I have thought that Mr. Wesden, being a little--just a
+little--suspicious, would soon object to the engagement, if Mr. Sidney
+kept out of work too long. I can't say, for I don't perhaps understand
+Mr. Wesden, but it has been my idea; and oh! sir, they are so suited to
+each other, Harriet and he!"
+
+"Well," he said again, "I don't think that Mr. Wesden's likely to
+object--but go on."
+
+"And when I heard that the firm had failed, I began to wonder what he
+would do; for places are hard to get, even when one's clever now-a-days,
+and _has_ a character to back him. And I wanted to ask you if you had
+thought of your brother, sir!"
+
+"Why--what do you know of my brother?"
+
+"He came one night to Great Suffolk Street to see you--don't you
+remember? I knew him by his likeness to yourself, before I saw his name
+upon his card."
+
+"My brother!"
+
+Mr. Hinchford gave a tug to his stock; it had not struck him before, and
+its very absurdity rather amused him. His brother, who turned a deaf ear
+to his own plaints, when misfortune was fresh upon him--when that
+brother's help might have saved him, as he thought, from all the
+troubles and adversities which had oppressed him since their bitter
+quarrel.
+
+"And he's a rich man--I have been asking about him--he's a banker, sir,
+and keeps a great many hands."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," he said impatiently; "but it's no good. I wouldn't
+ask a favour of him for the world. If it hadn't been for him, my old age
+would not be like this!"
+
+"He's an old man--perhaps he's altered very much," suggested Mattie; "he
+might know something that would suit Mr. Sidney."
+
+"Don't speak of him again," Mr. Hinchford said, with some severity.
+
+"Very well, sir," was the sad response; "then I'll go now."
+
+"Will you not wait till Sid comes back?--I'm sure he----"
+
+"No, no, sir--I would rather not see him--I am pressed for time, and
+have a great deal to do when I get back. There's one thing more I came
+for, sir."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I want you to try and remember a letter which you gave me, when I went
+away from Great Suffolk Street."
+
+"A letter--a letter--let me see!"
+
+The old gentleman evidently did not remember anything about a letter; no
+letter had seen the light, or all had been explained between Harriet and
+Sidney, and the course of true love was running smoothly to the end. So
+much the better; it was as well to say no more about it, Mattie thought.
+If the letter were lost, the old gentleman might only create suspicion
+by alluding to it upon Sidney's return; Mattie did not know how far to
+trust him.
+
+She went away a few minutes afterwards, stopping for awhile to exchange
+greetings with Ann Packet, to whom she gave her address--a back street
+in Southwark Bridge Road--after much adjuration.
+
+"You won't mind me, my dear," said Ann, "now you're settled down to
+something--but, oh! dear, how thin you've got. You've been fretting all
+the flesh off your precious bones."
+
+"I haven't fretted much, Ann," was Mattie's answer; "you know I never
+liked to do anything but make the best of it. And I've not tried in
+vain--all will come right again--I'm sure of it!"
+
+"And the worst is over--ain't it?"
+
+"To be sure, the very worst. And now don't tell my address to
+anyone--not to Mr. Sidney or Miss Harriet especially."
+
+"But Miss Harriet----"
+
+"Will only offend her father by coming to see _me_--you, Ann, won't
+offend any one very much."
+
+"Only a poor stray like yourself, Mattie--am I?"
+
+"And our hearts don't stray very far from those we have loved, Ann--and
+never will."
+
+"Ah! she talks like a book almost--the sight of learning that that child
+got hold on, and the deal of good she does a body," muttered Ann,
+looking after Mattie through the misty twilight stealing up the street.
+
+"For every one her liked, and every one her loved," wrote Spenser, ages
+ago, of his heroine--Ann Packet might have quoted the same words,
+barring all thoughts of Mr. Wesden, whom the force of events had turned
+aside from Mattie.
+
+Mr. Hinchford liked Mattie; her presence had brightened him up, given a
+shake to ideas that had been rusting of late.
+
+"She's a quick girl," he muttered, "but she has the most foolish and
+out-of-the-way thoughts. How she disturbs one--I meant to have asked her
+seriously, and yet kindly, why she stopped out all night, and offended
+Mr. Wesden. Odd I should forget that--I don't generally let things slip
+my memory in that ridiculous fashion. And about that man who called
+himself her father--why, I forgot that, too!--God bless me! A curious
+girl--my brother, indeed!--my hard-hearted and unsympathetic brother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HIS TURN!
+
+
+Mr. Hinchford did not forget the foolish and out-of-the-way thought of
+Mattie's. It has been already said that his memory was retentive enough
+in all things that affected his son's welfare, and the new suggestion
+kept his mind busy as the days stole on, and Sidney brought back his
+cheerful face but no good news with him.
+
+The old man's pride had kept him aloof from the brother for many years;
+he had been hurt by that brother's coldness, and he had resolved to show
+that he was able to work his own way in life, without that assistance
+which he had once solicited. He had kept his word; for his own sake it
+had been easy, but, for his son's, there was a temptation he could
+scarcely withstand. There might be a chance, there might not be; in his
+heart, he thought the odds were against Sid. He did not set much value
+upon the brother's visit to Great Suffolk Street; it might have been
+curiosity, or a spasm of affection which had rendered him eccentric for
+a day; he remembered his brother simply as a hard, inflexible being who,
+having formed an opinion, closed upon it with a snap, and was ever after
+that immovable. Still for Sidney's sake he thought at last that he would
+try. It should not be said of him that he neglected one chance to
+benefit his son, or that his pride stood in the way of Sid's
+advancement--that queer girl, whom he could scarcely make out, should
+not say that he had not done his best for Sidney.
+
+He dressed himself in his best suit one day, seized his stick, and
+marched down to Camberwell Green, whence he took the omnibus to the
+City. Sidney had again departed in quest of "something"--on a visit to
+the news-rooms to search the papers there--and Mr. Hinchford was
+following in his wake shortly afterwards.
+
+He had a nervous fear that he should meet Sidney in the City, at first,
+but the crowd which surrounded him there assured him that that event was
+not likely to ensue. He had not been in the City for many years and the
+place alarmed him; he almost guessed how weak and nervous he had become
+when he struggled with the mob of money-hunters in King William Street,
+and found it hard to fight against.
+
+"All these hunting for places in one shape or another," he thought,
+"looking but for the best chance, and greedy of any one who gets in the
+way, and seems likely to deprive them of it, or add to their expenses.
+Why, where's all the places that hold these men and keep my Sid doing
+nothing?"
+
+He turned into the narrow lanes branching out of the great thoroughfare
+leading to the Bank, and proceeded without any difficulty to the
+banking-house of his brother Geoffry. His memory was not in fault here;
+every short cut through the shady by-ways of the City he took by
+instinct--he had banked with his brother in days gone by, and it was
+like retracing his youthful steps to find himself once more in these old
+streets.
+
+Before the swing glass doors of a quiet, old-fashioned banking-house he
+paused, changed the stick from his right hand to his left, gave a little
+tug to his stock, changed hands again with his stick, finally crossed
+over the way, and set his back against the dingy wall opposite. The
+pride which had held him aloof so long from his brother rose up again,
+that ruling passion which a struggling life had circumscribed. He became
+very red in the face, and looked almost fiercely at the banking-house in
+front of him. He felt that his brother would say "No" again, and the
+humiliation in store he should have courted by his own folly. But
+Sidney?--possibly Sidney might be of service there, and room found for
+him, if he asked; and if not; still, for Sidney's sake, he must attempt
+it--courage and forward!
+
+Mr. Hinchford nerved himself to the task, crossed the road, and went up
+the steps into the bank. They were busy before and behind the counters
+there; money was being shovelled in and out of drawers; cheques were
+flying across the counter; there was the stir and bustle of a
+first-class banking-house before him; everybody was talking, whispering,
+studying, and thinking of money; what room for any sentiment in that
+place from nine till four?
+
+He took his place by the counter, waiting to address one of the clerks
+at the first convenient opportunity that might present itself; he was in
+no hurry; he wished to collect his thoughts, and arrange his plan of
+action; and instead of arranging any plan, he looked at the clerks, and
+thought Sidney Hinchford might as well have a place behind that counter
+as not--and how well he would look there, and what a good place for him
+it would be!
+
+He stood there for a considerable time, until his presence began to
+oppress a bald-headed young man at the third desk, an energetic young
+man of uncivil appearance--soured in life perhaps, by his hair coming
+off so early--who, in the hurry of business, had taken little notice of
+Mr. Hinchford until then.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+Mr. Hinchford objected to abruptness, and felt it hard to be snubbed by
+his brother's clerk to begin with. He reddened a little, and said that
+he wished to see Mr. Hinchford directly.
+
+"Mr. Hinchford!" the clerk repeated; "oh! you can't see either of
+_them_!"
+
+"Just ask, young man, and don't answer for your master!"
+
+"If it's anything about an account, Mr. Maurice will, if you've a proper
+introduction, at----"
+
+"Mr. Maurice will not do, sir!" cried Mr. Hinchford; "go and tell my
+brother directly that I wish to see him, if you please."
+
+There was some pride in claiming brotherhood with the banker, even under
+the difficulties before him; the effect upon the uncivil bank clerk--why
+are bank clerks uncivil in the aggregate?--was bewildering; he stared at
+Mr. Hinchford, detected the likeness at once, and backed from the
+counter on the instant. Mr. Hinchford saw no more of him--he was
+beginning to think that his message had not been delivered after all,
+when a young man behind touched him on the arm.
+
+"Will you please to step this way?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford turned, followed the usher to the end of the
+counting-house, passed through a room, where two or three gentlemen were
+busily writing, went through another door into a larger room, where one
+old gentleman--very like himself--was seated in all the divinity that
+doth hedge a principal.
+
+"Good morning, James," was the banker's first remark, nodding his head
+familiarly in his brother's direction.
+
+"Good morning, Geoffry."
+
+And then there was a pause; the two men who had parted in anger nearly
+twenty-six years ago, and had not met since, looked at each other
+somewhat curiously. It was a strange meeting, and a strange commencement
+thereto, a little affected on the part of the banker, the senior by
+eight years. In the same room together, the likeness between them was
+singularly apparent--the height, figure, features, even the scanty crop
+of white hair, were all identical; but in the senior's face there was
+expressed a vigour and determination, which in Sid's father was wholly
+wanting. Geoffry Hinchford was still the cool, calculating man of
+business, who let no chance slip, and who fought for his chances, and
+held his place with younger men.
+
+There was no sentiment in the meeting of the brothers, and yet each was
+moved and touched by the changes time had made. They had parted in the
+prime of life, stalwart, handsome men, and they came face to face in
+their senility.
+
+"Take a seat," said Geoffry Hinchford, indicating one with the feather
+of the quill pen he held in his hand.
+
+The brother took a chair with a grave inclination of the head, and then
+crossed his hands upon his stick, and began to evidence a little of that
+nervousness that had beset him before he entered the banking-house.
+Geoffry Hinchford's keen eyes detected this, and he hastened to avoid
+one of those scenes which he had confessed to his nephew he hated, when
+he made his first and last call in Great Suffolk Street.
+
+"You have been walking fast, James; will you look at the _Times_ a bit,
+and compose yourself. _That's_ the money article."
+
+He passed the paper over to his brother, and then began making a few
+entries in a small pocket volume before him--a hybrid book, with a lock
+and key. Mr. Hinchford turned the paper over in his hands, inspected the
+money article upside down, and appeared interested in it from that point
+of view--gave a furtive tug to his stock, which he was sure Sid, who
+always buttoned it, had taken in a hole too much, and then mustered up
+courage to begin the subject which had brought him thither.
+
+"Geoffry, it's six-and-twenty years or so since I sat in this very place
+and asked a favour of you."
+
+"Ah! thereabouts," responded Geoffry from over his private volume.
+
+"Which was refused," added the old gentleman.
+
+"Of course it was."
+
+"Ahem."
+
+Mr. Hinchford cleared his throat with some violence. He did not like
+this method of receiving his first remarks; it warmed his blood after
+the old fashion, and, what was better, it cleared off his nervousness.
+
+"One would think that I had got over asking favours of a brother who had
+proved himself so hard----"
+
+"No," interrupted Geoffry, "not hard--but go on."
+
+"And yet I am here again to ask a second favour, and chance as curt a
+denial."
+
+"Ah! I did hope, James, that you were here to say 'I was in the wrong to
+take myself off in a huff, because my brother would not let me fling
+some of his money after my own,' or, at least to say, 'Glad to see you,
+Geoffry, and hope to see you more often after this,'--but _favours_!"
+
+"Not for myself, sir," said Mr. Hinchford, hastily; "don't mistake me--I
+wouldn't ask a favour for myself to save my life."
+
+"I would to save a shilling; I often do."
+
+"That is the difference between us," Mr. Hinchford answered.
+
+"Exactly the difference. Pray proceed, Jem."
+
+The younger brother softened at the old appellative; he composed his
+ruffled feathers, and went at it more submissively.
+
+"Look here, Geoffry, I ask a favour for my son. His firm has dissolved
+partnership----"
+
+"What firm was it?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford told him.
+
+"Smashed, you mean--bad management somewhere--go on."
+
+"And he, who would have been made partner in his twenty-first birthday,
+has now to begin the world afresh. I thought that you might know of
+something suitable for him, and would, remembering our common name, do
+something for him."
+
+"He's a tetchy young gentleman--what I remember of him, in a flying
+visit. Who the deuce can he take after, I wonder?" and the banker
+appeared to cudgel his brains with his pen, as if lost in perplexity as
+to any trait in the Hinchfords identical with "tetchiness." The father
+did not detect the irony--perhaps would not at that juncture.
+
+"Well," said the banker, "what general abilities has he?"
+
+Mr. Hinchford burst forth at once. The wrongs of the past were
+forgotten; the theme was a pleasant one; the abilities of his son were
+manifold; he could testify to them for the next two hours, if a patient
+listener were found him. He launched forth into a list of Sid's
+accomplishments, and grew eloquent upon his son's genius for figures,
+adaptability for commercial pursuits, his energy, and industry in all
+things, at all times and seasons.
+
+"This lad ought to be governor of the Bank of England," Geoffry
+Hinchford broke in with, "there's nothing suitable for such
+extraordinary accomplishments here. I can only place him at the bottom
+of the clerks, with a salary of a hundred and twenty to begin with."
+
+"Geoffry, you're very kind," ejaculated his brother; "you mean that--you
+will really do something for us, after all?"
+
+"Why, you vexatious and frivolous old man," cried the banker,
+exasperated at last, "I would have always helped you in my own way, if
+you had not been so thoroughly set upon my helping you in yours. You
+were hot-headed, and I was ill-tempered and _raspish_, and so we
+quarrelled, and you--you, my only brother--sulked with me for six and
+twenty years. For shame, sir!"
+
+The banker evinced a little excitement here; he tossed his pen aside and
+beat his thin fingers on the book; he spoke his mind out, and amazed his
+brother sitting at a little distance from him.
+
+"Geoffry--I--I didn't sulk exactly. But you were a rich man, and I was
+left poor; and if you remember, when I came here last I----"
+
+"If I listen any more to that story, I'm damned!" cried the banker;
+"it's dangerous ground, and if we get upon it, we shall begin sparring
+again. Now, sir--look here."
+
+He stood up, and began laying down the law with the fingers of his right
+hand in the palm of his left.
+
+"I swallowed my pride by coming to Great Suffolk Street in search of
+you--that was my turn. We were to sink the past, and be friends, I
+thought; we two foolish old septuagenarians, with nothing to quarrel
+about. You swallowed your pride--a larger pill than mine, Jem, for it
+nearly choked you in the attempt--by coming here, and now it's your
+turn--eh?"
+
+He held forth both his hands suddenly towards his brother, who answered
+the appeal by placing his own within them, and holding them in a nervous
+trembling grasp.
+
+"Amen!" said the banker; and the younger and weaker man understood what
+he meant, and felt the tears in his eyes.
+
+"And now, I have heard a great deal of your son--you shall see mine."
+
+He left his brother, touched a hand-bell, and a servant immediately
+responded.
+
+"Ask Mr. Maurice to step here a moment."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Exit servant; enter very quickly a tall young man of about thirty years
+of age, fresh-coloured, well formed, with curly brown hair, and a long
+brown moustache, "making tracks," as the Americans say, for his
+shoulders.
+
+"Maurice, here's your obstinate uncle come to see us at last."
+
+"I am glad to see _you_, sir--I think the difference has lasted long
+enough."
+
+Uncle and nephew shook hands--Mr. Hinchford thought this nephew was a
+fine young fellow enough--not like his Sid, but a very passable and
+presentable young fellow notwithstanding.
+
+"We're going to try your cousin as a clerk, Maurice. Any objection?"
+
+"Not in the least," was the ready answer.
+
+"We shall not claim relationship over the ledgers," intimated Geoffry
+Hinchford; "if he's clever, he'll get on--if he's a fool, he'll get the
+sack. And we don't expect him, after the general fashion of relations,
+to cry out, 'See how my uncle and cousin are serving me, their own flesh
+and blood, by not lifting me over the heads of the staff, and making my
+fortune at once!'"
+
+"Sid wants no favours, sir," said Mr. Hinchford, sharply.
+
+"After office hours we shall remember that he's a Hinchford, perhaps,"
+said the banker. "Send him when you like, James."
+
+"To-morrow, Geoffry, if you will."
+
+"He's sure to come, I suppose?" asked his brother. "Is he aware of your
+visit here to-day?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah! then it's doubtful, I think. By Gad! I shan't forget in a hurry his
+sermon to me, and his flourish of trumpets over his own independence."
+
+"He will come, sir, I think."
+
+"Out of place makes a difference," remarked the banker; "we shall see.
+And now, what can I do for you, James?"
+
+"Oh! nothing, nothing," he said hastily; "I ask no favours for
+myself--I'm doing well, thank you--very well indeed! Where's my stick
+and hat? I--I think I'll bid you good morning now, Geoffry."
+
+"I shall see you again, I daresay--I can always send a message to you by
+your son, who will be here to-morrow, perhaps. Good-bye, old
+fellow--Maurice, see to your uncle."
+
+Maurice Hinchford, noticing the feeble steps of the new relation,
+offered his arm, which was declined by a hasty shake of the head.
+
+"I'm strong enough, sir--but the meeting has upset me just a little.
+Geoffry," turning back to address his brother, "we won't say anything
+more about that old affair--I think you meant well, after all."
+
+"I hope I did. Good day."
+
+"Good day, brother."
+
+Maurice closed the door behind his uncle.
+
+"He's getting quite the old man," said Mr. Hinchford to his nephew; "he
+had an iron nerve once. He seems very feeble to me--does he enjoy good
+health?"
+
+"Oh! first rate health--he's a strong man for his age, Mr. Hinchford.
+Don't you think so?"
+
+"Perhaps he is. You can't expect him like myself, eight years younger
+than he."
+
+"Well, no," said the nephew, drily.
+
+"He ought not to worry himself about business at his age--why, I have
+given it up myself," he added.
+
+"Oh! indeed!"
+
+Business had given him up; but the old man did not think of it that
+moment. He was anxious to show the Hinchfords in the best light
+possible, lest Sid should be looked down upon too much when he came to
+his new berth.
+
+"And your father must feel the cares of business a little?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Maurice; "he wouldn't be happy out of the bank! He's
+strong and well, thank God, and one of the best-hearted men and fathers
+in the world. Too good a father, by half, for that matter!"
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Oh! it's difficult to explain," was the answer of the nephew, whose
+cheeks flushed a little at the question; "you'll excuse me now, uncle.
+Through here and straight across the office--good day."
+
+He shook hands with Mr. Hinchford, and left him at the door of the inner
+office which the old gentleman had passed through half an hour since,
+less hopeful of good fortune in store for the Boy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"THE NEW BERTH."
+
+
+Mr. Hinchford scarcely maintained an equable demeanour until Sidney's
+return; the burden of good news was almost too much for him, and just to
+wile away the time, and experience the blessed privilege of telling a
+good story twice, he found out Ann Packet and enlightened her as to the
+new chance that was presented to Sid.
+
+When Sidney returned, and informed his father that there was no news,
+Mr. Hinchford bade him not despair, for good luck was sure to turn up in
+one direction or another.
+
+"Despair!" cried Sidney, cheerfully; "why, I haven't dreamed of
+despairing yet! Is it likely?"
+
+"Shall I tell you some bad news, Sid?"
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+Mr. Hinchford detailed his dismissal from service at the builder's
+office. Sidney looked a little discomfited at first, but clapped his
+father on the shoulder heartily.
+
+"We can bear it--you and I together. You'll be better away from
+business, and have your health better. I shall be strong enough for the
+two of us, sir."
+
+"Good lad--but if nothing turns up."
+
+"Oh! but it will!"
+
+"And, oh! but it has!" cried the father; "now for the good news, Sid,
+which I have been keeping back till it has nearly burst me."
+
+Mr. Hinchford exploded with his confession, and Sidney listened not
+unmoved at it. In his heart he had grown dispirited, though not
+despondent, and the news was grateful to him, and took a load therefrom
+which had seemed to become a little heavier every day. He would have
+preferred a clerkship away from his relation's office; but his pride was
+not so great as his common sense, and he saw the advantages which might
+accrue to him from an earnest application to business. He remembered,
+with a slight feeling of discomfort, his past hauteur to the man from
+whom he now accepted service; but he had had a fall since then, and the
+hopes of that time--with one bright exception--had been bubble-blown,
+and met the fate of bubbles. He had been too sanguine; now he was
+matter-of-fact, and must proceed coolly to work. He had ten years to
+work in--what would be the end of them? His heart had sunk a little;
+upon cool reflection he began to doubt whether he had acted well in
+confiscating the affections of one to whom he might never be able to
+offer a home.
+
+Still he judged Harriet Wesden by himself, and judged her rightly. If
+she loved him for himself, she would not care what money he brought her;
+and if his affection were selfish, knowing what an end to a love story
+his life must be, he had concealed nothing from her, and the truth had
+only drawn her closer to him. He felt that that was his one hope, and he
+could not be magnanimous enough to insist upon its dissolution, and of
+the unfitness of his prospects to her own. When the time came round and
+left him penniless; or when he saw, three or four years hence, that
+there was no chance of saving money, and he remained still the clerk
+with an income that increased not, it would be time to resign her--not
+now, when she loved him, and he was happy in her smiles, and understood
+her, as he thought, so well.
+
+He entered upon his novitiate at his uncle's banking-house; his father
+had not reiterated the hint which Geoffry Hinchford had given him about
+relationship, but Sid was a young man who knew his place, and who kept
+it, and rather shunned his relations than forced himself upon them.
+
+Uncle and nephew proved themselves very different beings to what Sidney
+had imagined; they were kind to him in their way--they were even anxious
+he should do the family name credit; they watched his progress, and were
+quick enough to see that he would prove a valuable and energetic
+auxiliary.
+
+Geoffry Hinchford was pleased at his nephew's reticence, and took note
+of it as he had taken note of most things during his earthly pilgrimage.
+He even condescended to give him a little advice in the shape of a
+warning one day.
+
+"Sidney," he said, when chance brought them together in that bank back
+parlour, "how do you like your cousin Maurice for a master?"
+
+"He is very kind to me."
+
+"Ah! that's it--that's his fault. When I'm gone, I have a fear that he
+will make a muddle of the bank with his easiness. He's the best son that
+ever lived, I think, but he's too easy."
+
+Sidney did not consider himself warranted in replying to this.
+
+"So take my advice, Sidney, and steer clear of him as much as you can,"
+he said.
+
+"I don't think that the advice is needed, sir. Our position--"
+
+"Fiddle-de-dee--he never cared for position, and, unfortunately, he's
+taken a fancy to you. The scamp wanted to double your salary yesterday,
+without any rhyme or reason, only relationship. Foolish, wasn't it?"
+
+"Well, I don't deserve any increase of salary yet, sir--it has not been
+fairly earned," was the frank answer.
+
+"Exactly--now listen to me. I think it is just possible that Mr. Maurice
+may forget that your salary is small, and that you have a father to
+keep. Let me tell you that he is an expensive acquaintance, and a little
+removed from your sphere."
+
+"I know it, sir."
+
+"Some day it may be different--we can't tell what may happen, but take
+care of him for awhile. A noble young fellow, a good business man in
+business hours, but not calculated to improve your mercantile abilities
+by a closer acquaintance."
+
+Sidney Hinchford considered the warning somewhat of a strange one, and
+even for awhile did his uncle the half-injustice to believe that he
+spoke more in fear of Maurice "lowering" himself, than on account of his
+nephew forming expensive acquaintances. But Sid soon found the warning
+worth attending to. It happened, at times, that Sidney Hinchford had
+extra work after the bank was closed, and the majority of clerks had
+departed. His cousin Maurice, who always remained long after his father
+had gone--he rented apartments in London, whilst his father went off by
+train every afternoon to Red-Hill--did occasionally, in the early days
+of their acquaintance, come to Sid's desk and watch his labours for a
+few minutes, very intently.
+
+"What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Sidney?"
+
+"I am going home, Mr. Maurice."
+
+"Come and dine with me at my club, and take pity upon my loneliness."
+
+"Thank you--but my father will be expecting me home."
+
+"Oh! the governor can't expect you, at your age, to be always turning up
+to five o'clock teas."
+
+"You must excuse me, if you please."
+
+"Well, if you'll give me one plain answer to the next question, I won't
+press it."
+
+"I'll give it you."
+
+"Isn't there a young lady your way, as well as the governor?"
+
+"Yes," was the quick answer.
+
+"By Jove! if I didn't think so. Ah! you're a gay deceiver, Sidney, after
+the bank doors have closed upon you."
+
+On another occasion, and under similar circumstances, he said, in a
+quick, abrupt way, that almost bordered on embarrassment--
+
+"Has your father any property of his own?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Your salary supports yourself and him entirely?"
+
+"Yes, and leaves something to spare."
+
+Maurice whistled, took up a lead pencil on Sidney's desk, and began
+scribbling with it on his finger nails. Suddenly he laid the pencil
+down, saying--
+
+"Oh! that's a thundering sight too bad, old fellow!--we're all
+Hinchfords, and must alter that. How are you going to marry?--and when?"
+
+"In the usual fashion--and in ten years' time."
+
+"That's an engagement that will never come to anything, then."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because long engagements seldom do--and no man, to my fancy, has a
+right to tie a girl down to such horrible agreements."
+
+"It can't be helped, Maurice," said Sid, a little sadly.
+
+"I'd start in some business. Are you too proud for trade?"
+
+"I don't care about retail--selling ha'porths of something across the
+counter, wearing white aprons, and so on," replied Sidney; "it's very
+wrong of me, but it's the Hinchford pride that bars the way, I suppose."
+
+"Try wholesale on a small scale, as a start--the old tea business, for
+instance."
+
+"Don't you think that I am fit for this, Mr. Maurice?"
+
+"Yes, but it takes time to rise, and you mean marrying. Now, to my
+fancy, you are a man who would do better in commerce."
+
+"Ah! but then there's capital to sink by way of a beginning."
+
+"I can lend you a thousand pounds--a couple of thousands. I'm a very
+saving man, Sidney--I'm as certain that you would pay me back again as
+that I'm standing here."
+
+"You're very kind," murmured Sidney, taken aback by this liberal offer;
+"but--but, it can't be done."
+
+"Borrow it from my father and me--as your bankers, if you will. My
+father will not say no to it, I fancy--and if he does, why, there's the
+other resource just alluded to."
+
+Sidney was still bewildered, and at a loss to account for the offer. For
+an instant he was even tempted; there rose before him the one chance of
+his life, the happiness of his life with Harriet, forestalled by
+years--and then he put his hands out, as though to push all dangerous
+thoughts away.
+
+"Thank you--thank you--" he said; "but when I speculate, it must be with
+my own money. I will not start in life burdened by a heavy debt. You're
+very kind--far too kind to me, sir."
+
+"A Hinchford--I never forget that. You don't know how proud I am of my
+family, and all its belongings. And, joking apart, Sidney, we really are
+a fine family, every one of us! And you'll not--well, subject postponed,
+_sine die_; the bank isn't such a bad place, and we shall give a lift to
+your salary when you deserve it. Not before, mind," he added, with a
+seriousness that made Sidney smile, who remembered the anecdote related
+by the senior partner.
+
+Sidney Hinchford was touched by his rich cousin's efforts to promote his
+interests, by his frankness, his _bonhomie_. Though he held himself
+aloof from him, yet he respected, even admired him. There was not a man
+in the banking-office who did not admire Mr. Maurice Hinchford; he had a
+good word for even the porter; he treated his servants liberally; he was
+always ready to promote their interests; the cares of money-making, and
+taking care of other people's money, had never soured his temper, or
+brought a dark look to his face.
+
+This was the father's anxiety, that Maurice was too easy--that nothing
+put him out of temper, or chased away the smiles from his good-looking
+countenance; the banker was glad to see his son happy, but he did wish
+now and then that Maurice had looked at life less frivolously, and been
+more staid and sober in his ways. The banker was glad to see him
+generous--although, if the fit seized him, Maurice was a trifle too
+liberal with his cheques, for natural wants, bequests, and monuments;
+but he was not a spendthrift, and even put money by, from the princely
+share of the profits which he received twice a year.
+
+Certainly it would have been difficult for a single man to run through
+it without sheer gambling at green tables, or on green turfs; and
+Maurice Hinchford never betted on the red and black, and hated horsy
+people. He spent all the money a man _could_ honestly get through; he
+fared sumptuously every day, and dressed figuratively in purple and fine
+linen; it was his boast that he had the best of everything around him,
+and anything second-rate had been his abomination from a child; he was a
+Sybarite, to whom luck had been wafted, and he enjoyed life, and cared
+not for the morrow, on the true Sybarite principle. But he was not a
+proud man; he was fastidious in a few things--young ladies of his circle
+generally, and the mothers of those young ladies especially, thought him
+_much_ too fastidious--but he was a man whom men and women of all
+classes liked, and whom his servants idolized.
+
+It was no wonder that his pleasant manners had their effect upon Sidney,
+who had found few of his own sex to admire in the world, and who knew
+that the man of whose energy everyone spoke well was of his own kith and
+kin. He held himself aloof, knowing that his ways were not Maurice's
+ways. When the rich cousin once asked why he so rigidly refused every
+offer to join him at his club, to make one of a little party at the
+opera, sharing his box with him, and put to no expense save a dress-coat
+and white choker, he confessed the reason in his old straightforward
+manner.
+
+"You're too well-off for me--I can't be your companion, and I'll not be
+patronized and play the toady. It looks bad in business here, and it
+will look worse apart from it."
+
+"You're a regular stoic!"
+
+After awhile Mr. Geoffry Hinchford again asked his nephew what he
+thought of Maurice.
+
+"A warm-hearted and a generous man, whom I am proud to think is a cousin
+of mine."
+
+"Yes--just as you say. And very proud I am, too, to think that this
+dashing handsome young fellow is a son of mine. He has all the virtues
+except one, under heaven, Sidney."
+
+"We're not all perfect, sir," said Sidney, laughing.
+
+"Oh! but you are, according to my brother James--he won't see even a
+flaw in your armour," said the old banker, acrimoniously; "but then he
+always was aggravating me with something or other--and now it's you."
+
+"I hope not, sir."
+
+"Well, well, only in one sense of the word. And Maurice has, after all,
+but a little foible, which the world--the real, material world--always
+makes allowance for. He will grow out of it. Good evening."
+
+Sidney did not inquire concerning Maurice Hinchford's foibles, little or
+otherwise--he knew that foibles were common to humanity, and that
+humanity is lenient respecting them. He did not believe that there was
+any great wrong likely to affect the brilliancy of Maurice Hinchford's
+character--he would be content to resemble his cousin, he thought, if he
+were ever a rich man like unto him, an honest, amiable English
+gentleman.
+
+Sidney did not covet his cousin's riches, however; he knew that fortune
+was not reserved for him, and if he were scarcely content with his lot
+in life, he was at least thankful for all mercies that had been
+vouchsafed to him, though he kept his thanks to himself for the greater
+part.
+
+"If he were scarcely content!" we have said, for Sidney was ambitious of
+rising by his own merits in the world; a laudable ambition, for which we
+need not upbraid him. He was careful of his money, a characteristic from
+his boyhood, a trait that his father, who had been never careful, took
+great pains to develop. He sank his pride completely for the sake of
+saving money, and he did save a little, despite the small income, the
+housekeeping expenditure, and his father to support. On Saturday nights
+he toiled home from the cheapest market with a huge bag of groceries, to
+the disgust of the suburban tea-dealer--who wanted a hundred per cent.
+profit on an indifferent article--and walked with his head rather higher
+in the air than usual when heavily laden.
+
+"When I can afford it, the goods shall be brought to my door," he said,
+when his father once urged a faint remonstrance; "but I can't study
+appearances on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Those fellow-clerks of
+mine can drop my acquaintance on a Saturday night, and pass by on the
+other side, if they are inclined. I shall carry my big parcels and exult
+in my independence all the same."
+
+"Yes, but the look of the thing, Sid."
+
+"We'll study that some day, if we have the chance. _We must keep our
+eyes open_, till the chance comes."
+
+"I did think once that you had all the Hinchford pride in you, Sid."
+
+"I have a fair share, sir," was the answer, "and I never feel prouder
+than when I am carrying my plethoric bag under my arm. Proud of myself,
+and of the property I have invested in."
+
+"Then I don't see why I should complain."
+
+"You--to be sure not. Put on your hat, and let us go round to Mr.
+Wesden's, and make up our whist party."
+
+And in this quiet way--winding up the evenings with whist-playing and
+love-making--the time stole on.
+
+
+END OF BOOK THE FOURTH.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+STORM SIGNALS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CAST DOWN.
+
+
+Meanwhile Mattie, the stray, must absorb our attention for awhile. In
+following the fortunes of the Hinchfords, we have omitted to watch
+closely the progress of our heroine. Yes, our heroine--if we have not
+called attention to that fact before--and with many first-class
+"heroinical" qualities, which would do credit to the high-born damsels
+of our old-fashioned novels. She had been heroine enough to make a
+sacrifice for Harriet Wesden; to take an unfair share of blame for
+Harriet's sake, and, therefore, she ranks as "first-lady" in this
+romance of business-life. She had made the sacrifice of her good
+name--for it amounted to that--with a sharp struggle; but then she would
+have given up her life for those to whom her better nature had taught
+her to be grateful. The girl's love for all who had rescued her from the
+evil of the past was ever intense, led her to strange actions, kept her
+hovering in the distance round the friends she had had once. Hers was a
+nature strangely susceptible to affection, and that affection was not
+uprooted because ill-report set its stigma upon her. Hers was a
+forgiving nature, also, and she thought even kindly of Mr. Wesden when
+the first shock was over, and she had judged him by that true character
+which she understood so well.
+
+In her new estate Mattie was not happy; she was alone in the world, and
+we know that she was partial to society, and not always disinclined to
+hear the sound of her own musical voice. But she was not disconsolate;
+she made the best of her bad bargain, and set to work, in her humble
+way, with something of that doggedness of purpose, for which her friend
+Sidney was remarkable. She had struggled hard for a living, but had
+never given way. She had met obstacles in her path, which would have
+crushed the energy out of most women, but which she surmounted, not
+without wounds and loss of strength, and even health, and then went on
+again. She was matter-of-fact and honest, and those who had doubted her
+at first--for she had chosen her dwelling-place but a very little way
+from Great Suffolk Street, and the rumours of a lying tongue followed
+her, and set her neighbours and fellow-lodgers against her--soon
+understood her, for the poor are great observers and good judges of
+character.
+
+In the poor neighbourhood wherein she had settled down, she asked for
+advice as to the best method of leading an honest life, and received it
+from her landlady. She turned dress-maker, and when customers came not
+with a grand rush to Tenchester Street, she asked if she might learn her
+landlady's business, artificial flower-making, and offered her services
+gratuitously, until it pleased her mistress to see that she was the
+handiest "help" she possessed. Then her health failed, for she worked
+hard, lived hard, and had hard thoughts to contend with; and when the
+doctor told her sedentary pursuits would not agree with her, she went a
+step lower for awhile, and even sold play-bills at the doors of a minor
+theatre to keep the wolf from _her_ door.
+
+Mattie had one fear of seeing her money melt away to the last farthing,
+and being left in the world penniless and friendless, as in the days of
+her desolate childhood. She had no fear of temptation besetting her in
+her poverty--for ever she was above that--but she did not wish to die
+poor, to seek the workhouse, or to be reminded in any way of her past
+estate. She _would_ be above that; she was ever hoping to show Mr.
+Wesden that she was honest and respected, she struggled vehemently
+against the tide, and earned her own living at least, varying the mode
+very often as her quick wits suggested; but never idle, and rising or
+sinking with the seasons, as they proved fair or sharp ones with the
+working classes.
+
+It had been a fair season when she called on Mr. Hinchford last, and she
+had even found courage to give Ann Packet her address; the sharp season
+set in after that, and, though Ann Packet in her monthly visits was
+deceived by Mattie's manner, yet it became another struggle for bread
+with our heroine. For the season was not only sharp, but Mattie gave way
+in health over her work for a rascally waistcoat-maker, who drove hard
+bargains, and did not believe in Charity covering a multitude of sins.
+And with an opposition clothier over the way, who sported a glass
+chandelier, and sold fancy vests for three and sixpence, it was hard to
+believe in anything.
+
+Mattie gave way more than she intended to acknowledge to Ann Packet, had
+not that indefatigable young woman made her appearance unexpectedly, and
+found Mattie in bed at six in the evening.
+
+"Good lor! what's this?"
+
+"Nothing, Ann--only a little cold, which I have been recommended to
+nurse for a-day," said Mattie; "don't look so scared!"
+
+"But why wasn't I to know it?--I might have brought in something good
+for you," bemoaned Ann; "if I'm to be kep in the dark, who's to take
+care of you, my gal?"
+
+"I am taking very good care of myself, Ann."
+
+"What _are_ you taking?"
+
+"Oh! all manner of things--won't you believe me?"
+
+"No--I won't."
+
+And Ann proceeded to inspect mantel-pieces, open cupboards and drawers,
+to Mattie's dismay.
+
+"Yes, I see just how it be," she said, after her search had resulted in
+nothing satisfactory. "You're working yourself to death, and starving
+yourself to death, without saying anything to anybody. And that's
+gratitude for all my love for you--you who want to leave me alone in the
+world, with not no one to love."
+
+"Why, my dear Ann, I'm not going to die."
+
+"You're trying all you can--oh! you ungrateful gal!"
+
+Mattie defended herself, and maintained that it was only one "lay up,"
+but Ann Packet did not like the red spot on each cheek, the unnatural
+brightness of the eyes, and secretly doubted her assertion.
+
+"I must go back now. I shall come to-morrow, first thing."
+
+"I shall be well enough to-morrow, Ann."
+
+Ann Packet kissed her and departed; half-an-hour afterwards, to Mattie's
+astonishment, she made her reappearance, accompanied by a tall, slim
+gentleman.
+
+"There's the gal, sir. Now, please tell me what's the matter, and don't
+mind _her_ a bit."
+
+Mattie saw that it was too late to offer a resistance, and refrained,
+like a wise young woman, from "making a scene." The doctor felt her
+pulse, looked at her tongue, took the light from the table and held it
+close to Mattie's face.
+
+"Well--what's the matter, sir?" was Mattie's question.
+
+"Humph! don't know that I can tell exactly, yet. I'll look in
+to-morrow."
+
+"No, don't do that," said Mattie, alarmed at the expense.
+
+"Yes, do," cried Ann Packet, "your money's safe, sir. Look to me at 34
+Chesterfield Terrace, Camberwell, for it. I'm a respectable
+maid-of-all-work, with money in the bank."
+
+"It's of no consequence," muttered the doctor; but he entered the
+address in his note-book, like a man of business as he was.
+
+"Shan't I be well to-morrow, sir?" asked Mattie, anxiously.
+
+"Humph!--scarcely to-morrow, I think."
+
+"Why don't you say what it is?--do you think I'm likely to be frightened
+at it, even if it's death, sir? Why, I've lived down all fright at
+anything long ago."
+
+"It's a little attack of scarlatina, I think," he answered, thus
+adjured.
+
+"You only think?"
+
+"Well, then, I'm sure."
+
+"She's had it afore, you know," Ann Packet suggested, "when she was a
+child. I thought people couldn't have these nasty things twice."
+
+"Oh! yes."
+
+"That's enough, then," said Ann Packet, taking off her bonnet and shawl,
+and putting them on the table as centre ornaments; "here I sticks till
+you're better."
+
+"Ann--Ann Packet!" cried Mattie.
+
+"Ah! you may say what you like, I shan't move. When this gentleman's
+gone, we'll quarrel about it--not afore."
+
+The gentleman alluded to took his departure, promising to send round
+some medicine in a few minutes. Mattie looked imploringly at the
+obdurate Ann.
+
+"You _must_ go home, Ann."
+
+"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Ann; "I have knowed you for too long a
+time to leave you in the lurch like this, for all the places in the
+world. And it isn't that I haven't knowed the Hinchfords long enough, to
+think they'll mind."
+
+Mattie sighed.
+
+"But you keep quiet, my dear, and fancy I'm your mother taking care on
+you--which I wish I was. And I'll send a boy to Camberwell to tell 'em
+why I ain't a coming back just yet."
+
+"Let me write a----"
+
+"Let you keep yourself quiet, and don't worry me. I'm going to manage
+you through this."
+
+"You're very good, Ann," said Mattie; "but if you catch the fever of
+me!"
+
+"Lor bless you! I shan't catch no fever--I'm too old for changing
+colour, my dear. You might as well expect buff-leather to catch fevers.
+But don't you remember how skeered I was once when you came in piping
+hot with it from Kent Street? Ah! I was vain of my good looks then, and
+afraid they might be spiled."
+
+Ann Packet had been a girl with a bat-catching-against-wall kind of
+countenance all her life, but distance lent enchantment to the view of
+the merry days when she was young. And Ann Packet's will was absolute,
+and carried all before it. Mattie was bowed down by it; she felt weaker
+than usual, and too ill to assert supremacy in her own house. Giving up,
+she thought that it was comfortable to have a friend at her side, and to
+feel that the loneliness of a few hours since was hers no longer.
+
+Ann Packet went down-stairs, and found a boy prepared--for twopence down
+and twopence when he came back--to deliver any message within a radius
+of fifty miles from Tenchester Street. The messenger departed,
+returning, in due course, with a favourable, even a kind reply. Ann
+Packet was to take her own time, and a girl would be found to assist
+until Mattie was better. Mattie read the note to Ann.
+
+"There, didn't I say so?"
+
+"It's in Mr. Sidney's handwriting," said Mattie, putting the letter
+under her pillow; "he's always kind and thoughtful."
+
+"Ah! he is."
+
+"As kind and thoughtful as ever, I suppose, Ann?"
+
+"Lor bless you!--yes."
+
+"What a long while it seems since----"
+
+"Since you've held _your_ tongue," added Ann. "Yes, it does. I'd keep
+quiet a bit now, if I was you."
+
+Thus adjured, Mattie relapsed into silence, and Ann Packet, thinking her
+charge was asleep, stole out of the room a short while afterwards, and
+went into the streets marketing. In the night the fever gained apace
+with our heroine; the next day the doctor pronounced her worse--enjoined
+strict quietness and care.
+
+"He seems afraid of me," said Mattie, after he had gone, "as if there
+were anything to be alarmed at, even if I did die. Why, what could be
+better for me, Ann?"
+
+"Oh! don't--oh! don't."
+
+"Not that I am going to die--I don't feel like it," said Mattie. "I can
+see myself getting strong again, and fighting," she added, with a little
+shudder, "my battles again. There, Ann, you need not look so scared; I
+won't die to please you."
+
+It was a forced air of cheerfulness, put on to raise the spirits of her
+nurse; and succeeded to a certain extent in its object, although Ann
+told her not to go on like that--it wasn't proper.
+
+Mattie lay and thought of the chances for and against her that day; what
+if that burning fever and increasing restlessness gained the mastery,
+who would be the worse for her loss, and might not she, with God's help,
+be the better? She was scarcely a religious woman; but the elements of
+true religion were within her, and only biding their time. She was
+honest, pure-minded, anxious to do good for others, bore no one malice,
+and forgave all trespasses against her--she went to chapel every
+Sunday--and she did not feel so far off from heaven on that sick bed.
+She thought once or twice that she would be glad to die, if she were
+sure of the future happiness of those for whom she had lived. She would
+like to know the end of the story, and then--_rest_. She could not die
+without seeing the old faces, though, and therefore she must make an
+effort to exist for her own sake.
+
+In the evening, Ann Packet, looking a little scared, said--
+
+"Here's a gentleman come to see you. It's not quite right for him to
+come up, I'm thinking."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Mr. Hinchford."
+
+"_Old_ Mr. Hinchford?"
+
+"No, the young one."
+
+Mattie, even with the scarlatina, could blush more vividly.
+
+"Mr.--Mr. Sidney!" she gasped. "Oh! he mustn't come in here."
+
+"Mustn't he, though!" said the deep voice of Sidney, from the other side
+of the room. "Oh! he's not at all bashful, Mattie."
+
+Sidney Hinchford came into the room and walked straight to the bed where
+Mattie was lying--where Mattie was crying just then.
+
+"Why, Mattie!--in tears!"
+
+"Only for a moment, Mr. Sidney. It is very kind of you to come and see
+me--and you have taken me by surprise, that's all."
+
+"She's to be kept quiet, sir," said Ann.
+
+"I'll not make much noise," he answered.
+
+He stood by the bed-side, looking down at the stricken girl. The change
+in her, the thin face, the haggard looks, increased as they were by
+illness, had been a shock to Sidney Hinchford, though he did his best to
+disguise all evidence from her.
+
+"Go and sit there for the little while you must remain in this room,"
+said Mattie, indicating a chair by the window, at some distance. "You
+were rash to come into this place."
+
+"I'm not afraid of fever, Mattie, and I was not going to lose a chance
+of seeing you--the first chance I have had."
+
+"And you don't think that I have been wrong, Mr. Sidney?" asked Mattie;
+"you haven't let all that Mr. Wesden has said, turn you against me? I'm
+so glad!"
+
+"Mattie, there's a little mystery, but I daresay you can clear it--and I
+swear still by the old friend and adviser of Great Suffolk Street. And
+as for Mr. Wesden--why, I'm inclined to think that that old gentleman is
+growing ashamed of himself."
+
+"You say nothing of Harriet?"
+
+"She is the champion of _all_ absent friends--the best girl in the
+world. When I tell her that you----"
+
+"You must not tell her where to find me--you will not act fairly by her,
+if you thrust her into danger, sir. I rely upon you to keep her away."
+
+"Well, you women do catch things very rapidly," said he; "I--I think
+that perhaps it will be as well not to let her know of your illness."
+
+"Thank you--thank you."
+
+"But when you are well again, I shall bring her myself to see you. We'll
+have no more games at hide and seek, Mattie."
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Why--not yet?" was the quick answer.
+
+"I am no fit companion for her--her father thinks. So it must not be. I
+have seen her--watched for her several times."
+
+"Ah!--I suppose so. You know that we are engaged, Mattie?" he said;
+"that was an old wish of yours, Harriet tells me."
+
+"Yes--when are you to be married?"
+
+"Oh! when I can afford to keep a wife. Shall I tell you how I am getting
+on now?"
+
+"I should like to hear it," said Mattie, "but you mustn't stop here very
+long. For there _is_ danger."
+
+"I don't believe it," said he, laughing; "besides, my father has
+furnished me with a lump of camphor as big as my head, which I've been
+sitting on the last five minutes. Now, Mattie, let me tell you where I
+am, and what I am doing."
+
+In a few words, Sidney sketched the particulars of his present mode of
+life, spoke of his prospects _in futuro_, and of the kindness which he
+received at all hands. He was an agreeable companion, and brought some
+of his vigour and good spirits into that little room with him. He spoke
+cheerfully and heartily, and the pleasant ring of his voice sounded like
+old times to Mattie. She lay and listened, and thought it was all very
+comfortable--she even forgot her fever for awhile, till she remembered
+the length of time that he had remained with her.
+
+"I hope you will go now," she said, rather suddenly.
+
+"Am I wearying you?--I beg pardon, Mattie. Some of these days when you
+are better, I intend a longer stay than this."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"I shall try my own powers of persuasion, in order that Harriet and I
+may fight your battles better for you," he said; "we must clear up that
+mystery--I hate mystery."
+
+"I know it."
+
+"Upon my honour, I would as soon have a sister maligned as you!" cried
+Sidney; "we are such old friends, Mattie."
+
+"Yes, yes--go now, please. And keep Harriet away, for her own sake, and
+yours."
+
+Sidney promised that, and then shook hands with her.
+
+"You must not be very shocked at my stalking in here--fancy it is your
+brother, Mattie. I shall make Harriet a clean confession when I get
+back--not to-night, though."
+
+He went from the room, followed by Ann Packet. Outside, the cheerful
+look upon his face suddenly vanished, and he became so grave that Ann
+Packet stared aghast at him.
+
+"Who's her doctor?"
+
+Ann told him.
+
+"I'll send some one myself to see if he's treating her correctly."
+
+"Don't you--don't you think that she's so well?"
+
+"I think that she's very ill--worse than she is aware of herself. Take
+care of her, Ann, she's an old friend!"
+
+He went down-stairs hastily, and Ann returned to the room to find Mattie
+in a high fever, sitting up in bed with a wild look in her eyes.
+
+"Ann, Ann--he must never come again! I--I can't bear to see him now."
+
+"Patience, my darling. Keep quiet--why not?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know--but he makes my heart ache--and, and, he is coming
+into danger here. Oh! Sidney! Sidney!"
+
+She flung herself back in her bed, and sobbed and tossed there till the
+fever grew upon her more and more, and robbed her of her senses. And in
+the delirium which followed, Ann Packet learned the secret of Mattie's
+life, and wrung her hands, and cried over it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IN WHICH SEVERAL DISCOVERIES COME TOGETHER.
+
+
+When Sidney Hinchford called the next morning at Tenchester Street, to
+inquire after Mattie's health, Ann Packet met him at the door, and
+informed him that the invalid was worse, and on no account to be
+disturbed. In the course of the day a new doctor arrived, commissioned
+by Sidney; and being a man not inclined to pooh-pooh every system but
+his own, gave his opinion that Mattie was being treated correctly, and
+he saw nothing to improve upon. So the doctor was not changed; and being
+a poor man struggling for a living in a little shop round the corner, I
+hope he was sufficiently grateful, especially as Ann Packet did not
+require a twelvemonth's credit, but settled his bill every Saturday
+night with the washerwoman's.
+
+And three Saturday nights went by before Mattie was considered out of
+danger of the fever's return, and in rather more imminent danger of the
+exhaustion which that fever had occasioned. Sidney Hinchford had taken
+Tenchester Street and Southwark Bridge in his new route to the City, and
+called every morning for the latest news--Ann Packet had brought it down
+to him, with Mattie's kind regards and compliments, and he had not been
+permitted to see her since that night referred to in our last chapter.
+
+Mattie was getting better when the fourth week was over--learning to be
+strong, anxious about the expenses that had been incurred, solicitous
+even about her little dress-making connection, which would have flown to
+the four winds of heaven had scarlatina thought of taking its measure.
+
+Mattie had found strength to leave her bed and sit up for a while in the
+chair by the fireside, when the second visitor astonished Tenchester
+Street by her arrival. No less a visitor than Harriet Wesden
+herself--who, having learned Mattie's address by degrees from the
+unfaithful Sidney, had made an unlooked-for _raid_ upon the premises.
+
+"Don't cry--don't speak--don't say anything for ever so long!" she said,
+with one gloved finger to her pretty mouth; "if there's anything to get
+over--get over it without any fuss, my dear."
+
+Mattie was silent for a while--she turned her head away and looked at
+the red coals. This was a meeting that she thought would come some day;
+that in her heart she did not blame Sidney Hinchford for promoting,
+although the danger of it rendered her uneasy.
+
+"Farther away, Harriet," she murmured at last.
+
+"I'm not afraid," said Harriet; "I don't believe that I'm of a feverish
+sort, or that there's any danger. If there were, I should have come all
+the same, and stopped just as long, after wheedling the address from
+Sid."
+
+Ann Packet fidgeted about the room; she was jealous of her charge,
+fearful of Mattie becoming excited, and of Harriet Wesden talking too
+much to her. Harriet Wesden saw this.
+
+"You may trust me with her, Ann--I will be very careful."
+
+"I hope you will--I shouldn't like the doctor to say I'd let you chatter
+her off into a fever again. You'll take care, Mattie."
+
+"Yes, Ann."
+
+At the door she paused again.
+
+"You allus were such a gal to talk when once set a going, Mattie--now
+doee be as careful as you can! When I come back from marketing, I'll
+hope it's all done atween you two."
+
+Ann Packet withdrew; the two girls--we may say, despite the difference
+of position between them, the two friends--looked at each other for a
+short while longer. Mattie was the first to speak.
+
+"Now you have come, Harriet, you must tell me all that has happened
+since we parted--every scrap of news that affects you is always welcome
+to me."
+
+"Shall I sum it up in three words, that will content you, Mattie--I am
+happy."
+
+"I am so glad--so very glad! Harriet," she added more eagerly, "you do
+love him? It isn't a fancy, like--like the others?"
+
+"Mattie, I love him with my whole heart--I never loved before--I feel
+that the past was all romantic folly. You don't know what a noble fellow
+he is--how kind and thoughtful!"
+
+"Yes--I do."
+
+"Ah! but you don't know him as I know him; the truth of his inner self,
+the nobleness of his character, the earnestness of his nature. Mattie, I
+feel that I have deceived him--that I should have told him all about Mr.
+Darcy, and trusted in his generosity, in his knowledge of me, to believe
+it. It was a cruel promise that you wrung from me."
+
+"Harriet, I was thinking of your own good name, and of the story that
+the world would make from yours. I think I was right."
+
+We wiser people, with principles so much higher, think Mattie was wrong,
+as she thought herself, in the days that were ahead of her.
+
+"And this Mr. Darcy, Harriet, have you seen or heard from him since?"
+
+"I received one letter. I returned it to its writer unopened."
+
+"That was right. And the Eveleighs, what do they know, do you think?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Then we must be safe."
+
+"We?" echoed Harriet; "when you are bearing the stigma of my
+indiscretion! Mattie, you went out that night in search of me."
+
+"No matter," responded Mattie; "I must not talk too much. Let me hear
+you speak of all old friends--it's like the old times back again to have
+you here."
+
+"And they will come back."
+
+"_Never!_" was the solemn reply.
+
+"Not that tiresome shop, perhaps," said Harriet, "but the times like
+unto the old, and all the better for the difference. You know what a
+weak and sanguine woman I was."
+
+"Well--yes."
+
+"I am a strong and sanguine woman now, and there are good times I brood
+upon, and look forward to still. Shall I sketch you the picture?"
+
+"If you will."
+
+Mattie listened very anxiously; Harriet, with her bonnet in her lap, and
+her golden hair falling about her shoulders, sat steadfastly looking at
+our heroine.
+
+"A little cottage somewhere in the country--a long, long way off from
+this London, which I dislike so much. Sid and I together, and you our
+faithful friend and housekeeper. Oh! that _will_ come true!"
+
+Mattie shook her head.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Why, you will not desert us!"
+
+"When the time comes round for the cottage, I will give my answer. I
+think that--I--should--like to come some day--when you have children,
+perhaps, to take care of _them_. But it is a long, long while to look
+forward to--almost wicked to build upon, is it not?"
+
+"I don't see where the wickedness lies."
+
+"And as for the country--why in the country, Harriet, when Sidney will
+have to work in London?"
+
+"He may make his fortune and retire," she said, after a pause.
+
+The secret of Sidney's life was sacred, even from Mattie. Harriet could
+not dwell upon it without arousing a suspicion.
+
+"I feel that we shall all be together some day--and now, before that day
+comes, let us speak of something else."
+
+Harriet Wesden hastened to disburthen herself of all the thoughts which
+she had had concerning Mattie's future mode of living; if it were
+dress-making, how Harriet could help her to increase the
+connection--and, whatever it was, how she, Harriet Wesden, must do her
+best for Mattie.
+
+All this was very pleasant to our heroine, though it troubled her, and
+almost mastered her at times. Pleasant to witness the evidence of the
+old love, of no new love having ousted her from a place in Harriet's
+heart. With the exception of honest Ann Packet, Mattie had earned no
+affection for herself, and had stood even isolated from it, until
+Harriet turned to her as her friend, trusted in her, and--did she ever
+dream it in the days when she ran barefooted through the London
+streets?--sought advice from her. And then, from that hour, Mattie
+studied Harriet, saw her weaknesses, and did her best to counteract
+them; moulded her--though neither knew it, or would have guessed
+it--anew, and helped to make the true woman which she was at that hour.
+
+Mattie felt glad that she had been ill, now; her illness had brought
+Harriet to her side, and proved that she had lived in all her thoughts.
+
+They were still talking together in the gloaming when the doctor called,
+bowed to Miss Wesden, and then paid attention to his patient.
+
+"It's very dark," said he, after an ineffectual attempt to see Mattie's
+tongue; "but you're better, I perceive. Keep still, don't trouble
+yourself about a light, Miss Gray,"--Mattie, for some reason she could
+have scarcely explained to herself, had assumed the title which Mrs.
+Watts, in their last meeting, had bestowed upon her--"I have brought a
+friend to see you to-day, not knowing that you were engaged."
+
+"Who is he?" Mattie inquired.
+
+"A gentleman connected with the chapel--our chapel."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"He helps us with the district business when he's in town--and he has
+been very anxious to see you for the last fortnight, but the young woman
+who waits upon you said--very rudely, I fear--that she wouldn't have you
+worried for fifty parsons. May he come in?"
+
+Before Mattie had made up her mind, he came in without permission. It
+was difficult to distinguish him in the shadowy room, save that he was
+short and thin, and moved about with extraordinary celerity.
+
+"When the sinner is too weak to go forth in search of the Word, it
+should be brought to her by all men earnest for sinners' redemption," he
+said, in a high, hard voice, very unsuitable for an invalid's chamber;
+"and I trust that Miss Gray will not consider me out of place in coming
+hither to teach her to be grateful for her recovery."
+
+"She is scarcely recovered yet, sir," Harriet ventured to suggest.
+
+"What does Miss Gray say?" he said, as though Miss Wesden's word was to
+be doubted.
+
+"That it is very kind of you to come--but that I am a little weak just
+at present."
+
+"I called on the doctor--he's not of your opinion--he ought to know
+best."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the doctor, "but you promised only a few words."
+
+"I am a man of my word," was the brisk answer.
+
+"I beg pardon, I never said that you were not," said the doctor; "but we
+must be gentle with our patient yet awhile--and she has already been
+receiving visitors to-day."
+
+"If Miss Gray objects, I will go."
+
+Mattie said that she did not object, and, without further ceremony, the
+stranger began to pray for her, lowering his voice when he found that he
+need not shout at the top of his lungs to be heard in that little room,
+and even praying with some degree of eloquence, and a more than common
+degree of earnestness, which was some little apology--if not quite
+enough--for his unwarrantable intrusion.
+
+It was a long prayer, and spared no one. The doctor, after waiting five
+minutes, and finding thanksgivings for recovery, and for shortening his
+bill, not in his line, took his departure on tiptoe; Mattie listened
+reverently, with her hands clasped in her lap; Harriet, who had not
+forgiven the intrusion, thought of Sidney more than the preacher, and
+threw the latter out in his extempore oration by suddenly poking the
+fire, and then dropping the poker with a crash into the fire-place. Ann
+Packet returned from marketing, and found the preacher in the middle of
+the room on his knees, and disgusted with his tactics, after the many
+times she had denied him admittance, proceeded to arrange the tea-tray
+and light the candle, with a noisy demonstrativeness that was perfectly
+unnecessary.
+
+"Amen" sounded at last, and the little man rose to his feet, over which
+Ann Packet had twice stumbled, buttoned his black dress-coat across his
+chest, picked up his hat, and proceeded to retire without further words,
+like a man of business, who, having done his work, was in a hurry to get
+home. Suddenly he paused and regarded Harriet Wesden attentively. The
+light in the room was feeble, and might deceive him, he thought, for,
+with a quick hand, he caught up the candlestick and held it nearer to
+her.
+
+"Miss Wesden--surely?"
+
+Harriet saw nothing to recognize in the wiry-haired, high-cheek-boned
+preacher. He was a stranger to her.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It's not a common name, but I presume not connected with the
+stationer's in Great Suffolk Street?"
+
+"It was once, before my father left the shop."
+
+"The coincidence never struck me before--that's rather odd, for I'm not
+generally so dull. You don't remember me?"
+
+"I have never met you before."
+
+"Oh! yes--at the Ashford railway station, in the middle of the
+night--you claimed my protection from a cruel snare that had been laid
+to entrap you."
+
+"Hush, sir!--yes, sir," said Harriet, with a glance at Ann Packet, who,
+however, was still busy with the tea-things; "I remember you now; you
+were very kind to me, and took pains to relieve me from a great
+anxiety."
+
+"And what has become of----"
+
+"I have never seen him," Harriet interrupted.
+
+"And he hasn't sought you out, and----"
+
+"No, he hasn't. Please say no more about it!" she cried to the
+inquisitive man; "I have forgotten the story. Mattie, ask him to be
+quiet."
+
+"How's that possible? How can a--_Mattie_!" he ejaculated, suddenly
+struck by that name, dropping his hat and then putting his foot upon it
+in his excitement; "your name Mattie, and acquainted with a Miss Wesden,
+who lived once in Suffolk Street! And Miss Gray, too!--my name!--Mattie
+Gray, why, it must be!"
+
+"Must be--what!" gasped Mattie, rising in her chair.
+
+"Keep quiet--you're to be kept quiet--the doctor said so," he stammered,
+fighting wildly in the air with both hands; "don't alarm yourself--try
+and guess who I am for the next hour and a half. I'll be back by that
+time--where's my hat?--good evening."
+
+He turned to dart out of the room, and ran against Sidney Hinchford, who
+had been standing there an amazed listener--_for how long_?
+
+"Break it to her by degrees before I come," he said to Sidney; "I'm her
+father--I have been looking for her all over the kingdom. Do me this
+good turn?"
+
+"One moment--I am going your way. Mattie understands it already."
+
+"Sidney!" cried Harriet.
+
+"I shall be back in a few minutes," he said, and then the local preacher
+and the banker's clerk went out together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+The three women left behind in that little room remained silent from the
+shock. They were amazed, perplexed. The sudden excitement of the
+preacher; the strange questions he had asked Harriet Wesden before the
+name of Mattie had changed the topic of conversation; the presence of
+Sidney Hinchford as a witness to all this; his abrupt departure with the
+preacher--all tended to create doubt, and suggest to one, at least, the
+presence of danger.
+
+Mattie had not given much thought to Sidney Hinchford's appearance; the
+preacher's excitement, the return of a far-off thought to her, had
+rendered all that had followed vague and indistinct--the scene had been
+even too much for her, and she began to slowly close her eyes.
+
+"I think she has been talked and worried to death too much," cried Ann
+running to her; "Miss Harriet, I'd go now, if I were you."
+
+"Perhaps I have remained too long," said Harriet, rising.
+
+"No," said Mattie, feebly, "I have been surprised by all that has just
+happened. You are not the cause."
+
+"I think I would lie on the bed a little while, Mattie," said Harriet.
+
+"Don't go till I feel better."
+
+Mattie lay on the bed as directed; Harriet did not resume her seat, but
+stood with one arm on the mantel-piece, looking thoughtfully before her,
+where no fancy pictures lingered now. There was a long silence. Ann
+Packet placed some smelling salts in Mattie's hand, and then sat at a
+little distance, watching her. Harriet retained her position until
+Mattie drew the bed-curtain further back and looked at her.
+
+"I am better now. You will wait till Sidney comes back to fetch you
+home, Harriet?"
+
+"It is very late. He may not come back."
+
+"He is sure to come," said Mattie; "pray sit down again, and Ann shall
+make us tea. Harriet, that man is my father."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"It was all a truth that that horrible woman told me on the day the
+house was robbed; he has been in search of me; he has found me at
+last--I shall not be alone in the world ever again!"
+
+"You are glad then, Mattie?"
+
+"Why should I not be?" asked our heroine; "I think that he is a good
+man--I think that he must have cared for me a little, to have taken so
+much trouble in his search for me--he will come back soon, and then we
+shall know all."
+
+"He comes back to your gain and my loss," Harriet was on the point of
+saying, but checked herself; Mattie was excited enough without the cares
+of her friend to be added to her own.
+
+It was a silent, thoughtful meal; Ann Packet, absorbed in gloomy
+reverie, took her tea with stony apathy. She could see that changes were
+coming towards her also, and the shape that they might assume was hard
+to guess at. She should lose Mattie perhaps, and that was sufficient to
+disturb _her_.
+
+Tea was over, and Mattie had returned to her easy-chair, when a faint
+rapping was heard at the outer-door. Ann Packet went to the door, and
+found the preacher there, as she had anticipated.
+
+"Is she prepared--has she guessed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I come in?"
+
+"It isn't for the likes of me to say you can't;" and with this evasive
+reply, Ann Packet opened wide the door and admitted him.
+
+He came in on tiptoe, in a manner strangely at variance with his former
+brusque entrance; he turned to Harriet Wesden first, and spoke in a low
+whisper to her.
+
+"Mr. Hinchford bade me say, Miss Wesden, that he was waiting for you,
+down-stairs."
+
+"Thank you--is he----?"
+
+Harriet did not know how to finish her sentence, and left it in its
+embryo condition. Her face was pale, and her heart was beating violently
+as she stooped and kissed Mattie.
+
+"Good-bye, dear--I must go now--Sidney is waiting."
+
+"Good-bye--are you not well?" asked Mattie, suddenly.
+
+She was as quick an observer as of yore, and the new expression on
+Harriet's face suggested the new fear.
+
+"Yes--yes--a little upset by what has happened to-day, that's all.
+Good-bye." And Harriet Wesden departed hastily.
+
+The preacher put his hat on the floor, silently drew a chair towards
+Mattie, and then sat down close to her side. Ann Packet, from the
+distance watched them both--saw in an instant the likeness between them,
+as they sat thus. Both had sharp black eyes, dark hair, thin noses; the
+general expression of features was the same, harsher and more prominent
+in the man; and, therefore, rendering him far from a being whose good
+looks were apparent.
+
+"Your name is Mattie?--you were at Mr. Wesden's for some years?--he
+adopted you--he took you from the streets?--previous to his kindness,
+you were living, off and on, at a Mrs. Watts' of Kent Street, Southwark,
+where your mother died?"
+
+"Yes," answered Mattie.
+
+"The woman who died in Kent Street, Southwark, was my wife. She and I
+started in life together happily enough, till she took to drink--oh! the
+drink! the drink!--and then home became a misery, and we quarrelled very
+much, and I took to drink myself. I lost my place through drink, and
+laid the fault to her--we quarrelled worse than ever, as we became
+poorer and more wretched; I struck her, fought with her, acted the brute
+until she ran away from me, taking you with her, then but a year old. I
+did not seek to find her out--I let her go to ruin, and went my own way
+to ruin myself, until rescued by a miracle--by a good man, whom God sent
+in my way to amend my life, and teach me all the truths which I had
+neglected. He found me work again; he raised me from the brute into the
+man; he altered me body and soul, and when he died, it struck me that I
+might follow in his steps, and do good unto others, after his example. I
+was not an unlearned man in all respects; I fancied that I might do good
+by an effort--there is no doing good without one--and I made the
+attempt. When I was rewarded by my first convert, Mattie, that was my
+encouragement," he said, rising with the earnestness of his topic,
+sitting down again, and flinging his arms wildly about; "that was my
+incentive to go on, to save fresh souls from the danger, to struggle in
+the by-ways of life, for the light which the evil one would for ever
+shut from us. And I was rewarded for the effort; I have done good; I
+have spent the last sixteen years of my life in the good cause!"
+
+"You are a minister."
+
+"A local preacher--wandering from place to place, as my employers
+dictate--occasionally proceeding on my own route; for ever astir, and
+letting not the sun go down upon my idleness. And all this, while I have
+been in search of you--tracking your mother at last to Kent Street, and
+following on your track, until I am rewarded thus!"
+
+He held forth his hand, and Mattie placed hers within it.
+
+"I think that you are my father," she said; "I am glad to find some one
+to care for me at last."
+
+"And you will care for _me_?--for I have been a lonely man in the world
+for many years, and would make atonement for the evil act which cast you
+to the streets! But Mattie, look at me!"
+
+Mattie regarded him long and steadfastly. It was a strange,
+hard-featured face, on which was impressed firmness, or obduracy, and
+little else; but she felt that he was to be trusted and believed.
+
+"You see a very stubborn man, one who has made few friends in life, and
+who has met with much tribulation in his journey," said he; "you see a
+man who will do his duty by you, but will not be a gentle father--a man
+who will never win a daughter's love, and will not let the daughter take
+the first place in his heart, lest she should wean him too much from the
+pursuit of sin, and slacken his zeal in the good cause. A man who is
+poor--who cannot offer you a home much better than this--a man
+disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate--is he worth calling father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thank God you say so; it is very horrible to feel alone in the world."
+
+The disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate man, shook Mattie by both
+hands, kissed her suddenly on the forehead, drew forth a cotton
+handkerchief, and wiped his eyes and blew his nose vigorously; finished
+by producing a shabby leather purse, and taking some silver therefrom,
+which he placed on the mantel-piece.
+
+"My child!--at my expense all future housekeeping. Young woman," to Ann
+Packet, "you'll draw from that small amount for the future."
+
+"I'm sure I shan't!"
+
+"Eh!--what?"
+
+"I've taken care of her, and been a mother to her for the last four
+weeks, and you're not a-coming in here all at once, and stealing every
+bit of comfort away from me!"
+
+"Who is this?" he asked of Mattie.
+
+"A faithful friend, without whom I might have died."
+
+"Then she must be a friend of mine--young woman, you hear that?"
+
+"Ah! I hear," said the stolid Ann.
+
+"And who knows but that you, Mattie, in the better days in store for you
+and me, may become a worker in the vineyard also?"
+
+"She's not going to work in any yard yet awhile, if I know it!" said
+Ann.
+
+Mr. Gray rose and picked up his hat again, without paying heed to this
+allusion.
+
+"I have work to do at home," he said; "I am a mechanic by trade, and
+have to labour to get my own living; when you are well enough, you must
+come to my home and make it a different place. I have much to ask you
+when you are better--I have been troubled about stories that have been
+told me of you--I am unhappy until I know the truth. You will keep
+nothing from me?"
+
+Mattie did not reply; that was a matter for future consideration.
+
+"I never allow anything to be kept from me," he said sharply; "I shall
+be a hard father, rely upon it. I allow nothing for prevarication, and I
+spare no sin or weakness, however plausible may be the excuse which the
+sinner offers. I--how dreadfully askew everything is on this
+mantel-piece!" he added suddenly, putting the few ornaments thereon at
+regular distances from each other; "I shall not be a kind father--I know
+I shan't! The mountains are not harder to move than I am--you're not
+frightened at me, Mattie?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not sorry I have come here to claim you?"
+
+"No--glad," said Mattie; "I think I shall be able to trust you, and to
+understand you in a little while. And the world will never be entirely
+desolate again."
+
+"Neither for you nor for me--though I have had my pursuits, and been
+working hard for my master on earth--my Master in heaven. Amen. He has
+been very kind to me to reward me thus for the little which I have done
+of late years!"
+
+He was down on his knees in the old place, and praying again; offering a
+thanksgiving for his daughter's restoration to him. He was a man who
+cared not for appearances--who doubtless rendered himself extremely
+ridiculous and objectionable at times--and yet a man so thoroughly in
+earnest, that it was hard to laugh at him. At first sight it was
+difficult to understand him, although Mattie already felt confidence in
+him, and saw a brighter life in store for her; he was a man whose
+character was hard to define at a first interview.
+
+The time was inappropriate; the prayer out of place; he might have
+waited till he had got home, thought Ann; but after a while the deep
+voice arrested attention, and Mattie listened and was impressed by the
+man's fervour and rugged eloquence. It was not a long prayer; he was on
+his feet again, and looking at his daughter once more.
+
+"I shall come to-morrow--next week perhaps we shall be living together,
+father and child! Dear me, how odd that sounds now! With you at my side,
+I feel I can confront my enemies better."
+
+"Your enemies?"
+
+"Such as they are--I'm not afraid of them--I rather like them," he
+added; "they laugh at me, and mimic my ways--shrug their shoulders, and
+tell one another what a hypocrite I am. It's the easiest thing in the
+world to say a man is a hypocrite, and the very hardest for that man to
+prove that he is not. But we'll talk about that, and about everything
+else when you're better. I--I hope I haven't been _going it_ too
+much--good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, father."
+
+"Ah! that's very good of you," he said; "but you must not be too
+credulous. I'll bring my marriage certificate to-morrow, and we'll
+proceed in a more business-like fashion. Good-bye--good evening, young
+woman."
+
+"Good evening, sir," said Ann, evidently inclined to be more civil to
+him. When he had gone, Ann Packet insisted upon putting Mattie to bed at
+once; she was inclined to keep her place, and talk of the extraordinary
+incidents of that day.
+
+"Talk of 'em to-morrow," said Ann; "you've _gallied_ your brains enough
+for fifty fathers."
+
+"I feel so much happier, Ann, with some one whom I shall have a right to
+love."
+
+"Well, you've a right to love who you like, o' course."
+
+"And I shan't love my faithful, gentle nurse the worse for it."
+
+"God bless you!--what a gal you are!"
+
+"Life seems beginning with me for the first time--opening new scenes,
+new faces, new affections. Yes, Ann, I am happy to-night."
+
+"Then I'm glad he's come--I think he's turned up for the best;
+although," she muttered to herself, "I shouldn't be very proud of
+another father like him for myself. He's _such a rum un_!"
+
+Meanwhile Harriet Wesden--what had followed the coming of this "rum un"
+to her? Was her happiness fading away, as Mattie Gray's advanced? Let us
+see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"ONLY PITY."
+
+
+A cold frosty air in the streets that night--a chilling welcome to
+Harriet Wesden as she emerged from the hot room into Tenchester Street.
+Sidney was waiting for her, staid, silent, and statuesque; he offered
+her his arm, which she took, and together they proceeded along the
+narrow street into the Southwark Bridge Road--thence past the old house
+in Great Suffolk Street towards the Borough.
+
+Harriet Wesden felt that she would have given worlds, had she possessed
+them, to have broken the silence, and ventured on some topic which might
+have tested the truth or the folly of her fears; but all thought seemed
+to have deserted her.
+
+These sudden vacuums are difficult things to account for--most of us
+suffer from them more or less at some period or other of our lives. Who
+cannot remember the sudden hiatus with the friend--male or female--whom
+we intended particularly to impress with the force of our eloquence; or
+the collapse in the grand speech with which we wished to return thanks
+for the handsome manner in which our health had been drunk at that
+dinner party, or the vote of confidence placed in us at that
+extraordinary general meeting?
+
+Harriet Wesden was dumb; there was not one thought at which she could
+clutch, even the coldness of that night did not suggest itself till it
+was too late to speak, and the idea began to impress her that it would
+be more unnatural to say a few commonplace words than to keep silence.
+
+She guessed that Sidney knew her secret, or the greater part of her
+secret, the instant that she had emerged into the street; and to attempt
+a commonplace discourse with a great sorrow overshadowing him would,
+after all, have been a mockery, unworthy of herself and him.
+
+But if he would only speak!--not proceed onwards so firmly, steadily
+saying, never a word to relieve the embarrassment of her position.
+Sidney Hinchford maintained a rigid silence for almost a similar reason
+to Harriet's; he was at loss how to begin, and break the spell which had
+enchained him since his engagement. He was walking in darkness, and
+there was no light ahead of him. All was vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+At last the silence was broken. They had left behind them the long rows
+of lighted shops, and come to private houses, and long dreary front
+gardens, with interminable rows of iron railings; there were a few late
+office-clerks--a shadowy woman or two--hastening homewards; the roar of
+London was growing fainter in the distance.
+
+"Harriet," he began, in a deep voice, wherein all excitement was pent up
+and constrained, "I have heard a strange story to-night from that man
+claiming to be Mattie's father--is it true?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She did not ask what he had heard, or attempt any defence; the sound of
+his voice, deep and resonant after the long silence, had set her heart
+beating, and rendered her answer a matter of difficulty.
+
+"It is a strange story, and I have been hoping it might have been
+explained away by some means not only unnatural--I can almost believe
+that it is all a dream, and no cruel waking is to follow it. Harriet,
+may I ask if your father is aware of this?"
+
+"He is not yet."
+
+"You were travelling alone with a gentleman--I will call him a gentleman
+for the sake of argument--in the middle of the night by the Dover mail
+train; at Ashford you leave the carriage abruptly, and demand protection
+from him--speak of a trap into which he had led you, and seek counsel of
+that man we met at Mattie's house to-night?"
+
+"But----"
+
+"But do not misunderstand me, Harriet--I can read the story for myself;
+I can see that you were deceived in this man, and had no consciousness
+of the snare prepared for you, until the hour was too late. I can
+believe that your sense of right was outraged, and the _gentleman_
+merited all the scorn which he received--but who was this man to whom
+you could trust yourself at that hour, and by what right were you, under
+any circumstances, his companion?"
+
+"He was a man I met at Mrs. Eveleigh's--he offered to escort me to the
+railway station."
+
+"A stranger?"
+
+"No--I had met him at Brighton, before then, when I was a school-girl.
+He--he paid me attentions there which flattered my girlish vanity;
+and--and then I met him again at Mrs. Eveleigh's."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"Darcy."
+
+"You have not seen him since?"
+
+"No--I hope that he and I will never meet again."
+
+"Harriet, you loved this man!"
+
+"No," was the fearless answer; "I cannot believe that now. I might have
+fancied so at the time--for oh! I was bewildered by many thoughts, and
+my heart was troubled, Sid--but I never loved him, on my honour!"
+
+"It is easy to think that now," said Sidney in reply; "the idol has
+fallen from the pedestal, never to be replaced again--a ruin, in which
+no interest remains. But you loved him, or believed you loved him at
+that time--it is a nice distinction--and there was no thought of me and
+my hopes."
+
+"Sidney, I wrote--I--"
+
+"Harriet, there is no need for us to say one word in anger about this,"
+he interrupted; "I will ask no further explanation--I do not wish it. I
+can see now where I have been wrong, and whither my folly was leading
+me--and there's an end of it," he added.
+
+"An end of--what?"
+
+"Of the one hope that I have had. I see, now, how much better it is for
+you and me, and what a foolish couple we have been."
+
+There was a long silence; they had walked on some distance before
+Harriet said, suddenly and sharply--
+
+"What do you mean--what am I to understand?"
+
+"That our engagement is at an end, and that it is better for us both to
+forget the romantic nonsense which we talked of lately. I will not ask
+you to forget me; I will not try for a single moment to forget _you_. I
+will prefer, if you will allow me, Harriet, to remain your
+friend--something of the old boy-friend I was to you, before the dream
+came."
+
+"Unjust--unkind!" she murmured.
+
+"No, you will not think that presently," he answered; "you will judge me
+more fairly, and see for yourself how it could not have ended otherwise
+for either of us. You have been more than kind to me--you have offered
+me the sacrifice of your best wishes, even your brightest prospects, out
+of pity, and I cannot have it."
+
+"Pity!" she repeated.
+
+Harriet was unnerved at his earnestness, at the deep sorrow which
+betrayed itself in every word, and which he thought that he disguised so
+well; but her pride was wounded also at his resignation of her, and she
+could see that there was no defence to urge which, by the laws of
+probability, had power to affect him. Between her and him that cruel
+past, which she had hidden from him; that proof of love or fancy for
+another, when he was building on her lore for him; that evidence against
+her, which for ever robbed him of his confidence and trust. No, there
+was no defence, and the scornful echo of his last words were more like
+defiance than regret.
+
+"Yes, pity!" he reiterated--"only pity! Harriet," he said, for an
+instant pressing her hand upon his arm with the old affection, "it was
+kind and noble of you, but it was not love. It was a sacrifice; I was a
+poor man; there was a great affliction in store for me, and you felt
+that you alone could lighten it in the present--and in the future, when
+it faced me and shut me in with it. You saw that you were my one hope,
+and you took pity on me. It was a mistake--I see the gigantic error that
+it was now!"
+
+"You will see the truth--you will judge me fairer yet, Sidney."
+
+"This past engagement between us, Harriet, has been a trouble to me
+lately," he continued; "my selfishness has scared me before this, and I
+have felt that I had no right to bind you to me for a term of years,
+ending in calamity at the last. I was wrong--I retract--I am very sorry
+for the error--I am glad of this excuse to rectify it."
+
+"You say that!" cried Harriet; "you are glad to break with me--to
+believe that I did not love you, Sidney?"
+
+"Yes, I am glad. I can see that it was all for the best; and though I
+could have wished that there had been a different reason for the
+parting, still it takes a weight from my conscience--it is a relief!"
+
+It was a struggle to say so, but he said it without bitterness, and in
+good faith. By some ingenious method of word-twisting, which Harriet
+could not follow, he had stopped all effort to explain more fully, and
+turned the blame of the engagement on himself. There was no answering;
+she saw that his heart was wrung with the agony of the dissolution, but
+she read upon that pale, stern face, to which she glanced but once, an
+inflexible resolve, that nothing could alter. He upbraided her not; he
+uttered not one sarcasm upon the folly of her past passion for Mr.
+Darcy, or the mistakes to which it had led; he expressed a wish to be
+her friend still, but he gave her up, and with all her love for him--and
+she knew how truly it was love then--she could not ask him to reconsider
+his verdict and spare her a parting as bitter for her as him. She read
+in that hasty glance at his face, _incredulity_ of her affection for
+him; and no protestation on her part could have altered that. Yes, it
+was ended between them--perhaps for the best, God knew; she could not
+think of it then--she was ashamed, miserable, utterly cast down!
+
+"Let me get home," she murmured; "what a long way it is to home."
+
+"I will say no more, Harriet--I have been unkind to say so much," he
+said, in answer to that cry, in which he might have read the truth, had
+not his heart been for ever closed to it from that night.
+
+So, in the same silent way as they had begun that inauspicious walk, the
+two concluded it, reaching the little house of Mr. Wesden shortly
+afterwards. Colder and more grim the night there; beyond the lighted
+London streets, in melancholy suburban districts like to this, there
+seemed to lurk a greater desolation.
+
+"Good night," he said; "don't think that we part in anger, or that I am
+hurt in any way at what has happened--or that I am less your friend than
+ever, Harriet."
+
+"Good night," was all her answer.
+
+He lingered still, as though he had more to say, or was endeavouring to
+think of something more to render the disruption less abrupt and harsh;
+but he relinquished the attempt, and left her, walking away rapidly as
+though at the last--the very last--he feared to trust himself.
+
+He did not go straight home, but walked for awhile up and down the
+street wherein his home was, at the same rapid pace, with his breath
+held somewhat, and his hands clenched.
+
+He had acted for the best--it _was_ for the best, he thought!--but the
+result was not satisfactory, and the future beyond was the grey density
+at which he had recoiled, when crossing the Channel on the day he came
+to man's estate.
+
+If he had died on that day, or the ship had gone down with him, how much
+better he thought then; better for her, for him--even for his father,
+perhaps, he could not tell at that time!
+
+He went indoors at last, feigned for awhile the old demeanour, and
+failed at a task beyond his strength for once. He gave it up, and,
+looking vacantly at his amazed father, said,
+
+"I'm not well to-night. I think I'll go to my room."
+
+"Not well!--you not well, Sid?" exclaimed the father, as though the
+assertion were the most improbable to make in the world.
+
+"Not very well--a head-ache."
+
+"Ah! too much book-work. Be careful, Sid, don't overtask yourself."
+
+"I shall be well enough to-morrow. Good night."
+
+He left the room abruptly, and turned the key in his own apartment a few
+minutes afterwards. In his own room, he hunted for a few letters which
+she had written to him during their brief engagement, and proceeded to
+burn them in the empty fire-grate.
+
+"So much the best," he muttered, "so much the best!" as though they were
+charmed words, that kept him strong.
+
+He missed something else, and was uneasy about it. He went to the
+looking-glass drawer, and turned out the whole contents upon the
+toilet-table--staring at a letter soiled, crumpled and torn, but still
+_sealed_, which rewarded his search, and lay at the bottom.
+
+"What's this?" he muttered.
+
+He drew a chair nearer the drawers on which the light was placed,
+examined the post-mark, the superscription, the seal, then opened the
+letter, dated on the day he went away on special service.
+
+A long, confused epistle, written with difficulty and under much
+agitation, but telling one truth, at which he had guessed--which he had
+spoken of that night.
+
+"I knew it before!" he cried; but the news daunted him, and unmanned him
+notwithstanding.
+
+It was the climax, and he gave way utterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN UNAVAILING EFFORT.
+
+
+The dry, matter-of-fact world, with its face to business and its back to
+romance, is still interested in love-matters, and passingly agitated by
+the sudden disruption of any love-engagement. It shows an interest in
+the latest news, and turns from its account-books for awhile to know how
+it came about that Damon and Phyllis could not agree upon "proprieties,"
+and thought that it was better to part, for good and aye, than to settle
+down for good as man and wife. Having learned the news, remarked upon
+the pity that it was, or the best thing that could happen for _her_ or
+for _him_, the world goes upon its course again, and the story is as old
+as the hills before the leading characters have got over their first
+heart-pangs.
+
+It was not a large world that was interested in the disruption of Sidney
+Hinchford's love engagement; two old men at Camberwell, and a
+needlewoman, might almost constitute it in this instance. We say almost,
+for a reason that will appear presently; a cautious writer should always
+speak with a reserve.
+
+The two old men were interested in the news, but not profoundly
+affected; such is the selfishness of humanity, when matters do not
+seriously affect its own comfort.
+
+Harriet Wesden told the news on the following day to her father, and he,
+after a stare over her head in the old fashion, thought, perhaps, that
+it was all for the best. Harriet told him the whole story of the past
+that had led to the parting, and he took stock of the principal
+features, and thought it was an odd affair, and that he might have been
+told of this Mr. Darcy a little earlier. After awhile he fancied that it
+was more comfortable to know that Harriet was to be always with him, to
+attend to his small ailments, and study his eccentricities. Of late he
+had harassed himself somewhat with the idea that there would be an early
+marriage, and that he should be left entirely alone in the world;--with
+that house and new furniture, that wash-house where the chimney always
+smoked, and that back-garden where groundsel grew vigorously in the
+garden paths. The news of the quarrel came with something like a relief
+to him. Harriet always at home; no one calling to distract attention
+away from him--well, it _was_ for the best, though in his unselfish
+moments, and he had many of them, Harriet alone in the world after he
+was gone, was a picture that affected him.
+
+There was something else to trouble him now; Harriet's story had cleared
+up the mystery of Mattie's actions, that last mystery which had led to
+an act of injustice on his part. That he had been unjust, and cast
+Mattie back to the streets, troubled him far more than the broken
+love-pledge between Harriet and Sidney; for the first time in his life
+he had done a wrong, a palpable and cruel one, which might have
+submerged a soul, and he was sorry, very sorry, for all that had led to
+it. It did not matter that Mattie had been rescued from utter loneliness
+by the appearance of her father upon the scene; his hasty judgment had
+only brought about the wrong, and he had tried to walk uprightly all his
+life, and do his best according to his powers.
+
+Harriet, his daughter, kept her troubles to herself; she had met with
+the first shock that falls to the share of many a young life, and she
+had not made up her mind as to the best method of bearing up against it.
+Two years ago this would not have been a great trouble to her; but two
+years had wondrously sobered her, and her eyes had only been opened to
+the true estimate of Sidney's character at the time when he spoke of the
+necessity of ending all engagement between them. He had not blamed her,
+or she might have defended herself; he had spoken of his own
+consciousness of having done wrong to bind her by a promise made in an
+impulsive moment, he had intimated that it was a relief to him to give
+her up, and in the face of the cold, unpitying world, she was powerless
+to act. Still she was hopeful amidst it all; it was no serious quarrel;
+he had spoken of his wish to remain her friend, and by one of the many
+chances of life, it would not be difficult for him to discover that it
+_was_ love which drew her to him, and not the pity which is akin to it.
+It might all be explained when the right moment came round; but as the
+days passed, and no Sidney appeared, her heart sank more, and she read
+the future in store for her through a medium less highly coloured by her
+fancy.
+
+A week after the explanation between Sidney and her, she went in search
+of Mattie. Always in trouble thinking of Mattie--seeking from her that
+consolation which her own thoughts denied her. Mattie was still in
+Tenchester Street, although Ann Packet had gone back to the Hinchford
+service. Mattie was strong enough to shift for herself again--to set
+about packing her scanty wardrobe for removal to her fathers home; she
+was alone and busy with her preparations for departure, when Harriet
+Wesden came into the room.
+
+After the first salutations had been exchanged--and flying remarks upon
+Mattie's better health and brighter looks had been made--our heroine
+looked steadily at Harriet, and asked what was the matter.
+
+"Am I so altered that you should think anything had happened, Mattie?"
+
+"There is not the look I like to see _there_," said Mattie, pointing to
+Harriet Wesden's face.
+
+"It's not a happy look, is it?" she asked, with a little sigh.
+
+"Not very."
+
+"Sit down here beside me, and let me tell you why the happy looks have
+gone for ever."
+
+"For ever! Oh! I'll not believe that."
+
+"You'll never guess what I am going to tell you?"
+
+"Sidney and you have quarrelled."
+
+"Yes--no--not exactly quarrelled--what a girl you are to guess things!
+Sidney and I, by mutual consent, have cancelled our engagement."
+
+"I am sorry," said Mattie, after a moment's silence; "sorry, not that
+the engagement has been broken for awhile, for it will be renewed
+again--"
+
+"Never!--never!"
+
+"But that any difference should have arisen between you two. As for not
+making it up again," said Mattie, cheerfully, "oh! we can't believe
+that, we two who understand Sidney Hinchford so well."
+
+"There will never be an engagement between him and me again," said
+Harriet; "over for once and all, Mattie."
+
+"I say there will be," said Mattie, in an equally decisive manner. "Have
+I lived so long to see it all ended thus? I say it shall be!" cried
+Mattie, in an excited manner, that surprised even Harriet, who knew
+Mattie's character so well; "and we shall see, in good time, which is
+the true prophetess."
+
+"Mattie, you don't know Sidney, after all."
+
+"Tell me the story--I am very anxious."
+
+And with a woman's keen interest in love matters--her own, or anybody
+else's, as the case might be--Mattie clasped her hands together, and
+bent forward, all eagerness for Harriet's narrative.
+
+"It's all through your father--that father of yours, who comes upon the
+scene, and brings misery with him at once!" said Harriet, a little
+petulantly.
+
+"Hush, Harriet!--remember that he is my father, now!" said Mattie, who
+had found one more to defend in life, and to live for, "and I am
+learning to love him, and to understand him better every day."
+
+"Yes--yes--you will forgive me--I am always offending some one with my
+hasty words. This is how the quarrel came about."
+
+Harriet launched into her story at once; in a torrent of hurried
+explanations the details were poured forth, and Mattie, in a short
+while, knew as much as Harriet Wesden, which was not all however, as we,
+who are behind the scenes of this little drama, are aware.
+
+"Perhaps it serves _us_ right," said Mattie, pluralizing the case after
+her old fashion; "we kept something back, and Sidney is straightforward
+in everything, and hates deceit, even innocent deceit like ours,
+practised for your good name's sake. Did you tell him that?"
+
+"I don't know what I told him," answered Harriet, sadly. "I said
+nothing--I was found guilty, and there was no answer left me."
+
+"We shall live this down, I think," said Mattie, confidently. "After
+all, there's nothing very serious about it--if he don't suspect us of
+behaving wrongly on that night."
+
+"Sidney suspect that of me! Oh! no, no--not so bad as that!"
+
+"Then it will all come right in time," cried Mattie. "He has loved us
+all his life, and will not fling himself from us in his pride and anger,
+as--as other men would do, more selfish and unjust than he. I see the
+future brightening--we will wait patiently, and not be cast down by this
+slight trouble."
+
+"Slight trouble!" exclaimed Harriet. "Oh! Mattie, if you only understood
+what love was like, you would guess my--my sense of desolation."
+
+Harriet flung herself on the bosom of the old faithful friend, whose
+face, over her shoulder, became suddenly, and for an instant only, very
+white and lined.
+
+"I will try and guess," she said, in a low voice. "It must be desolate;
+I--I may know better some day!"
+
+Then Mattie set herself the task of comforting this child--a child
+still, she thought, in her impulsiveness, and in that weakness which
+gave way like a child at the first trouble, and sought help and comfort
+from others, rather than from her own heart. And Mattie, who had the
+gift--that rare rich gift above all price--of comforting those who are
+afflicted, succeeded in putting the facts of the case in their best and
+less distorted light, and was rewarded before the interview was
+over--and when Harriet remembered it--by the new fact of how one
+revelation had brought about another, and cleared up the mystery of
+Mattie's absence from home to the man who had suspected her.
+
+"I broke the promise--there was nothing to keep back, when I had my own
+story to relate."
+
+"He knows all this," said Mattie, "and he----"
+
+"He is very sorry for all that harshness which drove you from us--I am
+sure of it."
+
+"Why, it is brightening all round," said Mattie; "we shall have no
+secret in the midst of us, and all will be well now!"
+
+Both had forgotten the letter, wherein absence of all true affection was
+asserted; Harriet believed it destroyed, and Mattie did not think to
+remind her of the danger--in her heart believed it even far removed from
+her.
+
+They parted hopefully; Mattie made the best of the position, and was
+really trustful in a good result. Sidney Hinchford loved Harriet, and
+she could not understand a man loving on, and yet holding aloof from the
+idol he would fain worship still.
+
+Sidney Hinchford, a few days afterwards, came to make his last inquiries
+concerning Mattie's health--had he waited another day he would have
+found empty rooms and a desolate hearth--and Mattie seized that
+opportunity to say a word. The grass never grew under the feet of Mattie
+Gray, and the dark look--new to his face in its intensity of
+sternness--did not deter her.
+
+"I am sorry to hear the last news, Mr. Hinchford."
+
+"It was to be expected," he replied shortly. He would have hastened away
+from a subject that distressed him, but Mattie was not deterred by his
+harsh voice.
+
+"Not to be expected, you mean, Mr. Sidney," she said; "for she and you,
+who have been together all your lives, should----"
+
+"Pardon me, Mattie," he interrupted, decisively; "I cannot bear a third
+person's interference in this matter. It lies between her and me, and
+both she and I have thought it better to part, without reproach or
+ill-will. She has made up her mind----"
+
+"But----"
+
+"And had she not," he said, catching at Mattie's wrist and holding it
+firmly with his hand, as though to stay her defence by that means, "I
+have made up mine, and there is nothing on earth, or in heaven, to alter
+it, I swear!"
+
+"Oh! sir," cried Mattie, dismayed at this assertion, "you will think of
+this again--of her you have known from a little child, and should be
+able to trust. There's not a truer, kinder heart, in all the world!"
+
+"She is true and kind--she would even have sacrificed her happiness for
+my sake--but she never loved me. I have her written evidence to that."
+
+"The letter!--oh! the letter!"
+
+"You knew it?--_you_ helped to deceive me, too!"
+
+"Not deceit--all was done for your own good, Mr. Sidney--she did not
+know her own mind when that letter was written; she----"
+
+"She will never know it--she is a weak woman--God help her! She was
+never fit for me!"
+
+"Yes," was the quick denial.
+
+"No, I say. A thousand times no!"
+
+He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then turned away, sterner and
+darker in his looks than ever. Mattie's heart sank then--for she read in
+his face a resolve that love could not soften, or time ameliorate. She
+lost hope herself from that day.
+
+"I must make up for him as well as I can," said Mattie, after he had
+gone; "she must not break down, because he turns away. She is young and
+will get over it--let me see, now, how shall I teach my darling to
+forget all this?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED.
+
+
+That is a grand trait of character in man, woman, or
+child--unselfishness. It is a trait that scarcely exists, perhaps, in
+its pure state; for we are selfish mortals, struggling to cut one
+another's throats all our lives, and coveting our neighbour's goods with
+a rare intensity. It is a selfish globe on which we are spinning, and it
+is natural to think deeply--think altogether, perhaps--of _our_ loves,
+_our_ successes, _our_ chances of fame, fortune, happiness, rather than
+of other people's. For the reason that it has been our lot to drop upon
+an exception to this rule--as near an exception as this rule _sans_
+exception will allow--do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections,
+and think her story--approaching its turbulent stage--worth the telling.
+
+Springing from a low estate, and saved as by a miracle--this flower put
+forth strange buds and blossoms after its transplanting. It outlived the
+past, and turned quickly to the light, as though light had been its
+craving from the first, and only a better chance, and a purer moral
+atmosphere, were needed to wholly change it. Mattie passed from evil to
+good swiftly, grateful to the hands that had been outstretched to save
+her; the untaught childhood became swiftly the days of grateful
+girlhood--and from girlhood to the gentle, honest womanhood, that
+thought of others' happiness, and strove hard for happiness in those she
+loved, was but another step, easily made and never repented of.
+
+She did all for the best, and strove hard to make the best of
+everything--_for others_. We know no better heroine than this, and I am
+very doubtful if we care for one better educated or of higher origin.
+And yet, heaven be thanked, not a model heroine, who was always in the
+right!
+
+Mattie removed to her father's apartments in Union Road, Brunswick
+Street, New Kent Road. Brunswick Street is an artery that lets the wild
+blood of Great Dover Street into the New Kent Road--a quiet street by
+day, but subject to scared strangers at night in search of the medical
+students who locate here in legions. Union Road is on the right of
+Brunswick Street, and a near cut, if you are fortunate enough not to
+lose yourself, to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, though what you may want
+_there_ is more your business than ours. Mr. Gray rented the two top
+rooms of a small house in Union Road, the sitting room provided with a
+sofa bedstead, which was henceforth to be of service to Mattie, when the
+day's duties were over, and Mr. Gray had finished his praying.
+
+Here settled down the new-found father and child, and began "home" once
+more. Here Mattie learned by degrees to understand her father, to
+appreciate the many good qualities which he possessed, and to "make
+allowance"--as she always made allowance--for the few bad ones, which he
+possessed also, minister of the gospel as he termed himself.
+
+They agreed very well together; there was little to disturb the even
+tenor of their way; and it fortunately happened that Mr. Gray, who was
+fond of argument, was blessed with a daughter who always shunned it,
+when the topics did not directly affect her. Mr. Gray, on the whole, was
+a little disappointed in his daughter--agreeably disappointed, we might
+have said, had not the discomfiture been so apparent on his features for
+a while. He was a man fond of making converts; it had been his
+profession, and he had met with success therein. He had promised himself
+the pleasure of saving his daughter from the dangers and temptations of
+the world, and he had found one who was out of danger and as above
+temptation as he was. From Mrs. Watts' account, subsequently from Mr.
+Wesden's, he had been led to expect a very different daughter to this; a
+girl who had run the streets for eleven years--who had been a friendless
+stray upon those streets, a thief and beggar at intervals when honesty
+did not _pay_--who had afterwards left her master's house under
+suspicion of a grave character--was likely to be a wilful, vicious
+specimen of womanhood, and worthy of his earnest efforts to subdue.
+Though he would not have owned it to himself, yet the belief in Mattie
+being unregenerate and defiant had added an intensity to his search for
+her; since his own better life, he had been ever in search of a
+thoroughly fine specimen of impenitence to practise upon, and now even
+his own daughter had disappointed him!
+
+He discovered that she was a regular attendant at chapel--not even at
+church, to whose forms he had the true dissenter's objection--that she
+read her Bible regularly, and took comfort from its pages--that she was
+gentle, charitable, kind, unselfish, everything that he would have liked
+to make her by his intense love and application, and which he had found
+ready-made to hand.
+
+He returned thanks for all this in his usual manner, but there was an
+occasional blankness of expression on his countenance; he was truly glad
+to have discovered his daughter, but he found that she was never to owe
+him an immense debt of gratitude for her reformation, and he had built
+upon that whenever they were thrown together, father and child, at last.
+Beyond his home he must look once more for the obdurate specimen that he
+could attack, follow up, analyze and dissect, with the gusto of a
+surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"
+
+But that home--in a very little time what a different place it was to
+him! He found in Mattie all that he could have made of her, and after
+awhile he was more than content. He was a man who made but little show
+of earthly affection, and possibly deceived Mattie, who took his love
+for duty more often than he wished, though it was his pride to abjure
+all evidence of earthly affection, and to consider himself, as he termed
+it, above it. He was a man who deceived himself by this--people have
+that peculiar trait of character now and then, and place credence in
+their own impossibilities.
+
+Mr. Gray was a lithographer by trade--a man who would have earned more
+money had not his preaching interfered with his work, and had he not
+been rather too particular for a business man upon what work he engaged
+himself. A crotchety, irritable being, who brought his religion into his
+business, and, therefore, occasionally muddled both. On one occasion he
+had been horrified by the receipt of an order to lithograph several
+scenes from the last new pantomime, to be exhibited on broadsheets
+outside the theatre-doors, and in tobacconists' shops; and having
+declined to be an agent in such a "Worke of the Beast," had been
+dismissed from the staff of a firm which he had faithfully-served for
+many years. He had lived hard after that, known what it was to be
+penniless and fireless, and almost bootless, but those unpleasant
+sensations had their comforts for him--they were evidences of his
+sacrifice for his character's sake, and he had fought on doggedly till
+other employment came, which brought his head above water. He was a man
+who never gave way in his opinions, or sacrificed them for his personal
+convenience--a disagreeable man more often than not, but a man respected
+amongst his chapel-circle, and who, when once understood--that was not
+often, however--was generally liked. A man who dealt in hard truths, and
+had not invariably the gentlest method of distributing them; but a man
+who loved to see justice done to all oppressed, and did his best after
+his own way.
+
+His first attempt to do justice, after Mattie's acquaintance with him,
+was in Mattie's favour. He understood all the reasons for Mattie's
+departure from Great Suffolk Street, and he saw where Mr. Wesden had
+been deceived, and in what manner he had been led by degrees to form a
+false estimate of Mattie's conduct.
+
+He was a fidgety man, we have implied--more than that, he was an
+excitable and restless man.
+
+"I must see that Mr. Wesden again--we must both see him, Mattie," he
+said one evening.
+
+"Oh! I can never face him," said Mattie, in an alarmed manner, "after
+all that he has thought of me. I could not bear to ask him to confess
+that he was in the wrong, if he will not confess it of his own free
+will."
+
+"But he shall, my dear!"
+
+"I can't explain the robberies--can't prove that I was innocent of all
+implication in them. I was a thief once, and he will never forget that."
+
+"Won't he?" said Mr. Gray, decisively; "we'll see about that. I'll rouse
+him, my dear, depend upon it. The first opportunity I have, I'll call
+upon that man, and--rouse him."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+Mattie was at work at the fireside; she had taken to dress-making again,
+amongst a new connection of chapel-goers introduced by her father, and
+Mr. Gray was busy at his lithography. He was working hard into the
+night, doing extra work, in order that he might have all the next week
+free for a preaching expedition amongst the colliers, and he did not
+turn from his work to express his opinion; on the contrary, bent more
+earnestly over it.
+
+"It's no good hoping, my dear, I have made up my mind; he hasn't acted
+fairly by you--he hasn't made atonement--I must talk to him presently."
+
+Mattie was glad of the postponement, and hopeful that her father, in his
+multiplicity of engagements, would forget his determination--a strange
+hope, for Mr. Gray never forgot anything.
+
+"What kind of man is this Mr. Wesden, Mattie?" he asked; "I have only
+seen him once, for a few minutes. Hard, isn't he?"
+
+"Sometimes. He has altered very much lately."
+
+"A worldly man--fond of money--grasping, in fact. Such a man is hard to
+impress. I'll have a try at him, though."
+
+"He's a very good man, father," Mattie said; "you must remember that he
+saved me from the streets, and that for years and years was very good
+and kind to me."
+
+"Yes, yes--I shall pay him back some day--but he must be worldly, I
+should think, and in return for all his goodness I'll make a good man of
+him--see if I don't! I suppose you used to open on Sundays in Great
+Suffolk Street?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Hum--that's well. Not so bad as I thought. Did he go to chapel of a
+Sunday, now?"
+
+"To church--St. George's."
+
+"Hum--that's not so bad. Not much credit in making a better man of
+_him_," he muttered; "but I'll--rouse him!"
+
+The next day he neglected his work on purpose to attempt the experiment.
+He was successful enough, for there was a rough eloquence inherent in
+him, and he had a fair cause to plead; and the result was, that the
+roused Mr. Wesden made his appearance arm in arm with Mr. Gray at
+Mattie's home.
+
+"I've got him!" said Mr. Gray, triumphantly; "here's Mr. Wesden, Mattie.
+He has come to say how very sorry he was for all that parted you and
+him--haven't you, sir?"
+
+"Very sorry," said Mr. Wesden, looking at Mattie askance; "I've been
+thinking of it a long while--yes, Mattie, very sorry!"
+
+He held out both hands to her, and Mattie ran to him, clasped them in
+her own, shook them heartily, and then burst out crying on his shoulder.
+
+"Oh! my first father!--I didn't think that you would believe wrong of me
+all your life!"
+
+"No--and it was very wrong--Mattie. And all will be right now--you and
+your father must come and see us very often."
+
+"Yes."
+
+She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography,
+bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this
+reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had
+vanished.
+
+"Father--you hear?"
+
+"I don't care about much company--when we've nothing better to do than
+idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.
+
+"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden,
+almost entreatingly.
+
+"Mattie won't care about much company herself--and I very much doubt
+if--if that young person you allude to--is exactly fitting for my
+daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of
+what is truly womanly."
+
+Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that
+night, and he perplexed her.
+
+"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh.
+She was in high spirits that night.
+
+Mr. Gray softened.
+
+"You are a very good girl, Mattie--a very good girl indeed; there are
+only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was
+speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a
+chisel at his leisure.
+
+"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think
+_any_ harm of me now! The robberies--the talk with Mr. Hinchford--" she
+added, with a faint blush.
+
+"What was that?" asked Mr. Gray, with renewed alacrity.
+
+"Foolishness--all foolishness on my part," said Wesden; "how could I
+have acted so? And yet, when it came to being out all night, the fancies
+turned to truths, it seemed. Ah! no matter now."
+
+"No matter now. Oh! I am very happy. Will you sit down here for awhile,
+and tell me about Harriet and yourself--and _she_ who was always so kind
+to me?"
+
+"And thought well of you to the last. We wrangled once or twice about
+that--the only thing we ever had to quarrel about, Mattie, in all our
+lives together."
+
+"Sit down and tell me about her--my true mother! You will excuse my
+father--he is very busy."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+And after his old dreamy stare at Mr. Gray, who appeared to have
+suddenly and entirely lost all interest in Mr. Wesden, he sat down by
+the fireside and, talked of old times--the dear old times that Mattie
+loved to hear about. Mattie was happy that night; her heart was lighter;
+her character had been redeemed to him who had mistrusted her; he was
+sitting again by her side--all her love for him had come back as it
+were, and all his cruel thoughts of her had vanished away for ever.
+
+Mr. Wesden talked more than he used, when one particular subject was
+dilated on; and to have Mattie full of interest in that better half of
+him that had gone from life on earth to life eternal, gave brightness to
+his eyes, vigour to his narrative, and rendered him oblivious to time,
+till a deep voice behind him broke in upon the dialogue.
+
+"It's getting late."
+
+"Ah! it must be," said Mr. Wesden, rising. "And you'll come now, Mattie?
+You have forgiven me?"
+
+"With all my heart--what there was to forgive!"
+
+"And you'll let her come, Mr. Gray, now I have done her that justice?"
+
+"When there's time."
+
+Mr. Wesden departed; Mattie saw him down-stairs to the passage door, and
+stood watching his figure, not so active as of yore, proceeding down the
+dimly lighted street. When she returned to the sitting-room, she found
+that her father had left his work, and was sitting with his feet on the
+fender, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly together. He did not look
+round when she came in; when she had taken her seat near him, he did not
+look up at her. There was a change in him, which Mattie remarked, and
+after a little while inquired the reason for.
+
+"Mattie," he said, suddenly, "I didn't know that you were so fond of Mr.
+Wesden, or I'd have never brought him here."
+
+"Yes, I am fond of him--I am fond of all those who have been kind to
+me--who belong unto the past, of which he and I have been speaking
+to-night."
+
+"You like him better than me?"
+
+Mattie was too astonished to reply at once to this. She saw the reason
+for his sudden reserve to Mr. Wesden in a new light; she detected a new
+feature in him, that had heretofore been hidden. Years ago--like a
+far-away murmur--she could fancy that her mother spoke again of her
+husband's jealousy as one reason why home had been unhappy, and she had
+fled from it. Mr. Gray became excited. His eyes lit up, his face flushed
+a little, and his hands puckered up bits of cloth at his knees in a
+nervous, irritable way.
+
+"I shouldn't like that man to be put ever before me in everything--to be
+liked better than myself--he has got a daughter of his own to love, and
+must not rob me of you. I can't have it--I won't have it! My life has
+been a very desolate one till now, and it is your duty to make amends
+for it, and be faithful to me in the latter days."
+
+"You may trust me, father."
+
+She laid her hand on his, and he turned and looked into her dark eyes,
+where truth and honesty were shining. He brightened up at once.
+
+"I think I may--you'll not forget me--you'll be like a daughter to me.
+Yes, I _can_ trust you, Mattie!"
+
+This fugitive cloud was wafted away on the instant; Mattie almost forgot
+the occurrence, and all was well again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A DINNER PARTY.
+
+
+Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford had mapped his course out for the future; he
+had been ever fond of planning out his paths in life, as though no
+greater planner than he were near to thwart him. That they were turned
+from their course or broken short, at times, taught no lesson; he gave
+up his progress upon them, but he sketched at once the new course for
+his adoption, and began afresh his journey.
+
+He had parted with Harriet Wesden for ever; so be it--it belonged to the
+irreparable, and he must look it sternly in the face and live it down as
+best he might. It had been all a fallacy, and he the slave of a
+delusion--if, in the waking, he had suffered much, was in his heart
+still suffering, let him keep an unmoved front before the world, that
+should never guess at the keenness and bitterness of this
+disappointment. He had his duties to pursue; he had his father to
+deceive by his demeanour--he must not let the shadow of his distress
+darken the little light remaining for that old man, whom he loved so
+well, and who looked upon him as the only one left to love, or was worth
+living for.
+
+He told his father that the engagement was at an end; that Harriet and
+he had both, by mutual consent, released each other from the contract,
+and considered it better to be friends--simply friends, who could esteem
+each other, and wish each other well in life. There had been no
+quarrelling, he was anxious to impress on Mr. Hinchford: he had himself
+suggested the separation, feeling, in the first place, that Harriet
+Wesden was scarcely suited to be his wife; and in the second, that he
+had been selfish and unjust to bind her to an engagement extending over
+a period of years, with all uncertainty beyond.
+
+The old gentleman scarcely comprehended the details; he understood the
+result, and as it did not appear to seriously affect his son, he could
+imagine that Sid had acted honourably, and for the very best. _He_ did
+not want Sid to marry, and perhaps live apart from him; he knew that
+much of his own happiness would vanish away at the altar, where Sid
+would take some one for better, for worse, and he could not regret in
+his heart anything that retained his boy at his side. In that heart he
+had often thought that Harriet Wesden was scarcely fit for his son's
+wife, scarcely deserving of that dear boy--there was time enough for Sid
+to marry a dozen years hence--he had married late in life himself, and
+why should not his son follow his example!
+
+Sidney Hinchford heard a little of this reasoning in his turn, but
+whether he admired his father's remarks or not, did not appear from the
+unmoved aspect of his countenance. He was always anxious to turn the
+conversation into other channels; partial in those long evenings to
+backgammon with his father--a game which absorbed Mr. Hinchford's
+attention, and rendered him less loquacious. Still Sidney was a fair
+companion, and disguised the evidence of his disappointment well; he had
+set himself the task of making the latter days of that old gentleman
+free from care if possible, and he played his part well, and would have
+deceived keener eyes than his father's. That father was becoming weaker
+in body and mind, Sid could see; he was more feeble than his elder
+brother now--success in life had tested his nervous system
+more--possibly worn him out before his time. Like his son, he had had
+ever a habit of keeping his chief troubles to himself, and preserving a
+fair front to society. He had had a nervous wife to study, afterwards a
+son to encourage by his stanch demeanour. He had been an actor
+throughout the days of his tribulation, and such acting is the wear and
+tear of body and mind, and produces its natural fruit at a later season.
+
+Sidney Hinchford saw the change in him, and knew that their parting must
+come, sooner than the father dreamed of. Mr. Hinchford had a knowledge
+of his own defects, but not of their extent. He was ignorant how weak he
+had become, as he seldom stirred from home now; and his memory, which
+played him traitor, also helped him to forget its defects! He pictured
+Sidney and him together for many years yet--the Hinchfords were a
+long-lived race, and he did not dream of himself being an exception to
+the rule.
+
+But Sidney noted every change, and became anxious. He noted also that
+the powers of mind seemed waning faster than the body, and that there
+were times when his father almost forgot their poor estate, and talked
+more like the rich man he had been once. He brought a doctor to see him
+once, sat him down by his father's side, in the light of an office
+friend, and then waited anxiously for the verdict delivered an hour
+afterwards, in the passage.
+
+"Keep him from all excitement if you can--let him have his own way as
+much as possible--and there is not a great deal to fear."
+
+Sidney cautioned Ann Packet, who was partial to a way of her own, and
+then went to office more contented in mind. Over the office books, he
+was sterner and graver than he used to be, and more inclined than ever
+to repel the advances of his cousin.
+
+His salary had been raised by that time; he had distinguished himself as
+a good and faithful servant, and he took the wages that were due to him,
+with thanks for his promotion.
+
+One day, his uncle sent for him into the inner chamber, to speak of
+matters foreign to the business of a banking house.
+
+"Sidney, I have troubled you more than once with advice concerning my
+son Maurice."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is about to offer you and your father an invitation to dine with him
+next week."
+
+"I know what to answer, sir," said Sidney, somewhat stiffly. He objected
+to this advice-gratis principle, and thought that Mr. Geoffry Hinchford
+might have left him to his own judgment.
+
+"No, you don't, and that's why I sent for you. Maurice will be
+thirty-one next week--it's a little family affair, almost exclusively
+confined to members of the family, and I hope that you will both come."
+
+"Sir--I----"
+
+"Bygones are bygones; we do not make a mere pretence of having forgotten
+the past--_we_ Hinchfords," said his uncle. "Sidney, I will ask it as a
+favour?"
+
+"Very well, sir. But my father is not well, and I fear not able to bear
+any extra fatigue."
+
+"I am not afraid of old Jemmy's consent," said the banker. "There, go to
+your desk, and don't waste valuable time in prolixity."
+
+Late that day Maurice Hinchford addressed his cousin. Sidney was going
+down the bank steps homewards, when his cousin followed him, and passed
+his arm through his.
+
+"Sidney--you'll find two letters of mine at home. They are for you and
+your father. I shall call it deuced unkind to say No to their contents!"
+
+"Suppose we say Yes, then!"
+
+"Thank you. The governor and I want you and your governor down at our
+place next week. No excuses. Even Mr. Geoffry Hinchford will not have
+them this time; that stern paterfamilias, who thinks familiarity with me
+will breed the usual contempt."
+
+"For the business--not for you, Maurice!"
+
+"He's very anxious to make a model clerk of you; and very much afraid
+that I shall spoil you. As if I were so dangerous a friend, relative, or
+acquaintance! Upon my honour, I can't make it out exactly. I've had an
+idea that I should be just the friend for you. Perhaps the governor is
+coming round to my way of thinking, at last."
+
+Sidney repeated his past assertions that their positions did not, and
+could never correspond. Maurice laughed at this as usual.
+
+"Haven't I told you fifty times that I don't care a fig for position,
+and that a Hinchford is always a Hinchford--_i.e._, a gentleman? Sidney,
+you are an incomprehensibility; when you marry that lady to whose
+attractions you have confessed yourself susceptible, perhaps I shall
+make you out more clearly."
+
+Sidney's countenance changed a little--he became grave, and his cousin
+noticed the difference.
+
+"Anything wrong?" was the quick question here.
+
+Sidney was annoyed that he had betrayed himself--he who prided himself
+upon mastering all emotion when the occasion was necessary.
+
+"Oh! no; everything right, Maurice!" he said with a forced lightness of
+demeanour; "the folly of an engagement that could end in nothing,
+discovered in good time, and two romantic beings sobered for their
+good!"
+
+"Why could it end in nothing?--I don't see."
+
+"Oh! it's a long story," replied Sidney, "and you would not feel
+interested in it. I was selfish to seek to bind her to a long
+engagement, and we both thought so, after mature deliberation. I turn
+off here--Good night!"
+
+"Good night!"
+
+Sidney found the invitations awaiting him at home. Mr. Hinchford had
+opened his own letter, and spent the greater part of the afternoon in
+perusing and reperusing it.
+
+"What--what do you think of this, Sid?"
+
+"Tell me what _you_ think of it."
+
+"Well--I think, just for once, we might as well go--show them that we
+know how to behave ourselves, poor as we are, Sidney."
+
+"Very well," said Sidney, somewhat wearily; "we'll go!"
+
+"Let me see; what have I done with that dress coat of mine?" said the
+father; "how long is it since I wore it, I wonder?"
+
+Twenty-five years, or thereabouts, since Mr. Hinchford had worn a
+dress-coat, consequently a little behind the fashion just then. Sidney
+Hinchford thought with a sigh of the fresh expenses incurred by the
+acceptance of his cousin's invitation; he who was saving money for the
+rainy days ahead of him. How long ahead now, he thought, were the years
+still to intervene and leave him in God's sunlight? He could not tell;
+but there was a cruel doubt, which kept him restless. Give him his sight
+whilst his father lived, at least, and spare the white head further care
+in this life! Afterwards, when he was alone, he thought, a little
+misanthropically, it did not matter. His own trouble he could bear, and
+there would be no one else--no one in all the world!--to grieve about
+_him_. A few expressions of commonplace condolence for his affliction,
+and then--for ever alone!
+
+Sidney Hinchford and his father went down by railway to Redhill. The
+dinner-party was for five P.M.--an early hour, to admit of London
+friends return by the eleven o'clock train. At the station, Mr. Geoffry
+Hinchford's carriage waited for father and son, and whirled them away to
+the family mansion, whilst the less favoured, who had arrived by the
+same train, sought hired conveyances.
+
+"He treats us well--just as we deserve to be treated--just as I would
+have treated him, Sid. He was always a good sort--old Jef!"
+
+Sidney did not take heed of his father's change of opinion--the world
+had been full of changes, and here was nothing to astonish him. He was
+prepared for anything remarkable now, he thought--he could believe in
+any transformations.
+
+Father and son reached their relative's mansion exactly as the clock in
+the turret roof of the stable-house was striking five--there were
+carriages winding their way down the avenue before them, the hired flys
+with their hungry occupants were bringing up the rear. Sid looked from
+the carriage window, and almost repented that he had brought his father
+to the festivities. But Mr. Hinchford was cool and self-possessed; it
+was a return to the old life, and he seemed brighter and better for the
+change.
+
+Maurice Hinchford received them in the hall; the first face in the large
+ante-room was that of Uncle Geoffry. There was no doubt of the
+genuineness of their reception--it was an honest and a hearty welcome.
+
+Sidney had mixed but little in society--few young men at his age had
+seen less of men and manners, yet few men, old or young, could have been
+more composed and stately. He was not anxious to look his best, or
+fearful of betraying his want of knowledge; he had graver thoughts at
+his heart, and being indifferent as to the effect he produced, was cool
+and unmoved by the crowd of guests into which he had been suddenly
+thrust. He had accepted that invitation to oblige his cousin, not
+himself; and there he was, by his father's side, for Maurice's guests to
+think the best or worst of him--which they pleased, he cared not.
+
+Poor Sid at this time was inclined to be misanthropical; he looked at
+all things through a distorting medium, and he had lost his natural
+lightness of heart. His lip curled at the stateliness and frigidity of
+his uncle's guests, and he was disposed to see a stand-offishness in
+some of them which did not exist, and was only the natural ante-dinner
+iciness that pervades a conglomeration of diners-out, unknown to each
+other. Still it steeled Sidney somewhat; he was the poor relation, he
+fancied, and some of these starchy beings scented his poverty by
+instinct! Maurice introduced him to his mother and sisters--people with
+whom we shall have little to do, and therefore need not dilate upon. The
+greeting was a little stiff from the maternal quarter--Sidney remembered
+on the instant his father's previous verdicts on the brother's
+wife--cordial and cousinly enough from the sisters, two pretty girls,
+the junior of Maurice, and three buxom ladies, the senior of their
+brother--two married, with Maurices of their own.
+
+Sidney endeavoured to act his best; he had not come there to look
+disagreeable, though he felt so, in the first early moments of meeting;
+when the signal was given to pass into the dining-room, he offered his
+arm to his youngest cousin, at Maurice's suggestion, and thawed a little
+at her frankness, and at the brightness of her happy looking face.
+
+There might have been one little pang at the evidence of wealth and
+position which that dining-room afforded him--for he was a Hinchford
+also, and his father had been a rich man in past days--but the feeling
+was evanescent, if it existed, and after one glance at his father, as
+cool and collected as himself, he devoted himself to the cousin, whom he
+had met for the first time in his life.
+
+A grand dinner-party, given in grand style, as befitted a man well to do
+in the world. No gardeners and stablemen turned into waiters for the
+nonce, and still unmistakably gardeners and stablemen for all their limp
+white neckcloths--no hired waiters from remote quarters of the world,
+and looking more like undertaker's men than lacqueys--no flustered
+maid-servants and nurserymaids, pressed into the service, and suffering
+from nervous trepidation--this array of footmen at the back, the staff
+always on hand in that palatial residence, which a lucky turn of the
+wheel had reared for Geoffry Hinchford.
+
+Sidney's cousin sang the praises of her brother all dinner-time; what a
+good-tempered, good-hearted fellow he was, and how universally liked by
+all with whom he came in contact. She was anxious to know what Sidney
+thought of him, and whether he had been impressed by Maurice's
+demeanour; and Sidney sang in a minor key to the praises of his cousin
+also, not forgetting in his peculiar pride to regret that difference of
+position which set Maurice apart from him.
+
+Miss Hinchford did not see that, and was sure that Maurice would scoff
+at the idea--she was sure, also, that everyone would be glad to see
+Sidney at their house as often as he liked to call there. Sidney thawed
+more and more; a naturally good-tempered man, with a pleasant companion
+at his side, it was not in his power to preserve a gloomy aspect; he
+became conversational and agreeable; he had only one care, and that was
+concerning his father, to whom he glanced now and then, and whom he
+always found looking the high-bred gentleman, perfectly at his ease--and
+very different to the old man, whose mental infirmities had kept him
+anxious lately. Mr. James Hinchford had gone back to a past in which he
+had been ever at home; his pliant memory had abjured all the long
+interim of poverty, lodgings in Great Suffolk Street, and a post at a
+builder's desk; he remembered nothing of them that night, and was the
+old Hinchford that his brother had known. To the amazement of his son,
+he rose after dinner to propose the toast of the evening--somewhat out
+of place, being a relation and yet a stranger almost--and spoke at
+length, and with a fluency and volubility which Sidney had not remarked
+before. He assumed his right to propose the toast as the oldest friend
+of the family, and he did it well and gracefully enough, utterly
+confounding the family physician, who had been two days compiling a long
+and elaborate speech which "that white-headed gentleman opposite" had
+taken completely out of his mouth.
+
+That white-headed gentleman sat down amidst hearty plaudits, and
+Maurice's health was drunk with due honours; and then Maurice--"dear old
+Morry!" as his sister impetuously exclaimed--responded to the toast.
+
+A long speech in his turn, delivered with much energy and rapidity, his
+flushed and good-looking face turning to right and left of that long
+array of guests around him. Sidney's heart thrilled to hear one
+expression of Maurice's--an allusion to the gentleman who had proposed
+his health, "his dear uncle, whose presence there tended so much to the
+pleasurable feelings of that night."
+
+"Well--he is a good fellow," said Sidney, heartily; "I wish I had a
+brother like him to stand by me in life."
+
+His cousin looked her gratitude at him for the outburst, and no one
+hammered the table more lustily than Sidney at the conclusion of his
+cousin's speech.
+
+There were a few more toasts before the ladies retired at the signal
+given by the hostess; there was a rustle of silk and muslin through the
+broad doorway, and then the gentlemen left to themselves, and many of
+them breathing freer in consequence.
+
+There remained some twenty or twenty-five gentlemen to do honour to the
+wine which shone from the array of decanters on the table; Sidney drew
+his chair closer to his neighbour's, and looked round him again. His
+father, perfectly at home--happy and equable--sparing with the wine,
+too, as Sidney had wished, and yet had not thought filial to hint to his
+sire. His father almost faced him, and Sidney, whose powerful glasses
+brought him within range of vision, could return the smile bestowed in
+his direction now and then. The old man, who had forgotten his poverty,
+kept in remembrance the son who had shared that poverty with him.
+
+There was more speech-making after the ladies had retired; deeper
+drinking, and a wider scope of subjects. One gentleman near his father,
+in a lackadaisical strain, rose to propose the health of the family
+physician, who had been balked of his speech early in the evening; and
+Sidney, startled somewhat by the tone of a voice that he fancied he had
+heard before, peered through his glasses, and tried to make the speaker
+out.
+
+He had seen that man before, or heard that strange drawl--where or in
+what company he was at fault--the man's features were indistinct at that
+distance. He edged his chair nearer--even in his intense curiosity, for
+which he was scarcely able to account, changed his place, and went a few
+seats from the foot of the table, where Maurice was now sitting in his
+mother's vacated place.
+
+Then Sidney recognized the man--suddenly and swiftly the truth darted
+upon him--he had met that man in the Borough; he had stood between him
+and his offensive persecution of Harriet Wesden; he was the "prowler" of
+old days--the man from whom he had extorted an apology in the public
+streets, and from whom a generous and unwashed public would accept no
+apology.
+
+The old antagonism seemed to revive on the instant; he felt the man's
+presence there an insult to himself; his blood warmed, and his ears
+tingled; he wondered what reason had brought that man there, and whose
+friend he could possibly be?
+
+"What man is that?" he asked almost imperiously of Maurice, who, taken
+aback by the question, stared at Sidney with amazement.
+
+"A friend of mine," he answered at last; "do you know him?"
+
+"N--no."
+
+Sidney relapsed into silence and mastered his excitement. This was not a
+time or place to mention how he had met that man, or in what
+questionable pursuit; there was danger to Maurice, from so evil an
+acquaintance; and in his own honesty of purpose, Sid could not
+understand that the man had any right at that table, an honoured guest
+there. He knew but little of polite society; did not understand that
+polite society requires no reference as to the morals of its guests, and
+is quite satisfied if the name be good, and the status unquestionable.
+Polite society cannot trouble itself about the morals of its male
+members.
+
+Sidney sat and watched the prowler, and, in his confusion, drank more
+port wine than was perhaps good for him. He fancied that his cousin
+Maurice had implied a rebuke for his harsh interrogative; and he was
+considering _that_, too, in his mind, and wishing, for the first time,
+that he had not presented himself at his cousin's dinner-table.
+
+The toast was drunk and responded to by the family physician, who very
+ingeniously dove-tailed the remarks upon Maurice's natal day into his
+own expression of thanks for the honour accorded him. Sidney omitted to
+drink the stranger's health, and made no attempt to applaud the fine
+words by which it had been succeeded. He sat discomfited by the
+prowler's presence there--but for that man he might never have been
+engaged to Harriet Wesden, and, therefore, have never experienced the
+disappointment--the cruel reaction--which had followed the folly of that
+betrothal.
+
+"Sid," called his father across the table at him, "aren't you well,
+lad?"
+
+"Oh! very well," was the reply; "what is there to ail me in such
+pleasant company?"
+
+"Perhaps the gentleman is sighing for lady's society; if he will move an
+adjournment, I'll second the motion," said the prowler, sauve and bland,
+totally forgetful of that dark face which had glowered at him once in
+London streets.
+
+"I shall propose nothing," said Sid, curtly.
+
+Those who heard the uncivil reply, looked towards the speaker somewhat
+curiously. When the wine's in, the wit's out--had Sidney Hinchford
+drowned his courtesy in his uncle's decanters? The prowler--he is a
+fugitive character, whose name we need not parade at this late stage to
+our readers--stared at our hero with the rest, but was not affected by
+it, or understood good breeding sufficiently well to disguise all
+evidence at his friend's table. He turned to Maurice with a laugh.
+
+"Hinchford, old fellow, I leave the proposition in your hands. You who
+were always a lady's man."
+
+"Not I."
+
+"But I say you were--I say that you are. Do you think that I have
+forgotten all the _aventures amoureuses_ of Maurice Darcy--I, his sworn
+brother-in-arms--his pupil?"
+
+"Steady, Frank, steady!" cried Maurice.
+
+But the guests were noisy, and the subject was a pleasant one to
+gentlemen over their wine, with the door closed on skirts and flounces.
+There were shouts of laughter at the prowler's charge--Maurice shook his
+head, blushed and laughed, but appeared rather to like the accusation
+than otherwise--Maurice's father, at home and at his ease, laughed with
+the rest. "A young dog--a young scapegrace!" he chuckled. Even Sidney's
+father laughed also--young men will be young men, he thought, and the
+prowler was pleasant company, and made the time fly. It is this
+after-dinner-talk, when the ladies have retired, and the bottle is not
+allowed to stand still, which pleases diners-out the most. This is the
+"fun of the fair," where the Merry-Andrew deals forth his jokes, and the
+wine-bibber appreciates the double-entendre all the more for the singing
+in his ears and the thick mist by which he is surrounded.
+
+"Do you think that I have forgotten the stationer's daughter--by George!
+that was a leaf from romance, and virtuous indignation in the ascendant.
+Tell us the story, Maurice, we are all friends here; and though the
+joke's against you----"
+
+"Gentlemen, I propose that we join the ladies," said Maurice, rising,
+with some confusion.
+
+The guests laughed again noisily at this--it was so palpable an attempt
+to retreat, that the dining-room rang again with peals of
+laughter--Sidney Hinchford, sterner and grimmer than ever, alone sat
+unmoved, until Maurice had dropped into his seat in despair, and then he
+rose and looked across at his father.
+
+"Are you ready?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly--Sid--quite ready!"
+
+"Oh! the ladies have a hundred topics to dwell upon over their coffee,
+Sidney," said his uncle; "we must have no rebellion this side of the
+house."
+
+"I am going home, sir--you must excuse me--I cannot stay here any
+longer. Come, father!"
+
+"Home!"
+
+"I have business at home--I am pressed for time--I will _not_ stay!" he
+almost shouted.
+
+Sidney's father, in mild bewilderment, rose and tottered after him. This
+was an unpleasant wind-up to a social evening, and Sid's strange
+demeanour perplexed him. But the boy's will was law, and he succumbed to
+it; the boy always knew what was best--his son, Sid, was never at
+fault--never!
+
+The guests were too amazed to comprehend the movement; some of them were
+inclined to consider it a joke of Sid's--an excuse to retreat to the
+drawing-room; the mystery was too much for their wine-benumbed faculties
+just then.
+
+Sidney and his father were in the broad marble-paved hall; the footmen
+lingering about there noted their presence--one made a skip towards the
+drawing-room facing them.
+
+"Stop!" said Sid. His memory was good, and his organ of locality better.
+He walked with a steady step towards a small room at the end of the
+hall--a withdrawing-room, where the hats and coats had been placed early
+in the evening. He returned in a few moments with his great-coat on, his
+father's coat across his arm, and two hats in his hands.
+
+"Then--then we're really going, Sid?"
+
+"I'm sick of this life; it is not fit for us. Why did we come?" he
+asked, angrily, as he assisted his perplexed father into his great-coat.
+
+"I--I don't know, Sid," stammered the father. "I thought that we were
+spending quite a pleasant evening. Has anyone said anything?"
+
+"Let us be off!"
+
+Maurice Hinchford came from the dining-room towards them with a quick
+step. There was excitement, even an evidence of concern upon his
+handsome face.
+
+"Sidney," he said, holding out his hand towards him, "I understand all
+this; I can explain all this at a more befitting time. Don't go now--it
+looks bad. It isn't quite fair to us or yourself."
+
+"You are Maurice Darcy!" said Sid, sternly.
+
+"It was a fool's trick, of which I have heartily repented. It----"
+
+"You were the man who deliberately sought the ruin of an innocent girl
+to whom I was engaged--you sought my disgrace and hers, and you ask me
+to your house, and insult me through your friends thus shamelessly. You
+make a jest----"
+
+"On my honour, no, sir!"
+
+"No matter--I see to whom I have been indebted; perhaps the motive which
+led to past preferment--I am ashamed and mortified--I have done with you
+and yours for ever. I would curse the folly that led me hither to-night,
+were it not for the light in which it has placed my enemies!"
+
+"You are rash, Sidney. To-morrow you will think better of me."
+
+"When my cooler judgment steps in and shows me what I must sacrifice for
+my position--_my place_," he replied. "Sir, you are a Hinchford--you
+should know that we are a proud family by this time. I say that we have
+done with you--judge me at your worst, as I judge you!--if I fail to
+keep my word."
+
+He passed his arm through his father's and led the bewildered old man
+down the steps into the night air; he had been insulted, he thought, and
+thus, spurning appearances, he had resented it. He could not play longer
+his part of guest in that house; his old straightforward habits led him
+at once to show his resentment and retire. So he shook the dust of the
+house from his feet, and turned his back upon his patrons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MATTIE'S CONFESSION.
+
+
+Sidney Hinchford kept his word. He returned not to service in his
+uncle's bank. He gave up his chances of distinction in that quarter,
+rather than be indebted to a villain, as he considered his cousin to be,
+for his success in life. It was an exaggeration of virtuous indignation,
+perhaps, but it was like Sidney Hinchford. He considered his cousin as
+the main cause of his separation from Harriet Wesden; that man had met
+her after the little Brighton romance, of which faint inklings had been
+communicated to Sid by Harriet herself, and had played the lover too
+well--speciously coaxing her from that which was true, unto that which
+was false and dangerous, and from which her own defence had but saved
+her. Evidently a deep, designing man, who had sought the ruin of the
+woman Sidney had loved best in the world--Sid could not hold service
+under him now the mask had dropped.
+
+"Father, I shall leave our rich relations to themselves," he had said,
+the next morning. "I am not afraid of obtaining work in other quarters.
+I have done with them."
+
+"You know best, Sid," said the father, with a sigh.
+
+"I'll tell you the story--it is no secret now. You shall tell me how you
+would have acted in my place."
+
+Sid related the particulars of his love-engagement to his father--why it
+had been broken off, and by whose means, and Mr. Hinchford listened
+attentively, and exclaimed, when the narrative was ended--
+
+"That nephew was a scamp of the first water, and we are well rid of
+him."
+
+"I am not afraid of getting other employment," said Sidney, unremindful
+of his past attempts. "If I were, I think I would prefer starving to
+service in that bank."
+
+"Both of us would," added Mr. Hinchford.
+
+Sidney thought of his father, and went out again in the old search for a
+place. It was beginning life again; he was once more at the bottom of
+the hill, and all the past labour was to be begun afresh. No matter, he
+did not despair; he was young and strong yet; he had saved money;
+upwards of a hundred pounds were put by for the rainy day, and he could
+afford to wait awhile; if fortune went against him at this new outset,
+his was not a nature to flinch at the first obstacle. He had always
+fought his way.
+
+But luck went with him, as it seemed to Sidney. That day he heard of the
+starting of a new bank on the limited liability principle, and he sought
+out the manager, stated his antecedents, offered his services, and was
+engaged. He came home rejoicing to his father with the news, and after
+all had been communicated, his father tendered him a letter that had
+been awaiting his arrival.
+
+Sidney looked at the letter; in the left corner of the envelope was
+written "Maurice Hinchford," and Sid's first impulse was to drop it
+quietly in the fire, and pay no heed to its contents. But he changed his
+mind, broke the seal, and read, in a few hasty lines, Maurice's desire
+for an interview with his cousin. Maurice confessed to being the Darcy
+of that past evil story, and expressed a wish to enter into a little
+explanation of his conduct, weak and erring as it was, but not so black
+as Sidney might imagine. Sidney tore up the letter and penned his
+reply--unyielding and unforgiving. He could find no valid excuse for his
+cousin's conduct; he was sure there was not any, and he saw no reason
+why they two should ever meet again. This, the substance of Sidney
+Hinchford's reply, which was despatched, and then the curtain fell
+between these two young men, and Sidney alone in the world, more grim,
+more business-like, even more misanthropical than ever.
+
+He had soon commenced work in the new bank. Before its start in the
+world with the usual flourish of trumpets, he had found himself taken
+into confidence, and his advice on matters monetary and commercial
+followed on more than one occasion; he was, in his heart, sanguine of
+success in this undertaking; he saw the road to his own honourable
+advancement; his employers had been pleased with the character which
+they had received from Messrs. Hinchford and Son, bankers, to whom
+Sidney had referred them, with a little reluctance; before him all might
+yet be bright enough.
+
+Then came the check to his aspirations--the check which he had feared,
+which he had seen advancing to rob him of the one tie that had bound him
+to home. His father gave way more in body if not in mind, and became
+very feeble in his gait; he had reached the end of his journey, and was
+tired, dispirited, and broken down. He gave up, and took to his bed.
+Sidney, returning one day from office, found him in his own room, a
+poor, weak, trembling old man, set apart for ever from the toil and wear
+of daily life.
+
+His mind seemed brighter in those latter days, to have cleared for
+awhile before the darkness set in.
+
+"Sidney," he said, reaching out his thin hand to his son as he entered,
+"you must not mind my giving up. I have been trying hard to keep strong,
+for your sake, but the effort has tired me out, boy."
+
+"Courage! I shall see you hale and hearty yet."
+
+"No, Sid, it's a break up for ever. What a miserable, selfish old fellow
+I have been all my life! You will get on better in the world without
+me--only yourself to think of and care for then."
+
+"Only myself!" echoed Sidney, gloomily.
+
+The poor old gentleman would have offered more of this sort of
+consolation had not Sidney stopped him. It was a cruel philosophy,
+against which the son's heart protested. Sid was a man to attempt
+consolation, but not capable of receiving it. His austerity had placed
+him, as he thought, beyond it, and his father's efforts only stabbed him
+more keenly to the quick.
+
+Sidney tried to believe that his father's deliberate preparation was a
+whim occasioned by some passing weakness, but the truth forced its way
+despite him, sat down before him, haunted his dreams, would not be
+thought away. The doctor gave no hopes; the physician whom he called in
+only confirmed the doctor's verdict; it was a truth from which there was
+no escape.
+
+When he gave up reasoning against his own convictions, Sidney gave up
+his clerkship, as suddenly, and with as little warning as he had vacated
+his stool in his uncle's counting-house.
+
+There was a choice to make between hard work day and night at the new
+banking scheme--isolated completely from his dying father--and
+attendance, close and unremitting, to that father who had loved him
+truly and well, and Sidney did not hesitate.
+
+"Afterwards, I can think of myself," he said; "let me brighten the days
+that are left you, to the best of my power."
+
+"Ah! but the future?" said the father, anxious concerning his son's
+position in life.
+
+"I do not care for it, or my position in it now."
+
+"Don't say that, Sid."
+
+"Father, I was working for you, and for your comfort in the future--now
+let all thoughts of the world go away for awhile, and leave you and me
+together--thus!"
+
+He laid his hand upon the father's, which clutched his nervously.
+
+"Oh! but what _is_ to become of you?"
+
+"Do _you_ fear my getting on, with the long years before me wherein I
+can work?"
+
+"No, you are sure to rise, Sid."
+
+Sidney did not answer.
+
+"Unless you grow despondent at the difficulties in the way, or let some
+secret trouble weigh you down. Sid, my dear son, there's nothing on your
+mind?"
+
+"Oh! no--nothing. Don't think that," was the quick response--the white
+lie, for which Sidney Hinchford deserved forgiveness. He would keep his
+sorrows to himself, and not distress that deathbed by his own vain
+complainings against any affliction in store for _him_!
+
+When the father grew weaker, he expressed a wish to see his brother
+Geoffry again.
+
+"We don't bear each other any malice--Geoffry and I, now. If you don't
+mind, Sid," he said, wistfully, "I should like to shake hands with him,
+and bid him good-bye."
+
+"I will write at once, sir."
+
+Sidney despatched his letter, and the rich banker came in his carriage
+to the humble dwelling-place of his younger brother. Sidney did not see
+his uncle; he bore him no malice; he was even grateful to him for past
+kindnesses, but he could not face him in his bitter grief, and listen,
+perhaps, to explanations which he cared nothing for in that hour. With
+this new care staring him in the face, the other seemed to fade away,
+and with it much of his past bitterness of spirit. Leave him to himself,
+and trouble him no more!
+
+When the interview was over, and his uncle was gone, Sidney returned to
+his post by his father's bed-side.
+
+"He has been talking about you, Sid," said the father; "he seemed
+anxious to see you."
+
+"I am not fit for company."
+
+"Maurice is abroad, he tells me."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+Sidney changed the subject, read to his father, talked to him of the old
+days when the mother and wife were living--a subject on which Mr.
+Hinchford loved to dilate just then. But in the long, restless nights,
+when Sidney slept in the arm-chair by the fire-place--he left not his
+father day or night, and would have no hired watcher--the father, who
+had feigned sleep for his son's sake, lay and thought of the son's
+future, and was perplexed about it. His perceptive faculties had become
+wondrously acute, and he could see that Sidney Hinchford was
+unhappy--had been unhappy before the illness which had cast its shadow
+in that little household. There was something wrong; something which he
+should never know, he felt assured. Who could help him?--who could
+assist him to discover it?--who would think of Sid in the desolation
+which was to be that boy's legacy, and do his, or her, best for him?
+
+Early the next morning, when he was very weak, he said:--
+
+"I wonder the Wesdens haven't been to see me."
+
+"I thought they would weary you. They are scarcely friends of ours now.
+I have not told them that you are ill. If you wish----"
+
+"No, no, and they would weary you, too, my boy, and things _have_
+altered very much between you. Sidney, you are sorry that they have
+altered, perhaps?"
+
+"No--glad--very glad!"
+
+"I should like to see Mattie," he said, after a pause; "why does _she_
+keep away?"
+
+"I thought that she might disturb you, sir," was the reply; "we are
+better by ourselves, and without our friend's sympathy. We are above
+it!"
+
+"Why, Sid--that's pride!"
+
+"Call it precaution, sir, or jealousy of anyone taking my place, between
+you and me, old stanch friends as we are."
+
+His father said no more upon the question; he had been ever influenced
+by his son, and borne down by his strong will. He thought now that it
+was better to see no one but Sid, and the good clergyman who called
+every day--better for all! Sid knew best; he had always known best
+through life!
+
+But later that day, Sidney altered his mind. He had been sitting in the
+arm-chair apart from his father, revolving many things in that mind, and
+maintaining a silence which his father even began to think was
+strange--he whose thoughts were few and far between now--when he said
+suddenly to Ann Packet, who was entering on tiptoe with a candle:--
+
+"Ann, fetch Mattie here at once."
+
+"Mattie, Master Sidney?--to be sure I will," she added, with alacrity;
+"I've been thinking about that, oh! ever so long!"
+
+"Be quick!--don't stop! Leave a message, if she's away. Here's money,
+hire a cab there and back. Take the key with you, and let yourself in!"
+
+"What's that for, Sid!" asked the father.
+
+"I think she should be here--I think all should be here who have ever
+known you, and whom you have expressed a wish to see. I am selfish and
+cruel!"
+
+"Oh, ho!--we don't believe that, boy!" said the father, "we know
+better--oh! much better than that!"
+
+"Why shouldn't the Wesdens come?--they are old friends--they were kind
+to you and me in the old days."
+
+"Yes, very kind. You're quite right, Sid; but if they trouble you in the
+least, Sid, keep them away. I don't care about seeing anybody very much,
+now."
+
+"Father, you are worse," said Sidney, leaping to his feet.
+
+"No, boy--better. A spasm or two through here," laying his hand upon his
+chest, "which will go off presently."
+
+"That's well."
+
+Sidney sat down again in his old place, muttering, "I wish she would
+come," and the father lay quiet and thoughtful in his bed once more.
+
+Presently the father went off to sleep, and Sidney sat and listened,
+with his face turned towards the bed, all the long, long time, until the
+cab, containing Ann Packet and Mattie, drew up before the house.
+
+They entered the house and came up-stairs together, Mattie and Ann. Sid
+made no effort to stop them, though his father was in a restless sleep,
+from which a step would waken him--he still sat there, gloomy and
+apathetic. They entered the room, and Mr. Hinchford woke up at the
+opening of the door.
+
+"Where's Sid?" he called.
+
+"Here," said the son, "and here's Mattie--the old friend, adviser,
+comforter at last!"
+
+"Oh! why haven't I been told this before?--why have you all kept me so
+long in the dark?" said Mattie. "Oh! my dear old friend, my first kind
+friend of all of them!" she cried, turning to the sick bed where Mr.
+Hinchford was watching her.
+
+"Tell him, Mattie, that I shall not be entirely alone or friendless when
+the parting comes," said Sidney; "it troubles him--I see it. Ann, don't
+go--one minute."
+
+He crossed to her, laid his hand upon her arm, and went out whispering
+to her, leaving Mattie and Mr. Hinchford in the room together.
+
+"Don't let him go away--the boy mustn't leave me now!" he said, in a
+terrified whisper. "Mattie--I'm worse! I have been keeping it back from
+the boy till the last, but I'm awfully worse."
+
+Mattie glanced at him, and then ran to the door and called Sidney.
+
+"I am coming back," said he, in reply; "speak to him, Mattie, for
+awhile. I am wanted here."
+
+Mattie returned to the bed-side.
+
+"He is wanted down-stairs, he says."
+
+"Ah! don't call him up, then, Mattie--some one has heard of his
+cleverness, and come after him to secure him. Well, it will be a
+distraction to him--when--I'm gone."
+
+"And you so ill--and I to be kept in the dark!" said Mattie, dropping
+into the chair at the bed's head, and looking anxiously into the haggard
+face.
+
+"I have been thinking of you, Mattie," he said, in a low voice;
+"thinking that you might be--of use--to him in the--future."
+
+Mattie shook her head sadly.
+
+"Why not?" was his eager question.
+
+"He is strong, and young, and knows the world better than I. How could I
+ever be of use to him?"
+
+"He is weak--low-spirited--not like his old self now--never again,
+perhaps, like his old--self! Mattie, I--seem--to think so!"
+
+"Courage, dear friend. He will be always strong; his is not a weak
+nature."
+
+"Mattie, I think he should have married Harriet Wesden, after all," said
+he; "he loved her very dearly. She loved him, and understood how good,
+and honourable he was, at last. What separated them? I--I forget."
+
+And he passed his hand over his forehead, in the old vacant way.
+
+"No matter now, perhaps. They are parted--perhaps only for a time. I
+have hoped so more than once."
+
+"You have? You who guess--at the truth--so well. Why, Mattie, I--have
+hope, then, too--that it will not be--always dark like this."
+
+"That's not likely."
+
+"And if the chance comes--to bring those two together--you will do it?
+Oh! Mattie, you promise this--for me?"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"But," with a new fear visible on his face, "you will lose sight of him
+before the chance--of happiness--comes to the boy. You, ever apart from
+him--may not know----"
+
+"Yes, I shall know--always!"
+
+"He always stood your friend, remember, Mattie," said the old man, as if
+endeavouring to win over Mattie heart and soul to the new cause, by all
+the force of reasoning left in him. "He wasn't like--me, and
+Wesden--ever inclined to waver in his thoughts of you. He believed--in
+you ever--to be good and true--and you will think of this?"
+
+"I will," was the faint reply.
+
+Mattie had bowed her head, and it was almost hidden in the bed-clothes.
+The old man's hand rested for an instant on the girl's raven hair.
+
+"I have--a hope--that from you, and through your means, Sid--poor old
+Sid!--may find peace and comfort at last. I was thinking--of your liking
+for us all--this very night."
+
+"Were you? It was kind to think of me," with a low murmur.
+
+"And I--somehow--built my hopes in you. Do you remember how you--and
+I--used to talk of Sid--in that old room, in Suffolk--Street?"
+
+"Well."
+
+"Keep me in his memory, when he's very sad, remind him--of me--and how I
+loved him, Mattie," in a low, excited whisper. "I'm sure that he's in
+trouble--that he keeps something--back from--me!"'
+
+"A fancy, perhaps. What should he hide from you?"
+
+"I cannot tell; it may be fancy, but it--it worries me to think of. Oh!
+Mattie, you'll forget him, if that trouble--should come to him! You'll
+forget--all this--and turn to that new father of yours! And I had hope
+in you."
+
+"Hope in me ever. I will not betray your trust in me. Before
+all--myself, father, friends--_your son_!"
+
+"Mattie!"
+
+The father looked with a new surprise at our heroine. He had grown very
+weak, but her hasty, impetuous voice, seemed for an instant to give new
+life unto him.
+
+"Hush! don't betray me. Never to living soul before have I dared to
+tell, to breathe this! God forgive me, if I have failed to break away
+from all my folly, and have thought of him too much, as I, a stray from
+the streets, had never a right to think of one so well-born, honourable,
+and true. You forgive me--you, his father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know all now. How, without one ambitious thought of linking his
+name with mine, I will love him ever, and be ever, if he need it, his
+true friend, and sister. I will die for him, when the time comes, and
+the secret will die with me, and not shame us both. Judge me, if I am
+likely to forget him, sir."
+
+"No--no--I see all now."
+
+"Don't mistake me; don't think at the last that I would scheme for him,
+or ever marry him, to disgrace a family like yours. Don't think anything
+but that I love Harriet Wesden, also, before myself, but not before him,
+though I have tried so hard to live him down! and that I will do my
+best--always my very best--to bring about the happiness of both of
+them!"
+
+"And there--may--be only one way, Mattie."
+
+"Only one way, I hope."
+
+"I trust you--God bless you!--you were always a good girl. Call the
+boy--my poor boy, Sid!"
+
+Mattie did as requested. At a slow, almost a painfully slow pace, Sidney
+re-entered, his hand still on Ann Packet's arm.
+
+"Sid--I--I think I'll say good-bye, now!"
+
+Sidney sprung forward and caught his hands.
+
+"Not yet--not good-bye yet, sir!"
+
+"Why not? I don't fear to say it Sid--I'm strong at--heart--still; it's
+a brave--a brave parting! No regrets--no sense of duty--neg--lected! A
+kind father, I hope--a--a good son--I know! God bless you, boy!--peace
+and happiness to yours--in life. Mattie--think--of him!"
+
+Mattie bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Sidney--help her, too--if she's in trouble--ever an old friend."
+
+"A true one!"
+
+"True as steel--I know it. Good-bye, Sid--keep strong
+for--the--old--father's sake. Will--you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_That's well!_"
+
+Sid bent over him and kissed him--kissed the calm face, so awfully calm
+and still now!--and then turned to Mattie.
+
+"Take me away, Mattie. I can bear no more now. He was spared one
+trouble, thank God! In all his life he never guessed the end of this."
+
+Mattie turned round, with a new fear possessing her.
+
+"Sidney--Mr. Sidney!"
+
+"Here--Mattie," he said, stretching forth his hand, and grasping, as it
+were, furtively for hers. "I shall need friends now to help me."
+
+"Not--oh! my God, not blind?"
+
+"I have been blind all day!"
+
+
+END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 2 of 3), by
+Frederick William Robinson
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