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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3), by
+Frances Eleanor Trollope
+
+
+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: A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3)
+
+
+Author: Frances Eleanor Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 28, 2011  [eBook #35428]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF
+3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
+generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has the other two volumes of this
+      novel.
+      Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35429
+      Volume III: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35430
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/charmingfellow01trol
+
+
+
+
+
+A CHARMING FELLOW.
+
+by
+
+FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE,
+
+Author of "Aunt Margaret's Trouble," "Mabel's Progress," etc. etc.
+
+In Three Volumes.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
+1876.
+
+Charles Dickens and Evans,
+Crystal Palace Press.
+
+
+
+
+A CHARMING FELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"To be frank with you, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe Dr. Bodkin
+understands my son's genius."
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam, you said your son's----?"
+
+"Genius, sir; the bent of his genius. Algy's is not a mechanical mind."
+
+Mrs. Errington slightly tossed her head as she uttered the word
+"mechanical."
+
+Mr. Diamond said "Oh!" and then sat silent.
+
+The room was very quiet. The autumn day was fading, and the mingling of
+twilight and firelight, and the stillness of the scene, were conducive
+to mute meditation. It was a long, low room, with an uneven floor, a
+whitewashed ceiling crossed by heavy beams, and one large bow window. It
+was furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables in use in the
+last century. A crimson drugget covered the floor, and in front of the
+hearth lay a rug, made of scraps of black and coloured cloth, neatly
+sewn together in a pattern. Over the high wooden mantelpiece hung, on
+one side, a faded water-colour sketch of a gentleman, with powdered
+hair; and on the other, an oval miniature of much later date, which
+represented a fair, florid young lady, with large languid blue eyes, and
+a red mouth, somewhat too full-lipped. Notwithstanding the years which
+had elapsed since the miniature was painted, it was still sufficiently
+like Mrs. Errington to be recognised for her portrait. There was an old
+harpsichord in the room, and a few books on hanging shelves. But the
+only handsome or costly object to be seen were some delicate blue and
+white china cups and saucers, which glistened from an oaken
+corner-cupboard; and a large work-box of tortoise-shell, inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl, lined with amber satin, and fitted with all the
+implements of needlework, in richly-chased silver. The box, like the
+china cupboard, stood wide open to display its contents, and was
+evidently a subject of pride to its possessor. It was entirely
+incongruous with the rest of the furniture, which, although decent and
+serviceable, was very plain, and rather scanty.
+
+Nevertheless the room looked snug and homelike. The coal-fire burnt with
+a deep glowing light; a small copper kettle was singing cheerily on the
+hob; tea-things were laid on a table in front of the fire; and a fitful,
+moaning wind, that rattled now and then against the antique casement,
+enhanced the comfort of the scene by its suggestion of forlorn
+chilliness without.
+
+But however the influences of the time and place might incline Mr.
+Diamond to silence, they had no such effect on Mrs. Errington.
+
+After a short pause, during which she seemed to be awaiting some remark
+from her companion, she observed once more, "No; I do not think the
+doctor understands Algy's genius. And that is why I was anxious to ask
+your advice, on this proposition of Mr. Filthorpe's."
+
+"But, madam, why should you suppose me likely to understand Algernon
+better than Dr. Bodkin does?"
+
+"Oh, because----In the first place, you are younger, nearer Algy's own
+age."
+
+"Ah! There is a wide gap, though, between his eighteen and my
+eight-and-twenty--a wider gap than the mere ten years would necessarily
+make in all cases."
+
+Mrs. Errington glanced at the speaker, and thought, in the maternal
+pride of her heart, that there was indeed a wide difference between her
+joyous, handsome Algernon, and Matthew Diamond, second master at the
+Whitford Grammar School; and she thought, too, that the difference was
+all to her son's advantage. Mr. Diamond was a grave-looking young man,
+with a spare, strong figure, and a face which, in repose, was neither
+handsome nor ugly. His clean-shaven chin and upper lip were firmly cut,
+and he had a pair of keen grey eyes. But such as it was, it was a face
+which most persons who saw it often, fell into a habit of watching. It
+raised an indefinite expectation. You were instinctively aware of
+something latent beneath its habitual expression of seriousness and
+reserve. What the "something" might be, was variously guessed at
+according to the temperament of the observer.
+
+"Then there is another reason why I wished to consult you," pursued Mrs.
+Errington. "I have a great opinion of your judgment, from what Algy
+tells me. I assure you Algy thinks an immense deal of your talents, Mr.
+Diamond. You must not think I flatter you."
+
+"No," replied Mr. Diamond, very quietly, "I do not think you flatter
+me."
+
+"And therefore I have told you the state of the case quite openly. And I
+would not have you hesitate to give your advice, from any fear of
+disagreeing with my opinion."
+
+Mr. Diamond leaned his elbow on the table, and his face on his hand,
+which he held so as to hide his mouth--an habitual posture with him--and
+looked gravely at Mrs. Errington.
+
+"I trust," continued the lady, "that I am superior to the weakness of
+requiring blind acquiescence from people."
+
+Mrs. Errington spoke in a mellow, measured voice, and had a soft smiling
+cast of countenance. Both these were frequently contradicted in a
+startling manner by the words she uttered: for, in truth, the worthy
+lady's soul and body were no more like each other than a peach-stone is
+like a peach. Her velvety softness was not affected, but it was merely
+external, and the real woman was nothing less than tender. Sensitive
+persons did not fare very well with Mrs. Errington; who, withal, had the
+reputation of being an exceedingly good-natured woman.
+
+"If you think my advice worth having----" said Mr. Diamond.
+
+"I do really. Now pray don't be shy of speaking out!" interrupted the
+lady, reassuringly.
+
+"I must tell you that I think your cousin's offer is much too good to be
+refused, and opens a prospect which many young men would envy."
+
+"You advise us to accept it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, then, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe you understand Algy one bit
+better than the doctor does!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, leaning back in
+her chair, and folding her large white hands together in a resigned
+manner.
+
+"I warned you, you know, that I might not," answered Mr. Diamond,
+composedly.
+
+"'A prospect which many young men would envy!' Well, perhaps 'many young
+men,' yes; I daresay. But for Algy! Do but think of it, Mr. Diamond; to
+sit all day on a high stool in a musty office! You must own that, for a
+young fellow of my son's spirit, the idea is not alluring."
+
+"Oh, if the question be merely for Algernon to choose some method of
+passing his time which shall be alluring----"
+
+Mrs. Errington drew herself up a little. "No;" said she, "that is
+certainly not the question, Mr. Diamond. At the same time, before
+embracing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, I thought it only reasonable to ask
+myself, 'May we not do better? Can we not do better?'"
+
+"I begin to perceive," thought Matthew Diamond within himself, "that
+Mrs. Errington's meaning, when she asks 'advice,' is pretty much like
+that of most of her neighbours. Having already made up her mind how to
+act, she would like to be told that her decision is the best and wisest
+conceivable." He said nothing, however, but bowed his head a little, to
+show that he was giving attention to the lady's discourse.
+
+"We have an alternative, you must know," said Mrs. Errington, turning
+her eyes languidly on Mr. Diamond, but not moving her head from its
+comfortable resting-place against the back of her well-cushioned
+arm-chair. "We are not bound hand and foot to this Bristol merchant. By
+the way, you spoke of him as my cousin----"
+
+"I beg your pardon; is he not so?"
+
+"No; not mine. My poor husband's," with a glance at the portrait over
+the mantelpiece. "None of my family ever had the remotest connection
+with commerce."
+
+"Ha! The good fortune was all on the side of the Erringtons?"
+
+This time Mrs. Errington turned her head, so as to look full at her
+interlocutor. There met her view the same calm forehead, the same steady
+eyes, the same sheltering hand gently stroking the upper lip, which she
+had looked upon a minute before.
+
+"My good sir!" she answered, in a tone of patient explanation, "my own
+family, the Ancrams, were people of the very first quality in
+Warwickshire. My grandfather never stirred out without his coach and
+four!"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Oh, yes, Algy's prospects in life ought to be very, very different from
+what they are. Of course he ought to go to the university; but I cannot
+afford to send him there. I make no secret of my circumstances. College
+is out of the question for him, poor boy, unless he entered himself as a
+what-do-you-call-it? A sort of pauper, a sizar. And I suppose you would
+hardly advise him to do that!"
+
+"No; I should by no means advise it. I was a sizar myself."
+
+"Really? Ah well, then you know what it is. And I am quite sure it would
+never suit Algy's spirits."
+
+"I am quite sure it would not."
+
+Mrs. Errington's good opinion of the tutor's judgment, which had been
+considerably shaken, began to revive.
+
+"I see you know something of his character," said she, smiling. "Well,
+then, the case stands thus; Algy is turned eighteen; he has had the best
+education I could give him--indeed, my chief motive for settling in this
+obscure little hole, when I was left a widow, was the fact that Dr.
+Bodkin, who was an old acquaintance of my husband, was head of the
+Grammar School here, and I knew I could give my boy the education of a
+gentleman--up to a certain point--at small expense. He has had this
+offer from the Bristol man, and he has had another offer of a very
+different sort from my side of the house."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Oh, yes; perhaps if I had began by stating that circumstance, you might
+have modified your advice, eh, Mr. Diamond?" This was said in a tone of
+mild raillery.
+
+"Why," answered Mr. Diamond, slowly, "I must own that my advice usually
+does depend somewhat on my knowledge of the circumstances of the case
+under consideration."
+
+"Now, that's candid--and I love candour, as I told you. The fact is,
+Lord Seely married an Ancram."
+
+There was a pause. Mrs. Errington looked inquiringly at her companion.
+"You have heard of Lord Seely?" she said.
+
+"I have seen his name in the newspapers, in the days when I used to read
+newspapers."
+
+"He is a most distinguished nobleman."
+
+Another pause.
+
+"Well," continued Mrs. Errington, condescendingly, "I cannot expect all
+that to interest you, Mr. Diamond. Perhaps there may be a little family
+partiality, in my estimate of Lord Seely. However, be that as it may, he
+married an Ancram. She was of the younger branch, my father's second
+cousin. When Algy first began to turn his thoughts towards a diplomatic
+career----"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"A diplomatic----Oh, didn't you know? Yes; he has had serious thoughts
+of it for some time."
+
+"Algernon?"
+
+"Certainly! And, in confidence, Mr. Diamond, I think it would suit him
+admirably. I fancy it is what his genius is best adapted for. Well,
+when I perceived this bent in him, I made--indirectly--application to
+Lady Seely, and she returned--also indirectly--a most gracious answer.
+She should be happy to receive Mr. Algernon Ancram Errington, whenever
+she was in town."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"All?"
+
+"All that you have to tell me, to modify--and so on?"
+
+"That would lead to more, don't you see? Lord Seely has enormous
+influence, and I don't know anyone better able to push the fortunes of a
+young man like Algy."
+
+"But has he promised anything definite?"
+
+"He could hardly do that, seeing that, as yet, he knows nothing of my
+son whatever! My dear Mr. Diamond, when you know as much of the world as
+I do, you will see that it does not do to rush at things in a hurry. You
+must give people time. Especially a man like Lord Seely, who of course
+cannot be expected to--to----"
+
+"Do you mean that you seriously contemplate dropping the substance of
+Filthorpe, for this shadow of Seely?"
+
+"Mr. Diamond! What very extraordinary expressions!"
+
+Mr. Diamond took his hand from his mouth, clasped both hands on his
+knee, and sat looking into the fire as abstractedly as if there had
+been no other person within sight or sound of him.
+
+Mrs. Errington, apparently taking it for granted that his attitude was
+one of profound attention to herself, proceeded flowingly to justify her
+decision, for it evidently was a decision--to decline the Bristol
+merchant's offer of employment and a home for her son. Besides Algy's
+"genius," there were other objections. Mr. Filthorpe had a vulgar wife
+and a vulgar daughter. Of course they must be vulgar. That was clear.
+And who could say that they might not endeavour to entangle Algy in some
+promise, or engagement, to marry the daughter? Nay, it was very certain
+that they would make such an endeavour. Possibly--probably--that was old
+Filthorpe's real object in inviting his young relative to accept a place
+in his counting-house. Indeed, they might confidently consider that it
+was so. Of course Algy would be a bait to these people! And as to Lord
+Seely, Mr. Diamond did not know (how should he? seeing that he had been
+little more than a twelvemonth in Whitford, and out of that time had
+scarcely ever had an hour's converse with her) that she, Mrs. Errington,
+was a person rather apt to hide and diminish, than unduly blazon forth
+her family glories. And she was, moreover, scrupulous to a fault in the
+accuracy of all her statements. Nevertheless, she must say that there
+was, perhaps, no nobleman in England whose patronage would have more
+weight than his lordship's; and whether or not the brilliancy of Algy's
+parts, and the charm of his manners, would be likely to captivate a man
+of Lord Seely's taste and cultivation; that she left to the sense and
+candour of any one who knew, and could appreciate her son.
+
+Mr. Diamond uttered an odd, smothered kind of sound.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Errington, mellifluously.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Hulloa!" cried a blithe voice, as the door was suddenly thrown open.
+"Why, you're all in the dark here!"
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Diamond, jumping to his feet, and then sitting
+down again, "I believe--I'm afraid I was almost asleep!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Algernon Errington came gaily into the dim room bringing with him a gust
+of fresh, cold air. His first act was to stir the fire, which sent up a
+flickering blaze. The light played upon the tea-table and the two
+persons who sat at it; and also, of course, illuminated the new comer's
+face and form, which were such as to justify much of his mother's pride
+in his appearance. He was of middle height, with a singularly elegant
+figure, and finely-shaped hands and feet. His smooth, blooming face was,
+perhaps, somewhat too girlish-looking, but there was nothing effeminate
+in his bearing. All his movements were springy and elastic. His blue
+eyes--less large, but more bright than his mother's--were full of
+vivacity, and a smile of mischievous merriment played round his mouth.
+
+"Mr. Diamond!" he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived who was the other
+occupant of the room besides his mother.
+
+"You're late," said the tutor, pulling from his waistcoat-pocket a large
+silver watch, and examining the clumsy black figures on its face by the
+firelight.
+
+"Why," said Algernon, "I had no idea you were here! I thought my mother
+had sent word to ask you to put off our reading this evening. You
+promised to write a note, mother. Didn't you send it?"
+
+It appeared that Mrs. Errington had not sent a note, had not even
+written one, had forgotten all about it. Her mind was so full of other
+things! And then when Mr. Diamond appeared, she did not explain at once
+that Algernon would probably not come home in time for his lesson,
+because she wanted to have a little conversation with Mr. Diamond. And
+they began to talk, and the time slipped away: besides, she knew that
+Mr. Diamond had nothing to do of an evening, so it was not of much
+consequence, was it?
+
+Algernon winced at this speech, and cast a quick, furtive look at his
+tutor, who, however, might have been deaf, for any sign he gave of
+having heard it. He rose from his chair, and addressing Mrs. Errington,
+declared with his usual brevity that, as no work was to be done, he must
+forthwith wish her "Good evening."
+
+"Now, no nonsense!" said Mrs. Errington. "You'll do nothing of the kind!
+Stay and have a cup of tea with us for once in a way."
+
+"Thank you, no; I never--it is not my habit----"
+
+"Not your habit to be sociable! I know that; and it is a great pity.
+What would you be doing at home? Only poring over books until you got a
+headache! A little cheerful society would do you all the good in the
+world. You were all but dropping asleep just now: and no wonder! I'm
+sure, after teaching all day in a close school, full of boys buzzing
+like so many blue-bottles, one would feel as stupid as an owl oneself!"
+
+"Perhaps I am peculiarly susceptible to stupefying influences," said Mr.
+Diamond, with a rueful shake of the head. And, as he spoke, there played
+round his mouth the faint flicker of a smile.
+
+"Now put your hat down, and take your seat!" cried Mrs. Errington,
+authoritatively.
+
+"I am very sorry to seem ungrateful, but----"
+
+"I had asked little Rhoda to come up after tea and keep me company,
+thinking I should be alone. But you won't mind Rhoda. She knows her
+place."
+
+Mr. Diamond paused in the act of buttoning his coat across his breast.
+"You are very kind," he murmured.
+
+"There, sit down, and I will undertake to give you a cup of excellent
+tea. I hope you know good tea when you get it? There are some people who
+couldn't tell my fine Pekoe from sloe-leaves. Algy, bring me the
+kettle."
+
+And Mrs. Errington betook herself to the business of making tea. To her
+it seemed perfectly natural--almost a matter of course--that Matthew
+Diamond should stay, since she was kind enough to press it. But
+Algernon, who knew his tutor better, could not refrain from expressing a
+little surprise at his yielding.
+
+"Why, mother," said he, as he poured the boiling water into the tea-pot,
+"you may consider yourself singled out for high distinction. Mr. Diamond
+has consented at your request to stay after having said he would go! I
+don't believe there's another lady in Whitford who has been so
+honoured."
+
+If Algernon had not been peering through the clouds of steam, to
+ascertain whether the tea-pot were full or not, he would have perceived
+an unwonted flush mount in Matthew Diamond's face up to the roots of his
+hair, and then slowly fade away.
+
+"And how did you find the doctor and all of them?" asked Mrs. Errington
+of her son, when they were all seated at the tea-table.
+
+"Oh, the doctor's all right. He only came in for a few minutes after
+morning school."
+
+"What did he say to you, Algy?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know: something about not altogether neglecting my studies
+now I had left school, whatever path in life I chose. He always says
+that sort of thing, you know," answered Algernon carelessly.
+
+"And Mrs. Bodkin?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right, too."
+
+"And Minnie?"
+
+"Oh, she's all--no; she was not quite so well as usual, I think. Mrs.
+Bodkin said she had had a bad attack of pain in the night. But Minnie
+didn't mention it. She never likes to be condoled with and pitied, you
+know. So of course I didn't say anything. It's so unpleasant to have to
+keep noticing people's health!"
+
+"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Errington. "What a misfortune for that girl to
+be a helpless invalid for the rest of her life!"
+
+"Is her disorder incurable?" asked Mr. Diamond.
+
+"Oh, quite, I believe. Spine, you know. An accident. And they say that
+when a child she was such an active creature."
+
+"Her brain is active enough now," observed Mr. Diamond musingly, with
+his eyes fixed on the fire. "I don't know a keener, quicker intellect."
+
+"What, Minnie Bodkin?" exclaimed Algernon, pausing in the demolition of
+a stout pile of sliced bread and butter. "I should think so! She's as
+clever as a man! I mean," he added, reading and answering his tutor's
+satirically-raised eyebrows, as rapidly as though he were replying to an
+articulate observation, "I mean--of course I know she's a deuced deal
+cleverer than lots of men. But I mean that Minnie Bodkin is clever after
+a manly fashion. Not a bit Missish. By Jove! I wish I knew as much Greek
+as she does!"
+
+"I do not at all approve of blue-stockings in general," said Mrs.
+Errington; "but in her case, poor thing, one must make allowances."
+
+"I think she's pretty," announced Algernon, condescendingly.
+
+"She would be if she didn't look so sickly. No complexion," said Mrs.
+Errington, intently observing her own florid face, unnaturally
+elongated, in the bowl of a spoon.
+
+"Don't you think her pretty, sir?" asked Algernon, turning to Mr.
+Diamond.
+
+"A great deal more than pretty."
+
+"You don't go there very often, I think?" said Mrs. Errington
+interrogatively.
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"Well, now, you really ought. I know you would be welcome. The doctor
+has more than once told me so. And Mrs. Bodkin is so very affable! I'm
+sure you need not hesitate about going there."
+
+Algernon jumped up to replenish the tea-pot, with an unnecessary amount
+of bustle, and began to rattle out a volley of lively nonsense, with the
+view of diverting his mother's attention from the subject of Mr.
+Diamond's neglect of the Bodkin family. He dreaded some rejoinder on the
+part of the tutor which should offend his mother beyond forgiveness. He
+had had experience of some of Matthew Diamond's blunt speeches, of which
+Dr. Bodkin himself was supposed to be in some awe. It was clearly no
+business of Mrs. Errington's where Mr. Diamond chose to bestow his
+visits; neither could she in any degree be aware what reasons he might
+have for his conduct. "And the worst of it is, he's quite capable of
+telling my mother so, if she goes too far," reflected Algernon. So he
+chatted and laughed, as if from overflowing good spirits, until the
+peril was past. This young gentleman was so quick and flexible, and had
+so buoyant a temperament, that he was reputed more careless and
+thoughtless than was altogether the case. His mind moved rapidly, and he
+had an instinctive habit of uttering the result of its calculations, in
+the most impulsive way imaginable. You could not tell, by observing
+Algernon's manner, whether he were giving you his first thought or his
+second.
+
+When the meal was over, Mrs. Errington rang to have the table cleared. A
+little prim servant-maid, in a coarse, clean apron and bib, appeared at
+the sound of the bell, and began to gather the tea-things together.
+Algernon sat down at the old harpsichord, and, after playing a few
+chords, commenced singing softly in a pleasant tenor voice some
+fragments of sentimental ballads in vogue at that day. (Does the reader
+ask, "and when was 'that day?'" He must content himself with the
+information that it was within a year or two of the year 1830.) Mr.
+Diamond walked to the window, and holding aside the blind, stood looking
+out at the dark sky.
+
+All at once, when the servant opened the door to go out, there came up
+from the lower part of the house the sound of singing; slow, long-drawn,
+rather tuneless singing of a few voices, male and female.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, "Oh dear me,
+Sarah, how is this?"
+
+Algernon made a comical face of disgust, and put his hands to his ears.
+
+"It be as Mr. Powell's ha' come back, mum," said Sarah, with much
+gravity.
+
+"Really! Really!" said Mrs. Errington, in the tone of one protesting
+against an utterly unjustifiable offence.
+
+"Come back! Where has he been?" asked Algernon, carelessly.
+
+"On 'is rounds, please, sir."
+
+"I do wish Mr. Powell would choose some other time for his
+performances!" cried Mrs. Errington, when the servant had left the room.
+"Now Thursday--on Thursday, for instance, we are going to a whist party,
+at the Bodkins', and then he might squall out his psalms, and shout,
+and rave, without annoying anybody."
+
+"He'd only annoy the neighbours," said Algernon, "and that wouldn't
+matter!"
+
+He was smiling with a sort of contemptuous amusement, and touching
+random notes here and there on the harpsichord with one finger.
+
+"There will be no getting Rhoda upstairs to-night," said Mrs. Errington.
+"Poor little thing! she's in for a whole evening of psalm-singing."
+
+Algernon rose from the instrument with a clouded brow. His face wore the
+petulant look of a spoiled child, whose will has been unexpectedly
+crossed.
+
+"Deuce take Mr. Powell, and all Welsh Methodists like him!" said he.
+
+"My dear Algy! No, no; I cannot approve of that, though Mr. Powell is a
+Dissenter. Besides, such language in my presence is not respectful."
+
+"Beg pardon, ma'am," said Algernon, laughing. And with the laughter, the
+cloud cleared from his brow. Clouds never rested there long.
+
+"Will you have a game of cribbage with me, Mr. Diamond? This naughty boy
+will scarcely ever play with me. Or, if you prefer it, dummy whist----?"
+
+"No whist for me," interposed Algernon, decisively. "It is such a
+botheration. And I play so atrociously that it would be cruel to ask
+Mr. Diamond to sit down with me."
+
+With that he returned to the harpsichord, and began singing softly to
+himself in snatches.
+
+"Cribbage then?" said Mrs. Errington in her mellow, measured tones.
+
+Mr. Diamond let fall the blind from his hand so roughly that the wooden
+roller rattled against the wainscot, and advanced to the table where
+Mrs. Errington was already setting forth the cards and cribbage-board.
+He sat down without a word, cut the cards as she directed, shuffled,
+dealt, and played in a moody sort of silent manner; which, however, did
+not affect Mrs. Errington's nerves at all.
+
+Meanwhile, there went on beneath Algernon's love-songs and the few
+utterances of the players which the game necessitated, a kind of
+accompanying "bourdon" of voices from downstairs. Sometimes one single
+voice would rise in passionate tones, almost as if in wrath. Then came
+singing again, which, softened by distance, had a wild, wailing
+character of ineffable melancholy. Algernon paused in his fitful playing
+and singing, as though unwilling to be in dissonance with those
+long-drawn sounds. Mrs. Errington calmly continued to exclaim, "Fifteen
+six," and "two for his heels," without regard to anything but her game.
+
+When the rubber was at an end, Mr. Diamond rose to take his leave.
+
+He lingered a little in doing so. He lingered in taking up his hat, and
+in buttoning his coat across his breast.
+
+"Have you not anything warmer to put on?" said Mrs. Errington. "Dear me,
+it is very wrong to go out of this snug room into the air--and the wind
+has got up, too!--with no more wrap than you have been sitting in, here
+by the fire! Algy, lend him your great-coat."
+
+"Thank you, no. Good night," said the tutor, and walked off without
+further ceremony.
+
+He still lingered, however, in descending the stairs; and yet more in
+passing the door of a parlour, whence came a murmur of voices. Finally,
+he let himself out at the street-door, and encountering a bleak gust of
+wind, set off down the silent street at a round pace.
+
+"What a fool you are, Matthew!" was his mental ejaculation, as he strode
+along with his head bent down, and his gloveless hands plunged deep into
+his pockets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Mrs. Errington had lodged in Mr. Maxfield's house ever since she first
+came to Whitford. Jonathan Maxfield, commonly called "Old Max," kept a
+general shop in that town. The shop was underneath Mrs. Errington's
+sitting-room, and the great bow window, of which mention has been made,
+jutted out beyond the shop front, and overhung the street. The house was
+old, and larger than it appeared from the street, running back some
+distance. There was a private entrance--a point much insisted upon by
+Mr. Maxfield's sister-in-law and housekeeper in letting the lodgings to
+Mrs. Errington--and a long passage divided the shop entirely from the
+dwelling rooms on the ground-floor.
+
+Old Max was reported to be somewhat of a miser (which report he rather
+encouraged than the reverse, finding that it had its conveniences), and
+to have amassed a large sum of money for one in his position in life.
+
+"Old Max!" Whitford people would say. "Why, old Max could buy up half
+the town. Old Max might retire to-morrow. Old Max has no need ever to
+stand behind a counter again."
+
+Old Max, however, continued to stand behind his counter day after day,
+as he had done for the last thirty or forty years, and would serve a
+child with a pennyworth of gingerbread, or a rich man's cook with stores
+of bacon and flour, in an impartially crabbed manner.
+
+He was a grey man: grey from head to foot. He had grey hair, closely
+cropped; twinkling grey eyes; and a grey stubble on his shaven chin. He
+usually wore a suit of coarse grey clothes, with black calico sleeves
+tied on at the elbow. But even these had an iron-grey hue, from being
+more or less dusted with flour; as, indeed, were all his garments, and
+even his face.
+
+When Mrs. Errington first came to live in Whitford, Jonathan Maxfield
+was a widower for the second time. He had two sons by his first wife;
+and, by his second, one daughter, whose birth cost her mother's life.
+The sister of his first wife had kept house for him ever since his
+second widowhood. This woman, Betty Grimshaw by name, had been servant
+in a great family; and at her master's death had received a legacy,
+which, together with her own savings, had sufficed to purchase a small
+annuity. She had been able to lay by the greater part of her annuity
+since she had lived in Whitford, and announced her intention of
+bequeathing her savings to her nephew James, Maxfield's second son. The
+elder son had married a farmer's daughter with some money, and turned
+farmer himself within a few miles of Whitford. Thus the family living at
+home on the autumn night on which our story opens, consisted of Jonathan
+Maxfield, Betty Grimshaw his sister-in-law, his son James, and his
+daughter Rhoda.
+
+The sound of the street-door closing violently behind Mr. Diamond,
+startled this family party assembled in the parlour, together with Mr.
+David Powell, Methodist preacher.
+
+They were all seated at a table, on which lay hymn-books and a large
+bible. Old Maxfield sat nearest to the fire, in his grey suit, just as
+he appeared in his shop, except that the black calico sleeves had been
+removed from his coat. He had a harsh face, a harsh voice, and a harsh
+manner. So much could be observed by any who exchanged ten words with
+him.
+
+Next to him, on his left hand, sat his son James, a tall, sickly-looking
+young man, of six-and-twenty. He had a stoop in the shoulders, a pale
+face, with high cheek-bones, eyes deeply set, light eyebrows, which grew
+in thick irregular tufts, and hair of a reddish flaxen colour. There was
+a certain family likeness between him and his aunt, Mrs. Grimshaw, as
+she was called in Whitford, despite her spinsterhood. She too was tall,
+bony, and hard-featured; with a face which looked as if it had been
+painted and varnished, and reminded one, in its colour and texture, of
+those hollow wooden pears, full of tiny playthings, which used to
+be--and probably still are--sold at country fairs, and in toy-shops of a
+humble kind.
+
+The preacher sat next to Betty Grimshaw. He seemed to belong to a
+different order of beings from the three persons already described.
+
+A striking face this--dark, and full of fire. He had sharply-cut,
+handsome features, and eyes that seemed to blaze with inward light when
+he spoke earnestly. His raven-black hair was worn long, and fell
+straight on to his collar. But although this made his aspect strange, it
+could not render it either vulgar or ludicrous. The black locks set off
+his pale dark face, as in a frame of ebony. He was young, and seemed
+vigorous, though rather with nervous energy than muscular strength.
+
+The last person in the group was Rhoda Maxfield--"little Rhoda," as Mrs.
+Errington had called her. But the epithet had been used to express
+rather her social insignificance, than her physical proportions. Rhoda
+was, in fact, rather tall. She was about nineteen years old, but
+scarcely looked her age. She had a broad and beautiful brow, on which
+the rich chestnut hair was smoothly parted; a sensitive mouth, not
+over-small; and bright hazel eyes, which looked out on the world with an
+open gaze, that was at once timid and confiding. Her skin was of
+remarkable delicacy, with a faint flush on the cheeks, which came and
+went frequently.
+
+And yet Rhoda Maxfield was not much admired among her own compeers.
+There was something in her face which did not please the taste of the
+vulgar. And although, if you had asked Whitford persons "Is not Rhoda
+Maxfield wonderfully pretty?" most of those so addressed would have
+answered, "Yes, Rhoda is a pretty girl;" yet the assent would probably
+have been cold and uncertain.
+
+Rhoda, at nineteen years old, had never been known to have a sweetheart.
+And this fact militated against the popular appreciation of her beauty;
+for a very cursory observation of the world will suffice to show that on
+the score of good looks, as on most other subjects, public opinion is
+apt to find nothing successful but success.
+
+"What a wind there must be, to make the door bang like that!" exclaimed
+Betty Grimshaw, when the loud sound above recorded reached her ears.
+
+"Who went out?" asked James.
+
+"I suppose it would be that Mr. Diamond, the schoolmaster," replied his
+aunt.
+
+They both spoke in a subdued voice, and cast furtive glances at Mr.
+Maxfield, as though fearful of being reprehended for interrupting the
+evening devotions; but, as they spoke, he closed his hymn-book, and drew
+his chair away from the table towards the fireside. Upon this signal,
+Betty Grimshaw rose and bustled out of the room, declaring that she must
+see about getting the supper; for that that little Sarah could never be
+trusted to see to the roasted potatoes alone. There was a suspicious
+alacrity in Betty's departure, suggestive that she experienced some
+sense of relief at the breaking-up of the devotions. James soon
+sauntered out of the room after his aunt. Mr. Powell rose.
+
+"Good night," said he, holding out his hand to the old man.
+
+"Nay; won't you stay and eat with us, Brother Powell? The supper will be
+ready directly."
+
+Mr. Powell shook his head. "You know I never eat supper," he said,
+smiling.
+
+"Well, well; perhaps you're in the right," responded old Max, very
+readily.
+
+"And I am not clear," continued the preacher, "but that it would be
+better for you to leave off the habit."
+
+"Me? Oh, no! I need it for my health's sake."
+
+"But would it not suit your health better, to take your supper early?
+Say at six o'clock or so; so that you should not go to bed with a full
+stomach."
+
+"No; it wouldn't," answered the old man, crabbedly.
+
+David Powell stood meditating, with his hand to his chin. "I am not
+clear about it," he murmured. But Maxfield either did not hear, or chose
+to ignore the words.
+
+"Father, may I go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" asked Rhoda, softly; "I
+don't want any supper."
+
+The old man grunted out an inarticulate sound, and seemed to hesitate.
+"Go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" he said, answering his daughter, but
+looking sideways at the preacher. "Let's see; you promised, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes; you gave me leave, and I promised before--before we knew that Mr.
+Powell would come to-night."
+
+Rhoda was gifted with a sweet voice by nature, and she spoke with a
+purer accent, and expressed herself with greater propriety, than the
+other members of her family. Mrs. Errington had amused herself with
+teaching the motherless girl, who had been a lonely, shy, little child
+when their acquaintance first began. And Rhoda was a quick and apt
+scholar.
+
+"Well--a promise--I can't have you break your word. Don't you stay late,
+mind. Not one minute after ten o'clock; do you mind, Rhoda?"
+
+Rhoda, with a bright smile of pleasure on her face, promised to obey,
+and left the room with a step which it cost her an effort to make as
+staid as she knew would be approved by her father and Mr. Powell. When
+she got outside the door, they heard her run along the passage as light
+and as swift as a greyhound.
+
+Maxfield turned to Mr. Powell, with a little constrained, apologetic
+air, and began expatiating on Mrs. Errington's fondness for Rhoda; and
+how kind she had always been to the girl; and how he thought it a duty
+almost, to let the good, widowed lady have as much of Rhoda's company as
+she could give her without neglecting duties.
+
+"Betty Grimshaw is a worthy woman," he observed, drily; "but no
+companion for my Rhoda. Rhoda features her mother, and has her mother's
+nature very much."
+
+Mr. Powell still stood in the same meditative attitude, with his hand to
+his chin.
+
+"This Mrs. Errington is unconverted?" he said, without raising his eyes.
+
+"Oh, Rhoda won't take much harm from that!"
+
+"Much harm?" The dark lustrous eyes were upraised now, and fixed
+searchingly on the old man.
+
+"Well, it won't do her any harm," the latter answered, testily. "I know
+Rhoda; and I have her welfare at heart, as, I suppose, you'll believe.
+I don't know who should have, if it isn't me!"
+
+"Brother Maxfield," said the preacher, earnestly, "are you sure that you
+have a clear leading in this matter? Have you prayed for one?"
+
+Maxfield shifted in his chair, and made no answer.
+
+"Oh, consider what you do in trusting that tender soul among worldlings!
+I do not say that these are wicked people in a carnal sense; but are
+they such as can edify or strengthen a young girl like Rhoda, who is
+still in a seeking state, and has not yet that blessed assurance which
+we all supplicate for her?"
+
+"I have laid the matter before the Lord," said Maxfield, almost
+sullenly.
+
+Powell was silent for a minute, standing with his hands forcibly clasped
+together, as though to control them from vehement action, and when next
+he spoke, his voice had a tone in it which told of a strong effort of
+will to keep it in subdued monotony.
+
+"Then, have you thought of it?" said he; "there is the young man
+Algernon."
+
+"What of Algernon?" cried Maxfield, turning sharply to face the
+preacher.
+
+"He is fair to look upon, and specious, and has those graces and talents
+which the world accounts lovely. May there not be a snare here for
+Rhoda? She who is so alive to all beauty and graciousness in God's
+world, and in God's creatures--may it not be very perilous for her to be
+thrown unguardedly into the society of this youth?"
+
+Maxfield looked into the fire instead of at Powell, as he said, "What
+has been putting this into your head?"
+
+"I have had a call to say it to you, for some time past. Before I went
+away this summer it was on my mind. I sinned in resisting the call,
+for--for reasons which matter to no one but myself. I sinned in putting
+any human reasons above my Master's service."
+
+"It may be as you would have done better to resist speaking now," said
+Maxfield, slowly. "It may be as it was rather a temptation, than a
+leading from Heaven, made you speak at all."
+
+Powell started back as if he had been struck. The blood rushed into his
+face, and then, suddenly receding, left him paler than before. But he
+answered after a moment in a low, sweet voice, and without a trace of
+anger, "You cannot mistrust me more than I mistrusted myself. But I have
+wrestled and prayed; and I am assured that I have spoken this thing with
+a single heart."
+
+"Well, well, well, it may be as you say," said Maxfield, a shade less
+harshly than he had spoken before. "But you have neither wife, nor
+daughter, nor sister, and you cannot understand these matters as well as
+I do, who am more than double your years, and have had the guidance of
+this young maid from a baby upward."
+
+"Nay," answered Powell, humbly; "it is not my own wisdom I am uttering!
+God forbid that I should set up my carnal judgment against a man of your
+years."
+
+"That's very well said--very rightly said!" exclaimed Maxfield, nodding
+twice or thrice.
+
+"Aye, but I must speak when my conscience bids me. I dare not resist
+that admonition for any human respect."
+
+"Why, to be sure! But do you think yours is the only conscience to be
+listened to? I tell you I follow mine, young man. And you can ask any of
+our brethren here in Whitford, who have known me for the last thirty or
+forty years, whether I have gone far astray!"
+
+Powell sighed wearily. "I have released my soul," he said.
+
+"And just hearken," pursued old Maxfield, in a lowered voice, "don't say
+a word of this sort to Rhoda--nay, don't interrupt me! I've listened to
+your say, now let me have mine--because you might be putting something
+into her thoughts that wouldn't have come there of itself. And keep a
+discreet tongue before Betty and James. 'Least said, soonest mended.'
+And I'll tell you something more. If--observe I say 'if'--I saw that
+Rhoda's heart was strongly set upon anything, anything as wasn't wrong
+in itself, I should be very loath to thwart her."
+
+David Powell turned a startled, attentive face on the old man, who
+proceeded with a sort of dogged monotony of voice and manner: "Christian
+charity teaches us there's good folks in all communions of believers.
+And there's different ranks and different orders in the world; some has
+one thing, and some has another. Some has fine family and great
+connections among the rulers of the land. Others has the goods of this
+world earned by honesty, and diligence, and frugality; and these three
+bring a blessing. Some is fitted to be gentlefolks by nature, let 'em be
+born where they will. Others, like my sister-in-law Betty, is born to
+serve. We are all the Lord's creatures, and we are in his hand but as
+clay in the hands of the potter. But there's different kinds of clay,
+you know. This kind is good for making coarse delf, and that kind is fit
+for fine porcelain. We'll just keep these words as have passed between
+you and me, to ourselves, if you please. And now, I I think, we may drop
+the subject."
+
+"May the Lord give you his counsel!" said Powell, in a broken voice.
+
+"Amen! I have had my share of wisdom, and have walked pretty straight
+for the last half century, thanks be to Him," observed old Max, drily.
+
+"If it were His good pleasure, how gladly would I cease for evermore
+from speaking to you on this theme! But it matters nothing what I desire
+or shrink from. I must deliver my Master's message when it is borne in
+upon me to do so."
+
+And with a solemnly uttered blessing on the household, the preacher
+departed.
+
+The master of the house sat thinking, alone by his fireside. He began by
+thinking that he had a little over-encouraged David Powell. Maxfield
+considered praise from himself to be very encouraging, and calculated to
+uplift the heart. When Powell had first come among the Whitford
+Methodists, old Max had taken him by the hand, and had declared him to
+be the most awakening preacher they had had for many years. He was never
+tired of vaunting Powell's zeal, and diligence, and eloquence.
+Backsliders were brought again into the right way, sinners were
+awakened, believers were refreshed, under his ministry. The fame of
+Powell's preaching drew many unwonted auditors to the little chapel; and
+of those who came at first merely from curiosity, many were moved by his
+words to join the Wesleyan Connection. On all this Jonathan Maxfield
+looked with great satisfaction. The young man had been truly a burning
+and a shining light.
+
+But now--might it not be that the preacher's heart had become puffed up
+with spiritual pride? Was he not unduly exalting himself, when he
+assumed a tone of censorship towards such a pillar of the community as
+Jonathan Maxfield? The old man had been for many years accustomed to
+much deference, alike from preachers and congregation. The exhortations
+and admonitions which were doubtless needful for his neighbours, were
+entirely out of place when addressed to himself. His piety and probity
+were established on a rock. And the Lord had, moreover, seen fit to gift
+him with so large a share of the wisdom of the serpent, as had enabled
+him to hold his own, and to thrive in the midst of worldlings. A dull
+fire of indignation against David Powell began to smoulder in the old
+man's heart, as he pondered these things.
+
+Other thoughts, too, more or less disquieting, passed through his brain.
+He thought of Rhoda's mother--of that second wife whom he, a man past
+middle-life, had married for her fair young face and gentle ways, much
+to Betty Grimshaw's disgust, and the surprise of most people. He looked
+back on the long, dusty, dreary road of his life; and, in the whole
+landscape, the only spot on which the sun seemed to shine was that brief
+year of his second marriage. Not that he had been, or that he now was,
+an unhappy man. His life had satisfactions in it of a sober, sombre
+kind. He did not grow soft or sentimental in reviewing the past. He was
+accustomed to the chill, grey atmosphere in which he lived. But he had
+felt warm sunlight once, and remembered it. And he had a
+notion--inarticulate, indeed, and vague--that Rhoda needed more light
+and warmth in her life than was necessary for his own existence, or for
+James's, or Betty Grimshaw's, or, in fact, for most people's. There was
+no amount of hardness he could not be guilty of to "most people," and,
+indeed, he was hard enough to himself; but for Rhoda there was a soft
+place in his heart.
+
+Nevertheless, there were many hopes, fears, speculations, and
+reflections connected with Rhoda just now, which had anything but a
+softening effect on Mr. Maxfield's demeanour; insomuch that Betty and
+James, coming in presently to supper, found the head of the family in so
+crabbed a temper, that they were glad to hurry through the meal in
+silence, and slink off to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mention has been made of a whist-party at Dr. Bodkin's, to which Mrs.
+Errington announced her intention of going. It took place on the
+Thursday after that evening on which Mrs. Errington was first introduced
+to the reader: that is to say, on the second night following.
+
+Whist-parties were almost the only social entertainment ever given
+amongst the genteel persons in Whitford. The Rev. Cyrus Bodkin, D.D.,
+liked his rubber; so did Robert Smith, Esq., M.R.C.S., and Mr. Dockett,
+the attorney, and Miss Chubb, and one or two more cronies, who were
+frequently seen at the doctor's green card-tables.
+
+The Bodkins lived in a gloomy stone house adjoining the grammar-school,
+of which, indeed, it formed part. The house was approached by a
+gravelled courtyard, surrounded by high stone walls. The garden at the
+back ran sloping down to a broad green meadow, which in turn was
+bounded by the little river Whit, all overhung with willows, and covered
+by a floating mass of broad water-lily leaves, just opposite the
+doctor's garden gate.
+
+In the full summer time, the view from the back of the house was pretty
+and pastoral enough. But in autumn and winter the meadow was a swamp,
+whose vivid green looked poisonous--as indeed it was, exhaling ague and
+rheumatism from its plashy surface--and a white brooding mist trailed
+itself, morning and evening, along the sluggish Whit, like a fallen
+cloud, condemned by some angry prince of the air to crawl serpent-like
+on earth, instead of soaring and sailing in the empyrean.
+
+Such fancies never came into Doctor Bodkin's head, however, nor into his
+wife's either--good, anxious, unselfish, sad, little woman! Into his
+daughter Minnie's brain all sorts of wild, fantastic notions would
+intrude as she lay on her sofa, looking out upon the garden, and the
+river, and the meadow, and the gnarled old willows, and the flying scud
+in the sky; but she very seldom spoke of her fancies to any one. She
+spoke of other matters, though, freely enough. She had many visitors,
+who came and sat around her couch, or beside the lounging-chair, on
+which, on her good days, she reclined. She was better acquainted with
+the news of Whitford than most of the people who could use their limbs
+to go abroad and see what was passing. She was interested in the
+progress of the boys at the grammar-school, and knew the names, and a
+good deal about the characters, of every one of them. She would chat,
+and laugh, and joke by the hour with the frequenters of her father's
+house; but of herself--of her own thoughts, feelings, and
+fancies--Minnie Bodkin said no word to them. Nor did she, in truth, ever
+speak much on that subject all her life. And there were days--black days
+in the calendar of her poor anxious little mother--when Minnie would
+remain shut into her room, refusing to see or speak with anyone, and
+suffering much pain of body, with a proud stoicism which rejected
+sympathy like a wall of granite.
+
+There is no suggestion of granite about her now, however, as she lies,
+propped up by crimson cushions, on a sofa in her father's drawing-room.
+The room is bright and warm, despite the white kraken of mist that is
+coiled around the outer walls of the house. Wax-lights shine in tall,
+old-fashioned silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and on the centre
+table, and on a pianoforte, beside which stands a canterbury full of
+music-books. A great fire blazes in the grate, and makes its immediate
+neighbourhood too hot for the comfort of most people. But Minnie is apt
+to be chilly, and loves the heat. Some delicate ferns and hothouse
+plants adorn a stand between the windows. They are rather a rare luxury
+in Whitford; but Minnie loves flowers, and always has some choice ones
+about her. A still rarer luxury hangs on the wall opposite to her sofa,
+in the shape of a very fine copy--on a reduced scale--of Raphael's
+Madonna di San Sisto. Minnie had fallen in love with a print from that
+famous picture long ago, and the copy was procured for her at
+considerable pains and expense. The furniture of the room is of crimson
+and dark oak. Minnie delights in rich colours and picturesque
+combinations. In a word, there is not an inch of the apartment, from
+floor to ceiling, in the arrangement of which Minnie's tastes have not
+been consulted, and in which traces of Minnie's influence are not
+plainly to be seen by those who know that household.
+
+Minnie has a face, which, if you saw it represented in time-darkened oil
+colours, and framed on the walls of a picture-gallery, you would
+pronounce strikingly beautiful. Such faces are sometimes seen in flesh
+and blood, and, strange to say, do by no means excite the same
+enthusiasm in ordinary beholders, who, for the most part, like the
+picturesque in a picture and nowhere else; and who, to paraphrase what
+was said of Voltaire's intellect, admire chiefly those women who have,
+more than other young ladies, the prettiness which all young ladies
+have.
+
+Minnie's face is pale and rather sallow. Her skin is not transparent,
+but fine in texture, like fine vellum, and it seldom changes its hue
+from emotion. When it does, it grows dark-red or deadly-white. Pleasing
+blushes or pallors are never seen on it. She has dark, thick hair, worn
+short, and brushed away from a high, smooth, rounded forehead, in which
+shine a pair of bright brown eyes, under finely-arched eyebrows. But the
+beauty of the face lies in the perfection of its outlines: brow, cheeks,
+and chin are alike delicately moulded; her mouth--although the lips are
+too pale--is almost faultless, as are the white, small teeth she shows
+when she smiles. There is an indefinable air of sickness and suffering
+over this beautiful face, and dark traces beneath the eyes, and a
+pathetic, weary look in them sometimes; but, when she speaks or smiles,
+you forget all that.
+
+There are people in this world whose intellects remind one of lamps too
+scantily supplied with oil. The little feeble flame in them burns and
+flickers, certainly, but it is but a dull sort of dead light after all.
+Now Minnie Bodkin's spirit-lamp, if the phrase may be permitted,
+illumined everything it shone upon, and there were some persons who
+found it a great deal too dazzling to be pleasant.
+
+It is not at all too bright at this moment for Algernon Errington, who,
+seated close beside her couch, is giving her, sotto voce, a humorous
+imitation of the psalm-singing in old Max's parlour; and describing,
+with great relish, his mother's cool suggestion that the family prayers
+should be put off until she should be absent at a whist-party.
+
+"Poor dear mother," says Algernon, smiling, "she can't forget that she
+is an Ancram; and sometimes comes out with one of her grande dame
+speeches, as if she were addressing my grandfather's Warwickshire
+tenantry forty years ago!" At which simple, candid words Minnie shoots
+out a queer, keen glance at the young fellow from under her eyelids.
+
+"And the Methodist preacher--what is he like?" she asks. "Whitford is,
+or was, a little inclined to go crazed about him. I don't know whether
+the enthusiasm is burning itself out, as such fires of straw will do,
+but a few weeks ago I heard that the little Wesleyan chapel was crowded
+to overflowing whenever he preached; and that once or twice, when he
+addressed the people out of doors on Whit Meadow, there was such a
+multitude as never was seen there before. I was quite curious to see the
+man who could so move our sluggish Whitfordians."
+
+Algernon had taken up a sheet of note-paper and a pen from Minnie's
+letter-writing table, whilst she was speaking. "Look here," he says,
+"here's the preacher!" And he holds out the paper on which he has
+drawn, with a few rapid strokes, a caricature of David Powell.
+
+Minnie looks at it with raised eyebrows.
+
+"Oh," says she, "is he like that? I am disappointed. This is the common,
+conventional, long-haired Methodist, that one sees in every comic
+print."
+
+And in truth Algernon's portrait is not a good likeness, even for a
+caricature. He had drawn a lank, hook-nosed man, with long, black hair,
+expressed by two blots of ink falling on either side of his face.
+
+"He wears his hair just like that!" says Algy, contemplating his own
+work with a good deal of satisfaction.
+
+The card playing has not yet begun. Mrs. Bodkin, small, thin, with a
+questioning, sharp, little nose, and a chin which narrows off too
+suddenly, and an odd resemblance altogether to a little melancholy fox,
+is presiding at a tea-table. Besides tea and coffee, it is furnished
+with substantial cakes of many various kinds. Whitford people, for the
+most part, dine early, so that they are ready for solid food again by
+about eight o'clock; and will, probably, sustain nature once more with
+sandwiches and mulled wine before they sleep.
+
+It is not a large party. There is Mrs. Errington, majestic in a dyed
+silk, and a real lace cap, the latter a relic of the "better days" she
+is fond of reverting to; Miss Chubb, a stout spinster, with a
+languishing fat face as round as a full moon, and little rings of hair
+gummed down all over her forehead, and half-way down her plump cheeks;
+Mr. Smith, the surgeon, black-eyed, red-faced, and smiling; the Rev.
+Peter Warlock, curate of St. Chad's, a serious, ghoul-like young man,
+who rends great bits out of his muffin with his teeth, in a way to make
+you shudder if you happen to be nervous or fanciful; Mr. Dockett, the
+attorney, and his wife, each dressed in black, each with a huge double
+chin and smothered voice, and altogether comically like one another.
+
+On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, and his coffee-cup in his
+hand, stands Dr. Bodkin. He is short and thick. He has an air of
+command. He looks at the world in general as if it were liable to an
+"imposition" of ever so many hundred lines of Latin poetry, and as if he
+were ready to enforce the penalty at brief notice. He is not a hard man
+at heart, but nature has made him conceited, and habit has made him a
+tyrant. The boys kotoo to him in the school, and his wife bends
+submissively to his will at home. There is only one person in the world
+who habitually opposes and sets aside his assumption of infallibility,
+and that person--his daughter Minnie--he loves and fears. He tramples on
+most other people, in the firm persuasion that it is for their good. He
+is bald, large-faced, with a long upper-lip, which he shoots out into a
+funnel shape when he talks. He is an honest man in his calling, has a
+fair share of routine learning, and imparts it laboriously to the boys
+under his tuition.
+
+Presently the people seem to slacken in eating and drinking. "Another
+cup of tea, Mrs. Errington? Won't you try any of that pound cake, Mr.
+Warlock?" (N.B. He has eaten three muffins unassisted; but they do not
+prosper with him. He has a hungry glare.) "Mrs. Dockett? No?" Mrs.
+Bodkin looks round, and lifts her meek, foxy little nose interrogatively
+at each member of the circle. No one will eat or drink more. The doctor
+prepares to make up the tables.
+
+The card-tables are always set out in an inner drawing-room, adjoining
+that in which our friends are taking tea. Dr. Bodkin hates to hear any
+noise when he is at his rubber, so there are thick curtains before the
+door of communication between the two rooms; and the door is shut, and
+the curtains drawn, whenever Minnie desires to have music on whist
+evenings.
+
+The sound of the piano penetrates to the card-players, nevertheless. But
+Mrs. Bodkin declares that she can never hear a note, when she is in the
+little drawing-room, with the door shut, and the curtains drawn. And
+although the doctor wears a frown on his bald forehead, and is more
+than ordinarily severe on his partner whenever the piano begins to sound
+during a game, yet he never takes any step to have the instrument
+silenced.
+
+The players file off in the wake of the host. There is a quartet at the
+doctor's table. At another, Mrs. Dockett, Mrs. Warlock, and Mr. Smith
+play dummy. Algernon Errington hates cards, and--naturally--doesn't
+play. The Rev. Peter Warlock also hates cards, but is wanted to make up
+the rubber, and--naturally--plays. Mrs. Bodkin hovers between the two
+rooms, and Minnie and Algernon are left almost tête-à-tête.
+
+"And so you really, really think of going to London?" says Minnie
+gravely.
+
+"To seek my fortune!" answers Algernon, with a smile. "Turn a-gain,
+Er-ring-ton--I don't know why that shouldn't be rung out on Bow Bells.
+You see my name has the same number of syllables as Whit-ting-ton! I
+declare that is a good omen!"
+
+"Whittington made himself useful to the cook, and took care of his
+kitten. I wonder what you will do, Algy, to deserve fortune?"
+
+"Do you think fortune favours the deserving? They paint her as a woman!"
+cries Master Algernon, with a saucy grimace.
+
+"Algy, I like you. We are old chums. Have you considered this step? Have
+you any reasonable prospect of making your way, if you refuse the
+Bristol man's proposition."
+
+Minnie seldom speaks so earnestly as she is speaking now; still seldomer
+volunteers any inquiry into other people's affairs. Algernon is sensible
+of the distinction, and flattered by it. He forthwith proceeds to lay
+his hopes and plans before her; that is to say, he talks a great deal
+with astonishing candour and fluency, and says wonderfully little. His
+mother is so anxious; these Seeleys are her people. It would vex the
+dear old lady so terribly, if he were to prefer the Bristol side of the
+house! Though, perhaps, that would be, selfishly speaking, the right
+policy.
+
+"Ah, I see!" exclaims Minnie, sinking back among her cushions when he
+has done speaking.
+
+By-and-by, one or two more guests drop in: young Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, some six miles from Whitford; Lieutenant-Colonel Whistler, on
+half-pay, with his two nieces, Rose and Violet McDougall; and with them
+Alethea Dockett, who is still a day-boarder at a girls' school in
+Whitford, and has been spending the afternoon with the Misses McDougall.
+The latter young ladies never play whist. Little Ally Dockett sometimes
+takes a hand, if need be, and acquits herself not discreditably; but
+sixteen rushes in where two-and-thirty fears to tread. Rose and Violet
+are on the doubtful border-land of life, and keep up a brisk
+skirmishing warfare with their enemy, Time. They would not give that
+wily old traitor the triumph of putting themselves at a whist-table
+for--for anything short of a bonâ fide offer of marriage, with a good
+settlement.
+
+All those guests Minnie receives very graciously, with a sort of royal
+condescension. She is quite unconscious that the Misses McDougall (of
+whose intelligence she has, truth to say, a disdainful estimate) are
+alive to the fact that she thinks them fools, and that they take a good
+deal of credit to themselves for bearing with her airs, poor thing! But
+then she is so afflicted!
+
+"Oh, Minnie, what's that? Do let me see! Is it one of your caricatures,
+you wicked thing?" cries Rose, darting on the portrait of David Powell.
+
+"It's better drawn than Minnie can do," says Violet, with an air of
+having evidence wrung from her on oath.
+
+"It may be that, and yet not very good," answers Minnie carelessly. "Mr.
+Errington has been trying to give me an idea of some one I've never
+seen, and probably never shall see."
+
+"It's the Methodist preacher, by Jove!" says young Pawkins with his
+glass in his eye. "I heard him and saw him last summer on Whit Meadow."
+
+Colonel Whistler, after holding the paper out at the utmost stretch of
+his arm, solemnly puts on a pair of gold spectacles and examines it.
+
+"Monstrous good!" he pronounces. "Very well, Errington! That's just the
+cut of that kind of fellow."
+
+"Have you seen him, colonel?" asks Minnie.
+
+"No--no; I can't say I have seen him. Don't like these irregular
+practitioners, Miss Minnie. But I know the sort of fellow. That's just
+the cut of 'em!"
+
+"I wish I could draw, Miss Bodkin," says a voice behind Minnie at the
+head of the sofa; "I would show you a better likeness of the man than
+that!"
+
+Minnie puts her thin white hand over her shoulder to the new comer, whom
+she cannot see. "Mr. Diamond!" she exclaims very softly.
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"I know your voice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The little group round Minnie's sofa dispersed as Mr. Diamond came
+forward. He was barely known by sight to most of them, and merely bowed
+gravely and shyly, without speaking.
+
+"Who's that?" asked Colonel Whistler, in a loud whisper, of his eldest
+niece. "Eh? oh! ah! second master--yes, yes, yes; to be sure!" And the
+gallant gentleman walked off to the card-room, and joined the party at
+Mrs. Dockett's table, where there was a vacant place. It must be owned
+that the colonel's appearance was by no means rapturously hailed there.
+He was a notoriously bad player. Fate, however, allotted him as a
+partner to Mr. Warlock. Mrs. Dockett and Mr. Smith exchanged glances of
+satisfaction, and the gloom on Mr. Warlock's brow perceptibly deepened
+as the colonel, polite, smiling, and eager for the fray, took his seat
+opposite to that clerical victim.
+
+"Algy, give Mr. Diamond your chair," said Miss Bodkin. It was in this
+imperious manner that she occasionally addressed her young friend. In
+her eyes he was still a school-boy. And then she was four years his
+senior, and had been a young woman grown when he was still playing
+marbles and munching toffy.
+
+Algy by no means considered himself a school-boy, but he had excellent
+tact and temper. He rose directly, shook hands with his tutor, and then
+standing opposite to Minnie, put his knuckles to his forehead, after the
+fashion in vogue amongst rustic children by way of salute, and said
+meekly, "Yes'm, please'm."
+
+Minnie laughed. "You don't mind, do you, Algernon?" she said, looking up
+at him.
+
+"Not at all, Miss Bodkin. You have merely cast another blight over my
+young existence. I am growing to look like the reverend Peter, in
+consequence of your ill-usage. Don't you perceive a ghastly hue upon my
+brow? No? Ah, well, you would if you had any feeling. Here, let me put
+this cushion better for you. Will that do?"
+
+"Capitally, thanks. And, look here, Algy; I can't bear any music
+to-night, so will you get mamma to set the McDougalls down to a round
+game? And play yourself, there's a good boy!"
+
+"Oh, Minnie, you ought to have been Mrs. Nero. There never was such a
+tyrant. Well, Pawkins and I must make ourselves agreeable, I suppose.
+For England, home, and beauty--here goes!" And Algernon speedily had the
+two Miss McDougalls, and Mr. Pawkins, and Alethea Dockett engaged in a
+game of vingt-et-un--played in a very infantine manner by the
+first-named ladies, and with a good deal of business-like gravity by
+little Alethea, who liked to win.
+
+Mr. Diamond looked at the group with his hand over his mouth, after his
+habit.
+
+"Isn't he a nice fellow?" asked Minnie, watching Mr. Diamond's face
+curiously.
+
+"Errington?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Very."
+
+"But now, tell me--do sit down here; I want to talk to you. You come so
+seldom. I wonder why you came to-night?"
+
+"I chanced to meet Mrs. Bodkin in the street, and she asked me so
+pressingly--she is so good!"
+
+Minnie's face wore a pained look. "It is a pity mamma should have teased
+you," she said, in a low voice.
+
+Matthew Diamond took no notice of the words. Perhaps he did not hear
+them. "I am not fit to go to evening parties," he continued. "The very
+wax-lights dazzle me. I feel like a bat or an owl."
+
+"Too wise for your company, that means!"
+
+"How can you say so? No: I assure you I was compared to an owl the other
+evening by a lady, and I felt the justice of the comparison."
+
+"By a lady! What lady?"
+
+Mr. Diamond smiled a little amused smile at the authoritative tone of
+the question. Minnie did not see it. She was leaning her elbow on a
+cushion, and had her face turned towards Mr. Diamond; but her eyes,
+which usually looked out, open and unabashed, were half veiled by their
+lids.
+
+"The lady was Mrs. Errington," answered the tutor, after a moment's
+pause.
+
+"She called you an owl? That eagle? Well, she has this aquiline quality;
+I believe she could stare the sun himself out of countenance!"
+
+"You were asking me to tell you----" said Mr. Diamond.
+
+"To tell me----? Oh, yes; about the Methodist preacher. That caricature
+is not like him, you say?"
+
+"Not at all. It is a vulgar conception of the man."
+
+"And the man is not vulgar? I am glad of that! Tell me about him."
+
+Matthew Diamond had heard the preacher more than once. The first time
+had been by chance on Whit Meadow. The other times were in the crowded,
+close Wesleyan chapel, into which he had penetrated at the cost of a
+good deal of personal inconvenience, so greatly had Powell's eloquence
+impressed him.
+
+"The man is like a flame of fire," he said. "It is wonderful! He must be
+like Garrick, according to the descriptions I have heard. And, then,
+this fellow is so handsome--wild and oriental-looking. I always long to
+clap a turban on his head, and a great flowing robe over his shoulders."
+
+Minnie listened eagerly, with parted lips, to all that Diamond would
+tell her of the preacher.
+
+"That is for his manner," she said, at length. "Now, as to the matter?"
+
+Mr. Diamond paused. "The man is an enthusiast, you know," he answered,
+gravely.
+
+"But as to his doctrine? Give me some idea of the kind of thing he
+says."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Yes; now. This moment."
+
+"Excuse me; I cannot enter into the subject now."
+
+Minnie raises her brown eyes to his steel-grey ones, and then drops her
+own quickly.
+
+"Will you ever?" she asks, meekly.
+
+"Perhaps. I don't know."
+
+Miss Bodkin is not accustomed to be answered with such unceremonious
+curtness; but, perhaps on account of its novelty, Mr. Diamond's blunt
+disregard of her requests (in that house Minnie's requests have the
+weight of commands) does not ruffle her. She bears it with the most
+perfect sweetness, and proceeds to discourse of other things.
+
+"Don't you think it a pity," she says, "that Algernon Errington should
+have refused his cousin's offer?"
+
+"A great pity--for him."
+
+"Ah! you think Mr. Filthorpe of Bristol is not to be condoled with on
+the occasion?"
+
+Mr. Diamond's firmly closed lips remain immovable.
+
+Minnie looks at him wistfully, and then says suddenly, "Do you know I
+like Algy very much! There is something so bright and winning and gay
+about him! I have known him so long--ever since he came here as a small
+child in a frock. And papa knew his father, Dr. Errington. He was a very
+clever man, a brilliant talker, and greatly sought after in society.
+Algy inherits all that. And he has--what they say his father had not--a
+temper that is almost perfect, thoroughly sound and sweet. I wish you
+liked him."
+
+"Who tells you that I do not like him? You are mistaken in fancying so.
+I think Errington one of the most winning fellows I ever knew in my
+life."
+
+"Y-yes; but you don't think so well of him as I do."
+
+"Perhaps that is hardly to be expected! And pardon me, Miss Bodkin, but
+you don't know----"
+
+"I know nothing about your thoughts on the subject!" interrupts Minnie
+quickly, and with a bright, mischievous glance. "Forgive my interrupting
+you; but when I am to have a cold shower-bath, I like to pull the string
+myself. Now it's over."
+
+"You think me a terrible bear," says Diamond, looking down on her
+beautiful, animated face.
+
+"Ah! take care. If I know nothing about your thoughts, how do you
+pretend to guess mine? Besides, I am not so zoological in my choice of
+epithets as your friend, Mrs. Errington. Papa nearly quarrelled with
+that lady on the subject of Algy's going away. But, you know, it is not
+all Mrs. Errington's fault. Algy chooses to try his fortune under the
+auspices of Lord Seely--I can see that plainly enough. And what Algy
+chooses his mother chooses. He has been terribly spoiled."
+
+"It is a great misfortune----"
+
+"To be spoiled?"
+
+"For him to have lost his father when he was a child. Otherwise he might
+not have been so pampered: though fathers spoil their children
+sometimes!"
+
+"Mine spoils me, I think. But then there is an excuse, after all, for
+spoiling me."
+
+"My dear Miss Bodkin, you cannot suppose that I had any such meaning."
+
+"You? Oh, no! You are honest: you never speak in innuendoes. But it is
+true, you know. My father and mother have spoiled me. Poor father and
+mother! I am but a miserable, frail little craft for them to have
+ventured so much love and devotion in!"
+
+It was not in mortal man--not even in mortal man whose heart was filled
+with a passion for another woman--to refrain from a tender glance and a
+soft tone, in answer to Minnie's pathetic little plaint. Her beauty and
+her intellect might be resisted: her helplessness, and acknowledgment of
+peculiar affliction, could not be.
+
+"Ah!" said Matthew Diamond; "who would not embark all their freight of
+affection in such a venture as the hope that you would love them again?
+I think your parents are paid."
+
+It has been said that Mr. Diamond's calm, grave face raised an
+indefinite expectation in the beholder. When he said those words to
+Minnie Bodkin, you would have thought, if you had been watching him,
+that you had found the key of the puzzle, and that an ineffable
+tenderness was the secret that lay hid beneath that grave mask. The
+stern mouth smiled, the stern eyes beamed, the straight brows were
+lifted in a compassionate curve. Minnie had never seen his face with
+that look on it, and the change in it gave her a curious pang, half of
+pain, half of pleasure. Strong conflicting feelings battled in her. She
+was strung to a high pitch of excitement; and her eyes brightened, and
+her pulse beat quicker--all for a look, a smile, a beam of the eye from
+this staid, quiet schoolmaster! What do we know of the thought in our
+neighbour's brain? of the thrill that makes his heart flutter? We do not
+care for this air-bubble. How can he? It is yonder beautiful transparent
+ball, all radiant with prismatic colours, that we expend our breath
+upon. Up it goes--up, up, up--look! No; our stupid neighbour is watching
+his own airy sphere, which is not nearly so beautiful; and which, we
+know, will burst presently!
+
+The game of vingt-et-un comes to an end. Almost at the same moment the
+whist-players break up, and come trooping into the drawing-room;
+trooping and talking rather noisily, to say the truth, as though to
+indemnify themselves for the silence which Doctor Bodkin insists upon
+during the classic game. Mrs. Bodkin bustles up to her daughter; hopes
+she is not tired; thinks she looks a little fagged; wonders why she did
+not have any music, as she generally likes Rose McDougall's Scotch
+ballads; supposes Mr. Diamond preferred not to play, as she sees he has
+been sitting out, and trusts he has not been bored.
+
+But of all the people present, Mrs. Bodkin alone guesses that Minnie has
+enjoyed her evening, and why. And, with her mother's and woman's
+instinct, she knows that Minnie's pleasure would have been spoiled by
+guessing that it had been guessed. For the rest, this small
+anxious-faced woman cares but little. She would tear your feelings to
+mince-meat to feed the fancies of her daughter, as ruthlessly as any
+maternal vixen would slay a chicken for her cubs; although, for herself,
+no hare is milder or more timid.
+
+The Misses McDougall are in good spirits. They have won, and they have
+had the two young men all to themselves, for Ally Dockett in short
+frocks doesn't count. Also Minnie Bodkin has kept aloof. That bright
+lamp of hers is not favourable to such twinkling little rushlights as
+Rose and Violet are able to display. But this evening they have not been
+quenched by a superior luminary, and are quite radiant and cheerful. Dr.
+Bodkin, too, is contented in his lofty manner; for there has been no
+music, and he has enjoyed his rubber in peace. Colonel Whistler has
+lost, but the stakes are always modest at Dr. Bodkin's table, and he
+doesn't mind it. Over the feelings of the Rev. Peter Warlock it will,
+perhaps, be best to draw a veil. The reverend gentleman stalks in, and
+sits down in a corner, whence he can stare at Minnie unobserved. It is
+the only comfort he enjoys throughout the evening. And for this he
+thinks it worth while to submit to the _peine forte et dure_ of playing
+whist, with Colonel Whistler for his partner.
+
+Mrs. Errington sails towards Minnie's sofa, and suddenly stops short,
+and opens her eyes very wide.
+
+Mr. Diamond, who is the object of her gaze, rises and bows. "Good
+evening, madam," he says, unable to repress a smile at her manifest
+astonishment on beholding him there.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Diamond? Dear me! I little expected to see you
+this evening. Dear Minnie, how are you now? Well, this is a surprise!"
+
+Then, as Mr. Diamond moves away, Mrs. Errington takes his chair beside
+Minnie, and says to her confidentially--"Now, I hope, Minnie, you won't
+owe me a grudge for it; but I must confess that if it hadn't been for
+me, you wouldn't have had that gentleman to entertain this evening."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" cries Minnie, with scant ceremony, and
+flashes an impatient glance at the lady's soft, smiling, self-satisfied
+visage.
+
+"My dear, I advised him to come here a little oftener. I think he felt
+diffident, you know, and all that. Poor man, he is rather dull, although
+Algy is always crying up his talents. But it really is kind to bring him
+forward a little. I asked him to tea the other night. You see he must
+feel it a good deal when people are affable, and so on, for"--here her
+voice sank to a whisper--"he told me himself that he had been a sizar."
+
+With all which benevolent remarks Miss Bodkin is, of course, highly
+delighted. She does not forget them either; for after the negus has been
+drunk, and the sandwiches eaten, and the company has departed, she says
+to her father, "Papa, was Mr. Diamond a sizar?"
+
+"I don't know, child. Very likely. None the worse for that, if he were."
+
+"The worse! No!" returns Minnie, with a superb smile.
+
+"Who says he was?"
+
+"Mrs. Errington."
+
+"Pooh! Ten to one it isn't true then. She has her good points, poor
+woman, but the Ancrams are all liars; every one of them! Greatest liars
+in all the Midland Counties. It runs in the family, like gout."
+
+"It does not seem likely, certainly, that Mr. Diamond should have
+confided the circumstance to Mrs. Errington," observed Minnie,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Confided! No; I never knew a man less likely to confide anything to
+anybody."
+
+"However, after all, it is a thing which all the world might know, isn't
+it, papa?"
+
+Dr. Bodkin was not interested in the question. He gave a great loud
+yawn, and declared it was time for Minnie to go to bed.
+
+"It doesn't follow that I'm sleepy because you yawn, papa!" she said
+saucily.
+
+"You are tired though, puss! I see it in your face. Go to bed. Mrs.
+Bodkin, get Minnie off to rest."
+
+He bent to kiss his daughter, and bid her good night.
+
+"Say 'God bless' me, papa," she whispered, drawing his head down and
+kissing his forehead.
+
+"Don't I always say it? God bless you, my darling!"
+
+There were tears in Minnie's eyes as she turned her head away among her
+cushions. But nobody saw them. She talked to the maid who undressed her
+about Mr. Powell, the Methodist preacher, and asked her if she had heard
+him, and what the folks said about him in the town.
+
+"No, Miss Minnie. I've never heard him, and I know master wouldn't think
+it right for any of us to be going to a dissenting chapel. But I do
+think as there's some good to be got there, miss. For my brother
+Richard, him that lives groom at Pudcombe Hall--he went and got--got
+'conversion,' I think they call it, at Mr. Powell's. And since then he's
+never touched a drop of liquor, nor a bad word never comes out of his
+mouth. And he says he's quite happy and comfortable in his mind, miss."
+
+"Is he? How I envy him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+It is exceedingly disagreeable to find that a scheme you have set your
+head on, or a prospect which smiles before you, is displeasing to the
+persons who surround you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of
+anticipation.
+
+Algernon did not perhaps care to sympathise very keenly with other
+folks' pleasure, but he certainly desired that they should be pleased
+with what pleased him, which is not quite the same thing.
+
+His mother informed him--perhaps with a dash of the Ancram colouring;
+although we have seen how unjustly the worthy lady was suspected of
+falsehood by Dr. Bodkin on a late occasion--that Mr. Diamond disapproved
+of his refusing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go to
+London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, did not approve it; neither did
+Minnie, although she had never said so in words. How unpleasantly chilly
+people were, to be sure!
+
+Mrs. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. She mistrusted him. His silence
+and gravity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn politeness, made her
+uneasy. Despite the patronising way in which she had spoken of him to
+Minnie Bodkin, in her heart she thought the young man to be horribly
+presuming.
+
+"I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at all, Algy," she declared, winding
+up a list of Mr. Diamond's defects and misdemeanours with this
+culminating accusation.
+
+Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. Diamond's appreciation of himself was
+likely to be a just one, and he was a little vexed and discomfited, that
+his tutor had given him no word of praise behind his back. Mrs.
+Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten and
+embellish her statements accordingly. "But, my dear boy," said she, "how
+can we expect him to recognise talents like yours--gentlemanly talents,
+so to speak? The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, he was a sizar at
+college!"
+
+Algy felt himself to be a very generous fellow for continuing to "stand
+up for old Diamond," as he phrased it.
+
+"Well, ma'am, plenty of great men have been poor scholars. Dean Swift
+was a sizar."
+
+"And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! So you see, Algy!"
+
+Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good deal upon this retort, and returned
+to the attack upon Mr. Diamond with fresh vigour; being one of those
+persons whose mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, never content
+with merely killing their enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash every
+semblance of humanity out of him.
+
+Algernon did not like all this. His vanity was--at least during this
+period of his life--a great deal more vulnerable than his mother's. And
+she, although she doated on him, would say unpleasant things,
+indignantly repeat mortifying remarks which had been made, and in a
+hundred ways unconsciously wound the sensitive love of approbation which
+was one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say weakest) points.
+
+It was all very disagreeable. But it was not the worst he had to look
+forward to. There was one person who would be so cast down, so
+despairing, at the news of his going away, that--that--it would be quite
+painful for a fellow to witness such grief. And yet it could not be
+expected--it could never have been expected--that he should stay in
+Whitford all his life! He must point that out to Rhoda.
+
+Poor Rhoda!
+
+For ten years, that is to say for more than half her life, Algernon
+Errington had been an idol, a hero, to her. From the first day when,
+peeping from behind the parlour door, she had beheld the strangers
+enter--Mrs. Errington, majestic, in a huge hat and plume, such as young
+readers may have seen in obsolete fashion books (the mode was so absurd
+fifty years ago, and had none of that simple elegance which
+distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair
+child, in a black velvet suit and falling collar--from that moment the
+boy had been a radiant apparition in her imagination. How small, and
+poor, and shabby she felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at that
+beautiful, blooming mother and son! Not poor and shabby in a milliner's
+sense of the word, but literally of no account, or beauty, or value, in
+the world, little shy motherless thing! She had an intense delight in
+beauty, this Whitford grocer's daughter. And all her little life the
+craving for beauty in her had been starved: not wilfully, but because
+the very conception of such food as would wholesomely have fed it, was
+wanting in the people with whom she lived.
+
+That was a great day when she first, by chance, attracted Mrs.
+Errington's notice. She was too timid and too simple to scheme for that
+end, as many children would have done, although she tremblingly desired
+it. What a surprisingly splendid sight was the tortoise-shell work-box,
+full of amber satin and silver! What a delightful revelation the sound
+of the old harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's plump white
+fingers! What a perennial source of wonder and admiration were that
+lady's accomplishments, and condescension, and kind soft voice!
+
+As to Algernon, there never was such a clever and brilliant little boy.
+At eight years old he could sing little songs to his mother's
+accompaniment, in the sweetest piping voice. He could recite little
+verses. He even drew quite so that you could tell--or Rhoda could--his
+trees, houses, and men from one another.
+
+In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of her family,
+and in all the descriptions she gave of her ancestral home in
+Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagination put in the boy as the central figure
+of the piece. She could see him in the great hall hung round with
+armour; although she knew that he had never been in the family mansion
+in his life; in the grand drawing-room, with its purple carpet and gilt
+furniture; above all, in the long portrait gallery, of which Rhoda was
+never tired of hearing. Heaven knows how she, innocently, and Mrs.
+Errington, exercising her hereditary talent, embellished and transformed
+the old brick house in its deer park; or what enchanted landscapes the
+child at all events conjured up, among the gentle slopes and tufted
+woods of Warwickshire!
+
+Even the period of hobbledehoydom, fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to
+civilised humanity in most schoolboys, Algernon passed through
+triumphantly. He had a great sense of humour, and fastidious pampered
+habits of mind and body, which enabled him to look down with more or
+less disdain--a good-humoured disdain, always, Algy was never
+bitter--upon the obstreperous youth at the Whitford Grammar School.
+
+One fight he had. He was forced into it by circumstances, against his
+will. Not that he was a coward, but he had a greater, and more candidly
+expressed regard for the ease and comfort of his body, than his
+schoolfellows conceived to be compatible with pluck. However, our young
+friend, if less stoical, was a great deal cleverer than the majority of
+his peers; and perceiving that the moment had arrived when he must
+either fight or lose caste altogether, he frankly accepted the former
+alternative. He fought a boy bigger and heavier than himself, got beaten
+(not severely, but fairly well beaten) and bore his defeat--in the
+dialect of his compeers, "took his licking"--admirably. He was quite as
+popular afterwards, as if he had thrashed his adversary, who was a
+loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to strength. Had he bruised his
+way to the perilous glory of being cock of the school himself, it would
+have behoved him to maintain it against all comers; which is an anxious
+and harassing position. Algy had not vanquished the victor, but he had
+"taken his licking like a trump," and, on the whole, may be said to
+have achieved his reputation, at the smallest cost possible under the
+circumstances.
+
+His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked at beholding his bruised cheek, and
+bleeding lip, when he came home one half-holiday, from the field of
+battle. Algy laughed as well as his swollen features would let him, and
+calmed their feminine apprehensions. Nor would he accept his fond
+parent's enthusiastic praise of his heroism, mingled with denunciations
+of "that murderous young ruffian, Master Mannit."
+
+"Pooh, ma'am," said the hero, "it's all brutal and low enough. We bumped
+and thumped each other as awkwardly as possible. I fought because I was
+obliged. And I didn't like it, and I shan't fight again if I can help
+it. It is so stupid!"
+
+The young fellow's great charm was to be unaffected. Even his
+fine-gentlemanism sat quite easily on him, and was displayed with the
+frankest good humour. Some one reproached him once with being more nice
+than wise. "We can't all be wise, but we needn't be nasty!" returned
+Algy, with quaint gravity. His temper was, as Minnie Bodkin had said,
+nearly perfect. He had a singular knack of disarming anger or hostility.
+You could not laugh Algernon out of any course he had set his heart
+upon--a rare kind of strength at his age--but it was ten to one he would
+laugh you into agreeing with him. Every one of his little gifts and
+accomplishments was worth twice as much in him as it would have been in
+clumsier hands.
+
+If you had a heartache, I do not think that you would have found Algy's
+companionship altogether soothing. Sorrow is apt to feel the very
+sunshine cruelly bright and cheerful. But if you were merry and wanted
+society: or bored, and wanted amusement: or dull and wanted
+exhilarating, no better companion could be desired.
+
+He was genial with his equals, affable to his inferiors, modest towards
+his superiors--and had not a grain of veneration in his whole
+composition.
+
+At seventeen years old Algernon left the Grammar School. But he
+continued to "read" with Mr. Diamond for nearly a twelvemonth. "My son
+is studying the classics with Mr. Diamond," Mrs. Errington would say; "I
+can't send my boy to the University, where all his forefathers
+distinguished themselves. But he has had the education of a gentleman."
+
+It was a very desultory kind of reading at the best, and it was
+interrupted by the long Midsummer holidays, during which Mr. Diamond
+went away from Whitford, no one knew exactly whither. And during these
+same holidays, Mrs. Errington, who said she required change of air, had
+taken lodgings in a little quiet Welsh village, and obtained Mr.
+Maxfield's permission to have Rhoda with her.
+
+That was a time of joy for the girl. It did not at all detract from
+Rhoda's happiness, that she was required to wait hand and foot on Mrs.
+Errington; to bring her her breakfast in bed; to trim her caps, to mend
+her stockings; to iron out scraps of fine lace and muslin; to walk with
+her when she was minded to stroll into the village; to order the dinner;
+to make the pudding--a culinary operation too delicate for the fingers
+of the rustic with whom they lodged--to listen to her patroness when it
+pleased her to talk; and to play interminable games of cribbage with her
+when she was tired of talking. All these things were a labour of love to
+Rhoda. And Mrs. Errington was kind to the girl in her own way.
+
+And above all, was not Algy there? Those were happy days in the Welsh
+village. On the long delicious summer afternoons, when Mrs. Errington
+was asleep after dinner, Rhoda would sit out of doors with her sewing;
+on a bench under the parlour window, so as to be within call of her
+patroness; and Algy would lounge beside her with a book; or make short
+excursions to get her wild flowers, which he would toss into her lap,
+laughing at her ecstasy of gratitude. "Oh, Algy!" she would cry, "Oh,
+how good of you! How lovely they are!" The words written down are not
+eloquent, but Rhoda's looks and tones made them so.
+
+"They are not half so lovely," Algy would answer, "as properly educated
+garden flowers; nor so sweet either. But I know you like that sort of
+herbage."
+
+Rhoda never forgot those days. How should she forget them?--since it was
+at this period that Algernon first discovered that he was in love with
+her. Perhaps he might never have made the discovery if they had all
+stayed at Whitford. There he saw her, as he had seen her since her
+childhood, surrounded by coarse common people, and living their life,
+more or less. It is not every one who can be expected to recognise your
+diamond, if you set it in lead. Rhoda was always sweet, always gentle,
+always pretty, but she formed part and parcel of old Max's
+establishment. When the boy and girl were quite small, she used to help
+him with his lessons (her one year's seniority made a greater difference
+between them then, than it did later) and had always been used to do him
+sisterly service in a hundred ways. And all this was by no means
+favourable to the young gentleman's falling in love with her.
+
+But at Llanryddan, Rhoda appeared under quite a different aspect. She
+looked prettier than ever before, Algernon thought. And perhaps she
+really was so; for there is no such cosmetic for the complexion as
+happiness. Apart from her vulgar relations, and treated as a lady by the
+few strangers with whom they came in contact, it was surprising to find
+how good her manners were, and how much natural grace she possessed.
+Mrs. Errington had taught her what may be termed the technicalities of
+polite behaviour. From her own heart and native sensibility she had
+learnt the essentials. The people in the village turned their heads to
+admire her, as she walked modestly along. Who could help admiring her?
+Algernon decided that there was not one among the young ladies of
+Whitford who could compare with Rhoda. "She is ten times as pretty as
+those raw-boned McDougalls, and twenty times as well bred as Alethea
+Dockett, and ever so much cleverer than Miss Pawkins," he reflected.
+Minnie Bodkin never came into his head in the list of damsels with whom
+Rhoda could be compared. Minnie occupied a place apart, quite removed
+from any idea of love-making.
+
+Dear Little Rhoda! How fond she was of him!
+
+Altogether Rhoda appeared in a new light, and the new light became her
+mightily. Yes; Algy was certainly in love with her, he acknowledged to
+himself. There was no scene, no declaration. It all came to pass very
+gradually. In Rhoda the sense of this love stole on as subtly as the
+dawn. Before she had begun to watch the glowing streaks of rose-colour,
+it was daylight! And then how warm and golden it grew in her little
+world! How the birds chirped and fluttered, and the flowers breathed
+sweet breath, and a thousand diamond drops stood on the humblest blades
+of grass!
+
+If she had been nine years old, instead of nearly nineteen, she could
+scarcely have given less heed to the worldly aspects of the situation.
+
+Algernon perhaps more consciously set aside considerations of the
+future. He was but a boy, however; and he always had a great gift of
+enjoying the present moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, that looks
+forward and backward, to the deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely on
+his horizon; no London society; no diplomatic career. The latter indeed
+was but an Ancramism of his mother's, when she spoke of it to Mr.
+Diamond, and Algy at that time had never entertained the idea of it.
+
+So these two young persons sat side by side, on the bench outside the
+Welsh cottage, and were as happy as the midsummer days were long.
+
+But long as the midsummer days were, they passed. Then came the time for
+going back to Whitford. The day before their return home Rhoda received
+a shock of pain--the first, but not the last, which she ever felt from
+this love of hers--at these words, said carelessly, but in a low voice,
+by Algy, as he lounged at her side, watching the sunset:
+
+"Rhoda, darling, you must not say a word to any one about--about you and
+me, you know."
+
+Not say a word! What had she to say? And to whom? "No, Algy," she
+answered, in a faint little voice, and began to meditate. The idea had
+been presented to her for the first time that it was her duty, or Algy's
+duty, to drag their secret from its home in Fairyland, and subject it to
+the eyes and tongues of mortals. But being once there, the idea stayed
+in her mind and would not be banished. Her father--Mrs. Errington--what
+would they say if they knew that--that she had dared to love Algernon?
+The future began to look terribly hard to her. The glittering mist which
+had hidden it was drawn away like a gauze curtain. How could she not
+have seen it all before? Would any one believe for evermore that she had
+been such a child, such a fool, so selfishly absorbed in her pleasant
+day-dreams, as not to calculate the cost of it for one moment until now?
+
+"Oh, Algy!" the poor child broke out, lifting a pale face and startled
+eyes to his; "if we could only go on for ever as we are! If it would be
+always summer, and we two could stay in this village, and never go back,
+or see any of the people again--except father," she added hastily. And a
+pang of remorse smote her as her conscience told her that the father who
+loved her so well, and was so good to her, whatever he might be to
+others, was not at all necessary to the happiness of her existence
+henceforward.
+
+"Don't let's be miserable now, at all events," returned Algernon
+cheerfully. "Look at that purple bar of cloud on the gold! I wonder if I
+could paint that. I wish I had my colour-box here. The pencil sketches
+are so dreary after all that colour."
+
+Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon could paint "that," or anything else he
+applied his brush to. After a while she said, with her heart beating
+violently, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks: "Don't you
+think it would be wrong, deceitful--to--if we--not to tell----" Poor
+Rhoda could not frame her sentence, and was obliged to leave it
+unfinished.
+
+"Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, Rhoda? Oh, I say, don't cry;
+there's a pet! Don't, my darling! I can't bear to see you sorry. But,
+look here, Rhoda, dear; I'm so young yet, that it wouldn't do to talk
+about being in love, or anything of that sort. Though I know I shall
+never change, they would declare I didn't know my own mind, and would
+make a joke of it"--this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule,
+as a sensitive plant shrinks from the north wind--"and bother my--our
+lives out. Can't you see old Grimgriffin's great front teeth grinning at
+us?"
+
+It was in these terms that Algy was wont to allude to that respectable
+spinster, Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw.
+
+Rhoda knew that Algy wished and expected her to smile when he said that;
+and she tried to please him, but the smile would not come. Her lip
+quivered, and tears began to gather in her eyes again. She would have
+sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought the
+sadder and more frightened she grew. Ridicule was painful, but that was
+not the worst. Her father! Mrs. Errington! She lay awake half the night,
+terrifying herself with imaginations of their wrath.
+
+Algy found an opportunity the next morning to whisper to her a few
+words. "Don't look so melancholy, Rhoda. They'll wonder at Whitford
+what's the matter if you go back with such a wan face. And as to what
+you said about deceit, why we shan't pretend not to love each other!
+Look here, we must have patience! I shall always love you, darling, and
+I'm sure to get my own way with my mother in the long run; I always do."
+
+So then there would be obstacles to contend with on Mrs. Errington's
+part, and Algy acknowledged that there would. Of course she had known
+before that it must be so. But Algy had declared that he would always
+love her; that was the one comforting thought to which she clung. Rhoda
+had grown from a child to a woman since yesterday. Algy was only older
+by four-and-twenty hours.
+
+After their return to Whitford came Mr. Filthorpe's letter. Then his
+mother's application to Lady Seely, brought about by an old acquaintance
+of Mrs. Errington, who lived in London, and kept up an intermittent
+correspondence with her. Both these events were talked over in Rhoda's
+presence. Indeed, the girl filled the part towards Mrs. Errington that
+the confidant enacts towards the prima donna in an Italian opera. Mrs.
+Errington was always singing scenas to her, which, so far as Rhoda's
+share in them went, might just as well have been uttered in the shape of
+a soliloquy. But the lady was used to her confidant, and liked to have
+her near, to take her hand in the impressive passages, and to walk up
+the stage with her during the symphony.
+
+So Rhoda heard Algernon's prospects canvassed. In her heart she longed
+that he should accept Mr. Filthorpe's offer. It would keep him nearer to
+her in every sense. She had few opportunities of talking with him alone
+now--far fewer than at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to say a few
+words privately to him one afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bodkin's
+whist-party), and she timidly hinted that if Algy went to Bristol,
+instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not feel
+that she had lost him so completely.
+
+"My dear child!" exclaimed Algy, whose outlook on life had a good deal
+changed during the last three months, "how can you talk so? Fancy me on
+Filthorpe's office stool!"
+
+"London is such a long way off, Algy," murmured the girl plaintively.
+"And then, amongst all those grand people, lords and ladies, you--you
+may grow different."
+
+"Upon my word, my dear Rhoda, your appreciation of me is highly
+flattering! For my part it seems to me more likely that I should grow
+'different' in the society of Bristol tradesmen than amongst my own kith
+and kin--people like myself and my parents in education and manners. I
+am a gentleman, Rhoda. Lord Seely is not more."
+
+Rhoda shrank back abashed before this magnificent young gentleman. Such
+a flourish was very unusual in Algernon. But the Ancram strain in him
+had been asserting itself lately. He was sorry when he saw the poor
+girl's hurt look and downcast eyes, from which the big tears were
+silently falling one by one. He took her in his arms, and kissed her
+pale cheeks, and brought a blush on to them, and an April smile to her
+lips; and called her his own dear pretty Rhoda, whom he could never,
+never forget.
+
+"Perhaps it would be best to forget me, Algy," she faltered. And
+although his loving words, and flatteries, and caresses, were
+inexpressibly sweet to her, the pain remained at her heart.
+
+She never again ventured to say a word to him about his plans. She would
+listen, meekly and admiringly, to his vivid pictures of all the fine
+things he was to do in the future: pictures in which her figure
+appeared--like the donor of a great altarpiece, full of splendid saints
+and golden-crowned angels--kneeling in one corner. And she would sit in
+silent anguish whilst Mrs. Errington expatiated on her son's prospects;
+wherein, of late, a "great alliance" played a large part. But she could
+not rouse herself to elation or enthusiasm. This mattered little to Mrs.
+Errington, who only required her confidante to stand tolerably still
+with her back to the audience. But it worried Algernon to see Rhoda's
+sad, downcast face, irresponsive to any of his bright anticipations. It
+must be owned that the young fellow's position was not entirely
+pleasant. Yet his admirable temper and spirits scarcely flagged. He was
+never cross, except, now and then, just a very little to his mother. And
+if no one else in the world less deserved his ill-humour, at least no
+one else in the world was so absolutely certain to forgive him for it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Parliament was to meet early in February. It seemed strange that that
+fact should have any interest for Rhoda Maxfield; nevertheless, so it
+was. Algernon was to go to London, but it was no use to be there unless
+Lord Seely, "our cousin," were there also; and my lord our cousin would
+not be in town before the meeting of parliament. Thus the assembling of
+the peers and commons of this realm at Westminster was an event on which
+poor Rhoda's thoughts were bent pretty often in the course of the
+twenty-four hours.
+
+Mrs. Errington announced to the whole Maxfield family that Algernon was
+going away from Whitford, and accompanied the announcement with florid
+descriptions of the glory that awaited her son, in the highest Ancram
+style of embellishment.
+
+"Well," said old Max, after listening awhile, "and will this lord get
+Mr. Algernon a place?"
+
+Mrs. Errington could not answer this question very definitely. The
+future was vague, though splendid. But of course Algy would distinguish
+himself. That was a matter of course. Perhaps he might begin as Lord
+Seely's private secretary.
+
+"A sekketary! Humph! I don't think much o' that!" grunted Mr. Maxfield.
+
+"My dear man, you don't understand these things. How should you? Many
+noblemen's sons would only be too delighted to get the position of
+private secretary to Lord Seely. A man of such distinction! Hand and
+glove with the sovereign!"
+
+Maxfield did not altogether dislike to hear his lodger hold forth in
+this fashion. He had a certain pleasure in contemplating the future
+grandeur of Mr. Algernon, whose ears he had boxed years ago, on the
+occasion of finding him enacting the battle of Waterloo, with a couple
+of schoolfellows, in the warehouse behind the shop, and attacking a
+Hougoumont of tea-chests and flour-barrels, so briskly, as to threaten
+their entire demolition.
+
+Maxfield was weaving speculations in connection with the young man, of
+so wild and fanciful a nature as would have astonished his most familiar
+friends, could they have peeped into the brain inside his grizzled old
+head.
+
+But this rose-coloured condition of things did not last.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Errington looked into his little sitting-room, on
+her way upstairs, and finding him with an account-book, in which he was,
+not making, but reading entries, she stepped in, and began to chat; if
+any speech so laboriously condescending as hers to Mr. Maxfield may be
+thus designated. Her theme, of course, was her son, and her son's
+prospects.
+
+"That'll be all very fine for Mr. Algernon, to be sure," said old Max,
+slowly, after some time, "but--it'll cost money."
+
+"Not so much as you think for. Low persons who feel themselves in a
+false position, no doubt find it necessary to make a show. But a real
+gentleman can afford to be simple."
+
+"But I take it he'll have to afford other things besides being simple!
+He'll have to afford clothes, and lodging, and maybe food. You aren't
+rich."
+
+Mrs. Errington admitted the fact.
+
+"Algernon ought to find a wife with a bit o' money," said the old man,
+looking straight and hard into the lady's eyes. Those round orbs
+sustained the gaze as unflinchingly as if they had been made of blue
+china.
+
+"It is not at all a bad idea," Mrs. Errington said, graciously.
+
+"But then he wouldn't just take the first ugly woman as had a fort'n."
+
+"Oh dear no!"
+
+"No; nor yet an old 'un."
+
+"Good gracious, man! of course not!"
+
+"Young, pretty, good, and a bit o' money. That's about his mark, eh?"
+
+Mrs. Errington shook her head pathetically. "She ought to have birth,
+too," she said. "But the woman takes her husband's rank; unless," she
+added, correcting herself, and with much emphasis, "unless she happens
+to be the better born of the two."
+
+"Oh, she does, eh? The woman takes her husband's rank? Ah! well, that's
+script'ral. I have never troubled my head about these vain worldly
+distinctions; but that is script'ral."
+
+Mrs. Errington was not there to discuss her landlord's opinions or to
+listen to them; but he served as well as another to be the recipient of
+her talk about Algernon, which accordingly she resumed, and indulged in
+ever-higher flights of boasting. Her mendacity, like George Wither's
+muse,
+
+    As it made wing, so it made power.
+
+"The fact is, there is more than one young lady on whom my connections
+in London have cast their eye for Algy. Miss Pickleham, only daughter of
+the great drysalter, who is such an eminent member of Parliament;
+Blanche Fitzsnowdon, Judge Whitelamb's lovely niece; one of
+Major-General Indigo's charming girls, all of them perfect specimens of
+the Eastern style of beauty--their mother was an Indian princess, and
+enormously wealthy. But I am in no hurry for my boy to bind himself in
+an engagement: it hampers a young man's career."
+
+"Career!" broke out old Max, who had listened to all this, and much
+more, with an increasingly dismayed and lowering expression of
+countenance. "Why, what's his career to be? He's been brought up to do
+nothing! It 'ud be his only chance to get hold of a wife with a bit o'
+money. Then he might act the gentleman at his ease; and maybe his fine
+friends 'ud help him when they found he didn't want it. But as for
+career--it's my opinion as he'll never earn his salt!"
+
+And with that the old man marched across the passage into the shop,
+taking no further notice of his lodger; and she heard him slam the
+little half-door, giving access to the storehouse, with such force as to
+set the jingling bell on it tinkling for full five minutes.
+
+Mrs. Errington was so surprised by this sally, that she stood staring
+after him for some time before she was able to collect herself
+sufficiently to walk majestically upstairs.
+
+"Maxfield's temper becomes more and more extraordinary," she said to her
+son, with an air of great solemnity. "The man really forgets himself
+altogether. Do you suppose that he drinks, Algy? or is he, do you think,
+a little touched?" She put her finger to her forehead. "Really I should
+not wonder. There has been a great deal of preaching and screeching
+lately, since this Powell came; and, you know, they do say that these
+Ranters and Methodists sometimes go raving mad at their field-meetings
+and love-feasts. You need not laugh, my dear boy; I have often heard
+your father say that nothing was more contagious than that sort of
+hysterical excitement. And your father was a physician; and certainly
+knew his profession if he didn't know the world, poor man!"
+
+"Was old Max hysterical, ma'am?" asked Algernon, his whole face lighted
+up with mischievous amusement. And the notion so tickled him, that he
+burst out laughing at intervals, as it recurred to him, all the rest of
+the day.
+
+Betty Grimshaw, and Sarah, the servant-maid, and James, helping his
+father to serve in the shop, and the customers who came to buy, all
+suffered from the unusual exacerbation of Maxfield's temper for some
+time after that conversation of his with Mrs. Errington.
+
+It increased, also, the resentful feeling which had been growing in his
+mind towards David Powell. The young man's tone of rebuke, in speaking
+of Rhoda's associating with the Erringtons, had taken Maxfield by
+surprise at the time; and he had not, he afterwards thought, been
+sufficiently trenchant in his manner of putting down the presumptuous
+reprover. He blew up his wrath until it burned hot within him; and, the
+more so, inasmuch as he could give no vent to it in direct terms. To
+question and admonish was the acknowledged duty of a Methodist preacher.
+Conference made no exceptions in favour even of so select a vessel as
+Jonathan Maxfield. But Maxfield thought, nevertheless, that Powell ought
+to have had modesty and discernment to make the exception himself.
+
+No inquisitor--no priest, sitting like a mysterious Eastern idol in the
+inviolate shrine of the confessional--ever exercised a more tremendous
+power over the human conscience than was laid in the hands of the
+Methodist preacher or leader according to Wesley's original conception
+of his functions. But besides the essential difference between the
+Romish and Methodist systems that the latter could bring no physical
+force to bear on the refractory, there was this important point to be
+noted: namely, that the inquisitor might be subjected to inquisition by
+his flock. The priest might be made to come forth from the
+confessional-box, and answer to a pressing catechism before all the
+congregation. In the band-meetings and select societies each individual
+bound himself to answer the most searching questions "concerning his
+state, sins, and temptations." It was a mutual inquisition, to which,
+of course, those who took part in it voluntarily submitted themselves.
+
+But the spiritual power wielded by the chiefs was very great, as their
+own subordination to the conference was very complete. Its pernicious
+effects were, however, greatly kept in check by the system of
+itinerancy, which required the preachers to move frequently from place
+to place.
+
+There are few human virtues or weaknesses to which, on one side or the
+other, Methodism in its primitive manifestations did not appeal.
+Benevolence, self-sacrifice, fervent piety, temperance, charity, were
+all called into play by its teachings. But so also were spiritual
+pride, narrow-mindedness, fanaticism, gloom, and pharisaical
+self-righteousness. Only to the slothful, and such as loved their ease
+above all things, early Methodism had no seductions to offer.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield's father and grandfather had been disciples of John
+Wesley. The grandfather was born in 1710, seven years before Wesley, and
+had been among the great preacher's earliest adherents in Bristol.
+
+Traditions of John Wesley's sayings and doings were cherished and handed
+down in the family. They claimed kindred with Thomas Maxfield, Wesley's
+first preacher, and conveniently forgot or ignored--as greater families
+have done--those parts of their kinsman's career which ran counter to
+the present course of their creed and conduct. For Thomas Maxfield
+seceded from Wesley, but the grandfather and father of Jonathan
+continued true to Methodism all their lives. They married within the
+"society" (as was strictly enjoined at the first conference), and
+assisted the spread of its tenets throughout their part of the West of
+England.
+
+In the third generation, however, the original fire of Methodism had
+nearly burnt itself out, and a few charred sticks remained to attest the
+brightness that had been. Never, perhaps, in the case of the
+Maxfields--a cramp-natured, harsh breed--had the fire become a
+hearth-glow to warm their homes with. It had rather been like the
+crackling of thorns under a pot. The dryest and sharpest will flare for
+a while.
+
+Old Max, nevertheless, looked upon himself as an exemplary Methodist. He
+made no mental analyses of himself or of his neighbours. He merely took
+cognisance of facts as they appeared to him through the distorting
+medium of his prejudices, temper, ignorance, and the habits of a
+lifetime. When he did or said disagreeable things, he prided himself on
+doing his duty. And his self-approval was never troubled by the
+reflection that he did not altogether dislike a little bitter flavour in
+his daily life, as some persons prefer their wine rough.
+
+But to do and say disagreeable things because it is your duty is a very
+different matter from accepting, or listening to, disagreeable things,
+because it is somebody else's duty to do and say them! It was not to be
+expected that Jonathan Maxfield should meekly endure rebuke from a young
+man like David Powell.
+
+And now crept in the exasperating suspicion that the young man might
+have been right in his warning! Maxfield watched his daughter with more
+anxiety than he had ever felt about her in his life, looking to see
+symptoms of dejection at Algernon's approaching departure. He did not
+know that she had been aware of it before it was announced to himself.
+
+One day her father said to her abruptly, "Rhoda, you're looking very
+pale and out o' sorts. Your eyes are heavy" (they were swollen with
+crying), "and your face is the colour of a turnip. I think I shall send
+you off to Duckwell for a bit of a change."
+
+Duckwell Farm was owned by Seth, Maxfield's eldest son.
+
+"I don't want a change, indeed, father," said the girl, looking up
+quickly and eagerly. "I had a headache this morning, but it is quite
+gone now. That's what made me look so pale."
+
+From that time forward she exerted herself to appear cheerful, and to
+shake off the dull pain at the heart which weighed her down, until her
+father began to persuade himself that he had been mistaken, and
+over-anxious. She always declared herself to be quite well and free from
+care. "And I know she would not tell me a lie," thought the old man.
+
+Alas, she had learned to lie in her words and her manner. She had, for
+the first time in her life, a motive for concealment, and she used the
+natural armour of the weak--duplicity.
+
+Rhoda had been "good" hitherto, because her nature was gentle, and her
+impulses affectionate. She had no strong religious fervour, but she
+lived blamelessly, and prayed reverently, and was docile and
+humble-minded. She had never professed to have attained that sudden and
+complete regeneration of spirit which is the prime glory of Methodism.
+But then many good persons lived and died without attaining "assurance."
+Whenever Rhoda thought on the subject--which, to say the truth, was not
+often, for her nature, though sweet and pure, was not capable of much
+spiritual aspiration, and was altogether incapable of fervent
+self-searching and fiery enthusiasm--she hoped with simple faith that
+she should be saved if she did nothing wicked.
+
+Her father and David Powell would have pointed out to her, that her
+"doing," or leaving undone, could have no influence on the matter. But
+their words bore small fruit in her mind. Her father's religious
+teaching had the dryness of an accustomed formality to her ears. It had
+been poured into them before she had sense to comprehend it, and had
+grown to be nearly meaningless, like the everyday salutation we exchange
+a hundred times, without expecting or thinking of the answer.
+
+David Powell was certainly neither dry nor formal, but he frightened
+her. She shut her understanding against the disturbing influence of his
+words, as she would have pressed her fingers into her pretty ears to
+keep out the thunder. And then her dream of love had come and filled her
+life.
+
+In most of us it wonderfully alters the focus of the mind's eye with its
+glamour, that dream. To Rhoda it seemed the one thing beautiful and
+desirable. And--to say all the truth--the pain of mind which she felt,
+other than that connected with her lover's going away, and which she
+attributed to remorse for the little deceptions and concealments she
+practised, was occasioned almost entirely by the latent dread, lest the
+time should come when she should sit lonely, looking at the cold ashes
+of Algy's burnt-out love. For she did mistrust his constancy, although
+no power would have forced the confession from her. This blind,
+obstinate clinging to the beloved was, perhaps, the only form in which
+self-esteem ever strongly manifested itself in that soft, timid nature.
+
+There was one person who watched Rhoda more understandingly than her
+father did, and who had more serious apprehensions on her account. David
+Powell knew, as did nearly all Whitford by this time, that young
+Errington was going away; and he clearly saw that the change in Rhoda
+was connected with that departure. He marked her pallor, her absence of
+mind, her fits of silence, broken by forced bursts of assumed
+cheerfulness. Her feigning did not deceive him.
+
+Albeit of almost equally narrow education with Jonathan Maxfield, Powell
+had gained, in his frequent changes of place and contact with many
+strange people, a wider knowledge of the world than the Whitford
+tradesman possessed. He perceived how unlikely it was, that people like
+the Erringtons should seriously contemplate allying themselves by
+marriage with "old Max;" but that was not the worst. To the preacher's
+mind, the girl's position was, in the highest degree, perilous; for he
+conceived that what would be accounted by the world the happiest
+possible solution to such a love as Rhoda's, would involve nothing less
+than the putting in jeopardy her eternal welfare. He could not look
+forward with any hope to a union between Rhoda and such a one as
+Algernon Errington.
+
+"The son is a shallow-hearted, fickle youth, with the vanity of a boy
+and the selfishness of a man; the mother, a mere worldling, living in
+decent godlessness."
+
+Such was David Powell's judgment. He reflected long and earnestly. What
+was his calling--his business in life? To save souls. He had no concern
+with anything else. He must seek out and help, not only those who needed
+him, but those who most needed him.
+
+All conventional rules of conduct, all restraining considerations of a
+merely social or worldly kind, were as threads of gossamer to this man
+whensoever they opposed the higher commands which he believed to have
+been laid upon him.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield was falling away from godliness. He, too evidently,
+was willing to give up his daughter into the tents of the heathen. The
+pomps and vanities of this wicked world had taken hold of the old man.
+Satan had ensnared and bribed him with the bait of worldly ambition.
+From Jonathan there was no real help to be expected.
+
+In the little garret-chamber, where he lodged in the house of a
+widow--one of the most devout of the Methodist congregation--the
+preacher rose from his knees one midnight, and took from his breast the
+little, worn pocket-Bible, which he always carried. A bright cold moon
+shone in at the uncurtained window, but its beams did not suffice to
+enable him to read the small print of his Bible. He had no candle; but
+he struck a light with a match, and, by its brief flare, read these
+words, on which his finger had fallen as he opened the book:
+
+"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?
+
+"To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?"
+
+He had drawn a lot, and this was the answer. The leading was clear. He
+would speak openly with Rhoda himself. He would pray and wrestle; he
+would argue and exhort. He would awaken her spirit, lulled to sleep by
+the sweet voice of the tempter.
+
+It would truly be little less than a miracle, should he succeed by the
+mere force of his earnest eloquence, in persuading a young girl like
+Rhoda to renounce her first love.
+
+But, then, David Powell believed in miracles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+All that she had heard of the Methodist preacher had taken strong hold
+of Minnie Bodkin's imagination. Mr. Diamond's description of him
+especially delighted her. It was in piquant contrast with her previous
+notions about Methodists, who were associated in her mind with ludicrous
+images. This man must be something entirely different--picturesque and
+interesting.
+
+But there was a deeper feeling in her mind than the mere curiosity to
+see a remarkable person. Minnie was not happy; and her unhappiness was
+not solely due to the fact of her bodily infirmities. She often felt a
+yearning for a higher spiritual support and comfort than she had ever
+derived from her father's teachings. She passed in review the
+congregation of the parish church, most of whom were known to her, and
+she asked herself what good result in their lives or characters was
+produced by their weekly church-going. Was Mrs. Errington more truthful;
+Miss Chubb less vain; Mr. Warlock less gloomy; her father (for Minnie,
+in the pride of her keen intellect, spared no one) less arrogant and
+overbearing; she herself more patient, gentle, hopeful, and happy, than
+if the old bell of St. Chad's were silent, and the worm-eaten old doors
+shut, and the dusty old pulpit voiceless, for evermore? Yet there were
+said to be people on whom religion had a vital influence. She wished she
+could know such. She could judge, she thought, by seeing and conversing
+with them, whether or not there were any reality in their professions.
+Minnie seldom doubted the sufficiency of her own acumen and penetration.
+
+No; she was not happy. And might it not be that this Methodist man had
+the secret of peace of mind? Was there in truth a physician who could
+minister to a suffering spirit? She thought of Powell with the feeling
+half of shame, half of credulity, with which an invalid hankers after a
+quack medicine.
+
+Minnie had been taught to look upon Dissenters in general as quacks, and
+upon Methodists as arch-quacks. Dr. Bodkin professed himself a staunch
+Churchman and a hater of "cant." He considered that Protestantism, and
+the right of private judgment, had justly reached their extreme limits
+in the Church of England as by law established. He detested enthusiasm
+as a dangerous and disturbing element in human affairs, and he viewed
+with especial indignation the pretensions of unlearned persons to
+preach and proselytise. Although he had no leaning to Romanism, he would
+rather have admitted a Jesuit into his house than a Methodist. Indeed,
+he sometimes defined the latter to be the Jesuit of dissent--only, as he
+would take care to point out, a Jesuit without learning, culture, or
+authority.
+
+"I can listen to a gentleman, although I may not agree with him," the
+Doctor would say (albeit, in truth, he had no great gift of listening to
+anyone who opposed his opinions), "but am I to be hectored and lectured
+by the cobbler and the tinker?"
+
+Minnie had no taste for being hectored or lectured; but it seemed to her
+that what the cobbler and tinker said, was more important than the fact
+that it was they who said it. She thought, and pondered, and wondered
+about the Methodist preacher, and about her chance of ever seeing or
+hearing more of him, until a thought darted into her mind like an arrow.
+Little Rhoda! She was a Methodist born and bred, and knew this preacher,
+and----Minnie would send for little Rhoda.
+
+When she announced this resolution to her mother, Mrs. Bodkin found
+several difficulties in the way of its fulfilment.
+
+"What do you want with her, Minnie?"
+
+"I want to see her. Mrs. Errington talks so much of her. I remember her
+coming here with a message once, when she was a child. I recollect only
+a little fair face and shy eyes, under a coal-scuttle straw bonnet.
+Don't you, mamma? And I want to talk to her about several things," added
+Minnie, with resolute truthfulness.
+
+"Oh, dear me! What will your papa say?"
+
+"I don't see how papa can object to my asking this nice little thing to
+come to me for an afternoon, when he doesn't mind your boring yourself
+to death with Goody Barton, whose snuff-taking would try the nerves of a
+rhinoceros, nor forbid my inviting the little Jobsons, who are
+unpleasant to look upon, and stupid beyond the wildest flights of
+imagination. He lets me have any one I like."
+
+"Yes; but you teach the little Jobsons the alphabet, my dear. And that
+is a charitable work."
+
+"And Rhoda will amuse me, and I'm sure that is a charitable work!"
+
+Minnie would get her own way, of course. She always did.
+
+That same evening Minnie said to her father, with her frank, bright
+smile, "Papa, may I not ask Rhoda Maxfield to take tea with me some
+afternoon?"
+
+"Rhoda what?"
+
+"Little Maxfield, the grocer's daughter, papa," said Minnie, boldly.
+
+Mrs. Bodkin bent nervously over her knitting.
+
+"What on earth for? Why do you want to associate with such folks? Have
+you not plenty of friends without----?"
+
+"No, papa. But I don't ask her because I'm in want of friends."
+
+"Oh, Minnie," said Mrs. Bodkin in the quick, low tones she habitually
+spoke in, "I'm sure nobody has more friends than you have! Everybody is
+so glad to come to you, always."
+
+"You're my friend, mamma. And papa is my friend. Never mind the rest. I
+want to have little Maxfield to tea." Minnie laughed at herself, the
+moment after she had said the words, in the tone of a spoiled child.
+
+Dr. Bodkin crossed and uncrossed his legs, kicked a footstool out of the
+way, and then got up and stood before the fire.
+
+"If you want amusement, isn't there Miss Chubb or the McDougalls, or--or
+plenty more?" said he, shooting out his upper lip, and frowning
+uneasily.
+
+"Now, papa, can you say in conscience that you find Miss Chubb and the
+McDougalls perennially amusing?" Then, with a sudden change of tone,
+"Besides, you know, the other people are playing their parts in life,
+and strutting about hither and thither on the stage, and they find it
+all more or less interesting. But I--I am like a child at a peep-show. I
+can but look on, and I sometimes long for a change in the scene and the
+puppets!"
+
+The doctor began to poke the fire violently. "Laura," said he,
+addressing his wife, "that last tea you got is good for nothing. They
+brought me a cup just now in the study that was absolutely undrinkable.
+Is it Smith's tea? Well, try Maxfield's. You can have some ordered when
+the message is sent for the girl to come here."
+
+In this way the doctor gave his permission.
+
+The next day Minnie despatched her maid, Jane, with the following note
+to Mr. Maxfield:--
+
+"Will Mr. Maxfield allow his daughter Rhoda to spend the afternoon with
+Miss Bodkin? Miss Bodkin is an invalid, and cannot often leave her room,
+and it would give her great pleasure to see Rhoda. The maid shall wait
+and accompany Rhoda if Mr. Maxfield permits, and Miss Bodkin undertakes
+to have her sent safely home again in the evening."
+
+Old Max was scarcely more surprised than gratified on reading this
+invitation. He stood behind his counter holding the pink perfumed note
+between his floury finger and thumb, and turning over the contents of it
+in his mind, whilst his son James served the maid with some tea.
+
+Miss Minnie was a much-looked-up-to personage in Whitford. And here was
+Miss Minnie inviting Rhoda just as though she had been a lady, and
+sending her own maid for her. This would be Algy's doing, the old man
+decided. Algy had more sense than his mother. Algy knew that Rhoda was
+fit to go anywhere, and could hold her own with the best. The young
+fellow was very thick with Dr. Bodkin's family, and had, no doubt,
+talked to Miss Minnie about Rhoda. All sorts of ideas thronged into old
+Max's head, which, nevertheless, looked as obstinately idealess a one as
+could well be imagined, as he stood conning the pink note, with his grey
+eyebrows knotted together, and his heavy under-lip pursed up. Perhaps
+not the feeblest element in his feeling of exultation was the sense of
+triumph over David Powell. Powell might approve or disapprove, but
+anyway, he would see that he was wrong in supposing the Erringtons did
+not think Rhoda good enough for them! If they introduced her about among
+their friends, that meant a good deal, eh, brother David? And that the
+invitation came by means of the Erringtons, Maxfield felt more and more
+convinced, the more he thought of it. So many years had passed, and Miss
+Minnie had taken no notice of Rhoda. Why should she now? Maxfield was at
+no loss to find the answer. Maybe old Mrs. Errington had talked for
+talk's sake more than she meant. Maybe her boasting was in order to
+drive a hard bargain, when Algy should come forward and offer to make
+Rhoda a lady.
+
+The Erringtons' friends were going little by little to make acquaintance
+with Rhoda, in view of the promotion that awaited her. Well, Rhoda could
+stand the test. Rhoda was quite different from the likes of him.
+
+He called his sister-in-law out of the kitchen, and in a few hurried
+words told her of the invitation, and bade her tell Rhoda to get ready
+without delay. He cut Betty Grimshaw short in her exclamations and
+inquiries. "I've no time to talk to you now," he said. "The maid is
+waiting. Bid Rhoda clothe herself in her best garments."
+
+"What! her Sunday frock, Jonathan?" exclaimed Betty in shrill surprise.
+
+"'Sh! woman!" answered Maxfield, and gripped her wrist fiercely. He did
+not want that family detail to come to the ears of Miss Bodkin's maid.
+
+Rhoda was completely bewildered by the invitation, and by the breathless
+haste with which Betty announced it to her, and hurried her
+preparations. "But I don't want to go!" murmured Rhoda plaintively. At
+the same time she suffered her clothes to be huddled on to her in Aunt
+Betty's rough fashion.
+
+"Ah! tell that to your parent, my dear. I have the mark of his fingers
+on my wrist at this moment; he was in such a taking, and so--so
+uncumboundable." This latter was a word of Betty's own invention, and
+she frequently employed it with an air of great relish.
+
+The idea of going amongst strangers was more terrible to Rhoda than can
+easily be conceived by those who have never lived so secluded a life as
+hers had been. Had she been able to say a word to Algernon, she thought
+she should have derived a little comfort and support from him. But he
+and his mother were both from home.
+
+All the way from her own house to Dr. Bodkin's, Rhoda uttered no word,
+except to ask Jane timidly if she were sure Miss Minnie would be
+alone--quite alone?
+
+The gloomy courtyard, and the stone entrance hall of the house struck
+her with awe. The old man-servant who opened the door seemed to look
+severely on her. She followed Jane with a beating heart up the wide
+staircase, whose thick carpet muffled her footsteps mysteriously, and
+then through a drawing-room full of furniture all covered with grey
+holland. There was the glitter of gilt picture-frames on the walls, and
+the shining of a great mirror, and of a large, dark, polished pianoforte
+at one end of the room. And there was a mingled smell of flowers and
+cedar-wood, and altogether the impression made upon Rhoda's senses, as
+she passed through the apartment, was one of perfume, and silence, and
+vague splendour. She had no time, even if she had had self-possession,
+to examine the details of what seemed to her so grand, for she was led
+across a passage and into a room opposite to the drawing-room, and found
+herself in Miss Bodkin's presence.
+
+The room was Minnie's bedroom, but it did not look like a sleeping
+chamber, Rhoda thought. To be sure a little white-curtained bed stood in
+one corner, but all the toilet apparatus was hidden by a curtain which
+hung across a recess, and there were bookshelves full of books, and
+flowers on a stand, and a writing-table. On one side of the fireplace,
+in which a bright fire blazed, there was a curious sort of long chair,
+and in it, dressed in a loose crimson robe of soft woollen stuff,
+reclined Minnie Bodkin.
+
+Rhoda was, as has been said, extremely sensitive to beauty, and Minnie's
+whole aspect struck her with admiration. The picturesque rich-coloured
+robe, the delicate white hands relieved upon it, the graceful languor of
+Minnie's attitude, and the air of refinement in the young lady and her
+surroundings, were all intensely appreciated by poor little Rhoda, who
+stood dumb and blushing before her hostess.
+
+Minnie, on her part, was a good deal taken by surprise. She welcomed
+Rhoda with her sweetest smile, and thanked her for coming, and made her
+sit down by the fire opposite to herself; and when they were alone
+together, she talked on for some time with a sort of careless
+good-nature, which, little by little, succeeded in setting Rhoda
+somewhat at her ease. But careless as Minnie's manner was, she was
+scrutinising the other girl's looks and ways very keenly.
+
+"She is absolutely lovely!" thought Minnie, "And so graceful,
+and--and--lady-like! Yes; positively that is the word. She is as shy as
+a fawn, but no more awkward than one. It is not what I expected."
+
+Perhaps Minnie could scarcely have said what it was that she had
+expected. Probably a quiet, pretty-looking, well-behaved young person,
+like her maid Jane. Rhoda was something very different, and the young
+lady was charmed with her new _protégée_. Only she was obliged to admit,
+before the afternoon was over, that she had failed in the main object
+for which she had invited Rhoda to visit her. There was no clear and
+vivid account of Powell, his teaching, or his preaching, to be got from
+Rhoda.
+
+Rhoda could not remember exactly what Mr. Powell said. Rhoda could not
+say what it was which made all the people cry and grow so excited at his
+preaching. Rhoda cried herself sometimes, but that was when he talked
+very pitifully about poor people, and little children, and things like
+that. Sometimes, too, she felt frightened at his preaching, but she
+supposed she was frightened because she had not got assurance. Many of
+the congregation had assurance. Yes; oh yes, the people said Mr. Powell
+was a wonderful man, and the most awakening preacher who had been in
+Whitford for fifty years.
+
+Minnie looked at the simple, serious face, and marked the childlike
+demureness of manner with which Rhoda declared Mr. Powell to be "an
+awakening preacher." "I don't think he has awakened you to any very
+startling extent!" thought Minnie. "This girl seems to have received no
+strong influence from him."
+
+That was in a great measure the fact; but also, Rhoda was held back from
+speaking freely, by the conviction that her Methodist phraseology would
+sound strange, and perhaps absurd, in the young lady's ears. Moreover,
+it did not help to put her at her ease, that she felt sundry uneasy
+pricks of conscience for not "bearing testimony" with more fervour. She
+knew that David Powell would have had her improve the occasion to the
+uttermost. But how could she run the risk of being disagreeable to Miss
+Minnie, who was so kind to her?
+
+That was the form in which Rhoda mentally put the case. The truth was,
+hers was not one of those natures to which the invisible ever becomes
+more real and important than the visible. It was incomparably more
+necessary to her happiness to be in agreeable and smooth relations with
+the people around her, than to feel herself in higher spiritual
+communion with unseen powers.
+
+When Minnie at length reluctantly desisted from questioning her on the
+subject of Powell, and her chapel-going, and her religious feelings, she
+was surprised to find how the girl's frigid, constrained manner thawed,
+and how her tongue was loosened.
+
+She chatted freely enough about her visit to Llanryddan in the summer,
+and about Duckwell Farm, where her half-brother Seth lived, and, above
+all, about Mrs. Errington. Mrs. Errington had been so good to her, and
+had taught her, and talked to her; and did Miss Minnie know what a
+change it was for a lady like Mrs. Errington to live in such a poor
+place as theirs? For, although she had the best rooms, of course it was
+very poor, compared with the castle she was brought up in. About
+Algernon she said very little; but it slipped out that she was in the
+habit of being present when Mr. Diamond came to read with the young
+gentleman; and then Miss Minnie was very much interested in hearing what
+Mr. Diamond said to his pupil, and how Rhoda liked Mr. Diamond, and what
+she thought of him. And when it appeared that Rhoda had thought very
+little about him at all, but considered him a very clever, learned
+gentleman--perhaps a little stiff and grave, but not at all unkind--Miss
+Minnie smiled to herself and said, "He is a little stiff and grave,
+Rhoda. Not the kind of person to attract one very much, eh!"
+
+And then tea was brought, and Rhoda sipped hers out of a delicate
+porcelain cup, like those which Mrs. Errington had in her corner
+cupboard. And there were some delicious cakes, which Rhoda was quite
+natural enough to own she liked very much. And then Mrs. Bodkin came in,
+and sat down beside her daughter; and finally, at Minnie's request, she
+took Rhoda into the drawing-room, and played to her on the grand piano.
+
+"Rhoda likes music, she says, mamma. But she has never heard a good
+instrument. Do play her a bit of Mozart!"
+
+"I am no great performer, my dear," said Mrs. Bodkin, opening the piano;
+"but I keep up my playing on my daughter's account. She is not strong
+enough to play for herself."
+
+Minnie had her chair wheeled into the drawing-room, in order, as she
+whispered to her mother, to enjoy Rhoda's face when she should hear the
+music.
+
+Rhoda sat by and listened, in a trance of delight, while Mrs. Bodkin
+made the keys of the instrument delicately sound a minuet of Mozart,
+and then give forth more volume of tone in "The Heavens are telling."
+This was different, indeed, from the tinkling old harpsichord at home!
+The music transported her. When it ceased she was breathing quickly, and
+her eyes were full of tears. "Oh, how beautiful!" she faltered out.
+
+"Why, child, you are a capital audience!" said Mrs. Bodkin, smiling
+kindly.
+
+Then it was time to go home. She was made to promise that she would come
+again and see Minnie whenever her father would let her. She left Dr.
+Bodkin's house in a very different frame of mind from that in which she
+had entered it. Yet she was as silent on her way home as she had been in
+the afternoon.
+
+How happy gentlefolks must be, who always can have music, and flowers,
+and talk in such soft voices, and are so polite in their manners, and so
+dainty in their persons! She could not help contrasting the coarse,
+rough ways at home with the smoothness and softness of the life she had
+had a glimpse of at Dr. Bodkin's. She tried to hold fast in her memory
+the pleasant sights and sounds of the day.
+
+In this mood, half-enjoying, half-regretful, she arrived at her father's
+house to find the little parlour full of people--besides her own family
+and Powell there were two or three neighbours who joined in the
+exercises--and a prayer-meeting just culminating in a long-drawn hymn,
+bawled out with more zeal than sweetness by the little assembly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Rhoda stood with her hand on the parlour-door for a minute or so. Little
+Sarah, the servant-maid, who had admitted her into the house, and had
+left the parlour in order to do so--for all the Maxfield household was
+held bound to join in these weekly prayer-meetings--told her that the
+hymn would be over directly. Rhoda felt shy of entering into the midst
+of the people assembled, and of encountering the questions and
+expressions of surprise which her unprecedented absence from the
+evening's devotions would certainly occasion.
+
+Presently the singing ceased. Rhoda ran as quickly and noiselessly as
+she could along the passage, and half-way up the stairs. From her post
+there she heard the neighbours go away, and the street-door close
+heavily behind them. Now she might venture to slip down. Everyone was
+gone. The house was quite still. She ran into the parlour, and found
+herself face to face with David Powell.
+
+Her Aunt Betty was piling the hymn-books in their place on the little
+table where they stood. There was no one else in the room.
+
+"Where's father?" asked Rhoda, hastily. Then she recollected herself,
+and bade Mr. Powell "Good evening." He returned her salutation with his
+usual gentleness, but with more than his usual gravity.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Betty Grimshaw, looking round from the books. "It's you,
+is it, Rhoda? Your father is gone with Mr. Gladwish to his house for a
+bit. They have some business together. He'll be back by supper."
+
+It very seldom happened that Maxfield left his house after dark. Still
+such a thing had occurred once or twice. Mr. Gladwish, the shoemaker,
+was a steward of the Methodist society, and Maxfield not unfrequently
+had occasion to confer with him. Their business this evening was not so
+pressing but that it might have been deferred. But Maxfield did not
+choose to give Powell an opportunity of private conversation with
+himself at that time; he wanted to see his way clearer before he took
+the decided step of openly putting himself into opposition with the
+practice of his brethren, and the advice of the preacher; and he knew
+Powell well enough to be sure that evasions would not avail with him.
+Therefore he had gone out as soon as the prayers were at an end.
+
+"I must see to the supper," said Betty, and bustled off without another
+word. Nothing would have kept her in Mr. Powell's society but the
+masterful influence of her brother-in-law. She escaped to her haven of
+refuge, the kitchen, where the moral atmosphere was not too rarefied for
+the comfortable breathing of ordinary folks.
+
+David Powell and Rhoda were left alone together. Rhoda made a little
+half-timid, half-impatient movement of her shoulders. She wished Powell
+gone, more heartily than she had ever done before in the course of her
+acquaintance with him.
+
+Powell stood, with his hands clasped and his eyes cast down, in deep
+meditation.
+
+At length Rhoda took courage to murmur a word or two about going to take
+her cloak off. Aunt Betty would be back presently. If Mr. Powell didn't
+mind for a minute or two----She was gliding towards the door, when his
+voice stopped her.
+
+"Tarry a little, Rhoda," said the preacher, looking up at her with his
+lustrous, earnest eyes. "I have something on my soul to say to you."
+
+Rhoda's eyes fell before his, as they habitually did now. She felt as
+though he could read her heart; and she had something to hide in it. She
+did not seat herself, but stood, with one hand on the wooden
+mantelshelf, looking into the fire. In her other hand she held her
+straw bonnet by its violet ribbon, and her waving brown hair shone in
+the firelight.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Powell?" she asked.
+
+She spoke sharply, and her tones smote painfully on her hearer. He did
+not understand that the sharpness in it was born of fear.
+
+"Rhoda," he began, "my spirit has been much exercised on your behalf."
+
+He paused; but she did not speak, only bent her head a little lower, as
+she stood leaning in the same attitude.
+
+"Rhoda, I fear your soul is unawakened. You are sweet and gentle, as a
+dove or a lamb is gentle; but you have not the root of the matter as a
+Christian hath it. The fabric is built on sand. Fair as it is, a breath
+may overthrow it. There is but one sure foundation whereon to lay our
+lives, and yours is not set upon it."
+
+"I--I--try to be good," stammered Rhoda, in whom the consciousness of
+much truth in what Powell was saying, struggled with something like
+indignation at being thus reproved, with the sense of a painful shock
+from this jarring discord coming to close the harmonious impressions of
+her pleasant day, and with an inarticulate dread of what was yet in
+store for her. "I say my prayers, and--and I don't think I'm so very
+wicked, Mr. Powell. No one else thinks I am, but you."
+
+"Oh, Rhoda! Oh, my child!" His voice grew tender as sad music, and, as
+he went on speaking, all trace of diffidence and hesitation fell away,
+and only the sincere purpose of the man shone in him clear as sunlight.
+"My heart yearns with compassion over you. Are those the words of a
+believing and repentant sinner? You 'try!' You 'say your prayers!' You
+are 'not so wicked!' Rhoda, behold, I have an urgent message for you,
+which you must hear!"
+
+She started and looked round at him. He read her thought. "No earthly
+message, Rhoda, and from no earthly being. Ah, child, the eager look
+dies out of your eyes! Rhoda, do you ever think how much God loveth us?
+How much he loveth you, poor perishing little bird, fluttering blindly
+in the outer darkness of the world!--that darkness which comprehended
+not the light from the beginning."
+
+Rhoda's tears were now dropping fast. Her lip trembled as she repeated
+once more, "I try--I do try to be good," with an almost peevish
+emphasis.
+
+"Nay, Rhoda, I must speak. In His hand all instruments are alike good
+and serviceable. He has chosen me, even me, to call you to Him. However
+much you may despise the Messenger, the message is sure, and of
+unspeakable comfort."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Powell, I don't despise you. Indeed I don't! I know you mean--I
+know you are good. But I don't think there's any such great harm in
+going to see a--a young lady who is too ill to go out. I'm sure she is a
+very good young lady. I'm sure I do try to be good."
+
+That was the sum of Rhoda's eloquence. She held fast by those few words
+in a helpless way, which was at once piteous and irritating.
+
+"Are you speaking in sincerity from the very bottom of your heart?"
+asked Powell, with the invincible, patient gentleness which is born of a
+strong will. "No, Rhoda; you know you are not. There is harm in
+following our own inclinations, rather than the voice of the spirit
+within us. There is harm in clinging to works--to anything we can do.
+There is harm in neglecting the service of our Master to pleasure any
+human being."
+
+"I did forget that it was prayer-meeting night," admitted Rhoda, more
+humbly than before. Her natural sweetness of temper was regaining the
+ascendant, in proportion as her dread of what might be the subject of
+Powell's reproving admonition decreased. She could bear to be told that
+it was wrong to visit Minnie Bodkin. She should not like to be told so,
+and she should refuse to believe it, but she could bear it; and she
+began to believe that this visit was held to be the head and front of
+her offending. Powell's next words undeceived her, and startled her
+back into a paroxysm of mistrust and agitation.
+
+"But it is not of your absence from prayer to-night that I would speak
+now. You are entangling yourself in a snare. You are laying up stores of
+sorrow for yourself and others. You are listening to the sweet voice of
+temptation, and giving your conscience into the hand of the ungodly to
+ruin and deface!" He made a little gesture towards the room overhead
+with his hand, as he said that Rhoda was giving her conscience into the
+hands of the ungodly.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Powell. And I--I don't think it's
+charitable to speak so of a person--of persons that you know nothing
+of."
+
+She was entirely taken off her guard. Her head felt as if it were
+whirling round, and the words she uttered seemed to come out of her
+mouth without her will. Between fear and anger she trembled like a leaf
+in the wind. She would have fled out of the room, but her strength
+failed her. Her heart was beating so fast that she could scarcely
+breathe. Her distress pained Powell to the heart; pained him so much, as
+to dismay him with a vivid glimpse of the temptation that continually
+lay in wait for him, to spare her, and soothe her, and cease from his
+painful probing of her conscience. "Oh, there is a bone of the old man
+in me yet!" he thought remorsefully. "Lord, Lord, strengthen me, or I
+fall!"
+
+"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?"
+
+The remembrance of the lot he had drawn came into his mind, as an answer
+to his mental prayer. It was natural that the words should recur to him
+vividly at that moment, but he accepted their recurrence as an undoubted
+inspiration from Heaven. The belief in such direct and immediate
+communications was a vital part of his faith; and to have destroyed it
+would, in great part, have paralysed the impetuous energy, and quenched
+the burning enthusiasm, which carried away his hearers, and communicated
+something of his own exaltation to the most torpid spirits.
+
+He murmured a few words of fervent thanksgiving for the clear leading
+which had been vouchsafed to him, and without an instant's hesitation
+addressed the tearful, trembling girl beside him. "Listen to me, Rhoda.
+If it be good for your soul's sake that I lay bare my heart before you,
+and suffer sore in the doing of it, shall I shrink? God forbid! By His
+help I will plentifully declare the thing as it is. I have watched you,
+and your feelings have not been hid from me. No; nor your fears, and
+sorrows, and hopes, and struggles. I have read them all so plainly, that
+I must believe the Lord has given me a special insight in your case,
+that I may call you unto Him with power. You are suffering, Rhoda, and
+sorry; but you have not thrown your burden upon the Lord. You have set
+up His creature as an idol in your soul, and have bowed down and
+worshipped it. And you fancy, poor unwary lamb, that such love as yours
+was never before felt by mortal, and that never did mortal so entirely
+deserve it! And you say in your heart, 'Lo, this man talks of what he
+knows not! It is easy for him!' Well--I tell you, Rhoda, that I too have
+a heart for human love. I have eyes to see what is fair and lovely; and
+fancies and desires, and passions. I love--there is a maiden whom I love
+above all God's creatures. But, by His grace, I have overcome that love,
+in so far as it perilled the higher love and the higher duty, which I
+owe to my father in Heaven. I have wrestled sore, God knoweth. And He
+hath helped me, as He always will help those who rely, not on their own
+strength, but on His!"
+
+Rhoda was hurried out of herself, carried away by the rush of his
+eloquence, in whose powerful spell the mere words bore but a small part.
+Eyes, voice, and gesture expressed the most absolute, self-forgetting
+enthusiasm. The contagion of his burning sincerity drew a sincere
+utterance from his hearer.
+
+"But you talk as if it were a crime! Does anyone call you wicked and
+godless, because you have human feelings? I never should call you so.
+And, I believe, we were meant to love."
+
+"To love? Ah, yes, Rhoda! To love for evermore, and in a measure we can
+but faintly conceive here below. The young maiden I love is still dearer
+to me than any other human being--it may be that even the angels in
+Heaven know what it is to love one blessed spirit above the rest--but
+her soul is more precious to me than her beauty, or her sweet ways, or
+her happiness on earth. Oh, Rhoda, look upward! Yet a little while and
+the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, and there
+cometh peace unspeakable. This earthly love is but a fleeting show. Can
+you say that you connect it with your hope of Heaven and your faith in
+God? Does he whom you love reverence the things you have been taught to
+hold sacred? Is he awakened to a sense of sin? No! no! A thousand times,
+no! Rhoda, for his sake--for the sake of that darkened soul, if not for
+your own--yield not to the temptation which makes you untrue in word and
+deed, and chills your worship, and weighs down the wings of your spirit!
+Tell this beloved one that, although he were the very life-blood of your
+heart, yet, if he seek not salvation, you will cast him from you."
+
+Rhoda had sunk down, half-crouching, half-kneeling, with her arms upon a
+chair, and her face bowed down upon her hands. She was crying bitterly,
+but silently; but, at the preacher's last words, she moved her
+shoulders, like one in pain, and uttered a little inarticulate sound.
+
+Powell bent forward, listening eagerly. "I speak not as one without
+understanding," he said, after an instant's pause. "I plentifully
+declare the thing as it is, and as I know it. Your love----! Rhoda, your
+little twinkling flame, compared to the passionate nature in me, is as
+the faint light of a taper to a raging fire--as a trickling water-brook
+to the deep, dreadful sea! Child, child, you know not the power of the
+Lord. His voice has said to my unquiet soul, 'Be still,' and it obeys
+Him. Shall He not speak peace to your purer, clearer spirit also? Shall
+He not carry you, as a lamb, in His bosom? Now--it may be even now, as I
+speak to you, that His angels are about you, moving your heart towards
+Him. Rhoda, Rhoda, will you grieve those messengers of mercy? Will you
+turn away from that unspeakable love?"
+
+The girl suddenly lifted her face. It was a tear-stained, wistfully
+imploring face, and yet it wore a singular expression of timid
+obstinacy. She was struggling to ward off the impression his words were
+making on her. She was unwilling, and afraid to yield to it.
+
+But when she looked up and saw his countenance so pale, so earnest,
+without one trace of anger or impatience, or any feeling save
+profoundest pity, and sweetness, and sorrow, her heart melted. The right
+chord was touched. She could not be moved by compassion for herself, but
+she was penetrated by sorrow for him.
+
+In an impulse of pitying sympathy she exclaimed, "Oh, don't be so sorry
+for me, Mr. Powell! I will try! I will do what you say, if----"
+
+The door opened, and her father stood in the room. Rhoda sprang from her
+knees, rushed past him, and out at the open door.
+
+"Man, man, what have you done?" cried Powell, wringing his hands. Then
+he sat down and hid his face.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield stood looking at him with a heavy frown. "We must have
+no more o' this," he said harshly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The time which elapsed between Rhoda's first visit to Minnie Bodkin and
+the beginning of February--February, which was to carry Algernon
+Errington away to the great metropolis--was a vexed and stormy one for
+the Maxfield household.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield had come to a downright quarrel with the preacher--or
+to something as near to a quarrel as can be attained, where the violence
+and vituperation are all on one side--and had ordered Powell out of his
+house. This was a serious step, and was sure to be searchingly
+canvassed. Maxfield absented himself from the next class-meeting on the
+plea of ill-health. There was a general knowledge in the class and
+throughout the Society that there had been a breach, and many members
+began to take sides rather warmly.
+
+Maxfield was not a personally popular man, but he had considerable
+influence amongst his fellow Wesleyans; the influence of wealth, and a
+strong will, and the long habit of being a leading personage. David
+Powell, on the other hand, was not heartily liked by many of the
+congregation.
+
+The Whitford Methodists had slid into a sleepy, comfortable state of
+mind in their obscure little corner. They acquired no new members, and
+lost no old ones. Even the well-devised machinery of Methodism, so
+calculated to enforce movement and quicken attention, had grown somewhat
+rusty in Whitford. Frequent change of preachers is a powerful spur to
+sluggish hearers; but even this--among the fundamental peculiarities of
+Methodism--was very seldom applied to the Whitfordians. Circumstances,
+and their own apathy, had brought it to pass that two elderly
+preachers--steady, jog-trot old roadsters--had alternately succeeded
+each other in exhorting and preaching to this quiet flock for several
+years. There was, besides, Nick Green, foreman to Mr. Gladwish, the
+shoemaker, who enjoyed the rank of local preacher for a time, but who
+finally seceded from the main body, and drew with him half-a-dozen or so
+of the more zealous or excitable worshippers, who subscribed to hire a
+room over a corn-dealer's storehouse in Lady Lane, and by the stentorian
+vehemence of this Sunday devotion there speedily acquired the title of
+Ranters.
+
+Into this sleepy, comfortable Whitford society David Powell had burst
+with his startling energy and fiery eloquence, and it was impossible to
+be sleepy and comfortable any longer. No one likes to be suddenly roused
+from a doze, and Powell had awakened Whitford as with the sound of a
+trumpet. Yet, after the effects of the first start and shock had
+subsided, the Methodists began to take pride in the attention which
+their preacher attracted. Their little chapel was crowded. His
+field-preaching drew throngs of people from all the country side.
+Instead of being merely an obscure little knot of Dissenters, about whom
+no outsider troubled himself, they felt themselves to be objects of
+general observation. Old men, who had heard Wesley preach half a century
+ago, declared that this Welshman had inherited the mantle of their
+founder.
+
+But then came, by no slow or doubtful degrees, the discovery that David
+Powell had inherited more than the traditional eloquence of John Wesley;
+and that, like that wonderful man, he spared neither himself nor others
+in the service of his Master.
+
+He set up a standard of conduct which dismayed many, even of the leading
+Methodists, who did not share that exaltation of spirit which supported
+Powell in his disdain of earthly comforts. And the awful sincerity of
+his character was found by many to be absolutely intolerable.
+
+He made a strong effort to revive the early morning services, which had
+quite fallen into desuetude at Whitford. What! Go to pray in the cold
+little meeting-house at five o'clock on a winter's morning? There was
+scarcely one of the congregation whose health would allow of such a
+proceeding.
+
+Then his matter-of-fact interpretations of much of the Gospel teaching
+was excessively startling. He would coolly expect you to deprive
+yourself not only of superfluities, but of necessaries--such, for
+instance, as three meals of flesh-meat a day, which are clearly
+indispensable for health--in order to give to the poor.
+
+It must be owned that he practised his own precepts in this respect; and
+that he literally gave away all he had, beyond the trifling sum which
+was needful to clothe him with decency, and to feed him in a manner
+which the Whitfordians considered reprehensibly inadequate. Such
+asceticism savoured almost of monkery. It was really wrong. At least it
+was to be hoped that it was wrong; otherwise----!
+
+So the awakening preacher by no means had all his flock on his side,
+when they suspected him to be in opposition to old Max.
+
+Jonathan's mind had been, as he expressed it, greatly exercised
+respecting his daughter. He was drawn different ways by contending
+impulses.
+
+To speak to Rhoda openly; to send her to Duckwell, out of Algernon's
+way; to let things go on as they were going; (for was not Rhoda's
+reception by the Bodkins manifestly a preliminary step to her permanent
+rise in the social scale?) to talk openly to Algernon, and demand his
+intentions: all these plans presented themselves to his mind in turn,
+and each in turn appeared the most desirable.
+
+Jonathan was not an irresolute man in general, because he never doubted
+his own perfect competency to deal with circumstances as they arose in
+his life. But now he felt his ignorance. He did not understand the ways
+of gentlefolks. He might injure his daughter by his attempt to serve
+her. And although he had fits of self-assertion (during which he made
+much of the value of his own money and of Rhoda's merits), all did not
+avail to free his spirit from the subjection it was in to "gentlefolks."
+
+Again, he was urged not to seem to distrust the Erringtons by a strong
+feeling of opposition to Powell. Powell had warned him against letting
+Rhoda associate with them. Powell had even gone so far as to reprehend
+him for having done so. To prove Powell wholly wrong and presumptuous,
+and himself wholly right and sagacious, was a very powerful motive with
+Maxfield.
+
+Then, too, the one soft place in his heart contributed, no less than the
+above-mentioned feelings, to make him pause before coming to a decisive
+explanation with the Erringtons, which might--yes, he could not help
+seeing that it might--result in a total breach between his family and
+them, and this increased his hesitation as to the line of conduct he
+should pursue. For the conviction had been growing on him daily that
+Rhoda's happiness was seriously involved; and Rhoda's happiness was a
+tremendously high stake to play.
+
+The discussion between himself and Powell did not trouble Maxfield so
+much. The world--his little world, as important to him as other little
+worlds are to the titled, or the rich, or the fashionable, or the
+famous--supposed him to be greatly chagrined and exercised in spirit on
+this account. And people sympathised with him, or blamed him, according
+to their prejudices, their passions, or--sometimes--their convictions.
+But the truth was, old Max cared little about being at odds with the
+preacher, or with the congregation, or with both.
+
+He had been an important personage among the Whitford Methodists, all
+through the old comfortable days of sleepy concord. And was he now to
+become a less important personage in these new times of "awakening?"
+Better war than an ignominious peace!
+
+Nay, there came at last to be a talk of expelling him from the Methodist
+Society, unless he would confess his fault towards the preacher, and
+amend it. Maxfield had no lack of partisans in Whitford, as has been
+stated; but then there was the superintendent! In those days the
+superintendent (or, as some old-fashioned Methodists continued to call
+him, in the original Wesleyan phrase, the assistant) of the circuit in
+which Whitford was situated, was a man of great zeal and sincere
+enthusiasm.
+
+For those unacquainted with the mechanism of Methodism, it may be well
+briefly to state what were this person's functions.
+
+Long before John Wesley's death, the whole country was divided into
+circuits, in which the itinerant preachers made their rounds; and of
+each circuit the whole spiritual and temporal business--so far as they
+were connected with the aims and interests of Methodism--was under the
+regulation of the assistant (afterwards styled the superintendent),
+whose office it was to admit or expel members, take lists of the society
+at Easter, hold quarterly meetings, visit the classes quarterly, preside
+at the love-feasts, and so forth.
+
+The period for the superintendent's next visit to Whitford was rapidly
+approaching. Maxfield weighed the matter, and tried to forecast the
+result of a formal reference of the disagreement between himself and
+Powell to this man's judgment. Had this superintendent, Mr. John Bateson
+by name, been a Whitford man, one of the old, comfortable, narrow-minded
+tradesmen over whom "old Max" had exercised supremacy in things
+Methodistical for years, Maxfield would have felt no doubt but that the
+matter would have ended in an unctuous admonition to Powell to moderate
+his unseemly excess of zeal, and in the establishment of himself, more
+firmly than ever, in his place as leader of the congregation.
+
+But Mr. Bateson could not be relied on to take this sensible view. He
+was one of the new-fangled, upsetting, meddling sort, and would
+doubtless declare David Powell to have been performing his bounden duty,
+in being instant in season and out of season.
+
+"So that," thought Jonathan, "I should not be master in my own house!"
+
+And if he included in the notion of being master in his own house the
+power of shutting out his fellow Methodists--preacher and all--from the
+knowledge of his most private family affairs, the conclusion was a
+pretty just one. Moreover, it was one to which the very constitution of
+Methodism pointed _à priori_. But old Maxfield had never in his life
+been brought into collision with any one who carried out his principles
+to their legitimate and logical results, as did David Powell.
+
+Maxfield's creed was a thing to take out and air, and acknowledge at
+chapel, and prayer-meetings, and field-preachings, and such like
+occasions; whilst his practice was--well, it certainly was not "too
+bright or good for human nature's daily food."
+
+David Powell's uncompromising interpretation of certain precepts was
+intolerable to many besides Maxfield. But the majority of the Whitford
+Methodists looked forward to Powell's removal to another sphere of
+action. His stay among them had already been longer than was usual with
+the itinerant preachers; but it was understood to have been specially
+prolonged, in consequence of the abundant fruits brought forth by his
+ministration in Whitford. Still he would go, sooner or later, and then
+there would be a relaxation of the strong tension in which men's minds
+and consciences had been strained by the strange influence of this
+preacher.
+
+But old Maxfield thought it very probable that, before leaving Whitford,
+the preacher might compass his (Maxfield's) expulsion from the Methodist
+body.
+
+Then he took a great resolution.
+
+One Sunday, Jonathan, James, and Rhoda Maxfield, together with Elizabeth
+Grimshaw, were seen at the morning service in the abbey church of St.
+Chad's, and again in the afternoon.
+
+Dr. Bodkin himself stared down from his pulpit at the Methodist family.
+Those of the congregation to whom they were known by sight--and these
+were the great majority--found their devotions quite disturbed by this
+unexpected addition to their number.
+
+The Maxfields kept their eyes on their prayer-books, and, outwardly,
+took no heed of the attention they excited. Old Jonathan and his son
+James looked pretty much as usual; Rhoda trembled, and blushed, and
+looked painfully shy whenever the forms of the service required her to
+rise, so as to bring her face above the pew (those were the days of
+pews) and within easy range of the curious eyes of the congregation.
+
+But Betty Grimshaw held her head aloft, and uttered the responses in a
+loud voice, and without glancing at her book, as one to whom the Church
+of England service was entirely familiar. Betty was heartily delighted
+with the family conversion from the errors of Methodism, and supported
+her brother-in-law in it with great warmth. Her Methodism had, in truth,
+been a mere piece of conformity, for "peace and quietness' sake," as she
+avowed with much candour. And she was fond of saying that she had been
+"bred up to the Church;" by which phrase it must not be understood that
+Betty intended to convey to her hearers that she had entered on an
+ecclesiastical career.
+
+If the sensation created in the abbey church by the Maxfields'
+appearance there was great, the surprise and excitement caused by their
+absence from the Methodist chapel was still greater. By the afternoon
+of that same Sunday it was known to all the Wesleyans that old Max, with
+his family, had been seen at St. Chad's. No one deemed it strange that
+the whole family should have seceded in a body from their own place of
+worship. It appeared quite natural to all his old acquaintances that,
+whither Jonathan Maxfield went, his son, and his daughter, and his
+sister-in-law should follow him. It is probable that, had he turned Jew
+or Mohammedan, they would equally have taken it for granted that his
+conversion involved that of the rest of his family, which opinion was
+certainly complimentary to old Max's force of character.
+
+And such force of character as consists in pursuing one's own way
+single-mindedly, old Max undoubtedly possessed. A good, solid belief in
+oneself, tempered by an inability to see more than one side of a
+question, will cleave its way through the world like a wedge. We have
+seen, however, that into Maxfield's mind a doubt of himself on one
+subject had entered. And, as doubt will do, it weakened his action very
+considerably as regarded that subject; but on all other matters he was
+himself, and perhaps infused an extra amount of obstinacy and
+self-assertion into his behaviour, as though to counterbalance the one
+weak point.
+
+Towards his old co-religionists he showed himself inflexible. Mr.
+Bateson, the superintendent, duly arrived, but Jonathan refused to see
+him, and walked out of his shop when the superintendent walked into it.
+Maxfield was grimly triumphant, and kept out of the reach of any
+expression of displeasure from Mr. Bateson, if displeasure he felt.
+
+His defection was undoubtedly a blow to the Methodist community in
+Whitford. And much indignation, not loud but deep, was aroused in
+consequence against Powell, who was looked upon as the prime cause of
+it. What if the preacher did possess awakening eloquence and burning
+zeal to save sinners? Here was Jonathan Maxfield, a warm man, a
+respectable and a thriving man, an ancient pillar of the Society, lost
+to it beyond recall by Powell's means!
+
+And by whom did Powell seek to replace such a man as old Max? By Richard
+Gibbs, the groom--brother of Minnie Bodkin's maid--who had hitherto
+enjoyed a reputation for unmitigated blackguardism; by Sam Smith, the
+cobbler, once drunken, now drunken no longer; by stray vagrants who were
+converted at his field-preaching, and by the poorest poor, and
+wretchedest wretched, generally!
+
+And the worst of it was, that one could not openly find fault with all
+this. David Powell would, with mild yet fervent earnestness, quote some
+New Testament text, which stopped one's mouth, if it didn't change
+one's opinion. As if the words ought to be interpreted in that literal
+way! Well, he would go away before long; that was some comfort.
+
+The period during which this rift in the Methodist community was
+widening, was a time of peculiar pleasantness to some of our Whitford
+acquaintance. Of these was Minnie Bodkin. By degrees the habit had
+established itself among a few of her friends, of meeting every Saturday
+afternoon in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room.
+
+Mr. Diamond usually made one at these meetings. Saturday was a
+half-holiday at the Grammar School, and he was thus at leisure. He had
+grown more sociable of late, and Mrs. Errington was convinced that this
+change was entirely owing to her advice. There was Algernon, whose
+sparkling spirits made him invaluable. There was Mrs. Errington, who was
+made welcome, as other mothers sometimes are, in right of the merits of
+her offspring. There was Miss Chubb very often. There was the Reverend
+Peter Warlock, nearly always. And of all people in the world there would
+often be seen Rhoda Maxfield, modestly ensconced behind Minnie's couch,
+or half hidden by the voluminous folds of Mrs. Errington's gown.
+
+No sooner had Mrs. Errington heard of Rhoda's first visit to Dr.
+Bodkin's house, than she took all the credit of the invitation to
+herself. She decided that it must certainly be due to her report of
+Rhoda. And--partly because she really wished to be kind to the girl,
+partly because it seemed pretty clear that Minnie was resolved to have
+her own way about seeing more of her new _protégée_, and Mrs. Errington
+was minded that this should come to pass with her co-operation, so as to
+retain her post of first patroness--the good lady fostered the intimacy
+by all means in her power. The Italians have a proverb, to the effect
+that there are persons who will take credit to themselves for the
+sunshine in July. Mrs. Errington would complacently have assumed the
+merit of the whole solar system.
+
+Now, at these Saturdays, there grew and strengthened themselves many
+conflicting feelings, and hopes, and illusions. It was a game at cross
+purposes, to which none of the players held the key except Algernon.
+
+That young gentleman's perceptions, unclouded and uncoloured by strong
+feeling, were pretty clear and accurate. However, the period of his
+departure was fast approaching, and, "after me, the deluge," might be
+taken to epitomise his sentiments in view of possible complications
+which threatened to arise among his own intimate circle of friends. To
+whatever degree the time might seem to be out of joint, Algy would never
+torment himself with the fancy that he was born to set it right. "If
+there is to be a mess, I am better out of it," was his ingenuous
+reflection.
+
+Meanwhile, whatever thoughts might be flitting about under his bright
+curls, nothing, save the most winning good-humour, the most insouciant
+hilarity, ever peeped for an instant out of his frank, shining eyes. And
+the weeks went by, and February was at hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+In how few cases would the power to "see oursel's as ithers see us" be
+other than a very malevolent and wicked fairy-like gift! And, perhaps,
+the discovery of the real reasons why our friends like us, would not be
+the least mortifying part of the revelation.
+
+Now, the Bodkins liked Miss Chubb. But they did not like her for her
+manners, her knowledge of the usages of polite society, her highly
+respectable clerical connections, or the little gummed-down curls on her
+forehead; on all of which Miss Chubb prided herself.
+
+Dr. Bodkin liked her principally because she was an old acquaintance. It
+pleased him to see various people, and to do and say various things
+daily, often for no better reason than that he had seen the same people,
+and done and said the same things yesterday, and throughout a long,
+backward-reaching chain of yesterdays. Mrs. Bodkin liked her because
+she was good-natured, and neither strong-minded nor strong-willed enough
+to domineer over her. Minnie liked her because she found her
+peculiarities very amusing.
+
+"Miss Chubb has the veriest rag-bag of a mind," said Minnie, "and pulls
+out of it, every now and then, unexpected scraps of ignorance as other
+folks display bits of knowledge, in the oddest way!" She could often
+endure to listen to Miss Chubb's chatter, when the talk of wiser people
+irritated her nerves. And Minnie would speak with Miss Chubb on many
+subjects more unreservedly than she did with any other of her
+acquaintances.
+
+"What Minnie Bodkin can find in that affected old maid, to have her so
+much with her when she is so reserved and stand-offish to--to quite
+superior persons, and nearer her own age, I am at a loss to understand!"
+Violet McDougall would say, tossing her thin spiral ringlets. And Rose,
+the bitterer of the two, would make answer, raspingly: "Why, Miss Chubb
+toadies her, my dear. That's the secret. Poor Minnie! Of course one
+wishes to make every allowance for her afflicted state; but there are
+limits. Miss Chubb is almost a fool, and that suits poor dear Minnie's
+domineering spirit."
+
+Unconscious of these and similar comments, Minnie and Miss Chubb
+continued to be very good friends.
+
+There sat Miss Chubb in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room one Saturday about
+noon; her round face beaming, and her fat fingers covered with huge
+old-fashioned rings, busily engaged in some bright-coloured worsted
+work. She had come early, and was to have luncheon with Mrs. Bodkin and
+Minnie, and was a good deal elated by the privilege, although she did
+her best to repress any ebullition of her good spirits, and to assume
+the languishing air which she chose to consider peculiarly genteel.
+
+Minnie and Miss Chubb were alone. Mrs. Bodkin was "busy." Mrs. Bodkin
+was nearly always "busy." She superintended the machinery of her
+household very effectively. But she was one of those persons whose
+labours meet with scant recognition. Dr. Bodkin had a vague idea that
+his wife liked to be fussing about in kitchen and storeroom, and that
+she did a great deal more than was necessary, but, "then, you see, it
+amused her." He very much liked order, punctuality, economy, and good
+cookery; and since it "amused" Laura to supply him with these, the
+combination was at once fortunate and satisfactory.
+
+"My dear Minnie," said Miss Chubb, raising her eyes to the ceiling with
+a languishing glance, which would have been more effective had it not
+been invariably accompanied by an odd wrinkling up of the nose, "did you
+ever, in all your days hear of anything so extraordinary as the
+appearance of those Methodist people at church on Sunday?"
+
+"It was strange."
+
+"Strange! My dear love, it was amazing. But it ought to be a matter of
+congratulation to us all, to see Dissenters embracing the canons of the
+Church! And the Methodists, especially, are such dreadful people. I
+believe they think nothing of foaming at the mouth, and going into
+convulsions, in the open chapel. I wonder if those Maxfields felt
+anything of the kind on Sunday? It would have been a terrible thing, my
+dear, if they had had to be carried out on stretchers, or anything of
+that sort. What would Mr. Bodkin have said?"
+
+"I don't think there's any fear of papa's sermons throwing anybody into
+convulsions."
+
+"Of course not, my dear child. Pray don't imagine that I hinted at such
+a thing. No, no; Mr. Bodkin is ever gentleman-like, ever soothing and
+composing, in the pulpit. But people, you know, who have been used to
+convulsions--they really might not be able to leave them off all at
+once. You may smile, my dear Minnie; but I assure you that such things
+have been known to become quite chronic. And, once a thing gets to be
+chronic----"
+
+Miss Chubb left her sentence unfinished, as she often did; but remained
+with an expressive countenance, which suggested horrible results from
+"things getting to be chronic."
+
+"It seems an odd caprice of Fate," said Minnie, who had been pursuing
+her own reflections, "that, no sooner do I make Rhoda Maxfield's
+acquaintance, for the sole reason that she is a Methodist, than she and
+her family turn into orthodox church people."
+
+"People will say you converted her, my dear."
+
+"I daresay they will, as it isn't true."
+
+"Now, I wonder who did convert them."
+
+"If you care to know, I think I can tell you that the real reason why
+Maxfield left the Wesleyans, was a quarrel he had with their preacher.
+My maid Jane has a brother who belongs to the Society; and he gave her
+an account of the matter."
+
+"Dear, dear! You don't say so! Of course the preacher is furious? Those
+kind of Ranters are very violent sometimes. I remember, when I was quite
+a girl, a man on a tub, who used to scream and use the most dreadful
+language. So much so, that poor papa forbade our going within earshot of
+him."
+
+"No; David Powell is not furious. I am told that he astonished some of
+the more bigoted of his flock, by reminding them that they ought to
+have charity enough to believe that a man may worship acceptably in any
+Christian community."
+
+"Did he really? Now, that positively was very proper of the man, and
+very right. Quite right, indeed."
+
+"So that I think we may assume that he is on the road to Heaven,
+Methodist though he be."
+
+"Oh, Minnie!"
+
+"Does that shock you, Miss Chubb?"
+
+"Well, my dear, yes; it does, rather. My family has been connected with
+the Church for generations. And--one doesn't like to hear Dr. Bodkin's
+daughter talk of being sure that a Dissenter is on the road to Heaven."
+
+Minnie lay back on her sofa, and looked at Miss Chubb complacently
+bending over her knitting. Gradually the look of amused scorn on
+Minnie's face softened into melancholy thoughtfulness. She wondered how
+David Powell would have met such an observation as Miss Chubb's. He had
+to deal with even narrower and more ignorant minds than hers. What
+method did he take to touch them? To Minnie it all seemed very hopeless,
+so long as men and women continued to be such as those she saw around
+her. And yet this preacher did move them very powerfully. If she could
+but meet him face to face, and have speech with him!
+
+There was one person to whom she was strongly impelled to detail her
+perplexities, and to express her fluctuating feelings and opinions on
+more momentous subjects than she had ever yet spoken with him upon. But
+there were a hundred little counter impulses pulling against this strong
+one, and holding it in check.
+
+Miss Chubb's voice broke in upon her meditations by uttering loudly the
+name that was in Minnie's mind.
+
+"My dear, I think it's quite a case with Mr. Diamond."
+
+Minnie's heart gave a great bound; and the deep, burning blush which was
+so rare and meant so much with her, covered her face from brow to chin.
+Miss Chubb's eyes were fixed on her knitting. When, after a short pause,
+she raised them to seek some response, Minnie was quite pale again. She
+met Miss Chubb's gaze with bright, steady eyes, a thought more wide open
+than usual.
+
+"How do you mean 'a case'?" she asked carelessly.
+
+"I mean, my dear, a case of falling, or having fallen, in love."
+
+The white lids drooped a little over the beautiful eyes, and a look,
+partly of pleasure, partly of fluttered surprise, swept over Minnie's
+face, as the breeze sweeps over a corn-field, touching it with shifting
+lights and shadows.
+
+"What nonsense!" she said, in a little uncertain voice, unlike her usual
+clear tones.
+
+"Now, my dear Minnie, I must beg to differ. I might give up my judgment
+to you on a point of--of--" (Miss Chubb hesitated a long time here, for
+she found it extremely difficult to think of any subject on which she
+didn't know best)--"on a point of the dead languages, for instance. But
+on this point I maintain that I have a certain penetration and coo-doyl.
+And I say that it is a case with Mr. Diamond and little Rhoda--at least
+on his side. And of course she would be ready to jump out of her skin
+for joy, only I don't think the idea has entered into her head as yet.
+How should it, in her station? Of course----. But as to him----! If I
+ever read a human countenance in my life, he admires her--oh, over head
+and ears! To see him staring at her from behind your sofa when she sits
+by Mrs. Errington----! No, no, my dear; depend upon it, I am correct.
+And I don't know but what it might do very well, because, although
+educated, Mr. Diamond is a man of no birth. And the girl is pretty, and
+will have all old Max's savings. So that really----"
+
+Thus, and much more in the same disjointed fashion, Miss Chubb.
+
+Minnie felt like one who is conscious of having swallowed a deadly but
+slow poison. For the present there is no pain; only a horrible watchful
+apprehension of the moment when the pain shall begin.
+
+Some faculties of her mind seemed curiously numb. But the active part of
+it accepted the truth of what had been said, unhesitatingly.
+
+Miss Chubb paused at last breathless.
+
+"You look fagged, Minnie," she said. "Have I tired you? Mrs. Bodkin will
+scold me if I have."
+
+"No; you have not tired me. But I think I will go and be quiet in my own
+room. Tell mamma I don't want any lunch. Please ring for Jane."
+
+Mrs. Bodkin came into the room in her quick, noiseless way. She had
+heard the bell. Minnie reiterated her wish to be wheeled into her own
+room, and left quiet. She spoke briefly and peremptorily, and her desire
+was promptly complied with.
+
+"I never cross her, or talk to her much when she is not feeling well,"
+whispered Mrs. Bodkin to Miss Chubb; thereby checking a lively stream of
+suggestions, regrets, and inquiries which the spinster was beginning to
+pour forth in her most girlish manner.
+
+"There, my darling," said her mother, preparing to close the door of
+Minnie's room softly. "If any of the Saturday people come I shall say
+you are not well enough to see them to-day."
+
+"No!" cried Minnie, with sharp decisiveness. "I wish to come into the
+drawing-room by-and-by. Don't send them away. It will be Algy's last
+Saturday. I mean to come into the drawing-room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Minnie, during the hour's quiet solitude which was hers before the
+Saturday guests began to arrive, got her thoughts into some clear order,
+and began to look things in the face. She did not look far ahead; merely
+kept her attention fixed on that which the next few hours might hold for
+her. She pictured to herself what she would say, and even how she would
+look. Cost what it might, no trace of her real feelings should appear.
+Her heart might bleed, but none should see the wound. She could not yet
+tell herself how deep the hurt was. She would not look at it, would not
+probe it. Not yet! That should be afterwards; perhaps in the long dim
+hours of her sleepless night. Not yet!
+
+She put on her panoply of pride, and braced up her nerves to a pitch of
+strained excitement. And then, after all, the effort seemed to have been
+wasted! There was no fight to be fought, no struggle to be made. The
+social atmosphere among her visitors that Saturday afternoon was as
+mildly relaxing as the breath of a misty woodland landscape in autumn,
+and Minnie felt her Spartan mood melting beneath it.
+
+Whether it were due to the influence of Dr. Bodkin's presence (the
+doctor usually spent the Saturday half-holiday in his study, preparing
+the morrow's sermon; or, it may be, occasionally reading the newspaper,
+or even taking a nap)--or whether it were the shadow of Algernon's
+approaching departure, the fact was that the little company appeared
+depressed, and attuned to melancholy.
+
+Rhoda Maxfield was not there. She had privately told Algy that she could
+not bear to be present among his friends on that last Saturday. "They
+will be saying 'Good-bye' to you, and--and all that," said the girl,
+with quivering lips. "And I know I should burst out crying before them
+all." Whereupon Algy had eagerly commended her prudent resolution to
+stay at home.
+
+No other of the accustomed frequenters of the Bodkins' drawing-room was
+absent. The doctor's was the only unusual presence in the little
+assembly. He stood in his favourite attitude on the hearth, and surveyed
+the company as if they had been a class called up for examination. Mr.
+Diamond sat beside Miss Bodkin's sofa, and was, perhaps, a thought more
+grave and silent than usual.
+
+Minnie lay with half-closed eyes on her sofa, and felt almost ashamed
+of the proud resolutions she had been making. It seemed very natural to
+be silently miserable. No one appeared to expect her to be anything
+else. If she had even begun to cry, as Miss Chubb did when Algernon went
+to the piano and sang "Auld Lang Syne," it would have excited no
+wondering remark.
+
+Pathos was not Algy's forte in general, but circumstances gave a
+resistless effect to his song. The tears ran down Miss Chubb's cheeks,
+so copiously, as to imperil the little gummed curls that adorned her
+face. Even the Reverend Peter Warlock, who was a little jealous of
+Algy's high place in Miss Bodkin's good graces, exhibited considerable
+feeling on this occasion, and joined in the chorus "For au--auld la--ang
+syne, my friends," with his deep bass voice, which had a hollow tone
+like the sound of the wind in the belfry of St. Chad's.
+
+Here Mrs. Errington's massive placidity became useful. She broke the
+painful pause which ensued upon the last note of the song, by asking Dr.
+Bodkin, in a sonorous voice, if he happened to be acquainted with Lord
+Seely's remarkably brilliant pamphlet on the dog-tax.
+
+"No," replied the doctor, shaking his head slowly and emphatically, as
+who should say that he challenged society to convict him of any such
+acquaintance.
+
+It did not at all matter to Mrs. Errington whether he had or had not
+read the pamphlet in question, the existence of which, indeed, had only
+come to her own knowledge that morning, by the chance inspection of an
+old newspaper that had been hunted out to wrap some of Algy's belongings
+in. What the good lady had at heart was the introduction of Lord Seely's
+name, in whose praise she forthwith began a flowing discourse.
+
+This brought Miss Chubb, figuratively speaking, to her legs. She always
+a little resented Mrs. Errington's aristocratic pretensions, and was
+accustomed to oppose to them the fashionable reminiscences of her sole
+London season, which had been passed in an outwardly smoke-blackened and
+inwardly time-tarnished house in Manchester Square, whereof the upper
+floors had been hired furnished for a term by the Right Reverend the
+Bishop of Plumbunn. And the bishop's lady had "chaperoned" Miss Chubb to
+such gaieties as seemed not objectionable to the episcopal mind. As the
+rose-scent of youth still clung to the dry and faded memories of that
+time, Miss Chubb always recurred to them with pleasure.
+
+Having first carefully wiped away her tears by the method of pressing
+her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks as one presses blotting-paper to
+wet ink, so as not to disturb the curls, Miss Chubb plunged, with happy
+flexibility of mood, into the midst of a rout at Lady Tubville's, nor
+paused until she had minutely described five of the dresses worn on that
+occasion, including her own and the bishopess's, from shoe to
+head-dress.
+
+Mrs. Errington came in ponderously. "Tubville? I don't know the name. It
+isn't in Debrett?"
+
+"And the supper!" pursued Miss Chubb, ignoring Debrett. "Such
+refinement, together with such luxury--! It was a banquet for
+Lucretius."
+
+"What, what?" exclaimed the doctor in his sharp, scholastic key. He had
+been conversing in a low voice with Mr. Warlock, but the Latin name
+caught his ear.
+
+"I am speaking of a supper, Dr. Bodkin, at the house of a leader of
+tong. I never shall forget it. Although I didn't eat much of it, to be
+sure. Just a sip of champagne, and a taste of--of--What do you call
+that delightful thing, with the French name, that they give at ball
+suppers? Vo--vo--What is it?"
+
+"Vol-au-vent?" suggested Algy, at a venture.
+
+"Ah! vol-o-voo. Yes; you will excuse my correcting you, Algernon, but
+that is the French pronunciation. Just one taste of vol-o-voo was all
+that I partook of; but the elegance--the plate, the exotic bouquets, and
+the absolute paraphernalia of wax-lights! It was a scene for young
+Romance to gloat on!"
+
+"But what had Lucretius to do with it?" persisted the doctor.
+
+Miss Chubb looked up, and shook her forefinger archly.
+
+"Now, Dr. Bodkin, I will not be catechised; you can't give me an
+imposition, you know. And as to Lucretius, beyond the fact that he was a
+Roman emperor, who ate and drank a great deal, I honestly own that I
+know very little about him."
+
+This time the doctor was effectually silenced. He stood with his eyes
+rolling from Mr. Diamond to the curate, and from the curate to Algy, as
+though mutely protesting against the utterance of such things under the
+very roof of the grammar school. But he said not a syllable.
+
+Mr. Diamond had looked at Minnie with an amused smile, expecting to meet
+an answering glance of amusement at Miss Chubb's speech. But the fringed
+eyelids hung heavily over the beautiful dark eyes, which were wont to
+meet his own with such quick sympathy. Mr. Diamond felt a little shock
+of disappointment. Without giving himself much account of the matter, he
+had come to consider Miss Bodkin and himself as the only two persons in
+the little coterie who had an intellectual point of view in common on
+many topics. The circumstance that Miss Bodkin was a very beautiful and
+interesting woman, certainly added a flattering charm to this communion
+of minds. He had almost grown to look upon her attention and sympathy as
+peculiarly his own--things to which he had a right. And the unsmiling,
+listless face which now met his gaze, gave him the same blank feeling
+that we experience on finding a well-known window, accustomed to present
+gay flowers to the passers-by, all at once grown death-like with a
+down-drawn ghastly blind.
+
+Mr. Diamond looked at Minnie again, and was struck with the expression
+of suffering on her face. He knew she disliked being condoled with about
+her health; so he said gently, "I think Errington's departure is
+depressing us all. Even Miss Bodkin looks dull."
+
+Minnie lifted her eyelids now, and her wan look of suffering was rather
+enhanced by the view of those bright, wistful eyes.
+
+"I think Errington is an enviable fellow," continued Mr. Diamond.
+
+"So do I. He is going away."
+
+"That's a hard saying for us, who are to remain behind, Miss Bodkin! But
+I meant--and I think you know that I meant--he is enviable because he
+will be so much regretted."
+
+"I don't know that he will be 'so much regretted.'"
+
+"Surely----Why, one fair lady has even been shedding tears!"
+
+"Oh, Miss Chubb? Yes; but that proves very little. The good soul is
+always overstocked with sentiment, and will use any friend as a
+waste-pipe to get rid of her superfluous emotion."
+
+"Well, I should have made no doubt that you would be sorry, Miss
+Bodkin."
+
+"Sorry! Yes; I am sorry. That is to say, I shall miss Algernon. He is so
+clever, and bright, and gay, and--different from all our Whitford
+mortals. But for himself, I think one ought to be glad. Papa says, and
+you say, and I say myself, that his journey to London on such slender
+encouragement is a wild-goose chase. But, after all, why not? Wild geese
+must be better to chase than tame ones."
+
+"Not so easy to catch, nor so well worth the catching, though," said Mr.
+Diamond, smiling.
+
+"I said nothing about catching. The hunting is the sport. If a good fat
+goose had been all that was wanted, Mr. Filthorpe, of Bristol, offered
+him that; and even, I believe, ready roasted. But--if I were a man, I
+think I would rather hunt down my wild goose for myself."
+
+"You had better not let Errington hear your theory about the pleasures
+of wild-goose hunting."
+
+"Because he is apt enough for the sport already?"
+
+"N--not precisely. But he would take advantage of your phrase to
+characterise any hunting which it suited him to undertake, and thus give
+an air of impulse and romance to, perhaps, a very prosaic ambition, very
+deliberately pursued."
+
+"I wonder why----," said Minnie, and then stopped suddenly.
+
+"Yes! You wonder why?"
+
+"No, I wonder no longer. I think I understand."
+
+"Miss Bodkin is pleased to be oracular," said Mr. Diamond, with a
+careless smile; and then he moved away towards the piano, where Mrs.
+Bodkin was playing a quaint sonata of Clementi, and stood listening with
+a composed, attentive face. Nevertheless, he felt some curiosity about
+the scope of Minnie's unfinished sentence.
+
+The sentence, if finished, would have run thus: "I wonder why you are so
+hard on Algernon!" But with the utterance of the first words an
+explanation of Diamond's severe judgment darted into her mind. Might he
+not have some feeling of jealousy towards Algernon? (Miss Chubb's words
+were lighting up many things. Probably the good little woman had never
+in her life before said anything of such illuminating power.) Yes,
+Diamond must be jealous. Algernon had unrivalled opportunities of
+attracting pretty Rhoda's attention. Nay, had he not attracted it
+already? Minnie recalled little words, little looks, little blushes,
+which seemed to point to the real nature of Rhoda's feelings for
+Algernon. Rhoda did not--no; she surely did not--care for Matthew
+Diamond. Minnie had a momentary elation of heart as she thus assured
+herself, and at the same time she felt an impulse of scorn for the girl
+who could disregard the love of such a man, as though it were a
+valueless trifle. But, then, did Rhoda know? did Rhoda guess? And then
+Minnie, suddenly checking her eager mental questioning in mid-career,
+turned her fiery scorn against herself for her pitiful weakness.
+
+As she lay there so graceful and outwardly tranquil, whilst the studied,
+passionless turns and phrases of old Clementi trickled from the keys,
+she had hot fits of raging wounded pride, and cold shudders of deadly
+depression. The numb listlessness which had shielded her at the
+beginning of the afternoon had disappeared during her short conversation
+with Diamond. She was sensitive now to a thousand stinging thoughts.
+
+What a fool she had been! What a poor, blind fool! She tried to remember
+all the details of the past days. Did others see what Miss Chubb had
+seen in Diamond's face? And had she--Minnie Bodkin, who prided herself
+on her keen observation, her cleverness, and her power of reading
+motives--had she been the only one to miss this obvious fact? She had
+been deluding herself with the thought that Matthew Diamond came and
+sat beside her couch, and talked, and smiled for her sake! Poor fool!
+Why, did not his frequent visits date from the time when Rhoda's visits
+had begun, too? It was all clear enough now; so clear, that the
+self-delusion which had blinded her seemed to have been little short of
+madness. "As if it were possible that a man should waste his love on
+me!" she thought bitterly.
+
+At that moment she caught Mr. Warlock's eyes mournfully fixed upon her.
+His gaze irritated her unendurably. "Am I so pitiable a spectacle?" she
+asked herself. "Is my folly written on my face, that that idiot stares
+at me in wonder and compassion?"
+
+Minnie gave him one of her haughtiest and coldest glances, and then
+turned away her head.
+
+Poor Mr. Warlock! It must be owned that there are strange, cruel pangs
+unjustly inflicted and suffered in this world by the most civilised
+persons.
+
+The little party broke up sooner than usual. The dispirited tone with
+which it had begun continued to the end. Algernon made his farewells to
+Miss Chubb, Mr. Warlock, Mr. Diamond, and Dr. Bodkin. But to Minnie he
+whispered, "I will run in once more on Monday to say 'Good-bye' to your
+mother and to you, if I may."
+
+The rest departed almost simultaneously. Matthew Diamond lingered an
+instant at the door of the drawing-room, to say to Mrs. Bodkin, "I hope
+this is not to be the last of our pleasant Saturdays, although we are
+losing Errington?"
+
+It was an unusual sort of speech from the reserved, shy tutor, who
+carried his proud dread of being thought officious or intrusive to such
+a point, that Minnie was wont to say, laughingly, that Mr. Diamond's
+diffidence was haughtier than anyone else's disdain.
+
+Mrs. Bodkin smiled, well pleased. "Oh, I hope not, indeed!" she said in
+her quick, low accents. "Minnie! Do you hear what Mr. Diamond is
+saying?"
+
+Minnie did not answer. She thought how happy this wish of his to keep up
+"our pleasant Saturdays" would have made her yesterday!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The manifestations of maternal vanity are apt to appear monotonous to
+the indifferent spectator; but, in Mrs. Errington such manifestations
+were, at least, not open to that reproach. Beethoven himself never
+surpassed her in the power of producing variations on one simple theme.
+And this surprising fertility of hers prevented her from being a mere
+commonplace bore. She never told a story twice alike. There was always
+an element of unexpectedness in her conversation, albeit the groundwork
+and foundation of it varied but little. In the overflowing gratification
+of her heart at Algernon's prospects, and under the excitement of his
+imminent departure, she would fain have bestowed some of her eloquence
+even on old Max, with whom her relations had been decidedly cool, since
+the outbreak of rude temper on his part which has been recorded. But old
+Max continued to be surly and taciturn for a while; he had been
+bitterly mortified by Mrs. Errington's talk about the marriage her son
+would be able to make, whenever it should please him to select a wife.
+
+But then, after that, had come Miss Bodkin's frequent invitations to
+Rhoda, which had greatly mollified the old man. And presently it
+appeared as if Mrs. Errington had forgotten all about General Indigo's
+daughters, and the heiress of the eminent drysalter. At all events, she
+said no more on the subject of those ladies. And old Max gradually, and
+not slowly, recurred to his former persuasion that the Erringtons would
+be very glad to secure Rhoda's hand for Algernon, being well aware that
+her money would balance her birth and connections. True, the young man
+had, as yet, said nothing explicit. But, of course, he would feel it
+necessary to have some settled prospect before asking permission to
+engage himself formally to Rhoda.
+
+"He is connected with the great ones of the earth, to be sure!"
+reflected Mr. Maxfield, with some exultation. "And he is a comely young
+chap to look upon, and full of all kinds of book-learning and
+accomplishments--talks foreign tongues, and sings, and plays upon
+instruments, and draws pictures!"
+
+An uneasy thought crossed his mind at this point, that David Powell
+would consider these things as leading to reprehensible frivolity and
+worldliness; and that, moreover, most of his (Maxfield's) old friends
+would agree with the preacher in so deeming. It was not to be expected
+that the thoughts and habits of a lifetime could be so eradicated from
+old Max's mind by the mere fact of going to worship at St. Chad's, as to
+leave his conscience absolutely free on these and similar points. But
+the ultimate effect of such inward feelings was always to embitter the
+old man against Powell, and to make him clutch eagerly at any
+circumstance which should tend to prove that Powell had been wrong and
+himself right in their differing views of the Erringtons' intentions. He
+was inexpressibly loath to consider himself mistaken. Indeed, for him to
+be mistaken seemed to argue a general dislocation and turning
+topsy-turvy of things, and a terrible unchaining of the powers of
+darkness. If, after walking all his life in the paths of wisdom and
+prosperity, he were to find himself suddenly astray, and blundering on a
+point which nearly concerned the only tender feelings of his nature,
+such a phenomenon must clearly be due to the direct interposition of
+Satan. However, as he stood one evening in his storehouse, tying up a
+great parcel of sugar in blue paper, Jonathan Maxfield was feeling
+neither discontented nor self-distrustful. Mrs. Errington had just been
+speaking to Rhoda in his presence, and had said:
+
+"Well, little one, you have quite made a conquest of Mrs. Bodkin, as
+well as Miss Minnie. She was praising you up to me the other day. She
+particularly remarked your nice manners, and attributed them to my
+influence----"
+
+"I'm sure, ma'am, if there is anything nice in my manners, it was you
+who taught it to me," Rhoda had said simply. Upon which Mrs. Errington
+had been very gracious, and, without at all disclaiming the credit of
+Rhoda's nice manners, had mellifluously assured Mr. Maxfield that his
+little girl was wonderfully teachable, and had become a general
+favourite amongst her (Mrs. Errington's) friends.
+
+Now all this had seemed to Maxfield to be of good augury, and an
+additional testimony--if any such were needed--to his own sagacity and
+prudent behaviour.
+
+"It'll come right, as I foresaw," thought he triumphantly. "Another man
+might have been over hasty, and spoiled matters like a fool. But not
+me!"
+
+Some one pushed the half-door between the shop and the storehouse, and
+set the bell jingling. Maxfield looked up and saw Algernon Errington,
+bright, smiling, and debonair, as usual.
+
+The ordinary expression of old Max's face was not winning; and now, as
+he looked up with his grey eyebrows drawn into a shaggy frown, and his
+jaws clenched so as to hold the end of a string which he had just drawn
+into a knot round the parcel of sugar, he presented a countenance
+ill-calculated to reassure a stranger or invite his confidence. But Algy
+was not a stranger, and did not intend to bestow any confidence, so he
+came forward with the graceful self-possession which sat so well on him,
+and said, "How are you, Mr. Maxfield? I have not seen you for ever so
+long!"
+
+"It doesn't seem very long ago to me, since we spoke together," returned
+old Max, tugging at the string of his parcel.
+
+"You know I'm off to-morrow, Mr. Maxfield?"
+
+The old man shot a hard keen glance at him from beneath the shaggy
+eyebrows, and nodded.
+
+"I go by the early coach in the morning, so I must say all my farewells
+to-day."
+
+Maxfield gave a sound like a grunt, and nodded again.
+
+"It's a wonderful piece of luck, Lord Seely's taking me up so, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Ah! if he means to do anything for you in earnest. So far as I can
+learn, his taking you up hasn't cost him much yet."
+
+Algernon laughed frankly. "Not a bit of it, Mr. Maxfield!" he cried.
+"And, after all, why should he do anything that would cost him much, for
+a poor devil like me? No; the beauty of it is, that he can do great
+things for me which shall cost him nothing! He is hand and glove with
+the present ministry, and a regular big-wig at court, and all that sort
+of thing. The fact of my having good blood in my veins, and being called
+Ancram Errington, is no merit of mine, of course--just an accident; but
+it's a deuced lucky accident. I daresay Lord Seely is a stupid old
+hunks, but then he is Lord Seely, you see. I don't mind saying all this
+to you, Mr. Maxfield, because you know the world, and you and I are old
+friends."
+
+It was certainly rather hard on Lord Seely to be spoken of as a stupid
+old hunks by this lively young gentleman, who knew little more of him
+than of his great-grandfather, deceased a century ago. But his lordship
+did not hear the artless little speech, so it did not annoy him; whereas
+old Max did hear it, and it gratified him considerably for several
+reasons. It gratified him to be addressed confidentially as one who knew
+the world; it gratified him to be called an old friend by this relation
+of the great Lord Seely. And, oddly enough, whilst he was mentally
+bowing down before the aristocratic magnificence of that nobleman, it
+gratified him to be told that the bowing down was being performed to a
+"stupid old hunks," altogether devoid of that wisdom which had been so
+largely bestowed on himself, the Whitford grocer.
+
+Pleasant and unaffected as was the young fellow's manner to his
+landlord, there was a nonchalance about it which conveyed that he was
+quite aware of the social distance between them. And this assumption of
+superiority--never coarse or ponderous, like his mother's, but worn with
+the airiest lightness--was far from displeasing to old Max. The more of
+a gentleman born and bred Algernon Errington showed himself to be, the
+higher would Rhoda's position be, if--but old Max had almost discarded
+that form of presenting the future to his own mind; and was apt to say
+to himself, "when Rhoda marries young Errington." And then the solid
+advantages of the position were, so far at least, on old Max's side.
+Wealth and wisdom made a powerful combination, he reflected. And he was
+not at all afraid of being borne down or overwhelmed by any amount of
+gentility. Nevertheless, his spirit was in some subjection to this
+patrician youth, who sat opposite to him on a tea-chest, swinging his
+legs so affably.
+
+There was a pause. At length Maxfield said, "And how long do you think
+o' being away? Or are you going to say good-bye to Whitford for
+evermore?"
+
+"Indeed I hope not!"
+
+"Oh! Then there is some folks here as you would care to see again?" said
+Maxfield slowly, beginning to tie up another parcel with sedulous care,
+and not raising his eyes from it.
+
+"Of course there are! I--I should think you must know that, Mr.
+Maxfield! But I want to put myself in a better position with the world
+before I can--before I come back to the people I most care for."
+
+"Very good. But it's like to be some time first, I'm afraid."
+
+"As to seeing dear old Whitford again, you know I mean to run down here
+in the summer; or at least early in the autumn, when Parliament rises."
+
+"Oh, you do?"
+
+"To be sure! And then I hope to--to settle several things."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"To a man of your experience, Mr. Maxfield, I needn't say how important
+it is for me to go to Lord Seely, ready and willing to undertake any
+employment he may offer me."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I mean, of course, that I should be absolutely free and unfettered, and
+ready to--to--to avail myself of opportunities. You see that, of
+course?"
+
+Maxfield looked sage, and nodded. But he also looked a little glum. The
+conversation had not taken the turn he expected.
+
+"Once let me get something definite--a Government post, you know, such
+as my cousin could get for me as easily as you could take an
+apprentice--and then I may please myself. I may consider myself on the
+first round of the ladder. And there won't be the same necessity for
+deferring to this person and that person. But I don't know why I'm
+saying all this to you, Mr. Maxfield. You understand the whole matter
+better than I do. By Jove, I wish I'd some of your ballast in my noddle.
+I'm such a feather-headed fellow!"
+
+"You are young, Algernon, you are young," returned old Max, from whose
+brow the frown had cleared away entirely. "I have had a special gift of
+wisdom vouchsafed to me for many years past. It has been, I believe, a
+peculiar grace, and it is the Lord's doing, thanks be! I am not easy
+deceived."
+
+"I shouldn't like to try it on, that's all I know!" exclaimed Algernon,
+pleasantly smiling and nodding his head.
+
+"Albeit there is some as mistrust my judgment; young and raw men without
+much gift of clear-headedness, and puffed up with spiritual pride."
+
+"Are there, really?" said Algernon, feeling somewhat at a loss what to
+say.
+
+"Yes, there are. I should like such to be convinced of error. It would
+be a wholesome lesson."
+
+"Not a doubt of it."
+
+"I should like such to know--for their own soul's sake, and to teach 'em
+Christian humility--as you and I quite understand each other, my young
+friend; and as all is clear between us."
+
+Algernon had a constitutional dislike to "clear understandings," except
+such as were limited to his clear understanding of other people. So he
+broke in at this point with one of his impulsive speeches about his
+prospects, and his conviction of Mr. Maxfield's wisdom, and his regrets
+at leaving Whitford, and his settled purpose to come back at the
+end of the summer and have a look at the dear old place, and the
+one or two persons in it who were still dearer to him. And he
+contrived--"contrived," indeed, is too cold-blooded and Machiavelian a
+word to express Algy's rapid mental process--to convey to old Max the
+idea that he was on the high road to fortune; that he had a warm and
+constant attachment to a certain person whom it was needless to name,
+seeing that the certain person could be no other than his playmate,
+pretty Rhoda; and that Mr. Jonathan Maxfield was so sagacious and
+keen-sighted a personage as to require no wordy explanations such as
+might have been needful for feebler intelligences. And then Algy said,
+with a rueful sort of candour, and arching those fair childlike eyebrows
+of his: "I say, Mr. Maxfield, I shall be awfully short of cash just at
+first!"
+
+The two hands of Jonathan Maxfield, which had been laid open, and palm
+downwards, on the counter before him, as he listened, instinctively
+doubled themselves into fists. He put them one on the top of the other,
+and rested his chin on them.
+
+"I don't bother my mother about it, poor dear soul, because I know she
+has done all she can already. Of course, if I were to hint anything to
+my cousin--to Lord Seely, you know--I might get helped directly. But I
+don't want to begin with that, exactly."
+
+"H'm! It 'ud be a test of how much he really does mean, though!"
+
+"Yes; but you know what you said about Lord Seely's doing great things
+for me which shall cost him nothing. And I felt how true your view was,
+directly. By George, if I want any advice between now and next August, I
+shall be tempted to write and ask you for it!"
+
+Maxfield gave a little rasping cough.
+
+"Of course I know the manners and customs of high-bred people well
+enough. A fellow who comes of an old family like mine seems to suck all
+that in with his mother's milk, somehow. But that's a mere surface
+knowledge, after all. And some circumstance might turn up in which I
+should want a more solid judgment to help my own."
+
+Maxfield coughed again, a little less raspingly. One of his doubled-up
+hands unclasped itself, and he began to pass it across his stubbly chin.
+
+"By-the-by--what an ass I was not to think of that before--would you
+mind lending me twenty pounds till August, Mr. Maxfield?"
+
+"I--I'm not given to lending, Algernon; nor to borrowing either, I thank
+the Lord."
+
+"Borrowing! No; you're one of the lucky folks of this world, who can
+grant favours instead of asking them. But it really is of small
+consequence, after all; I'll manage somehow, if you have any objection.
+I believe I have a nabob of a godfather, General Indigo, as yellow as a
+guinea and as rich as a Jew. My mother was talking of him the other day,
+and, perhaps, it would be better to ask such a little favour of one's
+own people. I'll look up the nabob, Mr. Maxfield."
+
+It must not be supposed that Algy, in bringing out the name of General
+Indigo, had any thought of the three lovely Miss Indigos in his mind. He
+was quite unconscious of the existence of those young ladies; if,
+indeed, they were not entirely the figments of Mrs. Errington's fertile
+fancy. Algy had laid no deep plans. He was simply quick at seizing
+opportunity. The opportunity had presented itself, of dazzling old Max
+with his nabob godfather, and of--perhaps--inducing the stingy old
+fellow to lend him what he wanted, by dint of conveying that he did not
+want it particularly. Algy had availed himself of the opportunity, and
+the shot had told very effectually.
+
+Old Max never swore. Had he been one of the common and profane crowd of
+worldlings, it may be that some imprecation on General Indigo would have
+issued from his lips; for the mention of that name made him very angry.
+But old Max had a settled conviction of the probable consignment to
+perdition of the rich nabob--who was doubtless a purse-proud, tyrannous,
+godless old fellow--which far surpassed, in its comforting power, the
+ephemeral satisfaction of an oath. He struck his clenched hand on the
+counter, and said, testily, "You have not heard what I had it in my mind
+to say! You are too rash, young man, and broke in on my discourse before
+it was finished!"
+
+"I beg pardon. Did I?"
+
+"I say that I am not given to lending nor to borrowing; and it is most
+true. But I have not said that I will refuse to assist you. This is a
+special case, and must be judged of specially as between you and me."
+
+"Why, of course, I would rather be obliged to you than to the general,
+who is a stranger to me, in fact, though he is my godfather."
+
+"There's nearer ties than godfathers, Algernon."
+
+Algernon burst into a peal of genuine laughter. "Why, yes," said he,
+wiping his eyes, "I hope so!"
+
+Old Max did not move a muscle of his face. "What was the sum you named?"
+he asked, solemnly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know--twenty or thirty pounds would do. Something just to
+keep me going until my mother's next quarter's money comes in."
+
+"I will lend you twenty pounds, Algernon, for which you will write me an
+acknowledgment."
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Being under age, your receipt is valueless in law. But I wish to have
+it as between you and me."
+
+"Of course; as between you and me."
+
+Maxfield unlocked a strong-box let into the wall. Algernon--who had
+often gazed at the outside of it rather wistfully--peeped into it with
+some eagerness when it was opened; but its contents were chiefly papers
+and a huge ledger. There was, however, in one corner a well-stuffed
+black leather pocket-book, from which old Max slowly extracted a crisp,
+fresh Bank of England note for twenty pounds.
+
+"I'm sure I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon,
+taking the note. He spoke without any over-eagerness, but the gleam of
+boyish delight in his eyes would not be suppressed.
+
+"And now come into the parlour with me, and write the acknowledgment."
+
+"I say, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon, when the receipt had been duly
+written and signed, "you won't say anything to my mother about this?"
+
+"Do you mean to keep it a secret?" asked the old man, sharply.
+
+"Oh, of course I don't mind all the world knowing, as far as I'm
+concerned. But the dear old lady might worry herself at not being able
+to do more for me. Let it be just simply as between you and me," said
+Algernon, repeating Maxfield's words, but, truth to say, without
+attaching any very definite meaning to them. The old man pursed up his
+mouth and nodded.
+
+"Aye, aye," he said, "as between you and me, Algernon; as between you
+and me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Upon my word, that formula of old Max's seems to be a kind of open
+sesame to purses and strong-boxes and cheque-books! 'As between you and
+me.' I wonder if it would answer with Lord Seely? Who'd have thought of
+old Max doing the handsome thing? Well, it's all right enough. I do mean
+to stick to little Rhoda, especially since her father seems to hint his
+approbation so very plainly. But it wouldn't do to bind myself just
+now--for her sake, poor little pet! 'As between you and me!' What a
+character the old fellow is! I wish he'd made it fifty while he was
+about it!"
+
+Such was Algernon's mental soliloquy as he walked jauntily down the
+street, with his hand in his pocket, and the crisp bank-note between his
+finger and thumb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+David Powell sat in his garret chamber. The fast waning light of a
+February afternoon fell on him as he sat close to the lattice in the
+sloping roof. He had placed himself there to be able to read the small
+print of his pocket-bible. But the light was already too dim for that.
+It was dusk in the garret. The strip of grey cloud, visible from the
+window, was beginning to turn red at its lower edge as the sun sank. It
+was the angry flaring red, which is often seen at the close of a cold
+and cloudy day, and had no suggestion of genial warmth in its deep
+flush. Such a snow-laden, crimson-bordered wrack of fleecy cloud, as
+Powell's eyes rested on, might have hung over a Lapland waste. There was
+no fire in the room, nor any means of making one. It was bitterly cold.
+The preacher's face looked white and bloodless, as if it were frozen.
+But he sat still, staring out at the red sunset light on the strip of
+sky within his view. From his seat on an old chest, which he had drawn
+close under the window, he could see nothing but the sky. Not one of the
+roofs or chimneys of Whitford was visible to him. A black wavering line
+moved slowly across his field of vision. It was a flight of rooks on
+their way home to the tall leafless elm-trees in Pudcombe Park. Nothing
+else moved, except the red flare creeping upward by slow and
+imperceptible degrees.
+
+Suddenly the little Bible fell from Powell's numbed right hand on to the
+carpetless floor, and, with a start, he turned his head and looked
+around him. By contrast with the wintry light without, the garret
+appeared quite dark to him, and it was not until after a few seconds
+that his eye became sufficiently accustomed to its gloom, to perceive
+the book lying almost at his feet. He picked it up, and began to chafe
+his numbed fingers, rising at the same time, and walking up and down the
+room.
+
+His thoughts had been straying idly as he sat at the window, with his
+eyes fixed on the sky. They had gone back to the days of his boyhood,
+and in memory he had seen the wild Welsh valley where he was born, and
+heard the bleat of sheep from the hills, as he had listened to it many a
+summer morning, sitting ragged and barefoot on the turf. And with these
+recollections the image of Rhoda Maxfield was strangely mingled,
+appearing and disappearing, like a face in a dream. Indeed, he had been
+dreaming open-eyed in his solitude, unconscious of the cold and the
+gathering dusk.
+
+Now, such aimless, vagrant wanderings of the fancy were considered
+reprehensible by earnest Methodists; and by none were they more strongly
+disapproved of than by David Powell himself. His life was guided, as
+nearly as might be, in conformity with the rules laid down by John
+Wesley himself for the helpers, as his first lay-preachers were called.
+And among these rules, diligence--unflagging, unfaltering--diligence and
+the strenuous employment of every minute, so that no fragment of time
+should be wasted, were emphatically insisted upon. Powell had ceased to
+read when the daylight waned, and remained in his place by the window,
+intending to devote a few minutes of the twilight to the rigid
+self-examination which was his daily habit. And instead, behold! his
+mind had strayed and wandered in idle recollections and unsanctified
+imaginings.
+
+Presently he began to mutter to himself, as he paced up and down the
+chill bare room.
+
+"What have I to do with these things," he said aloud, "when I should be
+about my Master's business? Where is the comfortable assurance of old
+days--the bright light which used to shine within my soul, turning its
+darkness to noon-day? I have lost my first love;[1] I have fallen from
+grace; and the enemy finds a ready entrance for any idle thoughts he
+wills to put into my mind. And yet--have I not striven? Have I not
+searched my own heart with sincerity?"
+
+[Footnote 1: A common expression among the early Methodists, to indicate
+the first fervour of religious zeal.]
+
+All at once, stopping short in his walk across the garret floor, he
+threw himself on his knees beside the bed, and, burying his face in his
+hands, began to pray aloud. The sound of his own voice rising ever
+higher, as his supplications grew more fervent, hid from his ears the
+noise of a tap at the door, which was repeated twice or thrice. At
+length, the person who had knocked pushed the door gently open a little
+way, and called him by his name, "Mr. Powell! Mr. Powell!"
+
+"Who calls me?" asked the preacher, lifting his head, but not rising at
+once from his knees.
+
+"It's me, sir; Mrs. Thimbleby. I have made you a cup of herb tea
+accordin' to the directions in the Primitive Physic,[2] and there is a
+handful of fire in the kitchen grate, whilst here it is downright
+freezing. Dear, dear Mr. Powell, I can't think it right for you to set
+for hours up here by yourself in the cold!"
+
+[Footnote 2: A collection of receipts, published by John Wesley, under
+the title of "Primitive Physic; or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing
+most Diseases."]
+
+The good widow--a gentle, loquacious woman, with mild eyes and a humble
+manner--had advanced into the room by this time, and stood holding up a
+lighted candle in one hand, whilst with the other she drew her scanty
+black shawl closer round her shoulders.
+
+"I will come, Mrs. Thimbleby," answered Powell. "Do you go downstairs,
+and I will follow you forthwith."
+
+"Well, it is a miracle of the Lord if he don't catch his death of cold,"
+muttered the widow as she redescended the steep, narrow staircase. "But
+there! he is a select vessel, if ever there was one; and a burning and a
+shining light. And I suppose the Lord will take care of His own, in His
+own way."
+
+Mrs. Thimbleby sat down by her own clean-swept hearth, in which a small
+fire was burning brightly. The little kitchen was wonderfully clean. Not
+a speck of rust marked the bright pewter and tin vessels that hung over
+the dresser. Not an atom of dust lay on any visible object in the place.
+There was no sound to be heard save the ticking of the old eight-day
+clock, and, now and then, the dropping of a coal on to the hearth. As
+soon as she heard her lodger's step on the stairs, Mrs. Thimbleby
+bestirred herself to pour out the herb tea of which she had spoken.
+
+"I wish it was China tea, Mr. Powell," she said, when he entered the
+kitchen. "But you won't take that, so I know it's no good to offer it to
+you. Else I have a cup here as is really good, and came out of my new
+lodger's pot."
+
+"You do not surely take of what is not your own!" cried Powell, looking
+quickly round at her.
+
+"Lord forbid, sir! No, but the gentleman drinks a sight of tea. And last
+evening he would have some fresh made, and I say to him"--Mrs.
+Thimbleby's narrative style was chiefly remarkable for its
+simplification of the English syntax, by means of omitting all past
+tenses, and thus getting rid of any difficulty attendant on the
+conjugation of irregular verbs--"I say, 'Won't you have none of that
+last as was made for breakfast, as is beautiful tea, and only wants
+warming up again?' But he refuse; and then I ask him if I may use it
+myself, seeing I look on it as a sin to waste anything; and he only just
+look up from his book and nod his head, and say, 'Do what you like with
+it, ma'am,' and wave his hand as much as to say I may go. He is not much
+of a one to talk, but he paid the first week punctual, and is as quiet
+as quiet, and--there he is! I hear his key in the door."
+
+A quick, firm step came along the passage, and Matthew Diamond appeared
+at the door of the kitchen. "Will you be good enough to give me a
+light?" he said, addressing the landlady. Then he saw David Powell
+standing near the fire, and looked at him curiously. Powell did not
+turn, nor seem to observe the new comer. His head was bent down, and the
+firelight partially illumined his profile, which was presented to anyone
+standing at the door. Mr. Diamond silently formed the word "Preacher?"
+with his lips, at the same time nodding towards Powell, and raising his
+eyebrows interrogatively. Mrs. Thimbleby answered aloud with alacrity,
+well pleased to begin a conversation with her taciturn lodger.
+
+"Yes, sir; it is our preacher, Mr. Powell, as is one of our shiningest
+lights, and an awakening caller of sinners to repentance. You've maybe
+heard him preach, sir? A many of the unconverted--ahem!--a many as does
+not belong to the connexion has come to hear him in Whitford Wesleyan
+Chapel, and on Whit Meadow. And we have had seasons of abundant blessing
+and refreshment."
+
+Powell had turned round at the beginning of Mrs. Thimbleby's speech, and
+was looking earnestly at Mr. Diamond. The latter, who had seen the
+preacher only in the full tide of his eloquence and the excitement of
+addressing a crowded audience, was struck by the change in the face now
+before him. It was much thinner, haggard, and deadly pale. There were
+lines round the mouth, which expressed anxiety and suffering; and the
+eyes were sunk in their orbits, and startlingly bright. Diamond was, in
+fact, startled out of his usual silent reserve by the glance which met
+his own, and exclaimed, impulsively, "I'm afraid you are ill, Mr.
+Powell!"
+
+"No," returned the other at once, and without hesitation. "I have no
+bodily ailment. I have seen you at the house of Jonathan Maxfield, have
+I not?"
+
+"Yes; I have been in the habit of going there to read with a young
+gentleman. My name is Diamond--Matthew Diamond."
+
+"I know it," answered Powell. "I should like, if you are willing, to say
+a few words to you privately."
+
+Diamond was a good deal surprised, and a little displeased, at this
+proposition. He had been interested in the Methodist preacher, and the
+thought had more than once crossed his mind that he should like to see
+more of the man, whose whole personality was so striking and uncommon.
+But Mr. Diamond had felt his wish just as he might have wished to have
+Paganini with his violin all to himself for an evening; or to learn
+_vivâ voce_ from Edmund Kean how he produced his great effects. To be
+the object and subject of a private sermon from this Methodist
+enthusiast (for Diamond could conceive no other reason for the
+preacher's desiring an interview with him than zeal for converting) was,
+however, a different matter; and Diamond had half a mind to decline the
+private communication. He was a man peculiarly averse to outspokenness
+about his own feelings. Nor was he given to be frank and diffusive on
+topics of mere intellectual speculation; although, occasionally, he
+could exchange thoughts on such matters with a congenial mind. But he
+knew well enough that, with the Methodists in general, an excited state
+of feeling, which might do duty for conviction, was the aim and end of
+their teaching and preaching.
+
+"This man is ignorant and enthusiastic, and will make himself absurd and
+me uncomfortable, and I shall have to offend him, which I don't wish to
+do," thought Mr. Diamond, standing stiff and grave with the candle in
+his hand. But once more the sight of Powell's haggard, suffering face
+and bright wistful eyes touched him; and once more the resolute Matthew
+Diamond suffered himself to be swayed by an impulse of sympathy with
+this man.
+
+"Oh," said he, "well, you can come into my sitting-room."
+
+The invitation was not very graciously given, but Powell did not seem to
+heed that at all. Mrs. Thimbleby stood in admiring astonishment as her
+two lodgers left the kitchen together.
+
+The two young men, so strangely contrasted in all outward circumstances,
+entered the small parlour, which served as dining-room, sitting-room,
+and study to Matthew Diamond, and seated themselves at a table almost
+covered with books, one corner of which had been cleared to admit of a
+little tea-tray being placed upon it.
+
+"Will you share my tea, Mr. Powell?" asked Diamond, as he filled a cup
+with the strong brown liquid.
+
+"No; I thank you for proffering it to me, but I do not drink tea."
+
+"I am sorry for that, for I am afraid I have no other refreshment to
+offer you. I don't indulge in wine or spirits."
+
+Diamond threw into his manner a certain determined commonplaceness, as
+though to quench any tendency to excitement or exaltation which might
+show itself in the preacher. Although he would have expressed it in
+different terms, Matthew Diamond had at the bottom of his mind a feeling
+akin to that in Miss Chubb's, when she declared her dread of the
+Maxfield family "going into convulsions" in the parish church of St.
+Chad.
+
+"I will take a cup of tea myself, if you have no objection," said
+Diamond, suiting the action to the word, and stretching out his legs, so
+as to bring them within reach of the warmth from the fire. "Won't you
+draw nearer to the hearth, Mr. Powell?"
+
+Powell sat looking fixedly into the fire with an abstracted air. His
+hands were joined loosely, and rested on his knees. The firelight shone
+on his wan, clearly-cut face, but seemed to be absorbed and quenched in
+the blackness of his hair, which hung down in two straight, thick locks
+behind his ears. He did not accept Mr. Diamond's invitation to draw
+nearer to the warm hearth, but, after a pause, turned his face to his
+companion, and said, "It is on behalf of the young maiden, Rhoda
+Maxfield, that I would speak with you, sir."
+
+He could scarcely have said anything more thoroughly unexpected and
+disconcerting to Matthew Diamond. The latter did not start or stare, or
+make any strong demonstration of surprise, but he could not help a
+sudden flush mounting to his face, much to his annoyance.
+
+"About Miss Rhoda Maxfield?" he returned coldly; "I do not understand
+what concern either you or I can have with any private conversation
+about that young lady."
+
+"My concern with Rhoda is that of one who has had it laid upon him to
+lead a tender soul out of the darkness into the light, and who suddenly
+finds himself divided from that precious charge, even at the moment
+when he hoped the goal was reached. Her father has left our Society, and
+has thus carried Rhoda away from the reach of my exhortations."
+
+"By Jove!" thought Diamond to himself, as he turned his keen grey eyes
+on the preacher, "this is a specimen of spiritual conceit on a colossal
+scale!" Then he said aloud, "You must console yourself with the hope
+that the exhortations she will hear in the parish church will differ
+from your own rather in manner than matter, Mr. Powell. There really are
+some very decent people among the congregation of St. Chad's."
+
+"Nay," answered Powell, with simple gentleness, "do you think I doubt
+it? It has been the boast of Methodism that it receives into its bosom
+all denominations of Christians, without distinction. The Churchman and
+the Dissenter, the Presbyterian and the Independent, are alike welcome
+to us, and are free alike to follow their own method of worship. In the
+words of John Wesley himself, 'one condition, and one only, is
+required--a real desire to save their souls. Where this is, it is
+enough; they desire no more. They lay stress upon nothing else. They ask
+only, Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it be, give me thy hand.'"
+
+"Methodism has changed somewhat since the days of John Wesley," said
+Diamond, drily.
+
+"Not Methodism, but perhaps--Methodists. But it was not of Methodism
+that I had it on my mind to speak to you now."
+
+Diamond controlled his face and his attitude to express civil
+indifference; but--his pulse was quickened, and he hid his mouth with
+his hand. Powell went on: "I have turned the matter in my mind, many
+ways. And I have sought for guidance on it with much wrestling of the
+spirit. But I had not received a clear leading until this evening. When
+I saw you standing in the doorway, it was borne in upon me that you
+could be an instrument of help in this matter. And the leading was the
+more assured to me, because that to-day, having opened my Bible after
+due supplication, mine eyes fell at once on the words, 'I have heard of
+thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eyes seeth thee.' Now these
+words were dark to me until just now, when you seemed to appear as the
+explanation and interpretation thereof."
+
+Diamond could not but acknowledge to himself that all the scriptural
+phraseology, and the technicalities of sectarianism, which he found
+merely grotesque or disgusting in men of common, vulgar natures, came
+from this man's lips with as much ease and propriety as if he had been a
+Hebrew of old time uttering his native idiom. Indeed, the impression of
+there being something oriental about David Powell, which Diamond had
+received on first seeing him, was deepened on further acquaintance. This
+black-haired Welshman was picturesque and poetic, despite his threadbare
+cloth suit, made in the ungraceful mode of the day; and impressive,
+despite his equally threadbare phrases. It is possible to make a
+wonderful difference in the effect both of clothes and words, by putting
+something earnest and unaffected inside them.
+
+"What is the help you seek? And how can I help you?" asked Diamond, with
+grave directness.
+
+"You are acquainted with the daughter of the principal of the grammar
+school here----"
+
+"Miss Bodkin?"
+
+"Yes. Do you think that, if you carried to her a request that I might be
+permitted to see and speak with her, she would admit me?"
+
+"I--I don't know," answered Diamond, greatly taken aback.
+
+There was a pause. Each man was busy with his own thoughts. "Rhoda is
+beyond my reach now," said Powell at length. "I can neither see nor
+speak with her. Nor do I know of any of those who see her familiarly who
+would be likely to influence her for good, except Miss Bodkin. I am told
+that she is a lady of much ability and power of mind; and I hear,
+moreover, of her doing many acts of charity and kindness. You know her
+well, do you not?"
+
+"I know her. Yes."
+
+"Would you consent to carry such a request from me?"
+
+Diamond hesitated. "Why not prefer the request yourself?" he said. "If
+you have any good reason for desiring an interview with Miss Bodkin, I
+believe she would grant it."
+
+"I had thought of doing so. I had thought, even, of writing all that I
+have to say. But, for many reasons, I believe it would be more
+profitable for me to see her face to face. I am no penman. I am indeed,
+as you perceive, a man very ignorant in the world's learning and the
+world's ways."
+
+Diamond suspected a covert boast under this humble speech, and answered
+in his coolest tones, "The first is a disadvantage--or an advantage, as
+you choose to consider it--which you share with a good many of your
+brethren, Mr. Powell. As to the latter kind of ignorance--Methodists are
+generally thought to have worldly wisdom enough for their needs."
+
+Powell bent his head. "I would fain have more learning," he said in a
+low voice, "but only as a means, not as an end--not as an end."
+
+"But," said Diamond, in a constrained voice, "it seems to me hardly
+worth while to trouble Miss Bodkin, by asking for an interview on any
+such grounds. Since you are charitable enough to believe that Miss
+Maxfield's spiritual welfare is not imperilled by going to St. Chad's, I
+don't see what need there is for you to be uneasy about her!"
+
+"I am uneasy; but not for the reasons you suppose. Rhoda is very
+guileless, and I would shield her from peril."
+
+Diamond looked at the preacher sternly. "I don't understand you," he
+said. "And to say the truth, Mr. Powell, I disapprove of meddling in
+other people's affairs. Miss Maxfield is a young lady for whom I have
+the very highest respect."
+
+For the first time a flame of quick anger flashed from Powell's dark
+eyes, as he answered, "Your high respect would teach you to stand aside
+and let the innocent maiden pine under a delusion which might spoil her
+life and peril her soul; mine prompts me to step forward and awaken her
+to the truth, never heeding what figure I make in the matter."
+
+The sudden passion in the man's face and figure was like a material
+illumination. Diamond had grown pale, and looked at him attentively, and
+in silence.
+
+"Do you think," proceeded Powell, his thin hands working nervously, and
+his eyes blazing, "that I do not understand how pure a creature she
+is--how innocent, confiding, and devoid of all suspicion of guile? Yea,
+and even, therefore, the more in need of warning! But because I am a man
+still young in years, and neither the maiden's brother, nor any kin to
+her, I must stand silent and withhold my help, lest the world should say
+I am transgressing its rules, and bid me mind my own affairs, or deride
+me for a fanatical fool! Do you think I do not foresee all this? or do
+you think that, foreseeing it, I heed it? I have broken harder bonds
+than that; I have fought with strong impulses, to which such motives are
+as cobwebs----" Then, with a sudden check and change of tone which a
+grain of affectation would have sufficed to render ludicrous, but which,
+in its simplicity, was almost touching, he added, in a low voice, "I ask
+pardon for my vehemence; I speak too much of myself. I have had some
+suffering in this matter, and am not always able to control my words. I
+have had strange visitings of the old Adam of late. It is only by much
+striving after grace, and by strong wrestling in prayer, that I have not
+wandered utterly from the right way."
+
+He had risen from his chair at the beginning of his speech, and now sank
+down again on it wearily, with drooping head.
+
+Matthew Diamond sat and looked at him still with the same earnest
+attention; but blended, now, with a look of compassion. He was thinking
+to himself what must be the force of enthusiastic faith, which could so
+subdue the fiery nature of this man, and how he must suffer in the
+conflict. Presently, he said aloud, "I am ready to admit, Mr. Powell,
+that you are actuated by conscientious motives; I am sure that you are.
+But your conscience cannot be a rule for all the rest of the world. Mine
+may counsel me differently, you know."
+
+"Oh, sir, we are neither of us left to our own guidance, thanks be to
+God! There is a sure counsellor that can never fail us. I have searched
+diligently, and I have received a clear leading which I cannot mistrust.
+I do not feel free to tell you more particularly the grounds of my
+anxiety respecting Rhoda Maxfield. But I do assure you, with all
+sincerity and solemnity, that I have her welfare wholly at heart, and
+that I would not injure her by the least shadow of blame in the opinion
+of any human being."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. Diamond leant his head on his hand,
+and reflected. Then at length he said, "Look here, Mr. Powell; I
+believe, if you had pitched on anyone else in all Whitford to speak to
+about Miss Rhoda Maxfield, I should have declined to assist you. But
+Miss Bodkin is so superior in sense and goodness to most other folks
+here, that I am sure whatever you may say to her confidentially will be
+sacred. And then, she may be able to set you right, if you are wrong.
+She has the woman's tact and insight which we lack. And, besides, she
+is fond of Rhoda." He coloured a little as he said the name, and dropped
+his voice.
+
+"You confirm all that I have heard of this lady. She is abundantly
+blessed with good gifts."
+
+"Well, then, Mr. Powell, I will write to Miss Bodkin to-morrow, telling
+her merely that you desire to speak with her, and entreat her good
+offices on behalf of one who needs them."
+
+Powell sprang up from his seat eagerly. "I thank you, sir, from a full
+heart," he said. "You are doing a good action. Farewell."
+
+Diamond held out his hand, which the preacher grasped in his own. The
+two hands were as strongly contrasted as the owners of them. Diamond's
+was broad, muscular, and yet smooth--a strong young hand, full of latent
+power. Powell's was slender, nervous, showing the corded veins, and with
+long emaciated fingers. It, too, indicated force; but force of a
+different kind. The one hand might have driven a plough, or written out
+a mathematical problem; the other might have wielded a scimitar in the
+service of the Prophet, or held up a crucifix in the midst of
+persecuting savages. As they stood for a second thus hand in hand,
+Powell's mouth broke into a wonderfully sweet and radiant smile, and he
+said, "You see, sir, I was right to have faith in my counsellor. You
+have helped me."
+
+Diamond sat musing late that night, and was roused by the cold to find
+his fire gone out and his watch marking half-past twelve o'clock. "I
+wonder," he thought to himself, "if Powell has any foundation for his
+hints, and if any scoundrel is playing false with her. If there be, I
+should like to shoot him like a dog!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Minnie and her father had been having a discussion about David Powell,
+and the discussion had heated Dr. Bodkin, and spoiled his half hour
+after dinner, which was wont to be the pleasantest half hour of his day.
+For Dr. Bodkin did not sit over his wine alone. When there were no
+guests, his wife and Minnie remained at the black shining board--in
+those days the table-cloth was removed for the dessert, and the polish
+of the mahogany beneath it was a matter of pride with notable
+housekeepers like Mrs. Bodkin--and his wife poured out his allowance of
+port and peeled his walnuts for him, and his daughter chatted with him,
+and coaxed him, and sometimes contradicted him a little, and there would
+be no more school until to-morrow morning, and altogether the doctor was
+accustomed to enjoy himself. But on this occasion the poor gentleman was
+vexed and disturbed.
+
+"It's a parcel of stuff and nonsense!" said the doctor, jerking his legs
+under the table.
+
+"That remains to be proved, papa. If the man has anything of consequence
+to say, I shall soon discover it."
+
+"Anything of consequence to say? Fudge! He is coming begging,
+perhaps----"
+
+"I don't believe that, papa. Nor, I think, do you in your heart,"
+returned Minnie, with a little smile at one side of her mouth.
+
+But the doctor was too much disturbed to smile. "Why shouldn't he come
+begging? It won't be his modesty that will stand in his way, I daresay.
+Or perhaps he wants to 'convert' you, as these fellows are pleased to
+call it!"
+
+"Nobody seems to be afraid of our wanting to convert him!" said Minnie.
+
+"I don't like the sort of thing. I don't like that people should have it
+to say that my daughter is honoured with the confidences of a parcel of
+ranting, canting cobblers."
+
+"But, papa, would it not--I am speaking in sober sincerity, and because
+I really do want your serious answer--don't you think it would be wrong
+to be deterred from helping anyone with a kind word or a kind deed, by
+the fear of people saying this or that?"
+
+"Helping a fiddlestick!" cried Dr. Bodkin magisterially, but
+incoherently.
+
+Minnie's face fell. It had been paler than usual of late, and she had
+been suffering and feeble. She never lamented aloud, nor was
+importunate, nor even showed weakness of temper; but her father, who
+loved her very tenderly, understood the chill look of disappointment
+well enough, and it was more than he had strength to bear.
+
+"Of course the man can come and say his say," he added, jerking his legs
+again impatiently under the sheltering mahogany, "especially as you say
+he is going away from Whitford directly."
+
+"Yes; but there is no guarantee that he will not come back again. I
+cannot promise you that, on his behalf."
+
+This unflinching straightforwardness of Minnie's was a fertile source of
+trouble between her father and herself.
+
+It was certainly rather hard on the doctor to be forced to surrender
+absolutely, without any of those pleasant pretences which are equivalent
+to the honours of war. Fortunately--we are limiting ourselves to the
+doctor's point of view--fortunately at this moment his eye fell on Mrs.
+Bodkin, who, made exquisitely nervous by any collision between the two
+great forces that ruled her life, was pushing the decanter of port
+backwards and forwards on the slippery table, quite unconscious of that
+mechanical movement.
+
+"Laura, what the----mischief are you about? Do you think I want my wine
+shaken up like a dose of physic?"
+
+This kind of diversion of the vials of the doctor's wrath on to his
+wife's devoted head was no uncommon finale to any altercation in which
+the reverend gentleman happened not to be getting altogether the best of
+it.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Bodkin, speaking very quickly, and in a low tone,
+as was her wont, "that very likely Mr. Powell wants to interest Minnie
+on behalf of Richard Gibbs."
+
+"And who, pray, if I may venture to inquire, is Richard Gibbs?" asked
+the doctor, in his most awful grammar-school manner, and with a
+sarcastic severity in his eye, as he uttered the name 'Gibbs,' and
+looked at Mrs. Bodkin as though he expected her to be very much ashamed
+of herself.
+
+"Brother of Jane, our maid. He is a groom at Pudcombe Hall, and a
+Wesleyan. Mr. Powell may want to recommend him, or get him a place."
+
+"What, is the fellow going to leave Pudcombe Hall, then?"
+
+"Not that I know of exactly. But it struck me it might be about Richard
+Gibbs that he wanted to speak, because Gibbs is a Wesleyan, you know."
+
+"I suppose he wants to meddle and make himself of consequence in some
+way. Egotism and conceit--rampant conceit--are the mainsprings that move
+such fellows as this Powell."
+
+The doctor rose majestically from the table and walked towards the door.
+There he paused, and turning round said to his wife, "May I request,
+Laura, that somebody shall take care that I get a cup of hot tea sent to
+me in the study? I don't think it is much to request that my tea shall
+not be brought to me in a tepid state!"
+
+Mrs. Bodkin had a great gift of holding her tongue on occasions. She
+held it now, and the doctor left the room with dignity.
+
+That evening Minnie wrote the following note:--
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. DIAMOND,--I shall be able to see Mr. Powell at one
+     o'clock to-morrow. Should that hour not suit his convenience,
+     perhaps he will do me the favour to let me know.
+
+     "Yours very truly,
+
+     "M. BODKIN."
+
+It was the first time she had ever written to Mr. Diamond. The
+temptation to make her letter longer than was absolutely needful had
+been resisted. But the consciousness that the temptation had existed,
+and been overcome, was present to Minnie's mind; and she curled her lip
+in self-scorn as she thought, "If I wrote him whole pages it would only
+bore him. He would prefer one line written in Rhoda's school-girl hand,
+out of Rhoda's school-girl head, to the best wit I could give him; aye,
+or to the best wit of a wittier woman than I." Then suddenly she tore
+the note she had just written across, threw it into the fire, and
+watched it blaze and smoulder into blackness. "I will ask you to write a
+line for me, mamma," she said, when Mrs. Bodkin re-entered the
+drawing-room, after having sent in the doctor's cup of tea to the study.
+
+"To whom, Minnie?"
+
+"To Mr. Diamond. Please say that I will receive Mr. Powell at one
+o'clock to-morrow, if that suits him."
+
+"I daresay it is really about Richard Gibbs," said Mrs. Bodkin, as she
+sealed her note.
+
+It was not without a slight feeling of nervousness that Minnie Bodkin,
+the next day, heard Jane's announcement, "Mr. Powell is below, Miss.
+Mistress wishes to know if you would see him in your own room?"
+
+Minnie gave orders that the preacher should be shown upstairs, and Jane
+ushered him in very respectfully. Dr. Bodkin's old man-servant took no
+pains to hide his disgust at the reception of such a guest; and declared
+in the servants' hall that the sight of one of them long-haired, canting
+Methodys fairly turned his stomach. But Jane, remembering her brother
+Richard's reformation, was less militant in her orthodoxy, and expressed
+the opinion that "Mr. Powell was a very good man for all his long
+hair"--a revolutionary sentiment which was naturally received with
+incredulity and contempt.
+
+Minnie looked up eagerly when the preacher entered the room, and scanned
+him with a rapid glance as she asked him to be seated. "I am a poor
+feeble creature, Mr. Powell," she said, "who cannot move about at my own
+will. So you will forgive my bringing you up here, will you not?"
+
+Powell, on his part, looked at the young lady with a steady, searching
+gaze. Minnie was accustomed to be looked at admiringly, affectionately,
+deferentially, curiously, pityingly (which she liked least of
+all)--sometimes spitefully. But she had never been looked at as David
+Powell was looking at her now; that is, as if his spirit were
+scrutinising her spirit, altogether regardless of the form which housed
+it.
+
+"I thank you gratefully for letting me have speech of you," he said; and
+his voice, as he said it, charmed Minnie's sensitive and fastidious ear.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Powell, that for some time past I have had the wish to
+make your acquaintance? But circumstances seemed to make it unlikely
+that I ever should do so."
+
+"Yes; it was very unlikely, humanly speaking. But I have no doubt that
+our meeting has been brought about in direct answer to prayer."
+
+Minnie was at a loss what to say. It was almost as startling to hear a
+man profess such a belief on a week-day, and in a quiet, matter-of-fact
+tone, as it would have been to find Madame Malibran conducting all her
+conversation in recitative, or to hear Mr. Dockett begin his sentences
+with a "whereas."
+
+"You wish to speak to me on behalf of some one, Mr. Diamond tells me?"
+said Minnie, after a slight hesitation.
+
+"Yes; you have been kind and gracious to a young girl beneath you in
+worldly station, named Rhoda Maxfield."
+
+"Rhoda! Is it of her you wish to speak?" cried Minnie, in great
+surprise. She felt a strange sick pang of jealousy. It was for Rhoda's
+sake, then, that Mr. Diamond had begged her to receive Powell!
+
+"You are kindly disposed towards the maiden?" said Powell, anxiously;
+for Minnie's change of countenance had not escaped him. For her life,
+Minnie could not cordially have said "yes" at that moment.
+
+"I--Rhoda is a very good girl, I believe; what would you have me do for
+her?"
+
+"I would have you dissuade her from resting her hopes--I speak now
+merely of earthly hopes and earthly prudence--on the attachment of one
+who is unstable, vain, and worldly-minded."
+
+"What do you mean? I--I do not understand," stammered Minnie, with
+fast-beating heart.
+
+"May I speak to you in full confidence? If you tell me I may do so, I
+shall trust you utterly."
+
+"What is this matter to me? Why do you come to me about it?"
+
+"Because I have been told by those whose words I believe, that you are
+gifted with a clear and strong judgment, as well as with all qualities
+that win love."
+
+"You are mistaken. I am not gifted with the qualities that win love,"
+said Minnie, bitterly. Then she asked, abruptly, "Did Mr. Diamond advise
+you to speak to me about Rhoda?"
+
+"Nay; it was I who had recourse to his intercession to get speech of
+you."
+
+"But he knows your errand?"
+
+"In part he knows it. But I was not free to say to him all that I would
+fain say to you."
+
+Minnie's face had a hard set look. "Well," she said, after a short
+silence, "I cannot refuse to hear you. But I warn you that I do not
+believe I can do any good in the matter."
+
+"That will be overruled as the Lord wills."
+
+Then David Powell proceeded to set forth his fears and anxieties about
+Rhoda, more fully and clearly than he had done to Diamond. He declared
+his conviction that the girl was deceived by false hopes, and was
+fretting and pining because every now and then misgivings assailed her
+which she could not confess to any one, and because that her conscience
+was uneasy. "The maiden is very guileless and tender-natured," said
+Powell, softly.
+
+"Don't you think you a little exaggerate her tenderness, Mr. Powell?
+Persons capable of strong feelings themselves are apt to attribute all
+sorts of sentiments to very wooden-hearted creatures."
+
+He looked at her earnestly, and shook his head.
+
+"Rhoda always seems to me to be rather phlegmatic; very gentle and
+pretty, of course. But, do you know, I should not be afraid of her
+breaking her heart."
+
+There was a hard tone in Minnie's voice, and a hard expression about her
+mouth, which hurt and disappointed the preacher. He had expected some
+warmth of sympathy, some word of affection for Rhoda.
+
+"You do not know her," he said sadly.
+
+"And then, Mr. Powell, Algernon Errington----you know, I suppose, that
+Mr. Errington is a great friend of mine?"
+
+"I will not willingly say aught to offend you, nor to offend against
+Christian courtesy. But there are higher duties--more solemn
+promptings--that must not be resisted."
+
+"Oh, I am not offended. But, let me ask you, what right have we to
+assume that Mr. Errington has ever deceived Rhoda, or has ever thought
+of her otherwise than as the friend and playmate of his childhood?"
+
+"I am convinced that he has led her to believe he means, some day, to
+marry her. I cannot resist that conviction."
+
+"Marry her! Why, Mr. Powell, the thing is absurd on the face of it. A
+boy of nineteen, and in Algernon's position!--why, any person of common
+sense would understand that such an idea could not be looked at
+seriously."
+
+Powell made himself some silent reproaches for his want of faith. This
+lady might not be soft and sweet; but she had evidently the clear
+judgment which he sought for to help Rhoda. And yet he had been
+discouraged, and had almost distrusted his "leading," because of a
+little coldness of manner. He answered Minnie eagerly:
+
+"It is true! I well know that what you say is true; but will you tell
+Rhoda this? Will you plentifully declare to her the thing as it is?"
+
+"Rhoda has her father to advise her, if she needs advice."
+
+"Nay; her father is no adviser for her in this matter. He is an ignorant
+man. He does not understand the ways of the world--at least, not of that
+world in which the Erringtons hold a place--and he is prejudiced and
+stiff-necked."
+
+There was a short silence. Then Minnie said:
+
+"I do not see how I can interfere. I should, in fact, be taking an
+unjustifiable liberty, and--Mr. Errington is going away. They will both
+forget all about this boy-and-girl nonsense, if people have the wisdom
+to let it alone."
+
+"Rhoda will not forget; she will brood silently over her secret
+feelings, and her thoughts will be diverted from higher things. She will
+fall away into outer darkness. Oh think, a word in season, how good it
+is! Consider that you may save a perishing soul by speaking that word. I
+have prayed that I might leave behind me in this place the assurance
+that this lamb should not be utterly lost out of the fold."
+
+Powell had risen to his feet in his excitement, and walked away from
+Minnie towards the window, with his head bent, and his hands clasping
+his forehead. Minnie felt something like repulsion, and the sort of
+shame which an honest and proud nature feels at any suspicion of
+histrionism in one whom it has hitherto respected. Surely the man was
+exaggerating--consciously exaggerating--his feeling on this matter! But,
+then, Powell turned, and came back towards her; and she saw his face
+clearly in the full sunlight, and instantly her suspicion vanished. That
+face was wan and haggard with suffering, and there was a strange
+brilliancy in the eyes, almost like the brightness of latent tears. The
+tears sprang sympathetically to her own eyes as she looked at him. It
+was impossible to resist the pathos of that face. There was a strange
+appealing expression in it, as of a suffering of which the sufferer was
+only half-conscious, that went straight to Minnie's heart.
+
+"Mr. Powell, I am so truly sorry to see you distressed! I wish--I really
+do wish--that I could do anything for you!"
+
+"For me! Oh not for me! But stretch out your hands to this poor maiden,
+and say words of counsel to her, and of kindness, as one woman may say
+them to another. I have borne the burden of that young soul; I have had
+it laid upon me to wrestle strongly for her in prayer; I have--have been
+assailed with manifold troubles and temptations concerning her. But I am
+clear now. I speak with a single mind, and as desiring her higher
+welfare from the depths of my heart."
+
+"Good Heaven!" thought Minnie, "what a tragic thing it is to see men
+pouring out all the treasures of their love on a thing like this girl!"
+For something in Powell's face and voice had pierced her mind with
+a lightning-swift conviction that he loved Rhoda Maxfield. Minnie
+would have died rather than utter such a speech aloud. The ridicule
+which, among sophisticated persons, slinks on the heels of all
+strongly-expressed emotion, was too present to her mind, and too
+disgusting to her pride, for her to have risked the utterance of such a
+speech even to her mother. But there in her mind the words were, "Good
+Heaven; how tragic it is!" And she acknowledged to herself, at the same
+time, that Powell's lack of sophistication and intensity of fervour
+raised him into a sphere wherein ridicule had no place.
+
+"I will do what I can, Mr. Powell," said Minnie, after a pause, looking
+with unspeakable pity at his thin, pallid face. "But do not trust too
+much to my influence."
+
+"I do trust to it, because it will be strengthened and supported by my
+prayers."
+
+Then, when he had said farewell, and was about to go away, she was
+suddenly moved by a mixture of feelings, and, as it were, almost against
+her will, to say to him, "How good it would be for you to see Rhoda as
+she is! A shallow, sweet, poor little nature, as incapable of
+appreciating your love as a wren or a ladybird! I like Rhoda, and I am a
+poor, shallow creature in many ways myself. But I do recognise things
+higher than myself when I see them."
+
+David Powell's face grew crimson with a hot, dark flush, and for an
+instant he grasped the back of a chair near him, like a man who reels in
+drunkenness. Then he said, "You are very keen to see the truth. You have
+seen it. Rhoda is dear to me, as no woman ever has been dear, or will be
+again. Once I thought this love was a snare to me. Now--unless in
+moments of temptation by the enemy--I know that it is an instrument in
+God's hands. It has given me strength to pray, courage to ask you for
+your help."
+
+"But you suffer!" cried Minnie, looking at him with knit, earnest brows.
+"Why should you suffer for one who does not care for you? It is not
+just."
+
+"Who dare ask for justice? I have received mercy--abundant, overflowing
+mercy--and shall I not render mercy in my poor degree? But in truth," he
+added, in a low voice, and with a smile which Minnie thought the most
+strangely sweet she had ever seen--"in truth, I cannot claim that merit.
+I can no more help desiring to do good to Rhoda than I can help drawing
+my breath. Of others I may say, 'It is my duty to assist this man, to
+counsel that one, to endure some hard treatment for the sake of this
+other, in order that I may lead them to Christ.' But with Rhoda there is
+no sense of sacrifice. I believe that the Lord has appointed me to bring
+her to Him. If my feet be cut and bleeding by the way, I cannot heed
+it."
+
+"Would you be glad to see Rhoda married to Algernon Errington if he were
+to become a religious, earnest man--such a man as your conscientious
+judgment must approve?" asked Minnie.
+
+And the minute the words had passed her lips she repented having said
+them; they seemed so needlessly cruel; such a ruthless probing of a
+tender, quivering soul. "It was as if the devil had put the words into
+my mouth," said she afterwards to herself.
+
+But Powell answered very quietly, "I have thought of that often. But I
+ask myself such questions no longer. I hold my Father's hand even as a
+little child, and whither that hand leads me I shall go safely. It is
+not for me to tempt the wrath of the Lord by vain surmises and putting a
+case. 'Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.'"
+
+"You will come back to Whitford, will you not?" asked Minnie.
+
+"If I may. But I know not when. That is not given me to decide. At
+present, I feel my conscience in bonds of obedience to the Society."
+
+"Perhaps we may never meet again in this world!" Minnie, as she said the
+words, was conscious of a strong fellow-feeling for this man, so far
+removed from her in external circumstances.
+
+"May God bless you!" he said, almost in a whisper.
+
+Minnie held out her hand. As he took it lightly in his own for an
+instant, he pointed upward with the other hand, and then turned and went
+away in silence.
+
+When Dr. Bodkin said a word or two to Minnie that evening, as to her
+interview with the "ranting, canting cobbler," she was very reticent and
+brief in her answers. But on her father shrugging his shoulders
+disparagingly and observing, "It is a good thing that this firebrand is
+taking his departure from Whitford. I've been hearing all sorts of
+things about him to-day. It seems the fellow even set the Methodists by
+the ears among themselves," she exclaimed hotly, "I do declare most
+solemnly that this man gives me a more vivid idea of a saint upon
+earth--a stumbling, striving, suffering saint--than anything I ever saw
+or read."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Arrived in London, with an influential patron ready to receive him, and
+twenty pounds in his pocket, over and above the sum his mother had
+contrived to spare out of her quarter's income, Algernon Errington
+considered himself to be a very lucky fellow. He had good health, good
+spirits, good looks, and a disposition to make the most of them,
+untrammelled by shyness or scruples.
+
+He did feel a little nervous as he drove, the day after his arrival in
+town, to Lord Seely's house, but by no means painfully so. He was
+undeniably anxious to make a good impression. But his experience, so
+far, led him to assume, almost with certainty, that he should succeed in
+doing so.
+
+The hackney-coach stopped at the door of a grimy-looking mansion in
+Mayfair, but it was a stately mansion withal. In reply to Algernon's
+inquiry whether Lord Seely was at home, a solemn servant said that his
+lordship was at home, but was usually engaged at that hour. "Will you
+carry in my card to him?" said Algernon. "Mr. Ancram Errington."
+
+Algy felt that he had made a false move in coming without any previous
+announcement, and in dismissing his cab, when he was shown into a little
+closet off the hall, lined with dingy books, and containing only two
+hard horsehair chairs, to await the servant's return. There was
+something a little flat and ignominious in this his first appearance in
+the Seely house, waiting like a dun or an errand-boy, with the
+possibility of having to walk out again, without having been admitted to
+the light of my lord's countenance. However, within a reasonable time,
+the solemn footman returned, and asked him to walk upstairs, as my lady
+would receive him, although my lord was for the present engaged.
+
+Algernon followed the man up a softly-carpeted staircase, and through
+one or two handsome drawing-rooms--a little dim from the narrowness of
+the street and the heaviness of the curtains--into a small cosy boudoir.
+There was a good fire on the hearth, and in an easy-chair on one side of
+it sat a fat lady, with a fat lap-dog on her knees. The lady, as soon as
+she saw Algernon, waved a jewelled hand to keep him off, and said, in a
+mellow, pleasant voice, which reminded him of his mother's, "How d'ye
+do? Don't shake hands, nor come too near, because Fido don't like it,
+and he bites strangers if he sees them touch me. Sit down."
+
+Algernon had made a very agile backward movement on the announcement of
+Fido's infirmity of temper; but he bowed, smiled, and seated himself at
+a respectful distance opposite to my lady. Lady Seely's appearance
+certainly justified Mrs. Errington's frequent assertion that there was a
+strong family likeness throughout all branches of the Ancram stock, for
+she bore a considerable resemblance to Mrs. Errington herself, and a
+still stronger resemblance to a miniature of Mrs. Errington's
+grandfather, which Algy had often seen. My lady was some ten years older
+than Mrs. Errington. She wore a blonde wig, and was rouged. But her wig
+and her rouge belonged to the candid and ingenuous species of
+embellishment. Each proclaimed aloud, as it were, "I am wig!" "I am
+paint!" with scarcely an attempt at deception.
+
+"So you've come to town," said my lady, fumbling for her eye-glass with
+one hand, while with the other she patted and soothed the growling Fido.
+Having found the eye-glass, she looked steadily through it at Algernon,
+who bore the scrutiny with a good-humoured smile and a little blush,
+which became him very well.
+
+"You're very nice-looking, indeed," said my lady.
+
+Algy could not find a suitable reply to this speech, so he only smiled
+still more, and made a half-jesting little bow.
+
+"Let me see," pursued Lady Seely, still holding her glass to her eyes,
+"what is our exact relationship? You are a relation of mine, you know."
+
+"I am glad to say I have that honour."
+
+"I don't suppose you know much of the family genealogy," said my lady,
+who prided herself on her own accurate knowledge of such matters. "My
+grandfather and your mother's grandfather were brothers. Your mother's
+grandfather was the elder brother. He had a very pretty estate in
+Warwickshire, and squandered it all in less than twelve years. I don't
+suppose your mother's father had a penny to bless himself with when he
+came of age."
+
+"I daresay not, ma'am."
+
+"My grandfather did better. He went to India when he was seventeen, and
+came back when he was seventy, with a pot of money. Ah, if my father
+hadn't been the youngest of five brothers, I should have been a rich
+woman!"
+
+"Your ladyship's grandfather was General Cloudesley Ancram, who
+distinguished himself at the siege of Khallaka," said Algernon.
+
+Lady Seely nodded approvingly. "Ah, your mother has taught you that, has
+she?" she said. "And what was your father? Wasn't he an apothecary?"
+
+Algernon's face showed no trace of annoyance, except a little increase
+of colour in his blooming young cheeks, as he answered, "The fact is,
+Lady Seely, that my poor father was an enthusiast about science. He
+would study medicine, instead of going into the Church, and availing
+himself of the family interest. The consequence was, that he died a poor
+M.D. instead of a rich D.D.--or even, who knows? a bishop!"
+
+"La!" said my lady, shortly. Then, after a minute's pause, she added,
+"Then, I suppose, you're not very rich, hey?"
+
+"I am as poor, ma'am, as my grandfather, Montagu Ancram, of whom your
+ladyship was saying just now that he had not a penny to bless himself
+with when he came of age," returned Algernon, laughing.
+
+"Well, you seem to take it very easy," said my lady. And once more she
+looked at him through her eye-glass. "And what made you come to town,
+all the way from what-d'ye-call-it? Have you got anything to do?"
+
+"N--nothing definite, exactly," said Algernon.
+
+"H'm! Quiet, Fido!"
+
+"I ventured to hope that Lord Seely--that perhaps my lord--might----"
+
+"Oh, dear, you mustn't run away with that idea!" exclaimed her ladyship.
+"There ain't the least chance of my lord being able to do anything for
+you. He's torn to pieces by people wanting places, and all sorts of
+things."
+
+"I was about to say that I ventured to hope that my lord would kindly
+give me some advice," said Algernon. As he said it his heart was like
+lead. He had not, of course, expected to be at once made Secretary of
+State, or even to pop immediately into a clerkship at the Foreign
+Office. He had put the matter very soberly and moderately before his own
+mind, as he thought. He had told himself that a word of encouragement
+from his high and mighty cousin should be thankfully received, and that
+he would neither be pushing nor impatient, accepting a very small
+beginning cheerfully. But it had never occurred to him to prepare
+himself for an absolute flat refusal of all assistance. My lady's tone
+was one of complete decision. And it was in vain he reflected that my
+lady might be speaking more harshly and decisively than she had any
+warrant for doing, being led to that course by the necessity of
+protecting herself and her husband against importunity. None the less
+was his heart very heavy within him. And he really deserved some credit
+for gallantry in bearing up against the blow.
+
+"Advice!" said my lady, echoing his word. "Oh, well, that ain't so
+difficult. What are you fit for?"
+
+"Perhaps I am scarcely the best judge of that, am I?" returned Algernon,
+with that childlike raising of the eyebrows which gave so winning an
+expression to his face.
+
+"Perhaps not; but what do you think?"
+
+"Well, I--I believe I could fill the post of secretary, or----What I
+should like," he went on, in a sudden burst of candour, and looking
+deprecatingly at Lady Seely, like a child asking for sugar-plums, "would
+be to get attached to one of our foreign legations."
+
+"I daresay! But that's easier said than done. And as to being a
+secretary, it's precious hard work, I can tell you, if you're paid for
+it; and, of course, no post would suit you that didn't pay."
+
+"I shouldn't mind hard work."
+
+"You wouldn't be much of an Ancram if you liked it; I can tell you I
+know that much! Well, and how long do you mean to stay in town?"
+
+"That is quite uncertain."
+
+"You must come and see me again before you go, and be introduced to Lord
+Seely."
+
+"Oh, indeed, I hope so."
+
+Come and see her again before he went! What would his mother say, what
+would his Whitford friends say, if they could hear that speech?
+Nevertheless, he answered very cheerfully:
+
+"Oh, indeed, I hope so!" And interpreting my lady's words as a
+dismissal, rose to go.
+
+"You're really uncommonly nice-looking," said Lady Seely, observing his
+straight, slight figure, and his neatly-shod feet as he stood before
+her. "Oh, you needn't look shame-faced about it. It's no merit of yours;
+but it's a great thing, let me tell you, for a young fellow without a
+penny to have an agreeable appearance. How old are you?"
+
+"Twenty," said Algernon, anticipating his birthday by two months.
+
+"Do you know, I think Fido will like you!" said my lady, who observed
+the fact that her favourite had neither barked nor growled when Algernon
+rose from his chair. "I'm sure I hope he will; he is so unpleasant when
+he takes a dislike to people."
+
+Algernon thought so too; but he merely said, "Oh, we shall be great
+friends, I daresay; I always get on with dogs."
+
+"Ah, but Fido is peculiar. You can't coax him and he gets so much to
+eat that you can't bribe him. If he likes you, he likes you--_voilà
+tout_! By-the-way, do you understand French?"
+
+"Yes; pretty fairly. I like it."
+
+"Do you? But, as to your accent--I'm afraid that cannot be much to boast
+of. English provincial French is always so very dreadful."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Algernon, with perfect good humour, for he
+believed himself to be on safe ground here; "but the old Duc de
+Villegagnon, an _émigré_, who was my master, used to say that I did not
+pronounce the words of my little French songs so badly."
+
+"Bless the boy! Can you sing French songs? Do sit down, then, at the
+piano, and let me hear one! Never mind Fido." (Her ladyship had set her
+favourite on the floor, and he was sniffing at Algernon's legs.) "He
+don't dislike music, except a brass band. Sit down, now!"
+
+Algernon obeyed, seated himself at the pianoforte, and began to run his
+fingers over the keys. He found the instrument a good deal out of tune;
+but began, after a minute's pause, a forgotten chansonette, from "Le
+Petit Chaperon Rouge." He sang with taste and spirit, though little
+voice; and his French accent proved to be so surprisingly good, as to
+elicit unqualified approbation from Lady Seely.
+
+"Why, I declare that's charming!" she cried, clapping her hands. "How on
+earth did you pick up all that in--what's-its-name? Do look here, my
+lord, here's young Ancram come up from that place in the West of
+England, and he can play the piano and sing French songs delightfully!"
+
+Algernon jumped up in a little flurry, and, turning round, found himself
+face to face with his magnificent relative, Lord Seely.
+
+Now it must be owned that "magnificent" was not quite the epithet that
+could justly be applied to Lord Seely's personal appearance. He was a
+small, delicately-made man, with a small, delicately-featured face, and
+sharp, restless dark eyes. His grey hair stood up in two tufts, one
+above each ear, and the top of his head was bald, shining, and
+yellowish, like old ivory. "Eh?" said he. "Oh! Mr.--a--a, how d'ye do?"
+Then he shook hands with Algernon, and courteously motioning him to
+resume his seat, threw himself into a chair by the hearth, opposite to
+his wife. He stretched out his short legs to their utmost possible
+length before him, and leant his head back wearily.
+
+"Tired, my lord?" asked his wife.
+
+"Why, yes, a little. Dictating letters is a fatiguing business,
+Mr.--a--a--"
+
+"Errington, my lord; Ancram Errington."
+
+"Oh, to be sure! I'm very glad to see you; very glad indeed. Yes, yes;
+Mr. Errington. You are a cousin of my lady's? Of course. Very glad."
+
+And Lord Seely got up and shook hands once more with Algernon, whose
+identity he had evidently only just recognised. But, although tardy, the
+peer's greeting was more than civil, it was kind; and Algernon's
+gratitude was in direct proportion to the chill disappointment he had
+felt at Lady Seely's discouraging words.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said, pressing the small thin white hand that was
+proffered to him. And Algy's way of saying "Thank you, sir," was
+admirable, and would have made the fortune of a young actor on the
+stage; for, in saying it, he had sufficient real emotion to make the
+simulated emotion quite touching--as an actor should have.
+
+My lord sat down again, wearily. "Bush has been with me again about that
+emigration scheme of his," he said to his wife. "Upon my honour, I don't
+know a more trying person than Bush." When he had thus spoken, he cast
+his eyes once more upon Algernon, who said, in the most artless,
+impulsive way in the world, "It's a poor-spirited kind of thing, no
+doubt; but, really, when one sees what a hard time of it statesmen have,
+one can't help feeling sometimes that it is pleasant to be nobody."
+
+Now the word "statesman" applied to Lord Seely was scarcely more correct
+than the word "magnificent" applied to his outer man. The fact was, that
+Lord Seely had been, from his youth upward, ambitious of political
+distinction, and had, indeed, filled a subordinate post in the Cabinet
+some twenty years previous to the day on which Algernon first made his
+acquaintance. But he had been a mere cypher there; and the worst of it
+was, that he had been conscious of being a cypher. He had not strength
+of character or ability to dominate other men, and he had too much
+intelligence to flatter himself that he succeeded, where success had
+eluded his pursuit. Stupider men had done better for themselves in the
+world than Valentine Sackville Strong, Lord Seely, and had gained more
+solid slices of success than he. Perhaps there is nothing more
+detrimental to the achievement of ascendancy over others than that
+intermittent kind of intellect, which is easily blown into a flame by
+vanity, but is as easily cooled down again by the chilly suggestions of
+common sense. The vanity which should be able to maintain itself always
+at white heat would be a triumphant thing. The common sense which never
+flared up to an enthusiastic temperature would be a safe thing. But the
+alternation of the two was felt to be uncomfortable and disconcerting by
+all who had much to do with Lord Seely. He continued, however, to keep
+up a semblance of political life. He had many personal friends in the
+present ministry, and there were one or two men who were rather
+specially hostile to him among the Opposition; of which latter he was
+very proud, liking to speak of his "enemies" in the House. He spoke
+pretty frequently from his place among the peers, but nobody paid him
+any particular attention. And he wrote and printed, at his own expense,
+a considerable number of political pamphlets; but nobody read them.
+That, however, may have been due to the combination against his lordship
+which existed among the writers for the public press, who never, he
+complained, reported his speeches _in extenso_, and, with few
+exceptions, ignored his pamphlets altogether.
+
+Howbeit, the word "statesman" struck pleasantly upon the little
+nobleman's ear, and he bestowed a more attentive glance on Algernon than
+he had hitherto honoured him with, and asked, in his abrupt tones, like
+a series of muffled barks, "Going to be long in town, Mr. Ancram?"
+
+"I've just been asking him," interposed my lady. "He don't know for
+certain. But----" And here she whispered in her husband's ear.
+
+"Oh, I hope so," said the latter aloud. "My lady and I hope that you
+will do us the favour to dine with us to-morrow--eh? Oh, I beg your
+pardon, Belinda, I thought you said to-morrow!--on Thursday next. We
+shall probably be alone, but I hope you will not mind that?"
+
+"I shall take it as a great favour, my lord," said Algernon, whose
+spirits had been steadily rising, ever since the successful performance
+of his French song.
+
+"You know, Mr. Ancram--I mean Mr. Errington--is a cousin of mine, my
+lord; so he won't expect to be treated with ceremony."
+
+Algernon felt as if he could have flown downstairs when, after this most
+gracious speech, he took leave of his august relatives. But he walked
+very soberly instead, down the staircase and past the solemn servants in
+the hall, with as much nonchalance as if he had been accustomed to the
+service of powdered lackeys from his babyhood.
+
+"He seems an intelligent, gentleman-like young fellow," said my lord to
+my lady.
+
+"Oh, he's as sharp as a weasel, and uncommonly nice-looking. And he
+sings French songs ever so much better than that theatre man that the
+Duchess made such a fuss about. He has the trick of drawing the long
+bow, which all the Warwickshire Ancrams were famous for. Oh, there's no
+doubt about his belonging to the real breed! He told me a
+cock-and-a-bull story about his father's devotion to science. I believe
+his father was a little apothecary in Birmingham. But I don't know that
+that much matters," said my lady to my lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Algernon was elated by the success of his song, and by Lady Seely's full
+acknowledgment of his cousinship, and he left the mansion in Mayfair in
+very good spirits, as has been said. But when he got back to his inn--a
+private hotel in a dingy street behind Oxford Street--he began to feel a
+recurrence of the disappointment which had oppressed him, when Lady
+Seely had declared so emphatically that my lord could do nothing for
+him, in the way of getting him a place. What was to be done? It was all
+very well for his mother to say that, with his talents and appearance,
+he must and would make his way to a high position; but, just and
+reasonable as it would be that his talents and appearance should give
+him success, he began to fear that they might not altogether avail to do
+so. He thought of Mr. Filthorpe--that substance, which Mr. Diamond had
+said they were deserting for the shadow of Seely--and of the thousands
+of pounds which the Bristol merchant possessed. Truly a stool in a
+counting-house was not the post which Algernon coveted. And he candidly
+told himself that he should not be able to fill it effectively. But,
+still, there would have been at least as good a chance of fascinating
+Mr. Filthorpe as of fascinating Lord Seely, and the looked-for result of
+the fascination in either case was to be absolution from the necessity
+of doing any disagreeable work whatever. And, moreover, Mr. Filthorpe,
+at all events, would have supplied board and lodging and a small salary,
+whilst he was undergoing the progress of being fascinated.
+
+Algernon looked thoughtful and anxious, for full a quarter of an hour,
+as he pondered these things. But then he fell into a fit of laughter at
+the recollection of Lady Seely and Fido. "There is something very absurd
+about that old woman," said he to himself. "She is so impudent! And why
+wear a wig at all, if a wig is to be such a one as hers? A turban or a
+skull-cap would do just as well to cover her head with. But then they
+wouldn't be half so funny. Fido is something like his mistress--nearly
+as fat, and with the same style of profile."
+
+Then he set himself to draw a caricature representing Fido, attired
+after the fashion of Lady Seely, and became quite cheerful and buoyant
+over it.
+
+In the interval between the day of his visit to the Seelys and the
+Thursday on which he was to dine with them, Algernon made one or two
+calls, and delivered a couple of letters of introduction, with which his
+Whitford friends had furnished him. One was from Dr. Bodkin to an
+old-fashioned solicitor, who was reputed to be rich, but who lived in a
+very quiet way, in a very quiet square, and gave very quiet little
+dinners to a select few who could appreciate a really fine glass of
+port. The other letter was to a sister of young Mr. Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, married to the chief clerk of the Admiralty, who lived in a
+fashionable neighbourhood, and gave parties as fashionable as her
+visiting-list permitted, and by no means desired any special
+connoisseurship in wine on the part of her guests.
+
+On the occasion of his first calls, Algernon found neither Mr.
+Leadbeater, the solicitor, nor Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs (that was the name of
+young Pawkins's sister) at home. So he left his letters and cards, and
+wandered about the streets in a rather forlorn way; for although it was
+his first visit to London, it was not possible for him to get much
+enjoyment out of the metropolis, all alone. To him every place, even
+London, appeared in the light of a stage or background, whereon that
+supremely interesting personage, himself, might figure to more or less
+advantage. Now London is a big theatre. And although a big theatre full
+of spectators may be very exhilarating to the object of public attention
+who performs in it, a big theatre, practically barren of
+spectators--for, of course, the only real spectators are the spectators
+who look at _us_--is apt to oppress the mind with a sense of desertion.
+So he was very glad when Thursday evening came, and he found himself
+once more within the hall door of Lord Seely's house.
+
+My lord was in the drawing-room alone, standing on the hearth-rug. He
+shook hands very kindly with Algernon, and bade him come near to the
+fire and warm himself, for the evening was cold.
+
+"And what have you been doing with yourself, Mr. Errington?" asked Lord
+Seely.
+
+"I have been chiefly employed to-day in losing myself and asking my
+way," answered Algernon, laughing. And then he began an account of his
+adventures, and absolutely surprised himself by the amount of fun and
+sparkle he contrived to elicit from the narration of circumstances which
+had been in fact dull and commonplace enough.
+
+My lord was greatly amused, and once even laughed out loud at Algernon's
+imitation of an Irish apple-woman, who had misdirected him with the best
+intentions, and much calling down of blessings on his handsome face, in
+return for a silver sixpence.
+
+"Capital!" said my lord, nodding his head up and down.
+
+"The sixpence was badly invested, though," observed Algernon, "for she
+sent me about three miles out of my way."
+
+"Ah, but the blarney! You forget the blessing and the blarney. Surely
+they were worth the money, eh?"
+
+"No, my lord; not to me. I can't afford expensive luxuries."
+
+Lady Seely, when she entered the room, gorgeous in pea-green satin,
+which singularly set off the somewhat pronounced tone of her rouge,
+found Algy and my lord laughing together very merrily, and, as she gave
+her hand to her young relative, demanded to be informed what the joke
+was.
+
+Now it has been said that Algernon was possessed of wonderfully rapid
+powers of perception, and by sundry signs, so slight that they would
+have entirely escaped most observers, this clever young gentleman
+perceived that my lady was not altogether delighted at finding her
+husband and himself on such easy and pleasant terms together. In fact,
+my lady, with all her blunt careless jollity of manner and pleasant
+mellow voice, was apt to be both jealous and suspicious. She was jealous
+of her ascendancy over Lord Seely, who was said by the ill-natured to be
+completely under his wife's thumb, and she was suspicious of most
+strangers--especially of strangers who might be expected to want
+anything of his lordship. And she usually assumed that such persons
+would endeavour to "come over" that nobleman, when he was apart from his
+wife's protecting influence. She had a general theory that "men might be
+humbugged into anything;" and a particular experience that Lord Seely,
+despite his stiff carriage and abrupt manner, was in truth far
+softer-natured than she was herself.
+
+"That young scamp has been coming over Valentine with his jokes and his
+flummery," said my lady to herself. "He's an Ancram, every inch of him."
+
+At that very moment Algernon was mentally declaring that the conquest of
+my lady would, after all, be a more difficult matter than that of my
+lord; but that, by some means or other, the conquest must be made, if
+any good was to come to him from the Seely connection. And a stream of
+easy chat flowed over these underlying intentions and hid them, except
+that here and there, perhaps, a bubble or an eddy told of rough places
+out of sight.
+
+After some ten minutes of desultory talk, my lady was obliged to own to
+herself that the "young scamp" had a wonderfully good manner. Without a
+trace of servility, he was respectful; conveying, with perfect tact,
+exactly the sort of homage that was graceful and becoming from a youth
+like himself to persons of the Seelys' age and position. Neither did he
+commit the error of becoming familiar, in response to Lady Seely's tone
+of familiarity, a pitfall which had before now entrapped the unwary. For
+my lady, whom Nature had created vulgar--having possibly, in the hurry
+of business, mistaken one kind of clay for another, and put some low
+person's mind into the fine porcelain of an undoubted Ancram--was fond
+of asserting her position in the world by a rough unceremoniousness in
+the first place, and a very wide-eyed arrogance in the second place, if
+such unceremoniousness chanced to be reciprocated by unauthorised
+persons.
+
+"Do we wait for any one, Belinda?" asked Lord Seely.
+
+"The Dormers are coming. They're such great musicians, you know. And I
+want Lady Harriet to hear this boy sing. And then there may be Jack
+Price, very likely."
+
+"Very likely?" said my lord, raising his eyebrows and stiffening his
+back. "Doesn't Mr. Price do us the honour of saying positively whether
+he will come or not?"
+
+"Oh, you know what Jack Price is. He says he'll come, and nine times out
+of ten he don't come; and then the tenth time he comes, and people have
+to put up with him."
+
+My lord cleared his throat significantly, as who should say that he, at
+all events, did not feel inclined to put up with this system of tithes
+in the fulfilment of Mr. Jack Price's promises.
+
+"If he comes," said Lady Seely, addressing Algernon, "you'll have to
+walk into dinner by yourself. I've only got one young lady; and, if Jack
+comes, he must have her."
+
+"Where is Castalia?" asked my lord.
+
+"Oh, I suppose she's dressing. Castalia is always the slowest creature
+at her toilet I ever knew."
+
+Algernon had read up the family genealogy in the "Peerage," under his
+mother's instructions, sufficiently to be aware that Lord and Lady Seely
+were childless, having lost their only son in a boating accident years
+ago. "Castalia," then, could not be a daughter of the house. Who was
+she? A young lady who was evidently at present living with the Seelys,
+whom they called by her Christian name, and who was habitually a long
+time at her toilet! Algernon felt a little agreeable excitement and
+curiosity on the subject of the tardy Castalia.
+
+The door was thrown open. "Here she comes!" thought Algernon, settling
+his cravat as he threw a quick side glance at a mirror.
+
+"General and Lady Harriet Dormer," announced the servant.
+
+There entered a tall, elegant woman, leaning on the arm of a short,
+stout, benevolent-looking man in spectacles. To these personages
+Algernon was duly presented, being introduced, much to his
+gratification, by Lady Seely, as "A young cousin of mine, Mr. Ancram
+Errington, who has just come to town." Then, having made his bow to
+General Dormer, who smiled and shook hands with him, Algernon stood
+opposite to the graceful Lady Harriet, and was talked to very kindly and
+pleasantly, and felt extremely content with himself and his
+surroundings. Nevertheless he watched with some impatience for the
+appearance of "Castalia;" and forgot his usual self-possession so far as
+to turn his head, and break off in the middle of a sentence he was
+uttering to Lady Harriet, when he heard the door open again. But once
+more he was disappointed; for, this time, dinner was announced, and Lord
+Seely offered his arm to Lady Harriet and led the way out of the room.
+
+"No Jack," said Lady Seely, as she passed out before Algernon. "And no
+Castalia!" said my lord over his shoulder, in a tone of vexation.
+
+Algernon followed his seniors alone; but just as he got out on to the
+staircase there appeared a lady, leisurely descending from an upper
+floor, at whom Lord Seely looked up reproachfully.
+
+"Late, late, Castalia!" said he, and shook his head solemnly.
+
+"Oh no, Uncle Valentine; just in time," replied the lady.
+
+"Castalia, take Ancram's arm, and do let us get to dinner before the
+soup is cold," said Lady Seely. "Give your arm to Miss Kilfinane, and
+come along." And her ladyship's pea-green satin swept downstairs after
+Lady Harriet's sober purple draperies. Algernon bowed, and offered his
+arm to the lady beside him; she placed her hand on it almost without
+looking at him, and they entered the dining-room without having
+exchanged a word.
+
+The dining-room was better lighted than the staircase, and Algernon took
+an early opportunity of looking at his companion. She was not very
+young, being, in fact, nearly thirty, but looking older. Neither was she
+handsome. She was very thin, sallow, and sickly-looking, with a small
+round face, not wrinkled, but crumpled, as it were, into queer, fretful
+lines. Her eyes were bright and well-shaped, but deeply sunken, and she
+had a great deal of thick, pale-brown hair, worn in huge bows and
+festoons on the top of her head, according to the extreme of the mode of
+that day. Her dress displayed more than it was judicious to display, in
+an æsthetic point of view, of very lean shoulders, and was of a bright,
+soft, pink hue, that would have been trying to the most blooming
+complexion. Altogether, the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane's appearance
+was disappointing, and her manner was not so attractive as to make up
+for lack of beauty. Her face expressed a mixture of querulousness and
+hauteur, and she spoke in a languid drawl, with strange peevish
+inflections.
+
+"You and I ought to be some sort of relations to each other, oughtn't
+we?" said Algernon, having taken in all the above particulars in a
+series of rapid observations.
+
+"Why?" returned the lady, without raising her eyes from her soup-plate.
+
+"Because you are Lady Seely's niece and I am her cousin."
+
+"Who says that I am Lady Seely's niece?"
+
+"I thought," stammered Algernon--"I fancied--you called Lord Seely
+'Uncle Valentine?'"
+
+Even his equanimity, and a certain glow of complacency he felt at
+finding himself where he was, were a little disturbed by Miss
+Castalia's freezing manner.
+
+"I am Lord Seely's niece," returned she.
+
+Then, after a little pause, having finished her soup, she leaned back in
+her chair and stared at Algernon, who pretended--not quite
+successfully--to be unconscious of her scrutiny. Apparently, the result
+of it was favourable to Algernon; for the lady's manner thawed
+perceptibly, and she began to talk to him. She had evidently heard of
+him from Lady Seely, and understood the exact degree of his relationship
+to that great lady.
+
+"Did you ever meet the Dormers before?" asked Miss Kilfinane.
+
+"Never. How should I? You know I am the merest country mouse. I never
+was in London in my life, until last Friday."
+
+"Oh, but the Dormers don't live in town. Indeed, they are here very
+seldom. You might have met them; their place is in the West of England."
+
+Algernon, after a rapid balancing of pros and cons, resolved to be
+absolutely candid. With his brightest smile and most arched eyebrows, he
+began to give Miss Kilfinane an almost unvarnished description of his
+life at Whitford. Almost unvarnished; but it is no more easy to tell the
+simple truth only occasionally, than it is to stand quite upright only
+occasionally. Mind and muscles will fall back to their habitual
+posture. So that it may be doubted whether Miss Kilfinane received an
+accurate notion of the precise degree of poverty and obscurity in which
+the young man who was speaking to her had hitherto lived.
+
+"And so," said she, "you have come to London to----"
+
+"To seek my fortune," said Algernon merrily. "It is the proper and
+correct beginning to a story. And I think I have had a piece of good
+luck at the very outset by way of a good omen."
+
+Miss Kilfinane opened her eyes interrogatively, but said nothing.
+
+"I think it was a piece of luck for me," continued Algernon, emboldened
+by having secured the scornful lady's attention, and perhaps a little
+also by the wine he had drunk, "a great piece of good luck that Mr. Jack
+Price, whoever he may be, did not turn up this evening."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, if he had, I should not have been allowed the honour of
+bringing you in to dinner."
+
+"Oh yes! I should have had to go in with Jack, I suppose," answered the
+lady with a little smile.
+
+"Please, Miss Kilfinane, who is Jack Price? I do so want to know!"
+
+"Jack Price is Lord Mullingar's son."
+
+"But what is he? And why do people want to have him so much, that they
+put up with his disappointing them nine times out of ten?"
+
+"As to what he is--well, he was in the Guards, and he gave that up. Then
+they got him a place somewhere--in Africa, or South America, or
+somewhere--and he gave that up. Then he got the notion that he would be
+a farmer in Canada, and went out with an axe to cut down the trees, and
+a plough to plough the ground afterwards, and he gave that up. Now he
+does nothing particular."
+
+"And has he found his vocation at last?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," said Miss Kilfinane, languidly. Her power of
+perceiving a joke was very limited.
+
+"Thanks. Now I know all about Mr. Price; except--except why everybody
+wants to invite him."
+
+"That I really cannot tell you."
+
+"Then you don't share the general enthusiasm about him?"
+
+"I don't know that there is any general enthusiasm. Only, of
+course--don't you know how it is?--people have got into the way of
+putting up with him, and letting him do as he likes."
+
+"He's a very fortunate young man, I should say."
+
+"Young man!" Miss Kilfinane laughed a hard little laugh. "Why Jack
+Price is ever so old!"
+
+"Ever so old, is he?" echoed Algernon, genuinely surprised.
+
+"He must be turned forty," said the fair Castalia, rising in obedience
+to a look from Lady Seely. And if she had been but fifteen herself, she
+could not have said it with a more infantine air.
+
+After the ladies had withdrawn, Algernon had to sit for about twenty
+minutes in the shade, as it were, silent, and listening with modesty and
+discretion to the conversation of his seniors. Had they talked politics,
+Algernon would have been able to throw in a word or two; but Lord Seely
+and his guest talked, not of principles or party, but of persons. The
+persons talked of were such as Lord Seely conceived to be useful or
+hostile to his party, and he discussed their conduct, and criticised the
+tactics of ministers in regard to them, with much warmth. But,
+unfortunately, Algernon neither knew, nor could pretend to know,
+anything about these individuals, so he sipped his wine, and looked at
+the family portraits which hung round the room, in silence.
+
+My lord made a kind of apology to him, as they were going upstairs to
+the drawing-room.
+
+"I'm afraid you were bored, Mr. Errington. I am sorry, for your sake,
+that Mr. Price did not honour us with his company. You would have found
+him much more amusing than us old fogies."
+
+Algernon knew, when Lord Seely talked of Mr. Price not having honoured
+them with his company, that my lord was indignant against that
+gentleman. "I have no doubt Mr. Price is a very agreeable person," said
+he, "but I did not regret him, my lord. I thought it a great privilege
+to be allowed to listen to you."
+
+Later in the evening Algy overheard Lord Seely say to General Dormer,
+"He's a remarkably intelligent young fellow, I assure you."
+
+"He has a capital manner," returned the general. "There is something
+very taking about him, indeed."
+
+"Oh yes, manner; yes; a very good manner--but there's more judgment,
+more solidity about him than appears on the surface."
+
+Meanwhile, Algernon went on flourishingly, and ingratiated himself with
+every one. He steered his way, with admirable tact, past various perils,
+such as must inevitably threaten one who aims at universal popularity.
+Lady Harriet was delighted with his singing, and Lady Harriet's
+expressed approbation pleased Lady Seely; for the Dormers were
+considered to be great musical connoisseurs, and their judgment had
+considerable weight among their own set. Their own set further supposed
+that the verdict of the Dormers was important to professional artists: a
+delusion which the givers of second-rate concerts, who depended on Lady
+Harriet to get rid of many seven-and-sixpenny tickets during the season,
+were at no pains to disturb. Then, Algernon took the precaution to keep
+away from Lord Seely, and to devote himself to my lady, during the
+remainder of the evening. This behaviour had so good an effect, that she
+called him "Ancram," and bade him go and talk to Castalia, who was
+sitting alone on a distant ottoman, with a distinctly sour expression of
+countenance.
+
+"How did you get on with Castalia at dinner?" asked my lady.
+
+"Miss Kilfinane was very kind to me, ma'am."
+
+"Was she? Well, she don't make herself agreeable to everybody, so
+consider yourself honoured. Castalia's a very clever girl. She can draw,
+make wax flowers, and play the piano beautifully."
+
+"Can she really? Will she play to-night?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know. Go and ask her."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Yes; be off."
+
+Miss Kilfinane did not move or raise her eyes when Algernon went and
+stood before her.
+
+"I have come with a petition," he said, after a little pause.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Yes; will you play to-night?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, that's very cruel! I wish you would!"
+
+"I don't like playing before the Dormers. They set up for being such
+connoisseurs, and I hate that kind of thing."
+
+"I am sure you can have no reason to fear their criticism."
+
+"I don't want to have my performance picked to pieces in that knowing
+sort of way. I play for my own amusement, and I don't want to be
+criticised, and applauded, and patronised."
+
+"But how can people help applauding when you play? Lady Seely says you
+play exquisitely."
+
+"Did she tell you to ask me to play?"
+
+"Not exactly. But she said I might ask you."
+
+At this moment General Dormer came up, and said, with his most
+benevolent smile, "Won't you give us a little music, Miss Kilfinane?
+Some Beethoven, now! I see a volume of his sonatas on the piano."
+
+"I hate Beethoven," returned Miss Kilfinane.
+
+"Hate Beethoven! No, no, you don't. It's quite impossible! A pianist
+like you! Oh no, Miss Kilfinane, it is out of the question."
+
+"Yes, I do. I hate all classical music, and the sort of stuff that
+people talk about it."
+
+The general smiled again, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and
+walked away.
+
+"Miss Kilfinane, you are ferociously cruel!" said Algernon under his
+breath as General Dormer turned his back on them. The little fear he had
+had of Castalia's chilly manner and ungracious tongue had quite
+vanished. Algernon was not apt to be in awe of anyone; and he certainly
+was not in awe of Castalia Kilfinane. "Why did you tell the general that
+you hated Beethoven?" he went on saucily. "I'm quite sure you don't hate
+Beethoven!"
+
+"I hate all the kind of professional jargon which the Dormers affect
+about music. Music is all very well, but it isn't our business, any more
+than tailoring or millinery is our business. To hear the Dormers talk,
+you would think it the most important matter in the world to decide
+whether this fiddler is better than that fiddler, or what is the right
+time to play a fugue of Bach's in."
+
+"I'm such an ignoramus that I'm afraid I don't even know with any
+precision what a fugue of Bach's is!" said Algernon, ingenuously. He
+thought he had learned to understand Miss Castalia. Nevertheless, when,
+later in the evening, Lady Harriet asked him in her pretty silver tones,
+"And do you, too, hate classical music, Mr. Errington?" he professed the
+most unbounded love and reverence for the great masters. "I have had few
+opportunities of hearing fine music, Lady Harriet," said he; "but it is
+the thing I have longed for all my life." Whereupon Lady Harriet, much
+pleased at the prospect of such a disciple, invited him to go to her
+house every Saturday morning, when he would hear some of the best
+performers in London execute some of the best music. "I only ask real
+listeners," said Lady Harriet. "We are just a few music-lovers who take
+the thing very much _au sérieux_."
+
+On the whole, when Algernon thought over his evening, sitting over the
+fire in his bedroom at the inn, he acknowledged to himself that he had
+been successful. "Lady Seely is the toughest customer, though! What a
+fish-wife she looks beside that elegant Lady Harriet! But she can put on
+airs of a great lady too, when she likes. It's a very fine line that
+divides dignity from impudence. Take her wig off, wash her face, and
+clothe her in a short cotton gown with a white apron, and how many
+people would know that Belinda, Lady Seely, had ever been anything but a
+cook, or the landlady of a public-house? Well, I think I am cleverer
+than any of 'em. And, after all, that's a great point." With which
+comfortable reflection Algernon Ancram Errington went to bed, and to
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+On the day following the dinner at Lord Seely's, Algernon received a
+card, importing that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be at home that evening.
+
+Of the lady he knew nothing, except that she was an elder sister of
+young Pawkins, of Pudcombe Hall; and that her family, who were people of
+consideration in Whitford and its neighbourhood, thought Jemima to have
+made a good match in marrying Mr. Machyn-Stubbs. In giving him the
+letter of introduction, Orlando Pawkins had let fall a word or two as to
+the position his sister held in London society.
+
+"I can't send anybody and everybody to the Machyn-Stubbses," said young
+Pawkins. "In their position, it wouldn't be fair to inflict our bucolic
+magnates on them. But I'm sure Jemima will be very glad to make your
+acquaintance, old fellow."
+
+Algernon was quite free from arrogance. He would have been well enough
+contented to dine with Mr. Machyn-Stubbs, had that gentleman been a
+grocer or a cheesemonger. And, in that case, he would probably have
+derived a good deal of amusement from any little vulgarities which might
+have marked the manners of his host, and would have entertained his
+genteeler friends by a humorous imitation of the same. But he was not in
+the least overawed by the prospect of meeting Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, and
+was quite aware that he probably owed his introduction to her, to young
+Pawkins's knowledge of the fact that he was Lady Seely's relation.
+
+Algernon betook himself to the house of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, in the
+fashionable neighbourhood before mentioned, about half-past ten o'clock,
+and found the small reception-rooms already fuller than was agreeable.
+Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs received him very graciously. She was a pretty woman,
+with a smooth fair face and light hair, and she was dressed with as much
+good taste as was compatible with the extreme of the prevailing fashion.
+She smiled a good deal, and was quite destitute of any sense of humour.
+
+"So glad to see you, Mr. Errington," said she, when Algernon had made
+his bow. "You and Orlando are great friends, are you not? You must let
+me make you acquainted with my husband." Then she handed Algernon over
+to a stout, red-faced, white-haired gentleman, much older than herself,
+who shook hands with him, said, "How d'ye do?" and "How long have you
+been in town?" and then appeared to consider that he had done all that
+could be expected of him in the way of conversation.
+
+"I suppose you don't know many people here, Mr. Errington?" said Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs, seeing that Algernon was standing silent in the shadow of
+her husband.
+
+"Not any. You know I have never been in London before."
+
+"Haven't you, really? But perhaps we may have some mutual acquaintances
+notwithstanding. Let me see who is here!" said the lady, looking round
+her rooms.
+
+"Are you acquainted with the Dormers, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs?"
+
+"The Dormers? Let me see----"
+
+"General and Lady Harriet Dormer."
+
+"Oh! no; I don't think I am. Of course I must have met them. In the
+course of the season, sooner or later, one meets everybody."
+
+"Do you know Miss Kilfinane?"
+
+"Miss Kilfinane? I--I can't recall at this moment----"
+
+"She is a sort of connection of mine; not a relation, for she is Lord
+Seely's niece, not my lady's."
+
+"Oh, to be sure! You are a cousin of Lady Seely. Yes, yes; I had
+forgotten. But Orlando did mention it."
+
+In truth, the fact of Algernon's relationship to Lady Seely was the only
+one concerning him which had dwelt in Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's memory.
+Presently she resumed:
+
+"I should like to introduce you to a great friend of ours--the most
+delightful creature! I hope he will come to-night, but he is very
+difficult to catch. He is a son of Lord Mullingar."
+
+"What, Jack Price?"
+
+"Oh, you know him, do you?"
+
+"Only by reputation. He was to have dined at Lord Seely's last night,
+when I was there. But he didn't show."
+
+"Oh, I know he's dreadfully uncertain. But I must say, however, that he
+is generally very good about coming to me. It's quite wonderful. I'm
+sure I don't know why I am so favoured!"
+
+Then Algernon was presented to a rather awful dowager, with two stiff
+daughters, to whom he talked as well as he could; and the nicest looking
+of whom he took into the tea-room, where there was a great crush, and
+where people trod on each other's toes, and poked their elbows into
+each other's ribs, to procure a cup of hay-coloured tea and a biscuit
+that had seen better days.
+
+"Upon my word," thought Algernon, "if this is London society, I think
+Whitford society better fun." But then he reflected that Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs was not a real leader of fashionable society. She was not
+quite a rose herself, although she lived near enough to the roses for
+their scent to cling, more or less faintly, about her garments. He was
+not bored, for his quick powers of perception, and lively appreciation
+of the ludicrous, enabled him to gather considerable amusement from the
+scene. Especially did he feel amused and in his element when, on an
+allusion to his cousinship to Lady Seely, thrown out in the airiest,
+most haphazard way, the awful dowager and the stiff daughters unbent,
+and became as gracious as temperament in the one case, and painfully
+tight stays in the other, permitted.
+
+"He's a very agreeable person, your young friend, Mr. Ancram Errington,"
+said the dowager, later on in the evening, to Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs.
+
+"Oh yes; he's very nice indeed. He is a great favourite with my people.
+He half lives at our place, I believe, when Orlando is at home."
+
+"Indeed! He is--a--a--connected with the Seelys, I believe, in some
+way?"
+
+"Second cousin. Lady Seely was an Ancram--Warwickshire Ancrams, you
+know," returned Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, who knew her "Peerage" nearly by
+heart. Whereupon the dowager went back to her daughter, by whose side,
+having nothing else to do, Algernon was still sitting, and told him that
+she should be happy to see him at her house in Portland Place any Friday
+afternoon, between four and six o'clock during the season.
+
+Presently, when the company was giving forth a greater amount and louder
+degree of talk than had hitherto been the case--for Herr Doppeldaun had
+just sat down to the grand piano--Algernon's quick eyes perceived a
+movement near the door of the principal drawing-room, and saw Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs advance with extended hand, and more eagerness than she
+had thrown into her reception of most of the company, to greet a
+gentleman who entered with a kind of plunge, tripping over a bearskin
+rug that lay before the door, and dropping his hat.
+
+He was a short, broad-chested man, with a bald forehead and a fringe of
+curly chestnut hair round his head. He was evidently extremely
+near-sighted, and wore a glass in one eye, the effort of keeping which
+in its place occasioned an odd contortion of his facial muscles. He was
+rubicund, and looked like a man who might grow to be very stout later in
+life. At present he was only rather stout, and was braced, and
+strapped, and tightened, so as to make the best of his figure. His dress
+was the dress of a dandy of that day, and he wore a fragrant hothouse
+flower in his button-hole.
+
+"That must be Jack Price!" thought Algernon, he scarcely knew why; and
+the next moment he got away from the dowager and her daughters, and
+sauntered towards the door.
+
+"Oh, here is Mr. Errington," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, looking round at
+him as he made his way through the crowd. "Do let me introduce you to
+Mr. Price. This is Mr. Ancram Errington, a great friend of my brother
+Orlando. You have met Orlando, I think?"
+
+"Oh, indeed, I have!" said Mr. Jack Price, in a rich sweet voice, and
+with a very decidedly marked brogue. "Orlando is one of my dearest
+friends. Delightful fellow, what? Orlando's friend must be my friend, if
+he will, what?"
+
+The little interrogation at the end of the sentence meant nothing, but
+was a mere trick. The use of it, with a soft rising inflection of Mr.
+Jack Price's very musical voice, had once upon a time been pronounced to
+be "captivating" by an enthusiastic Irish lady. But he had not fallen
+into the habit of using it from any idea that it was captivating, nor
+had he desisted from it since all projects of captivation had departed
+from his mind.
+
+"I was to have met you at dinner, last night, Mr. Price," said Algernon,
+shaking his proffered hand.
+
+"Last night? I was--where is it I was last night? Oh, at the
+Blazonvilles! Yes, of course, what? Why didn't you come, then, Mr.
+Errington? The Duke would have been delighted--perfectly charmed to see
+you!"
+
+"Well, that may be doubtful, seeing that I cannot flatter myself that
+his Grace is even aware of my existence," said Algernon, looking at Mr.
+Price with twinkling eyes, and his mouth twitching with the effort to
+avoid a broad grin.
+
+Jack Price looked back at him, puzzled and smiling. "Eh? How was it
+then, what? Was it--it wasn't me, was it?"
+
+Algernon laughed outright.
+
+"Ah now, Mr.--Mr.--my dear fellow, where was it that you were to have
+met me?"
+
+"My cousin, Lady Seely, was hoping for the pleasure of your company, Mr.
+Price. She was under the impression that you had promised to dine with
+her."
+
+Jack Price fell back a step and gave himself a sounding slap on the
+forehead. "Good gracious goodness!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to say
+that?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"Ah, now, upon my honour, I am the most unfortunate fellow under the
+sun! I don't know how the deuce it is that these kind of misfortunes are
+always happening to me. What will I say to Lady Seely? She'll never
+speak to me any more, I suppose, what?"
+
+"You should keep a little book and note down your engagements, Mr.
+Price," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, as she walked away to some other guest.
+
+Mr. Price gave Algernon a comical look, half-rueful, half-amused. "I
+don't quite see myself with the little book, entering all my
+engagements," said he. "I daresay you've heard already from Lady Seely
+of my sins and shortcomings?"
+
+"At all events, I have heard this: that whatever may be your sins and
+shortcomings, they are always forgiven."
+
+"I am afraid I bear an awfully bad character, my dear Mr.----"
+
+"Errington; Ancram Errington."
+
+"To be sure! Ah, I know your name well enough. But names are among the
+things that slip my memory. It is a serious misfortune, what?"
+
+Then the two began to chat together. And when the crowd began to
+diminish, and the rattle of carriages grew more frequent down in the
+street beneath the drawing-room windows, Jack Price proposed to
+Algernon to go and sup with him at his club. They walked away together,
+arm-in-arm, and, as they left Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's doorstep, Mr. Price
+assured his new acquaintance that that lady was the nicest creature in
+the world, and one of his dearest friends; and that he could take upon
+himself to assert that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be only too delighted to
+receive him (Algernon) at any time and as often as he liked. "It will
+give her real pleasure, now, what?" said Jack Price, with quite a glow
+of hospitality on behalf of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs. Then they went to Mr.
+Price's club. It was neither a political club, nor a fashionable club,
+nor a grand club; but a club that was widely miscellaneous, and
+decidedly jolly. Algernon, before he returned to his lodging that night,
+had come to the opinion that London was, after all, a great deal better
+fun than Whitford. And Jack Price, when he called upon Lady Seely the
+next day, to make his peace with her, declared that young Errington was,
+really now, the most delightful and dearest boy in the world, and that
+he was quite certain that the young fellow was most warmly attached to
+Lord and Lady Seely.
+
+All this was agreeable enough, and Algernon would have been content to
+go on in the same way to the end of the London season had it been
+possible. But careless as he was about money, he was not careless about
+the luxuries which money supplies. Certainly, if tradesmen and landlords
+could only be induced to give unlimited credit, Algernon would have had
+none the less pleasure in availing himself of their wares, because he
+had not paid for them in coin of the realm. But as to doing without, or
+even limiting himself to an inferior quality and restricted quantity,
+that was a matter about which he was not at all indifferent. He was
+received on a familiar footing in the Seelys' house; and his reception
+there opened to him many other houses, in which it was more or less
+agreeable and flattering to be received. Among the Machyn-Stubbses of
+London society he was looked upon as quite a desirable guest, and
+received a good deal of petting, which he took with the best grace in
+the world. And all this was, as has been said, pleasant enough. But, as
+weeks went on, Algernon's money began to run short; and he soon beheld
+the dismal prospect ahead--and not very far ahead--of his last
+sovereign. And he was in debt.
+
+As to being in debt, that had nothing in it appalling to our young man's
+imagination. What frightened him was the conviction that he should not
+be permitted to go on being in debt. Other people owed money, and seemed
+to enjoy life none the less. Mr. Jack Price, for instance, had an
+allowance from his father, on which no one pretended to expect him to
+live. And he appeared very comfortable and contented in the midst of a
+rolling sea of debt, which sometimes ebbed a little, and sometimes
+flowed alarmingly high; but which, during the last ten years or so, he
+had managed to keep pretty fairly at the same level. But then Mr. Price
+was the Honourable John Patrick Price, the Earl of Mullingar's son--a
+younger son, it was true; and neither Lord Mullingar, nor Lord
+Mullingar's heir, was likely to have the means, or the inclination, to
+fish him out of the rolling sea aforesaid. At the most, they would throw
+him a plank now and then just to keep him afloat. Still there was
+something to be got out of Jack Price by a West-end tradesman who knew
+his business. Something was to be got in the way of money, and, perhaps,
+something more in the way of connection. Upon the whole, it may be
+supposed that the West-end tradesmen understood what they were about,
+when they went on supplying the Honourable John Patrick Price with all
+sorts of comforts and luxuries, season after season.
+
+But with Algernon the case was widely different, and he knew it. He had
+ventured to speak to Lord Seely about his prospects, and to ask that
+nobleman's "advice." But Lord Seely had not seemed able to offer any
+advice which it was practicable to follow. Indeed, how should he have
+done so, seeing that he was ignorant of most of the material facts of
+the case? He knew in a general way that young Ancram (Algernon had come
+to be called so in the Seely household) was poor; but between Lord
+Seely's conception of the sort of poverty which might pinch a well-born
+young gentleman, who always appeared in the neatest-fitting shoes and
+freshest of gloves, and the reality of Algernon's finances, there was a
+wide discrepancy. Algernon had indeed talked freely, and with much
+appearance of frankness, about his life in Whitford; but it may be
+doubted whether Lord Seely, or his wife either--although she, doubtless,
+came nearer to the truth in her imaginings on the subject--at all
+realised such facts as that Mrs. Errington had no maid to attend on her;
+that her lodgings cost her eighteen shillings a week; and that the smell
+of cheese from the shop below was occasionally a source of discomfort in
+her only sitting-room.
+
+With Lord Seely Algernon had made himself a great favourite, and the
+proof of it was, that my lord actually thought about him when he was
+absent; and one day said to his wife, "I wish, Belinda, that we could do
+something for Ancram."
+
+"Do something for him! I think we do a great deal for him. He has the
+run of the house, and I introduce him right and left. And he is always
+asked to sing when we have people."
+
+"That latter looks rather like his doing something for us, I think."
+
+"Not at all. It's a great advantage for a young fellow in his position
+to be brought forward, and allowed to show off his little gifts in that
+way."
+
+"He is wasting his time. I wish we could get him something to do."
+
+"I am sure you have plenty of claims on you that come before him."
+
+"I--I did speak to the Duke of Blazonville about him the other day,"
+said my lord, with the slightest hesitation in the world.
+
+The Duke of Blazonville was in the cabinet, and had been a colleague of
+Lord Seely's years ago.
+
+"What on earth made you do that, Valentine? You know very well that the
+next thing the duke has to give I particularly want for Reginald."
+
+"Oh, but what I should ask for young Ancram would be something at which
+your nephew Reginald would probably----"
+
+"Turn up his nose?"
+
+"Something which Reginald would not care about taking."
+
+"Reginald wouldn't go abroad, except to Italy. Nor, indeed, anywhere in
+Italy but to Naples."
+
+"Exactly. Whether the duke would consider that he was particularly
+serving the interests of diplomacy by sending Reginald to Naples, I
+don't know. But, at all events, Ancram could not interfere with that
+project."
+
+"Serving----? Nonsense! The duke would do it to oblige me. As to Ancram,
+I have latterly had a kind of plan in my head about Ancram."
+
+"About a place for him?"
+
+"Well, yes; a place, if you like to call it so. What do you say to his
+coming abroad with us in the autumn?"
+
+"Eh! Coming abroad with us?"
+
+"Of course we should have to pay all his expenses. But I think he would
+be amusing, and perhaps useful. He talks French very well, and is lively
+and good-tempered."
+
+"I have no doubt he would be a most charming travelling companion----"
+
+"I don't know about that. But I should take him out of kindness, and to
+do him a service."
+
+"But I don't see of what use such a plan would be to him, Belinda."
+
+"Well, I've an idea in my head, I tell you. I have kept my eyes open,
+and I fancy I see a chance for Ancram."
+
+"You are very mysterious, my dear!" said Lord Seely, with a little
+shrug.
+
+"Well, least said, soonest mended. I shall be mysterious a little
+longer. And, meanwhile, I think we might make him the offer to take him
+to Switzerland with us, since you have no objection."
+
+"I have no objection, certainly."
+
+"I think I shall mention it to him, then. And, if I were you, I wouldn't
+bother the duke about him just yet."
+
+"But what is this notion of yours, Belinda?"
+
+The exclamation rose to my lady's lips, "How inquisitive men are!" but
+she suppressed it. It was the kind of speech which particularly angered
+Lord Seely, who much disliked being lumped in with his fellow-creatures
+on the ground of common qualities. Even a compliment, so framed that my
+lord was supposed to share it with a number of other persons, would have
+displeased him. So my lady said, "Well, now, Valentine, you'll begin to
+laugh at me, very likely, but I believe I'm right. I think Castalia is
+very well inclined to like this young fellow. And she might do worse."
+
+"Castalia! Like him? Why, you don't mean----?"
+
+"Yes, I do," returned my lady, nodding her head. "That's just what I do
+mean. I'm sure, the other evening, she became quite sentimental about
+him."
+
+"Good heavens, Belinda! But the idea is preposterous."
+
+"Yes; I knew you'd say so at first. That's why I didn't want to say
+anything about it just yet awhile."
+
+"But allow me to say that, if you had any such idea in your head, it was
+only proper that it should be mentioned to me."
+
+"Well, I have mentioned it."
+
+Lord Seely clasped his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the
+room in a stiff, abrupt kind of march. At length he stopped opposite to
+her ladyship, who was assiduously soothing Fido; Fido having, for some
+occult reason, become violently exasperated by his master's walking
+about the room.
+
+"Why, in the first place----do send that brute away," said his lordship,
+sharply.
+
+"There! he's quiet now. Good Fido! Good boy! Mustn't bark and growl at
+master. Yes; you were saying----?"
+
+"I was saying that, in the first place, Castalia must be ten years older
+than this boy."
+
+"About that, I should say. But if they don't mind that, I don't see what
+it matters to us."
+
+"And he has not any means, nor any prospect of earning any, that I can
+see."
+
+"Why, for that matter, Castalia hasn't a shilling in the world, you
+know. We have to find her in everything, and so has your sister Julia,
+when Castalia goes to stay with her. And if these two could set their
+horses together--could, in a word, make a match of it--why, you might do
+something to provide for the two together, don't you see? Killing two
+birds with one stone!"
+
+"Very much like killing two birds, indeed! What are they to live on?"
+
+"If Ancram makes up to Castalia, you must get him a place. Something
+modest, of course. I don't see that they can either of them expect a
+grand thing."
+
+"Putting all other considerations aside," said my lord, drawing himself
+up, "it would be a very odd sort of match for Castalia Kilfinane."
+
+"Come! his birth is as good as hers, any way. If his father was an
+apothecary, her mother was a poor curate's daughter."
+
+"Rector's daughter, Belinda. Dr. Vyse was a learned man, and the rector
+of his parish."
+
+"Oh, well, it all comes to the same thing. And as to an odd sort of
+match, why, perhaps, an odd match is better than none at all. You know
+Castalia's no beauty. She don't grow younger; and she'll be unbearable
+in her temper, if once she thinks she's booked for an old maid."
+
+Poor Lord Seely was much disquieted. He had a kindly feeling for his
+orphan niece, which would have ripened into affection if Miss Castalia's
+character had been a little less repellent. And he really liked Algernon
+Errington so much that the notion of his marrying Castalia appeared to
+him in the light of a sacrifice, even although he held his own opinion
+as to the comparative goodness of the Ancram and Kilfinane blood. But,
+nevertheless, such was Lady Seely's force of character, that many days
+had not elapsed before his lordship was silenced, if not convinced, on
+the subject. And the invitation to go to Switzerland was given to
+Algernon, and accepted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+As the spring advanced, letters from Algernon Errington arrived rather
+frequently at Whitford. His mother had ample scope for the exercise of
+her peculiar talent, in boasting about the reception Algy had met with
+from her great relations in town, the fine society he frequented, and
+the prospect of still greater distinctions in store for him. One or two
+troublesome persons, to be sure, would ask for details, and inquire
+whether Lord Seely meant to get Algy a place, and what tangible benefits
+he had it in contemplation to bestow on him. But to all such prosy,
+plodding individuals, Mrs. Errington presented a perspective of vague
+magnificence, which sometimes awed and generally silenced them.
+
+The big square letters on Bath post paper, directed in Algernon's clear,
+graceful handwriting, and bearing my Lord Seely's frank, in the form of
+a blotchy sprawling autograph in one corner, were, however, palpable
+facts; and Mrs. Errington made the most of them. It was seldom that she
+had not one of them in her pocket. She would pull them out, sometimes as
+though in mere absence of mind, sometimes avowedly of set purpose, but
+in either case she failed not to make them the occasion for an almost
+endless variety of prospective and retrospective boasting.
+
+It must be owned that Algernon's letters were delightful. They were
+written with such a freshness of observation, such a sense of enjoyment,
+such a keen appreciation of fun--tempered always by a wonderful knack of
+keeping his own figure in a favourable light--that passages from them
+were read aloud, and quoted at Whitford tea-parties with a most
+enlivening effect.
+
+"Those letters are written _pro bono publico_," Minnie Bodkin observed
+confidentially to her mother. "No human being would address such
+communications to Mrs. Errington for her sole perusal."
+
+"Well, I don't know, Minnie! Surely it is natural enough that he should
+write long letters to his mother, even without expecting her to read
+them aloud to people."
+
+"Very natural; but not just such letters as he does write, I think."
+
+Minnie suppressed any further expression of her own shrewdness. Her
+confidence in herself had been rudely shaken; and she made keen,
+motive-probing speeches much seldomer than formerly. And she could not
+but agree in the general verdict, that Algernon's letters were very
+amusing. Miss Chubb was delighted with them; although they were the
+occasion of one or two tough struggles for supremacy in the knowledge of
+fashionable life between herself and Mrs. Errington. But Miss Chubb was
+really good-natured, and Mrs. Errington was unshakeably self-satisfied;
+so that no serious breach resulted from these combats.
+
+"Dormer--Lady Harriet Dormer!" Miss Chubb would say, musingly. "I think
+I must have met her when I was staying with Mrs. Figgins and the Bishop
+of Plumbunn. And the Dormers' place is not so very far from Whitford,
+you know. I believe I have heard papa speak of his acquaintance with
+some of the family."
+
+"Oh no," Mrs. Errington would reply; "not likely you should have ever
+met Lady Harriet at Mrs. Figgins's. She is the Earl of Grandcourt's
+daughter; and Lord Grandcourt had the reputation of being the proudest
+nobleman in England."
+
+"Well, my dear Mrs. Errington," the spinster would retort, bridling and
+tossing her head sideways, "that could be no reason why his daughter
+should not have visited the bishop! A dignitary of the Church, you know!
+And as to family--I can assure you the Figginses were most
+aristocratically connected."
+
+"Besides, Miss Chubb, Lady Harriet must have been in the nursery in
+those days. She's only six-and-thirty. You can see her age in the
+'Peerage.'"
+
+This was a kind of blow that usually silenced poor Miss Chubb, who was
+sensitive on the score of her age. But, on the whole, she was not
+displeased at the opportunity of airing her reminiscences of London; and
+she did not always get the worst of it in her encounters with Mrs.
+Errington.
+
+Mrs. Errington had one listener who, at all events, was never tired of
+hearing Algy's letters read and re-read, and whose interest in all they
+contained was vivid and inexhaustible. Rhoda bestowed an amount of eager
+attention on the brilliant epistles bearing Lord Seely's frank, which
+even Mrs. Errington considered adequate to their merits.
+
+Often--not quite always--there would be a little message. "How are all
+the good Maxfields? Say I asked." Or sometimes, "Give my love to Rhoda."
+Mrs. Errington took Algernon's sending his love to Rhoda much as she
+would have taken his bidding her stroke the kitten for him. She did not
+guess how it set the poor girl's heart beating. It was only natural that
+Rhoda's face should flush with pleasure at being so kindly and
+condescendingly remembered. Still less could the worthy lady understand
+the effect of her careless words on Mr. Maxfield. Once she said in his
+presence, "Have you any message for Mr. Algernon, Rhoda?" (She had
+recently taken to speaking of her son as "Mr." Algernon; a circumstance
+which had not escaped Rhoda's sensitive observation.) "You know he
+always sends you his love."
+
+"Oh, my young gentleman has not forgotten Rhoda, then?" said old
+Maxfield, without raising his eyes from the ledger he was examining.
+
+"Algernon never forgets. Indeed, none of the Ancrams ever forget. An
+almost royal memory has always been a characteristic of our race." With
+which magnificent speech Mrs. Errington made an impressive exit from the
+back shop.
+
+Old Max knew enough to be aware that the tenacity even of a royal memory
+had not always been found equal to retaining such trifles as a debt of
+twenty pounds. But so long as Algy remembered his Rhoda, he was welcome
+to let the money slip. Indeed, if Algy behaved properly to Rhoda, there
+should be no question of repayment. Twenty pounds, or two hundred,
+would be well bestowed in securing Rhoda's happiness, and making a lady
+of her. Nevertheless, old Max kept the acknowledgment of the debt safely
+locked up, and looked at it now and then, with some inward satisfaction.
+Algernon was coming back to revisit Whitford in the summer, and then
+something definite should be settled.
+
+Meanwhile, Maxfield took some pains to have Rhoda treated with more
+consideration than had hitherto been bestowed on her. He astonished
+Betty Grimshaw by sharply reproving her for sending Rhoda into the shop
+on some errand. "Rice!" he exclaimed testily, in answer to his
+sister-in-law's explanation. "If you want rice, you must fetch it for
+yourself. The shop is no place for Rhoda, and I will not have her come
+there." Then he began to display a quite unprecedented liberality in
+providing Rhoda's clothes. The girl, whose ideas about her own dress
+were of the humblest, and who had thought a dove-coloured merino gown as
+good a garment as she was ever likely to possess, was told to buy
+herself a silk gown. "A good 'un. Nothing flimsy and poor," said old
+Max. "A good, solid silk gown, that will wear and last. And--you had
+better ask Mrs. Errington to go with you to buy it. She will understand
+what is fitting better than your aunt Betty. I wish you to have proper
+and becoming raiment, Rhoda. You are not a child now. And you go amongst
+gentlefolks at Dr. Bodkin's house. And I would not have you seem out of
+place there, by reason of unsuitable attire."
+
+Rhoda was delighted to be allowed to gratify her natural taste for
+colour and adornment; and she shortly afterwards appeared in so elegant
+a dress, that Betty Grimshaw was moved to say to her brother-in-law,
+"Why, Jonathan, I'll declare if our Rhoda don't look as genteel as 'ere
+a one o' the young ladies I see! Why you're making quite a lady of her,
+Jonathan!"
+
+"Me make a lady of her?" growled old Max. "It isn't me, nor you, nor yet
+a smart gown, as can do that. But the Lord has done it. The Lord has
+given Rhoda the natur' of a lady, if ever I see a lady in my life; and I
+mean her to be treated like one. Rhoda's none o' your sort of clay,
+Betty Grimshaw. She's fine porcelain, is Rhoda. I suppose you've nothing
+to say against the child's silk gown?"
+
+"Nay, not I, Jonathan! She's welcome to wear silk or satin either, if
+you like to pay for it. And, indeed, I'm uncommon pleased to see a bit
+of bright colour, and be let to put a flower in my bonnet. I'm sure
+we've had enough of them Methodist ways. Dismal and dull enough they
+were, Jonathan. But you can't say as I ever grumbled, or went agin' you.
+Anything for peace and quietness' sake is my way. But I do like church
+best, having been bred to it. And I always did, in my heart, even when
+you and David Powell would be preaching up the Wesleyans. I never said
+anything, as you know, Jonathan. But I kept my own way of thinking all
+the same. And I'm only glad you've come round to it yourself, at last."
+
+This was bitter to Jonathan Maxfield. But he had had once or twice to
+endure similar speeches from his sister-in-law, since his defection from
+Methodism. His autocratic power in his own family was wielded as
+strictly as ever, but his assumption of infallibility had been fatally
+damaged. To get his own way was still within his power, but it would be
+vain henceforward to expect those around him to acknowledge--even with
+their lips--that his way must of necessity be the best way.
+
+At the beginning of April there came to Whitford the announcement that
+Algernon had received and accepted an invitation to accompany the Seelys
+abroad in the late summer; and that, therefore, his visit to "dear old
+Whitford" was indefinitely postponed. This announcement would have
+angered and disquieted old Max beyond measure, had it not been that
+Algernon took the precaution to write him a letter, which arrived in
+Whitford by the same post as that which brought to Mrs. Errington the
+news of his projected journey to the Continent. It was a very neat
+letter. Some persons might have called it a cunning letter. At any rate,
+it soothed old Max's anxious suspicions, if it did not absolutely
+destroy them. "I believe, my good friend," wrote Algernon, "that you
+will quite approve the step I am taking, in accompanying Lord and Lady
+Seely to Switzerland. They have no son, and I think I may say that they
+have come to look upon me almost as a child of the house. I remember all
+the good advice you gave me before I left Whitford. And when I was
+hesitating about accepting my lord's invitation, I thought of what you
+would have said, and made up my mind to resist the strong temptation of
+coming back to dear old Whitford this summer." Then in a postscript he
+added: "As to that little private transaction between us, I must ask you
+kindly to have patience with me yet awhile. I try to be careful, but
+living here is expensive, and I am put to it to pay my way. You will not
+mention the matter to my mother, I know. And, perhaps, it would be well
+to say nothing to her about this letter. May I send my love to Rhoda?"
+
+In justification of this last sentence, it must be said that Algernon
+was quite innocent of Lady Seely's project regarding himself and
+Castalia; and that there were times when he thought with some warmth of
+feeling of the summer days in Llanryddan, and told himself that there
+was not one of the girls whom he met in society who surpassed Rhoda
+Maxfield in the delicate freshness of her beauty, or equalled her in
+natural grace and sweetness.
+
+Algernon had really excellent taste.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF 3)***
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3), by
+Frances Eleanor Trollope</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3)</p>
+<p>Author: Frances Eleanor Trollope</p>
+<p>Release Date: February 28, 2011  [eBook #35428]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF 3)***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive/American Libraries<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Project Gutenberg also has the other two volumes of this novel.<br />
+      Volume II: see <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35429/35429-h/35429-h.htm">http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35429/35429-h/35429-h.htm</a><br />
+      Volume III: see <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35430/35430-h/35430-h.htm">http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35430/35430-h/35430-h.htm</a><br />
+      <br />
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/charmingfellow01trol">
+      http://www.archive.org/details/charmingfellow01trol</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>A CHARMING FELLOW.</h1>
+
+<h2>BY FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE,</h2>
+
+<h3>AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE," "MABEL'S PROGRESS," ETC. ETC.</h3>
+
+
+<h3>In Three Volumes.</h3>
+
+<h3>VOL. I.</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>London:</h3>
+
+<h3>CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.</h3>
+
+<h3>1876.</h3>
+
+<h3>CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,<br />
+CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A CHARMING FELLOW.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"To be frank with you, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe Dr. Bodkin
+understands my son's genius."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, madam, you said your son's&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Genius, sir; the bent of his genius. Algy's is not a mechanical mind."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington slightly tossed her head as she uttered the word
+"mechanical."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond said "Oh!" and then sat silent.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very quiet. The autumn day was fading, and the mingling of
+twilight and firelight, and the stillness of the scene, were conducive
+to mute meditation. It was a long, low room, with an uneven floor, a
+whitewashed ceiling crossed by heavy beams, and one large bow window. It
+was furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables in use in the
+last century. A crimson drugget covered the floor, and in front of the
+hearth lay a rug, made of scraps of black and coloured cloth, neatly
+sewn together in a pattern. Over the high wooden mantelpiece hung, on
+one side, a faded water-colour sketch of a gentleman, with powdered
+hair; and on the other, an oval miniature of much later date, which
+represented a fair, florid young lady, with large languid blue eyes, and
+a red mouth, somewhat too full-lipped. Notwithstanding the years which
+had elapsed since the miniature was painted, it was still sufficiently
+like Mrs. Errington to be recognised for her portrait. There was an old
+harpsichord in the room, and a few books on hanging shelves. But the
+only handsome or costly object to be seen were some delicate blue and
+white china cups and saucers, which glistened from an oaken
+corner-cupboard; and a large work-box of tortoise-shell, inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl, lined with amber satin, and fitted with all the
+implements of needlework, in richly-chased silver. The box, like the
+china cupboard, stood wide open to display its contents, and was
+evidently a subject of pride to its possessor. It was entirely
+incongruous with the rest of the furniture, which, although decent and
+serviceable, was very plain, and rather scanty.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the room looked snug and homelike. The coal-fire burnt with
+a deep glowing light; a small copper kettle was singing cheerily on the
+hob; tea-things were laid on a table in front of the fire; and a fitful,
+moaning wind, that rattled now and then against the antique casement,
+enhanced the comfort of the scene by its suggestion of forlorn
+chilliness without.</p>
+
+<p>But however the influences of the time and place might incline Mr.
+Diamond to silence, they had no such effect on Mrs. Errington.</p>
+
+<p>After a short pause, during which she seemed to be awaiting some remark
+from her companion, she observed once more, "No; I do not think the
+doctor understands Algy's genius. And that is why I was anxious to ask
+your advice, on this proposition of Mr. Filthorpe's."</p>
+
+<p>"But, madam, why should you suppose me likely to understand Algernon
+better than Dr. Bodkin does?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, because&mdash;&mdash;In the first place, you are younger, nearer Algy's own
+age."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! There is a wide gap, though, between his eighteen and my
+eight-and-twenty&mdash;a wider gap than the mere ten years would necessarily
+make in all cases."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington glanced at the speaker, and thought, in the maternal
+pride of her heart, that there was indeed a wide difference between her
+joyous, handsome Algernon, and Matthew Diamond, second master at the
+Whitford Grammar School; and she thought, too, that the difference was
+all to her son's advantage. Mr. Diamond was a grave-looking young man,
+with a spare, strong figure, and a face which, in repose, was neither
+handsome nor ugly. His clean-shaven chin and upper lip were firmly cut,
+and he had a pair of keen grey eyes. But such as it was, it was a face
+which most persons who saw it often, fell into a habit of watching. It
+raised an indefinite expectation. You were instinctively aware of
+something latent beneath its habitual expression of seriousness and
+reserve. What the "something" might be, was variously guessed at
+according to the temperament of the observer.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is another reason why I wished to consult you," pursued Mrs.
+Errington. "I have a great opinion of your judgment, from what Algy
+tells me. I assure you Algy thinks an immense deal of your talents, Mr.
+Diamond. You must not think I flatter you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Mr. Diamond, very quietly, "I do not think you flatter
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore I have told you the state of the case quite openly. And I
+would not have you hesitate to give your advice, from any fear of
+disagreeing with my opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond leaned his elbow on the table, and his face on his hand,
+which he held so as to hide his mouth&mdash;an habitual posture with him&mdash;and
+looked gravely at Mrs. Errington.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust," continued the lady, "that I am superior to the weakness of
+requiring blind acquiescence from people."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington spoke in a mellow, measured voice, and had a soft smiling
+cast of countenance. Both these were frequently contradicted in a
+startling manner by the words she uttered: for, in truth, the worthy
+lady's soul and body were no more like each other than a peach-stone is
+like a peach. Her velvety softness was not affected, but it was merely
+external, and the real woman was nothing less than tender. Sensitive
+persons did not fare very well with Mrs. Errington; who, withal, had the
+reputation of being an exceedingly good-natured woman.</p>
+
+<p>"If you think my advice worth having&mdash;&mdash;" said Mr. Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"I do really. Now pray don't be shy of speaking out!" interrupted the
+lady, reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"I must tell you that I think your cousin's offer is much too good to be
+refused, and opens a prospect which many young men would envy."</p>
+
+<p>"You advise us to accept it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe you understand Algy one bit
+better than the doctor does!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, leaning back in
+her chair, and folding her large white hands together in a resigned
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I warned you, you know, that I might not," answered Mr. Diamond,
+composedly.</p>
+
+<p>"'A prospect which many young men would envy!' Well, perhaps 'many young
+men,' yes; I daresay. But for Algy! Do but think of it, Mr. Diamond; to
+sit all day on a high stool in a musty office! You must own that, for a
+young fellow of my son's spirit, the idea is not alluring."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if the question be merely for Algernon to choose some method of
+passing his time which shall be alluring&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington drew herself up a little. "No;" said she, "that is
+certainly not the question, Mr. Diamond. At the same time, before
+embracing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, I thought it only reasonable to ask
+myself, 'May we not do better? Can we not do better?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to perceive," thought Matthew Diamond within himself, "that
+Mrs. Errington's meaning, when she asks 'advice,' is pretty much like
+that of most of her neighbours. Having already made up her mind how to
+act, she would like to be told that her decision is the best and wisest
+conceivable." He said nothing, however, but bowed his head a little, to
+show that he was giving attention to the lady's discourse.</p>
+
+<p>"We have an alternative, you must know," said Mrs. Errington, turning
+her eyes languidly on Mr. Diamond, but not moving her head from its
+comfortable resting-place against the back of her well-cushioned
+arm-chair. "We are not bound hand and foot to this Bristol merchant. By
+the way, you spoke of him as my cousin&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon; is he not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; not mine. My poor husband's," with a glance at the portrait over
+the mantelpiece. "None of my family ever had the remotest connection
+with commerce."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! The good fortune was all on the side of the Erringtons?"</p>
+
+<p>This time Mrs. Errington turned her head, so as to look full at her
+interlocutor. There met her view the same calm forehead, the same steady
+eyes, the same sheltering hand gently stroking the upper lip, which she
+had looked upon a minute before.</p>
+
+<p>"My good sir!" she answered, in a tone of patient explanation, "my own
+family, the Ancrams, were people of the very first quality in
+Warwickshire. My grandfather never stirred out without his coach and
+four!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, Algy's prospects in life ought to be very, very different from
+what they are. Of course he ought to go to the university; but I cannot
+afford to send him there. I make no secret of my circumstances. College
+is out of the question for him, poor boy, unless he entered himself as a
+what-do-you-call-it? A sort of pauper, a sizar. And I suppose you would
+hardly advise him to do that!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I should by no means advise it. I was a sizar myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Really? Ah well, then you know what it is. And I am quite sure it would
+never suit Algy's spirits."</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite sure it would not."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington's good opinion of the tutor's judgment, which had been
+considerably shaken, began to revive.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you know something of his character," said she, smiling. "Well,
+then, the case stands thus; Algy is turned eighteen; he has had the best
+education I could give him&mdash;indeed, my chief motive for settling in this
+obscure little hole, when I was left a widow, was the fact that Dr.
+Bodkin, who was an old acquaintance of my husband, was head of the
+Grammar School here, and I knew I could give my boy the education of a
+gentleman&mdash;up to a certain point&mdash;at small expense. He has had this
+offer from the Bristol man, and he has had another offer of a very
+different sort from my side of the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; perhaps if I had began by stating that circumstance, you might
+have modified your advice, eh, Mr. Diamond?" This was said in a tone of
+mild raillery.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," answered Mr. Diamond, slowly, "I must own that my advice usually
+does depend somewhat on my knowledge of the circumstances of the case
+under consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, that's candid&mdash;and I love candour, as I told you. The fact is,
+Lord Seely married an Ancram."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Mrs. Errington looked inquiringly at her companion.
+"You have heard of Lord Seely?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen his name in the newspapers, in the days when I used to read
+newspapers."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a most distinguished nobleman."</p>
+
+<p>Another pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Mrs. Errington, condescendingly, "I cannot expect all
+that to interest you, Mr. Diamond. Perhaps there may be a little family
+partiality, in my estimate of Lord Seely. However, be that as it may, he
+married an Ancram. She was of the younger branch, my father's second
+cousin. When Algy first began to turn his thoughts towards a diplomatic
+career&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"A diplomatic&mdash;&mdash;Oh, didn't you know? Yes; he has had serious thoughts
+of it for some time."</p>
+
+<p>"Algernon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly! And, in confidence, Mr. Diamond, I think it would suit him
+admirably. I fancy it is what his genius is best adapted for. Well,
+when I perceived this bent in him, I made&mdash;indirectly&mdash;application to
+Lady Seely, and she returned&mdash;also indirectly&mdash;a most gracious answer.
+She should be happy to receive Mr. Algernon Ancram Errington, whenever
+she was in town."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"All?"</p>
+
+<p>"All that you have to tell me, to modify&mdash;and so on?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would lead to more, don't you see? Lord Seely has enormous
+influence, and I don't know anyone better able to push the fortunes of a
+young man like Algy."</p>
+
+<p>"But has he promised anything definite?"</p>
+
+<p>"He could hardly do that, seeing that, as yet, he knows nothing of my
+son whatever! My dear Mr. Diamond, when you know as much of the world as
+I do, you will see that it does not do to rush at things in a hurry. You
+must give people time. Especially a man like Lord Seely, who of course
+cannot be expected to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that you seriously contemplate dropping the substance of
+Filthorpe, for this shadow of Seely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Diamond! What very extraordinary expressions!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond took his hand from his mouth, clasped both hands on his
+knee, and sat looking into the fire as abstractedly as if there had
+been no other person within sight or sound of him.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington, apparently taking it for granted that his attitude was
+one of profound attention to herself, proceeded flowingly to justify her
+decision, for it evidently was a decision&mdash;to decline the Bristol
+merchant's offer of employment and a home for her son. Besides Algy's
+"genius," there were other objections. Mr. Filthorpe had a vulgar wife
+and a vulgar daughter. Of course they must be vulgar. That was clear.
+And who could say that they might not endeavour to entangle Algy in some
+promise, or engagement, to marry the daughter? Nay, it was very certain
+that they would make such an endeavour. Possibly&mdash;probably&mdash;that was old
+Filthorpe's real object in inviting his young relative to accept a place
+in his counting-house. Indeed, they might confidently consider that it
+was so. Of course Algy would be a bait to these people! And as to Lord
+Seely, Mr. Diamond did not know (how should he? seeing that he had been
+little more than a twelvemonth in Whitford, and out of that time had
+scarcely ever had an hour's converse with her) that she, Mrs. Errington,
+was a person rather apt to hide and diminish, than unduly blazon forth
+her family glories. And she was, moreover, scrupulous to a fault in the
+accuracy of all her statements. Nevertheless, she must say that there
+was, perhaps, no nobleman in England whose patronage would have more
+weight than his lordship's; and whether or not the brilliancy of Algy's
+parts, and the charm of his manners, would be likely to captivate a man
+of Lord Seely's taste and cultivation; that she left to the sense and
+candour of any one who knew, and could appreciate her son.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond uttered an odd, smothered kind of sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" said Mrs. Errington, mellifluously.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Hulloa!" cried a blithe voice, as the door was suddenly thrown open.
+"Why, you're all in the dark here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Diamond, jumping to his feet, and then sitting
+down again, "I believe&mdash;I'm afraid I was almost asleep!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Algernon Errington came gaily into the dim room bringing with him a gust
+of fresh, cold air. His first act was to stir the fire, which sent up a
+flickering blaze. The light played upon the tea-table and the two
+persons who sat at it; and also, of course, illuminated the new comer's
+face and form, which were such as to justify much of his mother's pride
+in his appearance. He was of middle height, with a singularly elegant
+figure, and finely-shaped hands and feet. His smooth, blooming face was,
+perhaps, somewhat too girlish-looking, but there was nothing effeminate
+in his bearing. All his movements were springy and elastic. His blue
+eyes&mdash;less large, but more bright than his mother's&mdash;were full of
+vivacity, and a smile of mischievous merriment played round his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Diamond!" he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived who was the other
+occupant of the room besides his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"You're late," said the tutor, pulling from his waistcoat-pocket a large
+silver watch, and examining the clumsy black figures on its face by the
+firelight.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Algernon, "I had no idea you were here! I thought my mother
+had sent word to ask you to put off our reading this evening. You
+promised to write a note, mother. Didn't you send it?"</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that Mrs. Errington had not sent a note, had not even
+written one, had forgotten all about it. Her mind was so full of other
+things! And then when Mr. Diamond appeared, she did not explain at once
+that Algernon would probably not come home in time for his lesson,
+because she wanted to have a little conversation with Mr. Diamond. And
+they began to talk, and the time slipped away: besides, she knew that
+Mr. Diamond had nothing to do of an evening, so it was not of much
+consequence, was it?</p>
+
+<p>Algernon winced at this speech, and cast a quick, furtive look at his
+tutor, who, however, might have been deaf, for any sign he gave of
+having heard it. He rose from his chair, and addressing Mrs. Errington,
+declared with his usual brevity that, as no work was to be done, he must
+forthwith wish her "Good evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, no nonsense!" said Mrs. Errington. "You'll do nothing of the kind!
+Stay and have a cup of tea with us for once in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no; I never&mdash;it is not my habit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not your habit to be sociable! I know that; and it is a great pity.
+What would you be doing at home? Only poring over books until you got a
+headache! A little cheerful society would do you all the good in the
+world. You were all but dropping asleep just now: and no wonder! I'm
+sure, after teaching all day in a close school, full of boys buzzing
+like so many blue-bottles, one would feel as stupid as an owl oneself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am peculiarly susceptible to stupefying influences," said Mr.
+Diamond, with a rueful shake of the head. And, as he spoke, there played
+round his mouth the faint flicker of a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Now put your hat down, and take your seat!" cried Mrs. Errington,
+authoritatively.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry to seem ungrateful, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I had asked little Rhoda to come up after tea and keep me company,
+thinking I should be alone. But you won't mind Rhoda. She knows her
+place."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond paused in the act of buttoning his coat across his breast.
+"You are very kind," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"There, sit down, and I will undertake to give you a cup of excellent
+tea. I hope you know good tea when you get it? There are some people who
+couldn't tell my fine Pekoe from sloe-leaves. Algy, bring me the
+kettle."</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Errington betook herself to the business of making tea. To her
+it seemed perfectly natural&mdash;almost a matter of course&mdash;that Matthew
+Diamond should stay, since she was kind enough to press it. But
+Algernon, who knew his tutor better, could not refrain from expressing a
+little surprise at his yielding.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother," said he, as he poured the boiling water into the tea-pot,
+"you may consider yourself singled out for high distinction. Mr. Diamond
+has consented at your request to stay after having said he would go! I
+don't believe there's another lady in Whitford who has been so
+honoured."</p>
+
+<p>If Algernon had not been peering through the clouds of steam, to
+ascertain whether the tea-pot were full or not, he would have perceived
+an unwonted flush mount in Matthew Diamond's face up to the roots of his
+hair, and then slowly fade away.</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you find the doctor and all of them?" asked Mrs. Errington
+of her son, when they were all seated at the tea-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the doctor's all right. He only came in for a few minutes after
+morning school."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say to you, Algy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know: something about not altogether neglecting my studies
+now I had left school, whatever path in life I chose. He always says
+that sort of thing, you know," answered Algernon carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Bodkin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she's all right, too."</p>
+
+<p>"And Minnie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she's all&mdash;no; she was not quite so well as usual, I think. Mrs.
+Bodkin said she had had a bad attack of pain in the night. But Minnie
+didn't mention it. She never likes to be condoled with and pitied, you
+know. So of course I didn't say anything. It's so unpleasant to have to
+keep noticing people's health!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Errington. "What a misfortune for that girl to
+be a helpless invalid for the rest of her life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is her disorder incurable?" asked Mr. Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite, I believe. Spine, you know. An accident. And they say that
+when a child she was such an active creature."</p>
+
+<p>"Her brain is active enough now," observed Mr. Diamond musingly, with
+his eyes fixed on the fire. "I don't know a keener, quicker intellect."</p>
+
+<p>"What, Minnie Bodkin?" exclaimed Algernon, pausing in the demolition of
+a stout pile of sliced bread and butter. "I should think so! She's as
+clever as a man! I mean," he added, reading and answering his tutor's
+satirically-raised eyebrows, as rapidly as though he were replying to an
+articulate observation, "I mean&mdash;of course I know she's a deuced deal
+cleverer than lots of men. But I mean that Minnie Bodkin is clever after
+a manly fashion. Not a bit Missish. By Jove! I wish I knew as much Greek
+as she does!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not at all approve of blue-stockings in general," said Mrs.
+Errington; "but in her case, poor thing, one must make allowances."</p>
+
+<p>"I think she's pretty," announced Algernon, condescendingly.</p>
+
+<p>"She would be if she didn't look so sickly. No complexion," said Mrs.
+Errington, intently observing her own florid face, unnaturally
+elongated, in the bowl of a spoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think her pretty, sir?" asked Algernon, turning to Mr.
+Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal more than pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't go there very often, I think?" said Mrs. Errington
+interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, you really ought. I know you would be welcome. The doctor
+has more than once told me so. And Mrs. Bodkin is so very affable! I'm
+sure you need not hesitate about going there."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon jumped up to replenish the tea-pot, with an unnecessary amount
+of bustle, and began to rattle out a volley of lively nonsense, with the
+view of diverting his mother's attention from the subject of Mr.
+Diamond's neglect of the Bodkin family. He dreaded some rejoinder on the
+part of the tutor which should offend his mother beyond forgiveness. He
+had had experience of some of Matthew Diamond's blunt speeches, of which
+Dr. Bodkin himself was supposed to be in some awe. It was clearly no
+business of Mrs. Errington's where Mr. Diamond chose to bestow his
+visits; neither could she in any degree be aware what reasons he might
+have for his conduct. "And the worst of it is, he's quite capable of
+telling my mother so, if she goes too far," reflected Algernon. So he
+chatted and laughed, as if from overflowing good spirits, until the
+peril was past. This young gentleman was so quick and flexible, and had
+so buoyant a temperament, that he was reputed more careless and
+thoughtless than was altogether the case. His mind moved rapidly, and he
+had an instinctive habit of uttering the result of its calculations, in
+the most impulsive way imaginable. You could not tell, by observing
+Algernon's manner, whether he were giving you his first thought or his
+second.</p>
+
+<p>When the meal was over, Mrs. Errington rang to have the table cleared. A
+little prim servant-maid, in a coarse, clean apron and bib, appeared at
+the sound of the bell, and began to gather the tea-things together.
+Algernon sat down at the old harpsichord, and, after playing a few
+chords, commenced singing softly in a pleasant tenor voice some
+fragments of sentimental ballads in vogue at that day. (Does the reader
+ask, "and when was 'that day?'" He must content himself with the
+information that it was within a year or two of the year 1830.) Mr.
+Diamond walked to the window, and holding aside the blind, stood looking
+out at the dark sky.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, when the servant opened the door to go out, there came up
+from the lower part of the house the sound of singing; slow, long-drawn,
+rather tuneless singing of a few voices, male and female.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, "Oh dear me,
+Sarah, how is this?"</p>
+
+<p>Algernon made a comical face of disgust, and put his hands to his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"It be as Mr. Powell's ha' come back, mum," said Sarah, with much
+gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"Really! Really!" said Mrs. Errington, in the tone of one protesting
+against an utterly unjustifiable offence.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back! Where has he been?" asked Algernon, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"On 'is rounds, please, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish Mr. Powell would choose some other time for his
+performances!" cried Mrs. Errington, when the servant had left the room.
+"Now Thursday&mdash;on Thursday, for instance, we are going to a whist party,
+at the Bodkins', and then he might squall out his psalms, and shout,
+and rave, without annoying anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd only annoy the neighbours," said Algernon, "and that wouldn't
+matter!"</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling with a sort of contemptuous amusement, and touching
+random notes here and there on the harpsichord with one finger.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no getting Rhoda upstairs to-night," said Mrs. Errington.
+"Poor little thing! she's in for a whole evening of psalm-singing."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon rose from the instrument with a clouded brow. His face wore the
+petulant look of a spoiled child, whose will has been unexpectedly
+crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"Deuce take Mr. Powell, and all Welsh Methodists like him!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Algy! No, no; I cannot approve of that, though Mr. Powell is a
+Dissenter. Besides, such language in my presence is not respectful."</p>
+
+<p>"Beg pardon, ma'am," said Algernon, laughing. And with the laughter, the
+cloud cleared from his brow. Clouds never rested there long.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have a game of cribbage with me, Mr. Diamond? This naughty boy
+will scarcely ever play with me. Or, if you prefer it, dummy whist&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No whist for me," interposed Algernon, decisively. "It is such a
+botheration. And I play so atrociously that it would be cruel to ask
+Mr. Diamond to sit down with me."</p>
+
+<p>With that he returned to the harpsichord, and began singing softly to
+himself in snatches.</p>
+
+<p>"Cribbage then?" said Mrs. Errington in her mellow, measured tones.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond let fall the blind from his hand so roughly that the wooden
+roller rattled against the wainscot, and advanced to the table where
+Mrs. Errington was already setting forth the cards and cribbage-board.
+He sat down without a word, cut the cards as she directed, shuffled,
+dealt, and played in a moody sort of silent manner; which, however, did
+not affect Mrs. Errington's nerves at all.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, there went on beneath Algernon's love-songs and the few
+utterances of the players which the game necessitated, a kind of
+accompanying "bourdon" of voices from downstairs. Sometimes one single
+voice would rise in passionate tones, almost as if in wrath. Then came
+singing again, which, softened by distance, had a wild, wailing
+character of ineffable melancholy. Algernon paused in his fitful playing
+and singing, as though unwilling to be in dissonance with those
+long-drawn sounds. Mrs. Errington calmly continued to exclaim, "Fifteen
+six," and "two for his heels," without regard to anything but her game.</p>
+
+<p>When the rubber was at an end, Mr. Diamond rose to take his leave.</p>
+
+<p>He lingered a little in doing so. He lingered in taking up his hat, and
+in buttoning his coat across his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you not anything warmer to put on?" said Mrs. Errington. "Dear me,
+it is very wrong to go out of this snug room into the air&mdash;and the wind
+has got up, too!&mdash;with no more wrap than you have been sitting in, here
+by the fire! Algy, lend him your great-coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no. Good night," said the tutor, and walked off without
+further ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>He still lingered, however, in descending the stairs; and yet more in
+passing the door of a parlour, whence came a murmur of voices. Finally,
+he let himself out at the street-door, and encountering a bleak gust of
+wind, set off down the silent street at a round pace.</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool you are, Matthew!" was his mental ejaculation, as he strode
+along with his head bent down, and his gloveless hands plunged deep into
+his pockets.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington had lodged in Mr. Maxfield's house ever since she first
+came to Whitford. Jonathan Maxfield, commonly called "Old Max," kept a
+general shop in that town. The shop was underneath Mrs. Errington's
+sitting-room, and the great bow window, of which mention has been made,
+jutted out beyond the shop front, and overhung the street. The house was
+old, and larger than it appeared from the street, running back some
+distance. There was a private entrance&mdash;a point much insisted upon by
+Mr. Maxfield's sister-in-law and housekeeper in letting the lodgings to
+Mrs. Errington&mdash;and a long passage divided the shop entirely from the
+dwelling rooms on the ground-floor.</p>
+
+<p>Old Max was reported to be somewhat of a miser (which report he rather
+encouraged than the reverse, finding that it had its conveniences), and
+to have amassed a large sum of money for one in his position in life.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Max!" Whitford people would say. "Why, old Max could buy up half
+the town. Old Max might retire to-morrow. Old Max has no need ever to
+stand behind a counter again."</p>
+
+<p>Old Max, however, continued to stand behind his counter day after day,
+as he had done for the last thirty or forty years, and would serve a
+child with a pennyworth of gingerbread, or a rich man's cook with stores
+of bacon and flour, in an impartially crabbed manner.</p>
+
+<p>He was a grey man: grey from head to foot. He had grey hair, closely
+cropped; twinkling grey eyes; and a grey stubble on his shaven chin. He
+usually wore a suit of coarse grey clothes, with black calico sleeves
+tied on at the elbow. But even these had an iron-grey hue, from being
+more or less dusted with flour; as, indeed, were all his garments, and
+even his face.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Errington first came to live in Whitford, Jonathan Maxfield
+was a widower for the second time. He had two sons by his first wife;
+and, by his second, one daughter, whose birth cost her mother's life.
+The sister of his first wife had kept house for him ever since his
+second widowhood. This woman, Betty Grimshaw by name, had been servant
+in a great family; and at her master's death had received a legacy,
+which, together with her own savings, had sufficed to purchase a small
+annuity. She had been able to lay by the greater part of her annuity
+since she had lived in Whitford, and announced her intention of
+bequeathing her savings to her nephew James, Maxfield's second son. The
+elder son had married a farmer's daughter with some money, and turned
+farmer himself within a few miles of Whitford. Thus the family living at
+home on the autumn night on which our story opens, consisted of Jonathan
+Maxfield, Betty Grimshaw his sister-in-law, his son James, and his
+daughter Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the street-door closing violently behind Mr. Diamond,
+startled this family party assembled in the parlour, together with Mr.
+David Powell, Methodist preacher.</p>
+
+<p>They were all seated at a table, on which lay hymn-books and a large
+bible. Old Maxfield sat nearest to the fire, in his grey suit, just as
+he appeared in his shop, except that the black calico sleeves had been
+removed from his coat. He had a harsh face, a harsh voice, and a harsh
+manner. So much could be observed by any who exchanged ten words with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Next to him, on his left hand, sat his son James, a tall, sickly-looking
+young man, of six-and-twenty. He had a stoop in the shoulders, a pale
+face, with high cheek-bones, eyes deeply set, light eyebrows, which grew
+in thick irregular tufts, and hair of a reddish flaxen colour. There was
+a certain family likeness between him and his aunt, Mrs. Grimshaw, as
+she was called in Whitford, despite her spinsterhood. She too was tall,
+bony, and hard-featured; with a face which looked as if it had been
+painted and varnished, and reminded one, in its colour and texture, of
+those hollow wooden pears, full of tiny playthings, which used to
+be&mdash;and probably still are&mdash;sold at country fairs, and in toy-shops of a
+humble kind.</p>
+
+<p>The preacher sat next to Betty Grimshaw. He seemed to belong to a
+different order of beings from the three persons already described.</p>
+
+<p>A striking face this&mdash;dark, and full of fire. He had sharply-cut,
+handsome features, and eyes that seemed to blaze with inward light when
+he spoke earnestly. His raven-black hair was worn long, and fell
+straight on to his collar. But although this made his aspect strange, it
+could not render it either vulgar or ludicrous. The black locks set off
+his pale dark face, as in a frame of ebony. He was young, and seemed
+vigorous, though rather with nervous energy than muscular strength.</p>
+
+<p>The last person in the group was Rhoda Maxfield&mdash;"little Rhoda," as Mrs.
+Errington had called her. But the epithet had been used to express
+rather her social insignificance, than her physical proportions. Rhoda
+was, in fact, rather tall. She was about nineteen years old, but
+scarcely looked her age. She had a broad and beautiful brow, on which
+the rich chestnut hair was smoothly parted; a sensitive mouth, not
+over-small; and bright hazel eyes, which looked out on the world with an
+open gaze, that was at once timid and confiding. Her skin was of
+remarkable delicacy, with a faint flush on the cheeks, which came and
+went frequently.</p>
+
+<p>And yet Rhoda Maxfield was not much admired among her own compeers.
+There was something in her face which did not please the taste of the
+vulgar. And although, if you had asked Whitford persons "Is not Rhoda
+Maxfield wonderfully pretty?" most of those so addressed would have
+answered, "Yes, Rhoda is a pretty girl;" yet the assent would probably
+have been cold and uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda, at nineteen years old, had never been known to have a sweetheart.
+And this fact militated against the popular appreciation of her beauty;
+for a very cursory observation of the world will suffice to show that on
+the score of good looks, as on most other subjects, public opinion is
+apt to find nothing successful but success.</p>
+
+<p>"What a wind there must be, to make the door bang like that!" exclaimed
+Betty Grimshaw, when the loud sound above recorded reached her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Who went out?" asked James.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it would be that Mr. Diamond, the schoolmaster," replied his
+aunt.</p>
+
+<p>They both spoke in a subdued voice, and cast furtive glances at Mr.
+Maxfield, as though fearful of being reprehended for interrupting the
+evening devotions; but, as they spoke, he closed his hymn-book, and drew
+his chair away from the table towards the fireside. Upon this signal,
+Betty Grimshaw rose and bustled out of the room, declaring that she must
+see about getting the supper; for that that little Sarah could never be
+trusted to see to the roasted potatoes alone. There was a suspicious
+alacrity in Betty's departure, suggestive that she experienced some
+sense of relief at the breaking-up of the devotions. James soon
+sauntered out of the room after his aunt. Mr. Powell rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," said he, holding out his hand to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay; won't you stay and eat with us, Brother Powell? The supper will be
+ready directly."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Powell shook his head. "You know I never eat supper," he said,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well; perhaps you're in the right," responded old Max, very
+readily.</p>
+
+<p>"And I am not clear," continued the preacher, "but that it would be
+better for you to leave off the habit."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh, no! I need it for my health's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"But would it not suit your health better, to take your supper early?
+Say at six o'clock or so; so that you should not go to bed with a full
+stomach."</p>
+
+<p>"No; it wouldn't," answered the old man, crabbedly.</p>
+
+<p>David Powell stood meditating, with his hand to his chin. "I am not
+clear about it," he murmured. But Maxfield either did not hear, or chose
+to ignore the words.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, may I go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" asked Rhoda, softly; "I
+don't want any supper."</p>
+
+<p>The old man grunted out an inarticulate sound, and seemed to hesitate.
+"Go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" he said, answering his daughter, but
+looking sideways at the preacher. "Let's see; you promised, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you gave me leave, and I promised before&mdash;before we knew that Mr.
+Powell would come to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda was gifted with a sweet voice by nature, and she spoke with a
+purer accent, and expressed herself with greater propriety, than the
+other members of her family. Mrs. Errington had amused herself with
+teaching the motherless girl, who had been a lonely, shy, little child
+when their acquaintance first began. And Rhoda was a quick and apt
+scholar.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;a promise&mdash;I can't have you break your word. Don't you stay late,
+mind. Not one minute after ten o'clock; do you mind, Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda, with a bright smile of pleasure on her face, promised to obey,
+and left the room with a step which it cost her an effort to make as
+staid as she knew would be approved by her father and Mr. Powell. When
+she got outside the door, they heard her run along the passage as light
+and as swift as a greyhound.</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield turned to Mr. Powell, with a little constrained, apologetic
+air, and began expatiating on Mrs. Errington's fondness for Rhoda; and
+how kind she had always been to the girl; and how he thought it a duty
+almost, to let the good, widowed lady have as much of Rhoda's company as
+she could give her without neglecting duties.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty Grimshaw is a worthy woman," he observed, drily; "but no
+companion for my Rhoda. Rhoda features her mother, and has her mother's
+nature very much."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Powell still stood in the same meditative attitude, with his hand to
+his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"This Mrs. Errington is unconverted?" he said, without raising his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rhoda won't take much harm from that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Much harm?" The dark lustrous eyes were upraised now, and fixed
+searchingly on the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it won't do her any harm," the latter answered, testily. "I know
+Rhoda; and I have her welfare at heart, as, I suppose, you'll believe.
+I don't know who should have, if it isn't me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Maxfield," said the preacher, earnestly, "are you sure that you
+have a clear leading in this matter? Have you prayed for one?"</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield shifted in his chair, and made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, consider what you do in trusting that tender soul among worldlings!
+I do not say that these are wicked people in a carnal sense; but are
+they such as can edify or strengthen a young girl like Rhoda, who is
+still in a seeking state, and has not yet that blessed assurance which
+we all supplicate for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have laid the matter before the Lord," said Maxfield, almost
+sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>Powell was silent for a minute, standing with his hands forcibly clasped
+together, as though to control them from vehement action, and when next
+he spoke, his voice had a tone in it which told of a strong effort of
+will to keep it in subdued monotony.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, have you thought of it?" said he; "there is the young man
+Algernon."</p>
+
+<p>"What of Algernon?" cried Maxfield, turning sharply to face the
+preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"He is fair to look upon, and specious, and has those graces and talents
+which the world accounts lovely. May there not be a snare here for
+Rhoda? She who is so alive to all beauty and graciousness in God's
+world, and in God's creatures&mdash;may it not be very perilous for her to be
+thrown unguardedly into the society of this youth?"</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield looked into the fire instead of at Powell, as he said, "What
+has been putting this into your head?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a call to say it to you, for some time past. Before I went
+away this summer it was on my mind. I sinned in resisting the call,
+for&mdash;for reasons which matter to no one but myself. I sinned in putting
+any human reasons above my Master's service."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be as you would have done better to resist speaking now," said
+Maxfield, slowly. "It may be as it was rather a temptation, than a
+leading from Heaven, made you speak at all."</p>
+
+<p>Powell started back as if he had been struck. The blood rushed into his
+face, and then, suddenly receding, left him paler than before. But he
+answered after a moment in a low, sweet voice, and without a trace of
+anger, "You cannot mistrust me more than I mistrusted myself. But I have
+wrestled and prayed; and I am assured that I have spoken this thing with
+a single heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, well, it may be as you say," said Maxfield, a shade less
+harshly than he had spoken before. "But you have neither wife, nor
+daughter, nor sister, and you cannot understand these matters as well as
+I do, who am more than double your years, and have had the guidance of
+this young maid from a baby upward."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," answered Powell, humbly; "it is not my own wisdom I am uttering!
+God forbid that I should set up my carnal judgment against a man of your
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very well said&mdash;very rightly said!" exclaimed Maxfield, nodding
+twice or thrice.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, but I must speak when my conscience bids me. I dare not resist
+that admonition for any human respect."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to be sure! But do you think yours is the only conscience to be
+listened to? I tell you I follow mine, young man. And you can ask any of
+our brethren here in Whitford, who have known me for the last thirty or
+forty years, whether I have gone far astray!"</p>
+
+<p>Powell sighed wearily. "I have released my soul," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"And just hearken," pursued old Maxfield, in a lowered voice, "don't say
+a word of this sort to Rhoda&mdash;nay, don't interrupt me! I've listened to
+your say, now let me have mine&mdash;because you might be putting something
+into her thoughts that wouldn't have come there of itself. And keep a
+discreet tongue before Betty and James. 'Least said, soonest mended.'
+And I'll tell you something more. If&mdash;observe I say 'if'&mdash;I saw that
+Rhoda's heart was strongly set upon anything, anything as wasn't wrong
+in itself, I should be very loath to thwart her."</p>
+
+<p>David Powell turned a startled, attentive face on the old man, who
+proceeded with a sort of dogged monotony of voice and manner: "Christian
+charity teaches us there's good folks in all communions of believers.
+And there's different ranks and different orders in the world; some has
+one thing, and some has another. Some has fine family and great
+connections among the rulers of the land. Others has the goods of this
+world earned by honesty, and diligence, and frugality; and these three
+bring a blessing. Some is fitted to be gentlefolks by nature, let 'em be
+born where they will. Others, like my sister-in-law Betty, is born to
+serve. We are all the Lord's creatures, and we are in his hand but as
+clay in the hands of the potter. But there's different kinds of clay,
+you know. This kind is good for making coarse delf, and that kind is fit
+for fine porcelain. We'll just keep these words as have passed between
+you and me, to ourselves, if you please. And now, I I think, we may drop
+the subject."</p>
+
+<p>"May the Lord give you his counsel!" said Powell, in a broken voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Amen! I have had my share of wisdom, and have walked pretty straight
+for the last half century, thanks be to Him," observed old Max, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"If it were His good pleasure, how gladly would I cease for evermore
+from speaking to you on this theme! But it matters nothing what I desire
+or shrink from. I must deliver my Master's message when it is borne in
+upon me to do so."</p>
+
+<p>And with a solemnly uttered blessing on the household, the preacher
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the house sat thinking, alone by his fireside. He began by
+thinking that he had a little over-encouraged David Powell. Maxfield
+considered praise from himself to be very encouraging, and calculated to
+uplift the heart. When Powell had first come among the Whitford
+Methodists, old Max had taken him by the hand, and had declared him to
+be the most awakening preacher they had had for many years. He was never
+tired of vaunting Powell's zeal, and diligence, and eloquence.
+Backsliders were brought again into the right way, sinners were
+awakened, believers were refreshed, under his ministry. The fame of
+Powell's preaching drew many unwonted auditors to the little chapel; and
+of those who came at first merely from curiosity, many were moved by his
+words to join the Wesleyan Connection. On all this Jonathan Maxfield
+looked with great satisfaction. The young man had been truly a burning
+and a shining light.</p>
+
+<p>But now&mdash;might it not be that the preacher's heart had become puffed up
+with spiritual pride? Was he not unduly exalting himself, when he
+assumed a tone of censorship towards such a pillar of the community as
+Jonathan Maxfield? The old man had been for many years accustomed to
+much deference, alike from preachers and congregation. The exhortations
+and admonitions which were doubtless needful for his neighbours, were
+entirely out of place when addressed to himself. His piety and probity
+were established on a rock. And the Lord had, moreover, seen fit to gift
+him with so large a share of the wisdom of the serpent, as had enabled
+him to hold his own, and to thrive in the midst of worldlings. A dull
+fire of indignation against David Powell began to smoulder in the old
+man's heart, as he pondered these things.</p>
+
+<p>Other thoughts, too, more or less disquieting, passed through his brain.
+He thought of Rhoda's mother&mdash;of that second wife whom he, a man past
+middle-life, had married for her fair young face and gentle ways, much
+to Betty Grimshaw's disgust, and the surprise of most people. He looked
+back on the long, dusty, dreary road of his life; and, in the whole
+landscape, the only spot on which the sun seemed to shine was that brief
+year of his second marriage. Not that he had been, or that he now was,
+an unhappy man. His life had satisfactions in it of a sober, sombre
+kind. He did not grow soft or sentimental in reviewing the past. He was
+accustomed to the chill, grey atmosphere in which he lived. But he had
+felt warm sunlight once, and remembered it. And he had a
+notion&mdash;inarticulate, indeed, and vague&mdash;that Rhoda needed more light
+and warmth in her life than was necessary for his own existence, or for
+James's, or Betty Grimshaw's, or, in fact, for most people's. There was
+no amount of hardness he could not be guilty of to "most people," and,
+indeed, he was hard enough to himself; but for Rhoda there was a soft
+place in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, there were many hopes, fears, speculations, and
+reflections connected with Rhoda just now, which had anything but a
+softening effect on Mr. Maxfield's demeanour; insomuch that Betty and
+James, coming in presently to supper, found the head of the family in so
+crabbed a temper, that they were glad to hurry through the meal in
+silence, and slink off to bed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mention has been made of a whist-party at Dr. Bodkin's, to which Mrs.
+Errington announced her intention of going. It took place on the
+Thursday after that evening on which Mrs. Errington was first introduced
+to the reader: that is to say, on the second night following.</p>
+
+<p>Whist-parties were almost the only social entertainment ever given
+amongst the genteel persons in Whitford. The Rev. Cyrus Bodkin, D.D.,
+liked his rubber; so did Robert Smith, Esq., M.R.C.S., and Mr. Dockett,
+the attorney, and Miss Chubb, and one or two more cronies, who were
+frequently seen at the doctor's green card-tables.</p>
+
+<p>The Bodkins lived in a gloomy stone house adjoining the grammar-school,
+of which, indeed, it formed part. The house was approached by a
+gravelled courtyard, surrounded by high stone walls. The garden at the
+back ran sloping down to a broad green meadow, which in turn was
+bounded by the little river Whit, all overhung with willows, and covered
+by a floating mass of broad water-lily leaves, just opposite the
+doctor's garden gate.</p>
+
+<p>In the full summer time, the view from the back of the house was pretty
+and pastoral enough. But in autumn and winter the meadow was a swamp,
+whose vivid green looked poisonous&mdash;as indeed it was, exhaling ague and
+rheumatism from its plashy surface&mdash;and a white brooding mist trailed
+itself, morning and evening, along the sluggish Whit, like a fallen
+cloud, condemned by some angry prince of the air to crawl serpent-like
+on earth, instead of soaring and sailing in the empyrean.</p>
+
+<p>Such fancies never came into Doctor Bodkin's head, however, nor into his
+wife's either&mdash;good, anxious, unselfish, sad, little woman! Into his
+daughter Minnie's brain all sorts of wild, fantastic notions would
+intrude as she lay on her sofa, looking out upon the garden, and the
+river, and the meadow, and the gnarled old willows, and the flying scud
+in the sky; but she very seldom spoke of her fancies to any one. She
+spoke of other matters, though, freely enough. She had many visitors,
+who came and sat around her couch, or beside the lounging-chair, on
+which, on her good days, she reclined. She was better acquainted with
+the news of Whitford than most of the people who could use their limbs
+to go abroad and see what was passing. She was interested in the
+progress of the boys at the grammar-school, and knew the names, and a
+good deal about the characters, of every one of them. She would chat,
+and laugh, and joke by the hour with the frequenters of her father's
+house; but of herself&mdash;of her own thoughts, feelings, and
+fancies&mdash;Minnie Bodkin said no word to them. Nor did she, in truth, ever
+speak much on that subject all her life. And there were days&mdash;black days
+in the calendar of her poor anxious little mother&mdash;when Minnie would
+remain shut into her room, refusing to see or speak with anyone, and
+suffering much pain of body, with a proud stoicism which rejected
+sympathy like a wall of granite.</p>
+
+<p>There is no suggestion of granite about her now, however, as she lies,
+propped up by crimson cushions, on a sofa in her father's drawing-room.
+The room is bright and warm, despite the white kraken of mist that is
+coiled around the outer walls of the house. Wax-lights shine in tall,
+old-fashioned silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and on the centre
+table, and on a pianoforte, beside which stands a canterbury full of
+music-books. A great fire blazes in the grate, and makes its immediate
+neighbourhood too hot for the comfort of most people. But Minnie is apt
+to be chilly, and loves the heat. Some delicate ferns and hothouse
+plants adorn a stand between the windows. They are rather a rare luxury
+in Whitford; but Minnie loves flowers, and always has some choice ones
+about her. A still rarer luxury hangs on the wall opposite to her sofa,
+in the shape of a very fine copy&mdash;on a reduced scale&mdash;of Raphael's
+Madonna di San Sisto. Minnie had fallen in love with a print from that
+famous picture long ago, and the copy was procured for her at
+considerable pains and expense. The furniture of the room is of crimson
+and dark oak. Minnie delights in rich colours and picturesque
+combinations. In a word, there is not an inch of the apartment, from
+floor to ceiling, in the arrangement of which Minnie's tastes have not
+been consulted, and in which traces of Minnie's influence are not
+plainly to be seen by those who know that household.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie has a face, which, if you saw it represented in time-darkened oil
+colours, and framed on the walls of a picture-gallery, you would
+pronounce strikingly beautiful. Such faces are sometimes seen in flesh
+and blood, and, strange to say, do by no means excite the same
+enthusiasm in ordinary beholders, who, for the most part, like the
+picturesque in a picture and nowhere else; and who, to paraphrase what
+was said of Voltaire's intellect, admire chiefly those women who have,
+more than other young ladies, the prettiness which all young ladies
+have.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie's face is pale and rather sallow. Her skin is not transparent,
+but fine in texture, like fine vellum, and it seldom changes its hue
+from emotion. When it does, it grows dark-red or deadly-white. Pleasing
+blushes or pallors are never seen on it. She has dark, thick hair, worn
+short, and brushed away from a high, smooth, rounded forehead, in which
+shine a pair of bright brown eyes, under finely-arched eyebrows. But the
+beauty of the face lies in the perfection of its outlines: brow, cheeks,
+and chin are alike delicately moulded; her mouth&mdash;although the lips are
+too pale&mdash;is almost faultless, as are the white, small teeth she shows
+when she smiles. There is an indefinable air of sickness and suffering
+over this beautiful face, and dark traces beneath the eyes, and a
+pathetic, weary look in them sometimes; but, when she speaks or smiles,
+you forget all that.</p>
+
+<p>There are people in this world whose intellects remind one of lamps too
+scantily supplied with oil. The little feeble flame in them burns and
+flickers, certainly, but it is but a dull sort of dead light after all.
+Now Minnie Bodkin's spirit-lamp, if the phrase may be permitted,
+illumined everything it shone upon, and there were some persons who
+found it a great deal too dazzling to be pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>It is not at all too bright at this moment for Algernon Errington, who,
+seated close beside her couch, is giving her, sotto voce, a humorous
+imitation of the psalm-singing in old Max's parlour; and describing,
+with great relish, his mother's cool suggestion that the family prayers
+should be put off until she should be absent at a whist-party.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear mother," says Algernon, smiling, "she can't forget that she
+is an Ancram; and sometimes comes out with one of her grande dame
+speeches, as if she were addressing my grandfather's Warwickshire
+tenantry forty years ago!" At which simple, candid words Minnie shoots
+out a queer, keen glance at the young fellow from under her eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Methodist preacher&mdash;what is he like?" she asks. "Whitford is,
+or was, a little inclined to go crazed about him. I don't know whether
+the enthusiasm is burning itself out, as such fires of straw will do,
+but a few weeks ago I heard that the little Wesleyan chapel was crowded
+to overflowing whenever he preached; and that once or twice, when he
+addressed the people out of doors on Whit Meadow, there was such a
+multitude as never was seen there before. I was quite curious to see the
+man who could so move our sluggish Whitfordians."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon had taken up a sheet of note-paper and a pen from Minnie's
+letter-writing table, whilst she was speaking. "Look here," he says,
+"here's the preacher!" And he holds out the paper on which he has
+drawn, with a few rapid strokes, a caricature of David Powell.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie looks at it with raised eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says she, "is he like that? I am disappointed. This is the common,
+conventional, long-haired Methodist, that one sees in every comic
+print."</p>
+
+<p>And in truth Algernon's portrait is not a good likeness, even for a
+caricature. He had drawn a lank, hook-nosed man, with long, black hair,
+expressed by two blots of ink falling on either side of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"He wears his hair just like that!" says Algy, contemplating his own
+work with a good deal of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The card playing has not yet begun. Mrs. Bodkin, small, thin, with a
+questioning, sharp, little nose, and a chin which narrows off too
+suddenly, and an odd resemblance altogether to a little melancholy fox,
+is presiding at a tea-table. Besides tea and coffee, it is furnished
+with substantial cakes of many various kinds. Whitford people, for the
+most part, dine early, so that they are ready for solid food again by
+about eight o'clock; and will, probably, sustain nature once more with
+sandwiches and mulled wine before they sleep.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a large party. There is Mrs. Errington, majestic in a dyed
+silk, and a real lace cap, the latter a relic of the "better days" she
+is fond of reverting to; Miss Chubb, a stout spinster, with a
+languishing fat face as round as a full moon, and little rings of hair
+gummed down all over her forehead, and half-way down her plump cheeks;
+Mr. Smith, the surgeon, black-eyed, red-faced, and smiling; the Rev.
+Peter Warlock, curate of St. Chad's, a serious, ghoul-like young man,
+who rends great bits out of his muffin with his teeth, in a way to make
+you shudder if you happen to be nervous or fanciful; Mr. Dockett, the
+attorney, and his wife, each dressed in black, each with a huge double
+chin and smothered voice, and altogether comically like one another.</p>
+
+<p>On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, and his coffee-cup in his
+hand, stands Dr. Bodkin. He is short and thick. He has an air of
+command. He looks at the world in general as if it were liable to an
+"imposition" of ever so many hundred lines of Latin poetry, and as if he
+were ready to enforce the penalty at brief notice. He is not a hard man
+at heart, but nature has made him conceited, and habit has made him a
+tyrant. The boys kotoo to him in the school, and his wife bends
+submissively to his will at home. There is only one person in the world
+who habitually opposes and sets aside his assumption of infallibility,
+and that person&mdash;his daughter Minnie&mdash;he loves and fears. He tramples on
+most other people, in the firm persuasion that it is for their good. He
+is bald, large-faced, with a long upper-lip, which he shoots out into a
+funnel shape when he talks. He is an honest man in his calling, has a
+fair share of routine learning, and imparts it laboriously to the boys
+under his tuition.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the people seem to slacken in eating and drinking. "Another
+cup of tea, Mrs. Errington? Won't you try any of that pound cake, Mr.
+Warlock?" (N.B. He has eaten three muffins unassisted; but they do not
+prosper with him. He has a hungry glare.) "Mrs. Dockett? No?" Mrs.
+Bodkin looks round, and lifts her meek, foxy little nose interrogatively
+at each member of the circle. No one will eat or drink more. The doctor
+prepares to make up the tables.</p>
+
+<p>The card-tables are always set out in an inner drawing-room, adjoining
+that in which our friends are taking tea. Dr. Bodkin hates to hear any
+noise when he is at his rubber, so there are thick curtains before the
+door of communication between the two rooms; and the door is shut, and
+the curtains drawn, whenever Minnie desires to have music on whist
+evenings.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the piano penetrates to the card-players, nevertheless. But
+Mrs. Bodkin declares that she can never hear a note, when she is in the
+little drawing-room, with the door shut, and the curtains drawn. And
+although the doctor wears a frown on his bald forehead, and is more
+than ordinarily severe on his partner whenever the piano begins to sound
+during a game, yet he never takes any step to have the instrument
+silenced.</p>
+
+<p>The players file off in the wake of the host. There is a quartet at the
+doctor's table. At another, Mrs. Dockett, Mrs. Warlock, and Mr. Smith
+play dummy. Algernon Errington hates cards, and&mdash;naturally&mdash;doesn't
+play. The Rev. Peter Warlock also hates cards, but is wanted to make up
+the rubber, and&mdash;naturally&mdash;plays. Mrs. Bodkin hovers between the two
+rooms, and Minnie and Algernon are left almost tête-à-tête.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you really, really think of going to London?" says Minnie
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"To seek my fortune!" answers Algernon, with a smile. "Turn a-gain,
+Er-ring-ton&mdash;I don't know why that shouldn't be rung out on Bow Bells.
+You see my name has the same number of syllables as Whit-ting-ton! I
+declare that is a good omen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whittington made himself useful to the cook, and took care of his
+kitten. I wonder what you will do, Algy, to deserve fortune?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think fortune favours the deserving? They paint her as a woman!"
+cries Master Algernon, with a saucy grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Algy, I like you. We are old chums. Have you considered this step? Have
+you any reasonable prospect of making your way, if you refuse the
+Bristol man's proposition."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie seldom speaks so earnestly as she is speaking now; still seldomer
+volunteers any inquiry into other people's affairs. Algernon is sensible
+of the distinction, and flattered by it. He forthwith proceeds to lay
+his hopes and plans before her; that is to say, he talks a great deal
+with astonishing candour and fluency, and says wonderfully little. His
+mother is so anxious; these Seeleys are her people. It would vex the
+dear old lady so terribly, if he were to prefer the Bristol side of the
+house! Though, perhaps, that would be, selfishly speaking, the right
+policy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I see!" exclaims Minnie, sinking back among her cushions when he
+has done speaking.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, one or two more guests drop in: young Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, some six miles from Whitford; Lieutenant-Colonel Whistler, on
+half-pay, with his two nieces, Rose and Violet McDougall; and with them
+Alethea Dockett, who is still a day-boarder at a girls' school in
+Whitford, and has been spending the afternoon with the Misses McDougall.
+The latter young ladies never play whist. Little Ally Dockett sometimes
+takes a hand, if need be, and acquits herself not discreditably; but
+sixteen rushes in where two-and-thirty fears to tread. Rose and Violet
+are on the doubtful border-land of life, and keep up a brisk
+skirmishing warfare with their enemy, Time. They would not give that
+wily old traitor the triumph of putting themselves at a whist-table
+for&mdash;for anything short of a bonâ fide offer of marriage, with a good
+settlement.</p>
+
+<p>All those guests Minnie receives very graciously, with a sort of royal
+condescension. She is quite unconscious that the Misses McDougall (of
+whose intelligence she has, truth to say, a disdainful estimate) are
+alive to the fact that she thinks them fools, and that they take a good
+deal of credit to themselves for bearing with her airs, poor thing! But
+then she is so afflicted!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Minnie, what's that? Do let me see! Is it one of your caricatures,
+you wicked thing?" cries Rose, darting on the portrait of David Powell.</p>
+
+<p>"It's better drawn than Minnie can do," says Violet, with an air of
+having evidence wrung from her on oath.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be that, and yet not very good," answers Minnie carelessly. "Mr.
+Errington has been trying to give me an idea of some one I've never
+seen, and probably never shall see."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the Methodist preacher, by Jove!" says young Pawkins with his
+glass in his eye. "I heard him and saw him last summer on Whit Meadow."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Whistler, after holding the paper out at the utmost stretch of
+his arm, solemnly puts on a pair of gold spectacles and examines it.</p>
+
+<p>"Monstrous good!" he pronounces. "Very well, Errington! That's just the
+cut of that kind of fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen him, colonel?" asks Minnie.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no; I can't say I have seen him. Don't like these irregular
+practitioners, Miss Minnie. But I know the sort of fellow. That's just
+the cut of 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could draw, Miss Bodkin," says a voice behind Minnie at the
+head of the sofa; "I would show you a better likeness of the man than
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie puts her thin white hand over her shoulder to the new comer, whom
+she cannot see. "Mr. Diamond!" she exclaims very softly.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know your voice."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The little group round Minnie's sofa dispersed as Mr. Diamond came
+forward. He was barely known by sight to most of them, and merely bowed
+gravely and shyly, without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's that?" asked Colonel Whistler, in a loud whisper, of his eldest
+niece. "Eh? oh! ah! second master&mdash;yes, yes, yes; to be sure!" And the
+gallant gentleman walked off to the card-room, and joined the party at
+Mrs. Dockett's table, where there was a vacant place. It must be owned
+that the colonel's appearance was by no means rapturously hailed there.
+He was a notoriously bad player. Fate, however, allotted him as a
+partner to Mr. Warlock. Mrs. Dockett and Mr. Smith exchanged glances of
+satisfaction, and the gloom on Mr. Warlock's brow perceptibly deepened
+as the colonel, polite, smiling, and eager for the fray, took his seat
+opposite to that clerical victim.</p>
+
+<p>"Algy, give Mr. Diamond your chair," said Miss Bodkin. It was in this
+imperious manner that she occasionally addressed her young friend. In
+her eyes he was still a school-boy. And then she was four years his
+senior, and had been a young woman grown when he was still playing
+marbles and munching toffy.</p>
+
+<p>Algy by no means considered himself a school-boy, but he had excellent
+tact and temper. He rose directly, shook hands with his tutor, and then
+standing opposite to Minnie, put his knuckles to his forehead, after the
+fashion in vogue amongst rustic children by way of salute, and said
+meekly, "Yes'm, please'm."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie laughed. "You don't mind, do you, Algernon?" she said, looking up
+at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Miss Bodkin. You have merely cast another blight over my
+young existence. I am growing to look like the reverend Peter, in
+consequence of your ill-usage. Don't you perceive a ghastly hue upon my
+brow? No? Ah, well, you would if you had any feeling. Here, let me put
+this cushion better for you. Will that do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Capitally, thanks. And, look here, Algy; I can't bear any music
+to-night, so will you get mamma to set the McDougalls down to a round
+game? And play yourself, there's a good boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Minnie, you ought to have been Mrs. Nero. There never was such a
+tyrant. Well, Pawkins and I must make ourselves agreeable, I suppose.
+For England, home, and beauty&mdash;here goes!" And Algernon speedily had the
+two Miss McDougalls, and Mr. Pawkins, and Alethea Dockett engaged in a
+game of vingt-et-un&mdash;played in a very infantine manner by the
+first-named ladies, and with a good deal of business-like gravity by
+little Alethea, who liked to win.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond looked at the group with his hand over his mouth, after his
+habit.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he a nice fellow?" asked Minnie, watching Mr. Diamond's face
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Errington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"But now, tell me&mdash;do sit down here; I want to talk to you. You come so
+seldom. I wonder why you came to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I chanced to meet Mrs. Bodkin in the street, and she asked me so
+pressingly&mdash;she is so good!"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie's face wore a pained look. "It is a pity mamma should have teased
+you," she said, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Matthew Diamond took no notice of the words. Perhaps he did not hear
+them. "I am not fit to go to evening parties," he continued. "The very
+wax-lights dazzle me. I feel like a bat or an owl."</p>
+
+<p>"Too wise for your company, that means!"</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say so? No: I assure you I was compared to an owl the other
+evening by a lady, and I felt the justice of the comparison."</p>
+
+<p>"By a lady! What lady?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond smiled a little amused smile at the authoritative tone of
+the question. Minnie did not see it. She was leaning her elbow on a
+cushion, and had her face turned towards Mr. Diamond; but her eyes,
+which usually looked out, open and unabashed, were half veiled by their
+lids.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady was Mrs. Errington," answered the tutor, after a moment's
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"She called you an owl? That eagle? Well, she has this aquiline quality;
+I believe she could stare the sun himself out of countenance!"</p>
+
+<p>"You were asking me to tell you&mdash;&mdash;" said Mr. Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell me&mdash;&mdash;? Oh, yes; about the Methodist preacher. That caricature
+is not like him, you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. It is a vulgar conception of the man."</p>
+
+<p>"And the man is not vulgar? I am glad of that! Tell me about him."</p>
+
+<p>Matthew Diamond had heard the preacher more than once. The first time
+had been by chance on Whit Meadow. The other times were in the crowded,
+close Wesleyan chapel, into which he had penetrated at the cost of a
+good deal of personal inconvenience, so greatly had Powell's eloquence
+impressed him.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is like a flame of fire," he said. "It is wonderful! He must be
+like Garrick, according to the descriptions I have heard. And, then,
+this fellow is so handsome&mdash;wild and oriental-looking. I always long to
+clap a turban on his head, and a great flowing robe over his shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie listened eagerly, with parted lips, to all that Diamond would
+tell her of the preacher.</p>
+
+<p>"That is for his manner," she said, at length. "Now, as to the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond paused. "The man is an enthusiast, you know," he answered,
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"But as to his doctrine? Give me some idea of the kind of thing he
+says."</p>
+
+<p>"Not now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; now. This moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me; I cannot enter into the subject now."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie raises her brown eyes to his steel-grey ones, and then drops her
+own quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you ever?" she asks, meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bodkin is not accustomed to be answered with such unceremonious
+curtness; but, perhaps on account of its novelty, Mr. Diamond's blunt
+disregard of her requests (in that house Minnie's requests have the
+weight of commands) does not ruffle her. She bears it with the most
+perfect sweetness, and proceeds to discourse of other things.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it a pity," she says, "that Algernon Errington should
+have refused his cousin's offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"A great pity&mdash;for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you think Mr. Filthorpe of Bristol is not to be condoled with on
+the occasion?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond's firmly closed lips remain immovable.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie looks at him wistfully, and then says suddenly, "Do you know I
+like Algy very much! There is something so bright and winning and gay
+about him! I have known him so long&mdash;ever since he came here as a small
+child in a frock. And papa knew his father, Dr. Errington. He was a very
+clever man, a brilliant talker, and greatly sought after in society.
+Algy inherits all that. And he has&mdash;what they say his father had not&mdash;a
+temper that is almost perfect, thoroughly sound and sweet. I wish you
+liked him."</p>
+
+<p>"Who tells you that I do not like him? You are mistaken in fancying so.
+I think Errington one of the most winning fellows I ever knew in my
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes; but you don't think so well of him as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that is hardly to be expected! And pardon me, Miss Bodkin, but
+you don't know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing about your thoughts on the subject!" interrupts Minnie
+quickly, and with a bright, mischievous glance. "Forgive my interrupting
+you; but when I am to have a cold shower-bath, I like to pull the string
+myself. Now it's over."</p>
+
+<p>"You think me a terrible bear," says Diamond, looking down on her
+beautiful, animated face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! take care. If I know nothing about your thoughts, how do you
+pretend to guess mine? Besides, I am not so zoological in my choice of
+epithets as your friend, Mrs. Errington. Papa nearly quarrelled with
+that lady on the subject of Algy's going away. But, you know, it is not
+all Mrs. Errington's fault. Algy chooses to try his fortune under the
+auspices of Lord Seely&mdash;I can see that plainly enough. And what Algy
+chooses his mother chooses. He has been terribly spoiled."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great misfortune&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To be spoiled?"</p>
+
+<p>"For him to have lost his father when he was a child. Otherwise he might
+not have been so pampered: though fathers spoil their children
+sometimes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mine spoils me, I think. But then there is an excuse, after all, for
+spoiling me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Miss Bodkin, you cannot suppose that I had any such meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"You? Oh, no! You are honest: you never speak in innuendoes. But it is
+true, you know. My father and mother have spoiled me. Poor father and
+mother! I am but a miserable, frail little craft for them to have
+ventured so much love and devotion in!"</p>
+
+<p>It was not in mortal man&mdash;not even in mortal man whose heart was filled
+with a passion for another woman&mdash;to refrain from a tender glance and a
+soft tone, in answer to Minnie's pathetic little plaint. Her beauty and
+her intellect might be resisted: her helplessness, and acknowledgment of
+peculiar affliction, could not be.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Matthew Diamond; "who would not embark all their freight of
+affection in such a venture as the hope that you would love them again?
+I think your parents are paid."</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that Mr. Diamond's calm, grave face raised an
+indefinite expectation in the beholder. When he said those words to
+Minnie Bodkin, you would have thought, if you had been watching him,
+that you had found the key of the puzzle, and that an ineffable
+tenderness was the secret that lay hid beneath that grave mask. The
+stern mouth smiled, the stern eyes beamed, the straight brows were
+lifted in a compassionate curve. Minnie had never seen his face with
+that look on it, and the change in it gave her a curious pang, half of
+pain, half of pleasure. Strong conflicting feelings battled in her. She
+was strung to a high pitch of excitement; and her eyes brightened, and
+her pulse beat quicker&mdash;all for a look, a smile, a beam of the eye from
+this staid, quiet schoolmaster! What do we know of the thought in our
+neighbour's brain? of the thrill that makes his heart flutter? We do not
+care for this air-bubble. How can he? It is yonder beautiful transparent
+ball, all radiant with prismatic colours, that we expend our breath
+upon. Up it goes&mdash;up, up, up&mdash;look! No; our stupid neighbour is watching
+his own airy sphere, which is not nearly so beautiful; and which, we
+know, will burst presently!</p>
+
+<p>The game of vingt-et-un comes to an end. Almost at the same moment the
+whist-players break up, and come trooping into the drawing-room;
+trooping and talking rather noisily, to say the truth, as though to
+indemnify themselves for the silence which Doctor Bodkin insists upon
+during the classic game. Mrs. Bodkin bustles up to her daughter; hopes
+she is not tired; thinks she looks a little fagged; wonders why she did
+not have any music, as she generally likes Rose McDougall's Scotch
+ballads; supposes Mr. Diamond preferred not to play, as she sees he has
+been sitting out, and trusts he has not been bored.</p>
+
+<p>But of all the people present, Mrs. Bodkin alone guesses that Minnie has
+enjoyed her evening, and why. And, with her mother's and woman's
+instinct, she knows that Minnie's pleasure would have been spoiled by
+guessing that it had been guessed. For the rest, this small
+anxious-faced woman cares but little. She would tear your feelings to
+mince-meat to feed the fancies of her daughter, as ruthlessly as any
+maternal vixen would slay a chicken for her cubs; although, for herself,
+no hare is milder or more timid.</p>
+
+<p>The Misses McDougall are in good spirits. They have won, and they have
+had the two young men all to themselves, for Ally Dockett in short
+frocks doesn't count. Also Minnie Bodkin has kept aloof. That bright
+lamp of hers is not favourable to such twinkling little rushlights as
+Rose and Violet are able to display. But this evening they have not been
+quenched by a superior luminary, and are quite radiant and cheerful. Dr.
+Bodkin, too, is contented in his lofty manner; for there has been no
+music, and he has enjoyed his rubber in peace. Colonel Whistler has
+lost, but the stakes are always modest at Dr. Bodkin's table, and he
+doesn't mind it. Over the feelings of the Rev. Peter Warlock it will,
+perhaps, be best to draw a veil. The reverend gentleman stalks in, and
+sits down in a corner, whence he can stare at Minnie unobserved. It is
+the only comfort he enjoys throughout the evening. And for this he
+thinks it worth while to submit to the <i>peine forte et dure</i> of playing
+whist, with Colonel Whistler for his partner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington sails towards Minnie's sofa, and suddenly stops short,
+and opens her eyes very wide.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond, who is the object of her gaze, rises and bows. "Good
+evening, madam," he says, unable to repress a smile at her manifest
+astonishment on beholding him there.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Diamond? Dear me! I little expected to see you
+this evening. Dear Minnie, how are you now? Well, this is a surprise!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Mr. Diamond moves away, Mrs. Errington takes his chair beside
+Minnie, and says to her confidentially&mdash;"Now, I hope, Minnie, you won't
+owe me a grudge for it; but I must confess that if it hadn't been for
+me, you wouldn't have had that gentleman to entertain this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth do you mean?" cries Minnie, with scant ceremony, and
+flashes an impatient glance at the lady's soft, smiling, self-satisfied
+visage.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I advised him to come here a little oftener. I think he felt
+diffident, you know, and all that. Poor man, he is rather dull, although
+Algy is always crying up his talents. But it really is kind to bring him
+forward a little. I asked him to tea the other night. You see he must
+feel it a good deal when people are affable, and so on, for"&mdash;here her
+voice sank to a whisper&mdash;"he told me himself that he had been a sizar."</p>
+
+<p>With all which benevolent remarks Miss Bodkin is, of course, highly
+delighted. She does not forget them either; for after the negus has been
+drunk, and the sandwiches eaten, and the company has departed, she says
+to her father, "Papa, was Mr. Diamond a sizar?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, child. Very likely. None the worse for that, if he were."</p>
+
+<p>"The worse! No!" returns Minnie, with a superb smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says he was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Errington."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! Ten to one it isn't true then. She has her good points, poor
+woman, but the Ancrams are all liars; every one of them! Greatest liars
+in all the Midland Counties. It runs in the family, like gout."</p>
+
+<p>"It does not seem likely, certainly, that Mr. Diamond should have
+confided the circumstance to Mrs. Errington," observed Minnie,
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Confided! No; I never knew a man less likely to confide anything to
+anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"However, after all, it is a thing which all the world might know, isn't
+it, papa?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bodkin was not interested in the question. He gave a great loud
+yawn, and declared it was time for Minnie to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't follow that I'm sleepy because you yawn, papa!" she said
+saucily.</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired though, puss! I see it in your face. Go to bed. Mrs.
+Bodkin, get Minnie off to rest."</p>
+
+<p>He bent to kiss his daughter, and bid her good night.</p>
+
+<p>"Say 'God bless' me, papa," she whispered, drawing his head down and
+kissing his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I always say it? God bless you, my darling!"</p>
+
+<p>There were tears in Minnie's eyes as she turned her head away among her
+cushions. But nobody saw them. She talked to the maid who undressed her
+about Mr. Powell, the Methodist preacher, and asked her if she had heard
+him, and what the folks said about him in the town.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Miss Minnie. I've never heard him, and I know master wouldn't think
+it right for any of us to be going to a dissenting chapel. But I do
+think as there's some good to be got there, miss. For my brother
+Richard, him that lives groom at Pudcombe Hall&mdash;he went and got&mdash;got
+'conversion,' I think they call it, at Mr. Powell's. And since then he's
+never touched a drop of liquor, nor a bad word never comes out of his
+mouth. And he says he's quite happy and comfortable in his mind, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he? How I envy him!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is exceedingly disagreeable to find that a scheme you have set your
+head on, or a prospect which smiles before you, is displeasing to the
+persons who surround you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of
+anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon did not perhaps care to sympathise very keenly with other
+folks' pleasure, but he certainly desired that they should be pleased
+with what pleased him, which is not quite the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>His mother informed him&mdash;perhaps with a dash of the Ancram colouring;
+although we have seen how unjustly the worthy lady was suspected of
+falsehood by Dr. Bodkin on a late occasion&mdash;that Mr. Diamond disapproved
+of his refusing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go to
+London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, did not approve it; neither did
+Minnie, although she had never said so in words. How unpleasantly chilly
+people were, to be sure!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. She mistrusted him. His silence
+and gravity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn politeness, made her
+uneasy. Despite the patronising way in which she had spoken of him to
+Minnie Bodkin, in her heart she thought the young man to be horribly
+presuming.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at all, Algy," she declared, winding
+up a list of Mr. Diamond's defects and misdemeanours with this
+culminating accusation.</p>
+
+<p>Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. Diamond's appreciation of himself was
+likely to be a just one, and he was a little vexed and discomfited, that
+his tutor had given him no word of praise behind his back. Mrs.
+Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten and
+embellish her statements accordingly. "But, my dear boy," said she, "how
+can we expect him to recognise talents like yours&mdash;gentlemanly talents,
+so to speak? The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, he was a sizar at
+college!"</p>
+
+<p>Algy felt himself to be a very generous fellow for continuing to "stand
+up for old Diamond," as he phrased it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ma'am, plenty of great men have been poor scholars. Dean Swift
+was a sizar."</p>
+
+<p>"And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! So you see, Algy!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good deal upon this retort, and returned
+to the attack upon Mr. Diamond with fresh vigour; being one of those
+persons whose mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, never content
+with merely killing their enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash every
+semblance of humanity out of him.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon did not like all this. His vanity was&mdash;at least during this
+period of his life&mdash;a great deal more vulnerable than his mother's. And
+she, although she doated on him, would say unpleasant things,
+indignantly repeat mortifying remarks which had been made, and in a
+hundred ways unconsciously wound the sensitive love of approbation which
+was one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say weakest) points.</p>
+
+<p>It was all very disagreeable. But it was not the worst he had to look
+forward to. There was one person who would be so cast down, so
+despairing, at the news of his going away, that&mdash;that&mdash;it would be quite
+painful for a fellow to witness such grief. And yet it could not be
+expected&mdash;it could never have been expected&mdash;that he should stay in
+Whitford all his life! He must point that out to Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Rhoda!</p>
+
+<p>For ten years, that is to say for more than half her life, Algernon
+Errington had been an idol, a hero, to her. From the first day when,
+peeping from behind the parlour door, she had beheld the strangers
+enter&mdash;Mrs. Errington, majestic, in a huge hat and plume, such as young
+readers may have seen in obsolete fashion books (the mode was so absurd
+fifty years ago, and had none of that simple elegance which
+distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair
+child, in a black velvet suit and falling collar&mdash;from that moment the
+boy had been a radiant apparition in her imagination. How small, and
+poor, and shabby she felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at that
+beautiful, blooming mother and son! Not poor and shabby in a milliner's
+sense of the word, but literally of no account, or beauty, or value, in
+the world, little shy motherless thing! She had an intense delight in
+beauty, this Whitford grocer's daughter. And all her little life the
+craving for beauty in her had been starved: not wilfully, but because
+the very conception of such food as would wholesomely have fed it, was
+wanting in the people with whom she lived.</p>
+
+<p>That was a great day when she first, by chance, attracted Mrs.
+Errington's notice. She was too timid and too simple to scheme for that
+end, as many children would have done, although she tremblingly desired
+it. What a surprisingly splendid sight was the tortoise-shell work-box,
+full of amber satin and silver! What a delightful revelation the sound
+of the old harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's plump white
+fingers! What a perennial source of wonder and admiration were that
+lady's accomplishments, and condescension, and kind soft voice!</p>
+
+<p>As to Algernon, there never was such a clever and brilliant little boy.
+At eight years old he could sing little songs to his mother's
+accompaniment, in the sweetest piping voice. He could recite little
+verses. He even drew quite so that you could tell&mdash;or Rhoda could&mdash;his
+trees, houses, and men from one another.</p>
+
+<p>In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of her family,
+and in all the descriptions she gave of her ancestral home in
+Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagination put in the boy as the central figure
+of the piece. She could see him in the great hall hung round with
+armour; although she knew that he had never been in the family mansion
+in his life; in the grand drawing-room, with its purple carpet and gilt
+furniture; above all, in the long portrait gallery, of which Rhoda was
+never tired of hearing. Heaven knows how she, innocently, and Mrs.
+Errington, exercising her hereditary talent, embellished and transformed
+the old brick house in its deer park; or what enchanted landscapes the
+child at all events conjured up, among the gentle slopes and tufted
+woods of Warwickshire!</p>
+
+<p>Even the period of hobbledehoydom, fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to
+civilised humanity in most schoolboys, Algernon passed through
+triumphantly. He had a great sense of humour, and fastidious pampered
+habits of mind and body, which enabled him to look down with more or
+less disdain&mdash;a good-humoured disdain, always, Algy was never
+bitter&mdash;upon the obstreperous youth at the Whitford Grammar School.</p>
+
+<p>One fight he had. He was forced into it by circumstances, against his
+will. Not that he was a coward, but he had a greater, and more candidly
+expressed regard for the ease and comfort of his body, than his
+schoolfellows conceived to be compatible with pluck. However, our young
+friend, if less stoical, was a great deal cleverer than the majority of
+his peers; and perceiving that the moment had arrived when he must
+either fight or lose caste altogether, he frankly accepted the former
+alternative. He fought a boy bigger and heavier than himself, got beaten
+(not severely, but fairly well beaten) and bore his defeat&mdash;in the
+dialect of his compeers, "took his licking"&mdash;admirably. He was quite as
+popular afterwards, as if he had thrashed his adversary, who was a
+loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to strength. Had he bruised his
+way to the perilous glory of being cock of the school himself, it would
+have behoved him to maintain it against all comers; which is an anxious
+and harassing position. Algy had not vanquished the victor, but he had
+"taken his licking like a trump," and, on the whole, may be said to
+have achieved his reputation, at the smallest cost possible under the
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked at beholding his bruised cheek, and
+bleeding lip, when he came home one half-holiday, from the field of
+battle. Algy laughed as well as his swollen features would let him, and
+calmed their feminine apprehensions. Nor would he accept his fond
+parent's enthusiastic praise of his heroism, mingled with denunciations
+of "that murderous young ruffian, Master Mannit."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh, ma'am," said the hero, "it's all brutal and low enough. We bumped
+and thumped each other as awkwardly as possible. I fought because I was
+obliged. And I didn't like it, and I shan't fight again if I can help
+it. It is so stupid!"</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow's great charm was to be unaffected. Even his
+fine-gentlemanism sat quite easily on him, and was displayed with the
+frankest good humour. Some one reproached him once with being more nice
+than wise. "We can't all be wise, but we needn't be nasty!" returned
+Algy, with quaint gravity. His temper was, as Minnie Bodkin had said,
+nearly perfect. He had a singular knack of disarming anger or hostility.
+You could not laugh Algernon out of any course he had set his heart
+upon&mdash;a rare kind of strength at his age&mdash;but it was ten to one he would
+laugh you into agreeing with him. Every one of his little gifts and
+accomplishments was worth twice as much in him as it would have been in
+clumsier hands.</p>
+
+<p>If you had a heartache, I do not think that you would have found Algy's
+companionship altogether soothing. Sorrow is apt to feel the very
+sunshine cruelly bright and cheerful. But if you were merry and wanted
+society: or bored, and wanted amusement: or dull and wanted
+exhilarating, no better companion could be desired.</p>
+
+<p>He was genial with his equals, affable to his inferiors, modest towards
+his superiors&mdash;and had not a grain of veneration in his whole
+composition.</p>
+
+<p>At seventeen years old Algernon left the Grammar School. But he
+continued to "read" with Mr. Diamond for nearly a twelvemonth. "My son
+is studying the classics with Mr. Diamond," Mrs. Errington would say; "I
+can't send my boy to the University, where all his forefathers
+distinguished themselves. But he has had the education of a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very desultory kind of reading at the best, and it was
+interrupted by the long Midsummer holidays, during which Mr. Diamond
+went away from Whitford, no one knew exactly whither. And during these
+same holidays, Mrs. Errington, who said she required change of air, had
+taken lodgings in a little quiet Welsh village, and obtained Mr.
+Maxfield's permission to have Rhoda with her.</p>
+
+<p>That was a time of joy for the girl. It did not at all detract from
+Rhoda's happiness, that she was required to wait hand and foot on Mrs.
+Errington; to bring her her breakfast in bed; to trim her caps, to mend
+her stockings; to iron out scraps of fine lace and muslin; to walk with
+her when she was minded to stroll into the village; to order the dinner;
+to make the pudding&mdash;a culinary operation too delicate for the fingers
+of the rustic with whom they lodged&mdash;to listen to her patroness when it
+pleased her to talk; and to play interminable games of cribbage with her
+when she was tired of talking. All these things were a labour of love to
+Rhoda. And Mrs. Errington was kind to the girl in her own way.</p>
+
+<p>And above all, was not Algy there? Those were happy days in the Welsh
+village. On the long delicious summer afternoons, when Mrs. Errington
+was asleep after dinner, Rhoda would sit out of doors with her sewing;
+on a bench under the parlour window, so as to be within call of her
+patroness; and Algy would lounge beside her with a book; or make short
+excursions to get her wild flowers, which he would toss into her lap,
+laughing at her ecstasy of gratitude. "Oh, Algy!" she would cry, "Oh,
+how good of you! How lovely they are!" The words written down are not
+eloquent, but Rhoda's looks and tones made them so.</p>
+
+<p>"They are not half so lovely," Algy would answer, "as properly educated
+garden flowers; nor so sweet either. But I know you like that sort of
+herbage."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda never forgot those days. How should she forget them?&mdash;since it was
+at this period that Algernon first discovered that he was in love with
+her. Perhaps he might never have made the discovery if they had all
+stayed at Whitford. There he saw her, as he had seen her since her
+childhood, surrounded by coarse common people, and living their life,
+more or less. It is not every one who can be expected to recognise your
+diamond, if you set it in lead. Rhoda was always sweet, always gentle,
+always pretty, but she formed part and parcel of old Max's
+establishment. When the boy and girl were quite small, she used to help
+him with his lessons (her one year's seniority made a greater difference
+between them then, than it did later) and had always been used to do him
+sisterly service in a hundred ways. And all this was by no means
+favourable to the young gentleman's falling in love with her.</p>
+
+<p>But at Llanryddan, Rhoda appeared under quite a different aspect. She
+looked prettier than ever before, Algernon thought. And perhaps she
+really was so; for there is no such cosmetic for the complexion as
+happiness. Apart from her vulgar relations, and treated as a lady by the
+few strangers with whom they came in contact, it was surprising to find
+how good her manners were, and how much natural grace she possessed.
+Mrs. Errington had taught her what may be termed the technicalities of
+polite behaviour. From her own heart and native sensibility she had
+learnt the essentials. The people in the village turned their heads to
+admire her, as she walked modestly along. Who could help admiring her?
+Algernon decided that there was not one among the young ladies of
+Whitford who could compare with Rhoda. "She is ten times as pretty as
+those raw-boned McDougalls, and twenty times as well bred as Alethea
+Dockett, and ever so much cleverer than Miss Pawkins," he reflected.
+Minnie Bodkin never came into his head in the list of damsels with whom
+Rhoda could be compared. Minnie occupied a place apart, quite removed
+from any idea of love-making.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Little Rhoda! How fond she was of him!</p>
+
+<p>Altogether Rhoda appeared in a new light, and the new light became her
+mightily. Yes; Algy was certainly in love with her, he acknowledged to
+himself. There was no scene, no declaration. It all came to pass very
+gradually. In Rhoda the sense of this love stole on as subtly as the
+dawn. Before she had begun to watch the glowing streaks of rose-colour,
+it was daylight! And then how warm and golden it grew in her little
+world! How the birds chirped and fluttered, and the flowers breathed
+sweet breath, and a thousand diamond drops stood on the humblest blades
+of grass!</p>
+
+<p>If she had been nine years old, instead of nearly nineteen, she could
+scarcely have given less heed to the worldly aspects of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon perhaps more consciously set aside considerations of the
+future. He was but a boy, however; and he always had a great gift of
+enjoying the present moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, that looks
+forward and backward, to the deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely on
+his horizon; no London society; no diplomatic career. The latter indeed
+was but an Ancramism of his mother's, when she spoke of it to Mr.
+Diamond, and Algy at that time had never entertained the idea of it.</p>
+
+<p>So these two young persons sat side by side, on the bench outside the
+Welsh cottage, and were as happy as the midsummer days were long.</p>
+
+<p>But long as the midsummer days were, they passed. Then came the time for
+going back to Whitford. The day before their return home Rhoda received
+a shock of pain&mdash;the first, but not the last, which she ever felt from
+this love of hers&mdash;at these words, said carelessly, but in a low voice,
+by Algy, as he lounged at her side, watching the sunset:</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda, darling, you must not say a word to any one about&mdash;about you and
+me, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Not say a word! What had she to say? And to whom? "No, Algy," she
+answered, in a faint little voice, and began to meditate. The idea had
+been presented to her for the first time that it was her duty, or Algy's
+duty, to drag their secret from its home in Fairyland, and subject it to
+the eyes and tongues of mortals. But being once there, the idea stayed
+in her mind and would not be banished. Her father&mdash;Mrs. Errington&mdash;what
+would they say if they knew that&mdash;that she had dared to love Algernon?
+The future began to look terribly hard to her. The glittering mist which
+had hidden it was drawn away like a gauze curtain. How could she not
+have seen it all before? Would any one believe for evermore that she had
+been such a child, such a fool, so selfishly absorbed in her pleasant
+day-dreams, as not to calculate the cost of it for one moment until now?</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Algy!" the poor child broke out, lifting a pale face and startled
+eyes to his; "if we could only go on for ever as we are! If it would be
+always summer, and we two could stay in this village, and never go back,
+or see any of the people again&mdash;except father," she added hastily. And a
+pang of remorse smote her as her conscience told her that the father who
+loved her so well, and was so good to her, whatever he might be to
+others, was not at all necessary to the happiness of her existence
+henceforward.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let's be miserable now, at all events," returned Algernon
+cheerfully. "Look at that purple bar of cloud on the gold! I wonder if I
+could paint that. I wish I had my colour-box here. The pencil sketches
+are so dreary after all that colour."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon could paint "that," or anything else he
+applied his brush to. After a while she said, with her heart beating
+violently, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks: "Don't you
+think it would be wrong, deceitful&mdash;to&mdash;if we&mdash;not to tell&mdash;&mdash;" Poor
+Rhoda could not frame her sentence, and was obliged to leave it
+unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>"Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, Rhoda? Oh, I say, don't cry;
+there's a pet! Don't, my darling! I can't bear to see you sorry. But,
+look here, Rhoda, dear; I'm so young yet, that it wouldn't do to talk
+about being in love, or anything of that sort. Though I know I shall
+never change, they would declare I didn't know my own mind, and would
+make a joke of it"&mdash;this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule,
+as a sensitive plant shrinks from the north wind&mdash;"and bother my&mdash;our
+lives out. Can't you see old Grimgriffin's great front teeth grinning at
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>It was in these terms that Algy was wont to allude to that respectable
+spinster, Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda knew that Algy wished and expected her to smile when he said that;
+and she tried to please him, but the smile would not come. Her lip
+quivered, and tears began to gather in her eyes again. She would have
+sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought the
+sadder and more frightened she grew. Ridicule was painful, but that was
+not the worst. Her father! Mrs. Errington! She lay awake half the night,
+terrifying herself with imaginations of their wrath.</p>
+
+<p>Algy found an opportunity the next morning to whisper to her a few
+words. "Don't look so melancholy, Rhoda. They'll wonder at Whitford
+what's the matter if you go back with such a wan face. And as to what
+you said about deceit, why we shan't pretend not to love each other!
+Look here, we must have patience! I shall always love you, darling, and
+I'm sure to get my own way with my mother in the long run; I always do."</p>
+
+<p>So then there would be obstacles to contend with on Mrs. Errington's
+part, and Algy acknowledged that there would. Of course she had known
+before that it must be so. But Algy had declared that he would always
+love her; that was the one comforting thought to which she clung. Rhoda
+had grown from a child to a woman since yesterday. Algy was only older
+by four-and-twenty hours.</p>
+
+<p>After their return to Whitford came Mr. Filthorpe's letter. Then his
+mother's application to Lady Seely, brought about by an old acquaintance
+of Mrs. Errington, who lived in London, and kept up an intermittent
+correspondence with her. Both these events were talked over in Rhoda's
+presence. Indeed, the girl filled the part towards Mrs. Errington that
+the confidant enacts towards the prima donna in an Italian opera. Mrs.
+Errington was always singing scenas to her, which, so far as Rhoda's
+share in them went, might just as well have been uttered in the shape of
+a soliloquy. But the lady was used to her confidant, and liked to have
+her near, to take her hand in the impressive passages, and to walk up
+the stage with her during the symphony.</p>
+
+<p>So Rhoda heard Algernon's prospects canvassed. In her heart she longed
+that he should accept Mr. Filthorpe's offer. It would keep him nearer to
+her in every sense. She had few opportunities of talking with him alone
+now&mdash;far fewer than at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to say a few
+words privately to him one afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bodkin's
+whist-party), and she timidly hinted that if Algy went to Bristol,
+instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not feel
+that she had lost him so completely.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child!" exclaimed Algy, whose outlook on life had a good deal
+changed during the last three months, "how can you talk so? Fancy me on
+Filthorpe's office stool!"</p>
+
+<p>"London is such a long way off, Algy," murmured the girl plaintively.
+"And then, amongst all those grand people, lords and ladies, you&mdash;you
+may grow different."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, my dear Rhoda, your appreciation of me is highly
+flattering! For my part it seems to me more likely that I should grow
+'different' in the society of Bristol tradesmen than amongst my own kith
+and kin&mdash;people like myself and my parents in education and manners. I
+am a gentleman, Rhoda. Lord Seely is not more."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda shrank back abashed before this magnificent young gentleman. Such
+a flourish was very unusual in Algernon. But the Ancram strain in him
+had been asserting itself lately. He was sorry when he saw the poor
+girl's hurt look and downcast eyes, from which the big tears were
+silently falling one by one. He took her in his arms, and kissed her
+pale cheeks, and brought a blush on to them, and an April smile to her
+lips; and called her his own dear pretty Rhoda, whom he could never,
+never forget.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it would be best to forget me, Algy," she faltered. And
+although his loving words, and flatteries, and caresses, were
+inexpressibly sweet to her, the pain remained at her heart.</p>
+
+<p>She never again ventured to say a word to him about his plans. She would
+listen, meekly and admiringly, to his vivid pictures of all the fine
+things he was to do in the future: pictures in which her figure
+appeared&mdash;like the donor of a great altarpiece, full of splendid saints
+and golden-crowned angels&mdash;kneeling in one corner. And she would sit in
+silent anguish whilst Mrs. Errington expatiated on her son's prospects;
+wherein, of late, a "great alliance" played a large part. But she could
+not rouse herself to elation or enthusiasm. This mattered little to Mrs.
+Errington, who only required her confidante to stand tolerably still
+with her back to the audience. But it worried Algernon to see Rhoda's
+sad, downcast face, irresponsive to any of his bright anticipations. It
+must be owned that the young fellow's position was not entirely
+pleasant. Yet his admirable temper and spirits scarcely flagged. He was
+never cross, except, now and then, just a very little to his mother. And
+if no one else in the world less deserved his ill-humour, at least no
+one else in the world was so absolutely certain to forgive him for it!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Parliament was to meet early in February. It seemed strange that that
+fact should have any interest for Rhoda Maxfield; nevertheless, so it
+was. Algernon was to go to London, but it was no use to be there unless
+Lord Seely, "our cousin," were there also; and my lord our cousin would
+not be in town before the meeting of parliament. Thus the assembling of
+the peers and commons of this realm at Westminster was an event on which
+poor Rhoda's thoughts were bent pretty often in the course of the
+twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington announced to the whole Maxfield family that Algernon was
+going away from Whitford, and accompanied the announcement with florid
+descriptions of the glory that awaited her son, in the highest Ancram
+style of embellishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said old Max, after listening awhile, "and will this lord get
+Mr. Algernon a place?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington could not answer this question very definitely. The
+future was vague, though splendid. But of course Algy would distinguish
+himself. That was a matter of course. Perhaps he might begin as Lord
+Seely's private secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"A sekketary! Humph! I don't think much o' that!" grunted Mr. Maxfield.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear man, you don't understand these things. How should you? Many
+noblemen's sons would only be too delighted to get the position of
+private secretary to Lord Seely. A man of such distinction! Hand and
+glove with the sovereign!"</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield did not altogether dislike to hear his lodger hold forth in
+this fashion. He had a certain pleasure in contemplating the future
+grandeur of Mr. Algernon, whose ears he had boxed years ago, on the
+occasion of finding him enacting the battle of Waterloo, with a couple
+of schoolfellows, in the warehouse behind the shop, and attacking a
+Hougoumont of tea-chests and flour-barrels, so briskly, as to threaten
+their entire demolition.</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield was weaving speculations in connection with the young man, of
+so wild and fanciful a nature as would have astonished his most familiar
+friends, could they have peeped into the brain inside his grizzled old
+head.</p>
+
+<p>But this rose-coloured condition of things did not last.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, Mrs. Errington looked into his little sitting-room, on
+her way upstairs, and finding him with an account-book, in which he was,
+not making, but reading entries, she stepped in, and began to chat; if
+any speech so laboriously condescending as hers to Mr. Maxfield may be
+thus designated. Her theme, of course, was her son, and her son's
+prospects.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll be all very fine for Mr. Algernon, to be sure," said old Max,
+slowly, after some time, "but&mdash;it'll cost money."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so much as you think for. Low persons who feel themselves in a
+false position, no doubt find it necessary to make a show. But a real
+gentleman can afford to be simple."</p>
+
+<p>"But I take it he'll have to afford other things besides being simple!
+He'll have to afford clothes, and lodging, and maybe food. You aren't
+rich."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington admitted the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Algernon ought to find a wife with a bit o' money," said the old man,
+looking straight and hard into the lady's eyes. Those round orbs
+sustained the gaze as unflinchingly as if they had been made of blue
+china.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not at all a bad idea," Mrs. Errington said, graciously.</p>
+
+<p>"But then he wouldn't just take the first ugly woman as had a fort'n."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; nor yet an old 'un."</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious, man! of course not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Young, pretty, good, and a bit o' money. That's about his mark, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington shook her head pathetically. "She ought to have birth,
+too," she said. "But the woman takes her husband's rank; unless," she
+added, correcting herself, and with much emphasis, "unless she happens
+to be the better born of the two."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she does, eh? The woman takes her husband's rank? Ah! well, that's
+script'ral. I have never troubled my head about these vain worldly
+distinctions; but that is script'ral."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington was not there to discuss her landlord's opinions or to
+listen to them; but he served as well as another to be the recipient of
+her talk about Algernon, which accordingly she resumed, and indulged in
+ever-higher flights of boasting. Her mendacity, like George Wither's
+muse,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As it made wing, so it made power.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"The fact is, there is more than one young lady on whom my connections
+in London have cast their eye for Algy. Miss Pickleham, only daughter of
+the great drysalter, who is such an eminent member of Parliament;
+Blanche Fitzsnowdon, Judge Whitelamb's lovely niece; one of
+Major-General Indigo's charming girls, all of them perfect specimens of
+the Eastern style of beauty&mdash;their mother was an Indian princess, and
+enormously wealthy. But I am in no hurry for my boy to bind himself in
+an engagement: it hampers a young man's career."</p>
+
+<p>"Career!" broke out old Max, who had listened to all this, and much
+more, with an increasingly dismayed and lowering expression of
+countenance. "Why, what's his career to be? He's been brought up to do
+nothing! It 'ud be his only chance to get hold of a wife with a bit o'
+money. Then he might act the gentleman at his ease; and maybe his fine
+friends 'ud help him when they found he didn't want it. But as for
+career&mdash;it's my opinion as he'll never earn his salt!"</p>
+
+<p>And with that the old man marched across the passage into the shop,
+taking no further notice of his lodger; and she heard him slam the
+little half-door, giving access to the storehouse, with such force as to
+set the jingling bell on it tinkling for full five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington was so surprised by this sally, that she stood staring
+after him for some time before she was able to collect herself
+sufficiently to walk majestically upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Maxfield's temper becomes more and more extraordinary," she said to her
+son, with an air of great solemnity. "The man really forgets himself
+altogether. Do you suppose that he drinks, Algy? or is he, do you think,
+a little touched?" She put her finger to her forehead. "Really I should
+not wonder. There has been a great deal of preaching and screeching
+lately, since this Powell came; and, you know, they do say that these
+Ranters and Methodists sometimes go raving mad at their field-meetings
+and love-feasts. You need not laugh, my dear boy; I have often heard
+your father say that nothing was more contagious than that sort of
+hysterical excitement. And your father was a physician; and certainly
+knew his profession if he didn't know the world, poor man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was old Max hysterical, ma'am?" asked Algernon, his whole face lighted
+up with mischievous amusement. And the notion so tickled him, that he
+burst out laughing at intervals, as it recurred to him, all the rest of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>Betty Grimshaw, and Sarah, the servant-maid, and James, helping his
+father to serve in the shop, and the customers who came to buy, all
+suffered from the unusual exacerbation of Maxfield's temper for some
+time after that conversation of his with Mrs. Errington.</p>
+
+<p>It increased, also, the resentful feeling which had been growing in his
+mind towards David Powell. The young man's tone of rebuke, in speaking
+of Rhoda's associating with the Erringtons, had taken Maxfield by
+surprise at the time; and he had not, he afterwards thought, been
+sufficiently trenchant in his manner of putting down the presumptuous
+reprover. He blew up his wrath until it burned hot within him; and, the
+more so, inasmuch as he could give no vent to it in direct terms. To
+question and admonish was the acknowledged duty of a Methodist preacher.
+Conference made no exceptions in favour even of so select a vessel as
+Jonathan Maxfield. But Maxfield thought, nevertheless, that Powell ought
+to have had modesty and discernment to make the exception himself.</p>
+
+<p>No inquisitor&mdash;no priest, sitting like a mysterious Eastern idol in the
+inviolate shrine of the confessional&mdash;ever exercised a more tremendous
+power over the human conscience than was laid in the hands of the
+Methodist preacher or leader according to Wesley's original conception
+of his functions. But besides the essential difference between the
+Romish and Methodist systems that the latter could bring no physical
+force to bear on the refractory, there was this important point to be
+noted: namely, that the inquisitor might be subjected to inquisition by
+his flock. The priest might be made to come forth from the
+confessional-box, and answer to a pressing catechism before all the
+congregation. In the band-meetings and select societies each individual
+bound himself to answer the most searching questions "concerning his
+state, sins, and temptations." It was a mutual inquisition, to which,
+of course, those who took part in it voluntarily submitted themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But the spiritual power wielded by the chiefs was very great, as their
+own subordination to the conference was very complete. Its pernicious
+effects were, however, greatly kept in check by the system of
+itinerancy, which required the preachers to move frequently from place
+to place.</p>
+
+<p>There are few human virtues or weaknesses to which, on one side or the
+other, Methodism in its primitive manifestations did not appeal.
+Benevolence, self-sacrifice, fervent piety, temperance, charity, were
+all called into play by its teachings. But so also were spiritual
+pride, narrow-mindedness, fanaticism, gloom, and pharisaical
+self-righteousness. Only to the slothful, and such as loved their ease
+above all things, early Methodism had no seductions to offer.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Maxfield's father and grandfather had been disciples of John
+Wesley. The grandfather was born in 1710, seven years before Wesley, and
+had been among the great preacher's earliest adherents in Bristol.</p>
+
+<p>Traditions of John Wesley's sayings and doings were cherished and handed
+down in the family. They claimed kindred with Thomas Maxfield, Wesley's
+first preacher, and conveniently forgot or ignored&mdash;as greater families
+have done&mdash;those parts of their kinsman's career which ran counter to
+the present course of their creed and conduct. For Thomas Maxfield
+seceded from Wesley, but the grandfather and father of Jonathan
+continued true to Methodism all their lives. They married within the
+"society" (as was strictly enjoined at the first conference), and
+assisted the spread of its tenets throughout their part of the West of
+England.</p>
+
+<p>In the third generation, however, the original fire of Methodism had
+nearly burnt itself out, and a few charred sticks remained to attest the
+brightness that had been. Never, perhaps, in the case of the
+Maxfields&mdash;a cramp-natured, harsh breed&mdash;had the fire become a
+hearth-glow to warm their homes with. It had rather been like the
+crackling of thorns under a pot. The dryest and sharpest will flare for
+a while.</p>
+
+<p>Old Max, nevertheless, looked upon himself as an exemplary Methodist. He
+made no mental analyses of himself or of his neighbours. He merely took
+cognisance of facts as they appeared to him through the distorting
+medium of his prejudices, temper, ignorance, and the habits of a
+lifetime. When he did or said disagreeable things, he prided himself on
+doing his duty. And his self-approval was never troubled by the
+reflection that he did not altogether dislike a little bitter flavour in
+his daily life, as some persons prefer their wine rough.</p>
+
+<p>But to do and say disagreeable things because it is your duty is a very
+different matter from accepting, or listening to, disagreeable things,
+because it is somebody else's duty to do and say them! It was not to be
+expected that Jonathan Maxfield should meekly endure rebuke from a young
+man like David Powell.</p>
+
+<p>And now crept in the exasperating suspicion that the young man might
+have been right in his warning! Maxfield watched his daughter with more
+anxiety than he had ever felt about her in his life, looking to see
+symptoms of dejection at Algernon's approaching departure. He did not
+know that she had been aware of it before it was announced to himself.</p>
+
+<p>One day her father said to her abruptly, "Rhoda, you're looking very
+pale and out o' sorts. Your eyes are heavy" (they were swollen with
+crying), "and your face is the colour of a turnip. I think I shall send
+you off to Duckwell for a bit of a change."</p>
+
+<p>Duckwell Farm was owned by Seth, Maxfield's eldest son.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want a change, indeed, father," said the girl, looking up
+quickly and eagerly. "I had a headache this morning, but it is quite
+gone now. That's what made me look so pale."</p>
+
+<p>From that time forward she exerted herself to appear cheerful, and to
+shake off the dull pain at the heart which weighed her down, until her
+father began to persuade himself that he had been mistaken, and
+over-anxious. She always declared herself to be quite well and free from
+care. "And I know she would not tell me a lie," thought the old man.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, she had learned to lie in her words and her manner. She had, for
+the first time in her life, a motive for concealment, and she used the
+natural armour of the weak&mdash;duplicity.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda had been "good" hitherto, because her nature was gentle, and her
+impulses affectionate. She had no strong religious fervour, but she
+lived blamelessly, and prayed reverently, and was docile and
+humble-minded. She had never professed to have attained that sudden and
+complete regeneration of spirit which is the prime glory of Methodism.
+But then many good persons lived and died without attaining "assurance."
+Whenever Rhoda thought on the subject&mdash;which, to say the truth, was not
+often, for her nature, though sweet and pure, was not capable of much
+spiritual aspiration, and was altogether incapable of fervent
+self-searching and fiery enthusiasm&mdash;she hoped with simple faith that
+she should be saved if she did nothing wicked.</p>
+
+<p>Her father and David Powell would have pointed out to her, that her
+"doing," or leaving undone, could have no influence on the matter. But
+their words bore small fruit in her mind. Her father's religious
+teaching had the dryness of an accustomed formality to her ears. It had
+been poured into them before she had sense to comprehend it, and had
+grown to be nearly meaningless, like the everyday salutation we exchange
+a hundred times, without expecting or thinking of the answer.</p>
+
+<p>David Powell was certainly neither dry nor formal, but he frightened
+her. She shut her understanding against the disturbing influence of his
+words, as she would have pressed her fingers into her pretty ears to
+keep out the thunder. And then her dream of love had come and filled her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In most of us it wonderfully alters the focus of the mind's eye with its
+glamour, that dream. To Rhoda it seemed the one thing beautiful and
+desirable. And&mdash;to say all the truth&mdash;the pain of mind which she felt,
+other than that connected with her lover's going away, and which she
+attributed to remorse for the little deceptions and concealments she
+practised, was occasioned almost entirely by the latent dread, lest the
+time should come when she should sit lonely, looking at the cold ashes
+of Algy's burnt-out love. For she did mistrust his constancy, although
+no power would have forced the confession from her. This blind,
+obstinate clinging to the beloved was, perhaps, the only form in which
+self-esteem ever strongly manifested itself in that soft, timid nature.</p>
+
+<p>There was one person who watched Rhoda more understandingly than her
+father did, and who had more serious apprehensions on her account. David
+Powell knew, as did nearly all Whitford by this time, that young
+Errington was going away; and he clearly saw that the change in Rhoda
+was connected with that departure. He marked her pallor, her absence of
+mind, her fits of silence, broken by forced bursts of assumed
+cheerfulness. Her feigning did not deceive him.</p>
+
+<p>Albeit of almost equally narrow education with Jonathan Maxfield, Powell
+had gained, in his frequent changes of place and contact with many
+strange people, a wider knowledge of the world than the Whitford
+tradesman possessed. He perceived how unlikely it was, that people like
+the Erringtons should seriously contemplate allying themselves by
+marriage with "old Max;" but that was not the worst. To the preacher's
+mind, the girl's position was, in the highest degree, perilous; for he
+conceived that what would be accounted by the world the happiest
+possible solution to such a love as Rhoda's, would involve nothing less
+than the putting in jeopardy her eternal welfare. He could not look
+forward with any hope to a union between Rhoda and such a one as
+Algernon Errington.</p>
+
+<p>"The son is a shallow-hearted, fickle youth, with the vanity of a boy
+and the selfishness of a man; the mother, a mere worldling, living in
+decent godlessness."</p>
+
+<p>Such was David Powell's judgment. He reflected long and earnestly. What
+was his calling&mdash;his business in life? To save souls. He had no concern
+with anything else. He must seek out and help, not only those who needed
+him, but those who most needed him.</p>
+
+<p>All conventional rules of conduct, all restraining considerations of a
+merely social or worldly kind, were as threads of gossamer to this man
+whensoever they opposed the higher commands which he believed to have
+been laid upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Maxfield was falling away from godliness. He, too evidently,
+was willing to give up his daughter into the tents of the heathen. The
+pomps and vanities of this wicked world had taken hold of the old man.
+Satan had ensnared and bribed him with the bait of worldly ambition.
+From Jonathan there was no real help to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>In the little garret-chamber, where he lodged in the house of a
+widow&mdash;one of the most devout of the Methodist congregation&mdash;the
+preacher rose from his knees one midnight, and took from his breast the
+little, worn pocket-Bible, which he always carried. A bright cold moon
+shone in at the uncurtained window, but its beams did not suffice to
+enable him to read the small print of his Bible. He had no candle; but
+he struck a light with a match, and, by its brief flare, read these
+words, on which his finger had fallen as he opened the book:</p>
+
+<p>"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?</p>
+
+<p>"To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?"</p>
+
+<p>He had drawn a lot, and this was the answer. The leading was clear. He
+would speak openly with Rhoda himself. He would pray and wrestle; he
+would argue and exhort. He would awaken her spirit, lulled to sleep by
+the sweet voice of the tempter.</p>
+
+<p>It would truly be little less than a miracle, should he succeed by the
+mere force of his earnest eloquence, in persuading a young girl like
+Rhoda to renounce her first love.</p>
+
+<p>But, then, David Powell believed in miracles.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>All that she had heard of the Methodist preacher had taken strong hold
+of Minnie Bodkin's imagination. Mr. Diamond's description of him
+especially delighted her. It was in piquant contrast with her previous
+notions about Methodists, who were associated in her mind with ludicrous
+images. This man must be something entirely different&mdash;picturesque and
+interesting.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a deeper feeling in her mind than the mere curiosity to
+see a remarkable person. Minnie was not happy; and her unhappiness was
+not solely due to the fact of her bodily infirmities. She often felt a
+yearning for a higher spiritual support and comfort than she had ever
+derived from her father's teachings. She passed in review the
+congregation of the parish church, most of whom were known to her, and
+she asked herself what good result in their lives or characters was
+produced by their weekly church-going. Was Mrs. Errington more truthful;
+Miss Chubb less vain; Mr. Warlock less gloomy; her father (for Minnie,
+in the pride of her keen intellect, spared no one) less arrogant and
+overbearing; she herself more patient, gentle, hopeful, and happy, than
+if the old bell of St. Chad's were silent, and the worm-eaten old doors
+shut, and the dusty old pulpit voiceless, for evermore? Yet there were
+said to be people on whom religion had a vital influence. She wished she
+could know such. She could judge, she thought, by seeing and conversing
+with them, whether or not there were any reality in their professions.
+Minnie seldom doubted the sufficiency of her own acumen and penetration.</p>
+
+<p>No; she was not happy. And might it not be that this Methodist man had
+the secret of peace of mind? Was there in truth a physician who could
+minister to a suffering spirit? She thought of Powell with the feeling
+half of shame, half of credulity, with which an invalid hankers after a
+quack medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie had been taught to look upon Dissenters in general as quacks, and
+upon Methodists as arch-quacks. Dr. Bodkin professed himself a staunch
+Churchman and a hater of "cant." He considered that Protestantism, and
+the right of private judgment, had justly reached their extreme limits
+in the Church of England as by law established. He detested enthusiasm
+as a dangerous and disturbing element in human affairs, and he viewed
+with especial indignation the pretensions of unlearned persons to
+preach and proselytise. Although he had no leaning to Romanism, he would
+rather have admitted a Jesuit into his house than a Methodist. Indeed,
+he sometimes defined the latter to be the Jesuit of dissent&mdash;only, as he
+would take care to point out, a Jesuit without learning, culture, or
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>"I can listen to a gentleman, although I may not agree with him," the
+Doctor would say (albeit, in truth, he had no great gift of listening to
+anyone who opposed his opinions), "but am I to be hectored and lectured
+by the cobbler and the tinker?"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie had no taste for being hectored or lectured; but it seemed to her
+that what the cobbler and tinker said, was more important than the fact
+that it was they who said it. She thought, and pondered, and wondered
+about the Methodist preacher, and about her chance of ever seeing or
+hearing more of him, until a thought darted into her mind like an arrow.
+Little Rhoda! She was a Methodist born and bred, and knew this preacher,
+and&mdash;&mdash;Minnie would send for little Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>When she announced this resolution to her mother, Mrs. Bodkin found
+several difficulties in the way of its fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want with her, Minnie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see her. Mrs. Errington talks so much of her. I remember her
+coming here with a message once, when she was a child. I recollect only
+a little fair face and shy eyes, under a coal-scuttle straw bonnet.
+Don't you, mamma? And I want to talk to her about several things," added
+Minnie, with resolute truthfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me! What will your papa say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how papa can object to my asking this nice little thing to
+come to me for an afternoon, when he doesn't mind your boring yourself
+to death with Goody Barton, whose snuff-taking would try the nerves of a
+rhinoceros, nor forbid my inviting the little Jobsons, who are
+unpleasant to look upon, and stupid beyond the wildest flights of
+imagination. He lets me have any one I like."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but you teach the little Jobsons the alphabet, my dear. And that
+is a charitable work."</p>
+
+<p>"And Rhoda will amuse me, and I'm sure that is a charitable work!"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie would get her own way, of course. She always did.</p>
+
+<p>That same evening Minnie said to her father, with her frank, bright
+smile, "Papa, may I not ask Rhoda Maxfield to take tea with me some
+afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Little Maxfield, the grocer's daughter, papa," said Minnie, boldly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bodkin bent nervously over her knitting.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth for? Why do you want to associate with such folks? Have
+you not plenty of friends without&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, papa. But I don't ask her because I'm in want of friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Minnie," said Mrs. Bodkin in the quick, low tones she habitually
+spoke in, "I'm sure nobody has more friends than you have! Everybody is
+so glad to come to you, always."</p>
+
+<p>"You're my friend, mamma. And papa is my friend. Never mind the rest. I
+want to have little Maxfield to tea." Minnie laughed at herself, the
+moment after she had said the words, in the tone of a spoiled child.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bodkin crossed and uncrossed his legs, kicked a footstool out of the
+way, and then got up and stood before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want amusement, isn't there Miss Chubb or the McDougalls, or&mdash;or
+plenty more?" said he, shooting out his upper lip, and frowning
+uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, papa, can you say in conscience that you find Miss Chubb and the
+McDougalls perennially amusing?" Then, with a sudden change of tone,
+"Besides, you know, the other people are playing their parts in life,
+and strutting about hither and thither on the stage, and they find it
+all more or less interesting. But I&mdash;I am like a child at a peep-show. I
+can but look on, and I sometimes long for a change in the scene and the
+puppets!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor began to poke the fire violently. "Laura," said he,
+addressing his wife, "that last tea you got is good for nothing. They
+brought me a cup just now in the study that was absolutely undrinkable.
+Is it Smith's tea? Well, try Maxfield's. You can have some ordered when
+the message is sent for the girl to come here."</p>
+
+<p>In this way the doctor gave his permission.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Minnie despatched her maid, Jane, with the following note
+to Mr. Maxfield:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will Mr. Maxfield allow his daughter Rhoda to spend the afternoon with
+Miss Bodkin? Miss Bodkin is an invalid, and cannot often leave her room,
+and it would give her great pleasure to see Rhoda. The maid shall wait
+and accompany Rhoda if Mr. Maxfield permits, and Miss Bodkin undertakes
+to have her sent safely home again in the evening."</p>
+
+<p>Old Max was scarcely more surprised than gratified on reading this
+invitation. He stood behind his counter holding the pink perfumed note
+between his floury finger and thumb, and turning over the contents of it
+in his mind, whilst his son James served the maid with some tea.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Minnie was a much-looked-up-to personage in Whitford. And here was
+Miss Minnie inviting Rhoda just as though she had been a lady, and
+sending her own maid for her. This would be Algy's doing, the old man
+decided. Algy had more sense than his mother. Algy knew that Rhoda was
+fit to go anywhere, and could hold her own with the best. The young
+fellow was very thick with Dr. Bodkin's family, and had, no doubt,
+talked to Miss Minnie about Rhoda. All sorts of ideas thronged into old
+Max's head, which, nevertheless, looked as obstinately idealess a one as
+could well be imagined, as he stood conning the pink note, with his grey
+eyebrows knotted together, and his heavy under-lip pursed up. Perhaps
+not the feeblest element in his feeling of exultation was the sense of
+triumph over David Powell. Powell might approve or disapprove, but
+anyway, he would see that he was wrong in supposing the Erringtons did
+not think Rhoda good enough for them! If they introduced her about among
+their friends, that meant a good deal, eh, brother David? And that the
+invitation came by means of the Erringtons, Maxfield felt more and more
+convinced, the more he thought of it. So many years had passed, and Miss
+Minnie had taken no notice of Rhoda. Why should she now? Maxfield was at
+no loss to find the answer. Maybe old Mrs. Errington had talked for
+talk's sake more than she meant. Maybe her boasting was in order to
+drive a hard bargain, when Algy should come forward and offer to make
+Rhoda a lady.</p>
+
+<p>The Erringtons' friends were going little by little to make acquaintance
+with Rhoda, in view of the promotion that awaited her. Well, Rhoda could
+stand the test. Rhoda was quite different from the likes of him.</p>
+
+<p>He called his sister-in-law out of the kitchen, and in a few hurried
+words told her of the invitation, and bade her tell Rhoda to get ready
+without delay. He cut Betty Grimshaw short in her exclamations and
+inquiries. "I've no time to talk to you now," he said. "The maid is
+waiting. Bid Rhoda clothe herself in her best garments."</p>
+
+<p>"What! her Sunday frock, Jonathan?" exclaimed Betty in shrill surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sh! woman!" answered Maxfield, and gripped her wrist fiercely. He did
+not want that family detail to come to the ears of Miss Bodkin's maid.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda was completely bewildered by the invitation, and by the breathless
+haste with which Betty announced it to her, and hurried her
+preparations. "But I don't want to go!" murmured Rhoda plaintively. At
+the same time she suffered her clothes to be huddled on to her in Aunt
+Betty's rough fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! tell that to your parent, my dear. I have the mark of his fingers
+on my wrist at this moment; he was in such a taking, and so&mdash;so
+uncumboundable." This latter was a word of Betty's own invention, and
+she frequently employed it with an air of great relish.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of going amongst strangers was more terrible to Rhoda than can
+easily be conceived by those who have never lived so secluded a life as
+hers had been. Had she been able to say a word to Algernon, she thought
+she should have derived a little comfort and support from him. But he
+and his mother were both from home.</p>
+
+<p>All the way from her own house to Dr. Bodkin's, Rhoda uttered no word,
+except to ask Jane timidly if she were sure Miss Minnie would be
+alone&mdash;quite alone?</p>
+
+<p>The gloomy courtyard, and the stone entrance hall of the house struck
+her with awe. The old man-servant who opened the door seemed to look
+severely on her. She followed Jane with a beating heart up the wide
+staircase, whose thick carpet muffled her footsteps mysteriously, and
+then through a drawing-room full of furniture all covered with grey
+holland. There was the glitter of gilt picture-frames on the walls, and
+the shining of a great mirror, and of a large, dark, polished pianoforte
+at one end of the room. And there was a mingled smell of flowers and
+cedar-wood, and altogether the impression made upon Rhoda's senses, as
+she passed through the apartment, was one of perfume, and silence, and
+vague splendour. She had no time, even if she had had self-possession,
+to examine the details of what seemed to her so grand, for she was led
+across a passage and into a room opposite to the drawing-room, and found
+herself in Miss Bodkin's presence.</p>
+
+<p>The room was Minnie's bedroom, but it did not look like a sleeping
+chamber, Rhoda thought. To be sure a little white-curtained bed stood in
+one corner, but all the toilet apparatus was hidden by a curtain which
+hung across a recess, and there were bookshelves full of books, and
+flowers on a stand, and a writing-table. On one side of the fireplace,
+in which a bright fire blazed, there was a curious sort of long chair,
+and in it, dressed in a loose crimson robe of soft woollen stuff,
+reclined Minnie Bodkin.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda was, as has been said, extremely sensitive to beauty, and Minnie's
+whole aspect struck her with admiration. The picturesque rich-coloured
+robe, the delicate white hands relieved upon it, the graceful languor of
+Minnie's attitude, and the air of refinement in the young lady and her
+surroundings, were all intensely appreciated by poor little Rhoda, who
+stood dumb and blushing before her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie, on her part, was a good deal taken by surprise. She welcomed
+Rhoda with her sweetest smile, and thanked her for coming, and made her
+sit down by the fire opposite to herself; and when they were alone
+together, she talked on for some time with a sort of careless
+good-nature, which, little by little, succeeded in setting Rhoda
+somewhat at her ease. But careless as Minnie's manner was, she was
+scrutinising the other girl's looks and ways very keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"She is absolutely lovely!" thought Minnie, "And so graceful,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;lady-like! Yes; positively that is the word. She is as shy as
+a fawn, but no more awkward than one. It is not what I expected."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Minnie could scarcely have said what it was that she had
+expected. Probably a quiet, pretty-looking, well-behaved young person,
+like her maid Jane. Rhoda was something very different, and the young
+lady was charmed with her new <i>protégée</i>. Only she was obliged to admit,
+before the afternoon was over, that she had failed in the main object
+for which she had invited Rhoda to visit her. There was no clear and
+vivid account of Powell, his teaching, or his preaching, to be got from
+Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda could not remember exactly what Mr. Powell said. Rhoda could not
+say what it was which made all the people cry and grow so excited at his
+preaching. Rhoda cried herself sometimes, but that was when he talked
+very pitifully about poor people, and little children, and things like
+that. Sometimes, too, she felt frightened at his preaching, but she
+supposed she was frightened because she had not got assurance. Many of
+the congregation had assurance. Yes; oh yes, the people said Mr. Powell
+was a wonderful man, and the most awakening preacher who had been in
+Whitford for fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie looked at the simple, serious face, and marked the childlike
+demureness of manner with which Rhoda declared Mr. Powell to be "an
+awakening preacher." "I don't think he has awakened you to any very
+startling extent!" thought Minnie. "This girl seems to have received no
+strong influence from him."</p>
+
+<p>That was in a great measure the fact; but also, Rhoda was held back from
+speaking freely, by the conviction that her Methodist phraseology would
+sound strange, and perhaps absurd, in the young lady's ears. Moreover,
+it did not help to put her at her ease, that she felt sundry uneasy
+pricks of conscience for not "bearing testimony" with more fervour. She
+knew that David Powell would have had her improve the occasion to the
+uttermost. But how could she run the risk of being disagreeable to Miss
+Minnie, who was so kind to her?</p>
+
+<p>That was the form in which Rhoda mentally put the case. The truth was,
+hers was not one of those natures to which the invisible ever becomes
+more real and important than the visible. It was incomparably more
+necessary to her happiness to be in agreeable and smooth relations with
+the people around her, than to feel herself in higher spiritual
+communion with unseen powers.</p>
+
+<p>When Minnie at length reluctantly desisted from questioning her on the
+subject of Powell, and her chapel-going, and her religious feelings, she
+was surprised to find how the girl's frigid, constrained manner thawed,
+and how her tongue was loosened.</p>
+
+<p>She chatted freely enough about her visit to Llanryddan in the summer,
+and about Duckwell Farm, where her half-brother Seth lived, and, above
+all, about Mrs. Errington. Mrs. Errington had been so good to her, and
+had taught her, and talked to her; and did Miss Minnie know what a
+change it was for a lady like Mrs. Errington to live in such a poor
+place as theirs? For, although she had the best rooms, of course it was
+very poor, compared with the castle she was brought up in. About
+Algernon she said very little; but it slipped out that she was in the
+habit of being present when Mr. Diamond came to read with the young
+gentleman; and then Miss Minnie was very much interested in hearing what
+Mr. Diamond said to his pupil, and how Rhoda liked Mr. Diamond, and what
+she thought of him. And when it appeared that Rhoda had thought very
+little about him at all, but considered him a very clever, learned
+gentleman&mdash;perhaps a little stiff and grave, but not at all unkind&mdash;Miss
+Minnie smiled to herself and said, "He is a little stiff and grave,
+Rhoda. Not the kind of person to attract one very much, eh!"</p>
+
+<p>And then tea was brought, and Rhoda sipped hers out of a delicate
+porcelain cup, like those which Mrs. Errington had in her corner
+cupboard. And there were some delicious cakes, which Rhoda was quite
+natural enough to own she liked very much. And then Mrs. Bodkin came in,
+and sat down beside her daughter; and finally, at Minnie's request, she
+took Rhoda into the drawing-room, and played to her on the grand piano.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda likes music, she says, mamma. But she has never heard a good
+instrument. Do play her a bit of Mozart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am no great performer, my dear," said Mrs. Bodkin, opening the piano;
+"but I keep up my playing on my daughter's account. She is not strong
+enough to play for herself."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie had her chair wheeled into the drawing-room, in order, as she
+whispered to her mother, to enjoy Rhoda's face when she should hear the
+music.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda sat by and listened, in a trance of delight, while Mrs. Bodkin
+made the keys of the instrument delicately sound a minuet of Mozart,
+and then give forth more volume of tone in "The Heavens are telling."
+This was different, indeed, from the tinkling old harpsichord at home!
+The music transported her. When it ceased she was breathing quickly, and
+her eyes were full of tears. "Oh, how beautiful!" she faltered out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, child, you are a capital audience!" said Mrs. Bodkin, smiling
+kindly.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was time to go home. She was made to promise that she would come
+again and see Minnie whenever her father would let her. She left Dr.
+Bodkin's house in a very different frame of mind from that in which she
+had entered it. Yet she was as silent on her way home as she had been in
+the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>How happy gentlefolks must be, who always can have music, and flowers,
+and talk in such soft voices, and are so polite in their manners, and so
+dainty in their persons! She could not help contrasting the coarse,
+rough ways at home with the smoothness and softness of the life she had
+had a glimpse of at Dr. Bodkin's. She tried to hold fast in her memory
+the pleasant sights and sounds of the day.</p>
+
+<p>In this mood, half-enjoying, half-regretful, she arrived at her father's
+house to find the little parlour full of people&mdash;besides her own family
+and Powell there were two or three neighbours who joined in the
+exercises&mdash;and a prayer-meeting just culminating in a long-drawn hymn,
+bawled out with more zeal than sweetness by the little assembly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Rhoda stood with her hand on the parlour-door for a minute or so. Little
+Sarah, the servant-maid, who had admitted her into the house, and had
+left the parlour in order to do so&mdash;for all the Maxfield household was
+held bound to join in these weekly prayer-meetings&mdash;told her that the
+hymn would be over directly. Rhoda felt shy of entering into the midst
+of the people assembled, and of encountering the questions and
+expressions of surprise which her unprecedented absence from the
+evening's devotions would certainly occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the singing ceased. Rhoda ran as quickly and noiselessly as
+she could along the passage, and half-way up the stairs. From her post
+there she heard the neighbours go away, and the street-door close
+heavily behind them. Now she might venture to slip down. Everyone was
+gone. The house was quite still. She ran into the parlour, and found
+herself face to face with David Powell.</p>
+
+<p>Her Aunt Betty was piling the hymn-books in their place on the little
+table where they stood. There was no one else in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's father?" asked Rhoda, hastily. Then she recollected herself,
+and bade Mr. Powell "Good evening." He returned her salutation with his
+usual gentleness, but with more than his usual gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Betty Grimshaw, looking round from the books. "It's you,
+is it, Rhoda? Your father is gone with Mr. Gladwish to his house for a
+bit. They have some business together. He'll be back by supper."</p>
+
+<p>It very seldom happened that Maxfield left his house after dark. Still
+such a thing had occurred once or twice. Mr. Gladwish, the shoemaker,
+was a steward of the Methodist society, and Maxfield not unfrequently
+had occasion to confer with him. Their business this evening was not so
+pressing but that it might have been deferred. But Maxfield did not
+choose to give Powell an opportunity of private conversation with
+himself at that time; he wanted to see his way clearer before he took
+the decided step of openly putting himself into opposition with the
+practice of his brethren, and the advice of the preacher; and he knew
+Powell well enough to be sure that evasions would not avail with him.
+Therefore he had gone out as soon as the prayers were at an end.</p>
+
+<p>"I must see to the supper," said Betty, and bustled off without another
+word. Nothing would have kept her in Mr. Powell's society but the
+masterful influence of her brother-in-law. She escaped to her haven of
+refuge, the kitchen, where the moral atmosphere was not too rarefied for
+the comfortable breathing of ordinary folks.</p>
+
+<p>David Powell and Rhoda were left alone together. Rhoda made a little
+half-timid, half-impatient movement of her shoulders. She wished Powell
+gone, more heartily than she had ever done before in the course of her
+acquaintance with him.</p>
+
+<p>Powell stood, with his hands clasped and his eyes cast down, in deep
+meditation.</p>
+
+<p>At length Rhoda took courage to murmur a word or two about going to take
+her cloak off. Aunt Betty would be back presently. If Mr. Powell didn't
+mind for a minute or two&mdash;&mdash;She was gliding towards the door, when his
+voice stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tarry a little, Rhoda," said the preacher, looking up at her with his
+lustrous, earnest eyes. "I have something on my soul to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda's eyes fell before his, as they habitually did now. She felt as
+though he could read her heart; and she had something to hide in it. She
+did not seat herself, but stood, with one hand on the wooden
+mantelshelf, looking into the fire. In her other hand she held her
+straw bonnet by its violet ribbon, and her waving brown hair shone in
+the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Powell?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke sharply, and her tones smote painfully on her hearer. He did
+not understand that the sharpness in it was born of fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda," he began, "my spirit has been much exercised on your behalf."</p>
+
+<p>He paused; but she did not speak, only bent her head a little lower, as
+she stood leaning in the same attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda, I fear your soul is unawakened. You are sweet and gentle, as a
+dove or a lamb is gentle; but you have not the root of the matter as a
+Christian hath it. The fabric is built on sand. Fair as it is, a breath
+may overthrow it. There is but one sure foundation whereon to lay our
+lives, and yours is not set upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;try to be good," stammered Rhoda, in whom the consciousness of
+much truth in what Powell was saying, struggled with something like
+indignation at being thus reproved, with the sense of a painful shock
+from this jarring discord coming to close the harmonious impressions of
+her pleasant day, and with an inarticulate dread of what was yet in
+store for her. "I say my prayers, and&mdash;and I don't think I'm so very
+wicked, Mr. Powell. No one else thinks I am, but you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rhoda! Oh, my child!" His voice grew tender as sad music, and, as
+he went on speaking, all trace of diffidence and hesitation fell away,
+and only the sincere purpose of the man shone in him clear as sunlight.
+"My heart yearns with compassion over you. Are those the words of a
+believing and repentant sinner? You 'try!' You 'say your prayers!' You
+are 'not so wicked!' Rhoda, behold, I have an urgent message for you,
+which you must hear!"</p>
+
+<p>She started and looked round at him. He read her thought. "No earthly
+message, Rhoda, and from no earthly being. Ah, child, the eager look
+dies out of your eyes! Rhoda, do you ever think how much God loveth us?
+How much he loveth you, poor perishing little bird, fluttering blindly
+in the outer darkness of the world!&mdash;that darkness which comprehended
+not the light from the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda's tears were now dropping fast. Her lip trembled as she repeated
+once more, "I try&mdash;I do try to be good," with an almost peevish
+emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Rhoda, I must speak. In His hand all instruments are alike good
+and serviceable. He has chosen me, even me, to call you to Him. However
+much you may despise the Messenger, the message is sure, and of
+unspeakable comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Powell, I don't despise you. Indeed I don't! I know you mean&mdash;I
+know you are good. But I don't think there's any such great harm in
+going to see a&mdash;a young lady who is too ill to go out. I'm sure she is a
+very good young lady. I'm sure I do try to be good."</p>
+
+<p>That was the sum of Rhoda's eloquence. She held fast by those few words
+in a helpless way, which was at once piteous and irritating.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you speaking in sincerity from the very bottom of your heart?"
+asked Powell, with the invincible, patient gentleness which is born of a
+strong will. "No, Rhoda; you know you are not. There is harm in
+following our own inclinations, rather than the voice of the spirit
+within us. There is harm in clinging to works&mdash;to anything we can do.
+There is harm in neglecting the service of our Master to pleasure any
+human being."</p>
+
+<p>"I did forget that it was prayer-meeting night," admitted Rhoda, more
+humbly than before. Her natural sweetness of temper was regaining the
+ascendant, in proportion as her dread of what might be the subject of
+Powell's reproving admonition decreased. She could bear to be told that
+it was wrong to visit Minnie Bodkin. She should not like to be told so,
+and she should refuse to believe it, but she could bear it; and she
+began to believe that this visit was held to be the head and front of
+her offending. Powell's next words undeceived her, and startled her
+back into a paroxysm of mistrust and agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is not of your absence from prayer to-night that I would speak
+now. You are entangling yourself in a snare. You are laying up stores of
+sorrow for yourself and others. You are listening to the sweet voice of
+temptation, and giving your conscience into the hand of the ungodly to
+ruin and deface!" He made a little gesture towards the room overhead
+with his hand, as he said that Rhoda was giving her conscience into the
+hands of the ungodly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Powell. And I&mdash;I don't think it's
+charitable to speak so of a person&mdash;of persons that you know nothing
+of."</p>
+
+<p>She was entirely taken off her guard. Her head felt as if it were
+whirling round, and the words she uttered seemed to come out of her
+mouth without her will. Between fear and anger she trembled like a leaf
+in the wind. She would have fled out of the room, but her strength
+failed her. Her heart was beating so fast that she could scarcely
+breathe. Her distress pained Powell to the heart; pained him so much, as
+to dismay him with a vivid glimpse of the temptation that continually
+lay in wait for him, to spare her, and soothe her, and cease from his
+painful probing of her conscience. "Oh, there is a bone of the old man
+in me yet!" he thought remorsefully. "Lord, Lord, strengthen me, or I
+fall!"</p>
+
+<p>"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?"</p>
+
+<p>The remembrance of the lot he had drawn came into his mind, as an answer
+to his mental prayer. It was natural that the words should recur to him
+vividly at that moment, but he accepted their recurrence as an undoubted
+inspiration from Heaven. The belief in such direct and immediate
+communications was a vital part of his faith; and to have destroyed it
+would, in great part, have paralysed the impetuous energy, and quenched
+the burning enthusiasm, which carried away his hearers, and communicated
+something of his own exaltation to the most torpid spirits.</p>
+
+<p>He murmured a few words of fervent thanksgiving for the clear leading
+which had been vouchsafed to him, and without an instant's hesitation
+addressed the tearful, trembling girl beside him. "Listen to me, Rhoda.
+If it be good for your soul's sake that I lay bare my heart before you,
+and suffer sore in the doing of it, shall I shrink? God forbid! By His
+help I will plentifully declare the thing as it is. I have watched you,
+and your feelings have not been hid from me. No; nor your fears, and
+sorrows, and hopes, and struggles. I have read them all so plainly, that
+I must believe the Lord has given me a special insight in your case,
+that I may call you unto Him with power. You are suffering, Rhoda, and
+sorry; but you have not thrown your burden upon the Lord. You have set
+up His creature as an idol in your soul, and have bowed down and
+worshipped it. And you fancy, poor unwary lamb, that such love as yours
+was never before felt by mortal, and that never did mortal so entirely
+deserve it! And you say in your heart, 'Lo, this man talks of what he
+knows not! It is easy for him!' Well&mdash;I tell you, Rhoda, that I too have
+a heart for human love. I have eyes to see what is fair and lovely; and
+fancies and desires, and passions. I love&mdash;there is a maiden whom I love
+above all God's creatures. But, by His grace, I have overcome that love,
+in so far as it perilled the higher love and the higher duty, which I
+owe to my father in Heaven. I have wrestled sore, God knoweth. And He
+hath helped me, as He always will help those who rely, not on their own
+strength, but on His!"</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda was hurried out of herself, carried away by the rush of his
+eloquence, in whose powerful spell the mere words bore but a small part.
+Eyes, voice, and gesture expressed the most absolute, self-forgetting
+enthusiasm. The contagion of his burning sincerity drew a sincere
+utterance from his hearer.</p>
+
+<p>"But you talk as if it were a crime! Does anyone call you wicked and
+godless, because you have human feelings? I never should call you so.
+And, I believe, we were meant to love."</p>
+
+<p>"To love? Ah, yes, Rhoda! To love for evermore, and in a measure we can
+but faintly conceive here below. The young maiden I love is still dearer
+to me than any other human being&mdash;it may be that even the angels in
+Heaven know what it is to love one blessed spirit above the rest&mdash;but
+her soul is more precious to me than her beauty, or her sweet ways, or
+her happiness on earth. Oh, Rhoda, look upward! Yet a little while and
+the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, and there
+cometh peace unspeakable. This earthly love is but a fleeting show. Can
+you say that you connect it with your hope of Heaven and your faith in
+God? Does he whom you love reverence the things you have been taught to
+hold sacred? Is he awakened to a sense of sin? No! no! A thousand times,
+no! Rhoda, for his sake&mdash;for the sake of that darkened soul, if not for
+your own&mdash;yield not to the temptation which makes you untrue in word and
+deed, and chills your worship, and weighs down the wings of your spirit!
+Tell this beloved one that, although he were the very life-blood of your
+heart, yet, if he seek not salvation, you will cast him from you."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda had sunk down, half-crouching, half-kneeling, with her arms upon a
+chair, and her face bowed down upon her hands. She was crying bitterly,
+but silently; but, at the preacher's last words, she moved her
+shoulders, like one in pain, and uttered a little inarticulate sound.</p>
+
+<p>Powell bent forward, listening eagerly. "I speak not as one without
+understanding," he said, after an instant's pause. "I plentifully
+declare the thing as it is, and as I know it. Your love&mdash;&mdash;! Rhoda, your
+little twinkling flame, compared to the passionate nature in me, is as
+the faint light of a taper to a raging fire&mdash;as a trickling water-brook
+to the deep, dreadful sea! Child, child, you know not the power of the
+Lord. His voice has said to my unquiet soul, 'Be still,' and it obeys
+Him. Shall He not speak peace to your purer, clearer spirit also? Shall
+He not carry you, as a lamb, in His bosom? Now&mdash;it may be even now, as I
+speak to you, that His angels are about you, moving your heart towards
+Him. Rhoda, Rhoda, will you grieve those messengers of mercy? Will you
+turn away from that unspeakable love?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl suddenly lifted her face. It was a tear-stained, wistfully
+imploring face, and yet it wore a singular expression of timid
+obstinacy. She was struggling to ward off the impression his words were
+making on her. She was unwilling, and afraid to yield to it.</p>
+
+<p>But when she looked up and saw his countenance so pale, so earnest,
+without one trace of anger or impatience, or any feeling save
+profoundest pity, and sweetness, and sorrow, her heart melted. The right
+chord was touched. She could not be moved by compassion for herself, but
+she was penetrated by sorrow for him.</p>
+
+<p>In an impulse of pitying sympathy she exclaimed, "Oh, don't be so sorry
+for me, Mr. Powell! I will try! I will do what you say, if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and her father stood in the room. Rhoda sprang from her
+knees, rushed past him, and out at the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"Man, man, what have you done?" cried Powell, wringing his hands. Then
+he sat down and hid his face.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Maxfield stood looking at him with a heavy frown. "We must have
+no more o' this," he said harshly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The time which elapsed between Rhoda's first visit to Minnie Bodkin and
+the beginning of February&mdash;February, which was to carry Algernon
+Errington away to the great metropolis&mdash;was a vexed and stormy one for
+the Maxfield household.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Maxfield had come to a downright quarrel with the preacher&mdash;or
+to something as near to a quarrel as can be attained, where the violence
+and vituperation are all on one side&mdash;and had ordered Powell out of his
+house. This was a serious step, and was sure to be searchingly
+canvassed. Maxfield absented himself from the next class-meeting on the
+plea of ill-health. There was a general knowledge in the class and
+throughout the Society that there had been a breach, and many members
+began to take sides rather warmly.</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield was not a personally popular man, but he had considerable
+influence amongst his fellow Wesleyans; the influence of wealth, and a
+strong will, and the long habit of being a leading personage. David
+Powell, on the other hand, was not heartily liked by many of the
+congregation.</p>
+
+<p>The Whitford Methodists had slid into a sleepy, comfortable state of
+mind in their obscure little corner. They acquired no new members, and
+lost no old ones. Even the well-devised machinery of Methodism, so
+calculated to enforce movement and quicken attention, had grown somewhat
+rusty in Whitford. Frequent change of preachers is a powerful spur to
+sluggish hearers; but even this&mdash;among the fundamental peculiarities of
+Methodism&mdash;was very seldom applied to the Whitfordians. Circumstances,
+and their own apathy, had brought it to pass that two elderly
+preachers&mdash;steady, jog-trot old roadsters&mdash;had alternately succeeded
+each other in exhorting and preaching to this quiet flock for several
+years. There was, besides, Nick Green, foreman to Mr. Gladwish, the
+shoemaker, who enjoyed the rank of local preacher for a time, but who
+finally seceded from the main body, and drew with him half-a-dozen or so
+of the more zealous or excitable worshippers, who subscribed to hire a
+room over a corn-dealer's storehouse in Lady Lane, and by the stentorian
+vehemence of this Sunday devotion there speedily acquired the title of
+Ranters.</p>
+
+<p>Into this sleepy, comfortable Whitford society David Powell had burst
+with his startling energy and fiery eloquence, and it was impossible to
+be sleepy and comfortable any longer. No one likes to be suddenly roused
+from a doze, and Powell had awakened Whitford as with the sound of a
+trumpet. Yet, after the effects of the first start and shock had
+subsided, the Methodists began to take pride in the attention which
+their preacher attracted. Their little chapel was crowded. His
+field-preaching drew throngs of people from all the country side.
+Instead of being merely an obscure little knot of Dissenters, about whom
+no outsider troubled himself, they felt themselves to be objects of
+general observation. Old men, who had heard Wesley preach half a century
+ago, declared that this Welshman had inherited the mantle of their
+founder.</p>
+
+<p>But then came, by no slow or doubtful degrees, the discovery that David
+Powell had inherited more than the traditional eloquence of John Wesley;
+and that, like that wonderful man, he spared neither himself nor others
+in the service of his Master.</p>
+
+<p>He set up a standard of conduct which dismayed many, even of the leading
+Methodists, who did not share that exaltation of spirit which supported
+Powell in his disdain of earthly comforts. And the awful sincerity of
+his character was found by many to be absolutely intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>He made a strong effort to revive the early morning services, which had
+quite fallen into desuetude at Whitford. What! Go to pray in the cold
+little meeting-house at five o'clock on a winter's morning? There was
+scarcely one of the congregation whose health would allow of such a
+proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>Then his matter-of-fact interpretations of much of the Gospel teaching
+was excessively startling. He would coolly expect you to deprive
+yourself not only of superfluities, but of necessaries&mdash;such, for
+instance, as three meals of flesh-meat a day, which are clearly
+indispensable for health&mdash;in order to give to the poor.</p>
+
+<p>It must be owned that he practised his own precepts in this respect; and
+that he literally gave away all he had, beyond the trifling sum which
+was needful to clothe him with decency, and to feed him in a manner
+which the Whitfordians considered reprehensibly inadequate. Such
+asceticism savoured almost of monkery. It was really wrong. At least it
+was to be hoped that it was wrong; otherwise&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>So the awakening preacher by no means had all his flock on his side,
+when they suspected him to be in opposition to old Max.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan's mind had been, as he expressed it, greatly exercised
+respecting his daughter. He was drawn different ways by contending
+impulses.</p>
+
+<p>To speak to Rhoda openly; to send her to Duckwell, out of Algernon's
+way; to let things go on as they were going; (for was not Rhoda's
+reception by the Bodkins manifestly a preliminary step to her permanent
+rise in the social scale?) to talk openly to Algernon, and demand his
+intentions: all these plans presented themselves to his mind in turn,
+and each in turn appeared the most desirable.</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan was not an irresolute man in general, because he never doubted
+his own perfect competency to deal with circumstances as they arose in
+his life. But now he felt his ignorance. He did not understand the ways
+of gentlefolks. He might injure his daughter by his attempt to serve
+her. And although he had fits of self-assertion (during which he made
+much of the value of his own money and of Rhoda's merits), all did not
+avail to free his spirit from the subjection it was in to "gentlefolks."</p>
+
+<p>Again, he was urged not to seem to distrust the Erringtons by a strong
+feeling of opposition to Powell. Powell had warned him against letting
+Rhoda associate with them. Powell had even gone so far as to reprehend
+him for having done so. To prove Powell wholly wrong and presumptuous,
+and himself wholly right and sagacious, was a very powerful motive with
+Maxfield.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, the one soft place in his heart contributed, no less than the
+above-mentioned feelings, to make him pause before coming to a decisive
+explanation with the Erringtons, which might&mdash;yes, he could not help
+seeing that it might&mdash;result in a total breach between his family and
+them, and this increased his hesitation as to the line of conduct he
+should pursue. For the conviction had been growing on him daily that
+Rhoda's happiness was seriously involved; and Rhoda's happiness was a
+tremendously high stake to play.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion between himself and Powell did not trouble Maxfield so
+much. The world&mdash;his little world, as important to him as other little
+worlds are to the titled, or the rich, or the fashionable, or the
+famous&mdash;supposed him to be greatly chagrined and exercised in spirit on
+this account. And people sympathised with him, or blamed him, according
+to their prejudices, their passions, or&mdash;sometimes&mdash;their convictions.
+But the truth was, old Max cared little about being at odds with the
+preacher, or with the congregation, or with both.</p>
+
+<p>He had been an important personage among the Whitford Methodists, all
+through the old comfortable days of sleepy concord. And was he now to
+become a less important personage in these new times of "awakening?"
+Better war than an ignominious peace!</p>
+
+<p>Nay, there came at last to be a talk of expelling him from the Methodist
+Society, unless he would confess his fault towards the preacher, and
+amend it. Maxfield had no lack of partisans in Whitford, as has been
+stated; but then there was the superintendent! In those days the
+superintendent (or, as some old-fashioned Methodists continued to call
+him, in the original Wesleyan phrase, the assistant) of the circuit in
+which Whitford was situated, was a man of great zeal and sincere
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>For those unacquainted with the mechanism of Methodism, it may be well
+briefly to state what were this person's functions.</p>
+
+<p>Long before John Wesley's death, the whole country was divided into
+circuits, in which the itinerant preachers made their rounds; and of
+each circuit the whole spiritual and temporal business&mdash;so far as they
+were connected with the aims and interests of Methodism&mdash;was under the
+regulation of the assistant (afterwards styled the superintendent),
+whose office it was to admit or expel members, take lists of the society
+at Easter, hold quarterly meetings, visit the classes quarterly, preside
+at the love-feasts, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>The period for the superintendent's next visit to Whitford was rapidly
+approaching. Maxfield weighed the matter, and tried to forecast the
+result of a formal reference of the disagreement between himself and
+Powell to this man's judgment. Had this superintendent, Mr. John Bateson
+by name, been a Whitford man, one of the old, comfortable, narrow-minded
+tradesmen over whom "old Max" had exercised supremacy in things
+Methodistical for years, Maxfield would have felt no doubt but that the
+matter would have ended in an unctuous admonition to Powell to moderate
+his unseemly excess of zeal, and in the establishment of himself, more
+firmly than ever, in his place as leader of the congregation.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Bateson could not be relied on to take this sensible view. He
+was one of the new-fangled, upsetting, meddling sort, and would
+doubtless declare David Powell to have been performing his bounden duty,
+in being instant in season and out of season.</p>
+
+<p>"So that," thought Jonathan, "I should not be master in my own house!"</p>
+
+<p>And if he included in the notion of being master in his own house the
+power of shutting out his fellow Methodists&mdash;preacher and all&mdash;from the
+knowledge of his most private family affairs, the conclusion was a
+pretty just one. Moreover, it was one to which the very constitution of
+Methodism pointed <i>à priori</i>. But old Maxfield had never in his life
+been brought into collision with any one who carried out his principles
+to their legitimate and logical results, as did David Powell.</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield's creed was a thing to take out and air, and acknowledge at
+chapel, and prayer-meetings, and field-preachings, and such like
+occasions; whilst his practice was&mdash;well, it certainly was not "too
+bright or good for human nature's daily food."</p>
+
+<p>David Powell's uncompromising interpretation of certain precepts was
+intolerable to many besides Maxfield. But the majority of the Whitford
+Methodists looked forward to Powell's removal to another sphere of
+action. His stay among them had already been longer than was usual with
+the itinerant preachers; but it was understood to have been specially
+prolonged, in consequence of the abundant fruits brought forth by his
+ministration in Whitford. Still he would go, sooner or later, and then
+there would be a relaxation of the strong tension in which men's minds
+and consciences had been strained by the strange influence of this
+preacher.</p>
+
+<p>But old Maxfield thought it very probable that, before leaving Whitford,
+the preacher might compass his (Maxfield's) expulsion from the Methodist
+body.</p>
+
+<p>Then he took a great resolution.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday, Jonathan, James, and Rhoda Maxfield, together with Elizabeth
+Grimshaw, were seen at the morning service in the abbey church of St.
+Chad's, and again in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bodkin himself stared down from his pulpit at the Methodist family.
+Those of the congregation to whom they were known by sight&mdash;and these
+were the great majority&mdash;found their devotions quite disturbed by this
+unexpected addition to their number.</p>
+
+<p>The Maxfields kept their eyes on their prayer-books, and, outwardly,
+took no heed of the attention they excited. Old Jonathan and his son
+James looked pretty much as usual; Rhoda trembled, and blushed, and
+looked painfully shy whenever the forms of the service required her to
+rise, so as to bring her face above the pew (those were the days of
+pews) and within easy range of the curious eyes of the congregation.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty Grimshaw held her head aloft, and uttered the responses in a
+loud voice, and without glancing at her book, as one to whom the Church
+of England service was entirely familiar. Betty was heartily delighted
+with the family conversion from the errors of Methodism, and supported
+her brother-in-law in it with great warmth. Her Methodism had, in truth,
+been a mere piece of conformity, for "peace and quietness' sake," as she
+avowed with much candour. And she was fond of saying that she had been
+"bred up to the Church;" by which phrase it must not be understood that
+Betty intended to convey to her hearers that she had entered on an
+ecclesiastical career.</p>
+
+<p>If the sensation created in the abbey church by the Maxfields'
+appearance there was great, the surprise and excitement caused by their
+absence from the Methodist chapel was still greater. By the afternoon
+of that same Sunday it was known to all the Wesleyans that old Max, with
+his family, had been seen at St. Chad's. No one deemed it strange that
+the whole family should have seceded in a body from their own place of
+worship. It appeared quite natural to all his old acquaintances that,
+whither Jonathan Maxfield went, his son, and his daughter, and his
+sister-in-law should follow him. It is probable that, had he turned Jew
+or Mohammedan, they would equally have taken it for granted that his
+conversion involved that of the rest of his family, which opinion was
+certainly complimentary to old Max's force of character.</p>
+
+<p>And such force of character as consists in pursuing one's own way
+single-mindedly, old Max undoubtedly possessed. A good, solid belief in
+oneself, tempered by an inability to see more than one side of a
+question, will cleave its way through the world like a wedge. We have
+seen, however, that into Maxfield's mind a doubt of himself on one
+subject had entered. And, as doubt will do, it weakened his action very
+considerably as regarded that subject; but on all other matters he was
+himself, and perhaps infused an extra amount of obstinacy and
+self-assertion into his behaviour, as though to counterbalance the one
+weak point.</p>
+
+<p>Towards his old co-religionists he showed himself inflexible. Mr.
+Bateson, the superintendent, duly arrived, but Jonathan refused to see
+him, and walked out of his shop when the superintendent walked into it.
+Maxfield was grimly triumphant, and kept out of the reach of any
+expression of displeasure from Mr. Bateson, if displeasure he felt.</p>
+
+<p>His defection was undoubtedly a blow to the Methodist community in
+Whitford. And much indignation, not loud but deep, was aroused in
+consequence against Powell, who was looked upon as the prime cause of
+it. What if the preacher did possess awakening eloquence and burning
+zeal to save sinners? Here was Jonathan Maxfield, a warm man, a
+respectable and a thriving man, an ancient pillar of the Society, lost
+to it beyond recall by Powell's means!</p>
+
+<p>And by whom did Powell seek to replace such a man as old Max? By Richard
+Gibbs, the groom&mdash;brother of Minnie Bodkin's maid&mdash;who had hitherto
+enjoyed a reputation for unmitigated blackguardism; by Sam Smith, the
+cobbler, once drunken, now drunken no longer; by stray vagrants who were
+converted at his field-preaching, and by the poorest poor, and
+wretchedest wretched, generally!</p>
+
+<p>And the worst of it was, that one could not openly find fault with all
+this. David Powell would, with mild yet fervent earnestness, quote some
+New Testament text, which stopped one's mouth, if it didn't change
+one's opinion. As if the words ought to be interpreted in that literal
+way! Well, he would go away before long; that was some comfort.</p>
+
+<p>The period during which this rift in the Methodist community was
+widening, was a time of peculiar pleasantness to some of our Whitford
+acquaintance. Of these was Minnie Bodkin. By degrees the habit had
+established itself among a few of her friends, of meeting every Saturday
+afternoon in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond usually made one at these meetings. Saturday was a
+half-holiday at the Grammar School, and he was thus at leisure. He had
+grown more sociable of late, and Mrs. Errington was convinced that this
+change was entirely owing to her advice. There was Algernon, whose
+sparkling spirits made him invaluable. There was Mrs. Errington, who was
+made welcome, as other mothers sometimes are, in right of the merits of
+her offspring. There was Miss Chubb very often. There was the Reverend
+Peter Warlock, nearly always. And of all people in the world there would
+often be seen Rhoda Maxfield, modestly ensconced behind Minnie's couch,
+or half hidden by the voluminous folds of Mrs. Errington's gown.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had Mrs. Errington heard of Rhoda's first visit to Dr.
+Bodkin's house, than she took all the credit of the invitation to
+herself. She decided that it must certainly be due to her report of
+Rhoda. And&mdash;partly because she really wished to be kind to the girl,
+partly because it seemed pretty clear that Minnie was resolved to have
+her own way about seeing more of her new <i>protégée</i>, and Mrs. Errington
+was minded that this should come to pass with her co-operation, so as to
+retain her post of first patroness&mdash;the good lady fostered the intimacy
+by all means in her power. The Italians have a proverb, to the effect
+that there are persons who will take credit to themselves for the
+sunshine in July. Mrs. Errington would complacently have assumed the
+merit of the whole solar system.</p>
+
+<p>Now, at these Saturdays, there grew and strengthened themselves many
+conflicting feelings, and hopes, and illusions. It was a game at cross
+purposes, to which none of the players held the key except Algernon.</p>
+
+<p>That young gentleman's perceptions, unclouded and uncoloured by strong
+feeling, were pretty clear and accurate. However, the period of his
+departure was fast approaching, and, "after me, the deluge," might be
+taken to epitomise his sentiments in view of possible complications
+which threatened to arise among his own intimate circle of friends. To
+whatever degree the time might seem to be out of joint, Algy would never
+torment himself with the fancy that he was born to set it right. "If
+there is to be a mess, I am better out of it," was his ingenuous
+reflection.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, whatever thoughts might be flitting about under his bright
+curls, nothing, save the most winning good-humour, the most insouciant
+hilarity, ever peeped for an instant out of his frank, shining eyes. And
+the weeks went by, and February was at hand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In how few cases would the power to "see oursel's as ithers see us" be
+other than a very malevolent and wicked fairy-like gift! And, perhaps,
+the discovery of the real reasons why our friends like us, would not be
+the least mortifying part of the revelation.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Bodkins liked Miss Chubb. But they did not like her for her
+manners, her knowledge of the usages of polite society, her highly
+respectable clerical connections, or the little gummed-down curls on her
+forehead; on all of which Miss Chubb prided herself.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bodkin liked her principally because she was an old acquaintance. It
+pleased him to see various people, and to do and say various things
+daily, often for no better reason than that he had seen the same people,
+and done and said the same things yesterday, and throughout a long,
+backward-reaching chain of yesterdays. Mrs. Bodkin liked her because
+she was good-natured, and neither strong-minded nor strong-willed enough
+to domineer over her. Minnie liked her because she found her
+peculiarities very amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chubb has the veriest rag-bag of a mind," said Minnie, "and pulls
+out of it, every now and then, unexpected scraps of ignorance as other
+folks display bits of knowledge, in the oddest way!" She could often
+endure to listen to Miss Chubb's chatter, when the talk of wiser people
+irritated her nerves. And Minnie would speak with Miss Chubb on many
+subjects more unreservedly than she did with any other of her
+acquaintances.</p>
+
+<p>"What Minnie Bodkin can find in that affected old maid, to have her so
+much with her when she is so reserved and stand-offish to&mdash;to quite
+superior persons, and nearer her own age, I am at a loss to understand!"
+Violet McDougall would say, tossing her thin spiral ringlets. And Rose,
+the bitterer of the two, would make answer, raspingly: "Why, Miss Chubb
+toadies her, my dear. That's the secret. Poor Minnie! Of course one
+wishes to make every allowance for her afflicted state; but there are
+limits. Miss Chubb is almost a fool, and that suits poor dear Minnie's
+domineering spirit."</p>
+
+<p>Unconscious of these and similar comments, Minnie and Miss Chubb
+continued to be very good friends.</p>
+
+<p>There sat Miss Chubb in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room one Saturday about
+noon; her round face beaming, and her fat fingers covered with huge
+old-fashioned rings, busily engaged in some bright-coloured worsted
+work. She had come early, and was to have luncheon with Mrs. Bodkin and
+Minnie, and was a good deal elated by the privilege, although she did
+her best to repress any ebullition of her good spirits, and to assume
+the languishing air which she chose to consider peculiarly genteel.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie and Miss Chubb were alone. Mrs. Bodkin was "busy." Mrs. Bodkin
+was nearly always "busy." She superintended the machinery of her
+household very effectively. But she was one of those persons whose
+labours meet with scant recognition. Dr. Bodkin had a vague idea that
+his wife liked to be fussing about in kitchen and storeroom, and that
+she did a great deal more than was necessary, but, "then, you see, it
+amused her." He very much liked order, punctuality, economy, and good
+cookery; and since it "amused" Laura to supply him with these, the
+combination was at once fortunate and satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Minnie," said Miss Chubb, raising her eyes to the ceiling with
+a languishing glance, which would have been more effective had it not
+been invariably accompanied by an odd wrinkling up of the nose, "did you
+ever, in all your days hear of anything so extraordinary as the
+appearance of those Methodist people at church on Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was strange."</p>
+
+<p>"Strange! My dear love, it was amazing. But it ought to be a matter of
+congratulation to us all, to see Dissenters embracing the canons of the
+Church! And the Methodists, especially, are such dreadful people. I
+believe they think nothing of foaming at the mouth, and going into
+convulsions, in the open chapel. I wonder if those Maxfields felt
+anything of the kind on Sunday? It would have been a terrible thing, my
+dear, if they had had to be carried out on stretchers, or anything of
+that sort. What would Mr. Bodkin have said?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there's any fear of papa's sermons throwing anybody into
+convulsions."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not, my dear child. Pray don't imagine that I hinted at such
+a thing. No, no; Mr. Bodkin is ever gentleman-like, ever soothing and
+composing, in the pulpit. But people, you know, who have been used to
+convulsions&mdash;they really might not be able to leave them off all at
+once. You may smile, my dear Minnie; but I assure you that such things
+have been known to become quite chronic. And, once a thing gets to be
+chronic&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chubb left her sentence unfinished, as she often did; but remained
+with an expressive countenance, which suggested horrible results from
+"things getting to be chronic."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems an odd caprice of Fate," said Minnie, who had been pursuing
+her own reflections, "that, no sooner do I make Rhoda Maxfield's
+acquaintance, for the sole reason that she is a Methodist, than she and
+her family turn into orthodox church people."</p>
+
+<p>"People will say you converted her, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay they will, as it isn't true."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I wonder who did convert them."</p>
+
+<p>"If you care to know, I think I can tell you that the real reason why
+Maxfield left the Wesleyans, was a quarrel he had with their preacher.
+My maid Jane has a brother who belongs to the Society; and he gave her
+an account of the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear! You don't say so! Of course the preacher is furious? Those
+kind of Ranters are very violent sometimes. I remember, when I was quite
+a girl, a man on a tub, who used to scream and use the most dreadful
+language. So much so, that poor papa forbade our going within earshot of
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"No; David Powell is not furious. I am told that he astonished some of
+the more bigoted of his flock, by reminding them that they ought to
+have charity enough to believe that a man may worship acceptably in any
+Christian community."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he really? Now, that positively was very proper of the man, and
+very right. Quite right, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"So that I think we may assume that he is on the road to Heaven,
+Methodist though he be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Minnie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does that shock you, Miss Chubb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, yes; it does, rather. My family has been connected with
+the Church for generations. And&mdash;one doesn't like to hear Dr. Bodkin's
+daughter talk of being sure that a Dissenter is on the road to Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie lay back on her sofa, and looked at Miss Chubb complacently
+bending over her knitting. Gradually the look of amused scorn on
+Minnie's face softened into melancholy thoughtfulness. She wondered how
+David Powell would have met such an observation as Miss Chubb's. He had
+to deal with even narrower and more ignorant minds than hers. What
+method did he take to touch them? To Minnie it all seemed very hopeless,
+so long as men and women continued to be such as those she saw around
+her. And yet this preacher did move them very powerfully. If she could
+but meet him face to face, and have speech with him!</p>
+
+<p>There was one person to whom she was strongly impelled to detail her
+perplexities, and to express her fluctuating feelings and opinions on
+more momentous subjects than she had ever yet spoken with him upon. But
+there were a hundred little counter impulses pulling against this strong
+one, and holding it in check.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chubb's voice broke in upon her meditations by uttering loudly the
+name that was in Minnie's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I think it's quite a case with Mr. Diamond."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie's heart gave a great bound; and the deep, burning blush which was
+so rare and meant so much with her, covered her face from brow to chin.
+Miss Chubb's eyes were fixed on her knitting. When, after a short pause,
+she raised them to seek some response, Minnie was quite pale again. She
+met Miss Chubb's gaze with bright, steady eyes, a thought more wide open
+than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean 'a case'?" she asked carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, my dear, a case of falling, or having fallen, in love."</p>
+
+<p>The white lids drooped a little over the beautiful eyes, and a look,
+partly of pleasure, partly of fluttered surprise, swept over Minnie's
+face, as the breeze sweeps over a corn-field, touching it with shifting
+lights and shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"What nonsense!" she said, in a little uncertain voice, unlike her usual
+clear tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear Minnie, I must beg to differ. I might give up my judgment
+to you on a point of&mdash;of&mdash;" (Miss Chubb hesitated a long time here, for
+she found it extremely difficult to think of any subject on which she
+didn't know best)&mdash;"on a point of the dead languages, for instance. But
+on this point I maintain that I have a certain penetration and coo-doyl.
+And I say that it is a case with Mr. Diamond and little Rhoda&mdash;at least
+on his side. And of course she would be ready to jump out of her skin
+for joy, only I don't think the idea has entered into her head as yet.
+How should it, in her station? Of course&mdash;&mdash;. But as to him&mdash;&mdash;! If I
+ever read a human countenance in my life, he admires her&mdash;oh, over head
+and ears! To see him staring at her from behind your sofa when she sits
+by Mrs. Errington&mdash;&mdash;! No, no, my dear; depend upon it, I am correct.
+And I don't know but what it might do very well, because, although
+educated, Mr. Diamond is a man of no birth. And the girl is pretty, and
+will have all old Max's savings. So that really&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Thus, and much more in the same disjointed fashion, Miss Chubb.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie felt like one who is conscious of having swallowed a deadly but
+slow poison. For the present there is no pain; only a horrible watchful
+apprehension of the moment when the pain shall begin.</p>
+
+<p>Some faculties of her mind seemed curiously numb. But the active part of
+it accepted the truth of what had been said, unhesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chubb paused at last breathless.</p>
+
+<p>"You look fagged, Minnie," she said. "Have I tired you? Mrs. Bodkin will
+scold me if I have."</p>
+
+<p>"No; you have not tired me. But I think I will go and be quiet in my own
+room. Tell mamma I don't want any lunch. Please ring for Jane."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bodkin came into the room in her quick, noiseless way. She had
+heard the bell. Minnie reiterated her wish to be wheeled into her own
+room, and left quiet. She spoke briefly and peremptorily, and her desire
+was promptly complied with.</p>
+
+<p>"I never cross her, or talk to her much when she is not feeling well,"
+whispered Mrs. Bodkin to Miss Chubb; thereby checking a lively stream of
+suggestions, regrets, and inquiries which the spinster was beginning to
+pour forth in her most girlish manner.</p>
+
+<p>"There, my darling," said her mother, preparing to close the door of
+Minnie's room softly. "If any of the Saturday people come I shall say
+you are not well enough to see them to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried Minnie, with sharp decisiveness. "I wish to come into the
+drawing-room by-and-by. Don't send them away. It will be Algy's last
+Saturday. I mean to come into the drawing-room."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Minnie, during the hour's quiet solitude which was hers before the
+Saturday guests began to arrive, got her thoughts into some clear order,
+and began to look things in the face. She did not look far ahead; merely
+kept her attention fixed on that which the next few hours might hold for
+her. She pictured to herself what she would say, and even how she would
+look. Cost what it might, no trace of her real feelings should appear.
+Her heart might bleed, but none should see the wound. She could not yet
+tell herself how deep the hurt was. She would not look at it, would not
+probe it. Not yet! That should be afterwards; perhaps in the long dim
+hours of her sleepless night. Not yet!</p>
+
+<p>She put on her panoply of pride, and braced up her nerves to a pitch of
+strained excitement. And then, after all, the effort seemed to have been
+wasted! There was no fight to be fought, no struggle to be made. The
+social atmosphere among her visitors that Saturday afternoon was as
+mildly relaxing as the breath of a misty woodland landscape in autumn,
+and Minnie felt her Spartan mood melting beneath it.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it were due to the influence of Dr. Bodkin's presence (the
+doctor usually spent the Saturday half-holiday in his study, preparing
+the morrow's sermon; or, it may be, occasionally reading the newspaper,
+or even taking a nap)&mdash;or whether it were the shadow of Algernon's
+approaching departure, the fact was that the little company appeared
+depressed, and attuned to melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda Maxfield was not there. She had privately told Algy that she could
+not bear to be present among his friends on that last Saturday. "They
+will be saying 'Good-bye' to you, and&mdash;and all that," said the girl,
+with quivering lips. "And I know I should burst out crying before them
+all." Whereupon Algy had eagerly commended her prudent resolution to
+stay at home.</p>
+
+<p>No other of the accustomed frequenters of the Bodkins' drawing-room was
+absent. The doctor's was the only unusual presence in the little
+assembly. He stood in his favourite attitude on the hearth, and surveyed
+the company as if they had been a class called up for examination. Mr.
+Diamond sat beside Miss Bodkin's sofa, and was, perhaps, a thought more
+grave and silent than usual.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie lay with half-closed eyes on her sofa, and felt almost ashamed
+of the proud resolutions she had been making. It seemed very natural to
+be silently miserable. No one appeared to expect her to be anything
+else. If she had even begun to cry, as Miss Chubb did when Algernon went
+to the piano and sang "Auld Lang Syne," it would have excited no
+wondering remark.</p>
+
+<p>Pathos was not Algy's forte in general, but circumstances gave a
+resistless effect to his song. The tears ran down Miss Chubb's cheeks,
+so copiously, as to imperil the little gummed curls that adorned her
+face. Even the Reverend Peter Warlock, who was a little jealous of
+Algy's high place in Miss Bodkin's good graces, exhibited considerable
+feeling on this occasion, and joined in the chorus "For au&mdash;auld la&mdash;ang
+syne, my friends," with his deep bass voice, which had a hollow tone
+like the sound of the wind in the belfry of St. Chad's.</p>
+
+<p>Here Mrs. Errington's massive placidity became useful. She broke the
+painful pause which ensued upon the last note of the song, by asking Dr.
+Bodkin, in a sonorous voice, if he happened to be acquainted with Lord
+Seely's remarkably brilliant pamphlet on the dog-tax.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the doctor, shaking his head slowly and emphatically, as
+who should say that he challenged society to convict him of any such
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>It did not at all matter to Mrs. Errington whether he had or had not
+read the pamphlet in question, the existence of which, indeed, had only
+come to her own knowledge that morning, by the chance inspection of an
+old newspaper that had been hunted out to wrap some of Algy's belongings
+in. What the good lady had at heart was the introduction of Lord Seely's
+name, in whose praise she forthwith began a flowing discourse.</p>
+
+<p>This brought Miss Chubb, figuratively speaking, to her legs. She always
+a little resented Mrs. Errington's aristocratic pretensions, and was
+accustomed to oppose to them the fashionable reminiscences of her sole
+London season, which had been passed in an outwardly smoke-blackened and
+inwardly time-tarnished house in Manchester Square, whereof the upper
+floors had been hired furnished for a term by the Right Reverend the
+Bishop of Plumbunn. And the bishop's lady had "chaperoned" Miss Chubb to
+such gaieties as seemed not objectionable to the episcopal mind. As the
+rose-scent of youth still clung to the dry and faded memories of that
+time, Miss Chubb always recurred to them with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Having first carefully wiped away her tears by the method of pressing
+her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks as one presses blotting-paper to
+wet ink, so as not to disturb the curls, Miss Chubb plunged, with happy
+flexibility of mood, into the midst of a rout at Lady Tubville's, nor
+paused until she had minutely described five of the dresses worn on that
+occasion, including her own and the bishopess's, from shoe to
+head-dress.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington came in ponderously. "Tubville? I don't know the name. It
+isn't in Debrett?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the supper!" pursued Miss Chubb, ignoring Debrett. "Such
+refinement, together with such luxury&mdash;! It was a banquet for
+Lucretius."</p>
+
+<p>"What, what?" exclaimed the doctor in his sharp, scholastic key. He had
+been conversing in a low voice with Mr. Warlock, but the Latin name
+caught his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I am speaking of a supper, Dr. Bodkin, at the house of a leader of
+tong. I never shall forget it. Although I didn't eat much of it, to be
+sure. Just a sip of champagne, and a taste of&mdash;of&mdash;What do you call
+that delightful thing, with the French name, that they give at ball
+suppers? Vo&mdash;vo&mdash;What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vol-au-vent?" suggested Algy, at a venture.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! vol-o-voo. Yes; you will excuse my correcting you, Algernon, but
+that is the French pronunciation. Just one taste of vol-o-voo was all
+that I partook of; but the elegance&mdash;the plate, the exotic bouquets, and
+the absolute paraphernalia of wax-lights! It was a scene for young
+Romance to gloat on!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what had Lucretius to do with it?" persisted the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chubb looked up, and shook her forefinger archly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Dr. Bodkin, I will not be catechised; you can't give me an
+imposition, you know. And as to Lucretius, beyond the fact that he was a
+Roman emperor, who ate and drank a great deal, I honestly own that I
+know very little about him."</p>
+
+<p>This time the doctor was effectually silenced. He stood with his eyes
+rolling from Mr. Diamond to the curate, and from the curate to Algy, as
+though mutely protesting against the utterance of such things under the
+very roof of the grammar school. But he said not a syllable.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond had looked at Minnie with an amused smile, expecting to meet
+an answering glance of amusement at Miss Chubb's speech. But the fringed
+eyelids hung heavily over the beautiful dark eyes, which were wont to
+meet his own with such quick sympathy. Mr. Diamond felt a little shock
+of disappointment. Without giving himself much account of the matter, he
+had come to consider Miss Bodkin and himself as the only two persons in
+the little coterie who had an intellectual point of view in common on
+many topics. The circumstance that Miss Bodkin was a very beautiful and
+interesting woman, certainly added a flattering charm to this communion
+of minds. He had almost grown to look upon her attention and sympathy as
+peculiarly his own&mdash;things to which he had a right. And the unsmiling,
+listless face which now met his gaze, gave him the same blank feeling
+that we experience on finding a well-known window, accustomed to present
+gay flowers to the passers-by, all at once grown death-like with a
+down-drawn ghastly blind.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Diamond looked at Minnie again, and was struck with the expression
+of suffering on her face. He knew she disliked being condoled with about
+her health; so he said gently, "I think Errington's departure is
+depressing us all. Even Miss Bodkin looks dull."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie lifted her eyelids now, and her wan look of suffering was rather
+enhanced by the view of those bright, wistful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Errington is an enviable fellow," continued Mr. Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I. He is going away."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a hard saying for us, who are to remain behind, Miss Bodkin! But
+I meant&mdash;and I think you know that I meant&mdash;he is enviable because he
+will be so much regretted."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he will be 'so much regretted.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely&mdash;&mdash;Why, one fair lady has even been shedding tears!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Chubb? Yes; but that proves very little. The good soul is
+always overstocked with sentiment, and will use any friend as a
+waste-pipe to get rid of her superfluous emotion."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should have made no doubt that you would be sorry, Miss
+Bodkin."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry! Yes; I am sorry. That is to say, I shall miss Algernon. He is so
+clever, and bright, and gay, and&mdash;different from all our Whitford
+mortals. But for himself, I think one ought to be glad. Papa says, and
+you say, and I say myself, that his journey to London on such slender
+encouragement is a wild-goose chase. But, after all, why not? Wild geese
+must be better to chase than tame ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so easy to catch, nor so well worth the catching, though," said Mr.
+Diamond, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing about catching. The hunting is the sport. If a good fat
+goose had been all that was wanted, Mr. Filthorpe, of Bristol, offered
+him that; and even, I believe, ready roasted. But&mdash;if I were a man, I
+think I would rather hunt down my wild goose for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better not let Errington hear your theory about the pleasures
+of wild-goose hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is apt enough for the sport already?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;not precisely. But he would take advantage of your phrase to
+characterise any hunting which it suited him to undertake, and thus give
+an air of impulse and romance to, perhaps, a very prosaic ambition, very
+deliberately pursued."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder why&mdash;&mdash;," said Minnie, and then stopped suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! You wonder why?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wonder no longer. I think I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bodkin is pleased to be oracular," said Mr. Diamond, with a
+careless smile; and then he moved away towards the piano, where Mrs.
+Bodkin was playing a quaint sonata of Clementi, and stood listening with
+a composed, attentive face. Nevertheless, he felt some curiosity about
+the scope of Minnie's unfinished sentence.</p>
+
+<p>The sentence, if finished, would have run thus: "I wonder why you are so
+hard on Algernon!" But with the utterance of the first words an
+explanation of Diamond's severe judgment darted into her mind. Might he
+not have some feeling of jealousy towards Algernon? (Miss Chubb's words
+were lighting up many things. Probably the good little woman had never
+in her life before said anything of such illuminating power.) Yes,
+Diamond must be jealous. Algernon had unrivalled opportunities of
+attracting pretty Rhoda's attention. Nay, had he not attracted it
+already? Minnie recalled little words, little looks, little blushes,
+which seemed to point to the real nature of Rhoda's feelings for
+Algernon. Rhoda did not&mdash;no; she surely did not&mdash;care for Matthew
+Diamond. Minnie had a momentary elation of heart as she thus assured
+herself, and at the same time she felt an impulse of scorn for the girl
+who could disregard the love of such a man, as though it were a
+valueless trifle. But, then, did Rhoda know? did Rhoda guess? And then
+Minnie, suddenly checking her eager mental questioning in mid-career,
+turned her fiery scorn against herself for her pitiful weakness.</p>
+
+<p>As she lay there so graceful and outwardly tranquil, whilst the studied,
+passionless turns and phrases of old Clementi trickled from the keys,
+she had hot fits of raging wounded pride, and cold shudders of deadly
+depression. The numb listlessness which had shielded her at the
+beginning of the afternoon had disappeared during her short conversation
+with Diamond. She was sensitive now to a thousand stinging thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>What a fool she had been! What a poor, blind fool! She tried to remember
+all the details of the past days. Did others see what Miss Chubb had
+seen in Diamond's face? And had she&mdash;Minnie Bodkin, who prided herself
+on her keen observation, her cleverness, and her power of reading
+motives&mdash;had she been the only one to miss this obvious fact? She had
+been deluding herself with the thought that Matthew Diamond came and
+sat beside her couch, and talked, and smiled for her sake! Poor fool!
+Why, did not his frequent visits date from the time when Rhoda's visits
+had begun, too? It was all clear enough now; so clear, that the
+self-delusion which had blinded her seemed to have been little short of
+madness. "As if it were possible that a man should waste his love on
+me!" she thought bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment she caught Mr. Warlock's eyes mournfully fixed upon her.
+His gaze irritated her unendurably. "Am I so pitiable a spectacle?" she
+asked herself. "Is my folly written on my face, that that idiot stares
+at me in wonder and compassion?"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie gave him one of her haughtiest and coldest glances, and then
+turned away her head.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mr. Warlock! It must be owned that there are strange, cruel pangs
+unjustly inflicted and suffered in this world by the most civilised
+persons.</p>
+
+<p>The little party broke up sooner than usual. The dispirited tone with
+which it had begun continued to the end. Algernon made his farewells to
+Miss Chubb, Mr. Warlock, Mr. Diamond, and Dr. Bodkin. But to Minnie he
+whispered, "I will run in once more on Monday to say 'Good-bye' to your
+mother and to you, if I may."</p>
+
+<p>The rest departed almost simultaneously. Matthew Diamond lingered an
+instant at the door of the drawing-room, to say to Mrs. Bodkin, "I hope
+this is not to be the last of our pleasant Saturdays, although we are
+losing Errington?"</p>
+
+<p>It was an unusual sort of speech from the reserved, shy tutor, who
+carried his proud dread of being thought officious or intrusive to such
+a point, that Minnie was wont to say, laughingly, that Mr. Diamond's
+diffidence was haughtier than anyone else's disdain.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bodkin smiled, well pleased. "Oh, I hope not, indeed!" she said in
+her quick, low accents. "Minnie! Do you hear what Mr. Diamond is
+saying?"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie did not answer. She thought how happy this wish of his to keep up
+"our pleasant Saturdays" would have made her yesterday!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The manifestations of maternal vanity are apt to appear monotonous to
+the indifferent spectator; but, in Mrs. Errington such manifestations
+were, at least, not open to that reproach. Beethoven himself never
+surpassed her in the power of producing variations on one simple theme.
+And this surprising fertility of hers prevented her from being a mere
+commonplace bore. She never told a story twice alike. There was always
+an element of unexpectedness in her conversation, albeit the groundwork
+and foundation of it varied but little. In the overflowing gratification
+of her heart at Algernon's prospects, and under the excitement of his
+imminent departure, she would fain have bestowed some of her eloquence
+even on old Max, with whom her relations had been decidedly cool, since
+the outbreak of rude temper on his part which has been recorded. But old
+Max continued to be surly and taciturn for a while; he had been
+bitterly mortified by Mrs. Errington's talk about the marriage her son
+would be able to make, whenever it should please him to select a wife.</p>
+
+<p>But then, after that, had come Miss Bodkin's frequent invitations to
+Rhoda, which had greatly mollified the old man. And presently it
+appeared as if Mrs. Errington had forgotten all about General Indigo's
+daughters, and the heiress of the eminent drysalter. At all events, she
+said no more on the subject of those ladies. And old Max gradually, and
+not slowly, recurred to his former persuasion that the Erringtons would
+be very glad to secure Rhoda's hand for Algernon, being well aware that
+her money would balance her birth and connections. True, the young man
+had, as yet, said nothing explicit. But, of course, he would feel it
+necessary to have some settled prospect before asking permission to
+engage himself formally to Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>"He is connected with the great ones of the earth, to be sure!"
+reflected Mr. Maxfield, with some exultation. "And he is a comely young
+chap to look upon, and full of all kinds of book-learning and
+accomplishments&mdash;talks foreign tongues, and sings, and plays upon
+instruments, and draws pictures!"</p>
+
+<p>An uneasy thought crossed his mind at this point, that David Powell
+would consider these things as leading to reprehensible frivolity and
+worldliness; and that, moreover, most of his (Maxfield's) old friends
+would agree with the preacher in so deeming. It was not to be expected
+that the thoughts and habits of a lifetime could be so eradicated from
+old Max's mind by the mere fact of going to worship at St. Chad's, as to
+leave his conscience absolutely free on these and similar points. But
+the ultimate effect of such inward feelings was always to embitter the
+old man against Powell, and to make him clutch eagerly at any
+circumstance which should tend to prove that Powell had been wrong and
+himself right in their differing views of the Erringtons' intentions. He
+was inexpressibly loath to consider himself mistaken. Indeed, for him to
+be mistaken seemed to argue a general dislocation and turning
+topsy-turvy of things, and a terrible unchaining of the powers of
+darkness. If, after walking all his life in the paths of wisdom and
+prosperity, he were to find himself suddenly astray, and blundering on a
+point which nearly concerned the only tender feelings of his nature,
+such a phenomenon must clearly be due to the direct interposition of
+Satan. However, as he stood one evening in his storehouse, tying up a
+great parcel of sugar in blue paper, Jonathan Maxfield was feeling
+neither discontented nor self-distrustful. Mrs. Errington had just been
+speaking to Rhoda in his presence, and had said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, little one, you have quite made a conquest of Mrs. Bodkin, as
+well as Miss Minnie. She was praising you up to me the other day. She
+particularly remarked your nice manners, and attributed them to my
+influence&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure, ma'am, if there is anything nice in my manners, it was you
+who taught it to me," Rhoda had said simply. Upon which Mrs. Errington
+had been very gracious, and, without at all disclaiming the credit of
+Rhoda's nice manners, had mellifluously assured Mr. Maxfield that his
+little girl was wonderfully teachable, and had become a general
+favourite amongst her (Mrs. Errington's) friends.</p>
+
+<p>Now all this had seemed to Maxfield to be of good augury, and an
+additional testimony&mdash;if any such were needed&mdash;to his own sagacity and
+prudent behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll come right, as I foresaw," thought he triumphantly. "Another man
+might have been over hasty, and spoiled matters like a fool. But not
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Some one pushed the half-door between the shop and the storehouse, and
+set the bell jingling. Maxfield looked up and saw Algernon Errington,
+bright, smiling, and debonair, as usual.</p>
+
+<p>The ordinary expression of old Max's face was not winning; and now, as
+he looked up with his grey eyebrows drawn into a shaggy frown, and his
+jaws clenched so as to hold the end of a string which he had just drawn
+into a knot round the parcel of sugar, he presented a countenance
+ill-calculated to reassure a stranger or invite his confidence. But Algy
+was not a stranger, and did not intend to bestow any confidence, so he
+came forward with the graceful self-possession which sat so well on him,
+and said, "How are you, Mr. Maxfield? I have not seen you for ever so
+long!"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't seem very long ago to me, since we spoke together," returned
+old Max, tugging at the string of his parcel.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I'm off to-morrow, Mr. Maxfield?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man shot a hard keen glance at him from beneath the shaggy
+eyebrows, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I go by the early coach in the morning, so I must say all my farewells
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield gave a sound like a grunt, and nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a wonderful piece of luck, Lord Seely's taking me up so, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! if he means to do anything for you in earnest. So far as I can
+learn, his taking you up hasn't cost him much yet."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon laughed frankly. "Not a bit of it, Mr. Maxfield!" he cried.
+"And, after all, why should he do anything that would cost him much, for
+a poor devil like me? No; the beauty of it is, that he can do great
+things for me which shall cost him nothing! He is hand and glove with
+the present ministry, and a regular big-wig at court, and all that sort
+of thing. The fact of my having good blood in my veins, and being called
+Ancram Errington, is no merit of mine, of course&mdash;just an accident; but
+it's a deuced lucky accident. I daresay Lord Seely is a stupid old
+hunks, but then he is Lord Seely, you see. I don't mind saying all this
+to you, Mr. Maxfield, because you know the world, and you and I are old
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly rather hard on Lord Seely to be spoken of as a stupid
+old hunks by this lively young gentleman, who knew little more of him
+than of his great-grandfather, deceased a century ago. But his lordship
+did not hear the artless little speech, so it did not annoy him; whereas
+old Max did hear it, and it gratified him considerably for several
+reasons. It gratified him to be addressed confidentially as one who knew
+the world; it gratified him to be called an old friend by this relation
+of the great Lord Seely. And, oddly enough, whilst he was mentally
+bowing down before the aristocratic magnificence of that nobleman, it
+gratified him to be told that the bowing down was being performed to a
+"stupid old hunks," altogether devoid of that wisdom which had been so
+largely bestowed on himself, the Whitford grocer.</p>
+
+<p>Pleasant and unaffected as was the young fellow's manner to his
+landlord, there was a nonchalance about it which conveyed that he was
+quite aware of the social distance between them. And this assumption of
+superiority&mdash;never coarse or ponderous, like his mother's, but worn with
+the airiest lightness&mdash;was far from displeasing to old Max. The more of
+a gentleman born and bred Algernon Errington showed himself to be, the
+higher would Rhoda's position be, if&mdash;but old Max had almost discarded
+that form of presenting the future to his own mind; and was apt to say
+to himself, "when Rhoda marries young Errington." And then the solid
+advantages of the position were, so far at least, on old Max's side.
+Wealth and wisdom made a powerful combination, he reflected. And he was
+not at all afraid of being borne down or overwhelmed by any amount of
+gentility. Nevertheless, his spirit was in some subjection to this
+patrician youth, who sat opposite to him on a tea-chest, swinging his
+legs so affably.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. At length Maxfield said, "And how long do you think
+o' being away? Or are you going to say good-bye to Whitford for
+evermore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I hope not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Then there is some folks here as you would care to see again?" said
+Maxfield slowly, beginning to tie up another parcel with sedulous care,
+and not raising his eyes from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there are! I&mdash;I should think you must know that, Mr.
+Maxfield! But I want to put myself in a better position with the world
+before I can&mdash;before I come back to the people I most care for."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. But it's like to be some time first, I'm afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"As to seeing dear old Whitford again, you know I mean to run down here
+in the summer; or at least early in the autumn, when Parliament rises."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure! And then I hope to&mdash;to settle several things."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"To a man of your experience, Mr. Maxfield, I needn't say how important
+it is for me to go to Lord Seely, ready and willing to undertake any
+employment he may offer me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, of course, that I should be absolutely free and unfettered, and
+ready to&mdash;to&mdash;to avail myself of opportunities. You see that, of
+course?"</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield looked sage, and nodded. But he also looked a little glum. The
+conversation had not taken the turn he expected.</p>
+
+<p>"Once let me get something definite&mdash;a Government post, you know, such
+as my cousin could get for me as easily as you could take an
+apprentice&mdash;and then I may please myself. I may consider myself on the
+first round of the ladder. And there won't be the same necessity for
+deferring to this person and that person. But I don't know why I'm
+saying all this to you, Mr. Maxfield. You understand the whole matter
+better than I do. By Jove, I wish I'd some of your ballast in my noddle.
+I'm such a feather-headed fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are young, Algernon, you are young," returned old Max, from whose
+brow the frown had cleared away entirely. "I have had a special gift of
+wisdom vouchsafed to me for many years past. It has been, I believe, a
+peculiar grace, and it is the Lord's doing, thanks be! I am not easy
+deceived."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't like to try it on, that's all I know!" exclaimed Algernon,
+pleasantly smiling and nodding his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Albeit there is some as mistrust my judgment; young and raw men without
+much gift of clear-headedness, and puffed up with spiritual pride."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there, really?" said Algernon, feeling somewhat at a loss what to
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there are. I should like such to be convinced of error. It would
+be a wholesome lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like such to know&mdash;for their own soul's sake, and to teach 'em
+Christian humility&mdash;as you and I quite understand each other, my young
+friend; and as all is clear between us."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon had a constitutional dislike to "clear understandings," except
+such as were limited to his clear understanding of other people. So he
+broke in at this point with one of his impulsive speeches about his
+prospects, and his conviction of Mr. Maxfield's wisdom, and his regrets
+at leaving Whitford, and his settled purpose to come back at the
+end of the summer and have a look at the dear old place, and the
+one or two persons in it who were still dearer to him. And he
+contrived&mdash;"contrived," indeed, is too cold-blooded and Machiavelian a
+word to express Algy's rapid mental process&mdash;to convey to old Max the
+idea that he was on the high road to fortune; that he had a warm and
+constant attachment to a certain person whom it was needless to name,
+seeing that the certain person could be no other than his playmate,
+pretty Rhoda; and that Mr. Jonathan Maxfield was so sagacious and
+keen-sighted a personage as to require no wordy explanations such as
+might have been needful for feebler intelligences. And then Algy said,
+with a rueful sort of candour, and arching those fair childlike eyebrows
+of his: "I say, Mr. Maxfield, I shall be awfully short of cash just at
+first!"</p>
+
+<p>The two hands of Jonathan Maxfield, which had been laid open, and palm
+downwards, on the counter before him, as he listened, instinctively
+doubled themselves into fists. He put them one on the top of the other,
+and rested his chin on them.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't bother my mother about it, poor dear soul, because I know she
+has done all she can already. Of course, if I were to hint anything to
+my cousin&mdash;to Lord Seely, you know&mdash;I might get helped directly. But I
+don't want to begin with that, exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm! It 'ud be a test of how much he really does mean, though!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but you know what you said about Lord Seely's doing great things
+for me which shall cost him nothing. And I felt how true your view was,
+directly. By George, if I want any advice between now and next August, I
+shall be tempted to write and ask you for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield gave a little rasping cough.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I know the manners and customs of high-bred people well
+enough. A fellow who comes of an old family like mine seems to suck all
+that in with his mother's milk, somehow. But that's a mere surface
+knowledge, after all. And some circumstance might turn up in which I
+should want a more solid judgment to help my own."</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield coughed again, a little less raspingly. One of his doubled-up
+hands unclasped itself, and he began to pass it across his stubbly chin.</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-by&mdash;what an ass I was not to think of that before&mdash;would you
+mind lending me twenty pounds till August, Mr. Maxfield?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I'm not given to lending, Algernon; nor to borrowing either, I thank
+the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Borrowing! No; you're one of the lucky folks of this world, who can
+grant favours instead of asking them. But it really is of small
+consequence, after all; I'll manage somehow, if you have any objection.
+I believe I have a nabob of a godfather, General Indigo, as yellow as a
+guinea and as rich as a Jew. My mother was talking of him the other day,
+and, perhaps, it would be better to ask such a little favour of one's
+own people. I'll look up the nabob, Mr. Maxfield."</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed that Algy, in bringing out the name of General
+Indigo, had any thought of the three lovely Miss Indigos in his mind. He
+was quite unconscious of the existence of those young ladies; if,
+indeed, they were not entirely the figments of Mrs. Errington's fertile
+fancy. Algy had laid no deep plans. He was simply quick at seizing
+opportunity. The opportunity had presented itself, of dazzling old Max
+with his nabob godfather, and of&mdash;perhaps&mdash;inducing the stingy old
+fellow to lend him what he wanted, by dint of conveying that he did not
+want it particularly. Algy had availed himself of the opportunity, and
+the shot had told very effectually.</p>
+
+<p>Old Max never swore. Had he been one of the common and profane crowd of
+worldlings, it may be that some imprecation on General Indigo would have
+issued from his lips; for the mention of that name made him very angry.
+But old Max had a settled conviction of the probable consignment to
+perdition of the rich nabob&mdash;who was doubtless a purse-proud, tyrannous,
+godless old fellow&mdash;which far surpassed, in its comforting power, the
+ephemeral satisfaction of an oath. He struck his clenched hand on the
+counter, and said, testily, "You have not heard what I had it in my mind
+to say! You are too rash, young man, and broke in on my discourse before
+it was finished!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg pardon. Did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say that I am not given to lending nor to borrowing; and it is most
+true. But I have not said that I will refuse to assist you. This is a
+special case, and must be judged of specially as between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, I would rather be obliged to you than to the general,
+who is a stranger to me, in fact, though he is my godfather."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nearer ties than godfathers, Algernon."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon burst into a peal of genuine laughter. "Why, yes," said he,
+wiping his eyes, "I hope so!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Max did not move a muscle of his face. "What was the sum you named?"
+he asked, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know&mdash;twenty or thirty pounds would do. Something just to
+keep me going until my mother's next quarter's money comes in."</p>
+
+<p>"I will lend you twenty pounds, Algernon, for which you will write me an
+acknowledgment."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Being under age, your receipt is valueless in law. But I wish to have
+it as between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; as between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>Maxfield unlocked a strong-box let into the wall. Algernon&mdash;who had
+often gazed at the outside of it rather wistfully&mdash;peeped into it with
+some eagerness when it was opened; but its contents were chiefly papers
+and a huge ledger. There was, however, in one corner a well-stuffed
+black leather pocket-book, from which old Max slowly extracted a crisp,
+fresh Bank of England note for twenty pounds.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon,
+taking the note. He spoke without any over-eagerness, but the gleam of
+boyish delight in his eyes would not be suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>"And now come into the parlour with me, and write the acknowledgment."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon, when the receipt had been duly
+written and signed, "you won't say anything to my mother about this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to keep it a secret?" asked the old man, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course I don't mind all the world knowing, as far as I'm
+concerned. But the dear old lady might worry herself at not being able
+to do more for me. Let it be just simply as between you and me," said
+Algernon, repeating Maxfield's words, but, truth to say, without
+attaching any very definite meaning to them. The old man pursed up his
+mouth and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye," he said, "as between you and me, Algernon; as between you
+and me."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Upon my word, that formula of old Max's seems to be a kind of open
+sesame to purses and strong-boxes and cheque-books! 'As between you and
+me.' I wonder if it would answer with Lord Seely? Who'd have thought of
+old Max doing the handsome thing? Well, it's all right enough. I do mean
+to stick to little Rhoda, especially since her father seems to hint his
+approbation so very plainly. But it wouldn't do to bind myself just
+now&mdash;for her sake, poor little pet! 'As between you and me!' What a
+character the old fellow is! I wish he'd made it fifty while he was
+about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was Algernon's mental soliloquy as he walked jauntily down the
+street, with his hand in his pocket, and the crisp bank-note between his
+finger and thumb.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>David Powell sat in his garret chamber. The fast waning light of a
+February afternoon fell on him as he sat close to the lattice in the
+sloping roof. He had placed himself there to be able to read the small
+print of his pocket-bible. But the light was already too dim for that.
+It was dusk in the garret. The strip of grey cloud, visible from the
+window, was beginning to turn red at its lower edge as the sun sank. It
+was the angry flaring red, which is often seen at the close of a cold
+and cloudy day, and had no suggestion of genial warmth in its deep
+flush. Such a snow-laden, crimson-bordered wrack of fleecy cloud, as
+Powell's eyes rested on, might have hung over a Lapland waste. There was
+no fire in the room, nor any means of making one. It was bitterly cold.
+The preacher's face looked white and bloodless, as if it were frozen.
+But he sat still, staring out at the red sunset light on the strip of
+sky within his view. From his seat on an old chest, which he had drawn
+close under the window, he could see nothing but the sky. Not one of the
+roofs or chimneys of Whitford was visible to him. A black wavering line
+moved slowly across his field of vision. It was a flight of rooks on
+their way home to the tall leafless elm-trees in Pudcombe Park. Nothing
+else moved, except the red flare creeping upward by slow and
+imperceptible degrees.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the little Bible fell from Powell's numbed right hand on to the
+carpetless floor, and, with a start, he turned his head and looked
+around him. By contrast with the wintry light without, the garret
+appeared quite dark to him, and it was not until after a few seconds
+that his eye became sufficiently accustomed to its gloom, to perceive
+the book lying almost at his feet. He picked it up, and began to chafe
+his numbed fingers, rising at the same time, and walking up and down the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts had been straying idly as he sat at the window, with his
+eyes fixed on the sky. They had gone back to the days of his boyhood,
+and in memory he had seen the wild Welsh valley where he was born, and
+heard the bleat of sheep from the hills, as he had listened to it many a
+summer morning, sitting ragged and barefoot on the turf. And with these
+recollections the image of Rhoda Maxfield was strangely mingled,
+appearing and disappearing, like a face in a dream. Indeed, he had been
+dreaming open-eyed in his solitude, unconscious of the cold and the
+gathering dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Now, such aimless, vagrant wanderings of the fancy were considered
+reprehensible by earnest Methodists; and by none were they more strongly
+disapproved of than by David Powell himself. His life was guided, as
+nearly as might be, in conformity with the rules laid down by John
+Wesley himself for the helpers, as his first lay-preachers were called.
+And among these rules, diligence&mdash;unflagging, unfaltering&mdash;diligence and
+the strenuous employment of every minute, so that no fragment of time
+should be wasted, were emphatically insisted upon. Powell had ceased to
+read when the daylight waned, and remained in his place by the window,
+intending to devote a few minutes of the twilight to the rigid
+self-examination which was his daily habit. And instead, behold! his
+mind had strayed and wandered in idle recollections and unsanctified
+imaginings.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he began to mutter to himself, as he paced up and down the
+chill bare room.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I to do with these things," he said aloud, "when I should be
+about my Master's business? Where is the comfortable assurance of old
+days&mdash;the bright light which used to shine within my soul, turning its
+darkness to noon-day? I have lost my first love;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I have fallen from
+grace; and the enemy finds a ready entrance for any idle thoughts he
+wills to put into my mind. And yet&mdash;have I not striven? Have I not
+searched my own heart with sincerity?"</p>
+
+<p>All at once, stopping short in his walk across the garret floor, he
+threw himself on his knees beside the bed, and, burying his face in his
+hands, began to pray aloud. The sound of his own voice rising ever
+higher, as his supplications grew more fervent, hid from his ears the
+noise of a tap at the door, which was repeated twice or thrice. At
+length, the person who had knocked pushed the door gently open a little
+way, and called him by his name, "Mr. Powell! Mr. Powell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who calls me?" asked the preacher, lifting his head, but not rising at
+once from his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"It's me, sir; Mrs. Thimbleby. I have made you a cup of herb tea
+accordin' to the directions in the Primitive Physic,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and there is a
+handful of fire in the kitchen grate, whilst here it is downright
+freezing. Dear, dear Mr. Powell, I can't think it right for you to set
+for hours up here by yourself in the cold!"</p>
+
+<p>The good widow&mdash;a gentle, loquacious woman, with mild eyes and a humble
+manner&mdash;had advanced into the room by this time, and stood holding up a
+lighted candle in one hand, whilst with the other she drew her scanty
+black shawl closer round her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I will come, Mrs. Thimbleby," answered Powell. "Do you go downstairs,
+and I will follow you forthwith."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is a miracle of the Lord if he don't catch his death of cold,"
+muttered the widow as she redescended the steep, narrow staircase. "But
+there! he is a select vessel, if ever there was one; and a burning and a
+shining light. And I suppose the Lord will take care of His own, in His
+own way."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thimbleby sat down by her own clean-swept hearth, in which a small
+fire was burning brightly. The little kitchen was wonderfully clean. Not
+a speck of rust marked the bright pewter and tin vessels that hung over
+the dresser. Not an atom of dust lay on any visible object in the place.
+There was no sound to be heard save the ticking of the old eight-day
+clock, and, now and then, the dropping of a coal on to the hearth. As
+soon as she heard her lodger's step on the stairs, Mrs. Thimbleby
+bestirred herself to pour out the herb tea of which she had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it was China tea, Mr. Powell," she said, when he entered the
+kitchen. "But you won't take that, so I know it's no good to offer it to
+you. Else I have a cup here as is really good, and came out of my new
+lodger's pot."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not surely take of what is not your own!" cried Powell, looking
+quickly round at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord forbid, sir! No, but the gentleman drinks a sight of tea. And last
+evening he would have some fresh made, and I say to him"&mdash;Mrs.
+Thimbleby's narrative style was chiefly remarkable for its
+simplification of the English syntax, by means of omitting all past
+tenses, and thus getting rid of any difficulty attendant on the
+conjugation of irregular verbs&mdash;"I say, 'Won't you have none of that
+last as was made for breakfast, as is beautiful tea, and only wants
+warming up again?' But he refuse; and then I ask him if I may use it
+myself, seeing I look on it as a sin to waste anything; and he only just
+look up from his book and nod his head, and say, 'Do what you like with
+it, ma'am,' and wave his hand as much as to say I may go. He is not much
+of a one to talk, but he paid the first week punctual, and is as quiet
+as quiet, and&mdash;there he is! I hear his key in the door."</p>
+
+<p>A quick, firm step came along the passage, and Matthew Diamond appeared
+at the door of the kitchen. "Will you be good enough to give me a
+light?" he said, addressing the landlady. Then he saw David Powell
+standing near the fire, and looked at him curiously. Powell did not
+turn, nor seem to observe the new comer. His head was bent down, and the
+firelight partially illumined his profile, which was presented to anyone
+standing at the door. Mr. Diamond silently formed the word "Preacher?"
+with his lips, at the same time nodding towards Powell, and raising his
+eyebrows interrogatively. Mrs. Thimbleby answered aloud with alacrity,
+well pleased to begin a conversation with her taciturn lodger.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; it is our preacher, Mr. Powell, as is one of our shiningest
+lights, and an awakening caller of sinners to repentance. You've maybe
+heard him preach, sir? A many of the unconverted&mdash;ahem!&mdash;a many as does
+not belong to the connexion has come to hear him in Whitford Wesleyan
+Chapel, and on Whit Meadow. And we have had seasons of abundant blessing
+and refreshment."</p>
+
+<p>Powell had turned round at the beginning of Mrs. Thimbleby's speech, and
+was looking earnestly at Mr. Diamond. The latter, who had seen the
+preacher only in the full tide of his eloquence and the excitement of
+addressing a crowded audience, was struck by the change in the face now
+before him. It was much thinner, haggard, and deadly pale. There were
+lines round the mouth, which expressed anxiety and suffering; and the
+eyes were sunk in their orbits, and startlingly bright. Diamond was, in
+fact, startled out of his usual silent reserve by the glance which met
+his own, and exclaimed, impulsively, "I'm afraid you are ill, Mr.
+Powell!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned the other at once, and without hesitation. "I have no
+bodily ailment. I have seen you at the house of Jonathan Maxfield, have
+I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have been in the habit of going there to read with a young
+gentleman. My name is Diamond&mdash;Matthew Diamond."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," answered Powell. "I should like, if you are willing, to say
+a few words to you privately."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond was a good deal surprised, and a little displeased, at this
+proposition. He had been interested in the Methodist preacher, and the
+thought had more than once crossed his mind that he should like to see
+more of the man, whose whole personality was so striking and uncommon.
+But Mr. Diamond had felt his wish just as he might have wished to have
+Paganini with his violin all to himself for an evening; or to learn
+<i>vivâ voce</i> from Edmund Kean how he produced his great effects. To be
+the object and subject of a private sermon from this Methodist
+enthusiast (for Diamond could conceive no other reason for the
+preacher's desiring an interview with him than zeal for converting) was,
+however, a different matter; and Diamond had half a mind to decline the
+private communication. He was a man peculiarly averse to outspokenness
+about his own feelings. Nor was he given to be frank and diffusive on
+topics of mere intellectual speculation; although, occasionally, he
+could exchange thoughts on such matters with a congenial mind. But he
+knew well enough that, with the Methodists in general, an excited state
+of feeling, which might do duty for conviction, was the aim and end of
+their teaching and preaching.</p>
+
+<p>"This man is ignorant and enthusiastic, and will make himself absurd and
+me uncomfortable, and I shall have to offend him, which I don't wish to
+do," thought Mr. Diamond, standing stiff and grave with the candle in
+his hand. But once more the sight of Powell's haggard, suffering face
+and bright wistful eyes touched him; and once more the resolute Matthew
+Diamond suffered himself to be swayed by an impulse of sympathy with
+this man.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said he, "well, you can come into my sitting-room."</p>
+
+<p>The invitation was not very graciously given, but Powell did not seem to
+heed that at all. Mrs. Thimbleby stood in admiring astonishment as her
+two lodgers left the kitchen together.</p>
+
+<p>The two young men, so strangely contrasted in all outward circumstances,
+entered the small parlour, which served as dining-room, sitting-room,
+and study to Matthew Diamond, and seated themselves at a table almost
+covered with books, one corner of which had been cleared to admit of a
+little tea-tray being placed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you share my tea, Mr. Powell?" asked Diamond, as he filled a cup
+with the strong brown liquid.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I thank you for proffering it to me, but I do not drink tea."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for that, for I am afraid I have no other refreshment to
+offer you. I don't indulge in wine or spirits."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond threw into his manner a certain determined commonplaceness, as
+though to quench any tendency to excitement or exaltation which might
+show itself in the preacher. Although he would have expressed it in
+different terms, Matthew Diamond had at the bottom of his mind a feeling
+akin to that in Miss Chubb's, when she declared her dread of the
+Maxfield family "going into convulsions" in the parish church of St.
+Chad.</p>
+
+<p>"I will take a cup of tea myself, if you have no objection," said
+Diamond, suiting the action to the word, and stretching out his legs, so
+as to bring them within reach of the warmth from the fire. "Won't you
+draw nearer to the hearth, Mr. Powell?"</p>
+
+<p>Powell sat looking fixedly into the fire with an abstracted air. His
+hands were joined loosely, and rested on his knees. The firelight shone
+on his wan, clearly-cut face, but seemed to be absorbed and quenched in
+the blackness of his hair, which hung down in two straight, thick locks
+behind his ears. He did not accept Mr. Diamond's invitation to draw
+nearer to the warm hearth, but, after a pause, turned his face to his
+companion, and said, "It is on behalf of the young maiden, Rhoda
+Maxfield, that I would speak with you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He could scarcely have said anything more thoroughly unexpected and
+disconcerting to Matthew Diamond. The latter did not start or stare, or
+make any strong demonstration of surprise, but he could not help a
+sudden flush mounting to his face, much to his annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"About Miss Rhoda Maxfield?" he returned coldly; "I do not understand
+what concern either you or I can have with any private conversation
+about that young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"My concern with Rhoda is that of one who has had it laid upon him to
+lead a tender soul out of the darkness into the light, and who suddenly
+finds himself divided from that precious charge, even at the moment
+when he hoped the goal was reached. Her father has left our Society, and
+has thus carried Rhoda away from the reach of my exhortations."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" thought Diamond to himself, as he turned his keen grey eyes
+on the preacher, "this is a specimen of spiritual conceit on a colossal
+scale!" Then he said aloud, "You must console yourself with the hope
+that the exhortations she will hear in the parish church will differ
+from your own rather in manner than matter, Mr. Powell. There really are
+some very decent people among the congregation of St. Chad's."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," answered Powell, with simple gentleness, "do you think I doubt
+it? It has been the boast of Methodism that it receives into its bosom
+all denominations of Christians, without distinction. The Churchman and
+the Dissenter, the Presbyterian and the Independent, are alike welcome
+to us, and are free alike to follow their own method of worship. In the
+words of John Wesley himself, 'one condition, and one only, is
+required&mdash;a real desire to save their souls. Where this is, it is
+enough; they desire no more. They lay stress upon nothing else. They ask
+only, Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it be, give me thy hand.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Methodism has changed somewhat since the days of John Wesley," said
+Diamond, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Not Methodism, but perhaps&mdash;Methodists. But it was not of Methodism
+that I had it on my mind to speak to you now."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond controlled his face and his attitude to express civil
+indifference; but&mdash;his pulse was quickened, and he hid his mouth with
+his hand. Powell went on: "I have turned the matter in my mind, many
+ways. And I have sought for guidance on it with much wrestling of the
+spirit. But I had not received a clear leading until this evening. When
+I saw you standing in the doorway, it was borne in upon me that you
+could be an instrument of help in this matter. And the leading was the
+more assured to me, because that to-day, having opened my Bible after
+due supplication, mine eyes fell at once on the words, 'I have heard of
+thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eyes seeth thee.' Now these
+words were dark to me until just now, when you seemed to appear as the
+explanation and interpretation thereof."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond could not but acknowledge to himself that all the scriptural
+phraseology, and the technicalities of sectarianism, which he found
+merely grotesque or disgusting in men of common, vulgar natures, came
+from this man's lips with as much ease and propriety as if he had been a
+Hebrew of old time uttering his native idiom. Indeed, the impression of
+there being something oriental about David Powell, which Diamond had
+received on first seeing him, was deepened on further acquaintance. This
+black-haired Welshman was picturesque and poetic, despite his threadbare
+cloth suit, made in the ungraceful mode of the day; and impressive,
+despite his equally threadbare phrases. It is possible to make a
+wonderful difference in the effect both of clothes and words, by putting
+something earnest and unaffected inside them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the help you seek? And how can I help you?" asked Diamond, with
+grave directness.</p>
+
+<p>"You are acquainted with the daughter of the principal of the grammar
+school here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bodkin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do you think that, if you carried to her a request that I might be
+permitted to see and speak with her, she would admit me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," answered Diamond, greatly taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Each man was busy with his own thoughts. "Rhoda is
+beyond my reach now," said Powell at length. "I can neither see nor
+speak with her. Nor do I know of any of those who see her familiarly who
+would be likely to influence her for good, except Miss Bodkin. I am told
+that she is a lady of much ability and power of mind; and I hear,
+moreover, of her doing many acts of charity and kindness. You know her
+well, do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know her. Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you consent to carry such a request from me?"</p>
+
+<p>Diamond hesitated. "Why not prefer the request yourself?" he said. "If
+you have any good reason for desiring an interview with Miss Bodkin, I
+believe she would grant it."</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought of doing so. I had thought, even, of writing all that I
+have to say. But, for many reasons, I believe it would be more
+profitable for me to see her face to face. I am no penman. I am indeed,
+as you perceive, a man very ignorant in the world's learning and the
+world's ways."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond suspected a covert boast under this humble speech, and answered
+in his coolest tones, "The first is a disadvantage&mdash;or an advantage, as
+you choose to consider it&mdash;which you share with a good many of your
+brethren, Mr. Powell. As to the latter kind of ignorance&mdash;Methodists are
+generally thought to have worldly wisdom enough for their needs."</p>
+
+<p>Powell bent his head. "I would fain have more learning," he said in a
+low voice, "but only as a means, not as an end&mdash;not as an end."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Diamond, in a constrained voice, "it seems to me hardly
+worth while to trouble Miss Bodkin, by asking for an interview on any
+such grounds. Since you are charitable enough to believe that Miss
+Maxfield's spiritual welfare is not imperilled by going to St. Chad's, I
+don't see what need there is for you to be uneasy about her!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am uneasy; but not for the reasons you suppose. Rhoda is very
+guileless, and I would shield her from peril."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond looked at the preacher sternly. "I don't understand you," he
+said. "And to say the truth, Mr. Powell, I disapprove of meddling in
+other people's affairs. Miss Maxfield is a young lady for whom I have
+the very highest respect."</p>
+
+<p>For the first time a flame of quick anger flashed from Powell's dark
+eyes, as he answered, "Your high respect would teach you to stand aside
+and let the innocent maiden pine under a delusion which might spoil her
+life and peril her soul; mine prompts me to step forward and awaken her
+to the truth, never heeding what figure I make in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>The sudden passion in the man's face and figure was like a material
+illumination. Diamond had grown pale, and looked at him attentively, and
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," proceeded Powell, his thin hands working nervously, and
+his eyes blazing, "that I do not understand how pure a creature she
+is&mdash;how innocent, confiding, and devoid of all suspicion of guile? Yea,
+and even, therefore, the more in need of warning! But because I am a man
+still young in years, and neither the maiden's brother, nor any kin to
+her, I must stand silent and withhold my help, lest the world should say
+I am transgressing its rules, and bid me mind my own affairs, or deride
+me for a fanatical fool! Do you think I do not foresee all this? or do
+you think that, foreseeing it, I heed it? I have broken harder bonds
+than that; I have fought with strong impulses, to which such motives are
+as cobwebs&mdash;&mdash;" Then, with a sudden check and change of tone which a
+grain of affectation would have sufficed to render ludicrous, but which,
+in its simplicity, was almost touching, he added, in a low voice, "I ask
+pardon for my vehemence; I speak too much of myself. I have had some
+suffering in this matter, and am not always able to control my words. I
+have had strange visitings of the old Adam of late. It is only by much
+striving after grace, and by strong wrestling in prayer, that I have not
+wandered utterly from the right way."</p>
+
+<p>He had risen from his chair at the beginning of his speech, and now sank
+down again on it wearily, with drooping head.</p>
+
+<p>Matthew Diamond sat and looked at him still with the same earnest
+attention; but blended, now, with a look of compassion. He was thinking
+to himself what must be the force of enthusiastic faith, which could so
+subdue the fiery nature of this man, and how he must suffer in the
+conflict. Presently, he said aloud, "I am ready to admit, Mr. Powell,
+that you are actuated by conscientious motives; I am sure that you are.
+But your conscience cannot be a rule for all the rest of the world. Mine
+may counsel me differently, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir, we are neither of us left to our own guidance, thanks be to
+God! There is a sure counsellor that can never fail us. I have searched
+diligently, and I have received a clear leading which I cannot mistrust.
+I do not feel free to tell you more particularly the grounds of my
+anxiety respecting Rhoda Maxfield. But I do assure you, with all
+sincerity and solemnity, that I have her welfare wholly at heart, and
+that I would not injure her by the least shadow of blame in the opinion
+of any human being."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for some minutes. Diamond leant his head on his hand,
+and reflected. Then at length he said, "Look here, Mr. Powell; I
+believe, if you had pitched on anyone else in all Whitford to speak to
+about Miss Rhoda Maxfield, I should have declined to assist you. But
+Miss Bodkin is so superior in sense and goodness to most other folks
+here, that I am sure whatever you may say to her confidentially will be
+sacred. And then, she may be able to set you right, if you are wrong.
+She has the woman's tact and insight which we lack. And, besides, she
+is fond of Rhoda." He coloured a little as he said the name, and dropped
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You confirm all that I have heard of this lady. She is abundantly
+blessed with good gifts."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, Mr. Powell, I will write to Miss Bodkin to-morrow, telling
+her merely that you desire to speak with her, and entreat her good
+offices on behalf of one who needs them."</p>
+
+<p>Powell sprang up from his seat eagerly. "I thank you, sir, from a full
+heart," he said. "You are doing a good action. Farewell."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond held out his hand, which the preacher grasped in his own. The
+two hands were as strongly contrasted as the owners of them. Diamond's
+was broad, muscular, and yet smooth&mdash;a strong young hand, full of latent
+power. Powell's was slender, nervous, showing the corded veins, and with
+long emaciated fingers. It, too, indicated force; but force of a
+different kind. The one hand might have driven a plough, or written out
+a mathematical problem; the other might have wielded a scimitar in the
+service of the Prophet, or held up a crucifix in the midst of
+persecuting savages. As they stood for a second thus hand in hand,
+Powell's mouth broke into a wonderfully sweet and radiant smile, and he
+said, "You see, sir, I was right to have faith in my counsellor. You
+have helped me."</p>
+
+<p>Diamond sat musing late that night, and was roused by the cold to find
+his fire gone out and his watch marking half-past twelve o'clock. "I
+wonder," he thought to himself, "if Powell has any foundation for his
+hints, and if any scoundrel is playing false with her. If there be, I
+should like to shoot him like a dog!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Minnie and her father had been having a discussion about David Powell,
+and the discussion had heated Dr. Bodkin, and spoiled his half hour
+after dinner, which was wont to be the pleasantest half hour of his day.
+For Dr. Bodkin did not sit over his wine alone. When there were no
+guests, his wife and Minnie remained at the black shining board&mdash;in
+those days the table-cloth was removed for the dessert, and the polish
+of the mahogany beneath it was a matter of pride with notable
+housekeepers like Mrs. Bodkin&mdash;and his wife poured out his allowance of
+port and peeled his walnuts for him, and his daughter chatted with him,
+and coaxed him, and sometimes contradicted him a little, and there would
+be no more school until to-morrow morning, and altogether the doctor was
+accustomed to enjoy himself. But on this occasion the poor gentleman was
+vexed and disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a parcel of stuff and nonsense!" said the doctor, jerking his legs
+under the table.</p>
+
+<p>"That remains to be proved, papa. If the man has anything of consequence
+to say, I shall soon discover it."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything of consequence to say? Fudge! He is coming begging,
+perhaps&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe that, papa. Nor, I think, do you in your heart,"
+returned Minnie, with a little smile at one side of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>But the doctor was too much disturbed to smile. "Why shouldn't he come
+begging? It won't be his modesty that will stand in his way, I daresay.
+Or perhaps he wants to 'convert' you, as these fellows are pleased to
+call it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody seems to be afraid of our wanting to convert him!" said Minnie.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like the sort of thing. I don't like that people should have it
+to say that my daughter is honoured with the confidences of a parcel of
+ranting, canting cobblers."</p>
+
+<p>"But, papa, would it not&mdash;I am speaking in sober sincerity, and because
+I really do want your serious answer&mdash;don't you think it would be wrong
+to be deterred from helping anyone with a kind word or a kind deed, by
+the fear of people saying this or that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Helping a fiddlestick!" cried Dr. Bodkin magisterially, but
+incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie's face fell. It had been paler than usual of late, and she had
+been suffering and feeble. She never lamented aloud, nor was
+importunate, nor even showed weakness of temper; but her father, who
+loved her very tenderly, understood the chill look of disappointment
+well enough, and it was more than he had strength to bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course the man can come and say his say," he added, jerking his legs
+again impatiently under the sheltering mahogany, "especially as you say
+he is going away from Whitford directly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but there is no guarantee that he will not come back again. I
+cannot promise you that, on his behalf."</p>
+
+<p>This unflinching straightforwardness of Minnie's was a fertile source of
+trouble between her father and herself.</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly rather hard on the doctor to be forced to surrender
+absolutely, without any of those pleasant pretences which are equivalent
+to the honours of war. Fortunately&mdash;we are limiting ourselves to the
+doctor's point of view&mdash;fortunately at this moment his eye fell on Mrs.
+Bodkin, who, made exquisitely nervous by any collision between the two
+great forces that ruled her life, was pushing the decanter of port
+backwards and forwards on the slippery table, quite unconscious of that
+mechanical movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Laura, what the&mdash;&mdash;mischief are you about? Do you think I want my wine
+shaken up like a dose of physic?"</p>
+
+<p>This kind of diversion of the vials of the doctor's wrath on to his
+wife's devoted head was no uncommon finale to any altercation in which
+the reverend gentleman happened not to be getting altogether the best of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Mrs. Bodkin, speaking very quickly, and in a low tone,
+as was her wont, "that very likely Mr. Powell wants to interest Minnie
+on behalf of Richard Gibbs."</p>
+
+<p>"And who, pray, if I may venture to inquire, is Richard Gibbs?" asked
+the doctor, in his most awful grammar-school manner, and with a
+sarcastic severity in his eye, as he uttered the name 'Gibbs,' and
+looked at Mrs. Bodkin as though he expected her to be very much ashamed
+of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother of Jane, our maid. He is a groom at Pudcombe Hall, and a
+Wesleyan. Mr. Powell may want to recommend him, or get him a place."</p>
+
+<p>"What, is the fellow going to leave Pudcombe Hall, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of exactly. But it struck me it might be about Richard
+Gibbs that he wanted to speak, because Gibbs is a Wesleyan, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he wants to meddle and make himself of consequence in some
+way. Egotism and conceit&mdash;rampant conceit&mdash;are the mainsprings that move
+such fellows as this Powell."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor rose majestically from the table and walked towards the door.
+There he paused, and turning round said to his wife, "May I request,
+Laura, that somebody shall take care that I get a cup of hot tea sent to
+me in the study? I don't think it is much to request that my tea shall
+not be brought to me in a tepid state!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bodkin had a great gift of holding her tongue on occasions. She
+held it now, and the doctor left the room with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Minnie wrote the following note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Diamond</span>,&mdash;I shall be able to see Mr. Powell at one
+o'clock to-morrow. Should that hour not suit his convenience,
+perhaps he will do me the favour to let me know.</p>
+
+<p>"Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">M. Bodkin</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was the first time she had ever written to Mr. Diamond. The
+temptation to make her letter longer than was absolutely needful had
+been resisted. But the consciousness that the temptation had existed,
+and been overcome, was present to Minnie's mind; and she curled her lip
+in self-scorn as she thought, "If I wrote him whole pages it would only
+bore him. He would prefer one line written in Rhoda's school-girl hand,
+out of Rhoda's school-girl head, to the best wit I could give him; aye,
+or to the best wit of a wittier woman than I." Then suddenly she tore
+the note she had just written across, threw it into the fire, and
+watched it blaze and smoulder into blackness. "I will ask you to write a
+line for me, mamma," she said, when Mrs. Bodkin re-entered the
+drawing-room, after having sent in the doctor's cup of tea to the study.</p>
+
+<p>"To whom, Minnie?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Mr. Diamond. Please say that I will receive Mr. Powell at one
+o'clock to-morrow, if that suits him."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay it is really about Richard Gibbs," said Mrs. Bodkin, as she
+sealed her note.</p>
+
+<p>It was not without a slight feeling of nervousness that Minnie Bodkin,
+the next day, heard Jane's announcement, "Mr. Powell is below, Miss.
+Mistress wishes to know if you would see him in your own room?"</p>
+
+<p>Minnie gave orders that the preacher should be shown upstairs, and Jane
+ushered him in very respectfully. Dr. Bodkin's old man-servant took no
+pains to hide his disgust at the reception of such a guest; and declared
+in the servants' hall that the sight of one of them long-haired, canting
+Methodys fairly turned his stomach. But Jane, remembering her brother
+Richard's reformation, was less militant in her orthodoxy, and expressed
+the opinion that "Mr. Powell was a very good man for all his long
+hair"&mdash;a revolutionary sentiment which was naturally received with
+incredulity and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie looked up eagerly when the preacher entered the room, and scanned
+him with a rapid glance as she asked him to be seated. "I am a poor
+feeble creature, Mr. Powell," she said, "who cannot move about at my own
+will. So you will forgive my bringing you up here, will you not?"</p>
+
+<p>Powell, on his part, looked at the young lady with a steady, searching
+gaze. Minnie was accustomed to be looked at admiringly, affectionately,
+deferentially, curiously, pityingly (which she liked least of
+all)&mdash;sometimes spitefully. But she had never been looked at as David
+Powell was looking at her now; that is, as if his spirit were
+scrutinising her spirit, altogether regardless of the form which housed
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you gratefully for letting me have speech of you," he said; and
+his voice, as he said it, charmed Minnie's sensitive and fastidious ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Mr. Powell, that for some time past I have had the wish to
+make your acquaintance? But circumstances seemed to make it unlikely
+that I ever should do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it was very unlikely, humanly speaking. But I have no doubt that
+our meeting has been brought about in direct answer to prayer."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie was at a loss what to say. It was almost as startling to hear a
+man profess such a belief on a week-day, and in a quiet, matter-of-fact
+tone, as it would have been to find Madame Malibran conducting all her
+conversation in recitative, or to hear Mr. Dockett begin his sentences
+with a "whereas."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to speak to me on behalf of some one, Mr. Diamond tells me?"
+said Minnie, after a slight hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you have been kind and gracious to a young girl beneath you in
+worldly station, named Rhoda Maxfield."</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda! Is it of her you wish to speak?" cried Minnie, in great
+surprise. She felt a strange sick pang of jealousy. It was for Rhoda's
+sake, then, that Mr. Diamond had begged her to receive Powell!</p>
+
+<p>"You are kindly disposed towards the maiden?" said Powell, anxiously;
+for Minnie's change of countenance had not escaped him. For her life,
+Minnie could not cordially have said "yes" at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;Rhoda is a very good girl, I believe; what would you have me do for
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would have you dissuade her from resting her hopes&mdash;I speak now
+merely of earthly hopes and earthly prudence&mdash;on the attachment of one
+who is unstable, vain, and worldly-minded."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? I&mdash;I do not understand," stammered Minnie, with
+fast-beating heart.</p>
+
+<p>"May I speak to you in full confidence? If you tell me I may do so, I
+shall trust you utterly."</p>
+
+<p>"What is this matter to me? Why do you come to me about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I have been told by those whose words I believe, that you are
+gifted with a clear and strong judgment, as well as with all qualities
+that win love."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken. I am not gifted with the qualities that win love,"
+said Minnie, bitterly. Then she asked, abruptly, "Did Mr. Diamond advise
+you to speak to me about Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay; it was I who had recourse to his intercession to get speech of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"But he knows your errand?"</p>
+
+<p>"In part he knows it. But I was not free to say to him all that I would
+fain say to you."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie's face had a hard set look. "Well," she said, after a short
+silence, "I cannot refuse to hear you. But I warn you that I do not
+believe I can do any good in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be overruled as the Lord wills."</p>
+
+<p>Then David Powell proceeded to set forth his fears and anxieties about
+Rhoda, more fully and clearly than he had done to Diamond. He declared
+his conviction that the girl was deceived by false hopes, and was
+fretting and pining because every now and then misgivings assailed her
+which she could not confess to any one, and because that her conscience
+was uneasy. "The maiden is very guileless and tender-natured," said
+Powell, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you a little exaggerate her tenderness, Mr. Powell?
+Persons capable of strong feelings themselves are apt to attribute all
+sorts of sentiments to very wooden-hearted creatures."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her earnestly, and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda always seems to me to be rather phlegmatic; very gentle and
+pretty, of course. But, do you know, I should not be afraid of her
+breaking her heart."</p>
+
+<p>There was a hard tone in Minnie's voice, and a hard expression about her
+mouth, which hurt and disappointed the preacher. He had expected some
+warmth of sympathy, some word of affection for Rhoda.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know her," he said sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, Mr. Powell, Algernon Errington&mdash;&mdash;you know, I suppose, that
+Mr. Errington is a great friend of mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not willingly say aught to offend you, nor to offend against
+Christian courtesy. But there are higher duties&mdash;more solemn
+promptings&mdash;that must not be resisted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not offended. But, let me ask you, what right have we to
+assume that Mr. Errington has ever deceived Rhoda, or has ever thought
+of her otherwise than as the friend and playmate of his childhood?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am convinced that he has led her to believe he means, some day, to
+marry her. I cannot resist that conviction."</p>
+
+<p>"Marry her! Why, Mr. Powell, the thing is absurd on the face of it. A
+boy of nineteen, and in Algernon's position!&mdash;why, any person of common
+sense would understand that such an idea could not be looked at
+seriously."</p>
+
+<p>Powell made himself some silent reproaches for his want of faith. This
+lady might not be soft and sweet; but she had evidently the clear
+judgment which he sought for to help Rhoda. And yet he had been
+discouraged, and had almost distrusted his "leading," because of a
+little coldness of manner. He answered Minnie eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>"It is true! I well know that what you say is true; but will you tell
+Rhoda this? Will you plentifully declare to her the thing as it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda has her father to advise her, if she needs advice."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay; her father is no adviser for her in this matter. He is an ignorant
+man. He does not understand the ways of the world&mdash;at least, not of that
+world in which the Erringtons hold a place&mdash;and he is prejudiced and
+stiff-necked."</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence. Then Minnie said:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see how I can interfere. I should, in fact, be taking an
+unjustifiable liberty, and&mdash;Mr. Errington is going away. They will both
+forget all about this boy-and-girl nonsense, if people have the wisdom
+to let it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Rhoda will not forget; she will brood silently over her secret
+feelings, and her thoughts will be diverted from higher things. She will
+fall away into outer darkness. Oh think, a word in season, how good it
+is! Consider that you may save a perishing soul by speaking that word. I
+have prayed that I might leave behind me in this place the assurance
+that this lamb should not be utterly lost out of the fold."</p>
+
+<p>Powell had risen to his feet in his excitement, and walked away from
+Minnie towards the window, with his head bent, and his hands clasping
+his forehead. Minnie felt something like repulsion, and the sort of
+shame which an honest and proud nature feels at any suspicion of
+histrionism in one whom it has hitherto respected. Surely the man was
+exaggerating&mdash;consciously exaggerating&mdash;his feeling on this matter! But,
+then, Powell turned, and came back towards her; and she saw his face
+clearly in the full sunlight, and instantly her suspicion vanished. That
+face was wan and haggard with suffering, and there was a strange
+brilliancy in the eyes, almost like the brightness of latent tears. The
+tears sprang sympathetically to her own eyes as she looked at him. It
+was impossible to resist the pathos of that face. There was a strange
+appealing expression in it, as of a suffering of which the sufferer was
+only half-conscious, that went straight to Minnie's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Powell, I am so truly sorry to see you distressed! I wish&mdash;I really
+do wish&mdash;that I could do anything for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"For me! Oh not for me! But stretch out your hands to this poor maiden,
+and say words of counsel to her, and of kindness, as one woman may say
+them to another. I have borne the burden of that young soul; I have had
+it laid upon me to wrestle strongly for her in prayer; I have&mdash;have been
+assailed with manifold troubles and temptations concerning her. But I am
+clear now. I speak with a single mind, and as desiring her higher
+welfare from the depths of my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heaven!" thought Minnie, "what a tragic thing it is to see men
+pouring out all the treasures of their love on a thing like this girl!"
+For something in Powell's face and voice had pierced her mind with a
+lightning-swift conviction that he loved Rhoda Maxfield. Minnie would
+have died rather than utter such a speech aloud. The ridicule which,
+among sophisticated persons, slinks on the heels of all
+strongly-expressed emotion, was too present to her mind, and too
+disgusting to her pride, for her to have risked the utterance of such a
+speech even to her mother. But there in her mind the words were, "Good
+Heaven; how tragic it is!" And she acknowledged to herself, at the same
+time, that Powell's lack of sophistication and intensity of fervour
+raised him into a sphere wherein ridicule had no place.</p>
+
+<p>"I will do what I can, Mr. Powell," said Minnie, after a pause, looking
+with unspeakable pity at his thin, pallid face. "But do not trust too
+much to my influence."</p>
+
+<p>"I do trust to it, because it will be strengthened and supported by my
+prayers."</p>
+
+<p>Then, when he had said farewell, and was about to go away, she was
+suddenly moved by a mixture of feelings, and, as it were, almost against
+her will, to say to him, "How good it would be for you to see Rhoda as
+she is! A shallow, sweet, poor little nature, as incapable of
+appreciating your love as a wren or a ladybird! I like Rhoda, and I am a
+poor, shallow creature in many ways myself. But I do recognise things
+higher than myself when I see them."</p>
+
+<p>David Powell's face grew crimson with a hot, dark flush, and for an
+instant he grasped the back of a chair near him, like a man who reels in
+drunkenness. Then he said, "You are very keen to see the truth. You have
+seen it. Rhoda is dear to me, as no woman ever has been dear, or will be
+again. Once I thought this love was a snare to me. Now&mdash;unless in
+moments of temptation by the enemy&mdash;I know that it is an instrument in
+God's hands. It has given me strength to pray, courage to ask you for
+your help."</p>
+
+<p>"But you suffer!" cried Minnie, looking at him with knit, earnest brows.
+"Why should you suffer for one who does not care for you? It is not
+just."</p>
+
+<p>"Who dare ask for justice? I have received mercy&mdash;abundant, overflowing
+mercy&mdash;and shall I not render mercy in my poor degree? But in truth," he
+added, in a low voice, and with a smile which Minnie thought the most
+strangely sweet she had ever seen&mdash;"in truth, I cannot claim that merit.
+I can no more help desiring to do good to Rhoda than I can help drawing
+my breath. Of others I may say, 'It is my duty to assist this man, to
+counsel that one, to endure some hard treatment for the sake of this
+other, in order that I may lead them to Christ.' But with Rhoda there is
+no sense of sacrifice. I believe that the Lord has appointed me to bring
+her to Him. If my feet be cut and bleeding by the way, I cannot heed
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you be glad to see Rhoda married to Algernon Errington if he were
+to become a religious, earnest man&mdash;such a man as your conscientious
+judgment must approve?" asked Minnie.</p>
+
+<p>And the minute the words had passed her lips she repented having said
+them; they seemed so needlessly cruel; such a ruthless probing of a
+tender, quivering soul. "It was as if the devil had put the words into
+my mouth," said she afterwards to herself.</p>
+
+<p>But Powell answered very quietly, "I have thought of that often. But I
+ask myself such questions no longer. I hold my Father's hand even as a
+little child, and whither that hand leads me I shall go safely. It is
+not for me to tempt the wrath of the Lord by vain surmises and putting a
+case. 'Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You will come back to Whitford, will you not?" asked Minnie.</p>
+
+<p>"If I may. But I know not when. That is not given me to decide. At
+present, I feel my conscience in bonds of obedience to the Society."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we may never meet again in this world!" Minnie, as she said the
+words, was conscious of a strong fellow-feeling for this man, so far
+removed from her in external circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"May God bless you!" he said, almost in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Minnie held out her hand. As he took it lightly in his own for an
+instant, he pointed upward with the other hand, and then turned and went
+away in silence.</p>
+
+<p>When Dr. Bodkin said a word or two to Minnie that evening, as to her
+interview with the "ranting, canting cobbler," she was very reticent and
+brief in her answers. But on her father shrugging his shoulders
+disparagingly and observing, "It is a good thing that this firebrand is
+taking his departure from Whitford. I've been hearing all sorts of
+things about him to-day. It seems the fellow even set the Methodists by
+the ears among themselves," she exclaimed hotly, "I do declare most
+solemnly that this man gives me a more vivid idea of a saint upon
+earth&mdash;a stumbling, striving, suffering saint&mdash;than anything I ever saw
+or read."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Arrived in London, with an influential patron ready to receive him, and
+twenty pounds in his pocket, over and above the sum his mother had
+contrived to spare out of her quarter's income, Algernon Errington
+considered himself to be a very lucky fellow. He had good health, good
+spirits, good looks, and a disposition to make the most of them,
+untrammelled by shyness or scruples.</p>
+
+<p>He did feel a little nervous as he drove, the day after his arrival in
+town, to Lord Seely's house, but by no means painfully so. He was
+undeniably anxious to make a good impression. But his experience, so
+far, led him to assume, almost with certainty, that he should succeed in
+doing so.</p>
+
+<p>The hackney-coach stopped at the door of a grimy-looking mansion in
+Mayfair, but it was a stately mansion withal. In reply to Algernon's
+inquiry whether Lord Seely was at home, a solemn servant said that his
+lordship was at home, but was usually engaged at that hour. "Will you
+carry in my card to him?" said Algernon. "Mr. Ancram Errington."</p>
+
+<p>Algy felt that he had made a false move in coming without any previous
+announcement, and in dismissing his cab, when he was shown into a little
+closet off the hall, lined with dingy books, and containing only two
+hard horsehair chairs, to await the servant's return. There was
+something a little flat and ignominious in this his first appearance in
+the Seely house, waiting like a dun or an errand-boy, with the
+possibility of having to walk out again, without having been admitted to
+the light of my lord's countenance. However, within a reasonable time,
+the solemn footman returned, and asked him to walk upstairs, as my lady
+would receive him, although my lord was for the present engaged.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon followed the man up a softly-carpeted staircase, and through
+one or two handsome drawing-rooms&mdash;a little dim from the narrowness of
+the street and the heaviness of the curtains&mdash;into a small cosy boudoir.
+There was a good fire on the hearth, and in an easy-chair on one side of
+it sat a fat lady, with a fat lap-dog on her knees. The lady, as soon as
+she saw Algernon, waved a jewelled hand to keep him off, and said, in a
+mellow, pleasant voice, which reminded him of his mother's, "How d'ye
+do? Don't shake hands, nor come too near, because Fido don't like it,
+and he bites strangers if he sees them touch me. Sit down."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon had made a very agile backward movement on the announcement of
+Fido's infirmity of temper; but he bowed, smiled, and seated himself at
+a respectful distance opposite to my lady. Lady Seely's appearance
+certainly justified Mrs. Errington's frequent assertion that there was a
+strong family likeness throughout all branches of the Ancram stock, for
+she bore a considerable resemblance to Mrs. Errington herself, and a
+still stronger resemblance to a miniature of Mrs. Errington's
+grandfather, which Algy had often seen. My lady was some ten years older
+than Mrs. Errington. She wore a blonde wig, and was rouged. But her wig
+and her rouge belonged to the candid and ingenuous species of
+embellishment. Each proclaimed aloud, as it were, "I am wig!" "I am
+paint!" with scarcely an attempt at deception.</p>
+
+<p>"So you've come to town," said my lady, fumbling for her eye-glass with
+one hand, while with the other she patted and soothed the growling Fido.
+Having found the eye-glass, she looked steadily through it at Algernon,
+who bore the scrutiny with a good-humoured smile and a little blush,
+which became him very well.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very nice-looking, indeed," said my lady.</p>
+
+<p>Algy could not find a suitable reply to this speech, so he only smiled
+still more, and made a half-jesting little bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see," pursued Lady Seely, still holding her glass to her eyes,
+"what is our exact relationship? You are a relation of mine, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to say I have that honour."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you know much of the family genealogy," said my lady,
+who prided herself on her own accurate knowledge of such matters. "My
+grandfather and your mother's grandfather were brothers. Your mother's
+grandfather was the elder brother. He had a very pretty estate in
+Warwickshire, and squandered it all in less than twelve years. I don't
+suppose your mother's father had a penny to bless himself with when he
+came of age."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay not, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"My grandfather did better. He went to India when he was seventeen, and
+came back when he was seventy, with a pot of money. Ah, if my father
+hadn't been the youngest of five brothers, I should have been a rich
+woman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your ladyship's grandfather was General Cloudesley Ancram, who
+distinguished himself at the siege of Khallaka," said Algernon.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Seely nodded approvingly. "Ah, your mother has taught you that, has
+she?" she said. "And what was your father? Wasn't he an apothecary?"</p>
+
+<p>Algernon's face showed no trace of annoyance, except a little increase
+of colour in his blooming young cheeks, as he answered, "The fact is,
+Lady Seely, that my poor father was an enthusiast about science. He
+would study medicine, instead of going into the Church, and availing
+himself of the family interest. The consequence was, that he died a poor
+M.D. instead of a rich D.D.&mdash;or even, who knows? a bishop!"</p>
+
+<p>"La!" said my lady, shortly. Then, after a minute's pause, she added,
+"Then, I suppose, you're not very rich, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am as poor, ma'am, as my grandfather, Montagu Ancram, of whom your
+ladyship was saying just now that he had not a penny to bless himself
+with when he came of age," returned Algernon, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you seem to take it very easy," said my lady. And once more she
+looked at him through her eye-glass. "And what made you come to town,
+all the way from what-d'ye-call-it? Have you got anything to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;nothing definite, exactly," said Algernon.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm! Quiet, Fido!"</p>
+
+<p>"I ventured to hope that Lord Seely&mdash;that perhaps my lord&mdash;might&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, you mustn't run away with that idea!" exclaimed her ladyship.
+"There ain't the least chance of my lord being able to do anything for
+you. He's torn to pieces by people wanting places, and all sorts of
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to say that I ventured to hope that my lord would kindly
+give me some advice," said Algernon. As he said it his heart was like
+lead. He had not, of course, expected to be at once made Secretary of
+State, or even to pop immediately into a clerkship at the Foreign
+Office. He had put the matter very soberly and moderately before his own
+mind, as he thought. He had told himself that a word of encouragement
+from his high and mighty cousin should be thankfully received, and that
+he would neither be pushing nor impatient, accepting a very small
+beginning cheerfully. But it had never occurred to him to prepare
+himself for an absolute flat refusal of all assistance. My lady's tone
+was one of complete decision. And it was in vain he reflected that my
+lady might be speaking more harshly and decisively than she had any
+warrant for doing, being led to that course by the necessity of
+protecting herself and her husband against importunity. None the less
+was his heart very heavy within him. And he really deserved some credit
+for gallantry in bearing up against the blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Advice!" said my lady, echoing his word. "Oh, well, that ain't so
+difficult. What are you fit for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am scarcely the best judge of that, am I?" returned Algernon,
+with that childlike raising of the eyebrows which gave so winning an
+expression to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not; but what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I&mdash;I believe I could fill the post of secretary, or&mdash;&mdash;What I
+should like," he went on, in a sudden burst of candour, and looking
+deprecatingly at Lady Seely, like a child asking for sugar-plums, "would
+be to get attached to one of our foreign legations."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay! But that's easier said than done. And as to being a
+secretary, it's precious hard work, I can tell you, if you're paid for
+it; and, of course, no post would suit you that didn't pay."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't mind hard work."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't be much of an Ancram if you liked it; I can tell you I
+know that much! Well, and how long do you mean to stay in town?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is quite uncertain."</p>
+
+<p>"You must come and see me again before you go, and be introduced to Lord
+Seely."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, I hope so."</p>
+
+<p>Come and see her again before he went! What would his mother say, what
+would his Whitford friends say, if they could hear that speech?
+Nevertheless, he answered very cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, I hope so!" And interpreting my lady's words as a
+dismissal, rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"You're really uncommonly nice-looking," said Lady Seely, observing his
+straight, slight figure, and his neatly-shod feet as he stood before
+her. "Oh, you needn't look shame-faced about it. It's no merit of yours;
+but it's a great thing, let me tell you, for a young fellow without a
+penny to have an agreeable appearance. How old are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty," said Algernon, anticipating his birthday by two months.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, I think Fido will like you!" said my lady, who observed
+the fact that her favourite had neither barked nor growled when Algernon
+rose from his chair. "I'm sure I hope he will; he is so unpleasant when
+he takes a dislike to people."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon thought so too; but he merely said, "Oh, we shall be great
+friends, I daresay; I always get on with dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but Fido is peculiar. You can't coax him and he gets so much to
+eat that you can't bribe him. If he likes you, he likes you&mdash;<i>voilà
+tout</i>! By-the-way, do you understand French?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; pretty fairly. I like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you? But, as to your accent&mdash;I'm afraid that cannot be much to boast
+of. English provincial French is always so very dreadful."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know," said Algernon, with perfect good humour, for he
+believed himself to be on safe ground here; "but the old Duc de
+Villegagnon, an <i>émigré</i>, who was my master, used to say that I did not
+pronounce the words of my little French songs so badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless the boy! Can you sing French songs? Do sit down, then, at the
+piano, and let me hear one! Never mind Fido." (Her ladyship had set her
+favourite on the floor, and he was sniffing at Algernon's legs.) "He
+don't dislike music, except a brass band. Sit down, now!"</p>
+
+<p>Algernon obeyed, seated himself at the pianoforte, and began to run his
+fingers over the keys. He found the instrument a good deal out of tune;
+but began, after a minute's pause, a forgotten chansonette, from "Le
+Petit Chaperon Rouge." He sang with taste and spirit, though little
+voice; and his French accent proved to be so surprisingly good, as to
+elicit unqualified approbation from Lady Seely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I declare that's charming!" she cried, clapping her hands. "How on
+earth did you pick up all that in&mdash;what's-its-name? Do look here, my
+lord, here's young Ancram come up from that place in the West of
+England, and he can play the piano and sing French songs delightfully!"</p>
+
+<p>Algernon jumped up in a little flurry, and, turning round, found himself
+face to face with his magnificent relative, Lord Seely.</p>
+
+<p>Now it must be owned that "magnificent" was not quite the epithet that
+could justly be applied to Lord Seely's personal appearance. He was a
+small, delicately-made man, with a small, delicately-featured face, and
+sharp, restless dark eyes. His grey hair stood up in two tufts, one
+above each ear, and the top of his head was bald, shining, and
+yellowish, like old ivory. "Eh?" said he. "Oh! Mr.&mdash;a&mdash;a, how d'ye do?"
+Then he shook hands with Algernon, and courteously motioning him to
+resume his seat, threw himself into a chair by the hearth, opposite to
+his wife. He stretched out his short legs to their utmost possible
+length before him, and leant his head back wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired, my lord?" asked his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, a little. Dictating letters is a fatiguing business,
+Mr.&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Errington, my lord; Ancram Errington."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, to be sure! I'm very glad to see you; very glad indeed. Yes, yes;
+Mr. Errington. You are a cousin of my lady's? Of course. Very glad."</p>
+
+<p>And Lord Seely got up and shook hands once more with Algernon, whose
+identity he had evidently only just recognised. But, although tardy, the
+peer's greeting was more than civil, it was kind; and Algernon's
+gratitude was in direct proportion to the chill disappointment he had
+felt at Lady Seely's discouraging words.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," he said, pressing the small thin white hand that was
+proffered to him. And Algy's way of saying "Thank you, sir," was
+admirable, and would have made the fortune of a young actor on the
+stage; for, in saying it, he had sufficient real emotion to make the
+simulated emotion quite touching&mdash;as an actor should have.</p>
+
+<p>My lord sat down again, wearily. "Bush has been with me again about that
+emigration scheme of his," he said to his wife. "Upon my honour, I don't
+know a more trying person than Bush." When he had thus spoken, he cast
+his eyes once more upon Algernon, who said, in the most artless,
+impulsive way in the world, "It's a poor-spirited kind of thing, no
+doubt; but, really, when one sees what a hard time of it statesmen have,
+one can't help feeling sometimes that it is pleasant to be nobody."</p>
+
+<p>Now the word "statesman" applied to Lord Seely was scarcely more correct
+than the word "magnificent" applied to his outer man. The fact was, that
+Lord Seely had been, from his youth upward, ambitious of political
+distinction, and had, indeed, filled a subordinate post in the Cabinet
+some twenty years previous to the day on which Algernon first made his
+acquaintance. But he had been a mere cypher there; and the worst of it
+was, that he had been conscious of being a cypher. He had not strength
+of character or ability to dominate other men, and he had too much
+intelligence to flatter himself that he succeeded, where success had
+eluded his pursuit. Stupider men had done better for themselves in the
+world than Valentine Sackville Strong, Lord Seely, and had gained more
+solid slices of success than he. Perhaps there is nothing more
+detrimental to the achievement of ascendancy over others than that
+intermittent kind of intellect, which is easily blown into a flame by
+vanity, but is as easily cooled down again by the chilly suggestions of
+common sense. The vanity which should be able to maintain itself always
+at white heat would be a triumphant thing. The common sense which never
+flared up to an enthusiastic temperature would be a safe thing. But the
+alternation of the two was felt to be uncomfortable and disconcerting by
+all who had much to do with Lord Seely. He continued, however, to keep
+up a semblance of political life. He had many personal friends in the
+present ministry, and there were one or two men who were rather
+specially hostile to him among the Opposition; of which latter he was
+very proud, liking to speak of his "enemies" in the House. He spoke
+pretty frequently from his place among the peers, but nobody paid him
+any particular attention. And he wrote and printed, at his own expense,
+a considerable number of political pamphlets; but nobody read them.
+That, however, may have been due to the combination against his lordship
+which existed among the writers for the public press, who never, he
+complained, reported his speeches <i>in extenso</i>, and, with few
+exceptions, ignored his pamphlets altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Howbeit, the word "statesman" struck pleasantly upon the little
+nobleman's ear, and he bestowed a more attentive glance on Algernon than
+he had hitherto honoured him with, and asked, in his abrupt tones, like
+a series of muffled barks, "Going to be long in town, Mr. Ancram?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've just been asking him," interposed my lady. "He don't know for
+certain. But&mdash;&mdash;" And here she whispered in her husband's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope so," said the latter aloud. "My lady and I hope that you
+will do us the favour to dine with us to-morrow&mdash;eh? Oh, I beg your
+pardon, Belinda, I thought you said to-morrow!&mdash;on Thursday next. We
+shall probably be alone, but I hope you will not mind that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall take it as a great favour, my lord," said Algernon, whose
+spirits had been steadily rising, ever since the successful performance
+of his French song.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Mr. Ancram&mdash;I mean Mr. Errington&mdash;is a cousin of mine, my
+lord; so he won't expect to be treated with ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon felt as if he could have flown downstairs when, after this most
+gracious speech, he took leave of his august relatives. But he walked
+very soberly instead, down the staircase and past the solemn servants in
+the hall, with as much nonchalance as if he had been accustomed to the
+service of powdered lackeys from his babyhood.</p>
+
+<p>"He seems an intelligent, gentleman-like young fellow," said my lord to
+my lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's as sharp as a weasel, and uncommonly nice-looking. And he
+sings French songs ever so much better than that theatre man that the
+Duchess made such a fuss about. He has the trick of drawing the long
+bow, which all the Warwickshire Ancrams were famous for. Oh, there's no
+doubt about his belonging to the real breed! He told me a
+cock-and-a-bull story about his father's devotion to science. I believe
+his father was a little apothecary in Birmingham. But I don't know that
+that much matters," said my lady to my lord.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Algernon was elated by the success of his song, and by Lady Seely's full
+acknowledgment of his cousinship, and he left the mansion in Mayfair in
+very good spirits, as has been said. But when he got back to his inn&mdash;a
+private hotel in a dingy street behind Oxford Street&mdash;he began to feel a
+recurrence of the disappointment which had oppressed him, when Lady
+Seely had declared so emphatically that my lord could do nothing for
+him, in the way of getting him a place. What was to be done? It was all
+very well for his mother to say that, with his talents and appearance,
+he must and would make his way to a high position; but, just and
+reasonable as it would be that his talents and appearance should give
+him success, he began to fear that they might not altogether avail to do
+so. He thought of Mr. Filthorpe&mdash;that substance, which Mr. Diamond had
+said they were deserting for the shadow of Seely&mdash;and of the thousands
+of pounds which the Bristol merchant possessed. Truly a stool in a
+counting-house was not the post which Algernon coveted. And he candidly
+told himself that he should not be able to fill it effectively. But,
+still, there would have been at least as good a chance of fascinating
+Mr. Filthorpe as of fascinating Lord Seely, and the looked-for result of
+the fascination in either case was to be absolution from the necessity
+of doing any disagreeable work whatever. And, moreover, Mr. Filthorpe,
+at all events, would have supplied board and lodging and a small salary,
+whilst he was undergoing the progress of being fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon looked thoughtful and anxious, for full a quarter of an hour,
+as he pondered these things. But then he fell into a fit of laughter at
+the recollection of Lady Seely and Fido. "There is something very absurd
+about that old woman," said he to himself. "She is so impudent! And why
+wear a wig at all, if a wig is to be such a one as hers? A turban or a
+skull-cap would do just as well to cover her head with. But then they
+wouldn't be half so funny. Fido is something like his mistress&mdash;nearly
+as fat, and with the same style of profile."</p>
+
+<p>Then he set himself to draw a caricature representing Fido, attired
+after the fashion of Lady Seely, and became quite cheerful and buoyant
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>In the interval between the day of his visit to the Seelys and the
+Thursday on which he was to dine with them, Algernon made one or two
+calls, and delivered a couple of letters of introduction, with which his
+Whitford friends had furnished him. One was from Dr. Bodkin to an
+old-fashioned solicitor, who was reputed to be rich, but who lived in a
+very quiet way, in a very quiet square, and gave very quiet little
+dinners to a select few who could appreciate a really fine glass of
+port. The other letter was to a sister of young Mr. Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, married to the chief clerk of the Admiralty, who lived in a
+fashionable neighbourhood, and gave parties as fashionable as her
+visiting-list permitted, and by no means desired any special
+connoisseurship in wine on the part of her guests.</p>
+
+<p>On the occasion of his first calls, Algernon found neither Mr.
+Leadbeater, the solicitor, nor Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs (that was the name of
+young Pawkins's sister) at home. So he left his letters and cards, and
+wandered about the streets in a rather forlorn way; for although it was
+his first visit to London, it was not possible for him to get much
+enjoyment out of the metropolis, all alone. To him every place, even
+London, appeared in the light of a stage or background, whereon that
+supremely interesting personage, himself, might figure to more or less
+advantage. Now London is a big theatre. And although a big theatre full
+of spectators may be very exhilarating to the object of public attention
+who performs in it, a big theatre, practically barren of
+spectators&mdash;for, of course, the only real spectators are the spectators
+who look at <i>us</i>&mdash;is apt to oppress the mind with a sense of desertion.
+So he was very glad when Thursday evening came, and he found himself
+once more within the hall door of Lord Seely's house.</p>
+
+<p>My lord was in the drawing-room alone, standing on the hearth-rug. He
+shook hands very kindly with Algernon, and bade him come near to the
+fire and warm himself, for the evening was cold.</p>
+
+<p>"And what have you been doing with yourself, Mr. Errington?" asked Lord
+Seely.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been chiefly employed to-day in losing myself and asking my
+way," answered Algernon, laughing. And then he began an account of his
+adventures, and absolutely surprised himself by the amount of fun and
+sparkle he contrived to elicit from the narration of circumstances which
+had been in fact dull and commonplace enough.</p>
+
+<p>My lord was greatly amused, and once even laughed out loud at Algernon's
+imitation of an Irish apple-woman, who had misdirected him with the best
+intentions, and much calling down of blessings on his handsome face, in
+return for a silver sixpence.</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" said my lord, nodding his head up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"The sixpence was badly invested, though," observed Algernon, "for she
+sent me about three miles out of my way."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but the blarney! You forget the blessing and the blarney. Surely
+they were worth the money, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my lord; not to me. I can't afford expensive luxuries."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Seely, when she entered the room, gorgeous in pea-green satin,
+which singularly set off the somewhat pronounced tone of her rouge,
+found Algy and my lord laughing together very merrily, and, as she gave
+her hand to her young relative, demanded to be informed what the joke
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Now it has been said that Algernon was possessed of wonderfully rapid
+powers of perception, and by sundry signs, so slight that they would
+have entirely escaped most observers, this clever young gentleman
+perceived that my lady was not altogether delighted at finding her
+husband and himself on such easy and pleasant terms together. In fact,
+my lady, with all her blunt careless jollity of manner and pleasant
+mellow voice, was apt to be both jealous and suspicious. She was jealous
+of her ascendancy over Lord Seely, who was said by the ill-natured to be
+completely under his wife's thumb, and she was suspicious of most
+strangers&mdash;especially of strangers who might be expected to want
+anything of his lordship. And she usually assumed that such persons
+would endeavour to "come over" that nobleman, when he was apart from his
+wife's protecting influence. She had a general theory that "men might be
+humbugged into anything;" and a particular experience that Lord Seely,
+despite his stiff carriage and abrupt manner, was in truth far
+softer-natured than she was herself.</p>
+
+<p>"That young scamp has been coming over Valentine with his jokes and his
+flummery," said my lady to herself. "He's an Ancram, every inch of him."</p>
+
+<p>At that very moment Algernon was mentally declaring that the conquest of
+my lady would, after all, be a more difficult matter than that of my
+lord; but that, by some means or other, the conquest must be made, if
+any good was to come to him from the Seely connection. And a stream of
+easy chat flowed over these underlying intentions and hid them, except
+that here and there, perhaps, a bubble or an eddy told of rough places
+out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>After some ten minutes of desultory talk, my lady was obliged to own to
+herself that the "young scamp" had a wonderfully good manner. Without a
+trace of servility, he was respectful; conveying, with perfect tact,
+exactly the sort of homage that was graceful and becoming from a youth
+like himself to persons of the Seelys' age and position. Neither did he
+commit the error of becoming familiar, in response to Lady Seely's tone
+of familiarity, a pitfall which had before now entrapped the unwary. For
+my lady, whom Nature had created vulgar&mdash;having possibly, in the hurry
+of business, mistaken one kind of clay for another, and put some low
+person's mind into the fine porcelain of an undoubted Ancram&mdash;was fond
+of asserting her position in the world by a rough unceremoniousness in
+the first place, and a very wide-eyed arrogance in the second place, if
+such unceremoniousness chanced to be reciprocated by unauthorised
+persons.</p>
+
+<p>"Do we wait for any one, Belinda?" asked Lord Seely.</p>
+
+<p>"The Dormers are coming. They're such great musicians, you know. And I
+want Lady Harriet to hear this boy sing. And then there may be Jack
+Price, very likely."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely?" said my lord, raising his eyebrows and stiffening his
+back. "Doesn't Mr. Price do us the honour of saying positively whether
+he will come or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know what Jack Price is. He says he'll come, and nine times out
+of ten he don't come; and then the tenth time he comes, and people have
+to put up with him."</p>
+
+<p>My lord cleared his throat significantly, as who should say that he, at
+all events, did not feel inclined to put up with this system of tithes
+in the fulfilment of Mr. Jack Price's promises.</p>
+
+<p>"If he comes," said Lady Seely, addressing Algernon, "you'll have to
+walk into dinner by yourself. I've only got one young lady; and, if Jack
+comes, he must have her."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Castalia?" asked my lord.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose she's dressing. Castalia is always the slowest creature
+at her toilet I ever knew."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon had read up the family genealogy in the "Peerage," under his
+mother's instructions, sufficiently to be aware that Lord and Lady Seely
+were childless, having lost their only son in a boating accident years
+ago. "Castalia," then, could not be a daughter of the house. Who was
+she? A young lady who was evidently at present living with the Seelys,
+whom they called by her Christian name, and who was habitually a long
+time at her toilet! Algernon felt a little agreeable excitement and
+curiosity on the subject of the tardy Castalia.</p>
+
+<p>The door was thrown open. "Here she comes!" thought Algernon, settling
+his cravat as he threw a quick side glance at a mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"General and Lady Harriet Dormer," announced the servant.</p>
+
+<p>There entered a tall, elegant woman, leaning on the arm of a short,
+stout, benevolent-looking man in spectacles. To these personages
+Algernon was duly presented, being introduced, much to his
+gratification, by Lady Seely, as "A young cousin of mine, Mr. Ancram
+Errington, who has just come to town." Then, having made his bow to
+General Dormer, who smiled and shook hands with him, Algernon stood
+opposite to the graceful Lady Harriet, and was talked to very kindly and
+pleasantly, and felt extremely content with himself and his
+surroundings. Nevertheless he watched with some impatience for the
+appearance of "Castalia;" and forgot his usual self-possession so far as
+to turn his head, and break off in the middle of a sentence he was
+uttering to Lady Harriet, when he heard the door open again. But once
+more he was disappointed; for, this time, dinner was announced, and Lord
+Seely offered his arm to Lady Harriet and led the way out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"No Jack," said Lady Seely, as she passed out before Algernon. "And no
+Castalia!" said my lord over his shoulder, in a tone of vexation.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon followed his seniors alone; but just as he got out on to the
+staircase there appeared a lady, leisurely descending from an upper
+floor, at whom Lord Seely looked up reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Late, late, Castalia!" said he, and shook his head solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, Uncle Valentine; just in time," replied the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Castalia, take Ancram's arm, and do let us get to dinner before the
+soup is cold," said Lady Seely. "Give your arm to Miss Kilfinane, and
+come along." And her ladyship's pea-green satin swept downstairs after
+Lady Harriet's sober purple draperies. Algernon bowed, and offered his
+arm to the lady beside him; she placed her hand on it almost without
+looking at him, and they entered the dining-room without having
+exchanged a word.</p>
+
+<p>The dining-room was better lighted than the staircase, and Algernon took
+an early opportunity of looking at his companion. She was not very
+young, being, in fact, nearly thirty, but looking older. Neither was she
+handsome. She was very thin, sallow, and sickly-looking, with a small
+round face, not wrinkled, but crumpled, as it were, into queer, fretful
+lines. Her eyes were bright and well-shaped, but deeply sunken, and she
+had a great deal of thick, pale-brown hair, worn in huge bows and
+festoons on the top of her head, according to the extreme of the mode of
+that day. Her dress displayed more than it was judicious to display, in
+an æsthetic point of view, of very lean shoulders, and was of a bright,
+soft, pink hue, that would have been trying to the most blooming
+complexion. Altogether, the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane's appearance
+was disappointing, and her manner was not so attractive as to make up
+for lack of beauty. Her face expressed a mixture of querulousness and
+hauteur, and she spoke in a languid drawl, with strange peevish
+inflections.</p>
+
+<p>"You and I ought to be some sort of relations to each other, oughtn't
+we?" said Algernon, having taken in all the above particulars in a
+series of rapid observations.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" returned the lady, without raising her eyes from her soup-plate.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are Lady Seely's niece and I am her cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Who says that I am Lady Seely's niece?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," stammered Algernon&mdash;"I fancied&mdash;you called Lord Seely
+'Uncle Valentine?'"</p>
+
+<p>Even his equanimity, and a certain glow of complacency he felt at
+finding himself where he was, were a little disturbed by Miss
+Castalia's freezing manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Lord Seely's niece," returned she.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a little pause, having finished her soup, she leaned back in
+her chair and stared at Algernon, who pretended&mdash;not quite
+successfully&mdash;to be unconscious of her scrutiny. Apparently, the result
+of it was favourable to Algernon; for the lady's manner thawed
+perceptibly, and she began to talk to him. She had evidently heard of
+him from Lady Seely, and understood the exact degree of his relationship
+to that great lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever meet the Dormers before?" asked Miss Kilfinane.</p>
+
+<p>"Never. How should I? You know I am the merest country mouse. I never
+was in London in my life, until last Friday."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but the Dormers don't live in town. Indeed, they are here very
+seldom. You might have met them; their place is in the West of England."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon, after a rapid balancing of pros and cons, resolved to be
+absolutely candid. With his brightest smile and most arched eyebrows, he
+began to give Miss Kilfinane an almost unvarnished description of his
+life at Whitford. Almost unvarnished; but it is no more easy to tell the
+simple truth only occasionally, than it is to stand quite upright only
+occasionally. Mind and muscles will fall back to their habitual
+posture. So that it may be doubted whether Miss Kilfinane received an
+accurate notion of the precise degree of poverty and obscurity in which
+the young man who was speaking to her had hitherto lived.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said she, "you have come to London to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To seek my fortune," said Algernon merrily. "It is the proper and
+correct beginning to a story. And I think I have had a piece of good
+luck at the very outset by way of a good omen."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Kilfinane opened her eyes interrogatively, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was a piece of luck for me," continued Algernon, emboldened
+by having secured the scornful lady's attention, and perhaps a little
+also by the wine he had drunk, "a great piece of good luck that Mr. Jack
+Price, whoever he may be, did not turn up this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if he had, I should not have been allowed the honour of
+bringing you in to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! I should have had to go in with Jack, I suppose," answered the
+lady with a little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Miss Kilfinane, who is Jack Price? I do so want to know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Price is Lord Mullingar's son."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is he? And why do people want to have him so much, that they
+put up with his disappointing them nine times out of ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"As to what he is&mdash;well, he was in the Guards, and he gave that up. Then
+they got him a place somewhere&mdash;in Africa, or South America, or
+somewhere&mdash;and he gave that up. Then he got the notion that he would be
+a farmer in Canada, and went out with an axe to cut down the trees, and
+a plough to plough the ground afterwards, and he gave that up. Now he
+does nothing particular."</p>
+
+<p>"And has he found his vocation at last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, I'm sure," said Miss Kilfinane, languidly. Her power of
+perceiving a joke was very limited.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. Now I know all about Mr. Price; except&mdash;except why everybody
+wants to invite him."</p>
+
+<p>"That I really cannot tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you don't share the general enthusiasm about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that there is any general enthusiasm. Only, of
+course&mdash;don't you know how it is?&mdash;people have got into the way of
+putting up with him, and letting him do as he likes."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a very fortunate young man, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"Young man!" Miss Kilfinane laughed a hard little laugh. "Why Jack
+Price is ever so old!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ever so old, is he?" echoed Algernon, genuinely surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be turned forty," said the fair Castalia, rising in obedience
+to a look from Lady Seely. And if she had been but fifteen herself, she
+could not have said it with a more infantine air.</p>
+
+<p>After the ladies had withdrawn, Algernon had to sit for about twenty
+minutes in the shade, as it were, silent, and listening with modesty and
+discretion to the conversation of his seniors. Had they talked politics,
+Algernon would have been able to throw in a word or two; but Lord Seely
+and his guest talked, not of principles or party, but of persons. The
+persons talked of were such as Lord Seely conceived to be useful or
+hostile to his party, and he discussed their conduct, and criticised the
+tactics of ministers in regard to them, with much warmth. But,
+unfortunately, Algernon neither knew, nor could pretend to know,
+anything about these individuals, so he sipped his wine, and looked at
+the family portraits which hung round the room, in silence.</p>
+
+<p>My lord made a kind of apology to him, as they were going upstairs to
+the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you were bored, Mr. Errington. I am sorry, for your sake,
+that Mr. Price did not honour us with his company. You would have found
+him much more amusing than us old fogies."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon knew, when Lord Seely talked of Mr. Price not having honoured
+them with his company, that my lord was indignant against that
+gentleman. "I have no doubt Mr. Price is a very agreeable person," said
+he, "but I did not regret him, my lord. I thought it a great privilege
+to be allowed to listen to you."</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening Algy overheard Lord Seely say to General Dormer,
+"He's a remarkably intelligent young fellow, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"He has a capital manner," returned the general. "There is something
+very taking about him, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, manner; yes; a very good manner&mdash;but there's more judgment,
+more solidity about him than appears on the surface."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Algernon went on flourishingly, and ingratiated himself with
+every one. He steered his way, with admirable tact, past various perils,
+such as must inevitably threaten one who aims at universal popularity.
+Lady Harriet was delighted with his singing, and Lady Harriet's
+expressed approbation pleased Lady Seely; for the Dormers were
+considered to be great musical connoisseurs, and their judgment had
+considerable weight among their own set. Their own set further supposed
+that the verdict of the Dormers was important to professional artists: a
+delusion which the givers of second-rate concerts, who depended on Lady
+Harriet to get rid of many seven-and-sixpenny tickets during the season,
+were at no pains to disturb. Then, Algernon took the precaution to keep
+away from Lord Seely, and to devote himself to my lady, during the
+remainder of the evening. This behaviour had so good an effect, that she
+called him "Ancram," and bade him go and talk to Castalia, who was
+sitting alone on a distant ottoman, with a distinctly sour expression of
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get on with Castalia at dinner?" asked my lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kilfinane was very kind to me, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Was she? Well, she don't make herself agreeable to everybody, so
+consider yourself honoured. Castalia's a very clever girl. She can draw,
+make wax flowers, and play the piano beautifully."</p>
+
+<p>"Can she really? Will she play to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know. Go and ask her."</p>
+
+<p>"May I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; be off."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Kilfinane did not move or raise her eyes when Algernon went and
+stood before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come with a petition," he said, after a little pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; will you play to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's very cruel! I wish you would!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like playing before the Dormers. They set up for being such
+connoisseurs, and I hate that kind of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you can have no reason to fear their criticism."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to have my performance picked to pieces in that knowing
+sort of way. I play for my own amusement, and I don't want to be
+criticised, and applauded, and patronised."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can people help applauding when you play? Lady Seely says you
+play exquisitely."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she tell you to ask me to play?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. But she said I might ask you."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment General Dormer came up, and said, with his most
+benevolent smile, "Won't you give us a little music, Miss Kilfinane?
+Some Beethoven, now! I see a volume of his sonatas on the piano."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate Beethoven," returned Miss Kilfinane.</p>
+
+<p>"Hate Beethoven! No, no, you don't. It's quite impossible! A pianist
+like you! Oh no, Miss Kilfinane, it is out of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. I hate all classical music, and the sort of stuff that
+people talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>The general smiled again, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and
+walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kilfinane, you are ferociously cruel!" said Algernon under his
+breath as General Dormer turned his back on them. The little fear he had
+had of Castalia's chilly manner and ungracious tongue had quite
+vanished. Algernon was not apt to be in awe of anyone; and he certainly
+was not in awe of Castalia Kilfinane. "Why did you tell the general that
+you hated Beethoven?" he went on saucily. "I'm quite sure you don't hate
+Beethoven!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hate all the kind of professional jargon which the Dormers affect
+about music. Music is all very well, but it isn't our business, any more
+than tailoring or millinery is our business. To hear the Dormers talk,
+you would think it the most important matter in the world to decide
+whether this fiddler is better than that fiddler, or what is the right
+time to play a fugue of Bach's in."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm such an ignoramus that I'm afraid I don't even know with any
+precision what a fugue of Bach's is!" said Algernon, ingenuously. He
+thought he had learned to understand Miss Castalia. Nevertheless, when,
+later in the evening, Lady Harriet asked him in her pretty silver tones,
+"And do you, too, hate classical music, Mr. Errington?" he professed the
+most unbounded love and reverence for the great masters. "I have had few
+opportunities of hearing fine music, Lady Harriet," said he; "but it is
+the thing I have longed for all my life." Whereupon Lady Harriet, much
+pleased at the prospect of such a disciple, invited him to go to her
+house every Saturday morning, when he would hear some of the best
+performers in London execute some of the best music. "I only ask real
+listeners," said Lady Harriet. "We are just a few music-lovers who take
+the thing very much <i>au sérieux</i>."</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, when Algernon thought over his evening, sitting over the
+fire in his bedroom at the inn, he acknowledged to himself that he had
+been successful. "Lady Seely is the toughest customer, though! What a
+fish-wife she looks beside that elegant Lady Harriet! But she can put on
+airs of a great lady too, when she likes. It's a very fine line that
+divides dignity from impudence. Take her wig off, wash her face, and
+clothe her in a short cotton gown with a white apron, and how many
+people would know that Belinda, Lady Seely, had ever been anything but a
+cook, or the landlady of a public-house? Well, I think I am cleverer
+than any of 'em. And, after all, that's a great point." With which
+comfortable reflection Algernon Ancram Errington went to bed, and to
+sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>On the day following the dinner at Lord Seely's, Algernon received a
+card, importing that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be at home that evening.</p>
+
+<p>Of the lady he knew nothing, except that she was an elder sister of
+young Pawkins, of Pudcombe Hall; and that her family, who were people of
+consideration in Whitford and its neighbourhood, thought Jemima to have
+made a good match in marrying Mr. Machyn-Stubbs. In giving him the
+letter of introduction, Orlando Pawkins had let fall a word or two as to
+the position his sister held in London society.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't send anybody and everybody to the Machyn-Stubbses," said young
+Pawkins. "In their position, it wouldn't be fair to inflict our bucolic
+magnates on them. But I'm sure Jemima will be very glad to make your
+acquaintance, old fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon was quite free from arrogance. He would have been well enough
+contented to dine with Mr. Machyn-Stubbs, had that gentleman been a
+grocer or a cheesemonger. And, in that case, he would probably have
+derived a good deal of amusement from any little vulgarities which might
+have marked the manners of his host, and would have entertained his
+genteeler friends by a humorous imitation of the same. But he was not in
+the least overawed by the prospect of meeting Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, and
+was quite aware that he probably owed his introduction to her, to young
+Pawkins's knowledge of the fact that he was Lady Seely's relation.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon betook himself to the house of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, in the
+fashionable neighbourhood before mentioned, about half-past ten o'clock,
+and found the small reception-rooms already fuller than was agreeable.
+Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs received him very graciously. She was a pretty woman,
+with a smooth fair face and light hair, and she was dressed with as much
+good taste as was compatible with the extreme of the prevailing fashion.
+She smiled a good deal, and was quite destitute of any sense of humour.</p>
+
+<p>"So glad to see you, Mr. Errington," said she, when Algernon had made
+his bow. "You and Orlando are great friends, are you not? You must let
+me make you acquainted with my husband." Then she handed Algernon over
+to a stout, red-faced, white-haired gentleman, much older than herself,
+who shook hands with him, said, "How d'ye do?" and "How long have you
+been in town?" and then appeared to consider that he had done all that
+could be expected of him in the way of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you don't know many people here, Mr. Errington?" said Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs, seeing that Algernon was standing silent in the shadow of
+her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Not any. You know I have never been in London before."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you, really? But perhaps we may have some mutual acquaintances
+notwithstanding. Let me see who is here!" said the lady, looking round
+her rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you acquainted with the Dormers, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Dormers? Let me see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"General and Lady Harriet Dormer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! no; I don't think I am. Of course I must have met them. In the
+course of the season, sooner or later, one meets everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Miss Kilfinane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kilfinane? I&mdash;I can't recall at this moment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is a sort of connection of mine; not a relation, for she is Lord
+Seely's niece, not my lady's."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, to be sure! You are a cousin of Lady Seely. Yes, yes; I had
+forgotten. But Orlando did mention it."</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the fact of Algernon's relationship to Lady Seely was the only
+one concerning him which had dwelt in Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's memory.
+Presently she resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to introduce you to a great friend of ours&mdash;the most
+delightful creature! I hope he will come to-night, but he is very
+difficult to catch. He is a son of Lord Mullingar."</p>
+
+<p>"What, Jack Price?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know him, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only by reputation. He was to have dined at Lord Seely's last night,
+when I was there. But he didn't show."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know he's dreadfully uncertain. But I must say, however, that he
+is generally very good about coming to me. It's quite wonderful. I'm
+sure I don't know why I am so favoured!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Algernon was presented to a rather awful dowager, with two stiff
+daughters, to whom he talked as well as he could; and the nicest looking
+of whom he took into the tea-room, where there was a great crush, and
+where people trod on each other's toes, and poked their elbows into
+each other's ribs, to procure a cup of hay-coloured tea and a biscuit
+that had seen better days.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," thought Algernon, "if this is London society, I think
+Whitford society better fun." But then he reflected that Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs was not a real leader of fashionable society. She was not
+quite a rose herself, although she lived near enough to the roses for
+their scent to cling, more or less faintly, about her garments. He was
+not bored, for his quick powers of perception, and lively appreciation
+of the ludicrous, enabled him to gather considerable amusement from the
+scene. Especially did he feel amused and in his element when, on an
+allusion to his cousinship to Lady Seely, thrown out in the airiest,
+most haphazard way, the awful dowager and the stiff daughters unbent,
+and became as gracious as temperament in the one case, and painfully
+tight stays in the other, permitted.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a very agreeable person, your young friend, Mr. Ancram Errington,"
+said the dowager, later on in the evening, to Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes; he's very nice indeed. He is a great favourite with my people.
+He half lives at our place, I believe, when Orlando is at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! He is&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;connected with the Seelys, I believe, in some
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Second cousin. Lady Seely was an Ancram&mdash;Warwickshire Ancrams, you
+know," returned Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, who knew her "Peerage" nearly by
+heart. Whereupon the dowager went back to her daughter, by whose side,
+having nothing else to do, Algernon was still sitting, and told him that
+she should be happy to see him at her house in Portland Place any Friday
+afternoon, between four and six o'clock during the season.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when the company was giving forth a greater amount and louder
+degree of talk than had hitherto been the case&mdash;for Herr Doppeldaun had
+just sat down to the grand piano&mdash;Algernon's quick eyes perceived a
+movement near the door of the principal drawing-room, and saw Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs advance with extended hand, and more eagerness than she
+had thrown into her reception of most of the company, to greet a
+gentleman who entered with a kind of plunge, tripping over a bearskin
+rug that lay before the door, and dropping his hat.</p>
+
+<p>He was a short, broad-chested man, with a bald forehead and a fringe of
+curly chestnut hair round his head. He was evidently extremely
+near-sighted, and wore a glass in one eye, the effort of keeping which
+in its place occasioned an odd contortion of his facial muscles. He was
+rubicund, and looked like a man who might grow to be very stout later in
+life. At present he was only rather stout, and was braced, and
+strapped, and tightened, so as to make the best of his figure. His dress
+was the dress of a dandy of that day, and he wore a fragrant hothouse
+flower in his button-hole.</p>
+
+<p>"That must be Jack Price!" thought Algernon, he scarcely knew why; and
+the next moment he got away from the dowager and her daughters, and
+sauntered towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, here is Mr. Errington," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, looking round at
+him as he made his way through the crowd. "Do let me introduce you to
+Mr. Price. This is Mr. Ancram Errington, a great friend of my brother
+Orlando. You have met Orlando, I think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, I have!" said Mr. Jack Price, in a rich sweet voice, and
+with a very decidedly marked brogue. "Orlando is one of my dearest
+friends. Delightful fellow, what? Orlando's friend must be my friend, if
+he will, what?"</p>
+
+<p>The little interrogation at the end of the sentence meant nothing, but
+was a mere trick. The use of it, with a soft rising inflection of Mr.
+Jack Price's very musical voice, had once upon a time been pronounced to
+be "captivating" by an enthusiastic Irish lady. But he had not fallen
+into the habit of using it from any idea that it was captivating, nor
+had he desisted from it since all projects of captivation had departed
+from his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I was to have met you at dinner, last night, Mr. Price," said Algernon,
+shaking his proffered hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night? I was&mdash;where is it I was last night? Oh, at the
+Blazonvilles! Yes, of course, what? Why didn't you come, then, Mr.
+Errington? The Duke would have been delighted&mdash;perfectly charmed to see
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that may be doubtful, seeing that I cannot flatter myself that
+his Grace is even aware of my existence," said Algernon, looking at Mr.
+Price with twinkling eyes, and his mouth twitching with the effort to
+avoid a broad grin.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Price looked back at him, puzzled and smiling. "Eh? How was it
+then, what? Was it&mdash;it wasn't me, was it?"</p>
+
+<p>Algernon laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah now, Mr.&mdash;Mr.&mdash;my dear fellow, where was it that you were to have
+met me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, Lady Seely, was hoping for the pleasure of your company, Mr.
+Price. She was under the impression that you had promised to dine with
+her."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Price fell back a step and gave himself a sounding slap on the
+forehead. "Good gracious goodness!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to say
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now, upon my honour, I am the most unfortunate fellow under the
+sun! I don't know how the deuce it is that these kind of misfortunes are
+always happening to me. What will I say to Lady Seely? She'll never
+speak to me any more, I suppose, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"You should keep a little book and note down your engagements, Mr.
+Price," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, as she walked away to some other guest.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Price gave Algernon a comical look, half-rueful, half-amused. "I
+don't quite see myself with the little book, entering all my
+engagements," said he. "I daresay you've heard already from Lady Seely
+of my sins and shortcomings?"</p>
+
+<p>"At all events, I have heard this: that whatever may be your sins and
+shortcomings, they are always forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I bear an awfully bad character, my dear Mr.&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Errington; Ancram Errington."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure! Ah, I know your name well enough. But names are among the
+things that slip my memory. It is a serious misfortune, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Then the two began to chat together. And when the crowd began to
+diminish, and the rattle of carriages grew more frequent down in the
+street beneath the drawing-room windows, Jack Price proposed to
+Algernon to go and sup with him at his club. They walked away together,
+arm-in-arm, and, as they left Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's doorstep, Mr. Price
+assured his new acquaintance that that lady was the nicest creature in
+the world, and one of his dearest friends; and that he could take upon
+himself to assert that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be only too delighted to
+receive him (Algernon) at any time and as often as he liked. "It will
+give her real pleasure, now, what?" said Jack Price, with quite a glow
+of hospitality on behalf of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs. Then they went to Mr.
+Price's club. It was neither a political club, nor a fashionable club,
+nor a grand club; but a club that was widely miscellaneous, and
+decidedly jolly. Algernon, before he returned to his lodging that night,
+had come to the opinion that London was, after all, a great deal better
+fun than Whitford. And Jack Price, when he called upon Lady Seely the
+next day, to make his peace with her, declared that young Errington was,
+really now, the most delightful and dearest boy in the world, and that
+he was quite certain that the young fellow was most warmly attached to
+Lord and Lady Seely.</p>
+
+<p>All this was agreeable enough, and Algernon would have been content to
+go on in the same way to the end of the London season had it been
+possible. But careless as he was about money, he was not careless about
+the luxuries which money supplies. Certainly, if tradesmen and landlords
+could only be induced to give unlimited credit, Algernon would have had
+none the less pleasure in availing himself of their wares, because he
+had not paid for them in coin of the realm. But as to doing without, or
+even limiting himself to an inferior quality and restricted quantity,
+that was a matter about which he was not at all indifferent. He was
+received on a familiar footing in the Seelys' house; and his reception
+there opened to him many other houses, in which it was more or less
+agreeable and flattering to be received. Among the Machyn-Stubbses of
+London society he was looked upon as quite a desirable guest, and
+received a good deal of petting, which he took with the best grace in
+the world. And all this was, as has been said, pleasant enough. But, as
+weeks went on, Algernon's money began to run short; and he soon beheld
+the dismal prospect ahead&mdash;and not very far ahead&mdash;of his last
+sovereign. And he was in debt.</p>
+
+<p>As to being in debt, that had nothing in it appalling to our young man's
+imagination. What frightened him was the conviction that he should not
+be permitted to go on being in debt. Other people owed money, and seemed
+to enjoy life none the less. Mr. Jack Price, for instance, had an
+allowance from his father, on which no one pretended to expect him to
+live. And he appeared very comfortable and contented in the midst of a
+rolling sea of debt, which sometimes ebbed a little, and sometimes
+flowed alarmingly high; but which, during the last ten years or so, he
+had managed to keep pretty fairly at the same level. But then Mr. Price
+was the Honourable John Patrick Price, the Earl of Mullingar's son&mdash;a
+younger son, it was true; and neither Lord Mullingar, nor Lord
+Mullingar's heir, was likely to have the means, or the inclination, to
+fish him out of the rolling sea aforesaid. At the most, they would throw
+him a plank now and then just to keep him afloat. Still there was
+something to be got out of Jack Price by a West-end tradesman who knew
+his business. Something was to be got in the way of money, and, perhaps,
+something more in the way of connection. Upon the whole, it may be
+supposed that the West-end tradesmen understood what they were about,
+when they went on supplying the Honourable John Patrick Price with all
+sorts of comforts and luxuries, season after season.</p>
+
+<p>But with Algernon the case was widely different, and he knew it. He had
+ventured to speak to Lord Seely about his prospects, and to ask that
+nobleman's "advice." But Lord Seely had not seemed able to offer any
+advice which it was practicable to follow. Indeed, how should he have
+done so, seeing that he was ignorant of most of the material facts of
+the case? He knew in a general way that young Ancram (Algernon had come
+to be called so in the Seely household) was poor; but between Lord
+Seely's conception of the sort of poverty which might pinch a well-born
+young gentleman, who always appeared in the neatest-fitting shoes and
+freshest of gloves, and the reality of Algernon's finances, there was a
+wide discrepancy. Algernon had indeed talked freely, and with much
+appearance of frankness, about his life in Whitford; but it may be
+doubted whether Lord Seely, or his wife either&mdash;although she, doubtless,
+came nearer to the truth in her imaginings on the subject&mdash;at all
+realised such facts as that Mrs. Errington had no maid to attend on her;
+that her lodgings cost her eighteen shillings a week; and that the smell
+of cheese from the shop below was occasionally a source of discomfort in
+her only sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>With Lord Seely Algernon had made himself a great favourite, and the
+proof of it was, that my lord actually thought about him when he was
+absent; and one day said to his wife, "I wish, Belinda, that we could do
+something for Ancram."</p>
+
+<p>"Do something for him! I think we do a great deal for him. He has the
+run of the house, and I introduce him right and left. And he is always
+asked to sing when we have people."</p>
+
+<p>"That latter looks rather like his doing something for us, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. It's a great advantage for a young fellow in his position
+to be brought forward, and allowed to show off his little gifts in that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"He is wasting his time. I wish we could get him something to do."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you have plenty of claims on you that come before him."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I did speak to the Duke of Blazonville about him the other day,"
+said my lord, with the slightest hesitation in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Blazonville was in the cabinet, and had been a colleague of
+Lord Seely's years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth made you do that, Valentine? You know very well that the
+next thing the duke has to give I particularly want for Reginald."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but what I should ask for young Ancram would be something at which
+your nephew Reginald would probably&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Turn up his nose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something which Reginald would not care about taking."</p>
+
+<p>"Reginald wouldn't go abroad, except to Italy. Nor, indeed, anywhere in
+Italy but to Naples."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. Whether the duke would consider that he was particularly
+serving the interests of diplomacy by sending Reginald to Naples, I
+don't know. But, at all events, Ancram could not interfere with that
+project."</p>
+
+<p>"Serving&mdash;&mdash;? Nonsense! The duke would do it to oblige me. As to Ancram,
+I have latterly had a kind of plan in my head about Ancram."</p>
+
+<p>"About a place for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes; a place, if you like to call it so. What do you say to his
+coming abroad with us in the autumn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh! Coming abroad with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we should have to pay all his expenses. But I think he would
+be amusing, and perhaps useful. He talks French very well, and is lively
+and good-tempered."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no doubt he would be a most charming travelling companion&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that. But I should take him out of kindness, and to
+do him a service."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't see of what use such a plan would be to him, Belinda."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've an idea in my head, I tell you. I have kept my eyes open,
+and I fancy I see a chance for Ancram."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very mysterious, my dear!" said Lord Seely, with a little
+shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, least said, soonest mended. I shall be mysterious a little
+longer. And, meanwhile, I think we might make him the offer to take him
+to Switzerland with us, since you have no objection."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no objection, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall mention it to him, then. And, if I were you, I wouldn't
+bother the duke about him just yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is this notion of yours, Belinda?"</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation rose to my lady's lips, "How inquisitive men are!" but
+she suppressed it. It was the kind of speech which particularly angered
+Lord Seely, who much disliked being lumped in with his fellow-creatures
+on the ground of common qualities. Even a compliment, so framed that my
+lord was supposed to share it with a number of other persons, would have
+displeased him. So my lady said, "Well, now, Valentine, you'll begin to
+laugh at me, very likely, but I believe I'm right. I think Castalia is
+very well inclined to like this young fellow. And she might do worse."</p>
+
+<p>"Castalia! Like him? Why, you don't mean&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," returned my lady, nodding her head. "That's just what I do
+mean. I'm sure, the other evening, she became quite sentimental about
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, Belinda! But the idea is preposterous."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I knew you'd say so at first. That's why I didn't want to say
+anything about it just yet awhile."</p>
+
+<p>"But allow me to say that, if you had any such idea in your head, it was
+only proper that it should be mentioned to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have mentioned it."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Seely clasped his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the
+room in a stiff, abrupt kind of march. At length he stopped opposite to
+her ladyship, who was assiduously soothing Fido; Fido having, for some
+occult reason, become violently exasperated by his master's walking
+about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, in the first place&mdash;&mdash;do send that brute away," said his lordship,
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"There! he's quiet now. Good Fido! Good boy! Mustn't bark and growl at
+master. Yes; you were saying&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying that, in the first place, Castalia must be ten years older
+than this boy."</p>
+
+<p>"About that, I should say. But if they don't mind that, I don't see what
+it matters to us."</p>
+
+<p>"And he has not any means, nor any prospect of earning any, that I can
+see."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for that matter, Castalia hasn't a shilling in the world, you
+know. We have to find her in everything, and so has your sister Julia,
+when Castalia goes to stay with her. And if these two could set their
+horses together&mdash;could, in a word, make a match of it&mdash;why, you might do
+something to provide for the two together, don't you see? Killing two
+birds with one stone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much like killing two birds, indeed! What are they to live on?"</p>
+
+<p>"If Ancram makes up to Castalia, you must get him a place. Something
+modest, of course. I don't see that they can either of them expect a
+grand thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Putting all other considerations aside," said my lord, drawing himself
+up, "it would be a very odd sort of match for Castalia Kilfinane."</p>
+
+<p>"Come! his birth is as good as hers, any way. If his father was an
+apothecary, her mother was a poor curate's daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Rector's daughter, Belinda. Dr. Vyse was a learned man, and the rector
+of his parish."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, it all comes to the same thing. And as to an odd sort of
+match, why, perhaps, an odd match is better than none at all. You know
+Castalia's no beauty. She don't grow younger; and she'll be unbearable
+in her temper, if once she thinks she's booked for an old maid."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Lord Seely was much disquieted. He had a kindly feeling for his
+orphan niece, which would have ripened into affection if Miss Castalia's
+character had been a little less repellent. And he really liked Algernon
+Errington so much that the notion of his marrying Castalia appeared to
+him in the light of a sacrifice, even although he held his own opinion
+as to the comparative goodness of the Ancram and Kilfinane blood. But,
+nevertheless, such was Lady Seely's force of character, that many days
+had not elapsed before his lordship was silenced, if not convinced, on
+the subject. And the invitation to go to Switzerland was given to
+Algernon, and accepted.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As the spring advanced, letters from Algernon Errington arrived rather
+frequently at Whitford. His mother had ample scope for the exercise of
+her peculiar talent, in boasting about the reception Algy had met with
+from her great relations in town, the fine society he frequented, and
+the prospect of still greater distinctions in store for him. One or two
+troublesome persons, to be sure, would ask for details, and inquire
+whether Lord Seely meant to get Algy a place, and what tangible benefits
+he had it in contemplation to bestow on him. But to all such prosy,
+plodding individuals, Mrs. Errington presented a perspective of vague
+magnificence, which sometimes awed and generally silenced them.</p>
+
+<p>The big square letters on Bath post paper, directed in Algernon's clear,
+graceful handwriting, and bearing my Lord Seely's frank, in the form of
+a blotchy sprawling autograph in one corner, were, however, palpable
+facts; and Mrs. Errington made the most of them. It was seldom that she
+had not one of them in her pocket. She would pull them out, sometimes as
+though in mere absence of mind, sometimes avowedly of set purpose, but
+in either case she failed not to make them the occasion for an almost
+endless variety of prospective and retrospective boasting.</p>
+
+<p>It must be owned that Algernon's letters were delightful. They were
+written with such a freshness of observation, such a sense of enjoyment,
+such a keen appreciation of fun&mdash;tempered always by a wonderful knack of
+keeping his own figure in a favourable light&mdash;that passages from them
+were read aloud, and quoted at Whitford tea-parties with a most
+enlivening effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Those letters are written <i>pro bono publico</i>," Minnie Bodkin observed
+confidentially to her mother. "No human being would address such
+communications to Mrs. Errington for her sole perusal."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know, Minnie! Surely it is natural enough that he should
+write long letters to his mother, even without expecting her to read
+them aloud to people."</p>
+
+<p>"Very natural; but not just such letters as he does write, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Minnie suppressed any further expression of her own shrewdness. Her
+confidence in herself had been rudely shaken; and she made keen,
+motive-probing speeches much seldomer than formerly. And she could not
+but agree in the general verdict, that Algernon's letters were very
+amusing. Miss Chubb was delighted with them; although they were the
+occasion of one or two tough struggles for supremacy in the knowledge of
+fashionable life between herself and Mrs. Errington. But Miss Chubb was
+really good-natured, and Mrs. Errington was unshakeably self-satisfied;
+so that no serious breach resulted from these combats.</p>
+
+<p>"Dormer&mdash;Lady Harriet Dormer!" Miss Chubb would say, musingly. "I think
+I must have met her when I was staying with Mrs. Figgins and the Bishop
+of Plumbunn. And the Dormers' place is not so very far from Whitford,
+you know. I believe I have heard papa speak of his acquaintance with
+some of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," Mrs. Errington would reply; "not likely you should have ever
+met Lady Harriet at Mrs. Figgins's. She is the Earl of Grandcourt's
+daughter; and Lord Grandcourt had the reputation of being the proudest
+nobleman in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear Mrs. Errington," the spinster would retort, bridling and
+tossing her head sideways, "that could be no reason why his daughter
+should not have visited the bishop! A dignitary of the Church, you know!
+And as to family&mdash;I can assure you the Figginses were most
+aristocratically connected."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, Miss Chubb, Lady Harriet must have been in the nursery in
+those days. She's only six-and-thirty. You can see her age in the
+'Peerage.'"</p>
+
+<p>This was a kind of blow that usually silenced poor Miss Chubb, who was
+sensitive on the score of her age. But, on the whole, she was not
+displeased at the opportunity of airing her reminiscences of London; and
+she did not always get the worst of it in her encounters with Mrs.
+Errington.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Errington had one listener who, at all events, was never tired of
+hearing Algy's letters read and re-read, and whose interest in all they
+contained was vivid and inexhaustible. Rhoda bestowed an amount of eager
+attention on the brilliant epistles bearing Lord Seely's frank, which
+even Mrs. Errington considered adequate to their merits.</p>
+
+<p>Often&mdash;not quite always&mdash;there would be a little message. "How are all
+the good Maxfields? Say I asked." Or sometimes, "Give my love to Rhoda."
+Mrs. Errington took Algernon's sending his love to Rhoda much as she
+would have taken his bidding her stroke the kitten for him. She did not
+guess how it set the poor girl's heart beating. It was only natural that
+Rhoda's face should flush with pleasure at being so kindly and
+condescendingly remembered. Still less could the worthy lady understand
+the effect of her careless words on Mr. Maxfield. Once she said in his
+presence, "Have you any message for Mr. Algernon, Rhoda?" (She had
+recently taken to speaking of her son as "Mr." Algernon; a circumstance
+which had not escaped Rhoda's sensitive observation.) "You know he
+always sends you his love."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my young gentleman has not forgotten Rhoda, then?" said old
+Maxfield, without raising his eyes from the ledger he was examining.</p>
+
+<p>"Algernon never forgets. Indeed, none of the Ancrams ever forget. An
+almost royal memory has always been a characteristic of our race." With
+which magnificent speech Mrs. Errington made an impressive exit from the
+back shop.</p>
+
+<p>Old Max knew enough to be aware that the tenacity even of a royal memory
+had not always been found equal to retaining such trifles as a debt of
+twenty pounds. But so long as Algy remembered his Rhoda, he was welcome
+to let the money slip. Indeed, if Algy behaved properly to Rhoda, there
+should be no question of repayment. Twenty pounds, or two hundred,
+would be well bestowed in securing Rhoda's happiness, and making a lady
+of her. Nevertheless, old Max kept the acknowledgment of the debt safely
+locked up, and looked at it now and then, with some inward satisfaction.
+Algernon was coming back to revisit Whitford in the summer, and then
+something definite should be settled.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Maxfield took some pains to have Rhoda treated with more
+consideration than had hitherto been bestowed on her. He astonished
+Betty Grimshaw by sharply reproving her for sending Rhoda into the shop
+on some errand. "Rice!" he exclaimed testily, in answer to his
+sister-in-law's explanation. "If you want rice, you must fetch it for
+yourself. The shop is no place for Rhoda, and I will not have her come
+there." Then he began to display a quite unprecedented liberality in
+providing Rhoda's clothes. The girl, whose ideas about her own dress
+were of the humblest, and who had thought a dove-coloured merino gown as
+good a garment as she was ever likely to possess, was told to buy
+herself a silk gown. "A good 'un. Nothing flimsy and poor," said old
+Max. "A good, solid silk gown, that will wear and last. And&mdash;you had
+better ask Mrs. Errington to go with you to buy it. She will understand
+what is fitting better than your aunt Betty. I wish you to have proper
+and becoming raiment, Rhoda. You are not a child now. And you go amongst
+gentlefolks at Dr. Bodkin's house. And I would not have you seem out of
+place there, by reason of unsuitable attire."</p>
+
+<p>Rhoda was delighted to be allowed to gratify her natural taste for
+colour and adornment; and she shortly afterwards appeared in so elegant
+a dress, that Betty Grimshaw was moved to say to her brother-in-law,
+"Why, Jonathan, I'll declare if our Rhoda don't look as genteel as 'ere
+a one o' the young ladies I see! Why you're making quite a lady of her,
+Jonathan!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me make a lady of her?" growled old Max. "It isn't me, nor you, nor yet
+a smart gown, as can do that. But the Lord has done it. The Lord has
+given Rhoda the natur' of a lady, if ever I see a lady in my life; and I
+mean her to be treated like one. Rhoda's none o' your sort of clay,
+Betty Grimshaw. She's fine porcelain, is Rhoda. I suppose you've nothing
+to say against the child's silk gown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, not I, Jonathan! She's welcome to wear silk or satin either, if
+you like to pay for it. And, indeed, I'm uncommon pleased to see a bit
+of bright colour, and be let to put a flower in my bonnet. I'm sure
+we've had enough of them Methodist ways. Dismal and dull enough they
+were, Jonathan. But you can't say as I ever grumbled, or went agin' you.
+Anything for peace and quietness' sake is my way. But I do like church
+best, having been bred to it. And I always did, in my heart, even when
+you and David Powell would be preaching up the Wesleyans. I never said
+anything, as you know, Jonathan. But I kept my own way of thinking all
+the same. And I'm only glad you've come round to it yourself, at last."</p>
+
+<p>This was bitter to Jonathan Maxfield. But he had had once or twice to
+endure similar speeches from his sister-in-law, since his defection from
+Methodism. His autocratic power in his own family was wielded as
+strictly as ever, but his assumption of infallibility had been fatally
+damaged. To get his own way was still within his power, but it would be
+vain henceforward to expect those around him to acknowledge&mdash;even with
+their lips&mdash;that his way must of necessity be the best way.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of April there came to Whitford the announcement that
+Algernon had received and accepted an invitation to accompany the Seelys
+abroad in the late summer; and that, therefore, his visit to "dear old
+Whitford" was indefinitely postponed. This announcement would have
+angered and disquieted old Max beyond measure, had it not been that
+Algernon took the precaution to write him a letter, which arrived in
+Whitford by the same post as that which brought to Mrs. Errington the
+news of his projected journey to the Continent. It was a very neat
+letter. Some persons might have called it a cunning letter. At any rate,
+it soothed old Max's anxious suspicions, if it did not absolutely
+destroy them. "I believe, my good friend," wrote Algernon, "that you
+will quite approve the step I am taking, in accompanying Lord and Lady
+Seely to Switzerland. They have no son, and I think I may say that they
+have come to look upon me almost as a child of the house. I remember all
+the good advice you gave me before I left Whitford. And when I was
+hesitating about accepting my lord's invitation, I thought of what you
+would have said, and made up my mind to resist the strong temptation of
+coming back to dear old Whitford this summer." Then in a postscript he
+added: "As to that little private transaction between us, I must ask you
+kindly to have patience with me yet awhile. I try to be careful, but
+living here is expensive, and I am put to it to pay my way. You will not
+mention the matter to my mother, I know. And, perhaps, it would be well
+to say nothing to her about this letter. May I send my love to Rhoda?"</p>
+
+<p>In justification of this last sentence, it must be said that Algernon
+was quite innocent of Lady Seely's project regarding himself and
+Castalia; and that there were times when he thought with some warmth of
+feeling of the summer days in Llanryddan, and told himself that there
+was not one of the girls whom he met in society who surpassed Rhoda
+Maxfield in the delicate freshness of her beauty, or equalled her in
+natural grace and sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon had really excellent taste.</p>
+
+<h3>END OF VOL. I.</h3>
+
+<h3>LINK TO <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35429/35429-h/35429-h.htm">VOL. II.</a></h3>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A common expression among the early Methodists, to indicate
+the first fervour of religious zeal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> A collection of receipts, published by John Wesley, under
+the title of "Primitive Physic; or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing
+most Diseases."</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF 3)***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3), by
+Frances Eleanor Trollope
+
+
+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: A Charming Fellow, Volume I (of 3)
+
+
+Author: Frances Eleanor Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 28, 2011  [eBook #35428]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF
+3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
+generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has the other two volumes of this
+      novel.
+      Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35429
+      Volume III: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35430
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/charmingfellow01trol
+
+
+
+
+
+A CHARMING FELLOW.
+
+by
+
+FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE,
+
+Author of "Aunt Margaret's Trouble," "Mabel's Progress," etc. etc.
+
+In Three Volumes.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
+1876.
+
+Charles Dickens and Evans,
+Crystal Palace Press.
+
+
+
+
+A CHARMING FELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"To be frank with you, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe Dr. Bodkin
+understands my son's genius."
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam, you said your son's----?"
+
+"Genius, sir; the bent of his genius. Algy's is not a mechanical mind."
+
+Mrs. Errington slightly tossed her head as she uttered the word
+"mechanical."
+
+Mr. Diamond said "Oh!" and then sat silent.
+
+The room was very quiet. The autumn day was fading, and the mingling of
+twilight and firelight, and the stillness of the scene, were conducive
+to mute meditation. It was a long, low room, with an uneven floor, a
+whitewashed ceiling crossed by heavy beams, and one large bow window. It
+was furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables in use in the
+last century. A crimson drugget covered the floor, and in front of the
+hearth lay a rug, made of scraps of black and coloured cloth, neatly
+sewn together in a pattern. Over the high wooden mantelpiece hung, on
+one side, a faded water-colour sketch of a gentleman, with powdered
+hair; and on the other, an oval miniature of much later date, which
+represented a fair, florid young lady, with large languid blue eyes, and
+a red mouth, somewhat too full-lipped. Notwithstanding the years which
+had elapsed since the miniature was painted, it was still sufficiently
+like Mrs. Errington to be recognised for her portrait. There was an old
+harpsichord in the room, and a few books on hanging shelves. But the
+only handsome or costly object to be seen were some delicate blue and
+white china cups and saucers, which glistened from an oaken
+corner-cupboard; and a large work-box of tortoise-shell, inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl, lined with amber satin, and fitted with all the
+implements of needlework, in richly-chased silver. The box, like the
+china cupboard, stood wide open to display its contents, and was
+evidently a subject of pride to its possessor. It was entirely
+incongruous with the rest of the furniture, which, although decent and
+serviceable, was very plain, and rather scanty.
+
+Nevertheless the room looked snug and homelike. The coal-fire burnt with
+a deep glowing light; a small copper kettle was singing cheerily on the
+hob; tea-things were laid on a table in front of the fire; and a fitful,
+moaning wind, that rattled now and then against the antique casement,
+enhanced the comfort of the scene by its suggestion of forlorn
+chilliness without.
+
+But however the influences of the time and place might incline Mr.
+Diamond to silence, they had no such effect on Mrs. Errington.
+
+After a short pause, during which she seemed to be awaiting some remark
+from her companion, she observed once more, "No; I do not think the
+doctor understands Algy's genius. And that is why I was anxious to ask
+your advice, on this proposition of Mr. Filthorpe's."
+
+"But, madam, why should you suppose me likely to understand Algernon
+better than Dr. Bodkin does?"
+
+"Oh, because----In the first place, you are younger, nearer Algy's own
+age."
+
+"Ah! There is a wide gap, though, between his eighteen and my
+eight-and-twenty--a wider gap than the mere ten years would necessarily
+make in all cases."
+
+Mrs. Errington glanced at the speaker, and thought, in the maternal
+pride of her heart, that there was indeed a wide difference between her
+joyous, handsome Algernon, and Matthew Diamond, second master at the
+Whitford Grammar School; and she thought, too, that the difference was
+all to her son's advantage. Mr. Diamond was a grave-looking young man,
+with a spare, strong figure, and a face which, in repose, was neither
+handsome nor ugly. His clean-shaven chin and upper lip were firmly cut,
+and he had a pair of keen grey eyes. But such as it was, it was a face
+which most persons who saw it often, fell into a habit of watching. It
+raised an indefinite expectation. You were instinctively aware of
+something latent beneath its habitual expression of seriousness and
+reserve. What the "something" might be, was variously guessed at
+according to the temperament of the observer.
+
+"Then there is another reason why I wished to consult you," pursued Mrs.
+Errington. "I have a great opinion of your judgment, from what Algy
+tells me. I assure you Algy thinks an immense deal of your talents, Mr.
+Diamond. You must not think I flatter you."
+
+"No," replied Mr. Diamond, very quietly, "I do not think you flatter
+me."
+
+"And therefore I have told you the state of the case quite openly. And I
+would not have you hesitate to give your advice, from any fear of
+disagreeing with my opinion."
+
+Mr. Diamond leaned his elbow on the table, and his face on his hand,
+which he held so as to hide his mouth--an habitual posture with him--and
+looked gravely at Mrs. Errington.
+
+"I trust," continued the lady, "that I am superior to the weakness of
+requiring blind acquiescence from people."
+
+Mrs. Errington spoke in a mellow, measured voice, and had a soft smiling
+cast of countenance. Both these were frequently contradicted in a
+startling manner by the words she uttered: for, in truth, the worthy
+lady's soul and body were no more like each other than a peach-stone is
+like a peach. Her velvety softness was not affected, but it was merely
+external, and the real woman was nothing less than tender. Sensitive
+persons did not fare very well with Mrs. Errington; who, withal, had the
+reputation of being an exceedingly good-natured woman.
+
+"If you think my advice worth having----" said Mr. Diamond.
+
+"I do really. Now pray don't be shy of speaking out!" interrupted the
+lady, reassuringly.
+
+"I must tell you that I think your cousin's offer is much too good to be
+refused, and opens a prospect which many young men would envy."
+
+"You advise us to accept it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, then, Mr. Diamond, I don't believe you understand Algy one bit
+better than the doctor does!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, leaning back in
+her chair, and folding her large white hands together in a resigned
+manner.
+
+"I warned you, you know, that I might not," answered Mr. Diamond,
+composedly.
+
+"'A prospect which many young men would envy!' Well, perhaps 'many young
+men,' yes; I daresay. But for Algy! Do but think of it, Mr. Diamond; to
+sit all day on a high stool in a musty office! You must own that, for a
+young fellow of my son's spirit, the idea is not alluring."
+
+"Oh, if the question be merely for Algernon to choose some method of
+passing his time which shall be alluring----"
+
+Mrs. Errington drew herself up a little. "No;" said she, "that is
+certainly not the question, Mr. Diamond. At the same time, before
+embracing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, I thought it only reasonable to ask
+myself, 'May we not do better? Can we not do better?'"
+
+"I begin to perceive," thought Matthew Diamond within himself, "that
+Mrs. Errington's meaning, when she asks 'advice,' is pretty much like
+that of most of her neighbours. Having already made up her mind how to
+act, she would like to be told that her decision is the best and wisest
+conceivable." He said nothing, however, but bowed his head a little, to
+show that he was giving attention to the lady's discourse.
+
+"We have an alternative, you must know," said Mrs. Errington, turning
+her eyes languidly on Mr. Diamond, but not moving her head from its
+comfortable resting-place against the back of her well-cushioned
+arm-chair. "We are not bound hand and foot to this Bristol merchant. By
+the way, you spoke of him as my cousin----"
+
+"I beg your pardon; is he not so?"
+
+"No; not mine. My poor husband's," with a glance at the portrait over
+the mantelpiece. "None of my family ever had the remotest connection
+with commerce."
+
+"Ha! The good fortune was all on the side of the Erringtons?"
+
+This time Mrs. Errington turned her head, so as to look full at her
+interlocutor. There met her view the same calm forehead, the same steady
+eyes, the same sheltering hand gently stroking the upper lip, which she
+had looked upon a minute before.
+
+"My good sir!" she answered, in a tone of patient explanation, "my own
+family, the Ancrams, were people of the very first quality in
+Warwickshire. My grandfather never stirred out without his coach and
+four!"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Oh, yes, Algy's prospects in life ought to be very, very different from
+what they are. Of course he ought to go to the university; but I cannot
+afford to send him there. I make no secret of my circumstances. College
+is out of the question for him, poor boy, unless he entered himself as a
+what-do-you-call-it? A sort of pauper, a sizar. And I suppose you would
+hardly advise him to do that!"
+
+"No; I should by no means advise it. I was a sizar myself."
+
+"Really? Ah well, then you know what it is. And I am quite sure it would
+never suit Algy's spirits."
+
+"I am quite sure it would not."
+
+Mrs. Errington's good opinion of the tutor's judgment, which had been
+considerably shaken, began to revive.
+
+"I see you know something of his character," said she, smiling. "Well,
+then, the case stands thus; Algy is turned eighteen; he has had the best
+education I could give him--indeed, my chief motive for settling in this
+obscure little hole, when I was left a widow, was the fact that Dr.
+Bodkin, who was an old acquaintance of my husband, was head of the
+Grammar School here, and I knew I could give my boy the education of a
+gentleman--up to a certain point--at small expense. He has had this
+offer from the Bristol man, and he has had another offer of a very
+different sort from my side of the house."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Oh, yes; perhaps if I had began by stating that circumstance, you might
+have modified your advice, eh, Mr. Diamond?" This was said in a tone of
+mild raillery.
+
+"Why," answered Mr. Diamond, slowly, "I must own that my advice usually
+does depend somewhat on my knowledge of the circumstances of the case
+under consideration."
+
+"Now, that's candid--and I love candour, as I told you. The fact is,
+Lord Seely married an Ancram."
+
+There was a pause. Mrs. Errington looked inquiringly at her companion.
+"You have heard of Lord Seely?" she said.
+
+"I have seen his name in the newspapers, in the days when I used to read
+newspapers."
+
+"He is a most distinguished nobleman."
+
+Another pause.
+
+"Well," continued Mrs. Errington, condescendingly, "I cannot expect all
+that to interest you, Mr. Diamond. Perhaps there may be a little family
+partiality, in my estimate of Lord Seely. However, be that as it may, he
+married an Ancram. She was of the younger branch, my father's second
+cousin. When Algy first began to turn his thoughts towards a diplomatic
+career----"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"A diplomatic----Oh, didn't you know? Yes; he has had serious thoughts
+of it for some time."
+
+"Algernon?"
+
+"Certainly! And, in confidence, Mr. Diamond, I think it would suit him
+admirably. I fancy it is what his genius is best adapted for. Well,
+when I perceived this bent in him, I made--indirectly--application to
+Lady Seely, and she returned--also indirectly--a most gracious answer.
+She should be happy to receive Mr. Algernon Ancram Errington, whenever
+she was in town."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"All?"
+
+"All that you have to tell me, to modify--and so on?"
+
+"That would lead to more, don't you see? Lord Seely has enormous
+influence, and I don't know anyone better able to push the fortunes of a
+young man like Algy."
+
+"But has he promised anything definite?"
+
+"He could hardly do that, seeing that, as yet, he knows nothing of my
+son whatever! My dear Mr. Diamond, when you know as much of the world as
+I do, you will see that it does not do to rush at things in a hurry. You
+must give people time. Especially a man like Lord Seely, who of course
+cannot be expected to--to----"
+
+"Do you mean that you seriously contemplate dropping the substance of
+Filthorpe, for this shadow of Seely?"
+
+"Mr. Diamond! What very extraordinary expressions!"
+
+Mr. Diamond took his hand from his mouth, clasped both hands on his
+knee, and sat looking into the fire as abstractedly as if there had
+been no other person within sight or sound of him.
+
+Mrs. Errington, apparently taking it for granted that his attitude was
+one of profound attention to herself, proceeded flowingly to justify her
+decision, for it evidently was a decision--to decline the Bristol
+merchant's offer of employment and a home for her son. Besides Algy's
+"genius," there were other objections. Mr. Filthorpe had a vulgar wife
+and a vulgar daughter. Of course they must be vulgar. That was clear.
+And who could say that they might not endeavour to entangle Algy in some
+promise, or engagement, to marry the daughter? Nay, it was very certain
+that they would make such an endeavour. Possibly--probably--that was old
+Filthorpe's real object in inviting his young relative to accept a place
+in his counting-house. Indeed, they might confidently consider that it
+was so. Of course Algy would be a bait to these people! And as to Lord
+Seely, Mr. Diamond did not know (how should he? seeing that he had been
+little more than a twelvemonth in Whitford, and out of that time had
+scarcely ever had an hour's converse with her) that she, Mrs. Errington,
+was a person rather apt to hide and diminish, than unduly blazon forth
+her family glories. And she was, moreover, scrupulous to a fault in the
+accuracy of all her statements. Nevertheless, she must say that there
+was, perhaps, no nobleman in England whose patronage would have more
+weight than his lordship's; and whether or not the brilliancy of Algy's
+parts, and the charm of his manners, would be likely to captivate a man
+of Lord Seely's taste and cultivation; that she left to the sense and
+candour of any one who knew, and could appreciate her son.
+
+Mr. Diamond uttered an odd, smothered kind of sound.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Errington, mellifluously.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Hulloa!" cried a blithe voice, as the door was suddenly thrown open.
+"Why, you're all in the dark here!"
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Diamond, jumping to his feet, and then sitting
+down again, "I believe--I'm afraid I was almost asleep!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Algernon Errington came gaily into the dim room bringing with him a gust
+of fresh, cold air. His first act was to stir the fire, which sent up a
+flickering blaze. The light played upon the tea-table and the two
+persons who sat at it; and also, of course, illuminated the new comer's
+face and form, which were such as to justify much of his mother's pride
+in his appearance. He was of middle height, with a singularly elegant
+figure, and finely-shaped hands and feet. His smooth, blooming face was,
+perhaps, somewhat too girlish-looking, but there was nothing effeminate
+in his bearing. All his movements were springy and elastic. His blue
+eyes--less large, but more bright than his mother's--were full of
+vivacity, and a smile of mischievous merriment played round his mouth.
+
+"Mr. Diamond!" he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived who was the other
+occupant of the room besides his mother.
+
+"You're late," said the tutor, pulling from his waistcoat-pocket a large
+silver watch, and examining the clumsy black figures on its face by the
+firelight.
+
+"Why," said Algernon, "I had no idea you were here! I thought my mother
+had sent word to ask you to put off our reading this evening. You
+promised to write a note, mother. Didn't you send it?"
+
+It appeared that Mrs. Errington had not sent a note, had not even
+written one, had forgotten all about it. Her mind was so full of other
+things! And then when Mr. Diamond appeared, she did not explain at once
+that Algernon would probably not come home in time for his lesson,
+because she wanted to have a little conversation with Mr. Diamond. And
+they began to talk, and the time slipped away: besides, she knew that
+Mr. Diamond had nothing to do of an evening, so it was not of much
+consequence, was it?
+
+Algernon winced at this speech, and cast a quick, furtive look at his
+tutor, who, however, might have been deaf, for any sign he gave of
+having heard it. He rose from his chair, and addressing Mrs. Errington,
+declared with his usual brevity that, as no work was to be done, he must
+forthwith wish her "Good evening."
+
+"Now, no nonsense!" said Mrs. Errington. "You'll do nothing of the kind!
+Stay and have a cup of tea with us for once in a way."
+
+"Thank you, no; I never--it is not my habit----"
+
+"Not your habit to be sociable! I know that; and it is a great pity.
+What would you be doing at home? Only poring over books until you got a
+headache! A little cheerful society would do you all the good in the
+world. You were all but dropping asleep just now: and no wonder! I'm
+sure, after teaching all day in a close school, full of boys buzzing
+like so many blue-bottles, one would feel as stupid as an owl oneself!"
+
+"Perhaps I am peculiarly susceptible to stupefying influences," said Mr.
+Diamond, with a rueful shake of the head. And, as he spoke, there played
+round his mouth the faint flicker of a smile.
+
+"Now put your hat down, and take your seat!" cried Mrs. Errington,
+authoritatively.
+
+"I am very sorry to seem ungrateful, but----"
+
+"I had asked little Rhoda to come up after tea and keep me company,
+thinking I should be alone. But you won't mind Rhoda. She knows her
+place."
+
+Mr. Diamond paused in the act of buttoning his coat across his breast.
+"You are very kind," he murmured.
+
+"There, sit down, and I will undertake to give you a cup of excellent
+tea. I hope you know good tea when you get it? There are some people who
+couldn't tell my fine Pekoe from sloe-leaves. Algy, bring me the
+kettle."
+
+And Mrs. Errington betook herself to the business of making tea. To her
+it seemed perfectly natural--almost a matter of course--that Matthew
+Diamond should stay, since she was kind enough to press it. But
+Algernon, who knew his tutor better, could not refrain from expressing a
+little surprise at his yielding.
+
+"Why, mother," said he, as he poured the boiling water into the tea-pot,
+"you may consider yourself singled out for high distinction. Mr. Diamond
+has consented at your request to stay after having said he would go! I
+don't believe there's another lady in Whitford who has been so
+honoured."
+
+If Algernon had not been peering through the clouds of steam, to
+ascertain whether the tea-pot were full or not, he would have perceived
+an unwonted flush mount in Matthew Diamond's face up to the roots of his
+hair, and then slowly fade away.
+
+"And how did you find the doctor and all of them?" asked Mrs. Errington
+of her son, when they were all seated at the tea-table.
+
+"Oh, the doctor's all right. He only came in for a few minutes after
+morning school."
+
+"What did he say to you, Algy?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know: something about not altogether neglecting my studies
+now I had left school, whatever path in life I chose. He always says
+that sort of thing, you know," answered Algernon carelessly.
+
+"And Mrs. Bodkin?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right, too."
+
+"And Minnie?"
+
+"Oh, she's all--no; she was not quite so well as usual, I think. Mrs.
+Bodkin said she had had a bad attack of pain in the night. But Minnie
+didn't mention it. She never likes to be condoled with and pitied, you
+know. So of course I didn't say anything. It's so unpleasant to have to
+keep noticing people's health!"
+
+"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Errington. "What a misfortune for that girl to
+be a helpless invalid for the rest of her life!"
+
+"Is her disorder incurable?" asked Mr. Diamond.
+
+"Oh, quite, I believe. Spine, you know. An accident. And they say that
+when a child she was such an active creature."
+
+"Her brain is active enough now," observed Mr. Diamond musingly, with
+his eyes fixed on the fire. "I don't know a keener, quicker intellect."
+
+"What, Minnie Bodkin?" exclaimed Algernon, pausing in the demolition of
+a stout pile of sliced bread and butter. "I should think so! She's as
+clever as a man! I mean," he added, reading and answering his tutor's
+satirically-raised eyebrows, as rapidly as though he were replying to an
+articulate observation, "I mean--of course I know she's a deuced deal
+cleverer than lots of men. But I mean that Minnie Bodkin is clever after
+a manly fashion. Not a bit Missish. By Jove! I wish I knew as much Greek
+as she does!"
+
+"I do not at all approve of blue-stockings in general," said Mrs.
+Errington; "but in her case, poor thing, one must make allowances."
+
+"I think she's pretty," announced Algernon, condescendingly.
+
+"She would be if she didn't look so sickly. No complexion," said Mrs.
+Errington, intently observing her own florid face, unnaturally
+elongated, in the bowl of a spoon.
+
+"Don't you think her pretty, sir?" asked Algernon, turning to Mr.
+Diamond.
+
+"A great deal more than pretty."
+
+"You don't go there very often, I think?" said Mrs. Errington
+interrogatively.
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"Well, now, you really ought. I know you would be welcome. The doctor
+has more than once told me so. And Mrs. Bodkin is so very affable! I'm
+sure you need not hesitate about going there."
+
+Algernon jumped up to replenish the tea-pot, with an unnecessary amount
+of bustle, and began to rattle out a volley of lively nonsense, with the
+view of diverting his mother's attention from the subject of Mr.
+Diamond's neglect of the Bodkin family. He dreaded some rejoinder on the
+part of the tutor which should offend his mother beyond forgiveness. He
+had had experience of some of Matthew Diamond's blunt speeches, of which
+Dr. Bodkin himself was supposed to be in some awe. It was clearly no
+business of Mrs. Errington's where Mr. Diamond chose to bestow his
+visits; neither could she in any degree be aware what reasons he might
+have for his conduct. "And the worst of it is, he's quite capable of
+telling my mother so, if she goes too far," reflected Algernon. So he
+chatted and laughed, as if from overflowing good spirits, until the
+peril was past. This young gentleman was so quick and flexible, and had
+so buoyant a temperament, that he was reputed more careless and
+thoughtless than was altogether the case. His mind moved rapidly, and he
+had an instinctive habit of uttering the result of its calculations, in
+the most impulsive way imaginable. You could not tell, by observing
+Algernon's manner, whether he were giving you his first thought or his
+second.
+
+When the meal was over, Mrs. Errington rang to have the table cleared. A
+little prim servant-maid, in a coarse, clean apron and bib, appeared at
+the sound of the bell, and began to gather the tea-things together.
+Algernon sat down at the old harpsichord, and, after playing a few
+chords, commenced singing softly in a pleasant tenor voice some
+fragments of sentimental ballads in vogue at that day. (Does the reader
+ask, "and when was 'that day?'" He must content himself with the
+information that it was within a year or two of the year 1830.) Mr.
+Diamond walked to the window, and holding aside the blind, stood looking
+out at the dark sky.
+
+All at once, when the servant opened the door to go out, there came up
+from the lower part of the house the sound of singing; slow, long-drawn,
+rather tuneless singing of a few voices, male and female.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, "Oh dear me,
+Sarah, how is this?"
+
+Algernon made a comical face of disgust, and put his hands to his ears.
+
+"It be as Mr. Powell's ha' come back, mum," said Sarah, with much
+gravity.
+
+"Really! Really!" said Mrs. Errington, in the tone of one protesting
+against an utterly unjustifiable offence.
+
+"Come back! Where has he been?" asked Algernon, carelessly.
+
+"On 'is rounds, please, sir."
+
+"I do wish Mr. Powell would choose some other time for his
+performances!" cried Mrs. Errington, when the servant had left the room.
+"Now Thursday--on Thursday, for instance, we are going to a whist party,
+at the Bodkins', and then he might squall out his psalms, and shout,
+and rave, without annoying anybody."
+
+"He'd only annoy the neighbours," said Algernon, "and that wouldn't
+matter!"
+
+He was smiling with a sort of contemptuous amusement, and touching
+random notes here and there on the harpsichord with one finger.
+
+"There will be no getting Rhoda upstairs to-night," said Mrs. Errington.
+"Poor little thing! she's in for a whole evening of psalm-singing."
+
+Algernon rose from the instrument with a clouded brow. His face wore the
+petulant look of a spoiled child, whose will has been unexpectedly
+crossed.
+
+"Deuce take Mr. Powell, and all Welsh Methodists like him!" said he.
+
+"My dear Algy! No, no; I cannot approve of that, though Mr. Powell is a
+Dissenter. Besides, such language in my presence is not respectful."
+
+"Beg pardon, ma'am," said Algernon, laughing. And with the laughter, the
+cloud cleared from his brow. Clouds never rested there long.
+
+"Will you have a game of cribbage with me, Mr. Diamond? This naughty boy
+will scarcely ever play with me. Or, if you prefer it, dummy whist----?"
+
+"No whist for me," interposed Algernon, decisively. "It is such a
+botheration. And I play so atrociously that it would be cruel to ask
+Mr. Diamond to sit down with me."
+
+With that he returned to the harpsichord, and began singing softly to
+himself in snatches.
+
+"Cribbage then?" said Mrs. Errington in her mellow, measured tones.
+
+Mr. Diamond let fall the blind from his hand so roughly that the wooden
+roller rattled against the wainscot, and advanced to the table where
+Mrs. Errington was already setting forth the cards and cribbage-board.
+He sat down without a word, cut the cards as she directed, shuffled,
+dealt, and played in a moody sort of silent manner; which, however, did
+not affect Mrs. Errington's nerves at all.
+
+Meanwhile, there went on beneath Algernon's love-songs and the few
+utterances of the players which the game necessitated, a kind of
+accompanying "bourdon" of voices from downstairs. Sometimes one single
+voice would rise in passionate tones, almost as if in wrath. Then came
+singing again, which, softened by distance, had a wild, wailing
+character of ineffable melancholy. Algernon paused in his fitful playing
+and singing, as though unwilling to be in dissonance with those
+long-drawn sounds. Mrs. Errington calmly continued to exclaim, "Fifteen
+six," and "two for his heels," without regard to anything but her game.
+
+When the rubber was at an end, Mr. Diamond rose to take his leave.
+
+He lingered a little in doing so. He lingered in taking up his hat, and
+in buttoning his coat across his breast.
+
+"Have you not anything warmer to put on?" said Mrs. Errington. "Dear me,
+it is very wrong to go out of this snug room into the air--and the wind
+has got up, too!--with no more wrap than you have been sitting in, here
+by the fire! Algy, lend him your great-coat."
+
+"Thank you, no. Good night," said the tutor, and walked off without
+further ceremony.
+
+He still lingered, however, in descending the stairs; and yet more in
+passing the door of a parlour, whence came a murmur of voices. Finally,
+he let himself out at the street-door, and encountering a bleak gust of
+wind, set off down the silent street at a round pace.
+
+"What a fool you are, Matthew!" was his mental ejaculation, as he strode
+along with his head bent down, and his gloveless hands plunged deep into
+his pockets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Mrs. Errington had lodged in Mr. Maxfield's house ever since she first
+came to Whitford. Jonathan Maxfield, commonly called "Old Max," kept a
+general shop in that town. The shop was underneath Mrs. Errington's
+sitting-room, and the great bow window, of which mention has been made,
+jutted out beyond the shop front, and overhung the street. The house was
+old, and larger than it appeared from the street, running back some
+distance. There was a private entrance--a point much insisted upon by
+Mr. Maxfield's sister-in-law and housekeeper in letting the lodgings to
+Mrs. Errington--and a long passage divided the shop entirely from the
+dwelling rooms on the ground-floor.
+
+Old Max was reported to be somewhat of a miser (which report he rather
+encouraged than the reverse, finding that it had its conveniences), and
+to have amassed a large sum of money for one in his position in life.
+
+"Old Max!" Whitford people would say. "Why, old Max could buy up half
+the town. Old Max might retire to-morrow. Old Max has no need ever to
+stand behind a counter again."
+
+Old Max, however, continued to stand behind his counter day after day,
+as he had done for the last thirty or forty years, and would serve a
+child with a pennyworth of gingerbread, or a rich man's cook with stores
+of bacon and flour, in an impartially crabbed manner.
+
+He was a grey man: grey from head to foot. He had grey hair, closely
+cropped; twinkling grey eyes; and a grey stubble on his shaven chin. He
+usually wore a suit of coarse grey clothes, with black calico sleeves
+tied on at the elbow. But even these had an iron-grey hue, from being
+more or less dusted with flour; as, indeed, were all his garments, and
+even his face.
+
+When Mrs. Errington first came to live in Whitford, Jonathan Maxfield
+was a widower for the second time. He had two sons by his first wife;
+and, by his second, one daughter, whose birth cost her mother's life.
+The sister of his first wife had kept house for him ever since his
+second widowhood. This woman, Betty Grimshaw by name, had been servant
+in a great family; and at her master's death had received a legacy,
+which, together with her own savings, had sufficed to purchase a small
+annuity. She had been able to lay by the greater part of her annuity
+since she had lived in Whitford, and announced her intention of
+bequeathing her savings to her nephew James, Maxfield's second son. The
+elder son had married a farmer's daughter with some money, and turned
+farmer himself within a few miles of Whitford. Thus the family living at
+home on the autumn night on which our story opens, consisted of Jonathan
+Maxfield, Betty Grimshaw his sister-in-law, his son James, and his
+daughter Rhoda.
+
+The sound of the street-door closing violently behind Mr. Diamond,
+startled this family party assembled in the parlour, together with Mr.
+David Powell, Methodist preacher.
+
+They were all seated at a table, on which lay hymn-books and a large
+bible. Old Maxfield sat nearest to the fire, in his grey suit, just as
+he appeared in his shop, except that the black calico sleeves had been
+removed from his coat. He had a harsh face, a harsh voice, and a harsh
+manner. So much could be observed by any who exchanged ten words with
+him.
+
+Next to him, on his left hand, sat his son James, a tall, sickly-looking
+young man, of six-and-twenty. He had a stoop in the shoulders, a pale
+face, with high cheek-bones, eyes deeply set, light eyebrows, which grew
+in thick irregular tufts, and hair of a reddish flaxen colour. There was
+a certain family likeness between him and his aunt, Mrs. Grimshaw, as
+she was called in Whitford, despite her spinsterhood. She too was tall,
+bony, and hard-featured; with a face which looked as if it had been
+painted and varnished, and reminded one, in its colour and texture, of
+those hollow wooden pears, full of tiny playthings, which used to
+be--and probably still are--sold at country fairs, and in toy-shops of a
+humble kind.
+
+The preacher sat next to Betty Grimshaw. He seemed to belong to a
+different order of beings from the three persons already described.
+
+A striking face this--dark, and full of fire. He had sharply-cut,
+handsome features, and eyes that seemed to blaze with inward light when
+he spoke earnestly. His raven-black hair was worn long, and fell
+straight on to his collar. But although this made his aspect strange, it
+could not render it either vulgar or ludicrous. The black locks set off
+his pale dark face, as in a frame of ebony. He was young, and seemed
+vigorous, though rather with nervous energy than muscular strength.
+
+The last person in the group was Rhoda Maxfield--"little Rhoda," as Mrs.
+Errington had called her. But the epithet had been used to express
+rather her social insignificance, than her physical proportions. Rhoda
+was, in fact, rather tall. She was about nineteen years old, but
+scarcely looked her age. She had a broad and beautiful brow, on which
+the rich chestnut hair was smoothly parted; a sensitive mouth, not
+over-small; and bright hazel eyes, which looked out on the world with an
+open gaze, that was at once timid and confiding. Her skin was of
+remarkable delicacy, with a faint flush on the cheeks, which came and
+went frequently.
+
+And yet Rhoda Maxfield was not much admired among her own compeers.
+There was something in her face which did not please the taste of the
+vulgar. And although, if you had asked Whitford persons "Is not Rhoda
+Maxfield wonderfully pretty?" most of those so addressed would have
+answered, "Yes, Rhoda is a pretty girl;" yet the assent would probably
+have been cold and uncertain.
+
+Rhoda, at nineteen years old, had never been known to have a sweetheart.
+And this fact militated against the popular appreciation of her beauty;
+for a very cursory observation of the world will suffice to show that on
+the score of good looks, as on most other subjects, public opinion is
+apt to find nothing successful but success.
+
+"What a wind there must be, to make the door bang like that!" exclaimed
+Betty Grimshaw, when the loud sound above recorded reached her ears.
+
+"Who went out?" asked James.
+
+"I suppose it would be that Mr. Diamond, the schoolmaster," replied his
+aunt.
+
+They both spoke in a subdued voice, and cast furtive glances at Mr.
+Maxfield, as though fearful of being reprehended for interrupting the
+evening devotions; but, as they spoke, he closed his hymn-book, and drew
+his chair away from the table towards the fireside. Upon this signal,
+Betty Grimshaw rose and bustled out of the room, declaring that she must
+see about getting the supper; for that that little Sarah could never be
+trusted to see to the roasted potatoes alone. There was a suspicious
+alacrity in Betty's departure, suggestive that she experienced some
+sense of relief at the breaking-up of the devotions. James soon
+sauntered out of the room after his aunt. Mr. Powell rose.
+
+"Good night," said he, holding out his hand to the old man.
+
+"Nay; won't you stay and eat with us, Brother Powell? The supper will be
+ready directly."
+
+Mr. Powell shook his head. "You know I never eat supper," he said,
+smiling.
+
+"Well, well; perhaps you're in the right," responded old Max, very
+readily.
+
+"And I am not clear," continued the preacher, "but that it would be
+better for you to leave off the habit."
+
+"Me? Oh, no! I need it for my health's sake."
+
+"But would it not suit your health better, to take your supper early?
+Say at six o'clock or so; so that you should not go to bed with a full
+stomach."
+
+"No; it wouldn't," answered the old man, crabbedly.
+
+David Powell stood meditating, with his hand to his chin. "I am not
+clear about it," he murmured. But Maxfield either did not hear, or chose
+to ignore the words.
+
+"Father, may I go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" asked Rhoda, softly; "I
+don't want any supper."
+
+The old man grunted out an inarticulate sound, and seemed to hesitate.
+"Go upstairs to Mrs. Errington?" he said, answering his daughter, but
+looking sideways at the preacher. "Let's see; you promised, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes; you gave me leave, and I promised before--before we knew that Mr.
+Powell would come to-night."
+
+Rhoda was gifted with a sweet voice by nature, and she spoke with a
+purer accent, and expressed herself with greater propriety, than the
+other members of her family. Mrs. Errington had amused herself with
+teaching the motherless girl, who had been a lonely, shy, little child
+when their acquaintance first began. And Rhoda was a quick and apt
+scholar.
+
+"Well--a promise--I can't have you break your word. Don't you stay late,
+mind. Not one minute after ten o'clock; do you mind, Rhoda?"
+
+Rhoda, with a bright smile of pleasure on her face, promised to obey,
+and left the room with a step which it cost her an effort to make as
+staid as she knew would be approved by her father and Mr. Powell. When
+she got outside the door, they heard her run along the passage as light
+and as swift as a greyhound.
+
+Maxfield turned to Mr. Powell, with a little constrained, apologetic
+air, and began expatiating on Mrs. Errington's fondness for Rhoda; and
+how kind she had always been to the girl; and how he thought it a duty
+almost, to let the good, widowed lady have as much of Rhoda's company as
+she could give her without neglecting duties.
+
+"Betty Grimshaw is a worthy woman," he observed, drily; "but no
+companion for my Rhoda. Rhoda features her mother, and has her mother's
+nature very much."
+
+Mr. Powell still stood in the same meditative attitude, with his hand to
+his chin.
+
+"This Mrs. Errington is unconverted?" he said, without raising his eyes.
+
+"Oh, Rhoda won't take much harm from that!"
+
+"Much harm?" The dark lustrous eyes were upraised now, and fixed
+searchingly on the old man.
+
+"Well, it won't do her any harm," the latter answered, testily. "I know
+Rhoda; and I have her welfare at heart, as, I suppose, you'll believe.
+I don't know who should have, if it isn't me!"
+
+"Brother Maxfield," said the preacher, earnestly, "are you sure that you
+have a clear leading in this matter? Have you prayed for one?"
+
+Maxfield shifted in his chair, and made no answer.
+
+"Oh, consider what you do in trusting that tender soul among worldlings!
+I do not say that these are wicked people in a carnal sense; but are
+they such as can edify or strengthen a young girl like Rhoda, who is
+still in a seeking state, and has not yet that blessed assurance which
+we all supplicate for her?"
+
+"I have laid the matter before the Lord," said Maxfield, almost
+sullenly.
+
+Powell was silent for a minute, standing with his hands forcibly clasped
+together, as though to control them from vehement action, and when next
+he spoke, his voice had a tone in it which told of a strong effort of
+will to keep it in subdued monotony.
+
+"Then, have you thought of it?" said he; "there is the young man
+Algernon."
+
+"What of Algernon?" cried Maxfield, turning sharply to face the
+preacher.
+
+"He is fair to look upon, and specious, and has those graces and talents
+which the world accounts lovely. May there not be a snare here for
+Rhoda? She who is so alive to all beauty and graciousness in God's
+world, and in God's creatures--may it not be very perilous for her to be
+thrown unguardedly into the society of this youth?"
+
+Maxfield looked into the fire instead of at Powell, as he said, "What
+has been putting this into your head?"
+
+"I have had a call to say it to you, for some time past. Before I went
+away this summer it was on my mind. I sinned in resisting the call,
+for--for reasons which matter to no one but myself. I sinned in putting
+any human reasons above my Master's service."
+
+"It may be as you would have done better to resist speaking now," said
+Maxfield, slowly. "It may be as it was rather a temptation, than a
+leading from Heaven, made you speak at all."
+
+Powell started back as if he had been struck. The blood rushed into his
+face, and then, suddenly receding, left him paler than before. But he
+answered after a moment in a low, sweet voice, and without a trace of
+anger, "You cannot mistrust me more than I mistrusted myself. But I have
+wrestled and prayed; and I am assured that I have spoken this thing with
+a single heart."
+
+"Well, well, well, it may be as you say," said Maxfield, a shade less
+harshly than he had spoken before. "But you have neither wife, nor
+daughter, nor sister, and you cannot understand these matters as well as
+I do, who am more than double your years, and have had the guidance of
+this young maid from a baby upward."
+
+"Nay," answered Powell, humbly; "it is not my own wisdom I am uttering!
+God forbid that I should set up my carnal judgment against a man of your
+years."
+
+"That's very well said--very rightly said!" exclaimed Maxfield, nodding
+twice or thrice.
+
+"Aye, but I must speak when my conscience bids me. I dare not resist
+that admonition for any human respect."
+
+"Why, to be sure! But do you think yours is the only conscience to be
+listened to? I tell you I follow mine, young man. And you can ask any of
+our brethren here in Whitford, who have known me for the last thirty or
+forty years, whether I have gone far astray!"
+
+Powell sighed wearily. "I have released my soul," he said.
+
+"And just hearken," pursued old Maxfield, in a lowered voice, "don't say
+a word of this sort to Rhoda--nay, don't interrupt me! I've listened to
+your say, now let me have mine--because you might be putting something
+into her thoughts that wouldn't have come there of itself. And keep a
+discreet tongue before Betty and James. 'Least said, soonest mended.'
+And I'll tell you something more. If--observe I say 'if'--I saw that
+Rhoda's heart was strongly set upon anything, anything as wasn't wrong
+in itself, I should be very loath to thwart her."
+
+David Powell turned a startled, attentive face on the old man, who
+proceeded with a sort of dogged monotony of voice and manner: "Christian
+charity teaches us there's good folks in all communions of believers.
+And there's different ranks and different orders in the world; some has
+one thing, and some has another. Some has fine family and great
+connections among the rulers of the land. Others has the goods of this
+world earned by honesty, and diligence, and frugality; and these three
+bring a blessing. Some is fitted to be gentlefolks by nature, let 'em be
+born where they will. Others, like my sister-in-law Betty, is born to
+serve. We are all the Lord's creatures, and we are in his hand but as
+clay in the hands of the potter. But there's different kinds of clay,
+you know. This kind is good for making coarse delf, and that kind is fit
+for fine porcelain. We'll just keep these words as have passed between
+you and me, to ourselves, if you please. And now, I I think, we may drop
+the subject."
+
+"May the Lord give you his counsel!" said Powell, in a broken voice.
+
+"Amen! I have had my share of wisdom, and have walked pretty straight
+for the last half century, thanks be to Him," observed old Max, drily.
+
+"If it were His good pleasure, how gladly would I cease for evermore
+from speaking to you on this theme! But it matters nothing what I desire
+or shrink from. I must deliver my Master's message when it is borne in
+upon me to do so."
+
+And with a solemnly uttered blessing on the household, the preacher
+departed.
+
+The master of the house sat thinking, alone by his fireside. He began by
+thinking that he had a little over-encouraged David Powell. Maxfield
+considered praise from himself to be very encouraging, and calculated to
+uplift the heart. When Powell had first come among the Whitford
+Methodists, old Max had taken him by the hand, and had declared him to
+be the most awakening preacher they had had for many years. He was never
+tired of vaunting Powell's zeal, and diligence, and eloquence.
+Backsliders were brought again into the right way, sinners were
+awakened, believers were refreshed, under his ministry. The fame of
+Powell's preaching drew many unwonted auditors to the little chapel; and
+of those who came at first merely from curiosity, many were moved by his
+words to join the Wesleyan Connection. On all this Jonathan Maxfield
+looked with great satisfaction. The young man had been truly a burning
+and a shining light.
+
+But now--might it not be that the preacher's heart had become puffed up
+with spiritual pride? Was he not unduly exalting himself, when he
+assumed a tone of censorship towards such a pillar of the community as
+Jonathan Maxfield? The old man had been for many years accustomed to
+much deference, alike from preachers and congregation. The exhortations
+and admonitions which were doubtless needful for his neighbours, were
+entirely out of place when addressed to himself. His piety and probity
+were established on a rock. And the Lord had, moreover, seen fit to gift
+him with so large a share of the wisdom of the serpent, as had enabled
+him to hold his own, and to thrive in the midst of worldlings. A dull
+fire of indignation against David Powell began to smoulder in the old
+man's heart, as he pondered these things.
+
+Other thoughts, too, more or less disquieting, passed through his brain.
+He thought of Rhoda's mother--of that second wife whom he, a man past
+middle-life, had married for her fair young face and gentle ways, much
+to Betty Grimshaw's disgust, and the surprise of most people. He looked
+back on the long, dusty, dreary road of his life; and, in the whole
+landscape, the only spot on which the sun seemed to shine was that brief
+year of his second marriage. Not that he had been, or that he now was,
+an unhappy man. His life had satisfactions in it of a sober, sombre
+kind. He did not grow soft or sentimental in reviewing the past. He was
+accustomed to the chill, grey atmosphere in which he lived. But he had
+felt warm sunlight once, and remembered it. And he had a
+notion--inarticulate, indeed, and vague--that Rhoda needed more light
+and warmth in her life than was necessary for his own existence, or for
+James's, or Betty Grimshaw's, or, in fact, for most people's. There was
+no amount of hardness he could not be guilty of to "most people," and,
+indeed, he was hard enough to himself; but for Rhoda there was a soft
+place in his heart.
+
+Nevertheless, there were many hopes, fears, speculations, and
+reflections connected with Rhoda just now, which had anything but a
+softening effect on Mr. Maxfield's demeanour; insomuch that Betty and
+James, coming in presently to supper, found the head of the family in so
+crabbed a temper, that they were glad to hurry through the meal in
+silence, and slink off to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mention has been made of a whist-party at Dr. Bodkin's, to which Mrs.
+Errington announced her intention of going. It took place on the
+Thursday after that evening on which Mrs. Errington was first introduced
+to the reader: that is to say, on the second night following.
+
+Whist-parties were almost the only social entertainment ever given
+amongst the genteel persons in Whitford. The Rev. Cyrus Bodkin, D.D.,
+liked his rubber; so did Robert Smith, Esq., M.R.C.S., and Mr. Dockett,
+the attorney, and Miss Chubb, and one or two more cronies, who were
+frequently seen at the doctor's green card-tables.
+
+The Bodkins lived in a gloomy stone house adjoining the grammar-school,
+of which, indeed, it formed part. The house was approached by a
+gravelled courtyard, surrounded by high stone walls. The garden at the
+back ran sloping down to a broad green meadow, which in turn was
+bounded by the little river Whit, all overhung with willows, and covered
+by a floating mass of broad water-lily leaves, just opposite the
+doctor's garden gate.
+
+In the full summer time, the view from the back of the house was pretty
+and pastoral enough. But in autumn and winter the meadow was a swamp,
+whose vivid green looked poisonous--as indeed it was, exhaling ague and
+rheumatism from its plashy surface--and a white brooding mist trailed
+itself, morning and evening, along the sluggish Whit, like a fallen
+cloud, condemned by some angry prince of the air to crawl serpent-like
+on earth, instead of soaring and sailing in the empyrean.
+
+Such fancies never came into Doctor Bodkin's head, however, nor into his
+wife's either--good, anxious, unselfish, sad, little woman! Into his
+daughter Minnie's brain all sorts of wild, fantastic notions would
+intrude as she lay on her sofa, looking out upon the garden, and the
+river, and the meadow, and the gnarled old willows, and the flying scud
+in the sky; but she very seldom spoke of her fancies to any one. She
+spoke of other matters, though, freely enough. She had many visitors,
+who came and sat around her couch, or beside the lounging-chair, on
+which, on her good days, she reclined. She was better acquainted with
+the news of Whitford than most of the people who could use their limbs
+to go abroad and see what was passing. She was interested in the
+progress of the boys at the grammar-school, and knew the names, and a
+good deal about the characters, of every one of them. She would chat,
+and laugh, and joke by the hour with the frequenters of her father's
+house; but of herself--of her own thoughts, feelings, and
+fancies--Minnie Bodkin said no word to them. Nor did she, in truth, ever
+speak much on that subject all her life. And there were days--black days
+in the calendar of her poor anxious little mother--when Minnie would
+remain shut into her room, refusing to see or speak with anyone, and
+suffering much pain of body, with a proud stoicism which rejected
+sympathy like a wall of granite.
+
+There is no suggestion of granite about her now, however, as she lies,
+propped up by crimson cushions, on a sofa in her father's drawing-room.
+The room is bright and warm, despite the white kraken of mist that is
+coiled around the outer walls of the house. Wax-lights shine in tall,
+old-fashioned silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and on the centre
+table, and on a pianoforte, beside which stands a canterbury full of
+music-books. A great fire blazes in the grate, and makes its immediate
+neighbourhood too hot for the comfort of most people. But Minnie is apt
+to be chilly, and loves the heat. Some delicate ferns and hothouse
+plants adorn a stand between the windows. They are rather a rare luxury
+in Whitford; but Minnie loves flowers, and always has some choice ones
+about her. A still rarer luxury hangs on the wall opposite to her sofa,
+in the shape of a very fine copy--on a reduced scale--of Raphael's
+Madonna di San Sisto. Minnie had fallen in love with a print from that
+famous picture long ago, and the copy was procured for her at
+considerable pains and expense. The furniture of the room is of crimson
+and dark oak. Minnie delights in rich colours and picturesque
+combinations. In a word, there is not an inch of the apartment, from
+floor to ceiling, in the arrangement of which Minnie's tastes have not
+been consulted, and in which traces of Minnie's influence are not
+plainly to be seen by those who know that household.
+
+Minnie has a face, which, if you saw it represented in time-darkened oil
+colours, and framed on the walls of a picture-gallery, you would
+pronounce strikingly beautiful. Such faces are sometimes seen in flesh
+and blood, and, strange to say, do by no means excite the same
+enthusiasm in ordinary beholders, who, for the most part, like the
+picturesque in a picture and nowhere else; and who, to paraphrase what
+was said of Voltaire's intellect, admire chiefly those women who have,
+more than other young ladies, the prettiness which all young ladies
+have.
+
+Minnie's face is pale and rather sallow. Her skin is not transparent,
+but fine in texture, like fine vellum, and it seldom changes its hue
+from emotion. When it does, it grows dark-red or deadly-white. Pleasing
+blushes or pallors are never seen on it. She has dark, thick hair, worn
+short, and brushed away from a high, smooth, rounded forehead, in which
+shine a pair of bright brown eyes, under finely-arched eyebrows. But the
+beauty of the face lies in the perfection of its outlines: brow, cheeks,
+and chin are alike delicately moulded; her mouth--although the lips are
+too pale--is almost faultless, as are the white, small teeth she shows
+when she smiles. There is an indefinable air of sickness and suffering
+over this beautiful face, and dark traces beneath the eyes, and a
+pathetic, weary look in them sometimes; but, when she speaks or smiles,
+you forget all that.
+
+There are people in this world whose intellects remind one of lamps too
+scantily supplied with oil. The little feeble flame in them burns and
+flickers, certainly, but it is but a dull sort of dead light after all.
+Now Minnie Bodkin's spirit-lamp, if the phrase may be permitted,
+illumined everything it shone upon, and there were some persons who
+found it a great deal too dazzling to be pleasant.
+
+It is not at all too bright at this moment for Algernon Errington, who,
+seated close beside her couch, is giving her, sotto voce, a humorous
+imitation of the psalm-singing in old Max's parlour; and describing,
+with great relish, his mother's cool suggestion that the family prayers
+should be put off until she should be absent at a whist-party.
+
+"Poor dear mother," says Algernon, smiling, "she can't forget that she
+is an Ancram; and sometimes comes out with one of her grande dame
+speeches, as if she were addressing my grandfather's Warwickshire
+tenantry forty years ago!" At which simple, candid words Minnie shoots
+out a queer, keen glance at the young fellow from under her eyelids.
+
+"And the Methodist preacher--what is he like?" she asks. "Whitford is,
+or was, a little inclined to go crazed about him. I don't know whether
+the enthusiasm is burning itself out, as such fires of straw will do,
+but a few weeks ago I heard that the little Wesleyan chapel was crowded
+to overflowing whenever he preached; and that once or twice, when he
+addressed the people out of doors on Whit Meadow, there was such a
+multitude as never was seen there before. I was quite curious to see the
+man who could so move our sluggish Whitfordians."
+
+Algernon had taken up a sheet of note-paper and a pen from Minnie's
+letter-writing table, whilst she was speaking. "Look here," he says,
+"here's the preacher!" And he holds out the paper on which he has
+drawn, with a few rapid strokes, a caricature of David Powell.
+
+Minnie looks at it with raised eyebrows.
+
+"Oh," says she, "is he like that? I am disappointed. This is the common,
+conventional, long-haired Methodist, that one sees in every comic
+print."
+
+And in truth Algernon's portrait is not a good likeness, even for a
+caricature. He had drawn a lank, hook-nosed man, with long, black hair,
+expressed by two blots of ink falling on either side of his face.
+
+"He wears his hair just like that!" says Algy, contemplating his own
+work with a good deal of satisfaction.
+
+The card playing has not yet begun. Mrs. Bodkin, small, thin, with a
+questioning, sharp, little nose, and a chin which narrows off too
+suddenly, and an odd resemblance altogether to a little melancholy fox,
+is presiding at a tea-table. Besides tea and coffee, it is furnished
+with substantial cakes of many various kinds. Whitford people, for the
+most part, dine early, so that they are ready for solid food again by
+about eight o'clock; and will, probably, sustain nature once more with
+sandwiches and mulled wine before they sleep.
+
+It is not a large party. There is Mrs. Errington, majestic in a dyed
+silk, and a real lace cap, the latter a relic of the "better days" she
+is fond of reverting to; Miss Chubb, a stout spinster, with a
+languishing fat face as round as a full moon, and little rings of hair
+gummed down all over her forehead, and half-way down her plump cheeks;
+Mr. Smith, the surgeon, black-eyed, red-faced, and smiling; the Rev.
+Peter Warlock, curate of St. Chad's, a serious, ghoul-like young man,
+who rends great bits out of his muffin with his teeth, in a way to make
+you shudder if you happen to be nervous or fanciful; Mr. Dockett, the
+attorney, and his wife, each dressed in black, each with a huge double
+chin and smothered voice, and altogether comically like one another.
+
+On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, and his coffee-cup in his
+hand, stands Dr. Bodkin. He is short and thick. He has an air of
+command. He looks at the world in general as if it were liable to an
+"imposition" of ever so many hundred lines of Latin poetry, and as if he
+were ready to enforce the penalty at brief notice. He is not a hard man
+at heart, but nature has made him conceited, and habit has made him a
+tyrant. The boys kotoo to him in the school, and his wife bends
+submissively to his will at home. There is only one person in the world
+who habitually opposes and sets aside his assumption of infallibility,
+and that person--his daughter Minnie--he loves and fears. He tramples on
+most other people, in the firm persuasion that it is for their good. He
+is bald, large-faced, with a long upper-lip, which he shoots out into a
+funnel shape when he talks. He is an honest man in his calling, has a
+fair share of routine learning, and imparts it laboriously to the boys
+under his tuition.
+
+Presently the people seem to slacken in eating and drinking. "Another
+cup of tea, Mrs. Errington? Won't you try any of that pound cake, Mr.
+Warlock?" (N.B. He has eaten three muffins unassisted; but they do not
+prosper with him. He has a hungry glare.) "Mrs. Dockett? No?" Mrs.
+Bodkin looks round, and lifts her meek, foxy little nose interrogatively
+at each member of the circle. No one will eat or drink more. The doctor
+prepares to make up the tables.
+
+The card-tables are always set out in an inner drawing-room, adjoining
+that in which our friends are taking tea. Dr. Bodkin hates to hear any
+noise when he is at his rubber, so there are thick curtains before the
+door of communication between the two rooms; and the door is shut, and
+the curtains drawn, whenever Minnie desires to have music on whist
+evenings.
+
+The sound of the piano penetrates to the card-players, nevertheless. But
+Mrs. Bodkin declares that she can never hear a note, when she is in the
+little drawing-room, with the door shut, and the curtains drawn. And
+although the doctor wears a frown on his bald forehead, and is more
+than ordinarily severe on his partner whenever the piano begins to sound
+during a game, yet he never takes any step to have the instrument
+silenced.
+
+The players file off in the wake of the host. There is a quartet at the
+doctor's table. At another, Mrs. Dockett, Mrs. Warlock, and Mr. Smith
+play dummy. Algernon Errington hates cards, and--naturally--doesn't
+play. The Rev. Peter Warlock also hates cards, but is wanted to make up
+the rubber, and--naturally--plays. Mrs. Bodkin hovers between the two
+rooms, and Minnie and Algernon are left almost tete-a-tete.
+
+"And so you really, really think of going to London?" says Minnie
+gravely.
+
+"To seek my fortune!" answers Algernon, with a smile. "Turn a-gain,
+Er-ring-ton--I don't know why that shouldn't be rung out on Bow Bells.
+You see my name has the same number of syllables as Whit-ting-ton! I
+declare that is a good omen!"
+
+"Whittington made himself useful to the cook, and took care of his
+kitten. I wonder what you will do, Algy, to deserve fortune?"
+
+"Do you think fortune favours the deserving? They paint her as a woman!"
+cries Master Algernon, with a saucy grimace.
+
+"Algy, I like you. We are old chums. Have you considered this step? Have
+you any reasonable prospect of making your way, if you refuse the
+Bristol man's proposition."
+
+Minnie seldom speaks so earnestly as she is speaking now; still seldomer
+volunteers any inquiry into other people's affairs. Algernon is sensible
+of the distinction, and flattered by it. He forthwith proceeds to lay
+his hopes and plans before her; that is to say, he talks a great deal
+with astonishing candour and fluency, and says wonderfully little. His
+mother is so anxious; these Seeleys are her people. It would vex the
+dear old lady so terribly, if he were to prefer the Bristol side of the
+house! Though, perhaps, that would be, selfishly speaking, the right
+policy.
+
+"Ah, I see!" exclaims Minnie, sinking back among her cushions when he
+has done speaking.
+
+By-and-by, one or two more guests drop in: young Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, some six miles from Whitford; Lieutenant-Colonel Whistler, on
+half-pay, with his two nieces, Rose and Violet McDougall; and with them
+Alethea Dockett, who is still a day-boarder at a girls' school in
+Whitford, and has been spending the afternoon with the Misses McDougall.
+The latter young ladies never play whist. Little Ally Dockett sometimes
+takes a hand, if need be, and acquits herself not discreditably; but
+sixteen rushes in where two-and-thirty fears to tread. Rose and Violet
+are on the doubtful border-land of life, and keep up a brisk
+skirmishing warfare with their enemy, Time. They would not give that
+wily old traitor the triumph of putting themselves at a whist-table
+for--for anything short of a bona fide offer of marriage, with a good
+settlement.
+
+All those guests Minnie receives very graciously, with a sort of royal
+condescension. She is quite unconscious that the Misses McDougall (of
+whose intelligence she has, truth to say, a disdainful estimate) are
+alive to the fact that she thinks them fools, and that they take a good
+deal of credit to themselves for bearing with her airs, poor thing! But
+then she is so afflicted!
+
+"Oh, Minnie, what's that? Do let me see! Is it one of your caricatures,
+you wicked thing?" cries Rose, darting on the portrait of David Powell.
+
+"It's better drawn than Minnie can do," says Violet, with an air of
+having evidence wrung from her on oath.
+
+"It may be that, and yet not very good," answers Minnie carelessly. "Mr.
+Errington has been trying to give me an idea of some one I've never
+seen, and probably never shall see."
+
+"It's the Methodist preacher, by Jove!" says young Pawkins with his
+glass in his eye. "I heard him and saw him last summer on Whit Meadow."
+
+Colonel Whistler, after holding the paper out at the utmost stretch of
+his arm, solemnly puts on a pair of gold spectacles and examines it.
+
+"Monstrous good!" he pronounces. "Very well, Errington! That's just the
+cut of that kind of fellow."
+
+"Have you seen him, colonel?" asks Minnie.
+
+"No--no; I can't say I have seen him. Don't like these irregular
+practitioners, Miss Minnie. But I know the sort of fellow. That's just
+the cut of 'em!"
+
+"I wish I could draw, Miss Bodkin," says a voice behind Minnie at the
+head of the sofa; "I would show you a better likeness of the man than
+that!"
+
+Minnie puts her thin white hand over her shoulder to the new comer, whom
+she cannot see. "Mr. Diamond!" she exclaims very softly.
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"I know your voice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The little group round Minnie's sofa dispersed as Mr. Diamond came
+forward. He was barely known by sight to most of them, and merely bowed
+gravely and shyly, without speaking.
+
+"Who's that?" asked Colonel Whistler, in a loud whisper, of his eldest
+niece. "Eh? oh! ah! second master--yes, yes, yes; to be sure!" And the
+gallant gentleman walked off to the card-room, and joined the party at
+Mrs. Dockett's table, where there was a vacant place. It must be owned
+that the colonel's appearance was by no means rapturously hailed there.
+He was a notoriously bad player. Fate, however, allotted him as a
+partner to Mr. Warlock. Mrs. Dockett and Mr. Smith exchanged glances of
+satisfaction, and the gloom on Mr. Warlock's brow perceptibly deepened
+as the colonel, polite, smiling, and eager for the fray, took his seat
+opposite to that clerical victim.
+
+"Algy, give Mr. Diamond your chair," said Miss Bodkin. It was in this
+imperious manner that she occasionally addressed her young friend. In
+her eyes he was still a school-boy. And then she was four years his
+senior, and had been a young woman grown when he was still playing
+marbles and munching toffy.
+
+Algy by no means considered himself a school-boy, but he had excellent
+tact and temper. He rose directly, shook hands with his tutor, and then
+standing opposite to Minnie, put his knuckles to his forehead, after the
+fashion in vogue amongst rustic children by way of salute, and said
+meekly, "Yes'm, please'm."
+
+Minnie laughed. "You don't mind, do you, Algernon?" she said, looking up
+at him.
+
+"Not at all, Miss Bodkin. You have merely cast another blight over my
+young existence. I am growing to look like the reverend Peter, in
+consequence of your ill-usage. Don't you perceive a ghastly hue upon my
+brow? No? Ah, well, you would if you had any feeling. Here, let me put
+this cushion better for you. Will that do?"
+
+"Capitally, thanks. And, look here, Algy; I can't bear any music
+to-night, so will you get mamma to set the McDougalls down to a round
+game? And play yourself, there's a good boy!"
+
+"Oh, Minnie, you ought to have been Mrs. Nero. There never was such a
+tyrant. Well, Pawkins and I must make ourselves agreeable, I suppose.
+For England, home, and beauty--here goes!" And Algernon speedily had the
+two Miss McDougalls, and Mr. Pawkins, and Alethea Dockett engaged in a
+game of vingt-et-un--played in a very infantine manner by the
+first-named ladies, and with a good deal of business-like gravity by
+little Alethea, who liked to win.
+
+Mr. Diamond looked at the group with his hand over his mouth, after his
+habit.
+
+"Isn't he a nice fellow?" asked Minnie, watching Mr. Diamond's face
+curiously.
+
+"Errington?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Very."
+
+"But now, tell me--do sit down here; I want to talk to you. You come so
+seldom. I wonder why you came to-night?"
+
+"I chanced to meet Mrs. Bodkin in the street, and she asked me so
+pressingly--she is so good!"
+
+Minnie's face wore a pained look. "It is a pity mamma should have teased
+you," she said, in a low voice.
+
+Matthew Diamond took no notice of the words. Perhaps he did not hear
+them. "I am not fit to go to evening parties," he continued. "The very
+wax-lights dazzle me. I feel like a bat or an owl."
+
+"Too wise for your company, that means!"
+
+"How can you say so? No: I assure you I was compared to an owl the other
+evening by a lady, and I felt the justice of the comparison."
+
+"By a lady! What lady?"
+
+Mr. Diamond smiled a little amused smile at the authoritative tone of
+the question. Minnie did not see it. She was leaning her elbow on a
+cushion, and had her face turned towards Mr. Diamond; but her eyes,
+which usually looked out, open and unabashed, were half veiled by their
+lids.
+
+"The lady was Mrs. Errington," answered the tutor, after a moment's
+pause.
+
+"She called you an owl? That eagle? Well, she has this aquiline quality;
+I believe she could stare the sun himself out of countenance!"
+
+"You were asking me to tell you----" said Mr. Diamond.
+
+"To tell me----? Oh, yes; about the Methodist preacher. That caricature
+is not like him, you say?"
+
+"Not at all. It is a vulgar conception of the man."
+
+"And the man is not vulgar? I am glad of that! Tell me about him."
+
+Matthew Diamond had heard the preacher more than once. The first time
+had been by chance on Whit Meadow. The other times were in the crowded,
+close Wesleyan chapel, into which he had penetrated at the cost of a
+good deal of personal inconvenience, so greatly had Powell's eloquence
+impressed him.
+
+"The man is like a flame of fire," he said. "It is wonderful! He must be
+like Garrick, according to the descriptions I have heard. And, then,
+this fellow is so handsome--wild and oriental-looking. I always long to
+clap a turban on his head, and a great flowing robe over his shoulders."
+
+Minnie listened eagerly, with parted lips, to all that Diamond would
+tell her of the preacher.
+
+"That is for his manner," she said, at length. "Now, as to the matter?"
+
+Mr. Diamond paused. "The man is an enthusiast, you know," he answered,
+gravely.
+
+"But as to his doctrine? Give me some idea of the kind of thing he
+says."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Yes; now. This moment."
+
+"Excuse me; I cannot enter into the subject now."
+
+Minnie raises her brown eyes to his steel-grey ones, and then drops her
+own quickly.
+
+"Will you ever?" she asks, meekly.
+
+"Perhaps. I don't know."
+
+Miss Bodkin is not accustomed to be answered with such unceremonious
+curtness; but, perhaps on account of its novelty, Mr. Diamond's blunt
+disregard of her requests (in that house Minnie's requests have the
+weight of commands) does not ruffle her. She bears it with the most
+perfect sweetness, and proceeds to discourse of other things.
+
+"Don't you think it a pity," she says, "that Algernon Errington should
+have refused his cousin's offer?"
+
+"A great pity--for him."
+
+"Ah! you think Mr. Filthorpe of Bristol is not to be condoled with on
+the occasion?"
+
+Mr. Diamond's firmly closed lips remain immovable.
+
+Minnie looks at him wistfully, and then says suddenly, "Do you know I
+like Algy very much! There is something so bright and winning and gay
+about him! I have known him so long--ever since he came here as a small
+child in a frock. And papa knew his father, Dr. Errington. He was a very
+clever man, a brilliant talker, and greatly sought after in society.
+Algy inherits all that. And he has--what they say his father had not--a
+temper that is almost perfect, thoroughly sound and sweet. I wish you
+liked him."
+
+"Who tells you that I do not like him? You are mistaken in fancying so.
+I think Errington one of the most winning fellows I ever knew in my
+life."
+
+"Y-yes; but you don't think so well of him as I do."
+
+"Perhaps that is hardly to be expected! And pardon me, Miss Bodkin, but
+you don't know----"
+
+"I know nothing about your thoughts on the subject!" interrupts Minnie
+quickly, and with a bright, mischievous glance. "Forgive my interrupting
+you; but when I am to have a cold shower-bath, I like to pull the string
+myself. Now it's over."
+
+"You think me a terrible bear," says Diamond, looking down on her
+beautiful, animated face.
+
+"Ah! take care. If I know nothing about your thoughts, how do you
+pretend to guess mine? Besides, I am not so zoological in my choice of
+epithets as your friend, Mrs. Errington. Papa nearly quarrelled with
+that lady on the subject of Algy's going away. But, you know, it is not
+all Mrs. Errington's fault. Algy chooses to try his fortune under the
+auspices of Lord Seely--I can see that plainly enough. And what Algy
+chooses his mother chooses. He has been terribly spoiled."
+
+"It is a great misfortune----"
+
+"To be spoiled?"
+
+"For him to have lost his father when he was a child. Otherwise he might
+not have been so pampered: though fathers spoil their children
+sometimes!"
+
+"Mine spoils me, I think. But then there is an excuse, after all, for
+spoiling me."
+
+"My dear Miss Bodkin, you cannot suppose that I had any such meaning."
+
+"You? Oh, no! You are honest: you never speak in innuendoes. But it is
+true, you know. My father and mother have spoiled me. Poor father and
+mother! I am but a miserable, frail little craft for them to have
+ventured so much love and devotion in!"
+
+It was not in mortal man--not even in mortal man whose heart was filled
+with a passion for another woman--to refrain from a tender glance and a
+soft tone, in answer to Minnie's pathetic little plaint. Her beauty and
+her intellect might be resisted: her helplessness, and acknowledgment of
+peculiar affliction, could not be.
+
+"Ah!" said Matthew Diamond; "who would not embark all their freight of
+affection in such a venture as the hope that you would love them again?
+I think your parents are paid."
+
+It has been said that Mr. Diamond's calm, grave face raised an
+indefinite expectation in the beholder. When he said those words to
+Minnie Bodkin, you would have thought, if you had been watching him,
+that you had found the key of the puzzle, and that an ineffable
+tenderness was the secret that lay hid beneath that grave mask. The
+stern mouth smiled, the stern eyes beamed, the straight brows were
+lifted in a compassionate curve. Minnie had never seen his face with
+that look on it, and the change in it gave her a curious pang, half of
+pain, half of pleasure. Strong conflicting feelings battled in her. She
+was strung to a high pitch of excitement; and her eyes brightened, and
+her pulse beat quicker--all for a look, a smile, a beam of the eye from
+this staid, quiet schoolmaster! What do we know of the thought in our
+neighbour's brain? of the thrill that makes his heart flutter? We do not
+care for this air-bubble. How can he? It is yonder beautiful transparent
+ball, all radiant with prismatic colours, that we expend our breath
+upon. Up it goes--up, up, up--look! No; our stupid neighbour is watching
+his own airy sphere, which is not nearly so beautiful; and which, we
+know, will burst presently!
+
+The game of vingt-et-un comes to an end. Almost at the same moment the
+whist-players break up, and come trooping into the drawing-room;
+trooping and talking rather noisily, to say the truth, as though to
+indemnify themselves for the silence which Doctor Bodkin insists upon
+during the classic game. Mrs. Bodkin bustles up to her daughter; hopes
+she is not tired; thinks she looks a little fagged; wonders why she did
+not have any music, as she generally likes Rose McDougall's Scotch
+ballads; supposes Mr. Diamond preferred not to play, as she sees he has
+been sitting out, and trusts he has not been bored.
+
+But of all the people present, Mrs. Bodkin alone guesses that Minnie has
+enjoyed her evening, and why. And, with her mother's and woman's
+instinct, she knows that Minnie's pleasure would have been spoiled by
+guessing that it had been guessed. For the rest, this small
+anxious-faced woman cares but little. She would tear your feelings to
+mince-meat to feed the fancies of her daughter, as ruthlessly as any
+maternal vixen would slay a chicken for her cubs; although, for herself,
+no hare is milder or more timid.
+
+The Misses McDougall are in good spirits. They have won, and they have
+had the two young men all to themselves, for Ally Dockett in short
+frocks doesn't count. Also Minnie Bodkin has kept aloof. That bright
+lamp of hers is not favourable to such twinkling little rushlights as
+Rose and Violet are able to display. But this evening they have not been
+quenched by a superior luminary, and are quite radiant and cheerful. Dr.
+Bodkin, too, is contented in his lofty manner; for there has been no
+music, and he has enjoyed his rubber in peace. Colonel Whistler has
+lost, but the stakes are always modest at Dr. Bodkin's table, and he
+doesn't mind it. Over the feelings of the Rev. Peter Warlock it will,
+perhaps, be best to draw a veil. The reverend gentleman stalks in, and
+sits down in a corner, whence he can stare at Minnie unobserved. It is
+the only comfort he enjoys throughout the evening. And for this he
+thinks it worth while to submit to the _peine forte et dure_ of playing
+whist, with Colonel Whistler for his partner.
+
+Mrs. Errington sails towards Minnie's sofa, and suddenly stops short,
+and opens her eyes very wide.
+
+Mr. Diamond, who is the object of her gaze, rises and bows. "Good
+evening, madam," he says, unable to repress a smile at her manifest
+astonishment on beholding him there.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Diamond? Dear me! I little expected to see you
+this evening. Dear Minnie, how are you now? Well, this is a surprise!"
+
+Then, as Mr. Diamond moves away, Mrs. Errington takes his chair beside
+Minnie, and says to her confidentially--"Now, I hope, Minnie, you won't
+owe me a grudge for it; but I must confess that if it hadn't been for
+me, you wouldn't have had that gentleman to entertain this evening."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" cries Minnie, with scant ceremony, and
+flashes an impatient glance at the lady's soft, smiling, self-satisfied
+visage.
+
+"My dear, I advised him to come here a little oftener. I think he felt
+diffident, you know, and all that. Poor man, he is rather dull, although
+Algy is always crying up his talents. But it really is kind to bring him
+forward a little. I asked him to tea the other night. You see he must
+feel it a good deal when people are affable, and so on, for"--here her
+voice sank to a whisper--"he told me himself that he had been a sizar."
+
+With all which benevolent remarks Miss Bodkin is, of course, highly
+delighted. She does not forget them either; for after the negus has been
+drunk, and the sandwiches eaten, and the company has departed, she says
+to her father, "Papa, was Mr. Diamond a sizar?"
+
+"I don't know, child. Very likely. None the worse for that, if he were."
+
+"The worse! No!" returns Minnie, with a superb smile.
+
+"Who says he was?"
+
+"Mrs. Errington."
+
+"Pooh! Ten to one it isn't true then. She has her good points, poor
+woman, but the Ancrams are all liars; every one of them! Greatest liars
+in all the Midland Counties. It runs in the family, like gout."
+
+"It does not seem likely, certainly, that Mr. Diamond should have
+confided the circumstance to Mrs. Errington," observed Minnie,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Confided! No; I never knew a man less likely to confide anything to
+anybody."
+
+"However, after all, it is a thing which all the world might know, isn't
+it, papa?"
+
+Dr. Bodkin was not interested in the question. He gave a great loud
+yawn, and declared it was time for Minnie to go to bed.
+
+"It doesn't follow that I'm sleepy because you yawn, papa!" she said
+saucily.
+
+"You are tired though, puss! I see it in your face. Go to bed. Mrs.
+Bodkin, get Minnie off to rest."
+
+He bent to kiss his daughter, and bid her good night.
+
+"Say 'God bless' me, papa," she whispered, drawing his head down and
+kissing his forehead.
+
+"Don't I always say it? God bless you, my darling!"
+
+There were tears in Minnie's eyes as she turned her head away among her
+cushions. But nobody saw them. She talked to the maid who undressed her
+about Mr. Powell, the Methodist preacher, and asked her if she had heard
+him, and what the folks said about him in the town.
+
+"No, Miss Minnie. I've never heard him, and I know master wouldn't think
+it right for any of us to be going to a dissenting chapel. But I do
+think as there's some good to be got there, miss. For my brother
+Richard, him that lives groom at Pudcombe Hall--he went and got--got
+'conversion,' I think they call it, at Mr. Powell's. And since then he's
+never touched a drop of liquor, nor a bad word never comes out of his
+mouth. And he says he's quite happy and comfortable in his mind, miss."
+
+"Is he? How I envy him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+It is exceedingly disagreeable to find that a scheme you have set your
+head on, or a prospect which smiles before you, is displeasing to the
+persons who surround you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of
+anticipation.
+
+Algernon did not perhaps care to sympathise very keenly with other
+folks' pleasure, but he certainly desired that they should be pleased
+with what pleased him, which is not quite the same thing.
+
+His mother informed him--perhaps with a dash of the Ancram colouring;
+although we have seen how unjustly the worthy lady was suspected of
+falsehood by Dr. Bodkin on a late occasion--that Mr. Diamond disapproved
+of his refusing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go to
+London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, did not approve it; neither did
+Minnie, although she had never said so in words. How unpleasantly chilly
+people were, to be sure!
+
+Mrs. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. She mistrusted him. His silence
+and gravity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn politeness, made her
+uneasy. Despite the patronising way in which she had spoken of him to
+Minnie Bodkin, in her heart she thought the young man to be horribly
+presuming.
+
+"I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at all, Algy," she declared, winding
+up a list of Mr. Diamond's defects and misdemeanours with this
+culminating accusation.
+
+Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. Diamond's appreciation of himself was
+likely to be a just one, and he was a little vexed and discomfited, that
+his tutor had given him no word of praise behind his back. Mrs.
+Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten and
+embellish her statements accordingly. "But, my dear boy," said she, "how
+can we expect him to recognise talents like yours--gentlemanly talents,
+so to speak? The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, he was a sizar at
+college!"
+
+Algy felt himself to be a very generous fellow for continuing to "stand
+up for old Diamond," as he phrased it.
+
+"Well, ma'am, plenty of great men have been poor scholars. Dean Swift
+was a sizar."
+
+"And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! So you see, Algy!"
+
+Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good deal upon this retort, and returned
+to the attack upon Mr. Diamond with fresh vigour; being one of those
+persons whose mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, never content
+with merely killing their enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash every
+semblance of humanity out of him.
+
+Algernon did not like all this. His vanity was--at least during this
+period of his life--a great deal more vulnerable than his mother's. And
+she, although she doated on him, would say unpleasant things,
+indignantly repeat mortifying remarks which had been made, and in a
+hundred ways unconsciously wound the sensitive love of approbation which
+was one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say weakest) points.
+
+It was all very disagreeable. But it was not the worst he had to look
+forward to. There was one person who would be so cast down, so
+despairing, at the news of his going away, that--that--it would be quite
+painful for a fellow to witness such grief. And yet it could not be
+expected--it could never have been expected--that he should stay in
+Whitford all his life! He must point that out to Rhoda.
+
+Poor Rhoda!
+
+For ten years, that is to say for more than half her life, Algernon
+Errington had been an idol, a hero, to her. From the first day when,
+peeping from behind the parlour door, she had beheld the strangers
+enter--Mrs. Errington, majestic, in a huge hat and plume, such as young
+readers may have seen in obsolete fashion books (the mode was so absurd
+fifty years ago, and had none of that simple elegance which
+distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair
+child, in a black velvet suit and falling collar--from that moment the
+boy had been a radiant apparition in her imagination. How small, and
+poor, and shabby she felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at that
+beautiful, blooming mother and son! Not poor and shabby in a milliner's
+sense of the word, but literally of no account, or beauty, or value, in
+the world, little shy motherless thing! She had an intense delight in
+beauty, this Whitford grocer's daughter. And all her little life the
+craving for beauty in her had been starved: not wilfully, but because
+the very conception of such food as would wholesomely have fed it, was
+wanting in the people with whom she lived.
+
+That was a great day when she first, by chance, attracted Mrs.
+Errington's notice. She was too timid and too simple to scheme for that
+end, as many children would have done, although she tremblingly desired
+it. What a surprisingly splendid sight was the tortoise-shell work-box,
+full of amber satin and silver! What a delightful revelation the sound
+of the old harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's plump white
+fingers! What a perennial source of wonder and admiration were that
+lady's accomplishments, and condescension, and kind soft voice!
+
+As to Algernon, there never was such a clever and brilliant little boy.
+At eight years old he could sing little songs to his mother's
+accompaniment, in the sweetest piping voice. He could recite little
+verses. He even drew quite so that you could tell--or Rhoda could--his
+trees, houses, and men from one another.
+
+In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of her family,
+and in all the descriptions she gave of her ancestral home in
+Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagination put in the boy as the central figure
+of the piece. She could see him in the great hall hung round with
+armour; although she knew that he had never been in the family mansion
+in his life; in the grand drawing-room, with its purple carpet and gilt
+furniture; above all, in the long portrait gallery, of which Rhoda was
+never tired of hearing. Heaven knows how she, innocently, and Mrs.
+Errington, exercising her hereditary talent, embellished and transformed
+the old brick house in its deer park; or what enchanted landscapes the
+child at all events conjured up, among the gentle slopes and tufted
+woods of Warwickshire!
+
+Even the period of hobbledehoydom, fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to
+civilised humanity in most schoolboys, Algernon passed through
+triumphantly. He had a great sense of humour, and fastidious pampered
+habits of mind and body, which enabled him to look down with more or
+less disdain--a good-humoured disdain, always, Algy was never
+bitter--upon the obstreperous youth at the Whitford Grammar School.
+
+One fight he had. He was forced into it by circumstances, against his
+will. Not that he was a coward, but he had a greater, and more candidly
+expressed regard for the ease and comfort of his body, than his
+schoolfellows conceived to be compatible with pluck. However, our young
+friend, if less stoical, was a great deal cleverer than the majority of
+his peers; and perceiving that the moment had arrived when he must
+either fight or lose caste altogether, he frankly accepted the former
+alternative. He fought a boy bigger and heavier than himself, got beaten
+(not severely, but fairly well beaten) and bore his defeat--in the
+dialect of his compeers, "took his licking"--admirably. He was quite as
+popular afterwards, as if he had thrashed his adversary, who was a
+loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to strength. Had he bruised his
+way to the perilous glory of being cock of the school himself, it would
+have behoved him to maintain it against all comers; which is an anxious
+and harassing position. Algy had not vanquished the victor, but he had
+"taken his licking like a trump," and, on the whole, may be said to
+have achieved his reputation, at the smallest cost possible under the
+circumstances.
+
+His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked at beholding his bruised cheek, and
+bleeding lip, when he came home one half-holiday, from the field of
+battle. Algy laughed as well as his swollen features would let him, and
+calmed their feminine apprehensions. Nor would he accept his fond
+parent's enthusiastic praise of his heroism, mingled with denunciations
+of "that murderous young ruffian, Master Mannit."
+
+"Pooh, ma'am," said the hero, "it's all brutal and low enough. We bumped
+and thumped each other as awkwardly as possible. I fought because I was
+obliged. And I didn't like it, and I shan't fight again if I can help
+it. It is so stupid!"
+
+The young fellow's great charm was to be unaffected. Even his
+fine-gentlemanism sat quite easily on him, and was displayed with the
+frankest good humour. Some one reproached him once with being more nice
+than wise. "We can't all be wise, but we needn't be nasty!" returned
+Algy, with quaint gravity. His temper was, as Minnie Bodkin had said,
+nearly perfect. He had a singular knack of disarming anger or hostility.
+You could not laugh Algernon out of any course he had set his heart
+upon--a rare kind of strength at his age--but it was ten to one he would
+laugh you into agreeing with him. Every one of his little gifts and
+accomplishments was worth twice as much in him as it would have been in
+clumsier hands.
+
+If you had a heartache, I do not think that you would have found Algy's
+companionship altogether soothing. Sorrow is apt to feel the very
+sunshine cruelly bright and cheerful. But if you were merry and wanted
+society: or bored, and wanted amusement: or dull and wanted
+exhilarating, no better companion could be desired.
+
+He was genial with his equals, affable to his inferiors, modest towards
+his superiors--and had not a grain of veneration in his whole
+composition.
+
+At seventeen years old Algernon left the Grammar School. But he
+continued to "read" with Mr. Diamond for nearly a twelvemonth. "My son
+is studying the classics with Mr. Diamond," Mrs. Errington would say; "I
+can't send my boy to the University, where all his forefathers
+distinguished themselves. But he has had the education of a gentleman."
+
+It was a very desultory kind of reading at the best, and it was
+interrupted by the long Midsummer holidays, during which Mr. Diamond
+went away from Whitford, no one knew exactly whither. And during these
+same holidays, Mrs. Errington, who said she required change of air, had
+taken lodgings in a little quiet Welsh village, and obtained Mr.
+Maxfield's permission to have Rhoda with her.
+
+That was a time of joy for the girl. It did not at all detract from
+Rhoda's happiness, that she was required to wait hand and foot on Mrs.
+Errington; to bring her her breakfast in bed; to trim her caps, to mend
+her stockings; to iron out scraps of fine lace and muslin; to walk with
+her when she was minded to stroll into the village; to order the dinner;
+to make the pudding--a culinary operation too delicate for the fingers
+of the rustic with whom they lodged--to listen to her patroness when it
+pleased her to talk; and to play interminable games of cribbage with her
+when she was tired of talking. All these things were a labour of love to
+Rhoda. And Mrs. Errington was kind to the girl in her own way.
+
+And above all, was not Algy there? Those were happy days in the Welsh
+village. On the long delicious summer afternoons, when Mrs. Errington
+was asleep after dinner, Rhoda would sit out of doors with her sewing;
+on a bench under the parlour window, so as to be within call of her
+patroness; and Algy would lounge beside her with a book; or make short
+excursions to get her wild flowers, which he would toss into her lap,
+laughing at her ecstasy of gratitude. "Oh, Algy!" she would cry, "Oh,
+how good of you! How lovely they are!" The words written down are not
+eloquent, but Rhoda's looks and tones made them so.
+
+"They are not half so lovely," Algy would answer, "as properly educated
+garden flowers; nor so sweet either. But I know you like that sort of
+herbage."
+
+Rhoda never forgot those days. How should she forget them?--since it was
+at this period that Algernon first discovered that he was in love with
+her. Perhaps he might never have made the discovery if they had all
+stayed at Whitford. There he saw her, as he had seen her since her
+childhood, surrounded by coarse common people, and living their life,
+more or less. It is not every one who can be expected to recognise your
+diamond, if you set it in lead. Rhoda was always sweet, always gentle,
+always pretty, but she formed part and parcel of old Max's
+establishment. When the boy and girl were quite small, she used to help
+him with his lessons (her one year's seniority made a greater difference
+between them then, than it did later) and had always been used to do him
+sisterly service in a hundred ways. And all this was by no means
+favourable to the young gentleman's falling in love with her.
+
+But at Llanryddan, Rhoda appeared under quite a different aspect. She
+looked prettier than ever before, Algernon thought. And perhaps she
+really was so; for there is no such cosmetic for the complexion as
+happiness. Apart from her vulgar relations, and treated as a lady by the
+few strangers with whom they came in contact, it was surprising to find
+how good her manners were, and how much natural grace she possessed.
+Mrs. Errington had taught her what may be termed the technicalities of
+polite behaviour. From her own heart and native sensibility she had
+learnt the essentials. The people in the village turned their heads to
+admire her, as she walked modestly along. Who could help admiring her?
+Algernon decided that there was not one among the young ladies of
+Whitford who could compare with Rhoda. "She is ten times as pretty as
+those raw-boned McDougalls, and twenty times as well bred as Alethea
+Dockett, and ever so much cleverer than Miss Pawkins," he reflected.
+Minnie Bodkin never came into his head in the list of damsels with whom
+Rhoda could be compared. Minnie occupied a place apart, quite removed
+from any idea of love-making.
+
+Dear Little Rhoda! How fond she was of him!
+
+Altogether Rhoda appeared in a new light, and the new light became her
+mightily. Yes; Algy was certainly in love with her, he acknowledged to
+himself. There was no scene, no declaration. It all came to pass very
+gradually. In Rhoda the sense of this love stole on as subtly as the
+dawn. Before she had begun to watch the glowing streaks of rose-colour,
+it was daylight! And then how warm and golden it grew in her little
+world! How the birds chirped and fluttered, and the flowers breathed
+sweet breath, and a thousand diamond drops stood on the humblest blades
+of grass!
+
+If she had been nine years old, instead of nearly nineteen, she could
+scarcely have given less heed to the worldly aspects of the situation.
+
+Algernon perhaps more consciously set aside considerations of the
+future. He was but a boy, however; and he always had a great gift of
+enjoying the present moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, that looks
+forward and backward, to the deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely on
+his horizon; no London society; no diplomatic career. The latter indeed
+was but an Ancramism of his mother's, when she spoke of it to Mr.
+Diamond, and Algy at that time had never entertained the idea of it.
+
+So these two young persons sat side by side, on the bench outside the
+Welsh cottage, and were as happy as the midsummer days were long.
+
+But long as the midsummer days were, they passed. Then came the time for
+going back to Whitford. The day before their return home Rhoda received
+a shock of pain--the first, but not the last, which she ever felt from
+this love of hers--at these words, said carelessly, but in a low voice,
+by Algy, as he lounged at her side, watching the sunset:
+
+"Rhoda, darling, you must not say a word to any one about--about you and
+me, you know."
+
+Not say a word! What had she to say? And to whom? "No, Algy," she
+answered, in a faint little voice, and began to meditate. The idea had
+been presented to her for the first time that it was her duty, or Algy's
+duty, to drag their secret from its home in Fairyland, and subject it to
+the eyes and tongues of mortals. But being once there, the idea stayed
+in her mind and would not be banished. Her father--Mrs. Errington--what
+would they say if they knew that--that she had dared to love Algernon?
+The future began to look terribly hard to her. The glittering mist which
+had hidden it was drawn away like a gauze curtain. How could she not
+have seen it all before? Would any one believe for evermore that she had
+been such a child, such a fool, so selfishly absorbed in her pleasant
+day-dreams, as not to calculate the cost of it for one moment until now?
+
+"Oh, Algy!" the poor child broke out, lifting a pale face and startled
+eyes to his; "if we could only go on for ever as we are! If it would be
+always summer, and we two could stay in this village, and never go back,
+or see any of the people again--except father," she added hastily. And a
+pang of remorse smote her as her conscience told her that the father who
+loved her so well, and was so good to her, whatever he might be to
+others, was not at all necessary to the happiness of her existence
+henceforward.
+
+"Don't let's be miserable now, at all events," returned Algernon
+cheerfully. "Look at that purple bar of cloud on the gold! I wonder if I
+could paint that. I wish I had my colour-box here. The pencil sketches
+are so dreary after all that colour."
+
+Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon could paint "that," or anything else he
+applied his brush to. After a while she said, with her heart beating
+violently, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks: "Don't you
+think it would be wrong, deceitful--to--if we--not to tell----" Poor
+Rhoda could not frame her sentence, and was obliged to leave it
+unfinished.
+
+"Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, Rhoda? Oh, I say, don't cry;
+there's a pet! Don't, my darling! I can't bear to see you sorry. But,
+look here, Rhoda, dear; I'm so young yet, that it wouldn't do to talk
+about being in love, or anything of that sort. Though I know I shall
+never change, they would declare I didn't know my own mind, and would
+make a joke of it"--this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule,
+as a sensitive plant shrinks from the north wind--"and bother my--our
+lives out. Can't you see old Grimgriffin's great front teeth grinning at
+us?"
+
+It was in these terms that Algy was wont to allude to that respectable
+spinster, Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw.
+
+Rhoda knew that Algy wished and expected her to smile when he said that;
+and she tried to please him, but the smile would not come. Her lip
+quivered, and tears began to gather in her eyes again. She would have
+sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought the
+sadder and more frightened she grew. Ridicule was painful, but that was
+not the worst. Her father! Mrs. Errington! She lay awake half the night,
+terrifying herself with imaginations of their wrath.
+
+Algy found an opportunity the next morning to whisper to her a few
+words. "Don't look so melancholy, Rhoda. They'll wonder at Whitford
+what's the matter if you go back with such a wan face. And as to what
+you said about deceit, why we shan't pretend not to love each other!
+Look here, we must have patience! I shall always love you, darling, and
+I'm sure to get my own way with my mother in the long run; I always do."
+
+So then there would be obstacles to contend with on Mrs. Errington's
+part, and Algy acknowledged that there would. Of course she had known
+before that it must be so. But Algy had declared that he would always
+love her; that was the one comforting thought to which she clung. Rhoda
+had grown from a child to a woman since yesterday. Algy was only older
+by four-and-twenty hours.
+
+After their return to Whitford came Mr. Filthorpe's letter. Then his
+mother's application to Lady Seely, brought about by an old acquaintance
+of Mrs. Errington, who lived in London, and kept up an intermittent
+correspondence with her. Both these events were talked over in Rhoda's
+presence. Indeed, the girl filled the part towards Mrs. Errington that
+the confidant enacts towards the prima donna in an Italian opera. Mrs.
+Errington was always singing scenas to her, which, so far as Rhoda's
+share in them went, might just as well have been uttered in the shape of
+a soliloquy. But the lady was used to her confidant, and liked to have
+her near, to take her hand in the impressive passages, and to walk up
+the stage with her during the symphony.
+
+So Rhoda heard Algernon's prospects canvassed. In her heart she longed
+that he should accept Mr. Filthorpe's offer. It would keep him nearer to
+her in every sense. She had few opportunities of talking with him alone
+now--far fewer than at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to say a few
+words privately to him one afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bodkin's
+whist-party), and she timidly hinted that if Algy went to Bristol,
+instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not feel
+that she had lost him so completely.
+
+"My dear child!" exclaimed Algy, whose outlook on life had a good deal
+changed during the last three months, "how can you talk so? Fancy me on
+Filthorpe's office stool!"
+
+"London is such a long way off, Algy," murmured the girl plaintively.
+"And then, amongst all those grand people, lords and ladies, you--you
+may grow different."
+
+"Upon my word, my dear Rhoda, your appreciation of me is highly
+flattering! For my part it seems to me more likely that I should grow
+'different' in the society of Bristol tradesmen than amongst my own kith
+and kin--people like myself and my parents in education and manners. I
+am a gentleman, Rhoda. Lord Seely is not more."
+
+Rhoda shrank back abashed before this magnificent young gentleman. Such
+a flourish was very unusual in Algernon. But the Ancram strain in him
+had been asserting itself lately. He was sorry when he saw the poor
+girl's hurt look and downcast eyes, from which the big tears were
+silently falling one by one. He took her in his arms, and kissed her
+pale cheeks, and brought a blush on to them, and an April smile to her
+lips; and called her his own dear pretty Rhoda, whom he could never,
+never forget.
+
+"Perhaps it would be best to forget me, Algy," she faltered. And
+although his loving words, and flatteries, and caresses, were
+inexpressibly sweet to her, the pain remained at her heart.
+
+She never again ventured to say a word to him about his plans. She would
+listen, meekly and admiringly, to his vivid pictures of all the fine
+things he was to do in the future: pictures in which her figure
+appeared--like the donor of a great altarpiece, full of splendid saints
+and golden-crowned angels--kneeling in one corner. And she would sit in
+silent anguish whilst Mrs. Errington expatiated on her son's prospects;
+wherein, of late, a "great alliance" played a large part. But she could
+not rouse herself to elation or enthusiasm. This mattered little to Mrs.
+Errington, who only required her confidante to stand tolerably still
+with her back to the audience. But it worried Algernon to see Rhoda's
+sad, downcast face, irresponsive to any of his bright anticipations. It
+must be owned that the young fellow's position was not entirely
+pleasant. Yet his admirable temper and spirits scarcely flagged. He was
+never cross, except, now and then, just a very little to his mother. And
+if no one else in the world less deserved his ill-humour, at least no
+one else in the world was so absolutely certain to forgive him for it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Parliament was to meet early in February. It seemed strange that that
+fact should have any interest for Rhoda Maxfield; nevertheless, so it
+was. Algernon was to go to London, but it was no use to be there unless
+Lord Seely, "our cousin," were there also; and my lord our cousin would
+not be in town before the meeting of parliament. Thus the assembling of
+the peers and commons of this realm at Westminster was an event on which
+poor Rhoda's thoughts were bent pretty often in the course of the
+twenty-four hours.
+
+Mrs. Errington announced to the whole Maxfield family that Algernon was
+going away from Whitford, and accompanied the announcement with florid
+descriptions of the glory that awaited her son, in the highest Ancram
+style of embellishment.
+
+"Well," said old Max, after listening awhile, "and will this lord get
+Mr. Algernon a place?"
+
+Mrs. Errington could not answer this question very definitely. The
+future was vague, though splendid. But of course Algy would distinguish
+himself. That was a matter of course. Perhaps he might begin as Lord
+Seely's private secretary.
+
+"A sekketary! Humph! I don't think much o' that!" grunted Mr. Maxfield.
+
+"My dear man, you don't understand these things. How should you? Many
+noblemen's sons would only be too delighted to get the position of
+private secretary to Lord Seely. A man of such distinction! Hand and
+glove with the sovereign!"
+
+Maxfield did not altogether dislike to hear his lodger hold forth in
+this fashion. He had a certain pleasure in contemplating the future
+grandeur of Mr. Algernon, whose ears he had boxed years ago, on the
+occasion of finding him enacting the battle of Waterloo, with a couple
+of schoolfellows, in the warehouse behind the shop, and attacking a
+Hougoumont of tea-chests and flour-barrels, so briskly, as to threaten
+their entire demolition.
+
+Maxfield was weaving speculations in connection with the young man, of
+so wild and fanciful a nature as would have astonished his most familiar
+friends, could they have peeped into the brain inside his grizzled old
+head.
+
+But this rose-coloured condition of things did not last.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Errington looked into his little sitting-room, on
+her way upstairs, and finding him with an account-book, in which he was,
+not making, but reading entries, she stepped in, and began to chat; if
+any speech so laboriously condescending as hers to Mr. Maxfield may be
+thus designated. Her theme, of course, was her son, and her son's
+prospects.
+
+"That'll be all very fine for Mr. Algernon, to be sure," said old Max,
+slowly, after some time, "but--it'll cost money."
+
+"Not so much as you think for. Low persons who feel themselves in a
+false position, no doubt find it necessary to make a show. But a real
+gentleman can afford to be simple."
+
+"But I take it he'll have to afford other things besides being simple!
+He'll have to afford clothes, and lodging, and maybe food. You aren't
+rich."
+
+Mrs. Errington admitted the fact.
+
+"Algernon ought to find a wife with a bit o' money," said the old man,
+looking straight and hard into the lady's eyes. Those round orbs
+sustained the gaze as unflinchingly as if they had been made of blue
+china.
+
+"It is not at all a bad idea," Mrs. Errington said, graciously.
+
+"But then he wouldn't just take the first ugly woman as had a fort'n."
+
+"Oh dear no!"
+
+"No; nor yet an old 'un."
+
+"Good gracious, man! of course not!"
+
+"Young, pretty, good, and a bit o' money. That's about his mark, eh?"
+
+Mrs. Errington shook her head pathetically. "She ought to have birth,
+too," she said. "But the woman takes her husband's rank; unless," she
+added, correcting herself, and with much emphasis, "unless she happens
+to be the better born of the two."
+
+"Oh, she does, eh? The woman takes her husband's rank? Ah! well, that's
+script'ral. I have never troubled my head about these vain worldly
+distinctions; but that is script'ral."
+
+Mrs. Errington was not there to discuss her landlord's opinions or to
+listen to them; but he served as well as another to be the recipient of
+her talk about Algernon, which accordingly she resumed, and indulged in
+ever-higher flights of boasting. Her mendacity, like George Wither's
+muse,
+
+    As it made wing, so it made power.
+
+"The fact is, there is more than one young lady on whom my connections
+in London have cast their eye for Algy. Miss Pickleham, only daughter of
+the great drysalter, who is such an eminent member of Parliament;
+Blanche Fitzsnowdon, Judge Whitelamb's lovely niece; one of
+Major-General Indigo's charming girls, all of them perfect specimens of
+the Eastern style of beauty--their mother was an Indian princess, and
+enormously wealthy. But I am in no hurry for my boy to bind himself in
+an engagement: it hampers a young man's career."
+
+"Career!" broke out old Max, who had listened to all this, and much
+more, with an increasingly dismayed and lowering expression of
+countenance. "Why, what's his career to be? He's been brought up to do
+nothing! It 'ud be his only chance to get hold of a wife with a bit o'
+money. Then he might act the gentleman at his ease; and maybe his fine
+friends 'ud help him when they found he didn't want it. But as for
+career--it's my opinion as he'll never earn his salt!"
+
+And with that the old man marched across the passage into the shop,
+taking no further notice of his lodger; and she heard him slam the
+little half-door, giving access to the storehouse, with such force as to
+set the jingling bell on it tinkling for full five minutes.
+
+Mrs. Errington was so surprised by this sally, that she stood staring
+after him for some time before she was able to collect herself
+sufficiently to walk majestically upstairs.
+
+"Maxfield's temper becomes more and more extraordinary," she said to her
+son, with an air of great solemnity. "The man really forgets himself
+altogether. Do you suppose that he drinks, Algy? or is he, do you think,
+a little touched?" She put her finger to her forehead. "Really I should
+not wonder. There has been a great deal of preaching and screeching
+lately, since this Powell came; and, you know, they do say that these
+Ranters and Methodists sometimes go raving mad at their field-meetings
+and love-feasts. You need not laugh, my dear boy; I have often heard
+your father say that nothing was more contagious than that sort of
+hysterical excitement. And your father was a physician; and certainly
+knew his profession if he didn't know the world, poor man!"
+
+"Was old Max hysterical, ma'am?" asked Algernon, his whole face lighted
+up with mischievous amusement. And the notion so tickled him, that he
+burst out laughing at intervals, as it recurred to him, all the rest of
+the day.
+
+Betty Grimshaw, and Sarah, the servant-maid, and James, helping his
+father to serve in the shop, and the customers who came to buy, all
+suffered from the unusual exacerbation of Maxfield's temper for some
+time after that conversation of his with Mrs. Errington.
+
+It increased, also, the resentful feeling which had been growing in his
+mind towards David Powell. The young man's tone of rebuke, in speaking
+of Rhoda's associating with the Erringtons, had taken Maxfield by
+surprise at the time; and he had not, he afterwards thought, been
+sufficiently trenchant in his manner of putting down the presumptuous
+reprover. He blew up his wrath until it burned hot within him; and, the
+more so, inasmuch as he could give no vent to it in direct terms. To
+question and admonish was the acknowledged duty of a Methodist preacher.
+Conference made no exceptions in favour even of so select a vessel as
+Jonathan Maxfield. But Maxfield thought, nevertheless, that Powell ought
+to have had modesty and discernment to make the exception himself.
+
+No inquisitor--no priest, sitting like a mysterious Eastern idol in the
+inviolate shrine of the confessional--ever exercised a more tremendous
+power over the human conscience than was laid in the hands of the
+Methodist preacher or leader according to Wesley's original conception
+of his functions. But besides the essential difference between the
+Romish and Methodist systems that the latter could bring no physical
+force to bear on the refractory, there was this important point to be
+noted: namely, that the inquisitor might be subjected to inquisition by
+his flock. The priest might be made to come forth from the
+confessional-box, and answer to a pressing catechism before all the
+congregation. In the band-meetings and select societies each individual
+bound himself to answer the most searching questions "concerning his
+state, sins, and temptations." It was a mutual inquisition, to which,
+of course, those who took part in it voluntarily submitted themselves.
+
+But the spiritual power wielded by the chiefs was very great, as their
+own subordination to the conference was very complete. Its pernicious
+effects were, however, greatly kept in check by the system of
+itinerancy, which required the preachers to move frequently from place
+to place.
+
+There are few human virtues or weaknesses to which, on one side or the
+other, Methodism in its primitive manifestations did not appeal.
+Benevolence, self-sacrifice, fervent piety, temperance, charity, were
+all called into play by its teachings. But so also were spiritual
+pride, narrow-mindedness, fanaticism, gloom, and pharisaical
+self-righteousness. Only to the slothful, and such as loved their ease
+above all things, early Methodism had no seductions to offer.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield's father and grandfather had been disciples of John
+Wesley. The grandfather was born in 1710, seven years before Wesley, and
+had been among the great preacher's earliest adherents in Bristol.
+
+Traditions of John Wesley's sayings and doings were cherished and handed
+down in the family. They claimed kindred with Thomas Maxfield, Wesley's
+first preacher, and conveniently forgot or ignored--as greater families
+have done--those parts of their kinsman's career which ran counter to
+the present course of their creed and conduct. For Thomas Maxfield
+seceded from Wesley, but the grandfather and father of Jonathan
+continued true to Methodism all their lives. They married within the
+"society" (as was strictly enjoined at the first conference), and
+assisted the spread of its tenets throughout their part of the West of
+England.
+
+In the third generation, however, the original fire of Methodism had
+nearly burnt itself out, and a few charred sticks remained to attest the
+brightness that had been. Never, perhaps, in the case of the
+Maxfields--a cramp-natured, harsh breed--had the fire become a
+hearth-glow to warm their homes with. It had rather been like the
+crackling of thorns under a pot. The dryest and sharpest will flare for
+a while.
+
+Old Max, nevertheless, looked upon himself as an exemplary Methodist. He
+made no mental analyses of himself or of his neighbours. He merely took
+cognisance of facts as they appeared to him through the distorting
+medium of his prejudices, temper, ignorance, and the habits of a
+lifetime. When he did or said disagreeable things, he prided himself on
+doing his duty. And his self-approval was never troubled by the
+reflection that he did not altogether dislike a little bitter flavour in
+his daily life, as some persons prefer their wine rough.
+
+But to do and say disagreeable things because it is your duty is a very
+different matter from accepting, or listening to, disagreeable things,
+because it is somebody else's duty to do and say them! It was not to be
+expected that Jonathan Maxfield should meekly endure rebuke from a young
+man like David Powell.
+
+And now crept in the exasperating suspicion that the young man might
+have been right in his warning! Maxfield watched his daughter with more
+anxiety than he had ever felt about her in his life, looking to see
+symptoms of dejection at Algernon's approaching departure. He did not
+know that she had been aware of it before it was announced to himself.
+
+One day her father said to her abruptly, "Rhoda, you're looking very
+pale and out o' sorts. Your eyes are heavy" (they were swollen with
+crying), "and your face is the colour of a turnip. I think I shall send
+you off to Duckwell for a bit of a change."
+
+Duckwell Farm was owned by Seth, Maxfield's eldest son.
+
+"I don't want a change, indeed, father," said the girl, looking up
+quickly and eagerly. "I had a headache this morning, but it is quite
+gone now. That's what made me look so pale."
+
+From that time forward she exerted herself to appear cheerful, and to
+shake off the dull pain at the heart which weighed her down, until her
+father began to persuade himself that he had been mistaken, and
+over-anxious. She always declared herself to be quite well and free from
+care. "And I know she would not tell me a lie," thought the old man.
+
+Alas, she had learned to lie in her words and her manner. She had, for
+the first time in her life, a motive for concealment, and she used the
+natural armour of the weak--duplicity.
+
+Rhoda had been "good" hitherto, because her nature was gentle, and her
+impulses affectionate. She had no strong religious fervour, but she
+lived blamelessly, and prayed reverently, and was docile and
+humble-minded. She had never professed to have attained that sudden and
+complete regeneration of spirit which is the prime glory of Methodism.
+But then many good persons lived and died without attaining "assurance."
+Whenever Rhoda thought on the subject--which, to say the truth, was not
+often, for her nature, though sweet and pure, was not capable of much
+spiritual aspiration, and was altogether incapable of fervent
+self-searching and fiery enthusiasm--she hoped with simple faith that
+she should be saved if she did nothing wicked.
+
+Her father and David Powell would have pointed out to her, that her
+"doing," or leaving undone, could have no influence on the matter. But
+their words bore small fruit in her mind. Her father's religious
+teaching had the dryness of an accustomed formality to her ears. It had
+been poured into them before she had sense to comprehend it, and had
+grown to be nearly meaningless, like the everyday salutation we exchange
+a hundred times, without expecting or thinking of the answer.
+
+David Powell was certainly neither dry nor formal, but he frightened
+her. She shut her understanding against the disturbing influence of his
+words, as she would have pressed her fingers into her pretty ears to
+keep out the thunder. And then her dream of love had come and filled her
+life.
+
+In most of us it wonderfully alters the focus of the mind's eye with its
+glamour, that dream. To Rhoda it seemed the one thing beautiful and
+desirable. And--to say all the truth--the pain of mind which she felt,
+other than that connected with her lover's going away, and which she
+attributed to remorse for the little deceptions and concealments she
+practised, was occasioned almost entirely by the latent dread, lest the
+time should come when she should sit lonely, looking at the cold ashes
+of Algy's burnt-out love. For she did mistrust his constancy, although
+no power would have forced the confession from her. This blind,
+obstinate clinging to the beloved was, perhaps, the only form in which
+self-esteem ever strongly manifested itself in that soft, timid nature.
+
+There was one person who watched Rhoda more understandingly than her
+father did, and who had more serious apprehensions on her account. David
+Powell knew, as did nearly all Whitford by this time, that young
+Errington was going away; and he clearly saw that the change in Rhoda
+was connected with that departure. He marked her pallor, her absence of
+mind, her fits of silence, broken by forced bursts of assumed
+cheerfulness. Her feigning did not deceive him.
+
+Albeit of almost equally narrow education with Jonathan Maxfield, Powell
+had gained, in his frequent changes of place and contact with many
+strange people, a wider knowledge of the world than the Whitford
+tradesman possessed. He perceived how unlikely it was, that people like
+the Erringtons should seriously contemplate allying themselves by
+marriage with "old Max;" but that was not the worst. To the preacher's
+mind, the girl's position was, in the highest degree, perilous; for he
+conceived that what would be accounted by the world the happiest
+possible solution to such a love as Rhoda's, would involve nothing less
+than the putting in jeopardy her eternal welfare. He could not look
+forward with any hope to a union between Rhoda and such a one as
+Algernon Errington.
+
+"The son is a shallow-hearted, fickle youth, with the vanity of a boy
+and the selfishness of a man; the mother, a mere worldling, living in
+decent godlessness."
+
+Such was David Powell's judgment. He reflected long and earnestly. What
+was his calling--his business in life? To save souls. He had no concern
+with anything else. He must seek out and help, not only those who needed
+him, but those who most needed him.
+
+All conventional rules of conduct, all restraining considerations of a
+merely social or worldly kind, were as threads of gossamer to this man
+whensoever they opposed the higher commands which he believed to have
+been laid upon him.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield was falling away from godliness. He, too evidently,
+was willing to give up his daughter into the tents of the heathen. The
+pomps and vanities of this wicked world had taken hold of the old man.
+Satan had ensnared and bribed him with the bait of worldly ambition.
+From Jonathan there was no real help to be expected.
+
+In the little garret-chamber, where he lodged in the house of a
+widow--one of the most devout of the Methodist congregation--the
+preacher rose from his knees one midnight, and took from his breast the
+little, worn pocket-Bible, which he always carried. A bright cold moon
+shone in at the uncurtained window, but its beams did not suffice to
+enable him to read the small print of his Bible. He had no candle; but
+he struck a light with a match, and, by its brief flare, read these
+words, on which his finger had fallen as he opened the book:
+
+"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?
+
+"To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?"
+
+He had drawn a lot, and this was the answer. The leading was clear. He
+would speak openly with Rhoda himself. He would pray and wrestle; he
+would argue and exhort. He would awaken her spirit, lulled to sleep by
+the sweet voice of the tempter.
+
+It would truly be little less than a miracle, should he succeed by the
+mere force of his earnest eloquence, in persuading a young girl like
+Rhoda to renounce her first love.
+
+But, then, David Powell believed in miracles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+All that she had heard of the Methodist preacher had taken strong hold
+of Minnie Bodkin's imagination. Mr. Diamond's description of him
+especially delighted her. It was in piquant contrast with her previous
+notions about Methodists, who were associated in her mind with ludicrous
+images. This man must be something entirely different--picturesque and
+interesting.
+
+But there was a deeper feeling in her mind than the mere curiosity to
+see a remarkable person. Minnie was not happy; and her unhappiness was
+not solely due to the fact of her bodily infirmities. She often felt a
+yearning for a higher spiritual support and comfort than she had ever
+derived from her father's teachings. She passed in review the
+congregation of the parish church, most of whom were known to her, and
+she asked herself what good result in their lives or characters was
+produced by their weekly church-going. Was Mrs. Errington more truthful;
+Miss Chubb less vain; Mr. Warlock less gloomy; her father (for Minnie,
+in the pride of her keen intellect, spared no one) less arrogant and
+overbearing; she herself more patient, gentle, hopeful, and happy, than
+if the old bell of St. Chad's were silent, and the worm-eaten old doors
+shut, and the dusty old pulpit voiceless, for evermore? Yet there were
+said to be people on whom religion had a vital influence. She wished she
+could know such. She could judge, she thought, by seeing and conversing
+with them, whether or not there were any reality in their professions.
+Minnie seldom doubted the sufficiency of her own acumen and penetration.
+
+No; she was not happy. And might it not be that this Methodist man had
+the secret of peace of mind? Was there in truth a physician who could
+minister to a suffering spirit? She thought of Powell with the feeling
+half of shame, half of credulity, with which an invalid hankers after a
+quack medicine.
+
+Minnie had been taught to look upon Dissenters in general as quacks, and
+upon Methodists as arch-quacks. Dr. Bodkin professed himself a staunch
+Churchman and a hater of "cant." He considered that Protestantism, and
+the right of private judgment, had justly reached their extreme limits
+in the Church of England as by law established. He detested enthusiasm
+as a dangerous and disturbing element in human affairs, and he viewed
+with especial indignation the pretensions of unlearned persons to
+preach and proselytise. Although he had no leaning to Romanism, he would
+rather have admitted a Jesuit into his house than a Methodist. Indeed,
+he sometimes defined the latter to be the Jesuit of dissent--only, as he
+would take care to point out, a Jesuit without learning, culture, or
+authority.
+
+"I can listen to a gentleman, although I may not agree with him," the
+Doctor would say (albeit, in truth, he had no great gift of listening to
+anyone who opposed his opinions), "but am I to be hectored and lectured
+by the cobbler and the tinker?"
+
+Minnie had no taste for being hectored or lectured; but it seemed to her
+that what the cobbler and tinker said, was more important than the fact
+that it was they who said it. She thought, and pondered, and wondered
+about the Methodist preacher, and about her chance of ever seeing or
+hearing more of him, until a thought darted into her mind like an arrow.
+Little Rhoda! She was a Methodist born and bred, and knew this preacher,
+and----Minnie would send for little Rhoda.
+
+When she announced this resolution to her mother, Mrs. Bodkin found
+several difficulties in the way of its fulfilment.
+
+"What do you want with her, Minnie?"
+
+"I want to see her. Mrs. Errington talks so much of her. I remember her
+coming here with a message once, when she was a child. I recollect only
+a little fair face and shy eyes, under a coal-scuttle straw bonnet.
+Don't you, mamma? And I want to talk to her about several things," added
+Minnie, with resolute truthfulness.
+
+"Oh, dear me! What will your papa say?"
+
+"I don't see how papa can object to my asking this nice little thing to
+come to me for an afternoon, when he doesn't mind your boring yourself
+to death with Goody Barton, whose snuff-taking would try the nerves of a
+rhinoceros, nor forbid my inviting the little Jobsons, who are
+unpleasant to look upon, and stupid beyond the wildest flights of
+imagination. He lets me have any one I like."
+
+"Yes; but you teach the little Jobsons the alphabet, my dear. And that
+is a charitable work."
+
+"And Rhoda will amuse me, and I'm sure that is a charitable work!"
+
+Minnie would get her own way, of course. She always did.
+
+That same evening Minnie said to her father, with her frank, bright
+smile, "Papa, may I not ask Rhoda Maxfield to take tea with me some
+afternoon?"
+
+"Rhoda what?"
+
+"Little Maxfield, the grocer's daughter, papa," said Minnie, boldly.
+
+Mrs. Bodkin bent nervously over her knitting.
+
+"What on earth for? Why do you want to associate with such folks? Have
+you not plenty of friends without----?"
+
+"No, papa. But I don't ask her because I'm in want of friends."
+
+"Oh, Minnie," said Mrs. Bodkin in the quick, low tones she habitually
+spoke in, "I'm sure nobody has more friends than you have! Everybody is
+so glad to come to you, always."
+
+"You're my friend, mamma. And papa is my friend. Never mind the rest. I
+want to have little Maxfield to tea." Minnie laughed at herself, the
+moment after she had said the words, in the tone of a spoiled child.
+
+Dr. Bodkin crossed and uncrossed his legs, kicked a footstool out of the
+way, and then got up and stood before the fire.
+
+"If you want amusement, isn't there Miss Chubb or the McDougalls, or--or
+plenty more?" said he, shooting out his upper lip, and frowning
+uneasily.
+
+"Now, papa, can you say in conscience that you find Miss Chubb and the
+McDougalls perennially amusing?" Then, with a sudden change of tone,
+"Besides, you know, the other people are playing their parts in life,
+and strutting about hither and thither on the stage, and they find it
+all more or less interesting. But I--I am like a child at a peep-show. I
+can but look on, and I sometimes long for a change in the scene and the
+puppets!"
+
+The doctor began to poke the fire violently. "Laura," said he,
+addressing his wife, "that last tea you got is good for nothing. They
+brought me a cup just now in the study that was absolutely undrinkable.
+Is it Smith's tea? Well, try Maxfield's. You can have some ordered when
+the message is sent for the girl to come here."
+
+In this way the doctor gave his permission.
+
+The next day Minnie despatched her maid, Jane, with the following note
+to Mr. Maxfield:--
+
+"Will Mr. Maxfield allow his daughter Rhoda to spend the afternoon with
+Miss Bodkin? Miss Bodkin is an invalid, and cannot often leave her room,
+and it would give her great pleasure to see Rhoda. The maid shall wait
+and accompany Rhoda if Mr. Maxfield permits, and Miss Bodkin undertakes
+to have her sent safely home again in the evening."
+
+Old Max was scarcely more surprised than gratified on reading this
+invitation. He stood behind his counter holding the pink perfumed note
+between his floury finger and thumb, and turning over the contents of it
+in his mind, whilst his son James served the maid with some tea.
+
+Miss Minnie was a much-looked-up-to personage in Whitford. And here was
+Miss Minnie inviting Rhoda just as though she had been a lady, and
+sending her own maid for her. This would be Algy's doing, the old man
+decided. Algy had more sense than his mother. Algy knew that Rhoda was
+fit to go anywhere, and could hold her own with the best. The young
+fellow was very thick with Dr. Bodkin's family, and had, no doubt,
+talked to Miss Minnie about Rhoda. All sorts of ideas thronged into old
+Max's head, which, nevertheless, looked as obstinately idealess a one as
+could well be imagined, as he stood conning the pink note, with his grey
+eyebrows knotted together, and his heavy under-lip pursed up. Perhaps
+not the feeblest element in his feeling of exultation was the sense of
+triumph over David Powell. Powell might approve or disapprove, but
+anyway, he would see that he was wrong in supposing the Erringtons did
+not think Rhoda good enough for them! If they introduced her about among
+their friends, that meant a good deal, eh, brother David? And that the
+invitation came by means of the Erringtons, Maxfield felt more and more
+convinced, the more he thought of it. So many years had passed, and Miss
+Minnie had taken no notice of Rhoda. Why should she now? Maxfield was at
+no loss to find the answer. Maybe old Mrs. Errington had talked for
+talk's sake more than she meant. Maybe her boasting was in order to
+drive a hard bargain, when Algy should come forward and offer to make
+Rhoda a lady.
+
+The Erringtons' friends were going little by little to make acquaintance
+with Rhoda, in view of the promotion that awaited her. Well, Rhoda could
+stand the test. Rhoda was quite different from the likes of him.
+
+He called his sister-in-law out of the kitchen, and in a few hurried
+words told her of the invitation, and bade her tell Rhoda to get ready
+without delay. He cut Betty Grimshaw short in her exclamations and
+inquiries. "I've no time to talk to you now," he said. "The maid is
+waiting. Bid Rhoda clothe herself in her best garments."
+
+"What! her Sunday frock, Jonathan?" exclaimed Betty in shrill surprise.
+
+"'Sh! woman!" answered Maxfield, and gripped her wrist fiercely. He did
+not want that family detail to come to the ears of Miss Bodkin's maid.
+
+Rhoda was completely bewildered by the invitation, and by the breathless
+haste with which Betty announced it to her, and hurried her
+preparations. "But I don't want to go!" murmured Rhoda plaintively. At
+the same time she suffered her clothes to be huddled on to her in Aunt
+Betty's rough fashion.
+
+"Ah! tell that to your parent, my dear. I have the mark of his fingers
+on my wrist at this moment; he was in such a taking, and so--so
+uncumboundable." This latter was a word of Betty's own invention, and
+she frequently employed it with an air of great relish.
+
+The idea of going amongst strangers was more terrible to Rhoda than can
+easily be conceived by those who have never lived so secluded a life as
+hers had been. Had she been able to say a word to Algernon, she thought
+she should have derived a little comfort and support from him. But he
+and his mother were both from home.
+
+All the way from her own house to Dr. Bodkin's, Rhoda uttered no word,
+except to ask Jane timidly if she were sure Miss Minnie would be
+alone--quite alone?
+
+The gloomy courtyard, and the stone entrance hall of the house struck
+her with awe. The old man-servant who opened the door seemed to look
+severely on her. She followed Jane with a beating heart up the wide
+staircase, whose thick carpet muffled her footsteps mysteriously, and
+then through a drawing-room full of furniture all covered with grey
+holland. There was the glitter of gilt picture-frames on the walls, and
+the shining of a great mirror, and of a large, dark, polished pianoforte
+at one end of the room. And there was a mingled smell of flowers and
+cedar-wood, and altogether the impression made upon Rhoda's senses, as
+she passed through the apartment, was one of perfume, and silence, and
+vague splendour. She had no time, even if she had had self-possession,
+to examine the details of what seemed to her so grand, for she was led
+across a passage and into a room opposite to the drawing-room, and found
+herself in Miss Bodkin's presence.
+
+The room was Minnie's bedroom, but it did not look like a sleeping
+chamber, Rhoda thought. To be sure a little white-curtained bed stood in
+one corner, but all the toilet apparatus was hidden by a curtain which
+hung across a recess, and there were bookshelves full of books, and
+flowers on a stand, and a writing-table. On one side of the fireplace,
+in which a bright fire blazed, there was a curious sort of long chair,
+and in it, dressed in a loose crimson robe of soft woollen stuff,
+reclined Minnie Bodkin.
+
+Rhoda was, as has been said, extremely sensitive to beauty, and Minnie's
+whole aspect struck her with admiration. The picturesque rich-coloured
+robe, the delicate white hands relieved upon it, the graceful languor of
+Minnie's attitude, and the air of refinement in the young lady and her
+surroundings, were all intensely appreciated by poor little Rhoda, who
+stood dumb and blushing before her hostess.
+
+Minnie, on her part, was a good deal taken by surprise. She welcomed
+Rhoda with her sweetest smile, and thanked her for coming, and made her
+sit down by the fire opposite to herself; and when they were alone
+together, she talked on for some time with a sort of careless
+good-nature, which, little by little, succeeded in setting Rhoda
+somewhat at her ease. But careless as Minnie's manner was, she was
+scrutinising the other girl's looks and ways very keenly.
+
+"She is absolutely lovely!" thought Minnie, "And so graceful,
+and--and--lady-like! Yes; positively that is the word. She is as shy as
+a fawn, but no more awkward than one. It is not what I expected."
+
+Perhaps Minnie could scarcely have said what it was that she had
+expected. Probably a quiet, pretty-looking, well-behaved young person,
+like her maid Jane. Rhoda was something very different, and the young
+lady was charmed with her new _protegee_. Only she was obliged to admit,
+before the afternoon was over, that she had failed in the main object
+for which she had invited Rhoda to visit her. There was no clear and
+vivid account of Powell, his teaching, or his preaching, to be got from
+Rhoda.
+
+Rhoda could not remember exactly what Mr. Powell said. Rhoda could not
+say what it was which made all the people cry and grow so excited at his
+preaching. Rhoda cried herself sometimes, but that was when he talked
+very pitifully about poor people, and little children, and things like
+that. Sometimes, too, she felt frightened at his preaching, but she
+supposed she was frightened because she had not got assurance. Many of
+the congregation had assurance. Yes; oh yes, the people said Mr. Powell
+was a wonderful man, and the most awakening preacher who had been in
+Whitford for fifty years.
+
+Minnie looked at the simple, serious face, and marked the childlike
+demureness of manner with which Rhoda declared Mr. Powell to be "an
+awakening preacher." "I don't think he has awakened you to any very
+startling extent!" thought Minnie. "This girl seems to have received no
+strong influence from him."
+
+That was in a great measure the fact; but also, Rhoda was held back from
+speaking freely, by the conviction that her Methodist phraseology would
+sound strange, and perhaps absurd, in the young lady's ears. Moreover,
+it did not help to put her at her ease, that she felt sundry uneasy
+pricks of conscience for not "bearing testimony" with more fervour. She
+knew that David Powell would have had her improve the occasion to the
+uttermost. But how could she run the risk of being disagreeable to Miss
+Minnie, who was so kind to her?
+
+That was the form in which Rhoda mentally put the case. The truth was,
+hers was not one of those natures to which the invisible ever becomes
+more real and important than the visible. It was incomparably more
+necessary to her happiness to be in agreeable and smooth relations with
+the people around her, than to feel herself in higher spiritual
+communion with unseen powers.
+
+When Minnie at length reluctantly desisted from questioning her on the
+subject of Powell, and her chapel-going, and her religious feelings, she
+was surprised to find how the girl's frigid, constrained manner thawed,
+and how her tongue was loosened.
+
+She chatted freely enough about her visit to Llanryddan in the summer,
+and about Duckwell Farm, where her half-brother Seth lived, and, above
+all, about Mrs. Errington. Mrs. Errington had been so good to her, and
+had taught her, and talked to her; and did Miss Minnie know what a
+change it was for a lady like Mrs. Errington to live in such a poor
+place as theirs? For, although she had the best rooms, of course it was
+very poor, compared with the castle she was brought up in. About
+Algernon she said very little; but it slipped out that she was in the
+habit of being present when Mr. Diamond came to read with the young
+gentleman; and then Miss Minnie was very much interested in hearing what
+Mr. Diamond said to his pupil, and how Rhoda liked Mr. Diamond, and what
+she thought of him. And when it appeared that Rhoda had thought very
+little about him at all, but considered him a very clever, learned
+gentleman--perhaps a little stiff and grave, but not at all unkind--Miss
+Minnie smiled to herself and said, "He is a little stiff and grave,
+Rhoda. Not the kind of person to attract one very much, eh!"
+
+And then tea was brought, and Rhoda sipped hers out of a delicate
+porcelain cup, like those which Mrs. Errington had in her corner
+cupboard. And there were some delicious cakes, which Rhoda was quite
+natural enough to own she liked very much. And then Mrs. Bodkin came in,
+and sat down beside her daughter; and finally, at Minnie's request, she
+took Rhoda into the drawing-room, and played to her on the grand piano.
+
+"Rhoda likes music, she says, mamma. But she has never heard a good
+instrument. Do play her a bit of Mozart!"
+
+"I am no great performer, my dear," said Mrs. Bodkin, opening the piano;
+"but I keep up my playing on my daughter's account. She is not strong
+enough to play for herself."
+
+Minnie had her chair wheeled into the drawing-room, in order, as she
+whispered to her mother, to enjoy Rhoda's face when she should hear the
+music.
+
+Rhoda sat by and listened, in a trance of delight, while Mrs. Bodkin
+made the keys of the instrument delicately sound a minuet of Mozart,
+and then give forth more volume of tone in "The Heavens are telling."
+This was different, indeed, from the tinkling old harpsichord at home!
+The music transported her. When it ceased she was breathing quickly, and
+her eyes were full of tears. "Oh, how beautiful!" she faltered out.
+
+"Why, child, you are a capital audience!" said Mrs. Bodkin, smiling
+kindly.
+
+Then it was time to go home. She was made to promise that she would come
+again and see Minnie whenever her father would let her. She left Dr.
+Bodkin's house in a very different frame of mind from that in which she
+had entered it. Yet she was as silent on her way home as she had been in
+the afternoon.
+
+How happy gentlefolks must be, who always can have music, and flowers,
+and talk in such soft voices, and are so polite in their manners, and so
+dainty in their persons! She could not help contrasting the coarse,
+rough ways at home with the smoothness and softness of the life she had
+had a glimpse of at Dr. Bodkin's. She tried to hold fast in her memory
+the pleasant sights and sounds of the day.
+
+In this mood, half-enjoying, half-regretful, she arrived at her father's
+house to find the little parlour full of people--besides her own family
+and Powell there were two or three neighbours who joined in the
+exercises--and a prayer-meeting just culminating in a long-drawn hymn,
+bawled out with more zeal than sweetness by the little assembly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Rhoda stood with her hand on the parlour-door for a minute or so. Little
+Sarah, the servant-maid, who had admitted her into the house, and had
+left the parlour in order to do so--for all the Maxfield household was
+held bound to join in these weekly prayer-meetings--told her that the
+hymn would be over directly. Rhoda felt shy of entering into the midst
+of the people assembled, and of encountering the questions and
+expressions of surprise which her unprecedented absence from the
+evening's devotions would certainly occasion.
+
+Presently the singing ceased. Rhoda ran as quickly and noiselessly as
+she could along the passage, and half-way up the stairs. From her post
+there she heard the neighbours go away, and the street-door close
+heavily behind them. Now she might venture to slip down. Everyone was
+gone. The house was quite still. She ran into the parlour, and found
+herself face to face with David Powell.
+
+Her Aunt Betty was piling the hymn-books in their place on the little
+table where they stood. There was no one else in the room.
+
+"Where's father?" asked Rhoda, hastily. Then she recollected herself,
+and bade Mr. Powell "Good evening." He returned her salutation with his
+usual gentleness, but with more than his usual gravity.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Betty Grimshaw, looking round from the books. "It's you,
+is it, Rhoda? Your father is gone with Mr. Gladwish to his house for a
+bit. They have some business together. He'll be back by supper."
+
+It very seldom happened that Maxfield left his house after dark. Still
+such a thing had occurred once or twice. Mr. Gladwish, the shoemaker,
+was a steward of the Methodist society, and Maxfield not unfrequently
+had occasion to confer with him. Their business this evening was not so
+pressing but that it might have been deferred. But Maxfield did not
+choose to give Powell an opportunity of private conversation with
+himself at that time; he wanted to see his way clearer before he took
+the decided step of openly putting himself into opposition with the
+practice of his brethren, and the advice of the preacher; and he knew
+Powell well enough to be sure that evasions would not avail with him.
+Therefore he had gone out as soon as the prayers were at an end.
+
+"I must see to the supper," said Betty, and bustled off without another
+word. Nothing would have kept her in Mr. Powell's society but the
+masterful influence of her brother-in-law. She escaped to her haven of
+refuge, the kitchen, where the moral atmosphere was not too rarefied for
+the comfortable breathing of ordinary folks.
+
+David Powell and Rhoda were left alone together. Rhoda made a little
+half-timid, half-impatient movement of her shoulders. She wished Powell
+gone, more heartily than she had ever done before in the course of her
+acquaintance with him.
+
+Powell stood, with his hands clasped and his eyes cast down, in deep
+meditation.
+
+At length Rhoda took courage to murmur a word or two about going to take
+her cloak off. Aunt Betty would be back presently. If Mr. Powell didn't
+mind for a minute or two----She was gliding towards the door, when his
+voice stopped her.
+
+"Tarry a little, Rhoda," said the preacher, looking up at her with his
+lustrous, earnest eyes. "I have something on my soul to say to you."
+
+Rhoda's eyes fell before his, as they habitually did now. She felt as
+though he could read her heart; and she had something to hide in it. She
+did not seat herself, but stood, with one hand on the wooden
+mantelshelf, looking into the fire. In her other hand she held her
+straw bonnet by its violet ribbon, and her waving brown hair shone in
+the firelight.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Powell?" she asked.
+
+She spoke sharply, and her tones smote painfully on her hearer. He did
+not understand that the sharpness in it was born of fear.
+
+"Rhoda," he began, "my spirit has been much exercised on your behalf."
+
+He paused; but she did not speak, only bent her head a little lower, as
+she stood leaning in the same attitude.
+
+"Rhoda, I fear your soul is unawakened. You are sweet and gentle, as a
+dove or a lamb is gentle; but you have not the root of the matter as a
+Christian hath it. The fabric is built on sand. Fair as it is, a breath
+may overthrow it. There is but one sure foundation whereon to lay our
+lives, and yours is not set upon it."
+
+"I--I--try to be good," stammered Rhoda, in whom the consciousness of
+much truth in what Powell was saying, struggled with something like
+indignation at being thus reproved, with the sense of a painful shock
+from this jarring discord coming to close the harmonious impressions of
+her pleasant day, and with an inarticulate dread of what was yet in
+store for her. "I say my prayers, and--and I don't think I'm so very
+wicked, Mr. Powell. No one else thinks I am, but you."
+
+"Oh, Rhoda! Oh, my child!" His voice grew tender as sad music, and, as
+he went on speaking, all trace of diffidence and hesitation fell away,
+and only the sincere purpose of the man shone in him clear as sunlight.
+"My heart yearns with compassion over you. Are those the words of a
+believing and repentant sinner? You 'try!' You 'say your prayers!' You
+are 'not so wicked!' Rhoda, behold, I have an urgent message for you,
+which you must hear!"
+
+She started and looked round at him. He read her thought. "No earthly
+message, Rhoda, and from no earthly being. Ah, child, the eager look
+dies out of your eyes! Rhoda, do you ever think how much God loveth us?
+How much he loveth you, poor perishing little bird, fluttering blindly
+in the outer darkness of the world!--that darkness which comprehended
+not the light from the beginning."
+
+Rhoda's tears were now dropping fast. Her lip trembled as she repeated
+once more, "I try--I do try to be good," with an almost peevish
+emphasis.
+
+"Nay, Rhoda, I must speak. In His hand all instruments are alike good
+and serviceable. He has chosen me, even me, to call you to Him. However
+much you may despise the Messenger, the message is sure, and of
+unspeakable comfort."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Powell, I don't despise you. Indeed I don't! I know you mean--I
+know you are good. But I don't think there's any such great harm in
+going to see a--a young lady who is too ill to go out. I'm sure she is a
+very good young lady. I'm sure I do try to be good."
+
+That was the sum of Rhoda's eloquence. She held fast by those few words
+in a helpless way, which was at once piteous and irritating.
+
+"Are you speaking in sincerity from the very bottom of your heart?"
+asked Powell, with the invincible, patient gentleness which is born of a
+strong will. "No, Rhoda; you know you are not. There is harm in
+following our own inclinations, rather than the voice of the spirit
+within us. There is harm in clinging to works--to anything we can do.
+There is harm in neglecting the service of our Master to pleasure any
+human being."
+
+"I did forget that it was prayer-meeting night," admitted Rhoda, more
+humbly than before. Her natural sweetness of temper was regaining the
+ascendant, in proportion as her dread of what might be the subject of
+Powell's reproving admonition decreased. She could bear to be told that
+it was wrong to visit Minnie Bodkin. She should not like to be told so,
+and she should refuse to believe it, but she could bear it; and she
+began to believe that this visit was held to be the head and front of
+her offending. Powell's next words undeceived her, and startled her
+back into a paroxysm of mistrust and agitation.
+
+"But it is not of your absence from prayer to-night that I would speak
+now. You are entangling yourself in a snare. You are laying up stores of
+sorrow for yourself and others. You are listening to the sweet voice of
+temptation, and giving your conscience into the hand of the ungodly to
+ruin and deface!" He made a little gesture towards the room overhead
+with his hand, as he said that Rhoda was giving her conscience into the
+hands of the ungodly.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Powell. And I--I don't think it's
+charitable to speak so of a person--of persons that you know nothing
+of."
+
+She was entirely taken off her guard. Her head felt as if it were
+whirling round, and the words she uttered seemed to come out of her
+mouth without her will. Between fear and anger she trembled like a leaf
+in the wind. She would have fled out of the room, but her strength
+failed her. Her heart was beating so fast that she could scarcely
+breathe. Her distress pained Powell to the heart; pained him so much, as
+to dismay him with a vivid glimpse of the temptation that continually
+lay in wait for him, to spare her, and soothe her, and cease from his
+painful probing of her conscience. "Oh, there is a bone of the old man
+in me yet!" he thought remorsefully. "Lord, Lord, strengthen me, or I
+fall!"
+
+"How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou
+plentifully declared the thing as it is?"
+
+The remembrance of the lot he had drawn came into his mind, as an answer
+to his mental prayer. It was natural that the words should recur to him
+vividly at that moment, but he accepted their recurrence as an undoubted
+inspiration from Heaven. The belief in such direct and immediate
+communications was a vital part of his faith; and to have destroyed it
+would, in great part, have paralysed the impetuous energy, and quenched
+the burning enthusiasm, which carried away his hearers, and communicated
+something of his own exaltation to the most torpid spirits.
+
+He murmured a few words of fervent thanksgiving for the clear leading
+which had been vouchsafed to him, and without an instant's hesitation
+addressed the tearful, trembling girl beside him. "Listen to me, Rhoda.
+If it be good for your soul's sake that I lay bare my heart before you,
+and suffer sore in the doing of it, shall I shrink? God forbid! By His
+help I will plentifully declare the thing as it is. I have watched you,
+and your feelings have not been hid from me. No; nor your fears, and
+sorrows, and hopes, and struggles. I have read them all so plainly, that
+I must believe the Lord has given me a special insight in your case,
+that I may call you unto Him with power. You are suffering, Rhoda, and
+sorry; but you have not thrown your burden upon the Lord. You have set
+up His creature as an idol in your soul, and have bowed down and
+worshipped it. And you fancy, poor unwary lamb, that such love as yours
+was never before felt by mortal, and that never did mortal so entirely
+deserve it! And you say in your heart, 'Lo, this man talks of what he
+knows not! It is easy for him!' Well--I tell you, Rhoda, that I too have
+a heart for human love. I have eyes to see what is fair and lovely; and
+fancies and desires, and passions. I love--there is a maiden whom I love
+above all God's creatures. But, by His grace, I have overcome that love,
+in so far as it perilled the higher love and the higher duty, which I
+owe to my father in Heaven. I have wrestled sore, God knoweth. And He
+hath helped me, as He always will help those who rely, not on their own
+strength, but on His!"
+
+Rhoda was hurried out of herself, carried away by the rush of his
+eloquence, in whose powerful spell the mere words bore but a small part.
+Eyes, voice, and gesture expressed the most absolute, self-forgetting
+enthusiasm. The contagion of his burning sincerity drew a sincere
+utterance from his hearer.
+
+"But you talk as if it were a crime! Does anyone call you wicked and
+godless, because you have human feelings? I never should call you so.
+And, I believe, we were meant to love."
+
+"To love? Ah, yes, Rhoda! To love for evermore, and in a measure we can
+but faintly conceive here below. The young maiden I love is still dearer
+to me than any other human being--it may be that even the angels in
+Heaven know what it is to love one blessed spirit above the rest--but
+her soul is more precious to me than her beauty, or her sweet ways, or
+her happiness on earth. Oh, Rhoda, look upward! Yet a little while and
+the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, and there
+cometh peace unspeakable. This earthly love is but a fleeting show. Can
+you say that you connect it with your hope of Heaven and your faith in
+God? Does he whom you love reverence the things you have been taught to
+hold sacred? Is he awakened to a sense of sin? No! no! A thousand times,
+no! Rhoda, for his sake--for the sake of that darkened soul, if not for
+your own--yield not to the temptation which makes you untrue in word and
+deed, and chills your worship, and weighs down the wings of your spirit!
+Tell this beloved one that, although he were the very life-blood of your
+heart, yet, if he seek not salvation, you will cast him from you."
+
+Rhoda had sunk down, half-crouching, half-kneeling, with her arms upon a
+chair, and her face bowed down upon her hands. She was crying bitterly,
+but silently; but, at the preacher's last words, she moved her
+shoulders, like one in pain, and uttered a little inarticulate sound.
+
+Powell bent forward, listening eagerly. "I speak not as one without
+understanding," he said, after an instant's pause. "I plentifully
+declare the thing as it is, and as I know it. Your love----! Rhoda, your
+little twinkling flame, compared to the passionate nature in me, is as
+the faint light of a taper to a raging fire--as a trickling water-brook
+to the deep, dreadful sea! Child, child, you know not the power of the
+Lord. His voice has said to my unquiet soul, 'Be still,' and it obeys
+Him. Shall He not speak peace to your purer, clearer spirit also? Shall
+He not carry you, as a lamb, in His bosom? Now--it may be even now, as I
+speak to you, that His angels are about you, moving your heart towards
+Him. Rhoda, Rhoda, will you grieve those messengers of mercy? Will you
+turn away from that unspeakable love?"
+
+The girl suddenly lifted her face. It was a tear-stained, wistfully
+imploring face, and yet it wore a singular expression of timid
+obstinacy. She was struggling to ward off the impression his words were
+making on her. She was unwilling, and afraid to yield to it.
+
+But when she looked up and saw his countenance so pale, so earnest,
+without one trace of anger or impatience, or any feeling save
+profoundest pity, and sweetness, and sorrow, her heart melted. The right
+chord was touched. She could not be moved by compassion for herself, but
+she was penetrated by sorrow for him.
+
+In an impulse of pitying sympathy she exclaimed, "Oh, don't be so sorry
+for me, Mr. Powell! I will try! I will do what you say, if----"
+
+The door opened, and her father stood in the room. Rhoda sprang from her
+knees, rushed past him, and out at the open door.
+
+"Man, man, what have you done?" cried Powell, wringing his hands. Then
+he sat down and hid his face.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield stood looking at him with a heavy frown. "We must have
+no more o' this," he said harshly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The time which elapsed between Rhoda's first visit to Minnie Bodkin and
+the beginning of February--February, which was to carry Algernon
+Errington away to the great metropolis--was a vexed and stormy one for
+the Maxfield household.
+
+Jonathan Maxfield had come to a downright quarrel with the preacher--or
+to something as near to a quarrel as can be attained, where the violence
+and vituperation are all on one side--and had ordered Powell out of his
+house. This was a serious step, and was sure to be searchingly
+canvassed. Maxfield absented himself from the next class-meeting on the
+plea of ill-health. There was a general knowledge in the class and
+throughout the Society that there had been a breach, and many members
+began to take sides rather warmly.
+
+Maxfield was not a personally popular man, but he had considerable
+influence amongst his fellow Wesleyans; the influence of wealth, and a
+strong will, and the long habit of being a leading personage. David
+Powell, on the other hand, was not heartily liked by many of the
+congregation.
+
+The Whitford Methodists had slid into a sleepy, comfortable state of
+mind in their obscure little corner. They acquired no new members, and
+lost no old ones. Even the well-devised machinery of Methodism, so
+calculated to enforce movement and quicken attention, had grown somewhat
+rusty in Whitford. Frequent change of preachers is a powerful spur to
+sluggish hearers; but even this--among the fundamental peculiarities of
+Methodism--was very seldom applied to the Whitfordians. Circumstances,
+and their own apathy, had brought it to pass that two elderly
+preachers--steady, jog-trot old roadsters--had alternately succeeded
+each other in exhorting and preaching to this quiet flock for several
+years. There was, besides, Nick Green, foreman to Mr. Gladwish, the
+shoemaker, who enjoyed the rank of local preacher for a time, but who
+finally seceded from the main body, and drew with him half-a-dozen or so
+of the more zealous or excitable worshippers, who subscribed to hire a
+room over a corn-dealer's storehouse in Lady Lane, and by the stentorian
+vehemence of this Sunday devotion there speedily acquired the title of
+Ranters.
+
+Into this sleepy, comfortable Whitford society David Powell had burst
+with his startling energy and fiery eloquence, and it was impossible to
+be sleepy and comfortable any longer. No one likes to be suddenly roused
+from a doze, and Powell had awakened Whitford as with the sound of a
+trumpet. Yet, after the effects of the first start and shock had
+subsided, the Methodists began to take pride in the attention which
+their preacher attracted. Their little chapel was crowded. His
+field-preaching drew throngs of people from all the country side.
+Instead of being merely an obscure little knot of Dissenters, about whom
+no outsider troubled himself, they felt themselves to be objects of
+general observation. Old men, who had heard Wesley preach half a century
+ago, declared that this Welshman had inherited the mantle of their
+founder.
+
+But then came, by no slow or doubtful degrees, the discovery that David
+Powell had inherited more than the traditional eloquence of John Wesley;
+and that, like that wonderful man, he spared neither himself nor others
+in the service of his Master.
+
+He set up a standard of conduct which dismayed many, even of the leading
+Methodists, who did not share that exaltation of spirit which supported
+Powell in his disdain of earthly comforts. And the awful sincerity of
+his character was found by many to be absolutely intolerable.
+
+He made a strong effort to revive the early morning services, which had
+quite fallen into desuetude at Whitford. What! Go to pray in the cold
+little meeting-house at five o'clock on a winter's morning? There was
+scarcely one of the congregation whose health would allow of such a
+proceeding.
+
+Then his matter-of-fact interpretations of much of the Gospel teaching
+was excessively startling. He would coolly expect you to deprive
+yourself not only of superfluities, but of necessaries--such, for
+instance, as three meals of flesh-meat a day, which are clearly
+indispensable for health--in order to give to the poor.
+
+It must be owned that he practised his own precepts in this respect; and
+that he literally gave away all he had, beyond the trifling sum which
+was needful to clothe him with decency, and to feed him in a manner
+which the Whitfordians considered reprehensibly inadequate. Such
+asceticism savoured almost of monkery. It was really wrong. At least it
+was to be hoped that it was wrong; otherwise----!
+
+So the awakening preacher by no means had all his flock on his side,
+when they suspected him to be in opposition to old Max.
+
+Jonathan's mind had been, as he expressed it, greatly exercised
+respecting his daughter. He was drawn different ways by contending
+impulses.
+
+To speak to Rhoda openly; to send her to Duckwell, out of Algernon's
+way; to let things go on as they were going; (for was not Rhoda's
+reception by the Bodkins manifestly a preliminary step to her permanent
+rise in the social scale?) to talk openly to Algernon, and demand his
+intentions: all these plans presented themselves to his mind in turn,
+and each in turn appeared the most desirable.
+
+Jonathan was not an irresolute man in general, because he never doubted
+his own perfect competency to deal with circumstances as they arose in
+his life. But now he felt his ignorance. He did not understand the ways
+of gentlefolks. He might injure his daughter by his attempt to serve
+her. And although he had fits of self-assertion (during which he made
+much of the value of his own money and of Rhoda's merits), all did not
+avail to free his spirit from the subjection it was in to "gentlefolks."
+
+Again, he was urged not to seem to distrust the Erringtons by a strong
+feeling of opposition to Powell. Powell had warned him against letting
+Rhoda associate with them. Powell had even gone so far as to reprehend
+him for having done so. To prove Powell wholly wrong and presumptuous,
+and himself wholly right and sagacious, was a very powerful motive with
+Maxfield.
+
+Then, too, the one soft place in his heart contributed, no less than the
+above-mentioned feelings, to make him pause before coming to a decisive
+explanation with the Erringtons, which might--yes, he could not help
+seeing that it might--result in a total breach between his family and
+them, and this increased his hesitation as to the line of conduct he
+should pursue. For the conviction had been growing on him daily that
+Rhoda's happiness was seriously involved; and Rhoda's happiness was a
+tremendously high stake to play.
+
+The discussion between himself and Powell did not trouble Maxfield so
+much. The world--his little world, as important to him as other little
+worlds are to the titled, or the rich, or the fashionable, or the
+famous--supposed him to be greatly chagrined and exercised in spirit on
+this account. And people sympathised with him, or blamed him, according
+to their prejudices, their passions, or--sometimes--their convictions.
+But the truth was, old Max cared little about being at odds with the
+preacher, or with the congregation, or with both.
+
+He had been an important personage among the Whitford Methodists, all
+through the old comfortable days of sleepy concord. And was he now to
+become a less important personage in these new times of "awakening?"
+Better war than an ignominious peace!
+
+Nay, there came at last to be a talk of expelling him from the Methodist
+Society, unless he would confess his fault towards the preacher, and
+amend it. Maxfield had no lack of partisans in Whitford, as has been
+stated; but then there was the superintendent! In those days the
+superintendent (or, as some old-fashioned Methodists continued to call
+him, in the original Wesleyan phrase, the assistant) of the circuit in
+which Whitford was situated, was a man of great zeal and sincere
+enthusiasm.
+
+For those unacquainted with the mechanism of Methodism, it may be well
+briefly to state what were this person's functions.
+
+Long before John Wesley's death, the whole country was divided into
+circuits, in which the itinerant preachers made their rounds; and of
+each circuit the whole spiritual and temporal business--so far as they
+were connected with the aims and interests of Methodism--was under the
+regulation of the assistant (afterwards styled the superintendent),
+whose office it was to admit or expel members, take lists of the society
+at Easter, hold quarterly meetings, visit the classes quarterly, preside
+at the love-feasts, and so forth.
+
+The period for the superintendent's next visit to Whitford was rapidly
+approaching. Maxfield weighed the matter, and tried to forecast the
+result of a formal reference of the disagreement between himself and
+Powell to this man's judgment. Had this superintendent, Mr. John Bateson
+by name, been a Whitford man, one of the old, comfortable, narrow-minded
+tradesmen over whom "old Max" had exercised supremacy in things
+Methodistical for years, Maxfield would have felt no doubt but that the
+matter would have ended in an unctuous admonition to Powell to moderate
+his unseemly excess of zeal, and in the establishment of himself, more
+firmly than ever, in his place as leader of the congregation.
+
+But Mr. Bateson could not be relied on to take this sensible view. He
+was one of the new-fangled, upsetting, meddling sort, and would
+doubtless declare David Powell to have been performing his bounden duty,
+in being instant in season and out of season.
+
+"So that," thought Jonathan, "I should not be master in my own house!"
+
+And if he included in the notion of being master in his own house the
+power of shutting out his fellow Methodists--preacher and all--from the
+knowledge of his most private family affairs, the conclusion was a
+pretty just one. Moreover, it was one to which the very constitution of
+Methodism pointed _a priori_. But old Maxfield had never in his life
+been brought into collision with any one who carried out his principles
+to their legitimate and logical results, as did David Powell.
+
+Maxfield's creed was a thing to take out and air, and acknowledge at
+chapel, and prayer-meetings, and field-preachings, and such like
+occasions; whilst his practice was--well, it certainly was not "too
+bright or good for human nature's daily food."
+
+David Powell's uncompromising interpretation of certain precepts was
+intolerable to many besides Maxfield. But the majority of the Whitford
+Methodists looked forward to Powell's removal to another sphere of
+action. His stay among them had already been longer than was usual with
+the itinerant preachers; but it was understood to have been specially
+prolonged, in consequence of the abundant fruits brought forth by his
+ministration in Whitford. Still he would go, sooner or later, and then
+there would be a relaxation of the strong tension in which men's minds
+and consciences had been strained by the strange influence of this
+preacher.
+
+But old Maxfield thought it very probable that, before leaving Whitford,
+the preacher might compass his (Maxfield's) expulsion from the Methodist
+body.
+
+Then he took a great resolution.
+
+One Sunday, Jonathan, James, and Rhoda Maxfield, together with Elizabeth
+Grimshaw, were seen at the morning service in the abbey church of St.
+Chad's, and again in the afternoon.
+
+Dr. Bodkin himself stared down from his pulpit at the Methodist family.
+Those of the congregation to whom they were known by sight--and these
+were the great majority--found their devotions quite disturbed by this
+unexpected addition to their number.
+
+The Maxfields kept their eyes on their prayer-books, and, outwardly,
+took no heed of the attention they excited. Old Jonathan and his son
+James looked pretty much as usual; Rhoda trembled, and blushed, and
+looked painfully shy whenever the forms of the service required her to
+rise, so as to bring her face above the pew (those were the days of
+pews) and within easy range of the curious eyes of the congregation.
+
+But Betty Grimshaw held her head aloft, and uttered the responses in a
+loud voice, and without glancing at her book, as one to whom the Church
+of England service was entirely familiar. Betty was heartily delighted
+with the family conversion from the errors of Methodism, and supported
+her brother-in-law in it with great warmth. Her Methodism had, in truth,
+been a mere piece of conformity, for "peace and quietness' sake," as she
+avowed with much candour. And she was fond of saying that she had been
+"bred up to the Church;" by which phrase it must not be understood that
+Betty intended to convey to her hearers that she had entered on an
+ecclesiastical career.
+
+If the sensation created in the abbey church by the Maxfields'
+appearance there was great, the surprise and excitement caused by their
+absence from the Methodist chapel was still greater. By the afternoon
+of that same Sunday it was known to all the Wesleyans that old Max, with
+his family, had been seen at St. Chad's. No one deemed it strange that
+the whole family should have seceded in a body from their own place of
+worship. It appeared quite natural to all his old acquaintances that,
+whither Jonathan Maxfield went, his son, and his daughter, and his
+sister-in-law should follow him. It is probable that, had he turned Jew
+or Mohammedan, they would equally have taken it for granted that his
+conversion involved that of the rest of his family, which opinion was
+certainly complimentary to old Max's force of character.
+
+And such force of character as consists in pursuing one's own way
+single-mindedly, old Max undoubtedly possessed. A good, solid belief in
+oneself, tempered by an inability to see more than one side of a
+question, will cleave its way through the world like a wedge. We have
+seen, however, that into Maxfield's mind a doubt of himself on one
+subject had entered. And, as doubt will do, it weakened his action very
+considerably as regarded that subject; but on all other matters he was
+himself, and perhaps infused an extra amount of obstinacy and
+self-assertion into his behaviour, as though to counterbalance the one
+weak point.
+
+Towards his old co-religionists he showed himself inflexible. Mr.
+Bateson, the superintendent, duly arrived, but Jonathan refused to see
+him, and walked out of his shop when the superintendent walked into it.
+Maxfield was grimly triumphant, and kept out of the reach of any
+expression of displeasure from Mr. Bateson, if displeasure he felt.
+
+His defection was undoubtedly a blow to the Methodist community in
+Whitford. And much indignation, not loud but deep, was aroused in
+consequence against Powell, who was looked upon as the prime cause of
+it. What if the preacher did possess awakening eloquence and burning
+zeal to save sinners? Here was Jonathan Maxfield, a warm man, a
+respectable and a thriving man, an ancient pillar of the Society, lost
+to it beyond recall by Powell's means!
+
+And by whom did Powell seek to replace such a man as old Max? By Richard
+Gibbs, the groom--brother of Minnie Bodkin's maid--who had hitherto
+enjoyed a reputation for unmitigated blackguardism; by Sam Smith, the
+cobbler, once drunken, now drunken no longer; by stray vagrants who were
+converted at his field-preaching, and by the poorest poor, and
+wretchedest wretched, generally!
+
+And the worst of it was, that one could not openly find fault with all
+this. David Powell would, with mild yet fervent earnestness, quote some
+New Testament text, which stopped one's mouth, if it didn't change
+one's opinion. As if the words ought to be interpreted in that literal
+way! Well, he would go away before long; that was some comfort.
+
+The period during which this rift in the Methodist community was
+widening, was a time of peculiar pleasantness to some of our Whitford
+acquaintance. Of these was Minnie Bodkin. By degrees the habit had
+established itself among a few of her friends, of meeting every Saturday
+afternoon in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room.
+
+Mr. Diamond usually made one at these meetings. Saturday was a
+half-holiday at the Grammar School, and he was thus at leisure. He had
+grown more sociable of late, and Mrs. Errington was convinced that this
+change was entirely owing to her advice. There was Algernon, whose
+sparkling spirits made him invaluable. There was Mrs. Errington, who was
+made welcome, as other mothers sometimes are, in right of the merits of
+her offspring. There was Miss Chubb very often. There was the Reverend
+Peter Warlock, nearly always. And of all people in the world there would
+often be seen Rhoda Maxfield, modestly ensconced behind Minnie's couch,
+or half hidden by the voluminous folds of Mrs. Errington's gown.
+
+No sooner had Mrs. Errington heard of Rhoda's first visit to Dr.
+Bodkin's house, than she took all the credit of the invitation to
+herself. She decided that it must certainly be due to her report of
+Rhoda. And--partly because she really wished to be kind to the girl,
+partly because it seemed pretty clear that Minnie was resolved to have
+her own way about seeing more of her new _protegee_, and Mrs. Errington
+was minded that this should come to pass with her co-operation, so as to
+retain her post of first patroness--the good lady fostered the intimacy
+by all means in her power. The Italians have a proverb, to the effect
+that there are persons who will take credit to themselves for the
+sunshine in July. Mrs. Errington would complacently have assumed the
+merit of the whole solar system.
+
+Now, at these Saturdays, there grew and strengthened themselves many
+conflicting feelings, and hopes, and illusions. It was a game at cross
+purposes, to which none of the players held the key except Algernon.
+
+That young gentleman's perceptions, unclouded and uncoloured by strong
+feeling, were pretty clear and accurate. However, the period of his
+departure was fast approaching, and, "after me, the deluge," might be
+taken to epitomise his sentiments in view of possible complications
+which threatened to arise among his own intimate circle of friends. To
+whatever degree the time might seem to be out of joint, Algy would never
+torment himself with the fancy that he was born to set it right. "If
+there is to be a mess, I am better out of it," was his ingenuous
+reflection.
+
+Meanwhile, whatever thoughts might be flitting about under his bright
+curls, nothing, save the most winning good-humour, the most insouciant
+hilarity, ever peeped for an instant out of his frank, shining eyes. And
+the weeks went by, and February was at hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+In how few cases would the power to "see oursel's as ithers see us" be
+other than a very malevolent and wicked fairy-like gift! And, perhaps,
+the discovery of the real reasons why our friends like us, would not be
+the least mortifying part of the revelation.
+
+Now, the Bodkins liked Miss Chubb. But they did not like her for her
+manners, her knowledge of the usages of polite society, her highly
+respectable clerical connections, or the little gummed-down curls on her
+forehead; on all of which Miss Chubb prided herself.
+
+Dr. Bodkin liked her principally because she was an old acquaintance. It
+pleased him to see various people, and to do and say various things
+daily, often for no better reason than that he had seen the same people,
+and done and said the same things yesterday, and throughout a long,
+backward-reaching chain of yesterdays. Mrs. Bodkin liked her because
+she was good-natured, and neither strong-minded nor strong-willed enough
+to domineer over her. Minnie liked her because she found her
+peculiarities very amusing.
+
+"Miss Chubb has the veriest rag-bag of a mind," said Minnie, "and pulls
+out of it, every now and then, unexpected scraps of ignorance as other
+folks display bits of knowledge, in the oddest way!" She could often
+endure to listen to Miss Chubb's chatter, when the talk of wiser people
+irritated her nerves. And Minnie would speak with Miss Chubb on many
+subjects more unreservedly than she did with any other of her
+acquaintances.
+
+"What Minnie Bodkin can find in that affected old maid, to have her so
+much with her when she is so reserved and stand-offish to--to quite
+superior persons, and nearer her own age, I am at a loss to understand!"
+Violet McDougall would say, tossing her thin spiral ringlets. And Rose,
+the bitterer of the two, would make answer, raspingly: "Why, Miss Chubb
+toadies her, my dear. That's the secret. Poor Minnie! Of course one
+wishes to make every allowance for her afflicted state; but there are
+limits. Miss Chubb is almost a fool, and that suits poor dear Minnie's
+domineering spirit."
+
+Unconscious of these and similar comments, Minnie and Miss Chubb
+continued to be very good friends.
+
+There sat Miss Chubb in Dr. Bodkin's drawing-room one Saturday about
+noon; her round face beaming, and her fat fingers covered with huge
+old-fashioned rings, busily engaged in some bright-coloured worsted
+work. She had come early, and was to have luncheon with Mrs. Bodkin and
+Minnie, and was a good deal elated by the privilege, although she did
+her best to repress any ebullition of her good spirits, and to assume
+the languishing air which she chose to consider peculiarly genteel.
+
+Minnie and Miss Chubb were alone. Mrs. Bodkin was "busy." Mrs. Bodkin
+was nearly always "busy." She superintended the machinery of her
+household very effectively. But she was one of those persons whose
+labours meet with scant recognition. Dr. Bodkin had a vague idea that
+his wife liked to be fussing about in kitchen and storeroom, and that
+she did a great deal more than was necessary, but, "then, you see, it
+amused her." He very much liked order, punctuality, economy, and good
+cookery; and since it "amused" Laura to supply him with these, the
+combination was at once fortunate and satisfactory.
+
+"My dear Minnie," said Miss Chubb, raising her eyes to the ceiling with
+a languishing glance, which would have been more effective had it not
+been invariably accompanied by an odd wrinkling up of the nose, "did you
+ever, in all your days hear of anything so extraordinary as the
+appearance of those Methodist people at church on Sunday?"
+
+"It was strange."
+
+"Strange! My dear love, it was amazing. But it ought to be a matter of
+congratulation to us all, to see Dissenters embracing the canons of the
+Church! And the Methodists, especially, are such dreadful people. I
+believe they think nothing of foaming at the mouth, and going into
+convulsions, in the open chapel. I wonder if those Maxfields felt
+anything of the kind on Sunday? It would have been a terrible thing, my
+dear, if they had had to be carried out on stretchers, or anything of
+that sort. What would Mr. Bodkin have said?"
+
+"I don't think there's any fear of papa's sermons throwing anybody into
+convulsions."
+
+"Of course not, my dear child. Pray don't imagine that I hinted at such
+a thing. No, no; Mr. Bodkin is ever gentleman-like, ever soothing and
+composing, in the pulpit. But people, you know, who have been used to
+convulsions--they really might not be able to leave them off all at
+once. You may smile, my dear Minnie; but I assure you that such things
+have been known to become quite chronic. And, once a thing gets to be
+chronic----"
+
+Miss Chubb left her sentence unfinished, as she often did; but remained
+with an expressive countenance, which suggested horrible results from
+"things getting to be chronic."
+
+"It seems an odd caprice of Fate," said Minnie, who had been pursuing
+her own reflections, "that, no sooner do I make Rhoda Maxfield's
+acquaintance, for the sole reason that she is a Methodist, than she and
+her family turn into orthodox church people."
+
+"People will say you converted her, my dear."
+
+"I daresay they will, as it isn't true."
+
+"Now, I wonder who did convert them."
+
+"If you care to know, I think I can tell you that the real reason why
+Maxfield left the Wesleyans, was a quarrel he had with their preacher.
+My maid Jane has a brother who belongs to the Society; and he gave her
+an account of the matter."
+
+"Dear, dear! You don't say so! Of course the preacher is furious? Those
+kind of Ranters are very violent sometimes. I remember, when I was quite
+a girl, a man on a tub, who used to scream and use the most dreadful
+language. So much so, that poor papa forbade our going within earshot of
+him."
+
+"No; David Powell is not furious. I am told that he astonished some of
+the more bigoted of his flock, by reminding them that they ought to
+have charity enough to believe that a man may worship acceptably in any
+Christian community."
+
+"Did he really? Now, that positively was very proper of the man, and
+very right. Quite right, indeed."
+
+"So that I think we may assume that he is on the road to Heaven,
+Methodist though he be."
+
+"Oh, Minnie!"
+
+"Does that shock you, Miss Chubb?"
+
+"Well, my dear, yes; it does, rather. My family has been connected with
+the Church for generations. And--one doesn't like to hear Dr. Bodkin's
+daughter talk of being sure that a Dissenter is on the road to Heaven."
+
+Minnie lay back on her sofa, and looked at Miss Chubb complacently
+bending over her knitting. Gradually the look of amused scorn on
+Minnie's face softened into melancholy thoughtfulness. She wondered how
+David Powell would have met such an observation as Miss Chubb's. He had
+to deal with even narrower and more ignorant minds than hers. What
+method did he take to touch them? To Minnie it all seemed very hopeless,
+so long as men and women continued to be such as those she saw around
+her. And yet this preacher did move them very powerfully. If she could
+but meet him face to face, and have speech with him!
+
+There was one person to whom she was strongly impelled to detail her
+perplexities, and to express her fluctuating feelings and opinions on
+more momentous subjects than she had ever yet spoken with him upon. But
+there were a hundred little counter impulses pulling against this strong
+one, and holding it in check.
+
+Miss Chubb's voice broke in upon her meditations by uttering loudly the
+name that was in Minnie's mind.
+
+"My dear, I think it's quite a case with Mr. Diamond."
+
+Minnie's heart gave a great bound; and the deep, burning blush which was
+so rare and meant so much with her, covered her face from brow to chin.
+Miss Chubb's eyes were fixed on her knitting. When, after a short pause,
+she raised them to seek some response, Minnie was quite pale again. She
+met Miss Chubb's gaze with bright, steady eyes, a thought more wide open
+than usual.
+
+"How do you mean 'a case'?" she asked carelessly.
+
+"I mean, my dear, a case of falling, or having fallen, in love."
+
+The white lids drooped a little over the beautiful eyes, and a look,
+partly of pleasure, partly of fluttered surprise, swept over Minnie's
+face, as the breeze sweeps over a corn-field, touching it with shifting
+lights and shadows.
+
+"What nonsense!" she said, in a little uncertain voice, unlike her usual
+clear tones.
+
+"Now, my dear Minnie, I must beg to differ. I might give up my judgment
+to you on a point of--of--" (Miss Chubb hesitated a long time here, for
+she found it extremely difficult to think of any subject on which she
+didn't know best)--"on a point of the dead languages, for instance. But
+on this point I maintain that I have a certain penetration and coo-doyl.
+And I say that it is a case with Mr. Diamond and little Rhoda--at least
+on his side. And of course she would be ready to jump out of her skin
+for joy, only I don't think the idea has entered into her head as yet.
+How should it, in her station? Of course----. But as to him----! If I
+ever read a human countenance in my life, he admires her--oh, over head
+and ears! To see him staring at her from behind your sofa when she sits
+by Mrs. Errington----! No, no, my dear; depend upon it, I am correct.
+And I don't know but what it might do very well, because, although
+educated, Mr. Diamond is a man of no birth. And the girl is pretty, and
+will have all old Max's savings. So that really----"
+
+Thus, and much more in the same disjointed fashion, Miss Chubb.
+
+Minnie felt like one who is conscious of having swallowed a deadly but
+slow poison. For the present there is no pain; only a horrible watchful
+apprehension of the moment when the pain shall begin.
+
+Some faculties of her mind seemed curiously numb. But the active part of
+it accepted the truth of what had been said, unhesitatingly.
+
+Miss Chubb paused at last breathless.
+
+"You look fagged, Minnie," she said. "Have I tired you? Mrs. Bodkin will
+scold me if I have."
+
+"No; you have not tired me. But I think I will go and be quiet in my own
+room. Tell mamma I don't want any lunch. Please ring for Jane."
+
+Mrs. Bodkin came into the room in her quick, noiseless way. She had
+heard the bell. Minnie reiterated her wish to be wheeled into her own
+room, and left quiet. She spoke briefly and peremptorily, and her desire
+was promptly complied with.
+
+"I never cross her, or talk to her much when she is not feeling well,"
+whispered Mrs. Bodkin to Miss Chubb; thereby checking a lively stream of
+suggestions, regrets, and inquiries which the spinster was beginning to
+pour forth in her most girlish manner.
+
+"There, my darling," said her mother, preparing to close the door of
+Minnie's room softly. "If any of the Saturday people come I shall say
+you are not well enough to see them to-day."
+
+"No!" cried Minnie, with sharp decisiveness. "I wish to come into the
+drawing-room by-and-by. Don't send them away. It will be Algy's last
+Saturday. I mean to come into the drawing-room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Minnie, during the hour's quiet solitude which was hers before the
+Saturday guests began to arrive, got her thoughts into some clear order,
+and began to look things in the face. She did not look far ahead; merely
+kept her attention fixed on that which the next few hours might hold for
+her. She pictured to herself what she would say, and even how she would
+look. Cost what it might, no trace of her real feelings should appear.
+Her heart might bleed, but none should see the wound. She could not yet
+tell herself how deep the hurt was. She would not look at it, would not
+probe it. Not yet! That should be afterwards; perhaps in the long dim
+hours of her sleepless night. Not yet!
+
+She put on her panoply of pride, and braced up her nerves to a pitch of
+strained excitement. And then, after all, the effort seemed to have been
+wasted! There was no fight to be fought, no struggle to be made. The
+social atmosphere among her visitors that Saturday afternoon was as
+mildly relaxing as the breath of a misty woodland landscape in autumn,
+and Minnie felt her Spartan mood melting beneath it.
+
+Whether it were due to the influence of Dr. Bodkin's presence (the
+doctor usually spent the Saturday half-holiday in his study, preparing
+the morrow's sermon; or, it may be, occasionally reading the newspaper,
+or even taking a nap)--or whether it were the shadow of Algernon's
+approaching departure, the fact was that the little company appeared
+depressed, and attuned to melancholy.
+
+Rhoda Maxfield was not there. She had privately told Algy that she could
+not bear to be present among his friends on that last Saturday. "They
+will be saying 'Good-bye' to you, and--and all that," said the girl,
+with quivering lips. "And I know I should burst out crying before them
+all." Whereupon Algy had eagerly commended her prudent resolution to
+stay at home.
+
+No other of the accustomed frequenters of the Bodkins' drawing-room was
+absent. The doctor's was the only unusual presence in the little
+assembly. He stood in his favourite attitude on the hearth, and surveyed
+the company as if they had been a class called up for examination. Mr.
+Diamond sat beside Miss Bodkin's sofa, and was, perhaps, a thought more
+grave and silent than usual.
+
+Minnie lay with half-closed eyes on her sofa, and felt almost ashamed
+of the proud resolutions she had been making. It seemed very natural to
+be silently miserable. No one appeared to expect her to be anything
+else. If she had even begun to cry, as Miss Chubb did when Algernon went
+to the piano and sang "Auld Lang Syne," it would have excited no
+wondering remark.
+
+Pathos was not Algy's forte in general, but circumstances gave a
+resistless effect to his song. The tears ran down Miss Chubb's cheeks,
+so copiously, as to imperil the little gummed curls that adorned her
+face. Even the Reverend Peter Warlock, who was a little jealous of
+Algy's high place in Miss Bodkin's good graces, exhibited considerable
+feeling on this occasion, and joined in the chorus "For au--auld la--ang
+syne, my friends," with his deep bass voice, which had a hollow tone
+like the sound of the wind in the belfry of St. Chad's.
+
+Here Mrs. Errington's massive placidity became useful. She broke the
+painful pause which ensued upon the last note of the song, by asking Dr.
+Bodkin, in a sonorous voice, if he happened to be acquainted with Lord
+Seely's remarkably brilliant pamphlet on the dog-tax.
+
+"No," replied the doctor, shaking his head slowly and emphatically, as
+who should say that he challenged society to convict him of any such
+acquaintance.
+
+It did not at all matter to Mrs. Errington whether he had or had not
+read the pamphlet in question, the existence of which, indeed, had only
+come to her own knowledge that morning, by the chance inspection of an
+old newspaper that had been hunted out to wrap some of Algy's belongings
+in. What the good lady had at heart was the introduction of Lord Seely's
+name, in whose praise she forthwith began a flowing discourse.
+
+This brought Miss Chubb, figuratively speaking, to her legs. She always
+a little resented Mrs. Errington's aristocratic pretensions, and was
+accustomed to oppose to them the fashionable reminiscences of her sole
+London season, which had been passed in an outwardly smoke-blackened and
+inwardly time-tarnished house in Manchester Square, whereof the upper
+floors had been hired furnished for a term by the Right Reverend the
+Bishop of Plumbunn. And the bishop's lady had "chaperoned" Miss Chubb to
+such gaieties as seemed not objectionable to the episcopal mind. As the
+rose-scent of youth still clung to the dry and faded memories of that
+time, Miss Chubb always recurred to them with pleasure.
+
+Having first carefully wiped away her tears by the method of pressing
+her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks as one presses blotting-paper to
+wet ink, so as not to disturb the curls, Miss Chubb plunged, with happy
+flexibility of mood, into the midst of a rout at Lady Tubville's, nor
+paused until she had minutely described five of the dresses worn on that
+occasion, including her own and the bishopess's, from shoe to
+head-dress.
+
+Mrs. Errington came in ponderously. "Tubville? I don't know the name. It
+isn't in Debrett?"
+
+"And the supper!" pursued Miss Chubb, ignoring Debrett. "Such
+refinement, together with such luxury--! It was a banquet for
+Lucretius."
+
+"What, what?" exclaimed the doctor in his sharp, scholastic key. He had
+been conversing in a low voice with Mr. Warlock, but the Latin name
+caught his ear.
+
+"I am speaking of a supper, Dr. Bodkin, at the house of a leader of
+tong. I never shall forget it. Although I didn't eat much of it, to be
+sure. Just a sip of champagne, and a taste of--of--What do you call
+that delightful thing, with the French name, that they give at ball
+suppers? Vo--vo--What is it?"
+
+"Vol-au-vent?" suggested Algy, at a venture.
+
+"Ah! vol-o-voo. Yes; you will excuse my correcting you, Algernon, but
+that is the French pronunciation. Just one taste of vol-o-voo was all
+that I partook of; but the elegance--the plate, the exotic bouquets, and
+the absolute paraphernalia of wax-lights! It was a scene for young
+Romance to gloat on!"
+
+"But what had Lucretius to do with it?" persisted the doctor.
+
+Miss Chubb looked up, and shook her forefinger archly.
+
+"Now, Dr. Bodkin, I will not be catechised; you can't give me an
+imposition, you know. And as to Lucretius, beyond the fact that he was a
+Roman emperor, who ate and drank a great deal, I honestly own that I
+know very little about him."
+
+This time the doctor was effectually silenced. He stood with his eyes
+rolling from Mr. Diamond to the curate, and from the curate to Algy, as
+though mutely protesting against the utterance of such things under the
+very roof of the grammar school. But he said not a syllable.
+
+Mr. Diamond had looked at Minnie with an amused smile, expecting to meet
+an answering glance of amusement at Miss Chubb's speech. But the fringed
+eyelids hung heavily over the beautiful dark eyes, which were wont to
+meet his own with such quick sympathy. Mr. Diamond felt a little shock
+of disappointment. Without giving himself much account of the matter, he
+had come to consider Miss Bodkin and himself as the only two persons in
+the little coterie who had an intellectual point of view in common on
+many topics. The circumstance that Miss Bodkin was a very beautiful and
+interesting woman, certainly added a flattering charm to this communion
+of minds. He had almost grown to look upon her attention and sympathy as
+peculiarly his own--things to which he had a right. And the unsmiling,
+listless face which now met his gaze, gave him the same blank feeling
+that we experience on finding a well-known window, accustomed to present
+gay flowers to the passers-by, all at once grown death-like with a
+down-drawn ghastly blind.
+
+Mr. Diamond looked at Minnie again, and was struck with the expression
+of suffering on her face. He knew she disliked being condoled with about
+her health; so he said gently, "I think Errington's departure is
+depressing us all. Even Miss Bodkin looks dull."
+
+Minnie lifted her eyelids now, and her wan look of suffering was rather
+enhanced by the view of those bright, wistful eyes.
+
+"I think Errington is an enviable fellow," continued Mr. Diamond.
+
+"So do I. He is going away."
+
+"That's a hard saying for us, who are to remain behind, Miss Bodkin! But
+I meant--and I think you know that I meant--he is enviable because he
+will be so much regretted."
+
+"I don't know that he will be 'so much regretted.'"
+
+"Surely----Why, one fair lady has even been shedding tears!"
+
+"Oh, Miss Chubb? Yes; but that proves very little. The good soul is
+always overstocked with sentiment, and will use any friend as a
+waste-pipe to get rid of her superfluous emotion."
+
+"Well, I should have made no doubt that you would be sorry, Miss
+Bodkin."
+
+"Sorry! Yes; I am sorry. That is to say, I shall miss Algernon. He is so
+clever, and bright, and gay, and--different from all our Whitford
+mortals. But for himself, I think one ought to be glad. Papa says, and
+you say, and I say myself, that his journey to London on such slender
+encouragement is a wild-goose chase. But, after all, why not? Wild geese
+must be better to chase than tame ones."
+
+"Not so easy to catch, nor so well worth the catching, though," said Mr.
+Diamond, smiling.
+
+"I said nothing about catching. The hunting is the sport. If a good fat
+goose had been all that was wanted, Mr. Filthorpe, of Bristol, offered
+him that; and even, I believe, ready roasted. But--if I were a man, I
+think I would rather hunt down my wild goose for myself."
+
+"You had better not let Errington hear your theory about the pleasures
+of wild-goose hunting."
+
+"Because he is apt enough for the sport already?"
+
+"N--not precisely. But he would take advantage of your phrase to
+characterise any hunting which it suited him to undertake, and thus give
+an air of impulse and romance to, perhaps, a very prosaic ambition, very
+deliberately pursued."
+
+"I wonder why----," said Minnie, and then stopped suddenly.
+
+"Yes! You wonder why?"
+
+"No, I wonder no longer. I think I understand."
+
+"Miss Bodkin is pleased to be oracular," said Mr. Diamond, with a
+careless smile; and then he moved away towards the piano, where Mrs.
+Bodkin was playing a quaint sonata of Clementi, and stood listening with
+a composed, attentive face. Nevertheless, he felt some curiosity about
+the scope of Minnie's unfinished sentence.
+
+The sentence, if finished, would have run thus: "I wonder why you are so
+hard on Algernon!" But with the utterance of the first words an
+explanation of Diamond's severe judgment darted into her mind. Might he
+not have some feeling of jealousy towards Algernon? (Miss Chubb's words
+were lighting up many things. Probably the good little woman had never
+in her life before said anything of such illuminating power.) Yes,
+Diamond must be jealous. Algernon had unrivalled opportunities of
+attracting pretty Rhoda's attention. Nay, had he not attracted it
+already? Minnie recalled little words, little looks, little blushes,
+which seemed to point to the real nature of Rhoda's feelings for
+Algernon. Rhoda did not--no; she surely did not--care for Matthew
+Diamond. Minnie had a momentary elation of heart as she thus assured
+herself, and at the same time she felt an impulse of scorn for the girl
+who could disregard the love of such a man, as though it were a
+valueless trifle. But, then, did Rhoda know? did Rhoda guess? And then
+Minnie, suddenly checking her eager mental questioning in mid-career,
+turned her fiery scorn against herself for her pitiful weakness.
+
+As she lay there so graceful and outwardly tranquil, whilst the studied,
+passionless turns and phrases of old Clementi trickled from the keys,
+she had hot fits of raging wounded pride, and cold shudders of deadly
+depression. The numb listlessness which had shielded her at the
+beginning of the afternoon had disappeared during her short conversation
+with Diamond. She was sensitive now to a thousand stinging thoughts.
+
+What a fool she had been! What a poor, blind fool! She tried to remember
+all the details of the past days. Did others see what Miss Chubb had
+seen in Diamond's face? And had she--Minnie Bodkin, who prided herself
+on her keen observation, her cleverness, and her power of reading
+motives--had she been the only one to miss this obvious fact? She had
+been deluding herself with the thought that Matthew Diamond came and
+sat beside her couch, and talked, and smiled for her sake! Poor fool!
+Why, did not his frequent visits date from the time when Rhoda's visits
+had begun, too? It was all clear enough now; so clear, that the
+self-delusion which had blinded her seemed to have been little short of
+madness. "As if it were possible that a man should waste his love on
+me!" she thought bitterly.
+
+At that moment she caught Mr. Warlock's eyes mournfully fixed upon her.
+His gaze irritated her unendurably. "Am I so pitiable a spectacle?" she
+asked herself. "Is my folly written on my face, that that idiot stares
+at me in wonder and compassion?"
+
+Minnie gave him one of her haughtiest and coldest glances, and then
+turned away her head.
+
+Poor Mr. Warlock! It must be owned that there are strange, cruel pangs
+unjustly inflicted and suffered in this world by the most civilised
+persons.
+
+The little party broke up sooner than usual. The dispirited tone with
+which it had begun continued to the end. Algernon made his farewells to
+Miss Chubb, Mr. Warlock, Mr. Diamond, and Dr. Bodkin. But to Minnie he
+whispered, "I will run in once more on Monday to say 'Good-bye' to your
+mother and to you, if I may."
+
+The rest departed almost simultaneously. Matthew Diamond lingered an
+instant at the door of the drawing-room, to say to Mrs. Bodkin, "I hope
+this is not to be the last of our pleasant Saturdays, although we are
+losing Errington?"
+
+It was an unusual sort of speech from the reserved, shy tutor, who
+carried his proud dread of being thought officious or intrusive to such
+a point, that Minnie was wont to say, laughingly, that Mr. Diamond's
+diffidence was haughtier than anyone else's disdain.
+
+Mrs. Bodkin smiled, well pleased. "Oh, I hope not, indeed!" she said in
+her quick, low accents. "Minnie! Do you hear what Mr. Diamond is
+saying?"
+
+Minnie did not answer. She thought how happy this wish of his to keep up
+"our pleasant Saturdays" would have made her yesterday!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The manifestations of maternal vanity are apt to appear monotonous to
+the indifferent spectator; but, in Mrs. Errington such manifestations
+were, at least, not open to that reproach. Beethoven himself never
+surpassed her in the power of producing variations on one simple theme.
+And this surprising fertility of hers prevented her from being a mere
+commonplace bore. She never told a story twice alike. There was always
+an element of unexpectedness in her conversation, albeit the groundwork
+and foundation of it varied but little. In the overflowing gratification
+of her heart at Algernon's prospects, and under the excitement of his
+imminent departure, she would fain have bestowed some of her eloquence
+even on old Max, with whom her relations had been decidedly cool, since
+the outbreak of rude temper on his part which has been recorded. But old
+Max continued to be surly and taciturn for a while; he had been
+bitterly mortified by Mrs. Errington's talk about the marriage her son
+would be able to make, whenever it should please him to select a wife.
+
+But then, after that, had come Miss Bodkin's frequent invitations to
+Rhoda, which had greatly mollified the old man. And presently it
+appeared as if Mrs. Errington had forgotten all about General Indigo's
+daughters, and the heiress of the eminent drysalter. At all events, she
+said no more on the subject of those ladies. And old Max gradually, and
+not slowly, recurred to his former persuasion that the Erringtons would
+be very glad to secure Rhoda's hand for Algernon, being well aware that
+her money would balance her birth and connections. True, the young man
+had, as yet, said nothing explicit. But, of course, he would feel it
+necessary to have some settled prospect before asking permission to
+engage himself formally to Rhoda.
+
+"He is connected with the great ones of the earth, to be sure!"
+reflected Mr. Maxfield, with some exultation. "And he is a comely young
+chap to look upon, and full of all kinds of book-learning and
+accomplishments--talks foreign tongues, and sings, and plays upon
+instruments, and draws pictures!"
+
+An uneasy thought crossed his mind at this point, that David Powell
+would consider these things as leading to reprehensible frivolity and
+worldliness; and that, moreover, most of his (Maxfield's) old friends
+would agree with the preacher in so deeming. It was not to be expected
+that the thoughts and habits of a lifetime could be so eradicated from
+old Max's mind by the mere fact of going to worship at St. Chad's, as to
+leave his conscience absolutely free on these and similar points. But
+the ultimate effect of such inward feelings was always to embitter the
+old man against Powell, and to make him clutch eagerly at any
+circumstance which should tend to prove that Powell had been wrong and
+himself right in their differing views of the Erringtons' intentions. He
+was inexpressibly loath to consider himself mistaken. Indeed, for him to
+be mistaken seemed to argue a general dislocation and turning
+topsy-turvy of things, and a terrible unchaining of the powers of
+darkness. If, after walking all his life in the paths of wisdom and
+prosperity, he were to find himself suddenly astray, and blundering on a
+point which nearly concerned the only tender feelings of his nature,
+such a phenomenon must clearly be due to the direct interposition of
+Satan. However, as he stood one evening in his storehouse, tying up a
+great parcel of sugar in blue paper, Jonathan Maxfield was feeling
+neither discontented nor self-distrustful. Mrs. Errington had just been
+speaking to Rhoda in his presence, and had said:
+
+"Well, little one, you have quite made a conquest of Mrs. Bodkin, as
+well as Miss Minnie. She was praising you up to me the other day. She
+particularly remarked your nice manners, and attributed them to my
+influence----"
+
+"I'm sure, ma'am, if there is anything nice in my manners, it was you
+who taught it to me," Rhoda had said simply. Upon which Mrs. Errington
+had been very gracious, and, without at all disclaiming the credit of
+Rhoda's nice manners, had mellifluously assured Mr. Maxfield that his
+little girl was wonderfully teachable, and had become a general
+favourite amongst her (Mrs. Errington's) friends.
+
+Now all this had seemed to Maxfield to be of good augury, and an
+additional testimony--if any such were needed--to his own sagacity and
+prudent behaviour.
+
+"It'll come right, as I foresaw," thought he triumphantly. "Another man
+might have been over hasty, and spoiled matters like a fool. But not
+me!"
+
+Some one pushed the half-door between the shop and the storehouse, and
+set the bell jingling. Maxfield looked up and saw Algernon Errington,
+bright, smiling, and debonair, as usual.
+
+The ordinary expression of old Max's face was not winning; and now, as
+he looked up with his grey eyebrows drawn into a shaggy frown, and his
+jaws clenched so as to hold the end of a string which he had just drawn
+into a knot round the parcel of sugar, he presented a countenance
+ill-calculated to reassure a stranger or invite his confidence. But Algy
+was not a stranger, and did not intend to bestow any confidence, so he
+came forward with the graceful self-possession which sat so well on him,
+and said, "How are you, Mr. Maxfield? I have not seen you for ever so
+long!"
+
+"It doesn't seem very long ago to me, since we spoke together," returned
+old Max, tugging at the string of his parcel.
+
+"You know I'm off to-morrow, Mr. Maxfield?"
+
+The old man shot a hard keen glance at him from beneath the shaggy
+eyebrows, and nodded.
+
+"I go by the early coach in the morning, so I must say all my farewells
+to-day."
+
+Maxfield gave a sound like a grunt, and nodded again.
+
+"It's a wonderful piece of luck, Lord Seely's taking me up so, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Ah! if he means to do anything for you in earnest. So far as I can
+learn, his taking you up hasn't cost him much yet."
+
+Algernon laughed frankly. "Not a bit of it, Mr. Maxfield!" he cried.
+"And, after all, why should he do anything that would cost him much, for
+a poor devil like me? No; the beauty of it is, that he can do great
+things for me which shall cost him nothing! He is hand and glove with
+the present ministry, and a regular big-wig at court, and all that sort
+of thing. The fact of my having good blood in my veins, and being called
+Ancram Errington, is no merit of mine, of course--just an accident; but
+it's a deuced lucky accident. I daresay Lord Seely is a stupid old
+hunks, but then he is Lord Seely, you see. I don't mind saying all this
+to you, Mr. Maxfield, because you know the world, and you and I are old
+friends."
+
+It was certainly rather hard on Lord Seely to be spoken of as a stupid
+old hunks by this lively young gentleman, who knew little more of him
+than of his great-grandfather, deceased a century ago. But his lordship
+did not hear the artless little speech, so it did not annoy him; whereas
+old Max did hear it, and it gratified him considerably for several
+reasons. It gratified him to be addressed confidentially as one who knew
+the world; it gratified him to be called an old friend by this relation
+of the great Lord Seely. And, oddly enough, whilst he was mentally
+bowing down before the aristocratic magnificence of that nobleman, it
+gratified him to be told that the bowing down was being performed to a
+"stupid old hunks," altogether devoid of that wisdom which had been so
+largely bestowed on himself, the Whitford grocer.
+
+Pleasant and unaffected as was the young fellow's manner to his
+landlord, there was a nonchalance about it which conveyed that he was
+quite aware of the social distance between them. And this assumption of
+superiority--never coarse or ponderous, like his mother's, but worn with
+the airiest lightness--was far from displeasing to old Max. The more of
+a gentleman born and bred Algernon Errington showed himself to be, the
+higher would Rhoda's position be, if--but old Max had almost discarded
+that form of presenting the future to his own mind; and was apt to say
+to himself, "when Rhoda marries young Errington." And then the solid
+advantages of the position were, so far at least, on old Max's side.
+Wealth and wisdom made a powerful combination, he reflected. And he was
+not at all afraid of being borne down or overwhelmed by any amount of
+gentility. Nevertheless, his spirit was in some subjection to this
+patrician youth, who sat opposite to him on a tea-chest, swinging his
+legs so affably.
+
+There was a pause. At length Maxfield said, "And how long do you think
+o' being away? Or are you going to say good-bye to Whitford for
+evermore?"
+
+"Indeed I hope not!"
+
+"Oh! Then there is some folks here as you would care to see again?" said
+Maxfield slowly, beginning to tie up another parcel with sedulous care,
+and not raising his eyes from it.
+
+"Of course there are! I--I should think you must know that, Mr.
+Maxfield! But I want to put myself in a better position with the world
+before I can--before I come back to the people I most care for."
+
+"Very good. But it's like to be some time first, I'm afraid."
+
+"As to seeing dear old Whitford again, you know I mean to run down here
+in the summer; or at least early in the autumn, when Parliament rises."
+
+"Oh, you do?"
+
+"To be sure! And then I hope to--to settle several things."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"To a man of your experience, Mr. Maxfield, I needn't say how important
+it is for me to go to Lord Seely, ready and willing to undertake any
+employment he may offer me."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I mean, of course, that I should be absolutely free and unfettered, and
+ready to--to--to avail myself of opportunities. You see that, of
+course?"
+
+Maxfield looked sage, and nodded. But he also looked a little glum. The
+conversation had not taken the turn he expected.
+
+"Once let me get something definite--a Government post, you know, such
+as my cousin could get for me as easily as you could take an
+apprentice--and then I may please myself. I may consider myself on the
+first round of the ladder. And there won't be the same necessity for
+deferring to this person and that person. But I don't know why I'm
+saying all this to you, Mr. Maxfield. You understand the whole matter
+better than I do. By Jove, I wish I'd some of your ballast in my noddle.
+I'm such a feather-headed fellow!"
+
+"You are young, Algernon, you are young," returned old Max, from whose
+brow the frown had cleared away entirely. "I have had a special gift of
+wisdom vouchsafed to me for many years past. It has been, I believe, a
+peculiar grace, and it is the Lord's doing, thanks be! I am not easy
+deceived."
+
+"I shouldn't like to try it on, that's all I know!" exclaimed Algernon,
+pleasantly smiling and nodding his head.
+
+"Albeit there is some as mistrust my judgment; young and raw men without
+much gift of clear-headedness, and puffed up with spiritual pride."
+
+"Are there, really?" said Algernon, feeling somewhat at a loss what to
+say.
+
+"Yes, there are. I should like such to be convinced of error. It would
+be a wholesome lesson."
+
+"Not a doubt of it."
+
+"I should like such to know--for their own soul's sake, and to teach 'em
+Christian humility--as you and I quite understand each other, my young
+friend; and as all is clear between us."
+
+Algernon had a constitutional dislike to "clear understandings," except
+such as were limited to his clear understanding of other people. So he
+broke in at this point with one of his impulsive speeches about his
+prospects, and his conviction of Mr. Maxfield's wisdom, and his regrets
+at leaving Whitford, and his settled purpose to come back at the
+end of the summer and have a look at the dear old place, and the
+one or two persons in it who were still dearer to him. And he
+contrived--"contrived," indeed, is too cold-blooded and Machiavelian a
+word to express Algy's rapid mental process--to convey to old Max the
+idea that he was on the high road to fortune; that he had a warm and
+constant attachment to a certain person whom it was needless to name,
+seeing that the certain person could be no other than his playmate,
+pretty Rhoda; and that Mr. Jonathan Maxfield was so sagacious and
+keen-sighted a personage as to require no wordy explanations such as
+might have been needful for feebler intelligences. And then Algy said,
+with a rueful sort of candour, and arching those fair childlike eyebrows
+of his: "I say, Mr. Maxfield, I shall be awfully short of cash just at
+first!"
+
+The two hands of Jonathan Maxfield, which had been laid open, and palm
+downwards, on the counter before him, as he listened, instinctively
+doubled themselves into fists. He put them one on the top of the other,
+and rested his chin on them.
+
+"I don't bother my mother about it, poor dear soul, because I know she
+has done all she can already. Of course, if I were to hint anything to
+my cousin--to Lord Seely, you know--I might get helped directly. But I
+don't want to begin with that, exactly."
+
+"H'm! It 'ud be a test of how much he really does mean, though!"
+
+"Yes; but you know what you said about Lord Seely's doing great things
+for me which shall cost him nothing. And I felt how true your view was,
+directly. By George, if I want any advice between now and next August, I
+shall be tempted to write and ask you for it!"
+
+Maxfield gave a little rasping cough.
+
+"Of course I know the manners and customs of high-bred people well
+enough. A fellow who comes of an old family like mine seems to suck all
+that in with his mother's milk, somehow. But that's a mere surface
+knowledge, after all. And some circumstance might turn up in which I
+should want a more solid judgment to help my own."
+
+Maxfield coughed again, a little less raspingly. One of his doubled-up
+hands unclasped itself, and he began to pass it across his stubbly chin.
+
+"By-the-by--what an ass I was not to think of that before--would you
+mind lending me twenty pounds till August, Mr. Maxfield?"
+
+"I--I'm not given to lending, Algernon; nor to borrowing either, I thank
+the Lord."
+
+"Borrowing! No; you're one of the lucky folks of this world, who can
+grant favours instead of asking them. But it really is of small
+consequence, after all; I'll manage somehow, if you have any objection.
+I believe I have a nabob of a godfather, General Indigo, as yellow as a
+guinea and as rich as a Jew. My mother was talking of him the other day,
+and, perhaps, it would be better to ask such a little favour of one's
+own people. I'll look up the nabob, Mr. Maxfield."
+
+It must not be supposed that Algy, in bringing out the name of General
+Indigo, had any thought of the three lovely Miss Indigos in his mind. He
+was quite unconscious of the existence of those young ladies; if,
+indeed, they were not entirely the figments of Mrs. Errington's fertile
+fancy. Algy had laid no deep plans. He was simply quick at seizing
+opportunity. The opportunity had presented itself, of dazzling old Max
+with his nabob godfather, and of--perhaps--inducing the stingy old
+fellow to lend him what he wanted, by dint of conveying that he did not
+want it particularly. Algy had availed himself of the opportunity, and
+the shot had told very effectually.
+
+Old Max never swore. Had he been one of the common and profane crowd of
+worldlings, it may be that some imprecation on General Indigo would have
+issued from his lips; for the mention of that name made him very angry.
+But old Max had a settled conviction of the probable consignment to
+perdition of the rich nabob--who was doubtless a purse-proud, tyrannous,
+godless old fellow--which far surpassed, in its comforting power, the
+ephemeral satisfaction of an oath. He struck his clenched hand on the
+counter, and said, testily, "You have not heard what I had it in my mind
+to say! You are too rash, young man, and broke in on my discourse before
+it was finished!"
+
+"I beg pardon. Did I?"
+
+"I say that I am not given to lending nor to borrowing; and it is most
+true. But I have not said that I will refuse to assist you. This is a
+special case, and must be judged of specially as between you and me."
+
+"Why, of course, I would rather be obliged to you than to the general,
+who is a stranger to me, in fact, though he is my godfather."
+
+"There's nearer ties than godfathers, Algernon."
+
+Algernon burst into a peal of genuine laughter. "Why, yes," said he,
+wiping his eyes, "I hope so!"
+
+Old Max did not move a muscle of his face. "What was the sum you named?"
+he asked, solemnly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know--twenty or thirty pounds would do. Something just to
+keep me going until my mother's next quarter's money comes in."
+
+"I will lend you twenty pounds, Algernon, for which you will write me an
+acknowledgment."
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Being under age, your receipt is valueless in law. But I wish to have
+it as between you and me."
+
+"Of course; as between you and me."
+
+Maxfield unlocked a strong-box let into the wall. Algernon--who had
+often gazed at the outside of it rather wistfully--peeped into it with
+some eagerness when it was opened; but its contents were chiefly papers
+and a huge ledger. There was, however, in one corner a well-stuffed
+black leather pocket-book, from which old Max slowly extracted a crisp,
+fresh Bank of England note for twenty pounds.
+
+"I'm sure I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon,
+taking the note. He spoke without any over-eagerness, but the gleam of
+boyish delight in his eyes would not be suppressed.
+
+"And now come into the parlour with me, and write the acknowledgment."
+
+"I say, Mr. Maxfield," said Algernon, when the receipt had been duly
+written and signed, "you won't say anything to my mother about this?"
+
+"Do you mean to keep it a secret?" asked the old man, sharply.
+
+"Oh, of course I don't mind all the world knowing, as far as I'm
+concerned. But the dear old lady might worry herself at not being able
+to do more for me. Let it be just simply as between you and me," said
+Algernon, repeating Maxfield's words, but, truth to say, without
+attaching any very definite meaning to them. The old man pursed up his
+mouth and nodded.
+
+"Aye, aye," he said, "as between you and me, Algernon; as between you
+and me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Upon my word, that formula of old Max's seems to be a kind of open
+sesame to purses and strong-boxes and cheque-books! 'As between you and
+me.' I wonder if it would answer with Lord Seely? Who'd have thought of
+old Max doing the handsome thing? Well, it's all right enough. I do mean
+to stick to little Rhoda, especially since her father seems to hint his
+approbation so very plainly. But it wouldn't do to bind myself just
+now--for her sake, poor little pet! 'As between you and me!' What a
+character the old fellow is! I wish he'd made it fifty while he was
+about it!"
+
+Such was Algernon's mental soliloquy as he walked jauntily down the
+street, with his hand in his pocket, and the crisp bank-note between his
+finger and thumb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+David Powell sat in his garret chamber. The fast waning light of a
+February afternoon fell on him as he sat close to the lattice in the
+sloping roof. He had placed himself there to be able to read the small
+print of his pocket-bible. But the light was already too dim for that.
+It was dusk in the garret. The strip of grey cloud, visible from the
+window, was beginning to turn red at its lower edge as the sun sank. It
+was the angry flaring red, which is often seen at the close of a cold
+and cloudy day, and had no suggestion of genial warmth in its deep
+flush. Such a snow-laden, crimson-bordered wrack of fleecy cloud, as
+Powell's eyes rested on, might have hung over a Lapland waste. There was
+no fire in the room, nor any means of making one. It was bitterly cold.
+The preacher's face looked white and bloodless, as if it were frozen.
+But he sat still, staring out at the red sunset light on the strip of
+sky within his view. From his seat on an old chest, which he had drawn
+close under the window, he could see nothing but the sky. Not one of the
+roofs or chimneys of Whitford was visible to him. A black wavering line
+moved slowly across his field of vision. It was a flight of rooks on
+their way home to the tall leafless elm-trees in Pudcombe Park. Nothing
+else moved, except the red flare creeping upward by slow and
+imperceptible degrees.
+
+Suddenly the little Bible fell from Powell's numbed right hand on to the
+carpetless floor, and, with a start, he turned his head and looked
+around him. By contrast with the wintry light without, the garret
+appeared quite dark to him, and it was not until after a few seconds
+that his eye became sufficiently accustomed to its gloom, to perceive
+the book lying almost at his feet. He picked it up, and began to chafe
+his numbed fingers, rising at the same time, and walking up and down the
+room.
+
+His thoughts had been straying idly as he sat at the window, with his
+eyes fixed on the sky. They had gone back to the days of his boyhood,
+and in memory he had seen the wild Welsh valley where he was born, and
+heard the bleat of sheep from the hills, as he had listened to it many a
+summer morning, sitting ragged and barefoot on the turf. And with these
+recollections the image of Rhoda Maxfield was strangely mingled,
+appearing and disappearing, like a face in a dream. Indeed, he had been
+dreaming open-eyed in his solitude, unconscious of the cold and the
+gathering dusk.
+
+Now, such aimless, vagrant wanderings of the fancy were considered
+reprehensible by earnest Methodists; and by none were they more strongly
+disapproved of than by David Powell himself. His life was guided, as
+nearly as might be, in conformity with the rules laid down by John
+Wesley himself for the helpers, as his first lay-preachers were called.
+And among these rules, diligence--unflagging, unfaltering--diligence and
+the strenuous employment of every minute, so that no fragment of time
+should be wasted, were emphatically insisted upon. Powell had ceased to
+read when the daylight waned, and remained in his place by the window,
+intending to devote a few minutes of the twilight to the rigid
+self-examination which was his daily habit. And instead, behold! his
+mind had strayed and wandered in idle recollections and unsanctified
+imaginings.
+
+Presently he began to mutter to himself, as he paced up and down the
+chill bare room.
+
+"What have I to do with these things," he said aloud, "when I should be
+about my Master's business? Where is the comfortable assurance of old
+days--the bright light which used to shine within my soul, turning its
+darkness to noon-day? I have lost my first love;[1] I have fallen from
+grace; and the enemy finds a ready entrance for any idle thoughts he
+wills to put into my mind. And yet--have I not striven? Have I not
+searched my own heart with sincerity?"
+
+[Footnote 1: A common expression among the early Methodists, to indicate
+the first fervour of religious zeal.]
+
+All at once, stopping short in his walk across the garret floor, he
+threw himself on his knees beside the bed, and, burying his face in his
+hands, began to pray aloud. The sound of his own voice rising ever
+higher, as his supplications grew more fervent, hid from his ears the
+noise of a tap at the door, which was repeated twice or thrice. At
+length, the person who had knocked pushed the door gently open a little
+way, and called him by his name, "Mr. Powell! Mr. Powell!"
+
+"Who calls me?" asked the preacher, lifting his head, but not rising at
+once from his knees.
+
+"It's me, sir; Mrs. Thimbleby. I have made you a cup of herb tea
+accordin' to the directions in the Primitive Physic,[2] and there is a
+handful of fire in the kitchen grate, whilst here it is downright
+freezing. Dear, dear Mr. Powell, I can't think it right for you to set
+for hours up here by yourself in the cold!"
+
+[Footnote 2: A collection of receipts, published by John Wesley, under
+the title of "Primitive Physic; or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing
+most Diseases."]
+
+The good widow--a gentle, loquacious woman, with mild eyes and a humble
+manner--had advanced into the room by this time, and stood holding up a
+lighted candle in one hand, whilst with the other she drew her scanty
+black shawl closer round her shoulders.
+
+"I will come, Mrs. Thimbleby," answered Powell. "Do you go downstairs,
+and I will follow you forthwith."
+
+"Well, it is a miracle of the Lord if he don't catch his death of cold,"
+muttered the widow as she redescended the steep, narrow staircase. "But
+there! he is a select vessel, if ever there was one; and a burning and a
+shining light. And I suppose the Lord will take care of His own, in His
+own way."
+
+Mrs. Thimbleby sat down by her own clean-swept hearth, in which a small
+fire was burning brightly. The little kitchen was wonderfully clean. Not
+a speck of rust marked the bright pewter and tin vessels that hung over
+the dresser. Not an atom of dust lay on any visible object in the place.
+There was no sound to be heard save the ticking of the old eight-day
+clock, and, now and then, the dropping of a coal on to the hearth. As
+soon as she heard her lodger's step on the stairs, Mrs. Thimbleby
+bestirred herself to pour out the herb tea of which she had spoken.
+
+"I wish it was China tea, Mr. Powell," she said, when he entered the
+kitchen. "But you won't take that, so I know it's no good to offer it to
+you. Else I have a cup here as is really good, and came out of my new
+lodger's pot."
+
+"You do not surely take of what is not your own!" cried Powell, looking
+quickly round at her.
+
+"Lord forbid, sir! No, but the gentleman drinks a sight of tea. And last
+evening he would have some fresh made, and I say to him"--Mrs.
+Thimbleby's narrative style was chiefly remarkable for its
+simplification of the English syntax, by means of omitting all past
+tenses, and thus getting rid of any difficulty attendant on the
+conjugation of irregular verbs--"I say, 'Won't you have none of that
+last as was made for breakfast, as is beautiful tea, and only wants
+warming up again?' But he refuse; and then I ask him if I may use it
+myself, seeing I look on it as a sin to waste anything; and he only just
+look up from his book and nod his head, and say, 'Do what you like with
+it, ma'am,' and wave his hand as much as to say I may go. He is not much
+of a one to talk, but he paid the first week punctual, and is as quiet
+as quiet, and--there he is! I hear his key in the door."
+
+A quick, firm step came along the passage, and Matthew Diamond appeared
+at the door of the kitchen. "Will you be good enough to give me a
+light?" he said, addressing the landlady. Then he saw David Powell
+standing near the fire, and looked at him curiously. Powell did not
+turn, nor seem to observe the new comer. His head was bent down, and the
+firelight partially illumined his profile, which was presented to anyone
+standing at the door. Mr. Diamond silently formed the word "Preacher?"
+with his lips, at the same time nodding towards Powell, and raising his
+eyebrows interrogatively. Mrs. Thimbleby answered aloud with alacrity,
+well pleased to begin a conversation with her taciturn lodger.
+
+"Yes, sir; it is our preacher, Mr. Powell, as is one of our shiningest
+lights, and an awakening caller of sinners to repentance. You've maybe
+heard him preach, sir? A many of the unconverted--ahem!--a many as does
+not belong to the connexion has come to hear him in Whitford Wesleyan
+Chapel, and on Whit Meadow. And we have had seasons of abundant blessing
+and refreshment."
+
+Powell had turned round at the beginning of Mrs. Thimbleby's speech, and
+was looking earnestly at Mr. Diamond. The latter, who had seen the
+preacher only in the full tide of his eloquence and the excitement of
+addressing a crowded audience, was struck by the change in the face now
+before him. It was much thinner, haggard, and deadly pale. There were
+lines round the mouth, which expressed anxiety and suffering; and the
+eyes were sunk in their orbits, and startlingly bright. Diamond was, in
+fact, startled out of his usual silent reserve by the glance which met
+his own, and exclaimed, impulsively, "I'm afraid you are ill, Mr.
+Powell!"
+
+"No," returned the other at once, and without hesitation. "I have no
+bodily ailment. I have seen you at the house of Jonathan Maxfield, have
+I not?"
+
+"Yes; I have been in the habit of going there to read with a young
+gentleman. My name is Diamond--Matthew Diamond."
+
+"I know it," answered Powell. "I should like, if you are willing, to say
+a few words to you privately."
+
+Diamond was a good deal surprised, and a little displeased, at this
+proposition. He had been interested in the Methodist preacher, and the
+thought had more than once crossed his mind that he should like to see
+more of the man, whose whole personality was so striking and uncommon.
+But Mr. Diamond had felt his wish just as he might have wished to have
+Paganini with his violin all to himself for an evening; or to learn
+_viva voce_ from Edmund Kean how he produced his great effects. To be
+the object and subject of a private sermon from this Methodist
+enthusiast (for Diamond could conceive no other reason for the
+preacher's desiring an interview with him than zeal for converting) was,
+however, a different matter; and Diamond had half a mind to decline the
+private communication. He was a man peculiarly averse to outspokenness
+about his own feelings. Nor was he given to be frank and diffusive on
+topics of mere intellectual speculation; although, occasionally, he
+could exchange thoughts on such matters with a congenial mind. But he
+knew well enough that, with the Methodists in general, an excited state
+of feeling, which might do duty for conviction, was the aim and end of
+their teaching and preaching.
+
+"This man is ignorant and enthusiastic, and will make himself absurd and
+me uncomfortable, and I shall have to offend him, which I don't wish to
+do," thought Mr. Diamond, standing stiff and grave with the candle in
+his hand. But once more the sight of Powell's haggard, suffering face
+and bright wistful eyes touched him; and once more the resolute Matthew
+Diamond suffered himself to be swayed by an impulse of sympathy with
+this man.
+
+"Oh," said he, "well, you can come into my sitting-room."
+
+The invitation was not very graciously given, but Powell did not seem to
+heed that at all. Mrs. Thimbleby stood in admiring astonishment as her
+two lodgers left the kitchen together.
+
+The two young men, so strangely contrasted in all outward circumstances,
+entered the small parlour, which served as dining-room, sitting-room,
+and study to Matthew Diamond, and seated themselves at a table almost
+covered with books, one corner of which had been cleared to admit of a
+little tea-tray being placed upon it.
+
+"Will you share my tea, Mr. Powell?" asked Diamond, as he filled a cup
+with the strong brown liquid.
+
+"No; I thank you for proffering it to me, but I do not drink tea."
+
+"I am sorry for that, for I am afraid I have no other refreshment to
+offer you. I don't indulge in wine or spirits."
+
+Diamond threw into his manner a certain determined commonplaceness, as
+though to quench any tendency to excitement or exaltation which might
+show itself in the preacher. Although he would have expressed it in
+different terms, Matthew Diamond had at the bottom of his mind a feeling
+akin to that in Miss Chubb's, when she declared her dread of the
+Maxfield family "going into convulsions" in the parish church of St.
+Chad.
+
+"I will take a cup of tea myself, if you have no objection," said
+Diamond, suiting the action to the word, and stretching out his legs, so
+as to bring them within reach of the warmth from the fire. "Won't you
+draw nearer to the hearth, Mr. Powell?"
+
+Powell sat looking fixedly into the fire with an abstracted air. His
+hands were joined loosely, and rested on his knees. The firelight shone
+on his wan, clearly-cut face, but seemed to be absorbed and quenched in
+the blackness of his hair, which hung down in two straight, thick locks
+behind his ears. He did not accept Mr. Diamond's invitation to draw
+nearer to the warm hearth, but, after a pause, turned his face to his
+companion, and said, "It is on behalf of the young maiden, Rhoda
+Maxfield, that I would speak with you, sir."
+
+He could scarcely have said anything more thoroughly unexpected and
+disconcerting to Matthew Diamond. The latter did not start or stare, or
+make any strong demonstration of surprise, but he could not help a
+sudden flush mounting to his face, much to his annoyance.
+
+"About Miss Rhoda Maxfield?" he returned coldly; "I do not understand
+what concern either you or I can have with any private conversation
+about that young lady."
+
+"My concern with Rhoda is that of one who has had it laid upon him to
+lead a tender soul out of the darkness into the light, and who suddenly
+finds himself divided from that precious charge, even at the moment
+when he hoped the goal was reached. Her father has left our Society, and
+has thus carried Rhoda away from the reach of my exhortations."
+
+"By Jove!" thought Diamond to himself, as he turned his keen grey eyes
+on the preacher, "this is a specimen of spiritual conceit on a colossal
+scale!" Then he said aloud, "You must console yourself with the hope
+that the exhortations she will hear in the parish church will differ
+from your own rather in manner than matter, Mr. Powell. There really are
+some very decent people among the congregation of St. Chad's."
+
+"Nay," answered Powell, with simple gentleness, "do you think I doubt
+it? It has been the boast of Methodism that it receives into its bosom
+all denominations of Christians, without distinction. The Churchman and
+the Dissenter, the Presbyterian and the Independent, are alike welcome
+to us, and are free alike to follow their own method of worship. In the
+words of John Wesley himself, 'one condition, and one only, is
+required--a real desire to save their souls. Where this is, it is
+enough; they desire no more. They lay stress upon nothing else. They ask
+only, Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it be, give me thy hand.'"
+
+"Methodism has changed somewhat since the days of John Wesley," said
+Diamond, drily.
+
+"Not Methodism, but perhaps--Methodists. But it was not of Methodism
+that I had it on my mind to speak to you now."
+
+Diamond controlled his face and his attitude to express civil
+indifference; but--his pulse was quickened, and he hid his mouth with
+his hand. Powell went on: "I have turned the matter in my mind, many
+ways. And I have sought for guidance on it with much wrestling of the
+spirit. But I had not received a clear leading until this evening. When
+I saw you standing in the doorway, it was borne in upon me that you
+could be an instrument of help in this matter. And the leading was the
+more assured to me, because that to-day, having opened my Bible after
+due supplication, mine eyes fell at once on the words, 'I have heard of
+thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eyes seeth thee.' Now these
+words were dark to me until just now, when you seemed to appear as the
+explanation and interpretation thereof."
+
+Diamond could not but acknowledge to himself that all the scriptural
+phraseology, and the technicalities of sectarianism, which he found
+merely grotesque or disgusting in men of common, vulgar natures, came
+from this man's lips with as much ease and propriety as if he had been a
+Hebrew of old time uttering his native idiom. Indeed, the impression of
+there being something oriental about David Powell, which Diamond had
+received on first seeing him, was deepened on further acquaintance. This
+black-haired Welshman was picturesque and poetic, despite his threadbare
+cloth suit, made in the ungraceful mode of the day; and impressive,
+despite his equally threadbare phrases. It is possible to make a
+wonderful difference in the effect both of clothes and words, by putting
+something earnest and unaffected inside them.
+
+"What is the help you seek? And how can I help you?" asked Diamond, with
+grave directness.
+
+"You are acquainted with the daughter of the principal of the grammar
+school here----"
+
+"Miss Bodkin?"
+
+"Yes. Do you think that, if you carried to her a request that I might be
+permitted to see and speak with her, she would admit me?"
+
+"I--I don't know," answered Diamond, greatly taken aback.
+
+There was a pause. Each man was busy with his own thoughts. "Rhoda is
+beyond my reach now," said Powell at length. "I can neither see nor
+speak with her. Nor do I know of any of those who see her familiarly who
+would be likely to influence her for good, except Miss Bodkin. I am told
+that she is a lady of much ability and power of mind; and I hear,
+moreover, of her doing many acts of charity and kindness. You know her
+well, do you not?"
+
+"I know her. Yes."
+
+"Would you consent to carry such a request from me?"
+
+Diamond hesitated. "Why not prefer the request yourself?" he said. "If
+you have any good reason for desiring an interview with Miss Bodkin, I
+believe she would grant it."
+
+"I had thought of doing so. I had thought, even, of writing all that I
+have to say. But, for many reasons, I believe it would be more
+profitable for me to see her face to face. I am no penman. I am indeed,
+as you perceive, a man very ignorant in the world's learning and the
+world's ways."
+
+Diamond suspected a covert boast under this humble speech, and answered
+in his coolest tones, "The first is a disadvantage--or an advantage, as
+you choose to consider it--which you share with a good many of your
+brethren, Mr. Powell. As to the latter kind of ignorance--Methodists are
+generally thought to have worldly wisdom enough for their needs."
+
+Powell bent his head. "I would fain have more learning," he said in a
+low voice, "but only as a means, not as an end--not as an end."
+
+"But," said Diamond, in a constrained voice, "it seems to me hardly
+worth while to trouble Miss Bodkin, by asking for an interview on any
+such grounds. Since you are charitable enough to believe that Miss
+Maxfield's spiritual welfare is not imperilled by going to St. Chad's, I
+don't see what need there is for you to be uneasy about her!"
+
+"I am uneasy; but not for the reasons you suppose. Rhoda is very
+guileless, and I would shield her from peril."
+
+Diamond looked at the preacher sternly. "I don't understand you," he
+said. "And to say the truth, Mr. Powell, I disapprove of meddling in
+other people's affairs. Miss Maxfield is a young lady for whom I have
+the very highest respect."
+
+For the first time a flame of quick anger flashed from Powell's dark
+eyes, as he answered, "Your high respect would teach you to stand aside
+and let the innocent maiden pine under a delusion which might spoil her
+life and peril her soul; mine prompts me to step forward and awaken her
+to the truth, never heeding what figure I make in the matter."
+
+The sudden passion in the man's face and figure was like a material
+illumination. Diamond had grown pale, and looked at him attentively, and
+in silence.
+
+"Do you think," proceeded Powell, his thin hands working nervously, and
+his eyes blazing, "that I do not understand how pure a creature she
+is--how innocent, confiding, and devoid of all suspicion of guile? Yea,
+and even, therefore, the more in need of warning! But because I am a man
+still young in years, and neither the maiden's brother, nor any kin to
+her, I must stand silent and withhold my help, lest the world should say
+I am transgressing its rules, and bid me mind my own affairs, or deride
+me for a fanatical fool! Do you think I do not foresee all this? or do
+you think that, foreseeing it, I heed it? I have broken harder bonds
+than that; I have fought with strong impulses, to which such motives are
+as cobwebs----" Then, with a sudden check and change of tone which a
+grain of affectation would have sufficed to render ludicrous, but which,
+in its simplicity, was almost touching, he added, in a low voice, "I ask
+pardon for my vehemence; I speak too much of myself. I have had some
+suffering in this matter, and am not always able to control my words. I
+have had strange visitings of the old Adam of late. It is only by much
+striving after grace, and by strong wrestling in prayer, that I have not
+wandered utterly from the right way."
+
+He had risen from his chair at the beginning of his speech, and now sank
+down again on it wearily, with drooping head.
+
+Matthew Diamond sat and looked at him still with the same earnest
+attention; but blended, now, with a look of compassion. He was thinking
+to himself what must be the force of enthusiastic faith, which could so
+subdue the fiery nature of this man, and how he must suffer in the
+conflict. Presently, he said aloud, "I am ready to admit, Mr. Powell,
+that you are actuated by conscientious motives; I am sure that you are.
+But your conscience cannot be a rule for all the rest of the world. Mine
+may counsel me differently, you know."
+
+"Oh, sir, we are neither of us left to our own guidance, thanks be to
+God! There is a sure counsellor that can never fail us. I have searched
+diligently, and I have received a clear leading which I cannot mistrust.
+I do not feel free to tell you more particularly the grounds of my
+anxiety respecting Rhoda Maxfield. But I do assure you, with all
+sincerity and solemnity, that I have her welfare wholly at heart, and
+that I would not injure her by the least shadow of blame in the opinion
+of any human being."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. Diamond leant his head on his hand,
+and reflected. Then at length he said, "Look here, Mr. Powell; I
+believe, if you had pitched on anyone else in all Whitford to speak to
+about Miss Rhoda Maxfield, I should have declined to assist you. But
+Miss Bodkin is so superior in sense and goodness to most other folks
+here, that I am sure whatever you may say to her confidentially will be
+sacred. And then, she may be able to set you right, if you are wrong.
+She has the woman's tact and insight which we lack. And, besides, she
+is fond of Rhoda." He coloured a little as he said the name, and dropped
+his voice.
+
+"You confirm all that I have heard of this lady. She is abundantly
+blessed with good gifts."
+
+"Well, then, Mr. Powell, I will write to Miss Bodkin to-morrow, telling
+her merely that you desire to speak with her, and entreat her good
+offices on behalf of one who needs them."
+
+Powell sprang up from his seat eagerly. "I thank you, sir, from a full
+heart," he said. "You are doing a good action. Farewell."
+
+Diamond held out his hand, which the preacher grasped in his own. The
+two hands were as strongly contrasted as the owners of them. Diamond's
+was broad, muscular, and yet smooth--a strong young hand, full of latent
+power. Powell's was slender, nervous, showing the corded veins, and with
+long emaciated fingers. It, too, indicated force; but force of a
+different kind. The one hand might have driven a plough, or written out
+a mathematical problem; the other might have wielded a scimitar in the
+service of the Prophet, or held up a crucifix in the midst of
+persecuting savages. As they stood for a second thus hand in hand,
+Powell's mouth broke into a wonderfully sweet and radiant smile, and he
+said, "You see, sir, I was right to have faith in my counsellor. You
+have helped me."
+
+Diamond sat musing late that night, and was roused by the cold to find
+his fire gone out and his watch marking half-past twelve o'clock. "I
+wonder," he thought to himself, "if Powell has any foundation for his
+hints, and if any scoundrel is playing false with her. If there be, I
+should like to shoot him like a dog!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Minnie and her father had been having a discussion about David Powell,
+and the discussion had heated Dr. Bodkin, and spoiled his half hour
+after dinner, which was wont to be the pleasantest half hour of his day.
+For Dr. Bodkin did not sit over his wine alone. When there were no
+guests, his wife and Minnie remained at the black shining board--in
+those days the table-cloth was removed for the dessert, and the polish
+of the mahogany beneath it was a matter of pride with notable
+housekeepers like Mrs. Bodkin--and his wife poured out his allowance of
+port and peeled his walnuts for him, and his daughter chatted with him,
+and coaxed him, and sometimes contradicted him a little, and there would
+be no more school until to-morrow morning, and altogether the doctor was
+accustomed to enjoy himself. But on this occasion the poor gentleman was
+vexed and disturbed.
+
+"It's a parcel of stuff and nonsense!" said the doctor, jerking his legs
+under the table.
+
+"That remains to be proved, papa. If the man has anything of consequence
+to say, I shall soon discover it."
+
+"Anything of consequence to say? Fudge! He is coming begging,
+perhaps----"
+
+"I don't believe that, papa. Nor, I think, do you in your heart,"
+returned Minnie, with a little smile at one side of her mouth.
+
+But the doctor was too much disturbed to smile. "Why shouldn't he come
+begging? It won't be his modesty that will stand in his way, I daresay.
+Or perhaps he wants to 'convert' you, as these fellows are pleased to
+call it!"
+
+"Nobody seems to be afraid of our wanting to convert him!" said Minnie.
+
+"I don't like the sort of thing. I don't like that people should have it
+to say that my daughter is honoured with the confidences of a parcel of
+ranting, canting cobblers."
+
+"But, papa, would it not--I am speaking in sober sincerity, and because
+I really do want your serious answer--don't you think it would be wrong
+to be deterred from helping anyone with a kind word or a kind deed, by
+the fear of people saying this or that?"
+
+"Helping a fiddlestick!" cried Dr. Bodkin magisterially, but
+incoherently.
+
+Minnie's face fell. It had been paler than usual of late, and she had
+been suffering and feeble. She never lamented aloud, nor was
+importunate, nor even showed weakness of temper; but her father, who
+loved her very tenderly, understood the chill look of disappointment
+well enough, and it was more than he had strength to bear.
+
+"Of course the man can come and say his say," he added, jerking his legs
+again impatiently under the sheltering mahogany, "especially as you say
+he is going away from Whitford directly."
+
+"Yes; but there is no guarantee that he will not come back again. I
+cannot promise you that, on his behalf."
+
+This unflinching straightforwardness of Minnie's was a fertile source of
+trouble between her father and herself.
+
+It was certainly rather hard on the doctor to be forced to surrender
+absolutely, without any of those pleasant pretences which are equivalent
+to the honours of war. Fortunately--we are limiting ourselves to the
+doctor's point of view--fortunately at this moment his eye fell on Mrs.
+Bodkin, who, made exquisitely nervous by any collision between the two
+great forces that ruled her life, was pushing the decanter of port
+backwards and forwards on the slippery table, quite unconscious of that
+mechanical movement.
+
+"Laura, what the----mischief are you about? Do you think I want my wine
+shaken up like a dose of physic?"
+
+This kind of diversion of the vials of the doctor's wrath on to his
+wife's devoted head was no uncommon finale to any altercation in which
+the reverend gentleman happened not to be getting altogether the best of
+it.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Bodkin, speaking very quickly, and in a low tone,
+as was her wont, "that very likely Mr. Powell wants to interest Minnie
+on behalf of Richard Gibbs."
+
+"And who, pray, if I may venture to inquire, is Richard Gibbs?" asked
+the doctor, in his most awful grammar-school manner, and with a
+sarcastic severity in his eye, as he uttered the name 'Gibbs,' and
+looked at Mrs. Bodkin as though he expected her to be very much ashamed
+of herself.
+
+"Brother of Jane, our maid. He is a groom at Pudcombe Hall, and a
+Wesleyan. Mr. Powell may want to recommend him, or get him a place."
+
+"What, is the fellow going to leave Pudcombe Hall, then?"
+
+"Not that I know of exactly. But it struck me it might be about Richard
+Gibbs that he wanted to speak, because Gibbs is a Wesleyan, you know."
+
+"I suppose he wants to meddle and make himself of consequence in some
+way. Egotism and conceit--rampant conceit--are the mainsprings that move
+such fellows as this Powell."
+
+The doctor rose majestically from the table and walked towards the door.
+There he paused, and turning round said to his wife, "May I request,
+Laura, that somebody shall take care that I get a cup of hot tea sent to
+me in the study? I don't think it is much to request that my tea shall
+not be brought to me in a tepid state!"
+
+Mrs. Bodkin had a great gift of holding her tongue on occasions. She
+held it now, and the doctor left the room with dignity.
+
+That evening Minnie wrote the following note:--
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. DIAMOND,--I shall be able to see Mr. Powell at one
+     o'clock to-morrow. Should that hour not suit his convenience,
+     perhaps he will do me the favour to let me know.
+
+     "Yours very truly,
+
+     "M. BODKIN."
+
+It was the first time she had ever written to Mr. Diamond. The
+temptation to make her letter longer than was absolutely needful had
+been resisted. But the consciousness that the temptation had existed,
+and been overcome, was present to Minnie's mind; and she curled her lip
+in self-scorn as she thought, "If I wrote him whole pages it would only
+bore him. He would prefer one line written in Rhoda's school-girl hand,
+out of Rhoda's school-girl head, to the best wit I could give him; aye,
+or to the best wit of a wittier woman than I." Then suddenly she tore
+the note she had just written across, threw it into the fire, and
+watched it blaze and smoulder into blackness. "I will ask you to write a
+line for me, mamma," she said, when Mrs. Bodkin re-entered the
+drawing-room, after having sent in the doctor's cup of tea to the study.
+
+"To whom, Minnie?"
+
+"To Mr. Diamond. Please say that I will receive Mr. Powell at one
+o'clock to-morrow, if that suits him."
+
+"I daresay it is really about Richard Gibbs," said Mrs. Bodkin, as she
+sealed her note.
+
+It was not without a slight feeling of nervousness that Minnie Bodkin,
+the next day, heard Jane's announcement, "Mr. Powell is below, Miss.
+Mistress wishes to know if you would see him in your own room?"
+
+Minnie gave orders that the preacher should be shown upstairs, and Jane
+ushered him in very respectfully. Dr. Bodkin's old man-servant took no
+pains to hide his disgust at the reception of such a guest; and declared
+in the servants' hall that the sight of one of them long-haired, canting
+Methodys fairly turned his stomach. But Jane, remembering her brother
+Richard's reformation, was less militant in her orthodoxy, and expressed
+the opinion that "Mr. Powell was a very good man for all his long
+hair"--a revolutionary sentiment which was naturally received with
+incredulity and contempt.
+
+Minnie looked up eagerly when the preacher entered the room, and scanned
+him with a rapid glance as she asked him to be seated. "I am a poor
+feeble creature, Mr. Powell," she said, "who cannot move about at my own
+will. So you will forgive my bringing you up here, will you not?"
+
+Powell, on his part, looked at the young lady with a steady, searching
+gaze. Minnie was accustomed to be looked at admiringly, affectionately,
+deferentially, curiously, pityingly (which she liked least of
+all)--sometimes spitefully. But she had never been looked at as David
+Powell was looking at her now; that is, as if his spirit were
+scrutinising her spirit, altogether regardless of the form which housed
+it.
+
+"I thank you gratefully for letting me have speech of you," he said; and
+his voice, as he said it, charmed Minnie's sensitive and fastidious ear.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Powell, that for some time past I have had the wish to
+make your acquaintance? But circumstances seemed to make it unlikely
+that I ever should do so."
+
+"Yes; it was very unlikely, humanly speaking. But I have no doubt that
+our meeting has been brought about in direct answer to prayer."
+
+Minnie was at a loss what to say. It was almost as startling to hear a
+man profess such a belief on a week-day, and in a quiet, matter-of-fact
+tone, as it would have been to find Madame Malibran conducting all her
+conversation in recitative, or to hear Mr. Dockett begin his sentences
+with a "whereas."
+
+"You wish to speak to me on behalf of some one, Mr. Diamond tells me?"
+said Minnie, after a slight hesitation.
+
+"Yes; you have been kind and gracious to a young girl beneath you in
+worldly station, named Rhoda Maxfield."
+
+"Rhoda! Is it of her you wish to speak?" cried Minnie, in great
+surprise. She felt a strange sick pang of jealousy. It was for Rhoda's
+sake, then, that Mr. Diamond had begged her to receive Powell!
+
+"You are kindly disposed towards the maiden?" said Powell, anxiously;
+for Minnie's change of countenance had not escaped him. For her life,
+Minnie could not cordially have said "yes" at that moment.
+
+"I--Rhoda is a very good girl, I believe; what would you have me do for
+her?"
+
+"I would have you dissuade her from resting her hopes--I speak now
+merely of earthly hopes and earthly prudence--on the attachment of one
+who is unstable, vain, and worldly-minded."
+
+"What do you mean? I--I do not understand," stammered Minnie, with
+fast-beating heart.
+
+"May I speak to you in full confidence? If you tell me I may do so, I
+shall trust you utterly."
+
+"What is this matter to me? Why do you come to me about it?"
+
+"Because I have been told by those whose words I believe, that you are
+gifted with a clear and strong judgment, as well as with all qualities
+that win love."
+
+"You are mistaken. I am not gifted with the qualities that win love,"
+said Minnie, bitterly. Then she asked, abruptly, "Did Mr. Diamond advise
+you to speak to me about Rhoda?"
+
+"Nay; it was I who had recourse to his intercession to get speech of
+you."
+
+"But he knows your errand?"
+
+"In part he knows it. But I was not free to say to him all that I would
+fain say to you."
+
+Minnie's face had a hard set look. "Well," she said, after a short
+silence, "I cannot refuse to hear you. But I warn you that I do not
+believe I can do any good in the matter."
+
+"That will be overruled as the Lord wills."
+
+Then David Powell proceeded to set forth his fears and anxieties about
+Rhoda, more fully and clearly than he had done to Diamond. He declared
+his conviction that the girl was deceived by false hopes, and was
+fretting and pining because every now and then misgivings assailed her
+which she could not confess to any one, and because that her conscience
+was uneasy. "The maiden is very guileless and tender-natured," said
+Powell, softly.
+
+"Don't you think you a little exaggerate her tenderness, Mr. Powell?
+Persons capable of strong feelings themselves are apt to attribute all
+sorts of sentiments to very wooden-hearted creatures."
+
+He looked at her earnestly, and shook his head.
+
+"Rhoda always seems to me to be rather phlegmatic; very gentle and
+pretty, of course. But, do you know, I should not be afraid of her
+breaking her heart."
+
+There was a hard tone in Minnie's voice, and a hard expression about her
+mouth, which hurt and disappointed the preacher. He had expected some
+warmth of sympathy, some word of affection for Rhoda.
+
+"You do not know her," he said sadly.
+
+"And then, Mr. Powell, Algernon Errington----you know, I suppose, that
+Mr. Errington is a great friend of mine?"
+
+"I will not willingly say aught to offend you, nor to offend against
+Christian courtesy. But there are higher duties--more solemn
+promptings--that must not be resisted."
+
+"Oh, I am not offended. But, let me ask you, what right have we to
+assume that Mr. Errington has ever deceived Rhoda, or has ever thought
+of her otherwise than as the friend and playmate of his childhood?"
+
+"I am convinced that he has led her to believe he means, some day, to
+marry her. I cannot resist that conviction."
+
+"Marry her! Why, Mr. Powell, the thing is absurd on the face of it. A
+boy of nineteen, and in Algernon's position!--why, any person of common
+sense would understand that such an idea could not be looked at
+seriously."
+
+Powell made himself some silent reproaches for his want of faith. This
+lady might not be soft and sweet; but she had evidently the clear
+judgment which he sought for to help Rhoda. And yet he had been
+discouraged, and had almost distrusted his "leading," because of a
+little coldness of manner. He answered Minnie eagerly:
+
+"It is true! I well know that what you say is true; but will you tell
+Rhoda this? Will you plentifully declare to her the thing as it is?"
+
+"Rhoda has her father to advise her, if she needs advice."
+
+"Nay; her father is no adviser for her in this matter. He is an ignorant
+man. He does not understand the ways of the world--at least, not of that
+world in which the Erringtons hold a place--and he is prejudiced and
+stiff-necked."
+
+There was a short silence. Then Minnie said:
+
+"I do not see how I can interfere. I should, in fact, be taking an
+unjustifiable liberty, and--Mr. Errington is going away. They will both
+forget all about this boy-and-girl nonsense, if people have the wisdom
+to let it alone."
+
+"Rhoda will not forget; she will brood silently over her secret
+feelings, and her thoughts will be diverted from higher things. She will
+fall away into outer darkness. Oh think, a word in season, how good it
+is! Consider that you may save a perishing soul by speaking that word. I
+have prayed that I might leave behind me in this place the assurance
+that this lamb should not be utterly lost out of the fold."
+
+Powell had risen to his feet in his excitement, and walked away from
+Minnie towards the window, with his head bent, and his hands clasping
+his forehead. Minnie felt something like repulsion, and the sort of
+shame which an honest and proud nature feels at any suspicion of
+histrionism in one whom it has hitherto respected. Surely the man was
+exaggerating--consciously exaggerating--his feeling on this matter! But,
+then, Powell turned, and came back towards her; and she saw his face
+clearly in the full sunlight, and instantly her suspicion vanished. That
+face was wan and haggard with suffering, and there was a strange
+brilliancy in the eyes, almost like the brightness of latent tears. The
+tears sprang sympathetically to her own eyes as she looked at him. It
+was impossible to resist the pathos of that face. There was a strange
+appealing expression in it, as of a suffering of which the sufferer was
+only half-conscious, that went straight to Minnie's heart.
+
+"Mr. Powell, I am so truly sorry to see you distressed! I wish--I really
+do wish--that I could do anything for you!"
+
+"For me! Oh not for me! But stretch out your hands to this poor maiden,
+and say words of counsel to her, and of kindness, as one woman may say
+them to another. I have borne the burden of that young soul; I have had
+it laid upon me to wrestle strongly for her in prayer; I have--have been
+assailed with manifold troubles and temptations concerning her. But I am
+clear now. I speak with a single mind, and as desiring her higher
+welfare from the depths of my heart."
+
+"Good Heaven!" thought Minnie, "what a tragic thing it is to see men
+pouring out all the treasures of their love on a thing like this girl!"
+For something in Powell's face and voice had pierced her mind with
+a lightning-swift conviction that he loved Rhoda Maxfield. Minnie
+would have died rather than utter such a speech aloud. The ridicule
+which, among sophisticated persons, slinks on the heels of all
+strongly-expressed emotion, was too present to her mind, and too
+disgusting to her pride, for her to have risked the utterance of such a
+speech even to her mother. But there in her mind the words were, "Good
+Heaven; how tragic it is!" And she acknowledged to herself, at the same
+time, that Powell's lack of sophistication and intensity of fervour
+raised him into a sphere wherein ridicule had no place.
+
+"I will do what I can, Mr. Powell," said Minnie, after a pause, looking
+with unspeakable pity at his thin, pallid face. "But do not trust too
+much to my influence."
+
+"I do trust to it, because it will be strengthened and supported by my
+prayers."
+
+Then, when he had said farewell, and was about to go away, she was
+suddenly moved by a mixture of feelings, and, as it were, almost against
+her will, to say to him, "How good it would be for you to see Rhoda as
+she is! A shallow, sweet, poor little nature, as incapable of
+appreciating your love as a wren or a ladybird! I like Rhoda, and I am a
+poor, shallow creature in many ways myself. But I do recognise things
+higher than myself when I see them."
+
+David Powell's face grew crimson with a hot, dark flush, and for an
+instant he grasped the back of a chair near him, like a man who reels in
+drunkenness. Then he said, "You are very keen to see the truth. You have
+seen it. Rhoda is dear to me, as no woman ever has been dear, or will be
+again. Once I thought this love was a snare to me. Now--unless in
+moments of temptation by the enemy--I know that it is an instrument in
+God's hands. It has given me strength to pray, courage to ask you for
+your help."
+
+"But you suffer!" cried Minnie, looking at him with knit, earnest brows.
+"Why should you suffer for one who does not care for you? It is not
+just."
+
+"Who dare ask for justice? I have received mercy--abundant, overflowing
+mercy--and shall I not render mercy in my poor degree? But in truth," he
+added, in a low voice, and with a smile which Minnie thought the most
+strangely sweet she had ever seen--"in truth, I cannot claim that merit.
+I can no more help desiring to do good to Rhoda than I can help drawing
+my breath. Of others I may say, 'It is my duty to assist this man, to
+counsel that one, to endure some hard treatment for the sake of this
+other, in order that I may lead them to Christ.' But with Rhoda there is
+no sense of sacrifice. I believe that the Lord has appointed me to bring
+her to Him. If my feet be cut and bleeding by the way, I cannot heed
+it."
+
+"Would you be glad to see Rhoda married to Algernon Errington if he were
+to become a religious, earnest man--such a man as your conscientious
+judgment must approve?" asked Minnie.
+
+And the minute the words had passed her lips she repented having said
+them; they seemed so needlessly cruel; such a ruthless probing of a
+tender, quivering soul. "It was as if the devil had put the words into
+my mouth," said she afterwards to herself.
+
+But Powell answered very quietly, "I have thought of that often. But I
+ask myself such questions no longer. I hold my Father's hand even as a
+little child, and whither that hand leads me I shall go safely. It is
+not for me to tempt the wrath of the Lord by vain surmises and putting a
+case. 'Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.'"
+
+"You will come back to Whitford, will you not?" asked Minnie.
+
+"If I may. But I know not when. That is not given me to decide. At
+present, I feel my conscience in bonds of obedience to the Society."
+
+"Perhaps we may never meet again in this world!" Minnie, as she said the
+words, was conscious of a strong fellow-feeling for this man, so far
+removed from her in external circumstances.
+
+"May God bless you!" he said, almost in a whisper.
+
+Minnie held out her hand. As he took it lightly in his own for an
+instant, he pointed upward with the other hand, and then turned and went
+away in silence.
+
+When Dr. Bodkin said a word or two to Minnie that evening, as to her
+interview with the "ranting, canting cobbler," she was very reticent and
+brief in her answers. But on her father shrugging his shoulders
+disparagingly and observing, "It is a good thing that this firebrand is
+taking his departure from Whitford. I've been hearing all sorts of
+things about him to-day. It seems the fellow even set the Methodists by
+the ears among themselves," she exclaimed hotly, "I do declare most
+solemnly that this man gives me a more vivid idea of a saint upon
+earth--a stumbling, striving, suffering saint--than anything I ever saw
+or read."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Arrived in London, with an influential patron ready to receive him, and
+twenty pounds in his pocket, over and above the sum his mother had
+contrived to spare out of her quarter's income, Algernon Errington
+considered himself to be a very lucky fellow. He had good health, good
+spirits, good looks, and a disposition to make the most of them,
+untrammelled by shyness or scruples.
+
+He did feel a little nervous as he drove, the day after his arrival in
+town, to Lord Seely's house, but by no means painfully so. He was
+undeniably anxious to make a good impression. But his experience, so
+far, led him to assume, almost with certainty, that he should succeed in
+doing so.
+
+The hackney-coach stopped at the door of a grimy-looking mansion in
+Mayfair, but it was a stately mansion withal. In reply to Algernon's
+inquiry whether Lord Seely was at home, a solemn servant said that his
+lordship was at home, but was usually engaged at that hour. "Will you
+carry in my card to him?" said Algernon. "Mr. Ancram Errington."
+
+Algy felt that he had made a false move in coming without any previous
+announcement, and in dismissing his cab, when he was shown into a little
+closet off the hall, lined with dingy books, and containing only two
+hard horsehair chairs, to await the servant's return. There was
+something a little flat and ignominious in this his first appearance in
+the Seely house, waiting like a dun or an errand-boy, with the
+possibility of having to walk out again, without having been admitted to
+the light of my lord's countenance. However, within a reasonable time,
+the solemn footman returned, and asked him to walk upstairs, as my lady
+would receive him, although my lord was for the present engaged.
+
+Algernon followed the man up a softly-carpeted staircase, and through
+one or two handsome drawing-rooms--a little dim from the narrowness of
+the street and the heaviness of the curtains--into a small cosy boudoir.
+There was a good fire on the hearth, and in an easy-chair on one side of
+it sat a fat lady, with a fat lap-dog on her knees. The lady, as soon as
+she saw Algernon, waved a jewelled hand to keep him off, and said, in a
+mellow, pleasant voice, which reminded him of his mother's, "How d'ye
+do? Don't shake hands, nor come too near, because Fido don't like it,
+and he bites strangers if he sees them touch me. Sit down."
+
+Algernon had made a very agile backward movement on the announcement of
+Fido's infirmity of temper; but he bowed, smiled, and seated himself at
+a respectful distance opposite to my lady. Lady Seely's appearance
+certainly justified Mrs. Errington's frequent assertion that there was a
+strong family likeness throughout all branches of the Ancram stock, for
+she bore a considerable resemblance to Mrs. Errington herself, and a
+still stronger resemblance to a miniature of Mrs. Errington's
+grandfather, which Algy had often seen. My lady was some ten years older
+than Mrs. Errington. She wore a blonde wig, and was rouged. But her wig
+and her rouge belonged to the candid and ingenuous species of
+embellishment. Each proclaimed aloud, as it were, "I am wig!" "I am
+paint!" with scarcely an attempt at deception.
+
+"So you've come to town," said my lady, fumbling for her eye-glass with
+one hand, while with the other she patted and soothed the growling Fido.
+Having found the eye-glass, she looked steadily through it at Algernon,
+who bore the scrutiny with a good-humoured smile and a little blush,
+which became him very well.
+
+"You're very nice-looking, indeed," said my lady.
+
+Algy could not find a suitable reply to this speech, so he only smiled
+still more, and made a half-jesting little bow.
+
+"Let me see," pursued Lady Seely, still holding her glass to her eyes,
+"what is our exact relationship? You are a relation of mine, you know."
+
+"I am glad to say I have that honour."
+
+"I don't suppose you know much of the family genealogy," said my lady,
+who prided herself on her own accurate knowledge of such matters. "My
+grandfather and your mother's grandfather were brothers. Your mother's
+grandfather was the elder brother. He had a very pretty estate in
+Warwickshire, and squandered it all in less than twelve years. I don't
+suppose your mother's father had a penny to bless himself with when he
+came of age."
+
+"I daresay not, ma'am."
+
+"My grandfather did better. He went to India when he was seventeen, and
+came back when he was seventy, with a pot of money. Ah, if my father
+hadn't been the youngest of five brothers, I should have been a rich
+woman!"
+
+"Your ladyship's grandfather was General Cloudesley Ancram, who
+distinguished himself at the siege of Khallaka," said Algernon.
+
+Lady Seely nodded approvingly. "Ah, your mother has taught you that, has
+she?" she said. "And what was your father? Wasn't he an apothecary?"
+
+Algernon's face showed no trace of annoyance, except a little increase
+of colour in his blooming young cheeks, as he answered, "The fact is,
+Lady Seely, that my poor father was an enthusiast about science. He
+would study medicine, instead of going into the Church, and availing
+himself of the family interest. The consequence was, that he died a poor
+M.D. instead of a rich D.D.--or even, who knows? a bishop!"
+
+"La!" said my lady, shortly. Then, after a minute's pause, she added,
+"Then, I suppose, you're not very rich, hey?"
+
+"I am as poor, ma'am, as my grandfather, Montagu Ancram, of whom your
+ladyship was saying just now that he had not a penny to bless himself
+with when he came of age," returned Algernon, laughing.
+
+"Well, you seem to take it very easy," said my lady. And once more she
+looked at him through her eye-glass. "And what made you come to town,
+all the way from what-d'ye-call-it? Have you got anything to do?"
+
+"N--nothing definite, exactly," said Algernon.
+
+"H'm! Quiet, Fido!"
+
+"I ventured to hope that Lord Seely--that perhaps my lord--might----"
+
+"Oh, dear, you mustn't run away with that idea!" exclaimed her ladyship.
+"There ain't the least chance of my lord being able to do anything for
+you. He's torn to pieces by people wanting places, and all sorts of
+things."
+
+"I was about to say that I ventured to hope that my lord would kindly
+give me some advice," said Algernon. As he said it his heart was like
+lead. He had not, of course, expected to be at once made Secretary of
+State, or even to pop immediately into a clerkship at the Foreign
+Office. He had put the matter very soberly and moderately before his own
+mind, as he thought. He had told himself that a word of encouragement
+from his high and mighty cousin should be thankfully received, and that
+he would neither be pushing nor impatient, accepting a very small
+beginning cheerfully. But it had never occurred to him to prepare
+himself for an absolute flat refusal of all assistance. My lady's tone
+was one of complete decision. And it was in vain he reflected that my
+lady might be speaking more harshly and decisively than she had any
+warrant for doing, being led to that course by the necessity of
+protecting herself and her husband against importunity. None the less
+was his heart very heavy within him. And he really deserved some credit
+for gallantry in bearing up against the blow.
+
+"Advice!" said my lady, echoing his word. "Oh, well, that ain't so
+difficult. What are you fit for?"
+
+"Perhaps I am scarcely the best judge of that, am I?" returned Algernon,
+with that childlike raising of the eyebrows which gave so winning an
+expression to his face.
+
+"Perhaps not; but what do you think?"
+
+"Well, I--I believe I could fill the post of secretary, or----What I
+should like," he went on, in a sudden burst of candour, and looking
+deprecatingly at Lady Seely, like a child asking for sugar-plums, "would
+be to get attached to one of our foreign legations."
+
+"I daresay! But that's easier said than done. And as to being a
+secretary, it's precious hard work, I can tell you, if you're paid for
+it; and, of course, no post would suit you that didn't pay."
+
+"I shouldn't mind hard work."
+
+"You wouldn't be much of an Ancram if you liked it; I can tell you I
+know that much! Well, and how long do you mean to stay in town?"
+
+"That is quite uncertain."
+
+"You must come and see me again before you go, and be introduced to Lord
+Seely."
+
+"Oh, indeed, I hope so."
+
+Come and see her again before he went! What would his mother say, what
+would his Whitford friends say, if they could hear that speech?
+Nevertheless, he answered very cheerfully:
+
+"Oh, indeed, I hope so!" And interpreting my lady's words as a
+dismissal, rose to go.
+
+"You're really uncommonly nice-looking," said Lady Seely, observing his
+straight, slight figure, and his neatly-shod feet as he stood before
+her. "Oh, you needn't look shame-faced about it. It's no merit of yours;
+but it's a great thing, let me tell you, for a young fellow without a
+penny to have an agreeable appearance. How old are you?"
+
+"Twenty," said Algernon, anticipating his birthday by two months.
+
+"Do you know, I think Fido will like you!" said my lady, who observed
+the fact that her favourite had neither barked nor growled when Algernon
+rose from his chair. "I'm sure I hope he will; he is so unpleasant when
+he takes a dislike to people."
+
+Algernon thought so too; but he merely said, "Oh, we shall be great
+friends, I daresay; I always get on with dogs."
+
+"Ah, but Fido is peculiar. You can't coax him and he gets so much to
+eat that you can't bribe him. If he likes you, he likes you--_voila
+tout_! By-the-way, do you understand French?"
+
+"Yes; pretty fairly. I like it."
+
+"Do you? But, as to your accent--I'm afraid that cannot be much to boast
+of. English provincial French is always so very dreadful."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Algernon, with perfect good humour, for he
+believed himself to be on safe ground here; "but the old Duc de
+Villegagnon, an _emigre_, who was my master, used to say that I did not
+pronounce the words of my little French songs so badly."
+
+"Bless the boy! Can you sing French songs? Do sit down, then, at the
+piano, and let me hear one! Never mind Fido." (Her ladyship had set her
+favourite on the floor, and he was sniffing at Algernon's legs.) "He
+don't dislike music, except a brass band. Sit down, now!"
+
+Algernon obeyed, seated himself at the pianoforte, and began to run his
+fingers over the keys. He found the instrument a good deal out of tune;
+but began, after a minute's pause, a forgotten chansonette, from "Le
+Petit Chaperon Rouge." He sang with taste and spirit, though little
+voice; and his French accent proved to be so surprisingly good, as to
+elicit unqualified approbation from Lady Seely.
+
+"Why, I declare that's charming!" she cried, clapping her hands. "How on
+earth did you pick up all that in--what's-its-name? Do look here, my
+lord, here's young Ancram come up from that place in the West of
+England, and he can play the piano and sing French songs delightfully!"
+
+Algernon jumped up in a little flurry, and, turning round, found himself
+face to face with his magnificent relative, Lord Seely.
+
+Now it must be owned that "magnificent" was not quite the epithet that
+could justly be applied to Lord Seely's personal appearance. He was a
+small, delicately-made man, with a small, delicately-featured face, and
+sharp, restless dark eyes. His grey hair stood up in two tufts, one
+above each ear, and the top of his head was bald, shining, and
+yellowish, like old ivory. "Eh?" said he. "Oh! Mr.--a--a, how d'ye do?"
+Then he shook hands with Algernon, and courteously motioning him to
+resume his seat, threw himself into a chair by the hearth, opposite to
+his wife. He stretched out his short legs to their utmost possible
+length before him, and leant his head back wearily.
+
+"Tired, my lord?" asked his wife.
+
+"Why, yes, a little. Dictating letters is a fatiguing business,
+Mr.--a--a--"
+
+"Errington, my lord; Ancram Errington."
+
+"Oh, to be sure! I'm very glad to see you; very glad indeed. Yes, yes;
+Mr. Errington. You are a cousin of my lady's? Of course. Very glad."
+
+And Lord Seely got up and shook hands once more with Algernon, whose
+identity he had evidently only just recognised. But, although tardy, the
+peer's greeting was more than civil, it was kind; and Algernon's
+gratitude was in direct proportion to the chill disappointment he had
+felt at Lady Seely's discouraging words.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said, pressing the small thin white hand that was
+proffered to him. And Algy's way of saying "Thank you, sir," was
+admirable, and would have made the fortune of a young actor on the
+stage; for, in saying it, he had sufficient real emotion to make the
+simulated emotion quite touching--as an actor should have.
+
+My lord sat down again, wearily. "Bush has been with me again about that
+emigration scheme of his," he said to his wife. "Upon my honour, I don't
+know a more trying person than Bush." When he had thus spoken, he cast
+his eyes once more upon Algernon, who said, in the most artless,
+impulsive way in the world, "It's a poor-spirited kind of thing, no
+doubt; but, really, when one sees what a hard time of it statesmen have,
+one can't help feeling sometimes that it is pleasant to be nobody."
+
+Now the word "statesman" applied to Lord Seely was scarcely more correct
+than the word "magnificent" applied to his outer man. The fact was, that
+Lord Seely had been, from his youth upward, ambitious of political
+distinction, and had, indeed, filled a subordinate post in the Cabinet
+some twenty years previous to the day on which Algernon first made his
+acquaintance. But he had been a mere cypher there; and the worst of it
+was, that he had been conscious of being a cypher. He had not strength
+of character or ability to dominate other men, and he had too much
+intelligence to flatter himself that he succeeded, where success had
+eluded his pursuit. Stupider men had done better for themselves in the
+world than Valentine Sackville Strong, Lord Seely, and had gained more
+solid slices of success than he. Perhaps there is nothing more
+detrimental to the achievement of ascendancy over others than that
+intermittent kind of intellect, which is easily blown into a flame by
+vanity, but is as easily cooled down again by the chilly suggestions of
+common sense. The vanity which should be able to maintain itself always
+at white heat would be a triumphant thing. The common sense which never
+flared up to an enthusiastic temperature would be a safe thing. But the
+alternation of the two was felt to be uncomfortable and disconcerting by
+all who had much to do with Lord Seely. He continued, however, to keep
+up a semblance of political life. He had many personal friends in the
+present ministry, and there were one or two men who were rather
+specially hostile to him among the Opposition; of which latter he was
+very proud, liking to speak of his "enemies" in the House. He spoke
+pretty frequently from his place among the peers, but nobody paid him
+any particular attention. And he wrote and printed, at his own expense,
+a considerable number of political pamphlets; but nobody read them.
+That, however, may have been due to the combination against his lordship
+which existed among the writers for the public press, who never, he
+complained, reported his speeches _in extenso_, and, with few
+exceptions, ignored his pamphlets altogether.
+
+Howbeit, the word "statesman" struck pleasantly upon the little
+nobleman's ear, and he bestowed a more attentive glance on Algernon than
+he had hitherto honoured him with, and asked, in his abrupt tones, like
+a series of muffled barks, "Going to be long in town, Mr. Ancram?"
+
+"I've just been asking him," interposed my lady. "He don't know for
+certain. But----" And here she whispered in her husband's ear.
+
+"Oh, I hope so," said the latter aloud. "My lady and I hope that you
+will do us the favour to dine with us to-morrow--eh? Oh, I beg your
+pardon, Belinda, I thought you said to-morrow!--on Thursday next. We
+shall probably be alone, but I hope you will not mind that?"
+
+"I shall take it as a great favour, my lord," said Algernon, whose
+spirits had been steadily rising, ever since the successful performance
+of his French song.
+
+"You know, Mr. Ancram--I mean Mr. Errington--is a cousin of mine, my
+lord; so he won't expect to be treated with ceremony."
+
+Algernon felt as if he could have flown downstairs when, after this most
+gracious speech, he took leave of his august relatives. But he walked
+very soberly instead, down the staircase and past the solemn servants in
+the hall, with as much nonchalance as if he had been accustomed to the
+service of powdered lackeys from his babyhood.
+
+"He seems an intelligent, gentleman-like young fellow," said my lord to
+my lady.
+
+"Oh, he's as sharp as a weasel, and uncommonly nice-looking. And he
+sings French songs ever so much better than that theatre man that the
+Duchess made such a fuss about. He has the trick of drawing the long
+bow, which all the Warwickshire Ancrams were famous for. Oh, there's no
+doubt about his belonging to the real breed! He told me a
+cock-and-a-bull story about his father's devotion to science. I believe
+his father was a little apothecary in Birmingham. But I don't know that
+that much matters," said my lady to my lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Algernon was elated by the success of his song, and by Lady Seely's full
+acknowledgment of his cousinship, and he left the mansion in Mayfair in
+very good spirits, as has been said. But when he got back to his inn--a
+private hotel in a dingy street behind Oxford Street--he began to feel a
+recurrence of the disappointment which had oppressed him, when Lady
+Seely had declared so emphatically that my lord could do nothing for
+him, in the way of getting him a place. What was to be done? It was all
+very well for his mother to say that, with his talents and appearance,
+he must and would make his way to a high position; but, just and
+reasonable as it would be that his talents and appearance should give
+him success, he began to fear that they might not altogether avail to do
+so. He thought of Mr. Filthorpe--that substance, which Mr. Diamond had
+said they were deserting for the shadow of Seely--and of the thousands
+of pounds which the Bristol merchant possessed. Truly a stool in a
+counting-house was not the post which Algernon coveted. And he candidly
+told himself that he should not be able to fill it effectively. But,
+still, there would have been at least as good a chance of fascinating
+Mr. Filthorpe as of fascinating Lord Seely, and the looked-for result of
+the fascination in either case was to be absolution from the necessity
+of doing any disagreeable work whatever. And, moreover, Mr. Filthorpe,
+at all events, would have supplied board and lodging and a small salary,
+whilst he was undergoing the progress of being fascinated.
+
+Algernon looked thoughtful and anxious, for full a quarter of an hour,
+as he pondered these things. But then he fell into a fit of laughter at
+the recollection of Lady Seely and Fido. "There is something very absurd
+about that old woman," said he to himself. "She is so impudent! And why
+wear a wig at all, if a wig is to be such a one as hers? A turban or a
+skull-cap would do just as well to cover her head with. But then they
+wouldn't be half so funny. Fido is something like his mistress--nearly
+as fat, and with the same style of profile."
+
+Then he set himself to draw a caricature representing Fido, attired
+after the fashion of Lady Seely, and became quite cheerful and buoyant
+over it.
+
+In the interval between the day of his visit to the Seelys and the
+Thursday on which he was to dine with them, Algernon made one or two
+calls, and delivered a couple of letters of introduction, with which his
+Whitford friends had furnished him. One was from Dr. Bodkin to an
+old-fashioned solicitor, who was reputed to be rich, but who lived in a
+very quiet way, in a very quiet square, and gave very quiet little
+dinners to a select few who could appreciate a really fine glass of
+port. The other letter was to a sister of young Mr. Pawkins, of Pudcombe
+Hall, married to the chief clerk of the Admiralty, who lived in a
+fashionable neighbourhood, and gave parties as fashionable as her
+visiting-list permitted, and by no means desired any special
+connoisseurship in wine on the part of her guests.
+
+On the occasion of his first calls, Algernon found neither Mr.
+Leadbeater, the solicitor, nor Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs (that was the name of
+young Pawkins's sister) at home. So he left his letters and cards, and
+wandered about the streets in a rather forlorn way; for although it was
+his first visit to London, it was not possible for him to get much
+enjoyment out of the metropolis, all alone. To him every place, even
+London, appeared in the light of a stage or background, whereon that
+supremely interesting personage, himself, might figure to more or less
+advantage. Now London is a big theatre. And although a big theatre full
+of spectators may be very exhilarating to the object of public attention
+who performs in it, a big theatre, practically barren of
+spectators--for, of course, the only real spectators are the spectators
+who look at _us_--is apt to oppress the mind with a sense of desertion.
+So he was very glad when Thursday evening came, and he found himself
+once more within the hall door of Lord Seely's house.
+
+My lord was in the drawing-room alone, standing on the hearth-rug. He
+shook hands very kindly with Algernon, and bade him come near to the
+fire and warm himself, for the evening was cold.
+
+"And what have you been doing with yourself, Mr. Errington?" asked Lord
+Seely.
+
+"I have been chiefly employed to-day in losing myself and asking my
+way," answered Algernon, laughing. And then he began an account of his
+adventures, and absolutely surprised himself by the amount of fun and
+sparkle he contrived to elicit from the narration of circumstances which
+had been in fact dull and commonplace enough.
+
+My lord was greatly amused, and once even laughed out loud at Algernon's
+imitation of an Irish apple-woman, who had misdirected him with the best
+intentions, and much calling down of blessings on his handsome face, in
+return for a silver sixpence.
+
+"Capital!" said my lord, nodding his head up and down.
+
+"The sixpence was badly invested, though," observed Algernon, "for she
+sent me about three miles out of my way."
+
+"Ah, but the blarney! You forget the blessing and the blarney. Surely
+they were worth the money, eh?"
+
+"No, my lord; not to me. I can't afford expensive luxuries."
+
+Lady Seely, when she entered the room, gorgeous in pea-green satin,
+which singularly set off the somewhat pronounced tone of her rouge,
+found Algy and my lord laughing together very merrily, and, as she gave
+her hand to her young relative, demanded to be informed what the joke
+was.
+
+Now it has been said that Algernon was possessed of wonderfully rapid
+powers of perception, and by sundry signs, so slight that they would
+have entirely escaped most observers, this clever young gentleman
+perceived that my lady was not altogether delighted at finding her
+husband and himself on such easy and pleasant terms together. In fact,
+my lady, with all her blunt careless jollity of manner and pleasant
+mellow voice, was apt to be both jealous and suspicious. She was jealous
+of her ascendancy over Lord Seely, who was said by the ill-natured to be
+completely under his wife's thumb, and she was suspicious of most
+strangers--especially of strangers who might be expected to want
+anything of his lordship. And she usually assumed that such persons
+would endeavour to "come over" that nobleman, when he was apart from his
+wife's protecting influence. She had a general theory that "men might be
+humbugged into anything;" and a particular experience that Lord Seely,
+despite his stiff carriage and abrupt manner, was in truth far
+softer-natured than she was herself.
+
+"That young scamp has been coming over Valentine with his jokes and his
+flummery," said my lady to herself. "He's an Ancram, every inch of him."
+
+At that very moment Algernon was mentally declaring that the conquest of
+my lady would, after all, be a more difficult matter than that of my
+lord; but that, by some means or other, the conquest must be made, if
+any good was to come to him from the Seely connection. And a stream of
+easy chat flowed over these underlying intentions and hid them, except
+that here and there, perhaps, a bubble or an eddy told of rough places
+out of sight.
+
+After some ten minutes of desultory talk, my lady was obliged to own to
+herself that the "young scamp" had a wonderfully good manner. Without a
+trace of servility, he was respectful; conveying, with perfect tact,
+exactly the sort of homage that was graceful and becoming from a youth
+like himself to persons of the Seelys' age and position. Neither did he
+commit the error of becoming familiar, in response to Lady Seely's tone
+of familiarity, a pitfall which had before now entrapped the unwary. For
+my lady, whom Nature had created vulgar--having possibly, in the hurry
+of business, mistaken one kind of clay for another, and put some low
+person's mind into the fine porcelain of an undoubted Ancram--was fond
+of asserting her position in the world by a rough unceremoniousness in
+the first place, and a very wide-eyed arrogance in the second place, if
+such unceremoniousness chanced to be reciprocated by unauthorised
+persons.
+
+"Do we wait for any one, Belinda?" asked Lord Seely.
+
+"The Dormers are coming. They're such great musicians, you know. And I
+want Lady Harriet to hear this boy sing. And then there may be Jack
+Price, very likely."
+
+"Very likely?" said my lord, raising his eyebrows and stiffening his
+back. "Doesn't Mr. Price do us the honour of saying positively whether
+he will come or not?"
+
+"Oh, you know what Jack Price is. He says he'll come, and nine times out
+of ten he don't come; and then the tenth time he comes, and people have
+to put up with him."
+
+My lord cleared his throat significantly, as who should say that he, at
+all events, did not feel inclined to put up with this system of tithes
+in the fulfilment of Mr. Jack Price's promises.
+
+"If he comes," said Lady Seely, addressing Algernon, "you'll have to
+walk into dinner by yourself. I've only got one young lady; and, if Jack
+comes, he must have her."
+
+"Where is Castalia?" asked my lord.
+
+"Oh, I suppose she's dressing. Castalia is always the slowest creature
+at her toilet I ever knew."
+
+Algernon had read up the family genealogy in the "Peerage," under his
+mother's instructions, sufficiently to be aware that Lord and Lady Seely
+were childless, having lost their only son in a boating accident years
+ago. "Castalia," then, could not be a daughter of the house. Who was
+she? A young lady who was evidently at present living with the Seelys,
+whom they called by her Christian name, and who was habitually a long
+time at her toilet! Algernon felt a little agreeable excitement and
+curiosity on the subject of the tardy Castalia.
+
+The door was thrown open. "Here she comes!" thought Algernon, settling
+his cravat as he threw a quick side glance at a mirror.
+
+"General and Lady Harriet Dormer," announced the servant.
+
+There entered a tall, elegant woman, leaning on the arm of a short,
+stout, benevolent-looking man in spectacles. To these personages
+Algernon was duly presented, being introduced, much to his
+gratification, by Lady Seely, as "A young cousin of mine, Mr. Ancram
+Errington, who has just come to town." Then, having made his bow to
+General Dormer, who smiled and shook hands with him, Algernon stood
+opposite to the graceful Lady Harriet, and was talked to very kindly and
+pleasantly, and felt extremely content with himself and his
+surroundings. Nevertheless he watched with some impatience for the
+appearance of "Castalia;" and forgot his usual self-possession so far as
+to turn his head, and break off in the middle of a sentence he was
+uttering to Lady Harriet, when he heard the door open again. But once
+more he was disappointed; for, this time, dinner was announced, and Lord
+Seely offered his arm to Lady Harriet and led the way out of the room.
+
+"No Jack," said Lady Seely, as she passed out before Algernon. "And no
+Castalia!" said my lord over his shoulder, in a tone of vexation.
+
+Algernon followed his seniors alone; but just as he got out on to the
+staircase there appeared a lady, leisurely descending from an upper
+floor, at whom Lord Seely looked up reproachfully.
+
+"Late, late, Castalia!" said he, and shook his head solemnly.
+
+"Oh no, Uncle Valentine; just in time," replied the lady.
+
+"Castalia, take Ancram's arm, and do let us get to dinner before the
+soup is cold," said Lady Seely. "Give your arm to Miss Kilfinane, and
+come along." And her ladyship's pea-green satin swept downstairs after
+Lady Harriet's sober purple draperies. Algernon bowed, and offered his
+arm to the lady beside him; she placed her hand on it almost without
+looking at him, and they entered the dining-room without having
+exchanged a word.
+
+The dining-room was better lighted than the staircase, and Algernon took
+an early opportunity of looking at his companion. She was not very
+young, being, in fact, nearly thirty, but looking older. Neither was she
+handsome. She was very thin, sallow, and sickly-looking, with a small
+round face, not wrinkled, but crumpled, as it were, into queer, fretful
+lines. Her eyes were bright and well-shaped, but deeply sunken, and she
+had a great deal of thick, pale-brown hair, worn in huge bows and
+festoons on the top of her head, according to the extreme of the mode of
+that day. Her dress displayed more than it was judicious to display, in
+an aesthetic point of view, of very lean shoulders, and was of a bright,
+soft, pink hue, that would have been trying to the most blooming
+complexion. Altogether, the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane's appearance
+was disappointing, and her manner was not so attractive as to make up
+for lack of beauty. Her face expressed a mixture of querulousness and
+hauteur, and she spoke in a languid drawl, with strange peevish
+inflections.
+
+"You and I ought to be some sort of relations to each other, oughtn't
+we?" said Algernon, having taken in all the above particulars in a
+series of rapid observations.
+
+"Why?" returned the lady, without raising her eyes from her soup-plate.
+
+"Because you are Lady Seely's niece and I am her cousin."
+
+"Who says that I am Lady Seely's niece?"
+
+"I thought," stammered Algernon--"I fancied--you called Lord Seely
+'Uncle Valentine?'"
+
+Even his equanimity, and a certain glow of complacency he felt at
+finding himself where he was, were a little disturbed by Miss
+Castalia's freezing manner.
+
+"I am Lord Seely's niece," returned she.
+
+Then, after a little pause, having finished her soup, she leaned back in
+her chair and stared at Algernon, who pretended--not quite
+successfully--to be unconscious of her scrutiny. Apparently, the result
+of it was favourable to Algernon; for the lady's manner thawed
+perceptibly, and she began to talk to him. She had evidently heard of
+him from Lady Seely, and understood the exact degree of his relationship
+to that great lady.
+
+"Did you ever meet the Dormers before?" asked Miss Kilfinane.
+
+"Never. How should I? You know I am the merest country mouse. I never
+was in London in my life, until last Friday."
+
+"Oh, but the Dormers don't live in town. Indeed, they are here very
+seldom. You might have met them; their place is in the West of England."
+
+Algernon, after a rapid balancing of pros and cons, resolved to be
+absolutely candid. With his brightest smile and most arched eyebrows, he
+began to give Miss Kilfinane an almost unvarnished description of his
+life at Whitford. Almost unvarnished; but it is no more easy to tell the
+simple truth only occasionally, than it is to stand quite upright only
+occasionally. Mind and muscles will fall back to their habitual
+posture. So that it may be doubted whether Miss Kilfinane received an
+accurate notion of the precise degree of poverty and obscurity in which
+the young man who was speaking to her had hitherto lived.
+
+"And so," said she, "you have come to London to----"
+
+"To seek my fortune," said Algernon merrily. "It is the proper and
+correct beginning to a story. And I think I have had a piece of good
+luck at the very outset by way of a good omen."
+
+Miss Kilfinane opened her eyes interrogatively, but said nothing.
+
+"I think it was a piece of luck for me," continued Algernon, emboldened
+by having secured the scornful lady's attention, and perhaps a little
+also by the wine he had drunk, "a great piece of good luck that Mr. Jack
+Price, whoever he may be, did not turn up this evening."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, if he had, I should not have been allowed the honour of
+bringing you in to dinner."
+
+"Oh yes! I should have had to go in with Jack, I suppose," answered the
+lady with a little smile.
+
+"Please, Miss Kilfinane, who is Jack Price? I do so want to know!"
+
+"Jack Price is Lord Mullingar's son."
+
+"But what is he? And why do people want to have him so much, that they
+put up with his disappointing them nine times out of ten?"
+
+"As to what he is--well, he was in the Guards, and he gave that up. Then
+they got him a place somewhere--in Africa, or South America, or
+somewhere--and he gave that up. Then he got the notion that he would be
+a farmer in Canada, and went out with an axe to cut down the trees, and
+a plough to plough the ground afterwards, and he gave that up. Now he
+does nothing particular."
+
+"And has he found his vocation at last?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," said Miss Kilfinane, languidly. Her power of
+perceiving a joke was very limited.
+
+"Thanks. Now I know all about Mr. Price; except--except why everybody
+wants to invite him."
+
+"That I really cannot tell you."
+
+"Then you don't share the general enthusiasm about him?"
+
+"I don't know that there is any general enthusiasm. Only, of
+course--don't you know how it is?--people have got into the way of
+putting up with him, and letting him do as he likes."
+
+"He's a very fortunate young man, I should say."
+
+"Young man!" Miss Kilfinane laughed a hard little laugh. "Why Jack
+Price is ever so old!"
+
+"Ever so old, is he?" echoed Algernon, genuinely surprised.
+
+"He must be turned forty," said the fair Castalia, rising in obedience
+to a look from Lady Seely. And if she had been but fifteen herself, she
+could not have said it with a more infantine air.
+
+After the ladies had withdrawn, Algernon had to sit for about twenty
+minutes in the shade, as it were, silent, and listening with modesty and
+discretion to the conversation of his seniors. Had they talked politics,
+Algernon would have been able to throw in a word or two; but Lord Seely
+and his guest talked, not of principles or party, but of persons. The
+persons talked of were such as Lord Seely conceived to be useful or
+hostile to his party, and he discussed their conduct, and criticised the
+tactics of ministers in regard to them, with much warmth. But,
+unfortunately, Algernon neither knew, nor could pretend to know,
+anything about these individuals, so he sipped his wine, and looked at
+the family portraits which hung round the room, in silence.
+
+My lord made a kind of apology to him, as they were going upstairs to
+the drawing-room.
+
+"I'm afraid you were bored, Mr. Errington. I am sorry, for your sake,
+that Mr. Price did not honour us with his company. You would have found
+him much more amusing than us old fogies."
+
+Algernon knew, when Lord Seely talked of Mr. Price not having honoured
+them with his company, that my lord was indignant against that
+gentleman. "I have no doubt Mr. Price is a very agreeable person," said
+he, "but I did not regret him, my lord. I thought it a great privilege
+to be allowed to listen to you."
+
+Later in the evening Algy overheard Lord Seely say to General Dormer,
+"He's a remarkably intelligent young fellow, I assure you."
+
+"He has a capital manner," returned the general. "There is something
+very taking about him, indeed."
+
+"Oh yes, manner; yes; a very good manner--but there's more judgment,
+more solidity about him than appears on the surface."
+
+Meanwhile, Algernon went on flourishingly, and ingratiated himself with
+every one. He steered his way, with admirable tact, past various perils,
+such as must inevitably threaten one who aims at universal popularity.
+Lady Harriet was delighted with his singing, and Lady Harriet's
+expressed approbation pleased Lady Seely; for the Dormers were
+considered to be great musical connoisseurs, and their judgment had
+considerable weight among their own set. Their own set further supposed
+that the verdict of the Dormers was important to professional artists: a
+delusion which the givers of second-rate concerts, who depended on Lady
+Harriet to get rid of many seven-and-sixpenny tickets during the season,
+were at no pains to disturb. Then, Algernon took the precaution to keep
+away from Lord Seely, and to devote himself to my lady, during the
+remainder of the evening. This behaviour had so good an effect, that she
+called him "Ancram," and bade him go and talk to Castalia, who was
+sitting alone on a distant ottoman, with a distinctly sour expression of
+countenance.
+
+"How did you get on with Castalia at dinner?" asked my lady.
+
+"Miss Kilfinane was very kind to me, ma'am."
+
+"Was she? Well, she don't make herself agreeable to everybody, so
+consider yourself honoured. Castalia's a very clever girl. She can draw,
+make wax flowers, and play the piano beautifully."
+
+"Can she really? Will she play to-night?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know. Go and ask her."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Yes; be off."
+
+Miss Kilfinane did not move or raise her eyes when Algernon went and
+stood before her.
+
+"I have come with a petition," he said, after a little pause.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Yes; will you play to-night?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, that's very cruel! I wish you would!"
+
+"I don't like playing before the Dormers. They set up for being such
+connoisseurs, and I hate that kind of thing."
+
+"I am sure you can have no reason to fear their criticism."
+
+"I don't want to have my performance picked to pieces in that knowing
+sort of way. I play for my own amusement, and I don't want to be
+criticised, and applauded, and patronised."
+
+"But how can people help applauding when you play? Lady Seely says you
+play exquisitely."
+
+"Did she tell you to ask me to play?"
+
+"Not exactly. But she said I might ask you."
+
+At this moment General Dormer came up, and said, with his most
+benevolent smile, "Won't you give us a little music, Miss Kilfinane?
+Some Beethoven, now! I see a volume of his sonatas on the piano."
+
+"I hate Beethoven," returned Miss Kilfinane.
+
+"Hate Beethoven! No, no, you don't. It's quite impossible! A pianist
+like you! Oh no, Miss Kilfinane, it is out of the question."
+
+"Yes, I do. I hate all classical music, and the sort of stuff that
+people talk about it."
+
+The general smiled again, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and
+walked away.
+
+"Miss Kilfinane, you are ferociously cruel!" said Algernon under his
+breath as General Dormer turned his back on them. The little fear he had
+had of Castalia's chilly manner and ungracious tongue had quite
+vanished. Algernon was not apt to be in awe of anyone; and he certainly
+was not in awe of Castalia Kilfinane. "Why did you tell the general that
+you hated Beethoven?" he went on saucily. "I'm quite sure you don't hate
+Beethoven!"
+
+"I hate all the kind of professional jargon which the Dormers affect
+about music. Music is all very well, but it isn't our business, any more
+than tailoring or millinery is our business. To hear the Dormers talk,
+you would think it the most important matter in the world to decide
+whether this fiddler is better than that fiddler, or what is the right
+time to play a fugue of Bach's in."
+
+"I'm such an ignoramus that I'm afraid I don't even know with any
+precision what a fugue of Bach's is!" said Algernon, ingenuously. He
+thought he had learned to understand Miss Castalia. Nevertheless, when,
+later in the evening, Lady Harriet asked him in her pretty silver tones,
+"And do you, too, hate classical music, Mr. Errington?" he professed the
+most unbounded love and reverence for the great masters. "I have had few
+opportunities of hearing fine music, Lady Harriet," said he; "but it is
+the thing I have longed for all my life." Whereupon Lady Harriet, much
+pleased at the prospect of such a disciple, invited him to go to her
+house every Saturday morning, when he would hear some of the best
+performers in London execute some of the best music. "I only ask real
+listeners," said Lady Harriet. "We are just a few music-lovers who take
+the thing very much _au serieux_."
+
+On the whole, when Algernon thought over his evening, sitting over the
+fire in his bedroom at the inn, he acknowledged to himself that he had
+been successful. "Lady Seely is the toughest customer, though! What a
+fish-wife she looks beside that elegant Lady Harriet! But she can put on
+airs of a great lady too, when she likes. It's a very fine line that
+divides dignity from impudence. Take her wig off, wash her face, and
+clothe her in a short cotton gown with a white apron, and how many
+people would know that Belinda, Lady Seely, had ever been anything but a
+cook, or the landlady of a public-house? Well, I think I am cleverer
+than any of 'em. And, after all, that's a great point." With which
+comfortable reflection Algernon Ancram Errington went to bed, and to
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+On the day following the dinner at Lord Seely's, Algernon received a
+card, importing that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be at home that evening.
+
+Of the lady he knew nothing, except that she was an elder sister of
+young Pawkins, of Pudcombe Hall; and that her family, who were people of
+consideration in Whitford and its neighbourhood, thought Jemima to have
+made a good match in marrying Mr. Machyn-Stubbs. In giving him the
+letter of introduction, Orlando Pawkins had let fall a word or two as to
+the position his sister held in London society.
+
+"I can't send anybody and everybody to the Machyn-Stubbses," said young
+Pawkins. "In their position, it wouldn't be fair to inflict our bucolic
+magnates on them. But I'm sure Jemima will be very glad to make your
+acquaintance, old fellow."
+
+Algernon was quite free from arrogance. He would have been well enough
+contented to dine with Mr. Machyn-Stubbs, had that gentleman been a
+grocer or a cheesemonger. And, in that case, he would probably have
+derived a good deal of amusement from any little vulgarities which might
+have marked the manners of his host, and would have entertained his
+genteeler friends by a humorous imitation of the same. But he was not in
+the least overawed by the prospect of meeting Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, and
+was quite aware that he probably owed his introduction to her, to young
+Pawkins's knowledge of the fact that he was Lady Seely's relation.
+
+Algernon betook himself to the house of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, in the
+fashionable neighbourhood before mentioned, about half-past ten o'clock,
+and found the small reception-rooms already fuller than was agreeable.
+Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs received him very graciously. She was a pretty woman,
+with a smooth fair face and light hair, and she was dressed with as much
+good taste as was compatible with the extreme of the prevailing fashion.
+She smiled a good deal, and was quite destitute of any sense of humour.
+
+"So glad to see you, Mr. Errington," said she, when Algernon had made
+his bow. "You and Orlando are great friends, are you not? You must let
+me make you acquainted with my husband." Then she handed Algernon over
+to a stout, red-faced, white-haired gentleman, much older than herself,
+who shook hands with him, said, "How d'ye do?" and "How long have you
+been in town?" and then appeared to consider that he had done all that
+could be expected of him in the way of conversation.
+
+"I suppose you don't know many people here, Mr. Errington?" said Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs, seeing that Algernon was standing silent in the shadow of
+her husband.
+
+"Not any. You know I have never been in London before."
+
+"Haven't you, really? But perhaps we may have some mutual acquaintances
+notwithstanding. Let me see who is here!" said the lady, looking round
+her rooms.
+
+"Are you acquainted with the Dormers, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs?"
+
+"The Dormers? Let me see----"
+
+"General and Lady Harriet Dormer."
+
+"Oh! no; I don't think I am. Of course I must have met them. In the
+course of the season, sooner or later, one meets everybody."
+
+"Do you know Miss Kilfinane?"
+
+"Miss Kilfinane? I--I can't recall at this moment----"
+
+"She is a sort of connection of mine; not a relation, for she is Lord
+Seely's niece, not my lady's."
+
+"Oh, to be sure! You are a cousin of Lady Seely. Yes, yes; I had
+forgotten. But Orlando did mention it."
+
+In truth, the fact of Algernon's relationship to Lady Seely was the only
+one concerning him which had dwelt in Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's memory.
+Presently she resumed:
+
+"I should like to introduce you to a great friend of ours--the most
+delightful creature! I hope he will come to-night, but he is very
+difficult to catch. He is a son of Lord Mullingar."
+
+"What, Jack Price?"
+
+"Oh, you know him, do you?"
+
+"Only by reputation. He was to have dined at Lord Seely's last night,
+when I was there. But he didn't show."
+
+"Oh, I know he's dreadfully uncertain. But I must say, however, that he
+is generally very good about coming to me. It's quite wonderful. I'm
+sure I don't know why I am so favoured!"
+
+Then Algernon was presented to a rather awful dowager, with two stiff
+daughters, to whom he talked as well as he could; and the nicest looking
+of whom he took into the tea-room, where there was a great crush, and
+where people trod on each other's toes, and poked their elbows into
+each other's ribs, to procure a cup of hay-coloured tea and a biscuit
+that had seen better days.
+
+"Upon my word," thought Algernon, "if this is London society, I think
+Whitford society better fun." But then he reflected that Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs was not a real leader of fashionable society. She was not
+quite a rose herself, although she lived near enough to the roses for
+their scent to cling, more or less faintly, about her garments. He was
+not bored, for his quick powers of perception, and lively appreciation
+of the ludicrous, enabled him to gather considerable amusement from the
+scene. Especially did he feel amused and in his element when, on an
+allusion to his cousinship to Lady Seely, thrown out in the airiest,
+most haphazard way, the awful dowager and the stiff daughters unbent,
+and became as gracious as temperament in the one case, and painfully
+tight stays in the other, permitted.
+
+"He's a very agreeable person, your young friend, Mr. Ancram Errington,"
+said the dowager, later on in the evening, to Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs.
+
+"Oh yes; he's very nice indeed. He is a great favourite with my people.
+He half lives at our place, I believe, when Orlando is at home."
+
+"Indeed! He is--a--a--connected with the Seelys, I believe, in some
+way?"
+
+"Second cousin. Lady Seely was an Ancram--Warwickshire Ancrams, you
+know," returned Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, who knew her "Peerage" nearly by
+heart. Whereupon the dowager went back to her daughter, by whose side,
+having nothing else to do, Algernon was still sitting, and told him that
+she should be happy to see him at her house in Portland Place any Friday
+afternoon, between four and six o'clock during the season.
+
+Presently, when the company was giving forth a greater amount and louder
+degree of talk than had hitherto been the case--for Herr Doppeldaun had
+just sat down to the grand piano--Algernon's quick eyes perceived a
+movement near the door of the principal drawing-room, and saw Mrs.
+Machyn-Stubbs advance with extended hand, and more eagerness than she
+had thrown into her reception of most of the company, to greet a
+gentleman who entered with a kind of plunge, tripping over a bearskin
+rug that lay before the door, and dropping his hat.
+
+He was a short, broad-chested man, with a bald forehead and a fringe of
+curly chestnut hair round his head. He was evidently extremely
+near-sighted, and wore a glass in one eye, the effort of keeping which
+in its place occasioned an odd contortion of his facial muscles. He was
+rubicund, and looked like a man who might grow to be very stout later in
+life. At present he was only rather stout, and was braced, and
+strapped, and tightened, so as to make the best of his figure. His dress
+was the dress of a dandy of that day, and he wore a fragrant hothouse
+flower in his button-hole.
+
+"That must be Jack Price!" thought Algernon, he scarcely knew why; and
+the next moment he got away from the dowager and her daughters, and
+sauntered towards the door.
+
+"Oh, here is Mr. Errington," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, looking round at
+him as he made his way through the crowd. "Do let me introduce you to
+Mr. Price. This is Mr. Ancram Errington, a great friend of my brother
+Orlando. You have met Orlando, I think?"
+
+"Oh, indeed, I have!" said Mr. Jack Price, in a rich sweet voice, and
+with a very decidedly marked brogue. "Orlando is one of my dearest
+friends. Delightful fellow, what? Orlando's friend must be my friend, if
+he will, what?"
+
+The little interrogation at the end of the sentence meant nothing, but
+was a mere trick. The use of it, with a soft rising inflection of Mr.
+Jack Price's very musical voice, had once upon a time been pronounced to
+be "captivating" by an enthusiastic Irish lady. But he had not fallen
+into the habit of using it from any idea that it was captivating, nor
+had he desisted from it since all projects of captivation had departed
+from his mind.
+
+"I was to have met you at dinner, last night, Mr. Price," said Algernon,
+shaking his proffered hand.
+
+"Last night? I was--where is it I was last night? Oh, at the
+Blazonvilles! Yes, of course, what? Why didn't you come, then, Mr.
+Errington? The Duke would have been delighted--perfectly charmed to see
+you!"
+
+"Well, that may be doubtful, seeing that I cannot flatter myself that
+his Grace is even aware of my existence," said Algernon, looking at Mr.
+Price with twinkling eyes, and his mouth twitching with the effort to
+avoid a broad grin.
+
+Jack Price looked back at him, puzzled and smiling. "Eh? How was it
+then, what? Was it--it wasn't me, was it?"
+
+Algernon laughed outright.
+
+"Ah now, Mr.--Mr.--my dear fellow, where was it that you were to have
+met me?"
+
+"My cousin, Lady Seely, was hoping for the pleasure of your company, Mr.
+Price. She was under the impression that you had promised to dine with
+her."
+
+Jack Price fell back a step and gave himself a sounding slap on the
+forehead. "Good gracious goodness!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to say
+that?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"Ah, now, upon my honour, I am the most unfortunate fellow under the
+sun! I don't know how the deuce it is that these kind of misfortunes are
+always happening to me. What will I say to Lady Seely? She'll never
+speak to me any more, I suppose, what?"
+
+"You should keep a little book and note down your engagements, Mr.
+Price," said Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs, as she walked away to some other guest.
+
+Mr. Price gave Algernon a comical look, half-rueful, half-amused. "I
+don't quite see myself with the little book, entering all my
+engagements," said he. "I daresay you've heard already from Lady Seely
+of my sins and shortcomings?"
+
+"At all events, I have heard this: that whatever may be your sins and
+shortcomings, they are always forgiven."
+
+"I am afraid I bear an awfully bad character, my dear Mr.----"
+
+"Errington; Ancram Errington."
+
+"To be sure! Ah, I know your name well enough. But names are among the
+things that slip my memory. It is a serious misfortune, what?"
+
+Then the two began to chat together. And when the crowd began to
+diminish, and the rattle of carriages grew more frequent down in the
+street beneath the drawing-room windows, Jack Price proposed to
+Algernon to go and sup with him at his club. They walked away together,
+arm-in-arm, and, as they left Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's doorstep, Mr. Price
+assured his new acquaintance that that lady was the nicest creature in
+the world, and one of his dearest friends; and that he could take upon
+himself to assert that Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs would be only too delighted to
+receive him (Algernon) at any time and as often as he liked. "It will
+give her real pleasure, now, what?" said Jack Price, with quite a glow
+of hospitality on behalf of Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs. Then they went to Mr.
+Price's club. It was neither a political club, nor a fashionable club,
+nor a grand club; but a club that was widely miscellaneous, and
+decidedly jolly. Algernon, before he returned to his lodging that night,
+had come to the opinion that London was, after all, a great deal better
+fun than Whitford. And Jack Price, when he called upon Lady Seely the
+next day, to make his peace with her, declared that young Errington was,
+really now, the most delightful and dearest boy in the world, and that
+he was quite certain that the young fellow was most warmly attached to
+Lord and Lady Seely.
+
+All this was agreeable enough, and Algernon would have been content to
+go on in the same way to the end of the London season had it been
+possible. But careless as he was about money, he was not careless about
+the luxuries which money supplies. Certainly, if tradesmen and landlords
+could only be induced to give unlimited credit, Algernon would have had
+none the less pleasure in availing himself of their wares, because he
+had not paid for them in coin of the realm. But as to doing without, or
+even limiting himself to an inferior quality and restricted quantity,
+that was a matter about which he was not at all indifferent. He was
+received on a familiar footing in the Seelys' house; and his reception
+there opened to him many other houses, in which it was more or less
+agreeable and flattering to be received. Among the Machyn-Stubbses of
+London society he was looked upon as quite a desirable guest, and
+received a good deal of petting, which he took with the best grace in
+the world. And all this was, as has been said, pleasant enough. But, as
+weeks went on, Algernon's money began to run short; and he soon beheld
+the dismal prospect ahead--and not very far ahead--of his last
+sovereign. And he was in debt.
+
+As to being in debt, that had nothing in it appalling to our young man's
+imagination. What frightened him was the conviction that he should not
+be permitted to go on being in debt. Other people owed money, and seemed
+to enjoy life none the less. Mr. Jack Price, for instance, had an
+allowance from his father, on which no one pretended to expect him to
+live. And he appeared very comfortable and contented in the midst of a
+rolling sea of debt, which sometimes ebbed a little, and sometimes
+flowed alarmingly high; but which, during the last ten years or so, he
+had managed to keep pretty fairly at the same level. But then Mr. Price
+was the Honourable John Patrick Price, the Earl of Mullingar's son--a
+younger son, it was true; and neither Lord Mullingar, nor Lord
+Mullingar's heir, was likely to have the means, or the inclination, to
+fish him out of the rolling sea aforesaid. At the most, they would throw
+him a plank now and then just to keep him afloat. Still there was
+something to be got out of Jack Price by a West-end tradesman who knew
+his business. Something was to be got in the way of money, and, perhaps,
+something more in the way of connection. Upon the whole, it may be
+supposed that the West-end tradesmen understood what they were about,
+when they went on supplying the Honourable John Patrick Price with all
+sorts of comforts and luxuries, season after season.
+
+But with Algernon the case was widely different, and he knew it. He had
+ventured to speak to Lord Seely about his prospects, and to ask that
+nobleman's "advice." But Lord Seely had not seemed able to offer any
+advice which it was practicable to follow. Indeed, how should he have
+done so, seeing that he was ignorant of most of the material facts of
+the case? He knew in a general way that young Ancram (Algernon had come
+to be called so in the Seely household) was poor; but between Lord
+Seely's conception of the sort of poverty which might pinch a well-born
+young gentleman, who always appeared in the neatest-fitting shoes and
+freshest of gloves, and the reality of Algernon's finances, there was a
+wide discrepancy. Algernon had indeed talked freely, and with much
+appearance of frankness, about his life in Whitford; but it may be
+doubted whether Lord Seely, or his wife either--although she, doubtless,
+came nearer to the truth in her imaginings on the subject--at all
+realised such facts as that Mrs. Errington had no maid to attend on her;
+that her lodgings cost her eighteen shillings a week; and that the smell
+of cheese from the shop below was occasionally a source of discomfort in
+her only sitting-room.
+
+With Lord Seely Algernon had made himself a great favourite, and the
+proof of it was, that my lord actually thought about him when he was
+absent; and one day said to his wife, "I wish, Belinda, that we could do
+something for Ancram."
+
+"Do something for him! I think we do a great deal for him. He has the
+run of the house, and I introduce him right and left. And he is always
+asked to sing when we have people."
+
+"That latter looks rather like his doing something for us, I think."
+
+"Not at all. It's a great advantage for a young fellow in his position
+to be brought forward, and allowed to show off his little gifts in that
+way."
+
+"He is wasting his time. I wish we could get him something to do."
+
+"I am sure you have plenty of claims on you that come before him."
+
+"I--I did speak to the Duke of Blazonville about him the other day,"
+said my lord, with the slightest hesitation in the world.
+
+The Duke of Blazonville was in the cabinet, and had been a colleague of
+Lord Seely's years ago.
+
+"What on earth made you do that, Valentine? You know very well that the
+next thing the duke has to give I particularly want for Reginald."
+
+"Oh, but what I should ask for young Ancram would be something at which
+your nephew Reginald would probably----"
+
+"Turn up his nose?"
+
+"Something which Reginald would not care about taking."
+
+"Reginald wouldn't go abroad, except to Italy. Nor, indeed, anywhere in
+Italy but to Naples."
+
+"Exactly. Whether the duke would consider that he was particularly
+serving the interests of diplomacy by sending Reginald to Naples, I
+don't know. But, at all events, Ancram could not interfere with that
+project."
+
+"Serving----? Nonsense! The duke would do it to oblige me. As to Ancram,
+I have latterly had a kind of plan in my head about Ancram."
+
+"About a place for him?"
+
+"Well, yes; a place, if you like to call it so. What do you say to his
+coming abroad with us in the autumn?"
+
+"Eh! Coming abroad with us?"
+
+"Of course we should have to pay all his expenses. But I think he would
+be amusing, and perhaps useful. He talks French very well, and is lively
+and good-tempered."
+
+"I have no doubt he would be a most charming travelling companion----"
+
+"I don't know about that. But I should take him out of kindness, and to
+do him a service."
+
+"But I don't see of what use such a plan would be to him, Belinda."
+
+"Well, I've an idea in my head, I tell you. I have kept my eyes open,
+and I fancy I see a chance for Ancram."
+
+"You are very mysterious, my dear!" said Lord Seely, with a little
+shrug.
+
+"Well, least said, soonest mended. I shall be mysterious a little
+longer. And, meanwhile, I think we might make him the offer to take him
+to Switzerland with us, since you have no objection."
+
+"I have no objection, certainly."
+
+"I think I shall mention it to him, then. And, if I were you, I wouldn't
+bother the duke about him just yet."
+
+"But what is this notion of yours, Belinda?"
+
+The exclamation rose to my lady's lips, "How inquisitive men are!" but
+she suppressed it. It was the kind of speech which particularly angered
+Lord Seely, who much disliked being lumped in with his fellow-creatures
+on the ground of common qualities. Even a compliment, so framed that my
+lord was supposed to share it with a number of other persons, would have
+displeased him. So my lady said, "Well, now, Valentine, you'll begin to
+laugh at me, very likely, but I believe I'm right. I think Castalia is
+very well inclined to like this young fellow. And she might do worse."
+
+"Castalia! Like him? Why, you don't mean----?"
+
+"Yes, I do," returned my lady, nodding her head. "That's just what I do
+mean. I'm sure, the other evening, she became quite sentimental about
+him."
+
+"Good heavens, Belinda! But the idea is preposterous."
+
+"Yes; I knew you'd say so at first. That's why I didn't want to say
+anything about it just yet awhile."
+
+"But allow me to say that, if you had any such idea in your head, it was
+only proper that it should be mentioned to me."
+
+"Well, I have mentioned it."
+
+Lord Seely clasped his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the
+room in a stiff, abrupt kind of march. At length he stopped opposite to
+her ladyship, who was assiduously soothing Fido; Fido having, for some
+occult reason, become violently exasperated by his master's walking
+about the room.
+
+"Why, in the first place----do send that brute away," said his lordship,
+sharply.
+
+"There! he's quiet now. Good Fido! Good boy! Mustn't bark and growl at
+master. Yes; you were saying----?"
+
+"I was saying that, in the first place, Castalia must be ten years older
+than this boy."
+
+"About that, I should say. But if they don't mind that, I don't see what
+it matters to us."
+
+"And he has not any means, nor any prospect of earning any, that I can
+see."
+
+"Why, for that matter, Castalia hasn't a shilling in the world, you
+know. We have to find her in everything, and so has your sister Julia,
+when Castalia goes to stay with her. And if these two could set their
+horses together--could, in a word, make a match of it--why, you might do
+something to provide for the two together, don't you see? Killing two
+birds with one stone!"
+
+"Very much like killing two birds, indeed! What are they to live on?"
+
+"If Ancram makes up to Castalia, you must get him a place. Something
+modest, of course. I don't see that they can either of them expect a
+grand thing."
+
+"Putting all other considerations aside," said my lord, drawing himself
+up, "it would be a very odd sort of match for Castalia Kilfinane."
+
+"Come! his birth is as good as hers, any way. If his father was an
+apothecary, her mother was a poor curate's daughter."
+
+"Rector's daughter, Belinda. Dr. Vyse was a learned man, and the rector
+of his parish."
+
+"Oh, well, it all comes to the same thing. And as to an odd sort of
+match, why, perhaps, an odd match is better than none at all. You know
+Castalia's no beauty. She don't grow younger; and she'll be unbearable
+in her temper, if once she thinks she's booked for an old maid."
+
+Poor Lord Seely was much disquieted. He had a kindly feeling for his
+orphan niece, which would have ripened into affection if Miss Castalia's
+character had been a little less repellent. And he really liked Algernon
+Errington so much that the notion of his marrying Castalia appeared to
+him in the light of a sacrifice, even although he held his own opinion
+as to the comparative goodness of the Ancram and Kilfinane blood. But,
+nevertheless, such was Lady Seely's force of character, that many days
+had not elapsed before his lordship was silenced, if not convinced, on
+the subject. And the invitation to go to Switzerland was given to
+Algernon, and accepted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+As the spring advanced, letters from Algernon Errington arrived rather
+frequently at Whitford. His mother had ample scope for the exercise of
+her peculiar talent, in boasting about the reception Algy had met with
+from her great relations in town, the fine society he frequented, and
+the prospect of still greater distinctions in store for him. One or two
+troublesome persons, to be sure, would ask for details, and inquire
+whether Lord Seely meant to get Algy a place, and what tangible benefits
+he had it in contemplation to bestow on him. But to all such prosy,
+plodding individuals, Mrs. Errington presented a perspective of vague
+magnificence, which sometimes awed and generally silenced them.
+
+The big square letters on Bath post paper, directed in Algernon's clear,
+graceful handwriting, and bearing my Lord Seely's frank, in the form of
+a blotchy sprawling autograph in one corner, were, however, palpable
+facts; and Mrs. Errington made the most of them. It was seldom that she
+had not one of them in her pocket. She would pull them out, sometimes as
+though in mere absence of mind, sometimes avowedly of set purpose, but
+in either case she failed not to make them the occasion for an almost
+endless variety of prospective and retrospective boasting.
+
+It must be owned that Algernon's letters were delightful. They were
+written with such a freshness of observation, such a sense of enjoyment,
+such a keen appreciation of fun--tempered always by a wonderful knack of
+keeping his own figure in a favourable light--that passages from them
+were read aloud, and quoted at Whitford tea-parties with a most
+enlivening effect.
+
+"Those letters are written _pro bono publico_," Minnie Bodkin observed
+confidentially to her mother. "No human being would address such
+communications to Mrs. Errington for her sole perusal."
+
+"Well, I don't know, Minnie! Surely it is natural enough that he should
+write long letters to his mother, even without expecting her to read
+them aloud to people."
+
+"Very natural; but not just such letters as he does write, I think."
+
+Minnie suppressed any further expression of her own shrewdness. Her
+confidence in herself had been rudely shaken; and she made keen,
+motive-probing speeches much seldomer than formerly. And she could not
+but agree in the general verdict, that Algernon's letters were very
+amusing. Miss Chubb was delighted with them; although they were the
+occasion of one or two tough struggles for supremacy in the knowledge of
+fashionable life between herself and Mrs. Errington. But Miss Chubb was
+really good-natured, and Mrs. Errington was unshakeably self-satisfied;
+so that no serious breach resulted from these combats.
+
+"Dormer--Lady Harriet Dormer!" Miss Chubb would say, musingly. "I think
+I must have met her when I was staying with Mrs. Figgins and the Bishop
+of Plumbunn. And the Dormers' place is not so very far from Whitford,
+you know. I believe I have heard papa speak of his acquaintance with
+some of the family."
+
+"Oh no," Mrs. Errington would reply; "not likely you should have ever
+met Lady Harriet at Mrs. Figgins's. She is the Earl of Grandcourt's
+daughter; and Lord Grandcourt had the reputation of being the proudest
+nobleman in England."
+
+"Well, my dear Mrs. Errington," the spinster would retort, bridling and
+tossing her head sideways, "that could be no reason why his daughter
+should not have visited the bishop! A dignitary of the Church, you know!
+And as to family--I can assure you the Figginses were most
+aristocratically connected."
+
+"Besides, Miss Chubb, Lady Harriet must have been in the nursery in
+those days. She's only six-and-thirty. You can see her age in the
+'Peerage.'"
+
+This was a kind of blow that usually silenced poor Miss Chubb, who was
+sensitive on the score of her age. But, on the whole, she was not
+displeased at the opportunity of airing her reminiscences of London; and
+she did not always get the worst of it in her encounters with Mrs.
+Errington.
+
+Mrs. Errington had one listener who, at all events, was never tired of
+hearing Algy's letters read and re-read, and whose interest in all they
+contained was vivid and inexhaustible. Rhoda bestowed an amount of eager
+attention on the brilliant epistles bearing Lord Seely's frank, which
+even Mrs. Errington considered adequate to their merits.
+
+Often--not quite always--there would be a little message. "How are all
+the good Maxfields? Say I asked." Or sometimes, "Give my love to Rhoda."
+Mrs. Errington took Algernon's sending his love to Rhoda much as she
+would have taken his bidding her stroke the kitten for him. She did not
+guess how it set the poor girl's heart beating. It was only natural that
+Rhoda's face should flush with pleasure at being so kindly and
+condescendingly remembered. Still less could the worthy lady understand
+the effect of her careless words on Mr. Maxfield. Once she said in his
+presence, "Have you any message for Mr. Algernon, Rhoda?" (She had
+recently taken to speaking of her son as "Mr." Algernon; a circumstance
+which had not escaped Rhoda's sensitive observation.) "You know he
+always sends you his love."
+
+"Oh, my young gentleman has not forgotten Rhoda, then?" said old
+Maxfield, without raising his eyes from the ledger he was examining.
+
+"Algernon never forgets. Indeed, none of the Ancrams ever forget. An
+almost royal memory has always been a characteristic of our race." With
+which magnificent speech Mrs. Errington made an impressive exit from the
+back shop.
+
+Old Max knew enough to be aware that the tenacity even of a royal memory
+had not always been found equal to retaining such trifles as a debt of
+twenty pounds. But so long as Algy remembered his Rhoda, he was welcome
+to let the money slip. Indeed, if Algy behaved properly to Rhoda, there
+should be no question of repayment. Twenty pounds, or two hundred,
+would be well bestowed in securing Rhoda's happiness, and making a lady
+of her. Nevertheless, old Max kept the acknowledgment of the debt safely
+locked up, and looked at it now and then, with some inward satisfaction.
+Algernon was coming back to revisit Whitford in the summer, and then
+something definite should be settled.
+
+Meanwhile, Maxfield took some pains to have Rhoda treated with more
+consideration than had hitherto been bestowed on her. He astonished
+Betty Grimshaw by sharply reproving her for sending Rhoda into the shop
+on some errand. "Rice!" he exclaimed testily, in answer to his
+sister-in-law's explanation. "If you want rice, you must fetch it for
+yourself. The shop is no place for Rhoda, and I will not have her come
+there." Then he began to display a quite unprecedented liberality in
+providing Rhoda's clothes. The girl, whose ideas about her own dress
+were of the humblest, and who had thought a dove-coloured merino gown as
+good a garment as she was ever likely to possess, was told to buy
+herself a silk gown. "A good 'un. Nothing flimsy and poor," said old
+Max. "A good, solid silk gown, that will wear and last. And--you had
+better ask Mrs. Errington to go with you to buy it. She will understand
+what is fitting better than your aunt Betty. I wish you to have proper
+and becoming raiment, Rhoda. You are not a child now. And you go amongst
+gentlefolks at Dr. Bodkin's house. And I would not have you seem out of
+place there, by reason of unsuitable attire."
+
+Rhoda was delighted to be allowed to gratify her natural taste for
+colour and adornment; and she shortly afterwards appeared in so elegant
+a dress, that Betty Grimshaw was moved to say to her brother-in-law,
+"Why, Jonathan, I'll declare if our Rhoda don't look as genteel as 'ere
+a one o' the young ladies I see! Why you're making quite a lady of her,
+Jonathan!"
+
+"Me make a lady of her?" growled old Max. "It isn't me, nor you, nor yet
+a smart gown, as can do that. But the Lord has done it. The Lord has
+given Rhoda the natur' of a lady, if ever I see a lady in my life; and I
+mean her to be treated like one. Rhoda's none o' your sort of clay,
+Betty Grimshaw. She's fine porcelain, is Rhoda. I suppose you've nothing
+to say against the child's silk gown?"
+
+"Nay, not I, Jonathan! She's welcome to wear silk or satin either, if
+you like to pay for it. And, indeed, I'm uncommon pleased to see a bit
+of bright colour, and be let to put a flower in my bonnet. I'm sure
+we've had enough of them Methodist ways. Dismal and dull enough they
+were, Jonathan. But you can't say as I ever grumbled, or went agin' you.
+Anything for peace and quietness' sake is my way. But I do like church
+best, having been bred to it. And I always did, in my heart, even when
+you and David Powell would be preaching up the Wesleyans. I never said
+anything, as you know, Jonathan. But I kept my own way of thinking all
+the same. And I'm only glad you've come round to it yourself, at last."
+
+This was bitter to Jonathan Maxfield. But he had had once or twice to
+endure similar speeches from his sister-in-law, since his defection from
+Methodism. His autocratic power in his own family was wielded as
+strictly as ever, but his assumption of infallibility had been fatally
+damaged. To get his own way was still within his power, but it would be
+vain henceforward to expect those around him to acknowledge--even with
+their lips--that his way must of necessity be the best way.
+
+At the beginning of April there came to Whitford the announcement that
+Algernon had received and accepted an invitation to accompany the Seelys
+abroad in the late summer; and that, therefore, his visit to "dear old
+Whitford" was indefinitely postponed. This announcement would have
+angered and disquieted old Max beyond measure, had it not been that
+Algernon took the precaution to write him a letter, which arrived in
+Whitford by the same post as that which brought to Mrs. Errington the
+news of his projected journey to the Continent. It was a very neat
+letter. Some persons might have called it a cunning letter. At any rate,
+it soothed old Max's anxious suspicions, if it did not absolutely
+destroy them. "I believe, my good friend," wrote Algernon, "that you
+will quite approve the step I am taking, in accompanying Lord and Lady
+Seely to Switzerland. They have no son, and I think I may say that they
+have come to look upon me almost as a child of the house. I remember all
+the good advice you gave me before I left Whitford. And when I was
+hesitating about accepting my lord's invitation, I thought of what you
+would have said, and made up my mind to resist the strong temptation of
+coming back to dear old Whitford this summer." Then in a postscript he
+added: "As to that little private transaction between us, I must ask you
+kindly to have patience with me yet awhile. I try to be careful, but
+living here is expensive, and I am put to it to pay my way. You will not
+mention the matter to my mother, I know. And, perhaps, it would be well
+to say nothing to her about this letter. May I send my love to Rhoda?"
+
+In justification of this last sentence, it must be said that Algernon
+was quite innocent of Lady Seely's project regarding himself and
+Castalia; and that there were times when he thought with some warmth of
+feeling of the summer days in Llanryddan, and told himself that there
+was not one of the girls whom he met in society who surpassed Rhoda
+Maxfield in the delicate freshness of her beauty, or equalled her in
+natural grace and sweetness.
+
+Algernon had really excellent taste.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME I (OF 3)***
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