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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78686 ***
+
+
+
+
+                               JACK BRAG.
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                       PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
+                      Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
+
+
+
+
+                               JACK BRAG.
+
+                            BY THE AUTHOR OF
+
+                 “SAYINGS AND DOINGS,”--“MAXWELL,” &c.
+
+                           IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. I.
+
+                                LONDON:
+
+                            RICHARD BENTLEY,
+
+                         NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+
+                                 1837.
+
+
+
+
+                               JACK BRAG.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+
+“My dear Johnny,” said the respectable widow Brag to her son, “what
+is the good of your going on in this way? Here, instead of minding
+the business, you are day after day galloping and gallivanting,
+steeple-chasing, fox-hunting, lord-hunting, a wasting your time and
+your substance, the shop going to old Nick, and _you_ getting dipped
+instead of your candles.”
+
+“Mother,” said Jack, “don’t talk so foolishly! You are of the old
+school,--excellent in your way, but a long way behindhand: the business
+is safe enough. You cannot suppose, with the education I have had, I
+can meddle with moulds, or look after sixes, tens, fours to the pound,
+or farthing rushlights;--no, thanks to my enlightenment, I flatter
+myself I soar a little higher than that.”
+
+“No nonsense, Johnny!” said Mrs. Brag. “All you have now, and all you
+have spent since your poor father’s death, was gained by your father’s
+enlightenment of his customers: and how do you suppose I can carry on
+the trade if you will not now and then attend to it?”
+
+“Take my advice, my dear mother,” said Jack, “and marry. I’m old enough
+now not to care a fig for a father-in-law;--marriage is the plan, as I
+say to my friend Lord Tom--straight up, right down, and no mistake. Get
+a sensible, stir-about husband, who does not mind grubbing, and hasn’t
+a nose----”
+
+“Hasn’t a nose?” interrupted Mrs. Brag.
+
+“I don’t mean literally,” said Jack, “but sportingly;--does not mind
+the particular scent of tallow--you understand. Let him into the tricks
+of the trade: you will still be queen-bee of the hive,--make _him_ look
+after the drones while you watch the wax.”
+
+“And while _you_, Johnny, lap up the honey,” said the queen-bee.
+
+“Do what you like,” said her son, “only marry--‘marry come up,’ as
+somebody says in a play.”
+
+“But, John,” said Mrs. Brag, “I have no desire to change my condition.”
+
+“Nor I that you should,” said Jack; “but I wish you would change your
+name. As long as ‘Brag, wax and tallow-chandler,’ sticks up on the
+front of the house, with three dozen and four dangling dips swinging
+along the shop-front, like so many malefactors expiating their crimes,
+I live in a perpetual fever lest my numerous friends should inquire
+whether I am one of the firm or the family.”
+
+“Johnny,” said Mrs. Brag, “you are a silly fellow. What is there to
+be ashamed of in honest industry? If all the fine folks whom you go
+a-hunting with, and all the rest of it, like you, and are really glad
+to see you, it is for yourself alone: and if they, who must know by
+your name and nature that you can never be one of themselves, care a
+button for you, your trade, so as you do not carry it about with you,
+will do you no harm. What difference is it to them how you get your
+thorough-bred horses, your smart scarlet coat, neat tops, and white
+cords, so as you have them?--they won’t give you any new ones when they
+are gone.”
+
+“It is all very well talking,” said Johnny, “but I never should show my
+face amongst them if I once thought they guessed at my real trade. I
+live in a regular worry as it is. If ever a fellow asks me if I was at
+Melton last year, that moment I think of the shop--‘pretty mould of a
+horse’ tingles in my ears--‘sweet dip of the country’ sets me doubting;
+and, only last week, a proposal to go ’cross country and meet Lord
+Hurricane’s harriers at Hampton Wick nearly extinguished me.”
+
+“And what now, Johnny,” said Mrs. Brag, “do you think these lords take
+you for, if not for a tallow-chandler?”
+
+“An independent gentleman,” said Jack.
+
+“That is to say,” replied his mother, “a gentleman who has nothing to
+depend upon.”
+
+“They look upon me as an agreeable rattle,” said John.
+
+“One that has often been in the watchman’s hands too,” said the old
+lady.
+
+“I talk big and ride small,” said Jack, “I am always up with the
+hounds--never flinch at anything,--am the pride of the field wherever I
+go,--and in steeple-chases of infinite value.”
+
+“And very little weight, my dear Johnny,” interrupted his mother.
+
+“One of my dearest friends,” continued Brag, “Lord Tom Towzle, a deuce
+of a fellow amongst the females, is going to put me up as a candidate
+at the Travellers.”
+
+“What, riders for respectable houses?” said Mrs. Brag: “and a very
+proper club too.”
+
+“Respectable houses!” said Jack. “Poh! not a bit of it! What!
+bagmen in buggies with boxes of buttons in the boots? No, no! the
+Travellers--_par excellence_.”
+
+“Par what?” said Mrs. Brag. “What, d’ye mean the fine Club-house in
+Pall Mall which you showed me the out side of, last King’s birth night?”
+
+“The same,” said Brag. “Now, if I had stuck to the naked, as Lord Tom
+says--told the plain unvarnished--I never could have qualified. Lord
+Tom asked me if I should like to belong to the Travellers;--in course
+I said yes--straight up, right down, and no mistake. Well, then he asks
+me if I could qualify;--so not quite understanding him, he says, ‘Have
+you ever been in Greece?’--‘Yes,’ said I:--I _might_ have added ‘up to
+the elbows often;’ didn’t though. Had him dead. Down he whips my name,
+and calls in Sir Somebody Something out of the street to second me.”
+
+“If you should get in there Johnny,” said Mrs. Brag, “do get ’em to
+give up gas and take to oil on illumination nights. But what I think
+is, somebody is sure to find you out, Johnny.”
+
+“Time enough,” said Jack. “I’m going it now smooth and soft across
+the country, increasing my acquaintance; falling into the society of
+elegant females--women of fashion, with beautiful faces and liberal
+hearts;--introduced to three last week--proud as peacocks to everybody
+else, delighted with _me_;--met them at Ascot--cold collation in the
+carriage--champaign iced from London;--got on capital--never was so
+happy in my life--hottest weather I ever felt; spirits mounted--I was
+the delight of the party--told them half a dozen stories of myself, and
+made them laugh like cockatoos, but I was bundled all of a heap by the
+Marquis of Middlesdale, who had been at luncheon with the King, who, in
+passing the barouche, gave me a smack on the back you might have heard
+to Egham, and cried out, ‘Jack, this is a melting day, isn’t it?’”
+
+“He meant it, Johnny, depend upon it,” said Mrs. Brag.
+
+“I’ve no doubt he did,” said Brag, “for it was as hot as ever I felt
+it----”
+
+“--In the back shop,” interrupted his mother. “But pray, Johnny, where
+do these people think you live?”
+
+“At a great house in Grosvenor-street,” said Jack, “next door to
+What-d’ye-call-’em’s Hotel: my name is on the door, and my address on
+my card.”
+
+“But you don’t live there,” said Mrs. Brag.
+
+“Not I,” replied the son: “I only rent the door.”
+
+“How d’ye mean?” said his mother.
+
+“Why, I went to the man,” said Brag, “who keeps the house. ‘Now, sir,’
+said I, ‘I want to rent four square inches of your panels’. He was
+puzzled for the moment; but I was down upon him in no time, and no
+mistake.--Out I pulls from my pocket a brass plate of those precise
+dimensions, whereon is engraven ‘Mr. Brag.’--‘What will you take per
+annum,’ said I, ‘to let this be screwed on to your door, and let
+your servant take in my cards and letters?’ Startled him a little
+at first: however, he entered himself for the plate, acceded to my
+proposition,--and so for the trifling consideration of four guineas per
+annum, and a tip to the slavey, I get the credit of five windows in
+front, three stories high, in one of the best streets in London.”
+
+“But do none of your friends ever expect to be let in?” said Mrs. Brag.
+
+“Yes,” said Brag, “for a good thing now and then,--and so they are,
+pretty often. Long head, mother--have it here”--tapping his forehead
+with his fore finger--“look simple with my fresh colour and curly hair,
+but as deep as Garrick--cannot write your X’s, Z’s with me,--else,
+in course, they might expect admission. ‘Not at home,’ is always the
+answer. ‘Out of town?’ is the next question;--‘Yes,’ is the next
+answer.--‘Where?’ comes next.--‘Down at his little place in Surrey.’
+That finishes it. They lodge their pasteboard and away they go.”
+
+“Little place in Surrey!” said Mrs. Brag;--“why, what d’ye mean?--have
+you a country-house too?”
+
+“Country-house!” said Brag. “Lord bless your dear heart, not I! Nothing
+but my old lodging, on the second floor, No. 37, at the carpenter’s,
+corner of Caterpillar-row, Kennington.”
+
+“And _that_ you call your little place in Surrey, do you?” said Mrs.
+Brag.
+
+“Yes, mother, and no fib neither,” said Brag. “It is almost the
+littlest place I ever saw in my life; and as for Caterpillar-row, if
+it isn’t in Surrey I know nothing of going ’cross a country.”
+
+“Ah, Johnny, Johnny,” said his respected parent with a mingled look of
+sorrow and admiration, “you never will mend till it is too late!”
+
+“Mother,” said Jack, “now you say that, I think I shall be too late
+for Lord Tom Towzle. We are going off for Wigglesford to mark out a
+line. All ready for a run: we have got no mercy in us,--none of your
+bowling-green, daisy-cutting work for us--no, we’ll try to pick out
+rasping fences, bottomless brooks, and ditches as wide as rivers;--a
+steeple-chase without killing a horse or two, cracking a collar-bone,
+slipping a shoulder, or pitching an out-and-outer on the top of his
+conk, is no fun in the world.”
+
+“Ah! well, well,” said Mrs. Brag, “I wish you would give a little time
+to the books and the business: some day you’ll repent this.”
+
+“Not I, mother,” said Jack; “I can pull up any day and marry. I never
+yet saw the woman I could not win--they are all ready to eat me up: in
+course, as the book says, I am the more wary--hang back a bit. Don’t
+you see, as I get on in the world, I get up; and if I can marry a Lady
+Sally or a Lady Susan--eh! won’t that be nice!--’specially if there
+happens to be an odd thirty or forty thousand pounds tacked to the
+title.”
+
+“Don’t flatter yourself Johnny,” replied Mrs. Brag, shaking her head:
+“_that_ scheme will never answer.”
+
+“You’ll see,” said Jack;--“I say nothing, but you’ll see. If I were
+to sit down and write an account of my adventures with the females, I
+should be run after like a sight. The females of fashion that I meet at
+the races call me ‘dear Johnny’ as it is.”
+
+“I wonder you are not afraid of seeing the ghost of your poor father,”
+said the widow.
+
+“What! the Governor?” cried Jack; “never mind ghosts nor Governors,
+here is my Leporello. So I’m off. Good-b’ye, dear mother!--you’ll see
+me soon again,--I shall be back by Saturday, and so keep snug Sunday.”
+
+“Where? at your town-house in Grosvenor-street,” said the old lady,
+“or your little place in Surrey?”
+
+“Neither, I take it,” said Jack, looking as wise as a very
+foolish person could. “I devote Sunday afternoon to a very select
+society--eh!--females of fashion, delightful creatures, and all that.
+So adieu!”
+
+Kissing the matron’s cheek, away went our hero in order to revel in
+all the luxuries of sport, and in the society which, he admitted,
+kept him in a fever while he was in it: not that the true circle of
+his aristocratic acquaintance was particularly large, however much he
+nominally increased it by dubbing every man his friend with whom he had
+happened to hunt in the same field or dine in a public company of three
+hundred and fifty; and every well-dressed woman a lady of fashion whom
+he happened to see with the tigers in whose set he mingled.
+
+Mrs. Brag, who felt extremely anxious about her son and herself, saw
+that the business was rapidly “burning down.” The introduction of oil
+had superseded wax; and since that, the adoption of gas had superseded
+oil. No efforts were made to improve the concern, and all she heard,
+was of considerable drafts from the account at the banker’s, and very
+small payments into it; and Mrs. Brag, a comely, hearty-looking body
+of her time of life, began to ponder the words which her dutiful son
+had with little apparent earnestness let drop, as to changing her
+condition, with a view to increase the reputation of the house and
+extend its sphere of action, while the name at sight of which her son
+trembled, might be withdrawn. She did not clearly see her way in this
+proceeding: nor had she either fixed her affections upon any particular
+object, nor was she conscious that she had attracted the regards of any
+suitable partner. However, the notion was entertained--the idea had
+been started; and how the exemplary matron set her means to work, in
+order to effect the grand object, we may, if we live long enough, yet
+discover.
+
+The reader perhaps, in the few pages which he has yet either been
+doomed to, or condescended to read, has already discovered what sort of
+man Mr. John Brag is, or was. It seemed best to give a short domestic
+scene in the candle-manufactory by way of prelude to the genteel comedy
+in which the gay deceiver is destined to perform; and it will be only
+necessary to keep in mind the sage yet ineffective lesson of the dear
+old body to whom her affectionate son recommended matrimony, in order
+duly to appreciate the performance of her “pretty boy,” who, spite
+of his colour and his curls, was verging upon what may be called the
+“shady side” of thirty.
+
+Old Mrs. Brag had, as Miss Scropps, married at seventeen; and although,
+as far as my own experience goes, I admit I never saw such a thing,
+she was said to be a lady of nearly fifty-five years of age, somewhere
+about the period at which this glimpse at the history of her yet
+unrecorded family begins.
+
+It may be supposed that I should apologise for bringing the eyes, or
+perhaps the noses, of my readers in contact with all the arcana of Mr.
+John’s shop; but I have a reason for doing so. I propose not merely to
+show by illustration how very ridiculous a pretender must always be,
+but to exhibit a striking instance of the retributive justice which
+seems somehow to keep the world in an equipoise, by exhibiting the
+wonderful utility of which the meanest and stupidest animal extant
+may prove; as _vide_ (to quote the words of James the First, about
+Dæmonology) the fable of the Lion, the Mouse, and the Meshes.
+
+Soar we then for a moment from the gloom of the tallow-chandler to a
+more charming region, and to people of a different mould,--and yet who,
+as the reader will see, may in the course of events become connected,
+and intimately too, with our sprightly gentleman in the scarlet jacket
+and white cords. Let us, therefore, betake ourselves to the _boudoir_
+of one of the most charming young widows in England, where she is
+sitting _tête-à-tête_ with her unmarried sister, talking over two
+absent gentlemen, whose tempers and dispositions are the immediate
+subject of their conversation.
+
+Mrs. Dallington, the elder of the two ladies so engaged, had been
+married at nineteen, merely to oblige her father, (who died six months
+afterwards,) to a gentleman of the name which she still bore; who, to
+all the other merits which distinguished his character, emulated in
+a high degree the fox-hunting propensities of the tallow-man in the
+white cords of whom we have just spoken. He was, however, rich, and
+a gentleman, and had a right to make as great a fool of himself as
+he pleased,--and so he did: and the foolery began in his leaving a
+beautiful wife, with a pair of eyes as black as sloes and as bright as
+diamonds, alone and moping, while he was amusing himself by following
+his dogs, which dogs were following something certainly not sweeter
+than themselves across the country.
+
+Mr. Dallington, who rode about nine stone four, one fine morning, when
+the scent lay “uncommon strong,” the dogs in full cry, the field in a
+state of the highest excitement, the fox going away right on-end across
+a heavy country, which would probably break the hearts of some of the
+horses and the necks of some of the riders, met with a slight accident,
+which in fox-hunting goes for very little, but which in its proverbial
+or rather convivial parallel, matrimony, goes for something more. In
+switching a rasper, the exemplary and high-spirited gentleman missed
+his tip and pitched right upon his head in the middle of a ditch, where
+he remained exactly long enough to make the lovely wife he had left at
+home a very delightful widow.
+
+Dallington, or at least what had been Dallington in the early part
+of the day, was put upon a hurdle and taken to a farmhouse; whence
+the melancholy intelligence was conveyed to his lady, who, with all
+the respect she felt for her late father’s judgment in selecting him
+for her partner for life, considered the event which had just taken
+place as philosophically as any woman of strong feelings and a tender
+disposition might be supposed to endure any sudden shock which results
+from the death of a fellow-creature.
+
+True, most true it is, she never had felt that sort of love for the
+husband forced upon her, as a “fine match,” which a woman ought to feel
+for the being who is destined (if he be fortunate enough) to share her
+hopes, her wishes, and her happiness. Mrs. Dallington was a creature
+all intellect, all vivacity, all fire; full of arch playfulness and
+gaiety of heart, and as completely the reverse of her quiet, timid, and
+sensitive sister, as light of darkness, fire of water, or any other two
+unmeetable opposites.
+
+There are many adages connected with love and matrimony which it
+must be admitted are, however forcible in themselves, extremely
+contradictory of each other. But, in the course of considerable
+experience in such matters, I am apt to imagine that the real truth
+is--supposing always exceptions to general rules--that women are most
+apt to prefer men the least like themselves; and men, _vice versâ_.
+It is the pride of a little man to have a large wife; it is the
+taste of a tall man to possess a short one: a fair woman admires a
+dark Lothario; while a bright-eyed brunette delights in blazing away
+upon a fair Romeo. A learned man eschews a blue partner; he relaxes
+into ease in the company of his ordinarily-educated better-half, and
+reposes from his graver studies in the agreeable common-places of an
+intelligent but not abstruse associate; while the learned lady prefers
+the plodding spouse, and never desires that he should meddle with her
+arts and sciences, but merely wishes him to exert his energies in the
+comfortable arrangement of their establishment, and the acquirement of
+the supplies necessary to set off her own attractions in their most
+alluring form before the visitors whom she chooses to invite.
+
+The assimilation of tempers and dispositions by which happiness
+grows between married couples is, in fact, a habit most amiable and
+advantageous: the handwritings of men and their wives become like each
+other in the course of time. But whether the love of contraries in the
+abstract, be or be not so general as some observers would have it to
+be, certain it is that in the particular individual case before us it
+did exist.
+
+Sir Charles Lydiard had been, just about the period at which the
+reader is introduced to him, some two years paying his addresses to
+the vivacious widow Dallington. He was a man of high principle, rigid
+honour, polished manners, and most amiable disposition; but he was
+cold, reserved, and even suspicious of the object of his affections.
+His suspicions, or perhaps they might be more justly called doubts,
+arose not from the slightest want of confidence in the candour or
+sincerity of the lady, but in a want of confidence in himself. He might
+fairly have said to his heroine with Steele’s hero:--
+
+          ----“Of you I am not jealous,--
+    ’Tis my own indesert that gives me fears:
+    And tenderness forms dangers where they’re not.
+    I doubt and envy all things that approach thee.”
+
+There he was, the constant, faithful lover, never away from the house,
+sitting and sighing “like furnace,” listening to the gaieties of Mrs.
+Dallington’s conversation, a very spectre of despair, not ill described
+by the English Aristophanes in the person of one Harry Hectic, with
+a bunch of jonquils in his button-hole, looking dead and dressed,
+like the waxwork in Westminster Abbey. There was no animating him,
+no rousing him into a proposal; his attachment had become habitual,
+and day after day the affair went on without “progressing,” as the
+Americans have it, one inch. And yet the widow was devoted to Sir
+Charles. It must be admitted that she every morning expected _the_
+question; but every evening that expectation was blighted, and the
+worthy baronet returned from his placid state of negative happiness
+to his solitary home, to lie awake for hours balancing the chances
+of matrimony, and endeavouring to make up his mind to the deciding
+inquiry which, if the real truth were told, he lingeringly delayed,
+apprehensive that it might meet with a negative certain not only to
+kill the hopes which sometimes outweighed his doubts, but to put an end
+to his acquaintance with the charming widow altogether.
+
+While Sir Charles Lydiard remained thus drooping in the bright sunshine
+of Mrs. Dallington’s eyes, her timid sister Blanche was undergoing a
+siege of a very different nature. Far from contenting himself, to use a
+military phrase, with sitting down before the place, and establishing a
+corps of observation merely to watch the enemy, Frank Rushton, who was
+more madly in love than ever dandy had been found to be for many years,
+had for the last three months,--the whole period, in fact, of his
+acquaintance with her,--been assiduously and incessantly carrying on an
+attack upon the heart of his adorable Dulcinea; and, as it appeared,
+with as little chance of making an impression as her sister had of
+exciting Sir Charles to an offer. In fact, the four players at this
+love-game were equally divided into the fiery and frosty; but, which in
+the sequel made all the sport, as Mr. Brag would have called it, the
+partners were so curiously matched, and the icicles and sunbeams so
+regularly and heraldically counter-changed, that the lovers and their
+mistresses were the exact opposites of each other. It was extremely
+amusing to hear the discussions in which Sir Charles and his friend
+Rushton were in the habit of indulging.
+
+“My dear Frank,” said Sir Charles, “your affection for Blanche is
+madness,--the way in which you go on, sets me in a fever: and as for
+the poor young creature herself, she is absolutely harassed out of her
+wits.”
+
+“So _you_ think, Sir Charles,” replied Frank; “but it strikes _me_ that
+her sister would not be less pleased with your society if you were
+to follow my example. Why there you sit, moping and melancholy, as if
+you were on the edge of your own grave, instead of being on the verge
+of all earthly happiness: you look and languish, sigh and say nothing,
+and, like the Cardinal, ‘die, and make no sign.’”
+
+“It may be so,” said the baronet,--“I suppose it _is_ so; but I
+cannot,--struggle as I may with my feelings,--I cannot overcome the
+doubts which seem to me to cloud the prospect of the felicity of which
+you talk so easily.”
+
+“Doubts! my dear friend,” said Rushton; “what doubts can you have? Your
+doubts are, in fact, jealousies,--and how needless! Mrs. Dallington has
+been a wife,--and never was a more exemplary wife in the world.”
+
+“Her trial was short,” said Sir Charles; “nor should I call it a fair
+one,--her marriage was not one of love.”
+
+“Then so much the greater her credit for the conduct she observed,”
+said Rushton.
+
+“The struggle did not last long,” replied Sir Charles: “her husband was
+killed within eight months of their marriage.”
+
+“She bore her loss like a Christian,” said Rushton.
+
+“Yes,” sighed the baronet; “it is wonderful to behold the pious
+resignation of ladies in her position.”
+
+“Well,” said Rushton, “if your apprehensions overcome your affection,
+and your doubts transcend your hopes, break off the acquaintance at
+once,--take your hat and go--”
+
+“--And be neither missed nor inquired after, in all probability,” said
+Lydiard.
+
+“There you wrong your fair friend,” said Rushton. “She values you,
+esteems you, and with a very little trouble on _your_ part would love
+you. Your flame is so gentle, that it scarcely warms; and, like the
+fire in the grate there, if she did not occasionally stir it with good
+nature and kind looks, my belief is, it would go out entirely.”
+
+“My dear Rushton,” said Sir Charles, “you entirely misunderstand my
+character, and the character of my affection for our charming friend:
+my doubts are the ‘fruits of love.’”
+
+“A most disagreeable harvest, Lydiard,” replied Rushton.
+
+“True,” said Sir Charles, “but I cannot conquer them. You blame my
+caution and coldness; but when I see you devoting yourself, hand over
+head, if I may so say, to the mild, quiet, timid, blushing creature,
+Blanche, I cannot, since I had the honour of introducing you to the
+family, but feel anxious on your account. I don’t believe one word of
+all those professions of meekness, and mildness, and modesty of which
+that young lady is so profusely liberal. I have seen her exchange
+looks with her sister,--while you, blinded by your passion, have seen
+nothing--which convince me that you would do well to scrutinise and
+consider before you plunge into the stormy ocean of matrimony.”
+
+“Why,” said Rushton, “Blanche is something like Moore’s beautiful Nora
+Creena:
+
+    ‘Few her looks, but every one
+    Like unexpected light surprizes.’”
+
+“Egad!” said Lydiard, “the light I saw was both surprising and
+unexpected. I have some little experience in family telegraphs, but the
+signal she threw out was one not altogether complimentary to _you_,
+for she seemed to me to be laughing at you.”
+
+“Don’t be too sure of that, Charles,” said Rushton. “I too have seen
+those telegraphic symptoms; and my opinion is, that if _you_ were to
+adopt _my_ style of proceeding, you would find the widow much less
+attentive to her sister’s evolutions. But no;--you have fallen into a
+custom of going there day after day; you feel at your ease, you enjoy
+the society and conversation of a delightful person; and because you
+have nothing to excite you to action, so the affair goes on--not even a
+dash of jealousy to create a fermentation in your cup of nectar.”
+
+“There you mistake,” said Lydiard. “I--I--certainly never have touched
+upon the subject--never opened my lips to a human being about it; but
+I am not quite so sure that it is not jealousy which keeps me backward
+and depresses me.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Rushton; “jealous! What of somebody who visits at the
+house?”
+
+“Yes,” said Sir Charles.
+
+“Do you mean Sir Baggs Waddilove?” said Rushton.
+
+“Psha--no.”
+
+“Perhaps that Colonel Scramshaw?”
+
+“Not a bit of it.”
+
+“The Count?”
+
+“What, Swagandstraddle!--No.”
+
+“Lord Tom Towzle?”
+
+“You burn,” said Sir Charles, “as the children say to the blinded
+one;--not of him, Frank--what think you of his friend.”
+
+“What, that horrid, vulgar dog, Brag,” said Rushton, “his toady--his
+spaniel?”
+
+“Upon my honour, yes,” said Sir Charles.
+
+“The deuce you are!” said Rushton; “that’s very odd.”
+
+“It is,” said Lydiard. “I confess I am almost ashamed of being ruffled
+by such a fellow; but, somehow, Mrs. Dallington seems so much at her
+ease with him, notwithstanding his vulgarity, his glaring ignorance,
+and his unbounded impertinence, that, upon my honour, I cannot help
+thinking----you know women are very odd creatures, and I----”
+
+“You surprise me, Lydiard,” said Rushton, “but not disagreeably. I have
+thought,--only don’t mention it--that Blanche has a sort of,--eh--you
+understand me--a partiality for him--I don’t know how it is; she
+certainly looks at the monster, now and then.”
+
+“What,” interrupted Lydiard, “some more of her few unexpected lights,
+eh?”
+
+“I cannot understand it,” said Rushton: “I suppose he entertains them
+with his absurdities, and his nonsense, and even his vanity, and his
+vulgarity. But I think we may both be pretty secure, that neither of
+such women as your widow and my Blanche could entertain a serious
+thought of a fellow of whom nobody knows anything except as Lord Tom
+Towzle’s tiger, especially in a house into which Lord Tom himself finds
+it particularly difficult to get the _entrée_.”
+
+“No,” said Lydiard, “one would not think there was much danger; and
+yet--yet you _will_ allow it is very odd indeed that we should both
+have been struck with the same notion?”
+
+“So it is,” replied Rushton. “However, as far as _I_ am concerned, I
+am determined to fathom the affair to the bottom. I love Blanche better
+than my life; but if I thought--”
+
+“Stop, stop, Rushton,” interrupted the worthy baronet. “What has gone
+with your stern reproof of my scepticism? Here are _you_ who have been
+just rallying me upon my doubts with regard to the loveliest of her
+sex, now coming to fathom an affair to the bottom which implicates in
+your mind the sincerity and single-heartedness of one of the purest,
+gentlest Nora Creenas that ever walked with her eyes cast down upon the
+earth.”
+
+“Hang the fellow!” said Rushton; “it is too ridiculous! Besides, he is
+not often there. Yet, never mind--he may do good: the smallest wheel in
+a great piece of machinery has its work to perform to keep all the rest
+going. This stupid animal may serve to equalize our passions, and make
+us see clearer; he will cool _me_ and warm _you_, and who knows but it
+may turn out all for the best?”
+
+“Why,” said Lydiard, “the fact is pretty clear:--As we have not, even
+in this age of liberality, arrived at so great a reform of the church
+as to establish the toleration of bigamy, he can marry but one of the
+ladies; and, as far as I am concerned, if my adorable widow has a taste
+which would lead her to admit the pretensions of that miserable little
+animal, I am quite sure it never could be diverted into a passion for
+me: and so, Mr. Rushton, if he conquer, he is perfectly welcome to the
+fruits of his triumph.”
+
+“Ah, that’s it!” said Rushton: “there are prudence, philosophy, wisdom,
+and half a dozen other splendid qualities, combined! But as for _me_,
+if he were to be smiled upon in earnest by Blanche, it would be the
+last gleam of sunshine one of us should see: he never should live to
+enjoy the happiness of which he had deprived me!”
+
+“Now, Rushton,” said Sir Charles, “how unjust, how inconsiderate that
+is! If Blanche smile on him and not on you, it is a clear proof that
+she prefers him. Why make her miserable by killing the little man? You
+might as well shoot her poodle or wring the neck of her canary-bird.”
+
+How much farther this dialogue which was hereabouts interrupted,
+might have been carried, it is not in my power to say; but sufficient
+has been developed to the reader to show that the incomparable Jack
+Brag, by dint of the equivocal introduction of his master Lord Tom
+Towzle, had obtained footing at least in one respectable and agreeable
+house. It is, as Sir Charles Lydiard says, a matter of impossibility
+to ascertain the particular qualities or circumstances by which
+women of station and talent, as well as their inferiors in rank and
+intellect, are captivated. Certain it is, that after once Mr. Brag
+had been admitted to Mrs. Dallington’s house, he was a visitor there
+as frequently as he could contrive to manage it; and, as we have
+seen, although his other avocations were numerous, he had contrived
+to unsettle the minds of two most respectable gentlemen of totally
+different characters and dispositions, both pursuing similar objects by
+different roads.
+
+We must now recur to Mr. Brag himself, and his career in other places,
+into which the bright eyes of the gay widow and her lovely sister
+cannot be expected to penetrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+When Mr. John Brag left his respected mother, he hurried off to the
+rendezvous of his sporting friends, whence they proceeded in a body to
+mark out the line of country for the steeple-chase. In this operation
+he exhibited, as he fancied, all the tactics of the most experienced
+quartermaster-general. In endeavouring, however, to elucidate the
+difficulties of a leap which, he thought essential to the effect of the
+race, he came somewhat unexpectedly off his horse. A little dirt, and
+a bruise or two out of sight, of which he gave no evidence, were all
+the consequences of this performance; and having made every necessary
+arrangement for the exhibition of the following day, he hastened to
+a small public-house a little way removed from the high road, which
+rejoiced in the sign of the “Duke of Marlborough,” in order to change
+his clothes and prepare himself for a flying visit to the shop, to
+which a promise made to his mother in the morning was carrying him in
+the afternoon.
+
+When some of Brag’s associates in the field questioned him as to his
+cause of hurry, he made his excuses in so confused a tone, that he
+left, as he meant to do, an impression upon the minds of his country
+cronies, that he was under an enslavement to the illustrious descendant
+of the hero of Blenheim and Malplaquet, rather than to the landlord of
+the house where the pictured warrior swang “high in air” before the
+door. However, it was all “straight up, right down, and no mistake;”
+and the pretender “cut ’cross the country” to his hostelry, at which
+had been deposited his portmanteau “down per coach,” which contained
+his clothes for the two coming days’ performances,--his pet scarlet
+coat and white cords by way of a show, and if necessary a pink silk
+jacket with yellow sleeves for the steeple-chase.
+
+When he arrived at the goal--the sign of the “Duke of Marlborough,”
+he was surprised to find the only sitting-room of the “hotel”
+occupied. A stranger, who had been driven into the house for
+shelter from the “pitiless pelting” of a hail-storm, in which the
+admirable tallow-chandler had been drenched, was sitting before the
+fire--agreeable in any season in England, but particularly so in the
+equivocal weather of a British spring--reading the County Press of the
+preceding Saturday, redolent of tobacco, and stamped with the circular
+impressions of sundry pewter-pot bottoms which had reposed upon its
+columns.
+
+“I say, Stubbs,” said our hero, who was known to the landlord as ‘the
+most sportingest gentleman as ever come down to them parts,’ “what’s
+this? I ordered my dinner this morning”--(his luncheon with the Duke of
+Marlborough,)--“and find the room engaged;--what’s this?”
+
+An attempt on the part of Stubbs to soothe the boiling rage of Brag,
+by sundry qualifying expressions of regret, and a few “I dare says,”
+and “The gentleman won’t be long,” and several such pacificatory
+observations, was happily seconded by the occupant of the parlour
+himself; who upon beholding the inflation of the little Cockney, whose
+vulgar red and white face was illuminated by the fire which raged
+within, rose from his seat and said, in the best possible humour, that
+he feared he was an intruder, but that he had been driven in by stress
+of weather; that he had ordered some luncheon, which he concluded was
+nearly ready; and that if the gentleman would permit him to do so, he
+should be happy to share the repast with him, which, as he seemed to be
+himself wet and cold, would perhaps not be disagreeable to him.
+
+“Oh,” said Brag, “I’m not the chap to quarrel about trifles: only, I
+certainly, when I sent my horses down here, did say I should come and
+dine here; and I have been here often before, and I never was served so
+till to-day. However, I’m much obliged by your civility, and haven’t
+the least objection to join you, each of us in course paying, share and
+share alike.”
+
+“Oh, as you please,” said the stranger, in whose eye there lurked a
+laughing smile, and who seemed satisfied, by the little he had seen of
+his new and important acquaintance, that he should find something like
+amusement in the cultivation of a temporary friendship with him.
+
+“I’ll just step up-stairs,” said Brag, “and cast my skin, as I call it;
+and by that time, Stubbs, the luncheon will be ready.”
+
+“In five minutes, sir,” said Stubbs.
+
+“I say,” said Brag as he went along the passage, “who is that chap in
+the parlour?”
+
+“I haven’t a notion, sir,” said the landlord. “He came here in the
+midst of that pelting hail-storm about half an hour ago, on a fine
+strong horse which is now in the stable, and which seems to have had a
+pretty sharpish run somehow; and he ordered a fire to be lighted and
+some chops to be got ready, and said he would stop an hour or two.”
+
+“No servant?” said Brag.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Don’t carry bags?” asked Brag.
+
+“No,” replied Stubbs.
+
+“Seems genteel,” said the tallow-chandler; “no chance of anything
+wrong?--plain drest man on a fine horse--eh, don’t you understand?
+straight up, right down--eh, no mistake. No chance of highwaymen
+now-a-days?”
+
+“Lor’, no, sir,” said Stubbs; “such a thought never entered my head. To
+be sure, he looked at your two hunters in the stable, and asked Jem who
+they belonged to.”
+
+“What did he say?” said Brag.
+
+“To one Squire Brag,” said Stubbs; “a gentleman from London.”
+
+“Right, quite right,” said Brag: “no occasion to tell everybody the
+truth. And he admired them, did he?”
+
+“Indeed he did,” said Stubbs.
+
+“Oh, all right, no mistake,” said Brag, delighted to have unconsciously
+impressed upon the mind of his “promiscuous acquaintance” the character
+of his pretensions to consideration and his right of swagger. “I’ll
+just go and run my eye over _his_ nag before I go into the parlour, and
+then we shall be on a footing, eh?”
+
+Stubbs bowed; and Brag proceeded to change his clothes.
+
+While he was performing that operation, the ever-active landlord
+added another knife and fork to the table already prepared for his
+other visitor: of which opportunity the stranger availed himself to
+inquire who the curious little gentleman in the green jacket and
+white cords might be; and in answer to his question touching that
+important subject, he was accurately informed by mine host, as far
+as he knew;--that he was a gentleman of large fortune from the City,
+he believed, who was in the habit of hunting with all the hounds in
+the metropolitan counties: that he usually kept his horses there;
+that he was the owner of the two which the gentleman had so much
+admired; that he was a choice spirit, and mixed in very high company;
+all of which information the strange gentleman seemed to receive
+with considerable satisfaction--probably, as Stubbs the landlord
+thought, because he should feel himself honoured and gratified by the
+countenance and society of so distinguished an individual as Brag, and
+because he inwardly rejoiced at having made a point of showing so much
+courtesy and attention on his first arrival to a gentleman of such
+respectability and importance.
+
+The stranger’s inquiries and the landlord’s elucidations had scarcely
+ended, before the volatile Cockney made his re-appearance.
+
+“Come, Stubbs,” cried he, rubbing his hands as he entered the little
+sanded parlour, “be alive, my fine fellow! up with the chops! no
+nonsense--sharp’s the word and quick’s the motion, eh?--straight up,
+right down, and no mistake.”
+
+“They will be ready in two minutes, sir,” said the landlord as he
+quitted the apartment.
+
+“That’s the way I manage ’em,” said Brag; “none of your crawlers for
+me. I dare say you have been waiting ever so long for your feed; they
+don’t mind strangers--everything is habit, sir,--used to _me_--know
+I won’t stand upon trifles. I pay ready money, and don’t stint--eh?
+that’s the way I keep ’em all alive.--Are you from town to-day?”
+
+“No,” said the stranger; “I am on my road across the country. I rode
+farther than I intended, and was caught in the last storm.”
+
+“Oh,” said Brag, beginning to exercise what he considered his tact in
+ascertaining the calling of his companion; “you are not going straight
+along?”
+
+“No,” replied his new friend, “merely taking a canter.”
+
+“Blowing away the cobwebs, as my friend Lord Tom Towzle says,” said
+Brag, looking at himself in the miserable glass which surmounted the
+mantel-shelf, adjusting his shirt-collar, and combing out his curls,
+of which he was as vain as a peacock of his tail. “I never had harder
+work: pitched right over my little hack’s head, trying to show my
+friend Lord Wagly, the right-earnest way of taking a double fence.
+To be sure, it was too much for the poor little thing, and it served
+me right. I was spilt--up again in a minute--all, as quick as Queen
+Elizabeth. I say, that’s a fine horse of yours in the stable----Stir
+the fire--hem,--or lend me the poker----eh?--capital nag, I calculate,
+as the Yankees say?”
+
+“Yes,” said the stranger, “a fine serviceable animal: I ride pretty
+heavy, and require something strong to carry me. You have two clever
+animals in the boxes here; I assure you I had been admiring them very
+much before you arrived.”
+
+“Yes,” said Brag, “nice tits, I flatter myself: I never had two horses
+that suited me better. I have--let me see--eight--no, nine--yes,
+nine--much of a muchness; four in Leicestershire, two here, and
+the rest in London--nursing a bit, that’s my way. I say sport’s
+sport--never overwork kind animals--don’t break their hearts even
+if you break their backs. So I keep enough to do it easy: for, as I
+said to Towzle, what’s the use of plenty of money if you don’t spend
+it?--eh! The devil take this fellow! _his_ chops are not ready, though
+ours are--he! Did you ever hear that before,--deuced good, eh?--old, I
+guess, and no mistake. I’ll just give him a reminder.”
+
+Saying which, Brag seized the bell-rope, and gave it so tremendous a
+jerk, that down it came, bringing with it a cloud of dust, just at the
+moment that the door opened, and presented to the view of the guests,
+Stubbs, with the chops, and Rachel his daughter at his heels, bearing
+a dish of potatoes, and a plate, whereon were deposited two vine leaves
+of blue ware, filled, the one with gherkins green, the other with
+walnuts brown.
+
+Rachel was about seventeen, pretty and arch, with a pair of
+expressively lively black eyes. It was clear that Brag had seen them
+before, and that Rachel was not altogether insensible of their power;
+and while the assiduous Stubbs was regulating the plates and knives and
+forks at their proper angles on the table, the Nimrod of Cockaigne was
+slyly pressing the elbow--rather of the reddest--of the amiable Rachel,
+as she stretched one hand forward towards her unsuspecting parent, in
+the act of offering him the vegetables wherewith to deck the table. The
+stranger saw the dexterous manœuvre of his new companion, but appeared
+to be wholly unconscious of his insinuativeness.
+
+“That’s a pretty girl,” said Brag after the parent and child had left
+the room,--“sly as a pussy cat. Dear me! the things one _does_ see in
+this world! No matter where one goes, it is all the same! One has only
+to look at a girl, or a woman older a deuced deal than that, down she
+comes; I don’t know how it is, or how you find it, but, by Job,” (as
+Brag always called Jove,) “it’s a difficult thing to keep clear of the
+female sex; I suppose it’s something in one’s manner--eh,--don’t you
+think so?--’pon my life I don’t know.”
+
+“Why,” said the stranger, “I am not in the habit of generalizing upon
+such subjects: a woman worthy of being won is not so easily won.”
+
+“Oh! ah!” said Brag; “you mean tip-toppers, blue-stockings, nobs, and
+all that kind of thing: I mean the sex taken what I call collectively.
+What do you drink, eh? Ale, by Job! Here, here, just put your head out
+of the door and call Stubbs; you are nearer than me: I wish I hadn’t
+broken the bell. Call him,--or stay;--no, I’ll speak to him,--have up
+_my_ tap--eh,--don’t you see?”
+
+The volubility and vanity of the Cockney amused as well as surprised
+the stranger, who, upon Brag’s resuming his seat, endeavoured to
+draw him back--which there was little difficulty in doing--to his
+old subject, by telling him one of the innumerable _bons mots_ of the
+celebrated Sophie Arnould, who, when a Brag of her day, in descanting
+largely upon his success with a certain demoiselle of the rank and
+standing of Rachel Stubbs, told her that the affair had made a great
+noise in the neighbourhood, asked whether it were not occasioned by the
+lady’s pattens. Brag did not see the application, and went on, as his
+acquaintance with his companion grew, and his familiarity ripened, to
+be extremely communicative, most especially upon his own successes in
+the way of “Don-Juanism.”
+
+The _sederunt_ of the companions was considerably lengthened by
+a return of bad weather. The rain and hail again poured down in
+torrents; and Brag, who denounced wine in such a place, resolved upon
+keeping out the cold with some hot mixture. The stranger, who was
+also weather-bound, seemed not altogether disinclined to follow his
+companion’s example; and they drew their chairs towards the fire, in
+order to wait with patience for a brighter sky; which, as the spring
+had set in with its accustomed severity, they were not soon certain of
+seeing.
+
+“I am told,” said a lady of rank to the Persian Ambassador, who was
+in this country so many years since, that, for the sake of my female
+friends, I will not say how many,--“I am told, sir, that in _your_
+country they worship the sun.” “True, madam,” replied the Ambassador;
+“and so they would in _yours_, if they ever saw him.” The hope of
+catching a glimpse of him on the day of Brag’s adventure at the “Duke
+of Marlborough” was but faint and remote: the storm pattered against
+the casements of the humble apartment which he and his associate
+occupied, and Jack was resolved to show that his spirits, however
+mercurial, were not altogether dependant upon the weather.
+
+“Blessing, good temper,” said Brag,--“eh?--makes no difference to
+me--life is not long enough to be sorry; clouds or sunshine, on I go,
+smack, smooth ’cross the country, and no mistake.--As I was saying just
+now, if I were to write my life and adventures, what a book it would
+make! to be sure, one could not publish it;--compromise so many dear
+delicious creatures--eh?”
+
+“But do you find,” said the stranger, “this facility of conquest
+equally general in the higher classes, with whom, as you have already
+said, you mix?”
+
+“Equal,” exclaimed Brag, emptying at the same moment his first glass of
+Stubbs’s punch,--“the same everywhere. I grant you, the females of the
+aristocracy are more closely watched; the eyes of the world are more
+on them. But, dear me, when they are out of sight--when we are what I
+call tiled,--all snug and comfortable, and no mistake,--I think the
+tip-toppers are livelier than the mediums.”
+
+“And these females, as you call them,” said the stranger, “are they
+most easily led away by person or manner, or accomplishments?”
+
+“A little of all,” said Jack, running the dumpy fingers of one of his
+little fat hands through his curls, and pulling up his shirt-collar
+with the other as usual;--“manner is everything--that’s it, sir;
+genteel, but bordering upon the lively--eh, don’t you understand?
+Now there’s Lady Fanny Smartly, as nice a horse-woman as you’ll see
+in a summer’s day;--why, Lor--just see me lend her my arm to mount!
+Her brother looks with wonder--the groom retires with awe--and then
+she gives me a smile, as much as to say, ‘You are a sharp little
+fellow, Jack!’ Well, then in the evening, there I find her all gentle
+and languishing--you wouldn’t think she had ever seen a horse in her
+life;--and then she laughs,--and I look, and then she laughs again; and
+you can’t think how one gets on in that way--eh, and no mistake!”
+
+“Lady Fanny Smartly?” said the stranger; “I think I have occasionally
+seen her riding in London.”
+
+“Very likely,” said Jack; “but that’s not the way to know her. Now
+there’s Mrs. Dallington--a friend of mine, and her sister--they live
+close up by Grosvenor Square;--I go there almost every day; they are
+as opposite as light from dark,--one all sharp, you know--sort of
+daisy-cutting tit--smack smooth, and no mistake;--the other, Miss
+Blanche Englefield, all meek, modest, quiet; what you call retiring,
+soft, gentle.”
+
+“A melting beauty?” said the stranger.
+
+“No,” said Jack, colouring; “not melting;--a--not that sort of
+thing,--but--distant, and shy. Why, now with _me_, she is all free and
+easy. There I see a couple of men day after day dancing attendance
+upon these two women, and dying to marry them. In course I shouldn’t
+take any advantage of my friends, as I told Lord Tom--a crack crony of
+mine--Lord Tom Towzle. I never would--no, I scorn the action,--but it
+is hard to refrain.”
+
+“Lord Tom Towzle,” said the stranger, “is a son of the Duke of
+Ditchwater,--is he not?”
+
+“He is,” said Jack: “I see you know some of their names. Did you
+ever see Lord Tom? I always call him Tommy for shortness;--he is
+an excellent fellow in his way,--not over respectable in money
+matters--but an uncommon good un to go ’cross a country.”
+
+“Have you seen much of his aunt, Lady Bloomville?” said the stranger.
+
+“Oh, the old toad!” said Jack; “a regular scarecrow,--she is what
+people call a respectable body--eh! reads him lectures and all that--he
+can’t bear her;--we have a great deal of fun there sometimes--we go and
+what he calls roast her.”
+
+“I had always heard,” said the stranger, “that she was a remarkably
+respectable amiable person. I hope you never found _her_ so complying
+as you seem to have found the rest of your fashionable friends.”
+
+“I tell you what,” said Brag, putting his finger to his nose--“if _you_
+knew what _I_ know, you wouldn’t be surprised at anything.”
+
+“She has a brother, hasn’t she?” said the stranger.
+
+“What, Lady Bloomville?” asked Jack.
+
+“Yes,” replied the stranger.
+
+“Oh, yes, Lord Ilfracombe,” said Jack; “and a queer chap he is too.”
+
+“Is he much at Lady Bloomville’s?” asked the stranger.
+
+“More than we like,” replied Brag; “he is what I call a dull dog,--good
+man in his way,--plain, and no show,--none of what I call gammon. I
+say, I must have another jorum of this stuff--put your head out and
+call, will you--eh! make yourself useful--nothing like sociability, and
+no mistake--eh!”
+
+The stranger obeyed, and called the waiter; Rachel appeared, and Jack
+ordered a replenishment of punch, in doing which, having previously
+expressed his admiration of the waitress, he suited the action to the
+word, and then resumed.
+
+“Old Ilfracombe is a queer one,” said he, “a bore,--won’t sit after
+dinner. Now, as I say to Lord Tom, that is a fault of the young
+ones;--no conversation,--no nothing now--up go the ladies, and then
+comes ‘Will anybody have any more wine, or shall we have coffee?’ and
+up we go after them,--no opportunity for what somebody calls the feast
+of reason and the flow of soul, or, as I read it, ‘flow of bowl,’--eh!”
+
+“So then,” said the stranger, “this Lord Ilfracombe is what may be
+called a wet blanket!--he doesn’t look like one of the Kill-joys.”
+
+“Do you think not?” said Jack. “I suppose you have only seen him by
+chance, at some public dinner, or somewhere where smiles are always
+ready. If you knew him as well as I and Lord Tom do, you would set him
+down for as great a bore as ever lived.”
+
+“And is Lord Tom, as you call him,” said the stranger, “in love with
+either of the ladies you have mentioned to me?”
+
+“Not a bit,” said Jack. “Tommy and I--or rather, I might say, I and
+Tommy, take a different course,--butterflies, bees,--eh!--don’t
+you see?--rove and sip--and no mistake. No, I think it would be an
+injustice in either of us to marry. But, there are two very respectable
+men dangling--you understand what I mean.”
+
+“Perfectly,” said the stranger.
+
+“But,” said Brag, “it is painful to see it--eh!--Lord bless
+your heart--however--Oh! here is my second glass--put it down,
+Rachel,--here--come round--this way,--don’t be frightened, the
+gentleman won’t eat you.”
+
+Rachel did as she was bid, but it was quite clear by the expression of
+her pretty countenance as she left the room, that she did not think
+quite so much of Brag as Brag thought of himself.
+
+“If you,” said Brag, “had opportunities as I have of seeing the best
+society,--what I call skimming the cream, you would be in the secret;
+but without seeing it, as I said before, there’s no believing it--eh!”
+
+“I am sure you are right,” said the stranger. “I think Lord Ilfracombe
+has a son, hasn’t he?”
+
+“To be sure he has,” said Brag, “Lord Dawlish,--and a nice chap he is
+too; he married a Miss Linton, the daughter of a country gentleman in
+my lord’s neighbourhood. I know all the facts from Lord Tommy. She
+is like a doll in a toy-shop window--waxy and winky-eyed--eh! You
+understand--money--the father sold the child to buy the title, and a
+pretty swop too. Lord bless you! they live like cat and dog. I can’t
+bear her--mawkish--eh! Don’t you take some more of this mixture?”
+
+“Not yet,” said the stranger. “And does Lord Dawlish mix much in your
+sports?”
+
+“Why now,” said Jack, “before you carry this on too far, I _do_ think
+you ought to tell me why you ask. I don’t think it fair, living with
+these people as I do, what you call hand-in-glove, and all that, to
+let out; you may, perhaps, have an interest in knowing particulars.
+I am sure you won’t be offended, but I take it that you are in the
+mercantile line, and what people in the city call travelling on your
+own bottom--you want to know where credit may and where it mayn’t be
+given--eh? I don’t think I ought to commit my friends, old cocky--eh!
+all right and no mistake--don’t you think so?”
+
+“Certainly,” said the stranger; “I didn’t know that Lord Dawlish _was_
+a friend of yours.”
+
+“The whole clique,” said Brag, looking very cunning; “and I can tell
+you this--they _know_ I am rich, eh!--all snug, smug, and no mistake.”
+
+“Well,” said the stranger, “I am much obliged for the mixture of
+confidence in _me_, and the consideration of _them_, which regulates
+your communications;--but I suppose old Ilfracombe himself is a steady
+goer?”
+
+“Umph!” said Jack, “pretty well--six o’ one side and half-a-dozen
+of the other--much of a muchness--you understand, eh!--all
+outside--plating, as I call it.”
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Stubbs, who
+announced that Mr. Brag’s groom had just arrived from London, on the
+top of the coach, which had set him down at the corner of the cross
+road.
+
+“Let him come in,” said Brag, with an air of the most exalted dignity.
+
+The lad made his appearance, dripping, like Niobe, all tears.
+
+“Well, what made you so late?” said Brag.
+
+“Couldn’t git down afore, sir,” said the lad.
+
+“Well,” said his master, “go get yourself something to eat, and see to
+the horses.”
+
+“I wanted to say a word about the horses, sir,--please,” said the lad.
+
+“Well,” said Brag, “you may say what you have to say; you are not
+afraid of that stranger, I suppose.”
+
+“No, sir,” said the boy, “I’m not afraid o’ anybody, but I didn’t know
+I was to say what I had to say, out.”
+
+“Say,” said Jack, waving his half-emptied tumbler over his head--“‘Say
+on,’ as the chap at the theātre says.”
+
+“Mr. Figgs,” said the boy, “wishes to know whether you want both them
+’ere horses as is here any longer this week, or if one will do, as he
+has an opportunity of letting one or both on ’em to gemmen as pays
+ready money; and if so be you keeps ’em both, you’ll be pleased to send
+up the stumpy by to-night’s post.”
+
+“Ha, ha, ha!” said Brag, his cheeks turning as white as chalk,
+his hair seeming to uncurl, and his whole countenance assuming the
+appearance of a detected pickpocket--“how good!--how deuced good, eh!
+Ha, ha,--what! my own horses!”
+
+“Not your own horses, sir,” said the boy, “they are _his_ horses, you
+know, sir, and--”
+
+“Hold your tongue, sir,” said Brag; “I think I ought to know whose
+horses they are better than he;--get out,--go and look after the
+nags--before you get anything to eat--and I will come out to you
+presently.”
+
+Of all the curs unhung, there is none so awfully contemptible as a
+drivelling braggart. The wretched cockney seemed to quail before his
+associate, whom, as we know, he imagined to be either a rider to some
+respectable house in the button line, or a small dealer travelling,
+as he called it, “on his own bottom.” He watched the glance of the
+eye of this man, whom he had before despised and bullied, to see what
+impression the detection of his miserable assumptions had made upon
+him; but the stranger, who had his own business to attend to, and who
+seemed fully occupied by his own thoughts, evinced no alteration either
+in look or manner when he heard his contemptible companion exposed
+by the stable-keeper’s menial. Why he was not much affected by this
+_denouement_, we may perhaps shortly discover.
+
+“What fools servants are!” said Jack, when he _could_ speak--stirring
+up a bit of lemon-peel from the bottom of his glass, and keeping his
+eyes steadily fixed upon the object and operation during the utterance
+of his remark.
+
+What the stranger thought of masters, was not to be collected from
+either his words or his looks.
+
+“Figgs is a fool too,” said Brag, when he had rallied; “I wonder what
+_he_ means.”
+
+The stranger, who merely recollected the history of his companion’s
+stud, all elaborately detailed, did not by any means exert himself to
+elucidate the mysteries of the liveryman’s stables. He was perfectly
+satisfied with the affair as it stood, and there an end.
+
+“I believe,” said Brag, breaking what appeared a most uncomfortable
+silence, and which, as pretenders invariably do, he fancied arose from
+a conviction in the other gentleman’s mind that he was a “humbug,”--“I
+believe that these fellows try to worry one into buying, by such
+tricks as these: however, I flatter myself I am pretty well known
+about London, and if I have any interest with the Master of the horse,
+not one of Figgs’s animals sets foot into the Royal stables,--there I
+_have_ an influence.”
+
+The stranger merely looked, and finished his one glass of Stubbs’s
+particular, to Brag’s two; which one he had been persuaded to imbibe
+upon the very just principle of repelling external cold by internal
+warmth. It was clear that the cockney had been hit hard by the
+stupidity of his boy, as he called him--who, in fact, was not his;
+and odd enough to say, however pleased he might have been to escape
+anything like a cross-examination from his companion, he was rather
+vexed than not, that the said companion did not appear to take
+sufficient interest in his proceedings to inquire any farther into
+particulars.
+
+“The weather does not seem to clear up,” said the stranger, walking
+towards the window; “I am not quite sure what is best to be done.”
+
+“As for me,” said Brag, “I shall be a fixture for the night, if it
+holds on so badly.”
+
+“I must get home by dinner-time,” said the stranger.
+
+“Oh!” said Brag, “then this is not your dinner.”
+
+“No,” said the stranger. “I believe in point of fact it _is_, but
+nominally it is not; I have fifteen miles to ride before I get home. I
+suppose one might on an emergency get a chaise here?”
+
+“Not here,” said Brag; “I am always obliged, when I want horses, to
+send down to the George,--two miles from this;--but that makes no
+difference, I’ll tell my boy to run down if you want them:--are you
+going towards town?”
+
+“No,” said the stranger, and stranger he was in those parts, “my course
+is _from_ London.”
+
+“Eh! oh!” said Brag, evidently desirous of finding out his associate’s
+pursuits. “I shall cobble up here for the night, I think;--I dare say
+Rachel will make my tea for me, and I shall be uncommon comfortable,
+and no mistake. I like the--what do the French call it?--the ‘despipere
+in poco,’ or something of that sort, as Lord Tommy says;--so here I
+stop. I have nothing to do, no business, no call, no tie, except that
+unhappy Mrs.--did I tell you her name?--yes I did,--Mrs. Dallington and
+her sister Blanche. They must wait--can’t ride through the rain for
+them, eh!”
+
+At this moment a remarkably neat, well appointed travelling carriage,
+drawn by four bright bays, preceded by an outrider, and in the rumble
+of which were two strapping servants, drove up to the door of the
+small ostelry--the steeds all thorough bred, were foaming and champing
+the bit, and the party within evidently in high spirits. The halt was
+called just to wash out the mouths of the horses, which were, as it
+appeared, making a long stage.
+
+“I say,” said Brag, “these are somebodies:--what nags!--did you ever
+see such a turn out;--that’s what I call going it--straight up, right
+down, and no mistake. Let’s just go out and have a look at ’em.”
+
+Brag led the way--the stranger implicitly followed; the moment he
+exhibited his person by the side of the cockney, a shout of surprise
+and delight echoed from the carriage.
+
+“So, here you are!” cried the youngest of the _parti carré_. “What
+_have_ you been doing here?”
+
+“Doing!” said the stranger; “why you don’t expect a man to ride to an
+archery meeting through a torrent!”
+
+“My dear love,” said a lady in the carriage, “are you quite sure you
+have not got wet?”
+
+“Not the least,” said the stranger; “for I took the precaution of
+halting here, and getting some luncheon in very agreeable society. But,
+perhaps, you will let _me_ in turn inquire why you have taken this
+road.”
+
+“Partly, I believe,” said a young man who turned out to be the
+stranger’s son, “by mistake,--the weather was so desperate that the
+whole affair was a _coup manqué_, and we were glad enough to scramble
+away as well as we could; but, however, you will now come with _us_;
+they say it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.”
+
+“You may rely upon my housing myself in the carriage,” said the
+stranger, “even at the hazard of crowding you. Harrison, stay behind,
+and bring home my horse in the course of the evening, and pay my bill
+here; don’t hurry back, for I rode rather hard in coming.”
+
+The ladies seemed delighted at the acquisition which they had made
+to their party “inside,” and the stranger, with his foot on the step
+of the carriage, took off his hat and made a low bow to Brag, who
+stood looking on in a state of amaze and wonderment arising from the
+extraordinary fact, that anybody who really lived in the society of
+which he was permitted to catch occasional glimpses, could seriously
+sit down and enjoy mutton chops in a small alehouse, without disclosing
+his rank or talking of his connexions.
+
+The carriage drove off,--splashed a little of the mud upon Brag’s
+delicate nose, and left, according to the stranger’s directions, one
+of the servants behind, who upon scanning the figure of the cockney
+sportsman, turned away from him with an air of dignity which his master
+had never assumed; and whose remarkably smart leathers and tops were
+so much better “got up” than Brag’s ever were, (although when he wore
+leathers he always devoted a certain portion of the morning to his own
+personal care of them,) that the unhappy creature cowered before the
+menial of the man, whom because he was plainly dressed, and assumed
+nothing in his manner, he had treated as if he were an inferior.
+
+“I say, sir,” said Brag to the man as he was walking towards the
+stable, “may I ask who the gentleman is, who stepped into that
+carriage, and has left you to take home his horse?”
+
+“That’s _my_ lord,” said Harrison, so was the man named.
+
+“And what lord may he be?” said Brag.
+
+“Don’t you know _my_ lord, sir?” said Harrison; “I thought everybody
+knew him,--Lord Ilfracombe. That’s my Lady, and his son Lord Dawlish,
+and Lady Dawlish, and Lady Bloomville, in the carriage.”
+
+“Indeed! five insides!” said Brag: “and who was the young lady with the
+veil?”
+
+“Lady Fanny Smartly,” said the man, and passed on to look after his
+lord’s horse.
+
+Jack stood as if petrified: he felt his ears tingle, his knees
+shake,--the mingled impudence and folly of his conduct came full upon
+him, like a double-headed shot. Here were all his intimate friends whom
+he had never seen before, conjured up, as it were, to ruin him in the
+estimation of the head of the family, whom he had denounced to himself
+as a queer one, a bore, a kill-joy, and a wet blanket. He had not the
+power to stir, nor would he have moved from the place where he stood,
+with his eyes swimming and his head whirling, if the stable-boy from
+Figgs’s had not just begged him to make up his mind as to the horse he
+would keep.
+
+Jack, for a minute roused to a sense of his absurdity, gave his answer,
+and retired to the house; where having in due time recovered the
+spirits or callousness which generally upheld him, he rang for some
+tea,--a beverage in which the subjects of Cockaigne delight, and which
+was in the course of half-an-hour brought him by a dirty red-headed
+boy; Rachel Stubbs having gone over to her aunt’s, on purpose to get
+out of the way of his nasty impertinences.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Brag’s feelings at the period of this announcement were by no means
+of the most agreeable character. It was quite certain that the scene
+which had just been enacted by the noble lord and himself would furnish
+materials for a _historiette_ in his lordship’s circle, whence it
+would infallibly descend to the sphere of his own actions, as fashions
+gradually sink from the duchess to the dowdy, until, as extremes meet,
+they become extinct from their universality.
+
+Then, for the Lothario to be slighted--avoided--cut by the waiting-girl
+of a small inn, who ought to have been prouder than a peacock at
+having attracted his eyes: altogether Jack was ill at ease, and fell
+to ruminating upon his present not brilliant prospects, until he fell
+asleep.
+
+Not so his mother. She had pondered the words her son had spoken: she
+felt that his recommendation to take unto herself a second husband,
+although she had passed several years of widowhood, was not altogether
+unreasonable, since the career which he appeared determined to pursue,
+let it terminate as it might, was not very likely to end in a steady
+settle-down to business, and since, as everybody allows, a “lone woman”
+in trade is liable to be imposed upon.
+
+It is odd enough, that an idea once formed in a mind where it never had
+place before, becomes the leading subject of thought and consideration.
+Mrs. Brag had never dreamt of a second marriage; and it is but fair
+to say, that none of her male, middle-aged, marrying acquaintance had
+ever, by word or deed, led her to moot the question. It was reserved
+for her son to fire the train; and from the moment it was ignited, Mrs.
+Brag became a different woman. She bestowed extra care upon her frill
+and her front; had the one plaited, and the other curled, with peculiar
+pains; took to the wearing of coloured ribands; looked into the shop
+whenever she heard the sound of voices; and, in short, gave herself
+more airs than she had ever thought of assuming for many years before.
+
+Never, however, had she been driven into what may be called a
+resolution upon the subject, until the morning upon which this little
+history opens. Johnny had often suggested the measure, and she had at
+first repelled the idea, out of respect to the departed Mr. B.; at
+last, she listened more complacently; then, as I have just said, she
+occupied herself in putting the scheme in execution practically; and
+after that morning, finding that all solicitations to John in regard of
+steadiness must prove fruitless, she came to a resolution of obliging
+her darling boy, of whom she might justly have said--
+
+  “Johnny, with all thy faults, I love thee still,”
+
+and of making herself more comfortable at home. How to compass the
+affair then became her only consideration; for the reader ought to
+know, that although to the very last she maintained her profession of
+disinclination for the step, she had, in fact, determined upon taking
+it. The way she went to work will hereafter be developed.
+
+The volatile John, himself, arose on the morning of his intended
+steeple-chase, little refreshed from the sort of feverish night’s rest
+he had enjoyed--if enjoyment it might be called. He could not rally
+from the effects of his self-exposure, which affected him the more
+strongly, as he began to anticipate (since it was evident that they
+were staying somewhere in the neighbourhood) the appearance of some of
+the branches of the noble family of Ilfracombe to witness what men of
+desperate expedients consider “fine sport.” What should he do if this
+very Lord Dawlish were to join the field, attended perhaps by Lady
+Fanny Smartly, or the earl himself? Every word that he had uttered
+the previous night would, of course, be repeated; and if not actually
+kicked or horse-whipped by the indignant viscount, in revenge for the
+description he had given of his father and his family, even Lord Tom
+Towzle himself, who was his main-stay, might join in the general
+execration of the pretender; the more especially as Lord Tom had at
+various times borrowed sundry sums of Brag’s “loose cash,” and, having
+been of late refused unlimited access to his purse, might perhaps not
+be particularly sorry to find a cause for breaking off his acquaintance
+with him.
+
+The day however came, and Brag having breakfasted, began to rally; and
+resolving to put the best face upon the affair, he mounted the horse he
+kept, and proceeded to the scene of action, casting his eyes, it must
+be admitted, in every direction, in dread of encountering his friend
+of the preceding afternoon. Nothing of the sort, however, occurred to
+annihilate him; and when he reached the inn at which the sportsmen
+were to rendezvous, and found Lord Tom and his associates just the
+same as usual,--all gay, lively, and warm in their reception,--he felt
+reassured, and in less than an hour had forgotten, or resolved not to
+remember, anything about his self-exposure to the noble lord.
+
+The steeple-chase took place according to notice; and at its
+conclusion Lord Tom, assisted by Brag, furnished a report of it for the
+“Sporting Intelligence” of the London papers, in the following words:--
+
+  “This event came off yesterday to the entire gratification of the
+  numerous company who were present.
+
+  “The course had been marked out on the previous day by Lord Wagley,
+  Lord Thomas Towzle, and Mr. Brag, who judiciously selected a stiff
+  line of country, including thirty-four leaps and three brooks,
+  best calculated to try the mettle of both horses and riders. The
+  winning-post was between two flags placed in a field belonging to Mr.
+  Brag, who was also appointed umpire. Five horses started--
+
+    “Mr. Tagrag’s ‘Washball’           _Owner._
+    Capt. Snobb’s ‘Beggarboy’          _Owner._
+    Sir Frederick Flapper’s ‘Stumpy’   _Mr. Martingale._
+    Mr. Smith’s ‘Tommy’                _Owner._
+    Colonel Ball’s ‘Blunderbuss’       _Mr. Flint._
+
+  “They all went off at a slashing pace. ‘Tommy’ refused the second
+  leap, and threw his rider over his head, and, falling backwards over
+  the bank, broke his back, and died in a few minutes. ‘Washball’ was
+  also unlucky in trying to jump a brook, which her rider did not know
+  was fordable twenty yards lower down: she slipped her shoulder, and
+  was obliged to be shot immediately after the race. We are sorry to
+  add, that Mr. Tagrag, who rode her, unfortunately pitched upon the
+  back of his neck, and severely injured his spine. He lies at the
+  ‘Full Moon’ at Wigglesford, without hopes of recovery.
+
+  “After these little mishaps, the play was made entirely by
+  ‘Beggarboy’ and ‘Stumpy,’ ‘Blunderbuss’ having knocked up after the
+  first two miles and a half, and being run to a dead stand in the
+  middle of a ploughed field, whence neither flogging nor spurring
+  could move him: in fact, the shine was taken out of him, and it
+  became a clear case of ‘no go.’
+
+  “‘Beggarboy’ and ‘Stumpy’ had had enough of it; and when they reached
+  the last fence, entered the winning-field nearly neck-and-neck.
+  ‘Stumpy’ tumbled into the ditch, and Captain Snobbs worked
+  ‘Beggarboy’ through the flags in very fine style. ‘Stumpy’ was
+  considerably damaged by the last fall, which is a pity, inasmuch as
+  he is about one of the best horses in this part of the country.
+
+  “The race was for ten sovereigns each, and was run in an incredibly
+  short space of time. The numerous company assembled were highly
+  delighted with the spirit-stirring sport, and, after the chase,
+  proceeded to a field at the back of the ‘Full Moon,’ to see the ties
+  shot off of the great pigeon match between Mr. Slack and Mr. Nibbs,
+  for a silver jug and cover.
+
+  “The name of Nibbs in itself was sufficient to create an unusual
+  interest, and the ground was crowded with amateurs. The terms were,
+  twenty-one yards at twenty-one birds--charge limited to two ounces.
+  Betting, three to one the winner killed eighteen--five to four on
+  Nibbs. They both went in, sure of doing the trick; but after Slack
+  and Nibbs had each killed twelve birds, Nibbs had it all his own way,
+  and won the jug by five birds, killing nineteen to Slack’s fourteen;
+  thus winning the by-bets of three to one. Several other matches came
+  off, and about a hundred and fifty pigeons were knocked over.
+
+  “Nothing could exceed the gaiety of the scene. The weather was
+  remarkably fine, and a proportion of the beauties who had honoured
+  the race with their presence, were witnesses of the cheering sport.
+  An old woman standing just outside the enclosure, received a whole
+  charge of shot in her face, which is likely to cost her the sight of
+  one eye at least; and a silly boy, who imprudently attempted to knock
+  down one of the winged birds which was falling out of bounds, was
+  badly wounded in the chest and throat. He was immediately attended
+  to by the surgeon of the place, who extracted thirty-six shots from
+  different parts of his person, and he was then forwarded in an easy
+  cart to the county hospital. We hope these accidents will act as
+  cautions to other equally inconsiderate individuals.
+
+  “At the conclusion of the sports an admirable cold collation was
+  served up at the ‘Full Moon,’ in Bunks’s best style. The evening
+  passed off in the most delightfully convivial manner, and
+  arrangements were made for a renewal of the exhilarating diversion of
+  the day, on Thursday next, when a still more numerous assemblage is
+  anticipated.”
+
+This animated description, as a matter of course, figured in the
+principal journals of the following morning, Brag having succeeded
+in the interpolation of three or four words, conveying to himself a
+field, and, by implication, a much more extensive estate, in a part
+of the country where he did not possess even so much as called him
+master at his “little place in Surrey.” The only drawback to his
+happiness, however, upon this occasion, was a visit, three days after
+the appearance of the intelligence, from the farmer to whom the field
+actually did belong, who gave him to understand that he had directed
+his attorney to prosecute the trespassers, who without his permission
+had ploughed up his land at a season when it did not require tillage;
+and having ascertained by the newspapers that the whole arrangements
+had devolved upon Mr. Brag, the attorney thought it most advisable to
+pounce upon _him_ in the first instance.
+
+This visit, and the intelligence his visitor conveyed to him, were
+anything but agreeable to the little man, whose feelings upon the
+matter were in no degree tranquillized by the conviction that his
+difficulties and responsibility were fastened upon him, because he
+could not refrain from the indulgence of his besetting propensity, in
+making himself not only the hero of the affair, but the owner of the
+ground over which it had been decided.
+
+The next race, however, which Mr. Brag was destined to run, was away
+from the lawyer, and accordingly, with prudence, which in animals
+unclothed, we designate instinct, but which in cases like that of
+Johnny we by courtesy call reason, our hero quitted his head quarters
+at the Duke’s Head, and proceeded to town per stage-coach; the second
+message from Mr. Figgs, with regard to the horses, having been
+accompanied with a peremptory demand that they might both be sent back.
+
+Brag returned to town considerably damaged, and however bold he might
+be in assuming consequence, and claiming friendships, never did human
+being more clearly evince by his personal appearance the workings
+of what served him for mind, than he; a blow like that which he had
+just received from the farmer’s announcement completely upset him,
+and in five minutes the sprightly, pert, impudent-looking wagling was
+metamorphosed into a pale, downcast, miserable victim; and in a plight
+thus indicative of defeat, he reached the metropolis, quite undecided
+how to dispose of himself for the afternoon.
+
+While he is in this state of suspense let us look for one moment at
+those over whose destinies he almost unconsciously possessed a most
+extraordinary influence. Sir Charles Lydiard, whose sensitiveness had
+once been disturbed, and whose shyness had been excited by Rushton’s
+observations upon the manner in which Brag was received at Mrs.
+Dallington’s, could not get rid of the impression which he had at first
+so hesitatingly received. None who have not felt jealousy--and, since
+there never can be love without it, who has not?--can imagine the
+pains which a patient once infected with the disease, the jaundice of
+the mind, incessantly takes to keep up its virulence. It so happened,
+that Sir Charles had never seen Brag since his conversation with
+Rushton, and therefore had no opportunity of watching the “telegraph”
+of which they had upon that occasion spoken; but upon a reference to
+all that _had_ passed, he managed to combine a thousand “trifles light
+as air,” an infinity of nothings, the consideration of which produced
+an increased exhibition of coldness and reserve during his next two or
+three calls at the widow’s.
+
+Mrs. Dallington saw this accession of frigidity, and without exactly
+hitting upon its true cause, did certainly “telegraph” Blanche into
+an observance of it. This new glance gave new grounds for doubts and
+apprehensions, and the worthy baronet passed four miserable hours in
+the boudoir of the woman he best loved in the world, if he had but
+known it, devoutly wishing to make his escape, but fearing to move lest
+an _éclaircissement_ should take place.
+
+Sir Charles felt more embarrassed from the fact that he had _not_ seen
+his aversion during his last one or two visits; and because he was
+extremely anxious to know the cause of an absence on his part longer
+than usual; and because, above all, he could not induce himself to
+make the smallest inquiry after him. Other men called, joined in the
+conversation, and relieved Sir Charles from the restraint under which
+the dread of a serious explanation kept him whenever the temporary
+absence of Blanche reduced the circle to a _tête-à-tête_; but the
+appearance of none of those worried or annoyed him. Mrs. Dallington’s
+manner, kind to all, was in no degree particular to any one of them;
+but certainly, now that Rushton had concurred with him in his views
+upon the subject, he _did_ think that Brag was very differently
+treated by both ladies. Still, he could not descend to touch upon the
+topic; and after a feverish sitting on the third morning after Brag’s
+departure, Sir Charles left the widow’s to dress for dinner, pleading
+an engagement which he had not, for declining an invitation from her
+and her sister to dine with them, which he would have been, if he
+could have commanded his feelings, too happy to accept.
+
+Rushton, who had been there, but was also absent in the evening, became
+more actively employed in Brag’s business than his cold and calculating
+colleague. In passing Grosvenor Street he encountered Brag proceeding
+to visit his door-plate and inquire for letters, just arrived from the
+Duke of Marlborough, having been let out of the coach (in the inside
+of which he travelled to avoid the farmer’s lawyer) at the corner of
+a back street in the Edgeware Road, so as not to be detected in his
+descent; by which ingenious device, and the exhibition of a whip in his
+hand and a pair of spurs on his heels, the pretender let it be inferred
+that he had ridden up to town upon one of the nine horses, which did
+not belong to him.
+
+Rushton welcomed his _friend_ to London; and anxious to ascertain,
+if he could, whether he proposed making an evening visit to Mrs.
+Dallington’s, joined him in his walk down the street.
+
+“Just returned?” said Rushton.
+
+“This minute dismounted,” said Brag; “capital sport;--never
+better!--all smack smooth, and no mistake. Killed two horses outright,
+and one man, I fancy; however, he was well picked up, and the doctor
+has got him in charge.”
+
+“Much company?” said Rushton.
+
+“Lots of people,” answered Brag, who, unable to repress that which was
+certainly true, however dangerous the allusion to the family might be
+elsewhere; “I myself did not stay at Wigglesford, I had rooms at the
+inn where my horses stand. All quiet, snug; no nonsense;--civil people;
+good landlord; pretty daughter, eh!--you understand--no mistake!”
+
+“Were you alone, then?” said Rushton.
+
+“Not altogether,” said Brag; “old Ilfracombe dined with me. He was
+going to an archery-meeting to join his family. Weather turned out bad;
+took part of my little dinner;--humble fare--mere soup, fish, cutlet
+and capon. The rest of the party joined us after dinner. Dawlish
+and his wife, and Lady Sarah Smartly--they did not get out of the
+carriage--so I packed him off, and returned to finish my claret, and
+wind up the evening in _my_ way, eh?”
+
+“Are you going to the widow’s this evening?” said Rushton.
+
+“Not certain,” said Brag: “I’m rather tired, and more than half
+engaged. How is Sir Charles? Cold chap, that, eh? Don’t you think so?”
+
+“Why,” said Rushton, “a trifle upsets him. He is the most
+delicate-minded man I ever met with: an expression, a word, a look
+affects him in a way one could scarcely imagine.”
+
+“Proud, eh?” said Brag. “Distant, eh?”
+
+“No,” replied Rushton. “There is a coldness in his manner, I admit;
+and those who do not know him may fancy this proceeds from _hauteur_;
+but the fact is, that however much he may warm in the course of the
+evening, he falls back to his original state of chilliness the next
+morning, and requires a new process to _degêler_ him. He is not
+therefore popular, but, in truth, his apparent coldness has its origin
+in diffidence and a distrust of himself.”
+
+“Oh! that’s diffidence, is it?” said Brag. “I can’t say I quite
+understand _that_: I thought it was pride--but for _that_, in course I
+don’t care one farthing, and no mistake.”
+
+It all at once struck Rushton (Sir Charles having naturally, although
+unexpectedly, become the subject of their conversation) that the
+present would be a favourable opportunity of sounding (the water not
+being very deep) the views and intentions of his communicative friend.
+
+“Why,” said he, “to tell you the truth, Brag, I do not think _you_ a
+fair judge of Sir Charles. I have my quarrels with him upon different
+shades of feeling; but you--_you_ are totally different.”
+
+“I don’t see that,” said Brag. “It’s all one to me, you know. I don’t
+care a fig, as I say to Lord Tom: take me as I am, eh!--all right up,
+straight down, no mistake. I quite agree with you in differing with
+_him_; but I don’t see how _my_ case differs from _yours_.”
+
+“Ah!” said Rushton, “there it is: it is in that difference all the
+difference lies.”
+
+“How d’ye mean?” said Brag.
+
+“He is afraid of you,” replied his companion.
+
+“Afraid of _me_!” said Brag, pulling up his shirt collar, “that’s too
+good.”
+
+“You are too civil by half to the widow,” said Rushton.
+
+“Me!”
+
+“Yes,” said Rushton, “and what is even more to the purpose, he thinks
+she is too civil by half to you.”
+
+“Upon your honour!” said Brag, in an ecstasy of delight--“afraid of
+_me_! Come, come--eh!--that’s too good!”
+
+“Not a bit too good,” said Rushton. “I tell you what it is--I’ll be
+candid with you--I am just as much afraid of you myself.”
+
+“You, Rushton!” said Brag.
+
+“Yes, more than Sir Charles is,” replied Rushton. “Recollect
+now--remember--think how you go on with Blanch Englefield--a being all
+shyness and reserve with everybody else, is with _you_, animated and
+evidently interested in your conversation.”
+
+“You don’t mean that _you_ are afraid of _me_, too,” said Brag, fully
+convinced of the entire seriousness of the conversation, which after
+all contained more of real apprehension than Rushton would have
+willingly had him know. “I certainly have a way, eh!--I don’t know
+what it is--it cannot be person--manner, I suppose. I am always ready
+to talk, eh! The tongue is the very deuce in a sharp fellow’s head--a
+little repartee, and all that, eh!--small-talk, and a good deal of
+it--that’s it.”
+
+“Clearly,” said Rushton.
+
+“The women like little parties,” said Brag--“fêtes--water
+excursions--_dejeuners_, and all that. Then they get so good-humoured;
+and the champagne--and the return--and the moonlight--and the music,
+and all _that_.”
+
+“You have not yet opened your battery in that line,” said Rushton.
+
+“Waiting for weather,” said Brag. “I’ll show you the way to do that
+sort of thing as soon as summer is well in, eh!--and then, I think, you
+_will_ have the heart-ache.”
+
+“Are you, then, so general a lover?” said Rushton. “Will neither
+content your love of conquest? Must you win both?”
+
+“Oh! come,” said Brag, putting his finger to his nose, and winking,
+“you are playing your tricks--what do _they_ care for _me_?”
+
+“That remains to be seen,” said Rushton. “My firm belief is, that you
+may obtain the hand of either of them; and my opinion, moreover, is,
+that if you have not serious intentions that way, as far as one of them
+is concerned, you do an injustice to both, by acting towards them as
+you do.”
+
+“Upon your life!” said Jack--“you are serious?”
+
+“Perfectly,” said Rushton; “however, this is entirely between
+ourselves: and whatever step you take, let me just mention, that the
+widow is much the more lively companion of the two, and has rather the
+better fortune; so turn your basilisk eyes towards her, and leave
+the poor silent, sighing Blanche for me. Adieu! Here we are at your
+door--you are at home. Do me the favour to remember what I have said,
+and as you are great be merciful.”
+
+Saying which, Rushton quitted his friend, who was completely overset
+by the announcement of the opinion he had just heard delivered. It
+took very little to convince him of his power over what he called
+the “female sex,” and he had certainly for some time felt very much
+inclined to coincide with Rushton in his views upon this particular
+point. But then came the question--Which of the prizes should he
+take?--which of the lovers should he immolate? Lydiard, he was assured,
+was too cold and odd to charm the widow, and Rushton too violent and
+jealous to be agreeable as a husband to Blanche. The notion once put
+into his head, operated there like that with which he had a short time
+before possessed his respectable mother on a similar subject, and all
+that now remained for him to do was to make up his mind for a decision.
+That he _did_ decide, the reader is destined soon to see; how, for the
+present, must remain a secret.
+
+There certainly is one part of the affair which did not make itself
+evident to him. Blinded by his vanity, he did not perceive that the
+whole object Rushton had in view in acknowledging his own fears,
+which he really fancied had some foundation, and in encouraging his
+pretensions, was the expulsion of the little man altogether; for
+although he had succeeded in awakening Sir Charles’s suspicions, and
+Sir Charles had been equally fortunate in arousing _his_, and that he
+had moreover discovered, by Brag’s manner and admission, that the widow
+was, at least of the two, the present object of his admiration, he felt
+perfectly satisfied that he would receive his _congée_ the very hour in
+which he made a formal declaration, and thus, without appearing in the
+business, he should be relieved from all farther apprehensions from his
+presence, while the affair of his expulsion would, in fact, be that of
+Lydiard and the widow.
+
+Brag, however, was about to be entangled in another little business,
+which promised to interfere with the immediate execution of his
+plan. He had resolved upon repairing to his “little place in Surrey,”
+in order to look after certain affairs which were essential to the
+production of the means for “carrying on the war,” and afterwards
+proposed, at least when it should be sufficiently dark for the
+purpose--to visit his mother, who, wisely enough, took care of the shop
+as far as her abilities would permit her to watch one or two clerks and
+shopmen, who undoubtedly, seeing that she was a “lone woman,” did every
+day that, of which, in her own phrase, she was so much afraid “put upon
+her;” which phrase, rendered into plain English, means, cheat her out
+of her property whenever they were able.
+
+As our story expands, it may be necessary here to observe, that Mrs.
+Brag had a daughter, the sister of John, who had never been a favourite
+with her father. People said her temper was bad: some people said one
+thing, and other people, as they will do, said other things: certain it
+is, that home was no home for her. And after a sort of half-and-half
+education at a suburban boarding-school, where she learned astronomy,
+the mathematics, netting, knitting, knotting, the use of the globes,
+dancing, geometry, drawing, embroidery, rug-working, purse-making,
+flower-painting, botany, singing, geology, plain needle-work, natural
+history, stencilling, Italian, French, Spanish, and German, the harp,
+guitar, piano-forte, tambourine, and triangle, together with many other
+sciences and accomplishments, “too numerous for the brief space of an
+advertisement,” she early in life married hastily, and clandestinely,
+a gentleman in the army of the name of Brown. His military duties had
+since called him to India, where his regiment had now been for several
+years. Of him or his sister, Jack seldom spoke, and, when he did,
+coldly referred to her husband as the major. Any little uneasiness
+which her father had evinced about the marriage at the period at which
+it occurred, had been decently buried in oblivion by the fond mother
+and her son, who, whatever other feelings might have prompted him to
+this acquiescence in the affair, it could not be doubted was in a
+considerable degree acted upon by a desire to say nothing whatever
+about it.
+
+There was, however, a person for whom, in earlier life, and before the
+doting fondness of his sire had spoiled him, he did feel as deep an
+interest as such a mind as his was capable of--this was no other than
+the major’s sister, Miss Brown--Anne christened, but called familiarly
+in those times Nancy Brown. It does not sound romantic by way of a
+name, but what _is_ in a name?
+
+At the time of Brag’s acquaintance with her, she was a lovely girl just
+eighteen, fair as the lily and fresh as the rose. Her mother was an
+humble personage, no better, let it be understood, than a dress-maker,
+to whom this daughter was assistant; for, lest we should ourselves fall
+into the errors of which Brag was guilty, it may be as well to observe,
+that the military functionary with whom Kitty became enamoured, and
+who had the honour of leading her to the Hymeneal altar without her
+father’s consent, derived his rank of major from Brag himself; in
+giving him which brevet he felt himself probably justified, inasmuch
+as it was derived from a mere abbreviation of his real title. Brown was
+serjeant-major in the regiment to which he belonged; but the omission
+of one half of his official denomination was adopted very early by
+Jack, with, it must be confessed, the full acquiescence of his father,
+who never could think of the misbehaviour of Kitty in making such a
+match, with common patience.
+
+When his father died, Johnny, as will be seen hereafter, became so fine
+a gentleman, that he never paid the least further attention either to
+Nancy Brown or the promises he had so earnestly made her; judge, then,
+the surprise and mortification which overwhelmed the vain and foolish
+creature when his mother, after the usual greetings upon his arrival at
+home, placed in his hands a letter from his poor suffering victim.
+
+To describe the face or the feelings of Brag when this appeal from
+his once dear Anne was handed to him by his respected parent, (who
+was not entirely aware of the real state of the case, but believed
+the communication, in all probability, to have some reference to
+her daughter, whom she in her heart had, with a mother’s feelings,
+forgiven,) would be impossible. To come from a question of supplanting
+Sir Charles Lydiard in the good graces of Mrs. Dallington, to a letter
+from Nancy Brown of Walworth, was indeed a sinking in the sublime. He
+turned pale, as usual; then flushed; then his lips quivered, and his
+eyes opened; and then, without saying one syllable, he thrust the paper
+unopened into his pocket, where it shall remain until a new chapter
+gives us space for its perusal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The letter which Jack, having hastily glanced at the superscription,
+thrust out of sight, follows.
+
+    “Walworth, Tuesday.
+
+    “DEAR JOHN,
+
+  “I hope you will not be angry with me for writing to-day. You
+  remember what day it is? I think I need not remind you that it is
+  your poor Anne’s birthday. For three or four years after Katharine’s
+  marriage with George, and their departure for the Indies, you used to
+  write to _me_ on this day, but you afterwards left off doing so; and
+  I should not perhaps have broken in upon you now if the anniversary
+  had been as bright and as cheering as it once used to be. No, my dear
+  John, ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick;’ and although I have by
+  this time learned to give up all expectation of your fulfilling
+  your promises made to me before your father’s death, I neither have
+  forgotten my affection for _you_, nor mean to upbraid you with your
+  forgetfulness of _me_.
+
+  “When we were so much together, and when you said you could be happy
+  with nobody else, and told me of your dread of your father’s anger,
+  which he had indeed shown by never seeing poor Katharine after her
+  marriage with my brother George, you led me to believe that the old
+  gentleman’s objections were the only obstacles in the way of our
+  marriage. I lived on--not in hopes of his death, for I could not be
+  so wicked as to hope for that--but I lived on, certain that, when it
+  should please Providence to take him, you would fulfil your promise
+  and redeem your pledge. He died, John, but you came not to me, wrote
+  not to me. Day after day I watched; listened to every knock at the
+  door, fancying it might be you; and every time I saw the postman
+  coming towards our lodging, my heart beat because I thought he might
+  bring me a letter from you.
+
+  “A year passed away, and then, as you know, I wrote to you, rather
+  because I had heard from George and your sister, and wished you to
+  have news of them, which I knew you could not otherwise get, than to
+  worry you with my own importunities. You answered _that_ letter, but
+  you came not yourself, neither did the letter which you wrote contain
+  one kind word, or one allusion to other days, now past and gone. Yet
+  I complained not. I heard of you in gay parties and gay places; I
+  sighed to think how far we were parted, and perhaps I cried, John:
+  but you were happy and prosperous, and doing well in the world; and I
+  could only blame myself for having, when a girl, been so foolish as
+  to fancy that you cared for me enough to make me your wife.
+
+  “Six years and two months this very day was the first time we met,
+  and God knows, although I have felt sorrow and sadness enough since,
+  it seems to me as if it were but yesterday. It was to oblige and
+  serve your sister Katharine, who was my friend, that I walked out
+  with her, when she used to meet George. I did not see any harm in
+  their courtship: I thought well of my brother; I knew he was kind and
+  good; his officers gave him the highest character for steadiness,
+  activity, honour, and integrity; he loved _her_, and she loved _him_.
+  I ought, perhaps, to have known, that he was not what is called a
+  suitable match for Katharine; but girls of seventeen, especially
+  upon such matters, do not always calculate. I am sure _I_ did not,
+  or I would not have helped her to take a step which was to make her
+  parents so angry.
+
+  “It was the same blindness in my own case that permitted me to listen
+  to your professions. I am not ashamed to own, John, that I loved you
+  fondly; nor am I ashamed to tell you, although perhaps you will not
+  believe me, that the impressions made _then_ remain as strong as
+  ever. I have not seen you here for more now than three years. Perhaps
+  it is for the best. I _did_ see you once, now about four months
+  since, riding with another gentleman; it was in the Kent Road. I
+  thought you saw _me_, but I am sure I must have been mistaken.
+
+  “What I now write about, cuts me to the soul! _My_ fate is sealed!
+  and never shall a murmur of mine for myself cause you a moment’s
+  uneasiness. The folly was mine: I alone will suffer!--But there _is_
+  another to whom--I scarce can hold my pen to write the words--to
+  whom, by the strongest ties of nature, and the sacred word of God, I
+  am bound. I could not beg of a stranger; my heart would burst before
+  I could confess my wretchedness;--to _you_, John, I _can_ speak. My
+  poor mother is, I fear, dying. She has been confined to her bed for
+  several days, and I have nobody to watch over her but myself. Her
+  illness has prevented her working, and my constant attendance upon
+  her, has hindered me from doing anything myself. Do not be angry with
+  me, John; what I ask, is not for myself. She shall bless you for your
+  care of her, and be grateful for any little aid you may afford her.
+  When she recovers, she and I will struggle to repay you.
+
+  “If you required any proof of my unshaken regard, you might find it
+  in this request. As I have told you, time and reflection have taught
+  me the folly of my ever considering you more than a friend,--it is
+  in the character of a dear friend that I ask this favour for the best
+  of parents.
+
+  “I have put the address to this letter, which is the same as the
+  one which was to my last; but I thought, perhaps, you might have
+  destroyed it and forgotten the direction. We have not heard from
+  George for more than two years, which makes my poor mother very sad;
+  but we have been told that his regiment is coming home. You who are
+  so much in the world could find out in a minute, I know: even if you
+  did not care about George, you must be anxious to hear of Katharine,
+  whom you fondly loved, and who I know loved you with equal affection.
+
+  “I will not take up more of your time. Let me have one line, to say
+  you have received this. I shall count the minutes till I get your
+  answer, which may at all events assure me that you are not angry
+  with me. God bless you, John--dear John! and assure yourself of the
+  affectionate friendship of
+
+    “Yours,
+    ANNE BROWN.
+
+  “You will see by the seal of this, how your present to me was valued,
+  and how it has been treasured. Adieu.”
+
+This was the letter which Mr. John Brag thrust into his coat pocket
+in his mother’s presence, and which in five minutes afterwards was
+as hastily withdrawn from it and thrown into the fire unopened and
+unread. “John,” as poor Anne called him, knew the writing, and with
+the low cunning of a vulgar mind, fancied he could justly anticipate
+the contents of an appeal from an amiable woman whom he had deluded
+and betrayed, leaving her no consolation in her desertion but that
+which she could not fail to derive from the support of religion and the
+consciousness of her own unspotted virtue.
+
+Yes, Anne, the humble unpretending Anne, was still the gentle, modest
+creature he had found her. Her mind was, perhaps, not so very highly
+cultivated as others in the world, nor were her accomplishments so
+numerous, but she was a woman; and kindness, duty, devotion, and
+disinterestedness were blended in the composition of her character.
+Mr. John Brag would probably have described her in different terms,
+had he ever permitted himself to speak of her, and perhaps would have
+affected to pity the “poor creature,” while he laughed at her fondness
+and credulity. Mr. John Brag was a great talker, and everybody knows
+what that is. The nature and extent of his feelings and regard for the
+once loved of his earlier days may easily be ascertained, by the way in
+which he treated her appeal. He stood and looked at the flames as they
+scorched and finally consumed the paper, and quitted the room perfectly
+satisfied with his firmness and philosophy, thinking, as it appeared,
+with Lord Monteagle’s anonymous friend, that “the danger was past as
+soon as he had burned the letter.”
+
+The writing this letter to one whom she yet believed in heart devoted
+to her, although withheld from making her his wife by considerations
+first instilled into his mind by his late father, and, for all she
+knew, kept alive by his surviving parent, cost poor Anne a severe
+struggle. When it was despatched, it became the sole object of her
+consideration from morning till night. The doubt whether she had done
+wrong,--whether John would think ill of her, or fancy her mercenary or
+presuming,--whether he would receive it as she hoped, and come perhaps
+himself, bearing the relief she sought for her poor mother,--whether
+he would make a point of taking it to her on the day upon which the
+application reached him, the day upon one anniversary of which he had
+given her the very seal with which she had sealed it,--whether it might
+awaken feelings which she was sure he possessed, but which, for the
+reasons we have just stated, had been suffered to lie dormant,--and
+whether----!
+
+But vain were all her hopes--groundless all her fears,--by one rude
+blow the bond between them had been eternally severed; and while the
+poor anxious Anne was pondering these things in her mind, Mr. John Brag
+was dining at the Ship Tavern at Greenwich, with a party of uncommonly
+fine fellows, who, in spite of those leviathans of the deep, the
+steam-ships, which agitate the surface of the once silver Thames into
+a sort of metropolitan sea, had pulled down from Whitehall in their
+accustomed blue shirts, to partake of the fare for which, as well as
+its hospital, Greenwich is so famous.
+
+Day passed after day, and, as the reader may easily anticipate, Anne
+and her application remained unnoticed. In _her_ mind this silence was
+associated with some calamity which must have befallen John, and this
+apprehension added to her other griefs and anxiety; meanwhile, her
+mother’s illness increased, and, almost without the common necessaries
+of life, Anne was at all hazards forced to call in medical assistance.
+
+She had here again a difficult, a delicate task to perform, but it was
+a duty, a filial duty; and who can doubt that the well-regulated mind
+of this now humble girl was soon made up as to the course she was to
+pursue? The reader may have noticed the expression, “_now_ humble,” it
+is meant that he should notice it, because, humble as was and had been
+the position of the mother and her two children, they had been born to
+better things. Anne’s father was the son of a Bristol merchant who had
+amassed considerable property, to which his son succeeded. He married
+early, and, contrary to the advice of his friends, left his native city
+to enter upon a new field of speculation in London.
+
+Those who remember the wonderful prospects held out in the year 1825,
+and who perhaps are even yet suffering from the effects of their
+vast and sudden destruction, may anticipate the termination of Mr.
+Brown’s career at an earlier period. Those who at the present moment
+are assailed on every side by the most plausible professions and the
+most tempting offers of fortunes incalculable, by an embarkation in
+the variously diverging abominations called rail-roads, and who fancy
+a dividend is at hand before a spade has been struck in the ground,
+which it is proposed to disfigure and destroy for the lucre of gain,
+had better take warning by it.--For some two or three years Mr.
+Brown occupied a handsome house, his table was open to his numerous
+mercantile friends, and, in those days, everything that Mr. Brown
+possessed was of the best, everything he did was of the wisest. The
+war which the triumph of Waterloo so gloriously closed, was, at
+the time of Mr. Brown’s prosperity, raging fiercely; every foreign
+port was closed by an embargo; the market was safely shut against
+the importation of an article in general demand, of which he held
+a considerable quantity. The fine and liberal notion struck him of
+buying up at all hazards and all prices this desirable commodity:--he
+did so,--and, although as a young beginner in London not much known,
+he had agents all over the Empire, who were employed by him to keep
+incessantly purchasing, until warehouse after warehouse was stored with
+it, and he became nearly the only holder in the kingdom. Thus, having
+long before expended all his capital in the pursuit, he proposed to
+regulate the market with the turn of his finger. The price advanced, he
+still held; it advanced yet more; and he began to doubt whether he had
+screwed it up to a pitch sufficiently high to answer his purpose, and
+make him a _millionaire_; when, one fine morning, an order in council
+suddenly and unexpectedly opened the long-closed ports, and the next
+week beheld, Mr. Brown an irretrievably ruined bankrupt.
+
+In the pursuit of his infatuating speculation his engagements had
+become incalculably enormous, and the consequent securities unbounded.
+The shock of such a reverse was too much for such a mind, and in the
+midst of recklessness, remorse, and despair, he consummated all his
+other madnesses by suicide.
+
+In the hour of distress, it was shown that no provision had been made
+for his widow and two children. His connexions at Bristol were few,
+and those, greatly offended at his quitting his native city, did not
+feel at all disposed to relieve his relict, whom, however unjustly,
+they thought proper, conveniently enough in order to save their own
+pence, to denounce as the first cause of his increased rate of living,
+to support which he had had recourse to extraordinary means of gain;
+and when all was done that _could_ be done, an annuity of forty pounds
+a year was secured for her, by a subscription amongst a few of her
+husband’s friends in London.
+
+The fall was sudden, dreadful; at that period her son George was about
+eighteen, Anne about twelve. George had received a fair education at
+a school at Clapton or Hackney, I now forget which, and was a fine
+handsome grown young man. Anne was almost too young to appreciate the
+full extent of her misfortune, and her affectionate disposition led her
+thus early to devote all her care to her surviving parent, to whom the
+change in their circumstances and station, to her almost unaccountable,
+only endeared her the more.
+
+George was old enough to know the whole truth, and to feel the
+bitterness of repulse when his mother tried to procure him a mercantile
+situation in the city, and being of a bold and resolute character,
+he left his home without any communication with either his mother or
+sister, and enlisted in an infantry regiment, then in Ireland. It was
+not until his scheme had been irrevocably completed, that he imparted
+the truth to his parent, and then returning to receive her blessing,
+departed for the Emerald Isle with a sort of negative concurrence on
+her part, obtained by the expression of his determination upon the
+point, and an avowal that, if he even could obtain footing in any
+merchant’s counting-house, he felt assured that his disposition and
+feelings would not permit him to continue in it.
+
+George’s removal from her care and charge, however much she lamented
+the separation, of course relieved the widow from considerable expense;
+and the little Anne was not yet of an age to require much outlay; for
+her mother, who had been cruelly misrepresented by her late husband’s
+connexions as being the cause and origin of his follies, was of a most
+domestic turn of mind, and sufficiently accomplished to instruct her
+daughter in as much of ornamental education as it was probable she ever
+would require.
+
+Still it was evident that the annuity which was secured to her would
+not be sufficient to support them without additions derivable from
+some other source; and thus it was that she formed the resolution
+of retiring to one of the villages near town, and turning the minor
+accomplishments which she possessed, to account, in order to increase
+her income. This she did, and, under the blessing of Providence,
+successfully. Undisturbed by the inquiries of any of the friends
+of her prosperity, but encouraged by the respectable inhabitants
+of the neighbourhood in which she had fixed her humble abode, she
+obtained by the sale of numerous fancy articles of her own making,
+and by even humbler employments, a sufficient income to render _her_
+happy, inasmuch as it secured the society of her beloved daughter.
+In Bristol and its neighbourhood the name of Brown, common as it is,
+might from circumstances have attracted the unpleasant curiosity of
+some, and entailed upon her the equally disagreeable commiseration
+or condemnation--coming hand in hand, perhaps--of others; but in the
+neighbourhood of London few people, out of his own immediate circle,
+knew the victim of ill-fated ambition, and all that was said of Mrs.
+Brown in the village in which she located herself was, that she was a
+remarkably nice civil lady-like person, and had evidently been born
+much above the station she then filled.
+
+It was about two years after George’s departure from the home he had
+scarcely inhabited, that the acquaintance between Katharine Brag and
+Nancy Brown commenced. It originated in the fact that Mrs. Brown,
+anxious that her child should improve herself upon certain points
+of education beyond those to which she might herself be competent
+to lead her, or rather, if the truth were told, finding that more
+regularity and restraint were necessary to settle the habits and
+fix the attention of her child, than were likely to be observed or
+enforced at home, resolved on sending her as a day scholar to Lavender
+Lodge, the “Seminary for young Ladies,” at which Miss Brag was--in all
+probability as a set-off for soap and candles--being polished up to
+perfection--this special favour being granted to the widow on account
+of her exemplary conduct, and the universal respect in which she was
+held.
+
+With the girls at Lavender Lodge, little Anne soon became an amazing
+favourite and a general pet. The very circumstance of her returning
+home to dinner, and quitting her companions after school hours, gave
+her a sort of distinction, and made her, as it were, the medium
+of intelligence, and even of communication, by which contraband
+luxuries were sometimes smuggled in, and what are technically called
+“slip-letters,” from the bigger girls to their friends, were smuggled
+out of the seminary. By these acts of kindness, the impropriety of
+which Nancy was then not old enough perfectly to comprehend, she was
+quite the fashion, and the boarders were unanimous in treating her with
+kindness and affection.
+
+Amongst her greatest friends was Katharine Brag, who was more than
+ordinarily good-natured to her, and during the three years Miss Brag
+remained at school before she was pronounced everything that heart
+could wish, Anne had grown up to be more than sixteen years of age--and
+had so far gained the confidence of the head of the establishment, that
+it seemed more than probable she might eventually become a permanent
+assistant in its duties. Circumstances, however, occurred to put an end
+to this probability; for a lady who had taken considerable interest
+in Mrs. Brown’s success, made a proposal to her to establish herself
+in the village of Walworth, near London, where she was certain she
+could ensure her support and patronage in the sale of her various
+works, as well as in the art and mystery of dress-making, which the
+industrious mother had studied, and now practised, to maintain herself
+and her child. This offer, superadded to the desire of Anne herself
+to contribute her share of labour to their joint maintenance, decided
+their removal.
+
+This change of habitation tended rather to confirm the friendship of
+Miss Brag for her friend; for it was effected just about the period at
+which that young lady finally quitted school. The amiable manners of
+Anne again became her passport into the society of the elder Brags; and
+although she was received as the humble companion of the young lady,
+she was so genteel and so clever that they thought (much strengthened
+in their opinions by that of their daughter) that it was greatly to her
+advantage to have such a companion.
+
+In the midst of this happy communion, and just as John Brag had begun
+to look at Anne with eyes not quite indifferent, her brother George
+arrived at home on leave of absence from his regiment, previous to its
+departure for India. He was then a fine handsome young man, of two or
+three and twenty. The military drillings he had undergone had set him
+up, and his figure was just what a figure ought to be. The career he
+had run since he entered the army had been honourable and satisfactory.
+The notice of his officers had very early after his enlistment been
+attracted to the attention, regularity, and assiduity with which he
+performed all his military duties; and a rumour having soon got about
+that he was something better than he seemed to be, he was taken notice
+of by the captain of his company, who, after inquiries, not further
+pushed than he felt consistent with delicacy, and the evident desire of
+the young man himself for a certain degree of concealment, suggested
+him as a fit occupant of the office of paymaster’s clerk, for which
+it was evident he was fully qualified:--he was speedily raised to be
+a corporal, and before his first four years of service were expired,
+had become serjeant-major of his regiment, a circumstance perhaps
+unparalleled in the British service.
+
+In one of those moments which decide the fate of empires and of ladies,
+Katharine Brag met George Brown; it took but one glance of his bright
+eyes to scorch her susceptible heart, and unfortunately or fortunately,
+as the case may be, George Brown reciprocated the feeling. It was no
+difficult matter to get Anne to agree to Katharine’s avowal, that
+she had never seen so charming a person,--an officer too,--the thing
+of all others; for the immediate rank of the young hero “in mufti”
+was never explicitly defined; and while she was contriving all sorts
+of devices to enjoy his society in the participation of the various
+amusements of middling life, her brother John, who had become great
+friends with George for the sake of his sister, fell into all their
+arrangements with the greatest readiness; so that every day in which
+they could manage it, little parties were made for Exhibitions,
+Panoramas, and all the Vauxhalls, Lyceums, Playhouses, and places of
+public resort, where either during the performance or after it was
+over, they might so satisfactorily pair off, as to leave themselves
+counterchanged in couples, to the unqualified delights of that sort of
+honeyed conversation, to which it is as impossible to do justice in the
+repetition, as it is barbarous to interrupt in its progress.
+
+After the play, as George was with her, Anne would stop to supper with
+the old Brags; and then, as John Brag was fond of exercise, he would
+see George and his sister home to Walworth after supper was over; and
+so they went on, until John was desperately in love with Anne, and
+Katharine resolved upon marrying George.
+
+Katharine believed that she had great influence over her father, and,
+from what Anne had told her of her origin, never imagined but that she
+should procure his consent to her marriage with George,--an affair
+which “pressed,” inasmuch as his leave would be out in about three
+weeks, and away he must march with his regiment. So Katharine, one fine
+afternoon, just gently touched upon the subject of Mr. Brown’s good
+qualities, in a _tête-à-tête_ with her papa, and led the conversation
+into a channel which she thought very likely to extort an opinion from
+the old gentleman. She was right;--she succeeded in her speculation,
+and heard, to her infinite horror and amazement, that he would see a
+daughter of his dead at his feet before she should marry what he called
+a “Soger.”
+
+And then forthwith “flared up” the anger of the venerable Brag, who,
+though a really plain straightforward man, and as free from pride
+or affectation as any wax and tallow chandler within the bills of
+mortality, became absolutely furious at the notion of this dress-maker
+and her brother,--people admitted only just to please his daughter’s
+fancy,--presuming and daring, and all _that_: which fury ended in a
+positive prohibition of any further intercourse between the parties;
+a mandate for which was accordingly issued, sanctioned of course by
+Mrs. Brag, who however, in yielding her accordance to the decree, could
+not help thinking that Anne and her brother were as nice a couple of
+people as ever she had seen in all her born days.
+
+It was at this juncture that the friendship of Anne for Katharine Brag
+and her affection for George were called into action. It was then she
+contrived meetings for them, to which Kate came escorted by John, and
+George accompanied by herself. Up to this period these had been matters
+of course; but when old Brag shut his doors against the Browns, and
+handed his daughter over to the care and surveillance of her brother
+John, it became another sort of affair, and as John was too happy to
+bask in Nancy’s smiles, he gladly squired his love-sick sister to their
+appointments; and thus matters went on for a fortnight or so, when
+Kitty Brag ran away with the young Sergeant, who, having as well as his
+bride attained the years of discretion, procured a licence and became
+man and wife,--a fact which came to the knowledge of the respectable
+parents of the bride by her non-appearance at breakfast, and a return
+of “_non est inventa_” made to a sort of warrant sent after her into
+her bed-room, whence she had decamped very early indeed in the morning.
+
+From that morning neither Brag the elder nor Mrs. Brag had ever seen
+their child up to the period of the commencement of my narrative; Mr.
+Brag, as we know, had been gathered to his fathers; and George and his
+wife were still in India.
+
+After the wedding and flight the proscribed Anne used to see John, who
+contrived, unknown to the old people, to visit her and her mother as
+usual. This acquaintance was for some time continued as the reader may
+have already discovered; its happy termination being only delayed, as
+Brag had himself said, until the death of his father should leave him
+free to act for himself. Meanwhile the said father having then but one
+object left upon which to lavish all his paternal affection, gave his
+son counsel and promises which led him to aspire, and, as he said,
+“look up,” and so Johnny by degrees became less ardent and infinitely
+more civil towards Miss Brown, until by those gentle gradations of
+coolness which fond and anxious hearts can only justly estimate,
+she saw him seldom, and heard from him rarely. His father’s death
+occurred,--Brag immediately took a higher flight, and having furbished
+himself up by dint of private lessons and evening tuition, was ready,
+when he came into possession of the business, to abandon the course
+which his blinded parent had pursued, to enable him to cut a figure,
+and became the thing which the reader has already seen him to be.
+
+The intelligence which Mrs. Brown had from time to time received of
+George was extremely satisfactory; he had been specially noticed by
+Major Mopes, (the military secretary of Sir Cadwallader Adamthwaite,
+the commander-in-chief at the presidency,) who had, upon the
+recommendation of the paymaster of the regiment, whose clerk he had
+been, appointed him to a similar situation in his office; a step which
+George, who was full of ambition, wrote home to say he hoped might lead
+to better things.
+
+What they might be, Mrs. Brown of Walworth did not exactly understand;
+however, he appeared happy, spoke affectionately of his wife, and
+looked forward to the next ten or fifteen years as likely to bring him
+home again. To Anne, a prospective view of ten or fifteen years was but
+a sad one; the loss of Katharine had been to her severe and trying,
+and every month, and every year grew sadder, until at last the only
+consolation left which she derived from George’s letters, was lost,
+and at the time she wrote the appeal to John, with which the chapter
+begins, she had not, as she says, heard from him for more than two
+years.
+
+Then it was that real sorrow and bitterness of heart came over
+her,--her mother’s illness, her brother’s silence, her lover’s
+falsehood, her own destitution,--it was a dreadful combination of
+evils, against which she had to bear up. One other blow was only
+wanting to overwhelm her,--and it fell.
+
+There _are_ moments when the most serious calamities affect us less
+than matters which to the million may appear of no moment or importance
+whatever; a look, a frown, a smile, nothing in themselves, have, when
+the mind is wrought up to a certain pitch of excitement, a power more
+dreadful than the gravest evils of another day.
+
+I have already said that, after waiting for an answer to the letter
+she wrote to “John,”--on her birth-day,--sealed with his seal,--and
+moistened with her tears--(the letter he destroyed unread),--she felt
+the absolute necessity of overcoming all scruples, and conquering all
+repugnance to what might be considered the solicitation of charity in
+favour of her mother; and accordingly she set forth from their humble
+dwelling, leaving her sinking parent in the care of a temporary nurse,
+to call upon a well-known professional man in the neighbourhood of
+Burlington Gardens, of whom she had often heard the lady who first
+induced them to take up their abode in Walworth (but who now was
+herself dead)--speak in the highest terms. Anne had indeed seen him at
+that lady’s house, and felt that that circumstance gave her something
+like confidence to make an appeal to him on behalf of her sick mother,
+which she would not have felt with regard to a perfect stranger.
+
+Behold then this fair, fond, and affectionate daughter on her
+way--trembling and doubting, as she hurried along the crowded
+streets,--her eyes cast down or heedlessly wandering, while her
+thoughts are all concentered on the pillow on which her dying mother’s
+aching head was laid; a prayer to Heaven resting on her lips, and
+hope, strengthened and sanctified by the silent appeal, glowing in her
+heart. Just as she reaches the neighbourhood of the worthy man who is
+to minister worldly relief to her parent’s afflictions, her way is
+intercepted,--there is a crowd--a stoppage,--she is rudely pressed
+upon,--stared at, by an unmeaning insolent countenance belonging to a
+tall, tiger-looking, smoke-dried dandy, upon whose arm is leaning a
+short, smart, vulgar-genteel companion. The tall fellow continues his
+gaze for a moment; the short fellow, emulating this impertinence, and
+anxious to behold the beauty who has attracted his friend’s attention,
+proceeds to the manual experiment of pinching her arm. The suffering
+wanderer turns indignantly to repel the insult, and sees before her,
+grinning and grimacing, like a baboon, that paragon of pretension, Mr.
+John Brag.
+
+At such a moment such a sight was, indeed, a trial;--but if it struck
+daggers into her heart thus to be treated by _him_, who once, and in
+other days, had vowed his vow of love and faith to her, what must she
+have felt, when, upon beholding her pallid agitated countenance, she
+saw the fellow wink at his companion, and heard him exclaim with the
+peculiar elegance of the school to which he aspired to belong, “Ho,
+ho,--come along, my lord--no go--this _is_ a mistake,”--and clutching
+his tall friend’s arm, hurry on, shrugging up his shoulders in a sort
+of mock despair, and no doubt giving his own version of the nature of
+the previous acquaintance which had evidently subsisted between himself
+and the supposed stranger!
+
+Anne stood still for a moment--had she tried to move forward, she
+would have fallen;--her breath faltered--the blood seemed to ebb and
+flow in her heart--her eyes swam with tears;--she was better,--she
+continued her way, and reached the physician’s door,--it was opened
+to her, and she was shown into a parlour where those who came under
+similar circumstances were accustomed to wait:--there it was that her
+feelings had way,--she scarcely had entered, before floods of tears
+poured down her pale cheeks, and they who had come for advice and
+assistance themselves, were eager and active in her service. As soon
+as intelligence of the circumstance had been conveyed to the master
+of the house, he made his appearance in the apartment, and seeing the
+extent of poor Anne’s agitation, caused her to be removed into another
+room, where every attention was paid her which the exigency of her case
+required.
+
+Her agitation, however, appeared to increase, and the moment she was
+sufficiently recovered to attempt to explain herself, she relapsed into
+a state so painful and alarming, that the excellent man, satisfied
+by the circumstances that she was laboring under some excitement, any
+attempt to soothe which, upon the instant would be perfectly vain
+and useless, placed her in the care of his housekeeper, (for whom he
+dispatched a servant,) with directions to keep the young lady perfectly
+quiet, and endeavour to soothe and calm her mind until he should
+return, after having seen those patients who were in the habit, at
+stated hours, of calling upon _him_ at his own house.
+
+And while all this was going on, Mr. John Brag and his friend Lord Tom
+Towzle, who, as the reader perhaps has anticipated, was his companion
+upon the occasion, and whom although he “Tommied” him and “Towzled”
+him in his absence, he “my lorded” in his presence to an immeasurable
+extent of vulgarity, not merely to toady the stripling but to be
+overheard by the passing crowd--were, as I suspected, engaged in an
+elaborate detail of Jack’s foregone adventures with Anne, which, as
+Lord Tom did not care whether Brag were hanged or not, so as he rode
+his horse “Slap-bang” to win on the following Thursday, he might just
+as well have saved himself the trouble of repeating.
+
+Upon what small things great things turn, say ten thousand writers,--so
+is it proved by this adventure of Mr. Brag’s. Worlds would not have
+convinced Anne Brown of his falsehood and heartlessness, had this event
+not occurred; they were now proclaimed--established,--practically
+established. His first assault might have been mere rudeness,--not
+likely to endear him to one who fancied him devoted to her; but when
+the discovery _had been_ made, and he saw whom he had outraged, to
+conduct himself as he had done, was enough to decide the question.
+Thus it is that we learn more in an hour from a lecture illustrated
+by experiments, than we can collect from written treatises or printed
+instructions in a year. The art, or science, whatever it may be, is
+embodied,--you have it before you,--and the very facility with which
+the professor performs his operations, makes the spectator himself a
+proficient.
+
+So was it with Anne:--she had seen what no book could have taught her,
+she had witnessed _that_ which no other evidence would have induced her
+to believe. The blow was severe, but perhaps it was providential.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Having safely housed our unhappy girl in the house of the worthy
+physician, we may perhaps be permitted to cast our eyes towards the gay
+widow and her sensitive sister, who, truth to be told, were suffering
+as much in _their_ way as our more humble friend from Walworth.
+
+Mrs. Dallington, whose perception was remarkably clear, and whose
+judgment was particularly sound, had for some time been fully aware of
+the state of Sir Charles Lydiard’s heart and mind--for his mind and
+his heart were waging a perpetual war with each other; nor, however
+solicitous she might be (I admit that supposition merely for argument’s
+sake) to bring their acquaintance to a happy termination, did she
+entirely regret the caution and consideration with which, it was so
+evident, the fastidious baronet bent his steps towards the hymeneal
+altar. She felt assured that, if he judged her rightly and fairly, she
+should eventually possess his entire affection; and she also felt, that
+to obtain it after such a scrutiny, would be to secure it for the rest
+of her life.
+
+It must be allowed that she sometimes thought he had considered and
+examined and scrutinized quite long enough, and believed that the time
+had arrived when she should have an opportunity of saying yea or nay,
+as the case might be; but, whenever the crisis seemed at hand, some
+new doubt, some new apprehension, appeared to be conjured up, the
+bright vision was dissipated, and she remained still the expecting,
+disappointed Mrs. Dallington.
+
+Blanche, on the other hand, received a proposal from Rushton almost
+every day in the week--if at least the most violent protestations of
+love and devotion might be so construed; but the _brusquerie_ of his
+character evinced itself so perpetually, that the chances were, that
+the evening of the brightest day ended in a storm. Blanche was quite
+aware of the disposition she had to deal with; and although flurried
+and fluttered by her lover’s extraordinary animation and vivacity,
+she resolved not to surrender her hand, whatever might be the fate
+of her heart, until she was convinced that her hero was calmed into
+a fit state for domestication. In point of fact, Rushton was quite
+as jealous of Blanche as Lydiard was of her sister; but his jealousy
+was of a different caste: he smiled, frowned, laughed, scolded, and
+did ten thousand unaccountable things, just as he was acted upon by
+passing events, while Lydiard never suffered himself to be betrayed
+into any external evidence of what occupied his mind: and thus the pair
+of lovers continued to make themselves as uncomfortable as they made
+those, whom upon all essential points were devotedly their own.
+
+Affairs were in this delicate position when Brag, who was encouraged in
+all his absurdities by his noble friend Lord Tom, partly to gratify
+his vanity, and so secure his aid, if required, upon emergencies, and
+partly to afford sport to his lordship’s friends, opened his heart
+in a kind of hypothetical way to the young lord with regard to the
+widow and her sister, to which train of thought he had been led by the
+conversation he had previously had with Rushton in the street.
+
+“I don’t see,” said Jack, “why--I--shouldn’t do as well as my
+neighbours, in the matrimonial line. I look on, at others who play at
+courting with wonder; they seem to me to make no move. Now there’s Sir
+Charles Lydiard and the widow--they don’t care a fig for each other,
+and yet they are to be married, as the world says. As for Blanche, she
+seems to me to care as little for Rushton. Why, hang it! if I wanted
+to marry either of them, it would not be a week’s work. No, no!--faint
+heart--eh! you know. I’d just make either of them buckle to, in half
+the time, and no mistake.”
+
+“Have you ever thought of such a thing, Jack?” said Lord Tom, who,
+piqued by the coldness with which the widow had always received him,
+felt by no means ill-disposed to encourage his tiger in any scheme
+likely to make a commotion in the family.
+
+“Why,” said Jack, “I can’t say that I have; but I--of course, I dare
+say it means no more than what I always meet with--but I _have_ thought
+that there was something uncommon odd about the widow’s eyes.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Lord Tom,--“and very handsome eyes they are too:
+besides, Jack, she is rich, and what they call in the city ‘well to
+do.’”
+
+“Mum!” said Jack--“know her fortune to a fraction: didn’t overlook that
+in the calculation.”
+
+“Oh!” said his lordship--“then you _have_ been thinking rather
+seriously upon the subject.”
+
+“Not seriously,” replied the tiger, “only I was considering that Sir
+Charles is what I call losing time--waiting upon her too long, as we
+should say at Epsom. It would be a good match,--not that I care for
+money--no more than my father did. Did I ever tell you of my governor
+and his hundred-pound note?”
+
+“Not that I recollect,” said his lordship, although he did.
+
+“Why, _my_ father,” said Jack, “was one day walking along the Strand,
+when, just as he came by the end of Buckingham Street, a fellow picked
+his pocket of his pocket-book, full of memorandums, letters, and other
+papers, “of no use but to the owner,” and a hundred pound note besides.
+What d’ye think he did, as soon as he found out his loss?”
+
+“Went to Bow Street, perhaps,” said Lord Tom.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Stepped to the Bank and stopped it.”
+
+“Couldn’t--didn’t know the number.”
+
+“Caught the thief, then.”
+
+“No,” said Jack, “not a bit of it. The minute he found he had lost it,
+he went home and got another.”
+
+“In order to have it stolen like the former,” said Lord Tom.
+
+“Not a bit of it,” replied Jack; “just to show how little he cared
+about money. So with _me_; I don’t care for money, except as it buys
+money’s worth. What’s a guinea in a box?--not better than a brass
+button in a bag. But still one cannot marry without the stumpy.”
+
+“Then try the widow,” said Lord Tom; “you have my full permission--only
+don’t quote me as authority. You will drive Sir Charles either into a
+proposal or the Serpentine river; so at all events something will come
+of it.”
+
+“But, my lord,” said Jack, “since we _have_ touched upon this matter,
+I will be candid. I have just said I don’t value money; but, if it
+weren’t for the fortune, I would rather marry the sister.”
+
+“And has _she_ been kind too,” said Lord Tom.
+
+“Why,” said Jack, simpering, and affecting to look modest, “I can’t say
+kind--uncommon goodnatured--and--laughs--and all that: and I have heard
+a long-headed old fellow, who knows the sex, say, that if you can once
+make a grave female laugh, the day is your own.”
+
+“Provided always,” said his lordship, “that she laughs _with_ and not
+_at_ you; the difference is surprisingly great.”
+
+“Oh! Blanche is no ways whatsoever satirical,” said the tallow
+chandler:--“and, hang me! if I was asked, I should say there wasn’t a
+pin to choose between them.”
+
+“Take my advice, Jack,” said the mischievous lordling--“try them both.
+Manage your matters well--lead them both on--there is no chance of
+their confiding in each other, because as they are both supposed to be
+engaged, neither would choose to trust the other with any proof of her
+infidelity.”
+
+“Shall I write to the widow,” said Jack, “and talk to the sister”--
+
+“Write, man! are you mad?” said Lord Tom. “Never write--that _would_ be
+a pretty affair. Who knows how notes may miscarry--how writing-desks
+may be left open, or if not, be broken open? Besides, they might, upon
+so strange a proceeding as that, compare notes, and what a pretty mess
+you would be in then! No; sound them--try them--get them apart, and
+ascertain the extent of their interest in you.”
+
+Brag listened to all this advice of his noble friend, believing it to
+be given _de bonne foi_; and although there appeared difficulties in
+the delicate process which his lordship suggested, and which, by a mind
+like Brag’s, were not perfectly easy to be surmounted, he thought he
+comprehended the general tenor of his instructions, which had for its
+object his making himself uncommonly agreeable to both parties.
+
+“Lead Blanche on,” said Lord Tom, “by a course of negative
+officiousness; be always near her, devoted and unaffected. Let her fall
+into friendship; sympathize with her in all her feelings, agree in all
+her opinions--but never seem to do so with any defined object: thus in
+a fortnight or three weeks you will obtain her confidence. She will be
+convinced you esteem her and value her, and are anxious for her comfort
+and happiness; then she’ll grow kind and familiar, and, thrown off her
+guard by your respectful behaviour, will begin to evince an undisguised
+wish for your society. She will at last feel that you are somehow, she
+can scarcely tell how, essential to her happiness, and when you have
+got her into this blessed state of amiability, off with your disguise
+of friendship, like the hero of a tragedy, and profess yourself her
+lover. Then”--
+
+“Ay, ay,” interrupted Jack, “that’s all very well, my dear lord, and
+a very pretty month’s amusement it would be, to do all you prescribe:
+but, then, what will Frank Rushton be about to let me? He’s as fiery as
+a dragon, and as jealous as old Nick. No, no, whatever is done, must be
+done clean, off-hand, smack smooth, and no mistake.”
+
+“Then,” said Lord Tom, “if that’s your principle, you had better take
+a shot at the widow; she’s not so likely to be flurried by a hurry;
+and, besides, your activity will form such a striking contrast to
+the respectable icicle now hanging about her, that you will in all
+probability carry the day by a _coup de main_.”
+
+“Just after my own heart,” said Jack; “by Job! I’ll have a shy at her.”
+
+“Do,” said his lordship, “and when you are installed in the town-house
+and family mansion in the west or north, or wherever it is, make
+yourself agreeable; fill your house with your friends, and let us be
+jolly.”
+
+“We’ll live like fighting cocks,” said Jack, “you only just see. I’ll
+do it regular; there sha’nt be a fellow in the king’s dominions who
+shall beat me.”
+
+“Success attend you, Jack!” said his lordship, “but don’t forget
+Thursday.”
+
+“I’ll be punctual to the minute,” said Jack; “my watch is a
+regular-built chronometer. You shall find me at the starting-post, all
+right, and no mistake.”
+
+And so the friends parted, Brag having not the slightest intention of
+ever risking a second visit to Wrigglesford, or a second attempt to
+trespass on the surly farmer’s grounds, who had threatened him for his
+former proceeding; and moreover being resolved to devote the next few
+days to the achievement of one of the beauties, of both of whom he was
+convinced, in his small mind, he was a regularly established favourite.
+
+Meanwhile we must not forget poor Anne Brown, whom we left under the
+care of the physician’s housekeeper, and who, when she recovered from
+the agitation which kept her senseless for some hours, found herself
+with her head reclining upon the arm of that highly respectable
+functionary.
+
+It would require a much greater space than I am permitted in this hasty
+narrative, to describe the excellent qualities of Dr. Mead, the eminent
+and able practitioner to whom the anxious daughter had prevailed upon
+herself to apply for advice and assistance; but it is absolutely
+necessary that the reader should be made acquainted to a certain extent
+with the attributes of his character, even beyond the pale of his
+profession, the exercise of which seemed rather the fruit of a desire
+to do good to others, than of any venal feeling of self-aggrandizement.
+
+Although there exists no documentary evidence to prove his descent
+from the eminent physician of the same name, it seems not entirely
+improbable that the fortuitous circumstance of a similarity of
+patronymic and profession might have conduced almost unconsciously
+to a similarity of feeling and disposition between them. Matthew
+Mead, the father of the famous doctor, was a nonconforming divine:
+our Dr. Mead’s father was an orthodox clergyman. If the famous Mead
+married early, our Mead was yet single; and whatever turn he might
+have had for the fine arts, or whatever veneration he entertained
+for their professors, his means, although fully adequate to the
+maintenance of a highly respectable establishment and equipage, were
+not yet sufficiently extensive to emulate his namesake as a patron or
+protector. Still, his income might have been much larger, had he not
+upon every occasion where, by a benevolent curiosity, he discovered the
+slenderness of a patient’s means, forborne to accept the fees which
+from the rich and great he did not hesitate to accept, and which his
+spreading fame and rising reputation produced in very considerable
+numbers.
+
+In his manners mild and soothing, in his conversation unaffected
+and intelligent, his study appeared to be to “minister to the mind
+diseased,” as well as to the body; and his approach to the sick chamber
+was hailed by the watchful invalid rather as a relief from pain and
+suffering in itself, than as the mere business visit of a professional
+man, coming in the ordinary routine of duty to enquire and prescribe.
+
+With feelings and a disposition like this, the benevolence of his
+heart beaming in his countenance, and the sympathy which he felt for
+sorrow and sadness expressed in language the most gentle and in a tone
+the most harmonious, it is not surprising that Dr. Mead should have
+speedily reassured poor Anne, to whom, as soon as she was sufficiently
+recovered to be conscious of her situation, he was summoned by the
+housekeeper, and whom he was greatly surprised, upon inquiry, to find
+not a patient, but merely the emissary from one who sought his advice.
+
+It was in a moment evident to his searching eye, that the agitation
+under which she had been suffering, and from which she was not yet
+quite recovered, must have had its origin in some more sudden event,
+and one of more recent occurrence than the illness of her mother: he
+resolved to question her upon the point; but a recurrence of all the
+worst symptoms induced him to forego any further search into a matter,
+in fact, disconnected with the object of her visit to his house.
+
+That object was immediately attained. The excellent man ordered his
+carriage to be got ready instantly, and directed the housekeeper,
+who had been in attendance on Anne, to accompany her to her mother’s
+house, and to return home with the carriage, telling her that he would
+himself, having called upon one or two patients in his immediate
+neighbourhood on foot, proceed to visit his new patient at a later
+hour; giving as a reason for this proceeding the absolute necessity of
+his seeing those persons before his departure for Walworth, and the
+probable anxiety of Mrs. Brown for the safety of her daughter, if she
+should delay her return until he should be able to accompany her.
+
+To some practitioners, this delicacy on the part of our doctor might
+appear somewhat too refined, the obvious mode of proceeding being, to
+have handed the young lady into the carriage, and driven with her to
+her mother’s residence; but Mead felt otherwise. He had odd notions
+upon many points; and beyond what he considered the main object of
+this arrangement, the fact, that an entirely unexpected visit from a
+stranger might not altogether suit the convenience of an establishment
+so confined as that of Mrs. Brown’s, did not slip his regard or
+consideration.
+
+When Anne reached home, she had a hard part to play. The anxiety she
+felt for her mother; the pang she received when she saw the sunken
+eye of her beloved parent fixed--not tearless--on her returned child,
+filled with a half-sanguine, half-hopeless expression, and heard her
+breathing heavily, made her heart ache to its very centre. Filled with
+gratitude to their expected benefactor, she endeavoured to explain to
+her suffering mother the extent of his kindness and consideration,
+while the recollection of the callous barbarity of the man she had once
+loved, and whom she believed to have loved _her_, wrung her to the very
+soul.
+
+That she was indignant at the treatment she had experienced, who shall
+doubt?--but who, that knows woman, will doubt either that in the heart
+where Love has once dwelt, the very memory of his presence there, will
+extenuate the fault which should make the object hateful.
+
+This generous, gentle feeling turned all the force of the indignation
+which ought to have been directed against the paltry pretender
+himself, towards his associates, to whose baleful influence Anne
+entirely attributed the astounding change which had taken place in his
+manners. Even the neglect of her letter was laid to the same account;
+but yet what made the wound he had inflicted rankle the more, was
+the impossibility at the present juncture of risking her mother’s
+tranquillity--perhaps existence, by telling her what had occurred, or
+of accounting for her lengthened absence by explaining the cause of the
+indisposition to which it was attributable.
+
+In less than two hours after Anne’s return the doctor, true to his
+promise, arrived. It is scarcely possible to describe her feelings as
+he entered the room where her mother lay; it seemed as if Hope had
+revived in her breast--that there was somebody who felt an interest for
+them. She drew back from the bed-side, and hid her face in her hands
+to conceal her emotion: she cried like a child, and tears again were a
+relief to her aching heart.
+
+The kind doctor’s questions to Mrs. Brown were few: the case needed
+little enquiry--it was a sinking of nature, caused, as it seemed to
+him, less by bodily ills than mental affliction, and considerably
+accelerated by the want of proper air, and, he almost feared,
+nourishment. He wrote a prescription, rather however as a matter of
+form, satisfactory to the patient, than with any view of the success of
+medicine, and then, having taken leave of his patient, beckoned Anne to
+follow him from the apartment.
+
+“Your mother must be removed as soon as she can bear the fatigue,” said
+the doctor. “Change of air and diet are absolutely necessary.”
+
+Anne heard the fiat in silence, and again tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+“I should think,” continued Dr. Mead, “that with care and a proper
+regimen the removal might be effected in four or five days.”
+
+Still Anne remained silent and trembling, her eyes cast down upon the
+ground.
+
+“You should contrive to amuse her mind,” said the doctor; “she should
+not refuse to see her friends.”
+
+“God help us!” sobbed Anne, unable longer to conceal her
+agitation,--“we have no friends! What is to be done, Heaven knows! She
+must be moved; your kind directions shall be obeyed, sir;--I”--
+
+“My dear young lady,” said Mead, “you wrong yourself, and _me_, when
+you say you have no friends. In _me_ you have a friend. Rely on
+Providence, and never despair:--friends will always be raised up for
+confiding piety, for suffering virtue, and for filial duty in distress.
+I will not indelicately press my enquiries, but you must permit me to
+act upon my own advice. _I_ am the friend your mother must admit. I
+will call here to-morrow; and I think, without putting either of you
+to much inconvenience, I can secure you a comfortable residence in a
+worthy and respectable family, in a desirable climate. _I_ must manage
+all this; and perhaps I may be able, at no distant period, to give
+you and your mother a good reason why she need not feel herself under
+any serious obligation to me:--upon this point I will not trouble you
+to-day,--you have had worry and agitation enough. Keep yourself calm
+and quiet; cheer your mother’s hopes--there is no fear of a dangerous
+result; upon that point I will stake my reputation. Let her have the
+medicine I have written for, and to-morrow, by one, I shall see you
+again.”
+
+Saying which, he shook hands with the grateful Anne, and proceeded to
+his carriage.
+
+At no period of our lives does kindness so powerfully affect us as
+when it comes immediately after we have received some cruel blow. The
+affectionate tone and spirit of the doctor’s consolatory address struck
+to Anne’s heart, and she returned to her mother, blessing God who had
+raised up such a help to them in the hour of gloom and adversity.
+
+The doctor’s benevolence did not stop here, even for the day. In the
+evening, whilst Anne was preparing the best refreshment she could
+contrive to procure with but slender means of purchase and small skill
+in cookery, the housekeeper of the excellent doctor arrived, bringing
+with her, sundry little delicacies, and some wine which her master
+“had taken the liberty of sending, because by experience he knew its
+soundness and excellence of quality, and was therefore sure it would
+be serviceable to his patient in her particular case;” in short, every
+comfort was secured to her that sympathy could suggest or art provide;
+and, as Anne herself said, the very feelings which such attentions
+inspired, contributed of themselves materially to exhilarate and revive
+her poor mother, whose bodily ailments, as Mead had surmised, were
+painfully aggravated by mental depression.
+
+And yet, grateful to Providence as Anne was, with a heart overflowing
+with thankfulness to the generous, noble-minded man who in a few hours
+had converted a house of mourning into a house of hope, if not of
+happiness,--when she laid her head upon the pillow near her mother, who
+slept tranquilly, her first thoughts were of that unworthy being by
+whom she had been first insulted and then repudiated even as a common
+acquaintance, in the street that morning.
+
+It seemed like a dream to her even then. Prepared as she must have
+been, and indeed had told him she was, eternally to resign any claim of
+a tender nature upon his heart, she could not bear the thought of being
+spurned by the man for whom she had permitted herself not only to feel,
+but admit that she felt, an affection. That she had not deserved such
+usage was self-evident, and that she should receive it particularly
+after her last appeal, was galling and distracting beyond endurance.
+Little did she think how perfectly disconnected with that appeal his
+conduct was, or suspect how he had treated her last letter.
+
+These thoughts, and those of early days, were naturally blended in her
+mind with the memory of her brother George, whose long silence was
+another source of anxiety and agitation; nor could she forget, besides
+the tenderer ties to John, the closeness of their connexion by George’s
+marriage. If George had been at home, thought Anne, he would not have
+behaved so--but George too has forgotten us. All those who once were
+dear to us, and we to them, are gone! and we are helped and comforted
+by the stranger upon whom we have no claim, and who has no tie to us
+but his own benevolence.
+
+In the morning, Mrs. Brown awoke after a refreshing sleep, very much
+better than even her watchful daughter could have hoped. It was but
+too evident that the physician had rightly decided on the character
+of her complaint, and the absolute necessity of a change of regimen
+in the first instance, to be followed up by a removal from the close
+atmosphere of a small room in a gas-lighted suburban village to a
+purer air. Indeed, so very much better did her mother appear, that
+Anne repeated to her the verbal prescription of the doctor, adding the
+proposal he had made of providing them with a comfortable residence in
+a family known to himself.
+
+For three days did Dr. Mead continue his visits punctually, bringing
+with him upon each occasion some little luxury prepared for use,
+under the plea that he was most anxious his patient’s food should be
+dressed according to rule, and that he could not be satisfied unless
+his own servants were the operators, under his own immediate direction.
+At the expiration of a week he pronounced her capable of bearing the
+fatigue of removal; and on the following Saturday evening Mrs. Brown
+and her daughter found themselves established in a delightful cottage
+surrounded by gardens and fields, within four miles of town, the master
+and mistress of which appeared the devoted servants of the worthy
+doctor, and vied with each other in showing attention and courtesy to
+their new inmates.
+
+With returning health, there arose in Mrs. Brown’s mind an irresistible
+feeling of embarrassment connected with her present situation. She
+found herself and her daughter placed in a position of ease and
+comfort, with the consciousness hanging over her that she was incapable
+of affording the luxuries which she was enjoying, and a sensitive
+unwillingness either to trespass upon the kindness of their benefactor,
+or if that kindness were merely limited to the recommendation of their
+new residence, equally anxious not to involve herself in expenses which
+she was aware that she could not defray.
+
+The doctor’s hours of visiting his patient were different from those
+which he had fixed before their removal. He came in the evenings,
+partook of their tea, and sat longer and stayed later each evening
+that he came--and so a week wore away--and yet Mrs. Brown had not the
+courage to put those questions which she had resolved somehow to ask,
+and to which her medical friend’s conduct certainly did not appear
+likely to afford any practical solution; for when he congratulated her
+upon the improvement of her health, he alluded to a trial of some new
+medicine, about the effects of which upon her constitution he was very
+sanguine, and which he should begin with, in “a week or two.”
+
+The words had scarce passed his lips, when the eyes of mother and
+daughter met, not unseen by the doctor, who immediately added to what
+he had already said:--“Perhaps you may be of opinion that in that time
+you will have no need of any medicine at all.”
+
+This seemed to be an occasion which Mrs. Brown might seize, of coming
+to an explanation of her feelings, and she availed herself of it
+accordingly; and, difficult as was the task to perform, she contrived
+to make the doctor understand the delicacy of her position, and the
+apprehensions under which she laboured.
+
+“My dear madam,” said Mead, “I am delighted that you have given me
+an opportunity of speaking upon this matter. As the worthy people of
+this house can tell you, or may perhaps have told you, you are not the
+first patient I have recommended to their care; and that when such an
+event happens, I consider them my guests during their residence here.
+In _your_ case, however, there are circumstances very different from
+those which occur in many others, as far as I am concerned:--you have,
+naturally enough, forgotten _me_; but we have met before the occasion
+upon which I recently visited you.”
+
+“Indeed!” said the lady, somewhat incredulously.
+
+“Indeed,” replied the physician, “I have dined in your house, madam,
+more than once. I was not aware of this fact when first I called on
+you, but circumstances and coincidences led me to institute an enquiry,
+and I found in _you_, madam, the widow of the man to whom I may,
+without exaggeration, attribute my success in life, and the place I now
+hold in society and my profession.”
+
+“You surprise me exceedingly,” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“It is now more than four-and-twenty years since,” said Dr. Mead,
+“that I was recommended to the notice of Mr. Brown by a friend of his
+and a connexion of mine, then living at Bristol; and upon my arrival
+in London I was, in consequence of that introduction, invited to your
+house, where, as I have already said, I dined more than once. But it
+was not by mere commonplace hospitality that Mr. Brown proved the
+warmth and sincerity of his feelings towards me. Upon one occasion,
+when an opportunity presented itself--in all human probability the
+deciding opportunity of my life for furthering my professional views--a
+sum of money was necessary to the accomplishment of my wishes, of
+which I was not possessed. Had not Mr. Brown at that time generously
+assisted me, I must have relinquished the object I had in view, the
+realization of which, proved, as I have already said, the foundation of
+my fortunes. I have now, I think, said sufficient to overcome all your
+scruples with regard to my present conduct; and I only rejoice that the
+opportunity is afforded me of proving to you and this dear young lady,
+that there is still in the world such a sentiment as Gratitude.”
+
+“This is most extraordinary!” said Anne.
+
+“For several years,” continued Dr. Mead, “after my return from the
+Continent, I endeavoured to find out the widow of my benefactor, but
+without success, and I look upon that as one of the most fortunate
+hours of my life in which the suffering daughter of my first friend
+came to require my assistance, attracted to me by a reputation which
+her father had so materially contributed to establish. Now,” added
+he, “you may look on me with feelings far different from those which
+have hitherto occupied your hearts and minds:--in me you see only the
+_protegé_ endeavouring as much as in his power lies, to evince his
+thankfulness where it is so justly due.”
+
+“What are we to say to you?” said the agitated parent.
+
+“Nothing, nothing,” interrupted Mead. “Permit me to continue my visits,
+now, luckily not rendered professionally necessary. Let me entreat
+you to remain where you are, and allow me, whenever I can, to come
+hither and enjoy in your society, and that of your exemplary daughter,
+a repose after the hurries and worries of a London life, which I have
+long but vainly sought.”
+
+Nobody can doubt what, under the circumstances, was the course Mrs.
+Brown pursued, although, it must be confessed, that she even then,
+had her doubts as to the truth of the doctor’s narrative; regarding
+the statement of his obligations to her husband, and his consequent
+success in life, rather as the fruits of an inventive faculty, exerted
+in order to overcome her scruples and satisfy her delicacy, than as a
+matter-of-fact bit of history.
+
+Of herself, she had not the slightest recollection of the name of her
+new old friend in the catalogue of visiters at her house; nor could
+she recall to her mind the personal appearance of any guest at her
+husband’s hospitable board which bore a resemblance to the doctor.
+A quarter of a century had elapsed, and the tallow-faced pupil of
+the hospitals had grown into the mellow-tinted arbiter of the mortal
+destinies of men; and if the doctor had been sufficiently ungallant
+(which doctors never are) to have made an ample confession on _his_
+part, it is quite certain he must have said, that he found not in the
+sinking widow whom he had restored, any remains of the charms and
+attractions which had in his early days characterized the gay and
+dashing wife.
+
+Poor Brown however had, in the zenith of his career, been as hospitable
+as a Madeira merchant, and was wont to welcome to his table men of
+all trades and nations, all callings and professions. He held it to be
+part of his business to cement connexions by social intercourse, and
+therefore while he kept in fact, open house, it was morally impossible
+for his lady, who was not much interested in the casual guests “below
+the salt,” to recollect all their names or persons. Still she could
+hardly divest herself of the idea that the doctor’s history was a
+soothing fiction; although her daughter, whose opinion of the said
+doctor was somehow more favourable than that of her parent, declared
+her conviction that he was much too honourable, too candid, and too
+sincere, to endeavour to carry even a favourite point by deception or
+misrepresentation.
+
+How this paragon of physicians turned out in the wearing, we may
+perhaps live to see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+It was a short time after this, that Mr. Brag was called upon to
+perform a feat for the amusement of his aristocratic friends, which,
+however powerful the effect it actually did produce, terminated in a
+manner less agreeable to the actor than the audience.
+
+Upon our hero’s arrival one day at the lodgings of Lord Tom Towzle,
+he found his lordship and two other worthies concocting an answer
+to a matrimonial advertisement which had appeared in the columns
+of that most fashionable of all journals, The Morning Post; and
+Jack’s appearance to take his seat in such a council was hailed with
+enthusiasm;--in fact, he was the very man to undertake the conduct of
+the whole affair.
+
+The advertisement ran thus:--
+
+  “MATRIMONY.--A widow lady, in good circumstances and of high
+  respectability, being, from causes which she will be most happy
+  to explain, left much alone, is desirous of again entering the
+  married state, provided she could find a gentleman of honour and
+  character who might feel a similar wish. The advertiser is aware
+  that an address of this nature is unusual, and may therefore create
+  a prejudice against her in the minds of some; she is, however,
+  confident, that upon investigation her conduct will be shown to be
+  perfectly justifiable. Letters, post-paid, directed to A. Z., to be
+  left at the Twopenny Post-office the corner of Little Queen Street,
+  Holborn, will be attended to: but as it is not the intention of the
+  advertiser to gratify idle curiosity, no farther particulars will be
+  entered into, until after an interview between the parties.”
+
+“This is capital!” said Lord Tom. “We have seen hundreds of men
+advertising for wives, but the lady being the applicant is something
+new. However, she is evidently no fool; she is determined to see
+her man before she explains herself. You, my dear Brag, must be
+the recipient of her wishes and sorrows. We have just concluded a
+reply, fixing a meeting upon Waterloo Bridge, a locality chosen in
+preference to any of the Parks, squares, or gardens, on account of its
+solitude,--a quality which has reduced it as a speculation to worse
+than _nil_, which, considering it is one of the most splendid ornaments
+of the metropolis, is most deeply to be regretted.”
+
+Jack was delighted at being fixed upon to talk over the fair
+advertiser; his self-acknowledged invincibility was admitted. It was
+his particular _forte_--and it was speedily arranged that his three
+companions should remain at a convenient distance until the parley
+should have proceeded to a certain extent, when they were _manfully_ to
+avow themselves confederates in the scheme, and eventually drive the
+rash damsel “fainting from the ground.”
+
+It must be confessed that the system of mate-hunting through the
+medium of the newspapers, is one which not unnaturally subjects its
+practitioners to the assaults of the mischievous and merciless. Whether
+any of the negociations, of which such notices are the precursors,
+terminate satisfactorily,--that is to say, in the union of the
+parties--it is impossible to say; but it does seem, for people who have
+eyes and ears and hands and tongues, the strangest possible course of
+proceeding.
+
+Jack, who in all his antics kept his eye upon the main chance, was
+by no means the less inclined to the performance of this hoax upon
+the defenceless innocence of the yet unknown fair-one, by a notion
+which flashed into his mind, that it might turn out that she really
+was handsome and rich: a notion which, to be sure, was rather
+romantic, inasmuch as it would appear that a lady possessing those
+qualifications--or even one, provided it were the latter--need not
+have had recourse to a public proclamation of her wish for a husband.
+Something, however might come of it: it was the opening of a new
+field for the exertion of his talents, and the display would, he felt
+certain, place him a step or two higher in the estimation of his noble
+sporting friends.
+
+The letter, addressed as desired, was despatched, the postage paid, the
+day and hour were fixed, and the party separated to meet a few minutes
+previous to the rencontre, and arrange their forces, as has already
+been described; three forming a corps of observation, while Brag was
+performing his light-infantry evolutions in advance.
+
+It must be quite clear to the reader, that upon such an occasion Jack
+took the greatest possible pains to make himself what he called “the
+thing;” every fold of his coloured neck-handkerchief was laid with the
+most anxious nicety of form and tint, every curl was crisped into its
+own peculiar place, and the whole of his costume made to look like that
+of “a genteel comedy” playhouse beau, which, as he believed, must be
+irresistible in a widow’s eyes.
+
+At length the wished-for day and hour arrived. Lord Tom Towzle and
+his two friends were joined by Brag at the corner of Pall Mall, and
+proceeded to the scene of action, where they took up their stations
+a few minutes before two--two being the appointed time for the
+meeting--and having separated according to the programme, Mr. John
+Brag commenced his amatory promenade on one side of the bridge, while
+his expectant companions occupied the other, but at a considerable
+distance from him.
+
+It was a pleasing thing to see our hero settling himself and pulling
+up his shirt collar, then drawing on his glove, then twirling a little
+switch-like stick which he carried, and then using it in whipping
+his own boots, shining with a lustre which Day and Martin might have
+envied. He had scarcely finished one turn when the London clocks began
+striking two, which at different periods they continued to do, for
+nearly five minutes, that of St. Paul’s booming through the air about
+midway between the subordinates.--Another turn had been taken, and
+no fair one was in sight:--a small girl in trousers, with her hair
+platted into two long tails with bows at their ends, and a bustle,
+approached--she was evidently no widow; she passed on; Jack tried the
+eloquence of his eyes upon _her_;--then came a tall, gaunt woman, with
+a poodle dog. Jack looked at _her_, but she made no sign. At last
+there appeared a fine portly-looking dame, dressed in a coquelicot
+bonnet, topped up with white and green feathers, a lavender-coloured
+pelisse, and buff-coloured boots. The friends in the distance were
+convinced that this was _the_ person. She looked behind her and before
+her, and first on one side, and then on the other, and proceeded at a
+steady pace. She drew a full-sized, white-faced watch from her bosom,
+and gazed upon its dial, and then tossed her well-plumed head with an
+air of impatience and surprise at the non-appearance of her summoner.
+
+John Brag, Esq. beheld the vision, and if he had seen all the dæmons of
+the Hartz Forest pemmican’d into one plump lady, he could not have felt
+more horror and dismay. By what fatal accident, what evil coincidence,
+it should so have occurred, he could not imagine;--the extensive being
+before him, and now fast approaching, was neither more nor less than
+his respectable mother.
+
+What the deuce could have brought her so far from home, and so
+wonderfully fine in her dress, Jack could not imagine; the question
+was, what was to be done? If he advanced, another minute would
+bring him in contact, and into conversation, with his parent; if he
+retreated, he must fall back upon his friends, and she would inevitably
+follow and accost _him_. The brightness of his genius came to his aid
+in this unexpected dilemma--he resolved instantly to join her, turn
+round with her, and fall into the dialogue which he saw must take
+place, and make his companions believe that his companion was the real
+object of their expedition, the advertising lady.
+
+This scheme possessed many advantages, for the very circumstance of
+his relationship to his companion would afford him an opportunity of
+exhibiting the ease and familiarity of his manner while talking to
+the supposed advertiser, which would convince his companions that he
+was proceeding most successfully in his career; during which period
+he hoped to set his beloved mother on her way on the other side of
+the water before they could come up to enact _their_ part of laughing
+at the victim, which it was settled they were not to do, until Brag
+should give a signal that the moment for explosion had arrived.
+
+The ingenious performer, however, had reckoned without his host. When
+he and his mother met, the expression of her countenance was anything
+but agreeable: she seemed, in fact, as much mortified and annoyed by
+_his_ appearance as he had been by _hers_: and with all his desire to
+keep good friends with her, and wheedle her away as soon as possible,
+he could not disguise the anxiety with which he watched the approach
+of the fair husband-hunter, upon whom, so long as his parent remained
+where she was, he could not of course play his tricks.
+
+“Well, John,” said the lady, “who would have thought that we should
+have met here to-day? I’m sure I don’t know how long it is since I’ve
+set eyes upon you.”
+
+“I have been a good deal out of town,” said Brag, acting (for effect
+with his friends) in the most civil and obsequious manner.
+
+“What,” said Mrs. Brag, “at your little place in Surrey. I suppose you
+are coming from it now--eh, Johnny?”
+
+“No, not exactly,” said Jack. “May I ask where you are going?”
+
+“Nowhere particular,” replied the lady. “Don’t let me keep _you_. I am
+only out to make a call. I can go without _you_.”
+
+“I will just see you to the gate,” said Jack, carefully abstaining from
+any gesture or movement which could in the slightest degree resemble
+the appointed signal for the co-operation of his friends.
+
+“Don’t mind _me_, John,” said his mother; “it is so nice and airy up
+here, that I think I shall take a turn or two on the bridge before I
+go.”
+
+“My dear mother,” said Brag, “you’ll catch your death of cold. Let me
+persuade you to get off as soon as you possibly can.”
+
+“I like air,” said Mrs. Brag; “so you go your way. Who are those men
+standing out there? Do you know them?”
+
+“Those men!” said Brag--“what, those three men there?--no--I know
+nothing about them.”
+
+“Well then, good b’ye, John,” said the lady. “Now don’t let me keep
+you; it is more than a quarter after two, and I needn’t be at my
+friend’s till three; so now go--there’s a dear!”
+
+This was a puzzler:--the fancy his mother had taken to walk upon
+Waterloo Bridge seemed to Jack not only the most extraordinary, but the
+most inconvenient imaginable. He could not leave her without accounting
+to his friends for not having made the signal, or for the conversation
+in which it was but too evident to them he was engaged; nor could
+he, in fact, go near them, without practically contradicting the
+declaration he had just made to his mother, that he knew nothing about
+them. He decided.
+
+“Well then, mother,” said he, “if you really _do_ like to walk up and
+down a little, I don’t see why I should not walk up and down with you.”
+
+“Well, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Brag, “wonders will never cease, I think!
+Walk up and down with _me_!--why you have not done such a thing these
+three years. Why, we have never been out together since the day you
+took me down to dinner at Blackwall, and kept me shut up in an attic
+at the ‘Artichoke,’ because, you said, I wasn’t fit to be seen by the
+company. No, no--go about _your_ business, and leave _me_ to mine.”
+
+“I am waiting for somebody,” said Jack.
+
+“Oh! that’s it,” cried Mrs. Brag. “I thought there must be something in
+the wind.”
+
+“I know you don’t like spoiling sport, mother,” said Brag. “I’m here
+on a bit of fun:--I’ll let you into the joke. I expect every moment to
+see an uncommon smart body, who has been fool enough to advertise for a
+husband--eh!--don’t you see? We’ve tipped her a twopenny, fixing this,
+as the place of meeting: it’s past the time, and I dare say she won’t
+be much longer. Now, perhaps, if _you_ stop, she won’t come to the
+scratch.”
+
+“Advertise for a husband!” exclaimed Mrs. Brag--“why, what _have_ you
+been at? Did _you_ answer the advertisement?”
+
+“Clean as a whistle,” said Jack, flourishing his stick, and shaking his
+head with an air of uncommon self-satisfaction, “smack smooth, and no
+mistake--eh!”
+
+“What! appointing her here”--said the lady.
+
+“Here at two,” said Brag--“the adorable A. Z. at the oil-shop the
+corner of Little Queen Street, Holborn.”
+
+“You did, did you?” ejaculated his mother.
+
+“I did,” said Brag.
+
+“Well then, all I say, John,” cried Mrs. Brag, “is, that you ought to
+be ashamed of yourself. If you was a lone widow woman, how would _you_
+like to sit moping and mumping all alone, after having been used to
+sociability and comfort.”
+
+“I see nothing to be ashamed of,” said Brag. “If people will make
+themselves such Tom-noddies as to put such trumpery stuff into the
+newspapers, they deserve all they get.”
+
+“How you ferreted it out, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Brag.
+
+“Ferret what out?” said Jack.
+
+“--But _this_ I do know,” continued the lady “the letter was not in
+your hand-writing.”
+
+“How the deuce do you know _that_?” interrupted Jack.
+
+“Why, do you think I don’t know your little scribbling pot-hooks and
+hangers when I see them?” retorted the mother.
+
+“I dare say you do,” said the son; “but how came you to see the letter
+we sent to A. Z. at the pickle-shop?”
+
+“As if you didn’t know,” said Mrs. Brag. “Do you suppose I am so blind
+as not to see through _your_ antics? No, no: as I said before, how you
+ferreted it out I don’t yet understand; and when you had, I think you
+might have been better set to work than to hoax a parent.”
+
+“I’m all at sea,” said Jack. “What have you or your affairs to do with
+our fun?”
+
+“Do!” screamed the angry lady, “do--why what else should they have to
+do with? So now you are ashamed of your spy tricks, and want to sham
+that you did not know who A. Z. at the pickle-shop, as you call her,
+is.”
+
+“I’ll be hanged if I do,” said Jack.
+
+“Then hanged it is my belief you will be,” replied the mother, “_you_
+know as well as _I_ do, that _I_ am that individual.”
+
+“You!” cried Jack--“you A. Z. at the pickle-shop!”
+
+At this moment Brag’s miseries were, as he thought, at their
+_acmé_--but he was mistaken. The instant he received the unexpected
+and most unwelcome intelligence, that the object of his diversion and
+ridicule, to enjoy which three of his first-rate friends had been
+brought to the scene of action, was really and truly his mother, his
+course was clear; apology and conciliation were the weapons with which
+he was to assail her, and having soothed her anger, he would walk her
+off the ground as speedily as possible; a course which he considered
+quite practicable, now that she must be convinced, however angry, that
+there was no use in her remaining on it.
+
+“My dear mother,” said Brag, “I am truly and seriously sorry for this
+affair. If I had fancied it possible--but I--really--dear me!--this is
+all very uncomfortable.”
+
+“If I thought you didn’t do it on purpose,” said Mrs. Brag, “I
+shouldn’t mind it half so much.”
+
+“My dear mother,” said Brag, “I do most positively assure you”--
+
+To which point of assurance his speech had arrived, when, tired of
+procrastination, and satisfied that Brag had admirably performed his
+part of the farce, his three friends bounced across the road, and
+joined the unhappy creature, forming, as it were, a semicircle in his
+rear.
+
+“Come, Jack,” said Lord Tom Towzle, “you have had enough of this fun.
+Is he vastly agreeable, ma’am? Isn’t he a nice little man?”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Brag, “you _do_ know these gentlemen! Why, you
+little story-teller, you said they were no acquaintances of yours.”
+
+“If I did”--said John--
+
+“--_If_ you did!” said Mrs. Brag--“why, you know you did:--and so these
+are the companions of your trick--the witnesses of your impudence!”
+
+“Pray, ma’am,” said one of the dandies, “do not flurry yourself--we
+are not going to eat you!--we were only anxious to have the pleasure
+of seeing you, because, as we all want wives more or less, we thought,
+like yourself, we might as well take the opportunity of viewing, before
+purchase.”
+
+“Oh, Johnny, Johnny!” said Mrs. Brag, holding up her pink and
+white-striped parasol in a posture of threat--“you would do much
+better if you would but stick to the shop, and do your duty by _me_:
+if that was the case, you would not drive your poor mother to do what
+you yourself are most active to turn into ridicule. I’ll find this
+out--I’ll sift it to the very bottom: my belief is, that you have been
+pumping Jim Salmon, or one of the shopboys, to make this precious
+discovery, in order to amuse your fine friends at the expense of your
+parent.”
+
+“Parent!” exclaimed Lord Tom Towzle--“what! ma’am, is--?--eh!”
+
+“How!” cried one of his friends.--“What!” said another.
+
+“Why, you see,” said Brag, “I--I”--
+
+“I’ll tell it you shorter,” said Mrs. Brag, around whom and
+her auditors a crowd of four or five of the diurnal two dozen
+foot-passengers were now congregated:--“he is _my_ son--and not content
+with letting an excellent business go to rack and ruin while he is
+cutting his capers, and leaving an anxious mother to a solentary life
+and melancholy prospects--here he is”--
+
+“Pray, ma’am,” said Lord Tom Towzle, “in what line may you be?”
+
+“Wax and tallow chandler,” said Mrs. Brag, “including sperm and other
+oils, flambeaux, tapers, bougies, and sealing-wax of all colours and
+qualities.”
+
+“She’s mad, poor thing!” said Jack--“fancies herself my mother! Did
+you ever hear?--go home, ma’am--go--and don’t expose yourself again by
+writing such stuff in the newspapers.”
+
+“What! Jack,” said Lord Tom Towzle, “is A. Z. at the pickle-shop,
+corner of Little Queen Street, Holborn, your mamma?”
+
+“So she says,” said Brag.
+
+“Says!” exclaimed the indignant matron,--“it isn’t that you are much to
+be proud of: but here, gentlemen, here’s the card of the shop--I never
+travel without half a pack in my pocket--here, see--judge who is right
+now. Oh! if his poor dear father could but get out of his grave in
+Cripplegate churchyard to see the use his darling son has put all his
+indulgence to”--
+
+“He would probably go back again into it, ma’am, as fast as he possibly
+could,” said Lord Tom.
+
+“For _my_ part,” said the widow, looking at the slice of nobility which
+had last addressed her, “I begin to think you are no better than he is;
+however”--
+
+Here, an admonitory--“Come--move on, move on,” from two policemen on
+duty, put a check to the conversation, which promised to become more
+and more animated.
+
+“Move on!” said Mrs. Brag, who at this period was in a burning
+rage, the flame of which glowed on her cheeks and sparkled in her
+eyes:--“yes, Mr. Policeman, I’ll move on, and move off too; but it
+would serve that little whipper-snapper cockney son of mine right to
+send him to the Station House for what he has done.”
+
+“Go home, poor soul!” said Brag, trying what “dejected pity” might
+do:--“go home, and get cool: I’ll come and see you soon.” Then, turning
+to his companions, he added:--“I’ve heard that gentle remedies are
+best, eh!--the soothing system, as Dr. Dulcimer calls it, eh! Go home.”
+
+“Don’t be a fool, Jack,” exclaimed Mrs. Brag, “you’ll repent of this
+some day. All these fine-weather friends who set you on to play tricks
+for them to laugh at, will leave you the minute your troubles begin,
+just as rats run out of a falling house; and perhaps they would not be
+so fond of you _now_, if they knew that your town mansion was nothing
+but a brass plate, and your little place in Surrey, a second floor over
+a carpenter’s shop. Get you gone--get you gone! If you have no feeling
+for yourself, Jacky, I cannot help feeling for you.”
+
+Away flounced the indignant mother; and having squeezed herself with
+some difficulty through one of the anti-cheating turnstiles at the end
+of the bridge, bounced along Wellington Street towards the Strand,
+Lord Tom Towzle signalizing himself, and delighting the spectators, by
+imitating, at the top of his voice, the crowing of a cock, triumphantly
+victorious in the overthrow of an enemy--an exhibition which has
+been more than once received with unbounded applause in a theatre in
+Westminster, which yet remains beyond the reach of the Licenser.
+
+“Well, now,” said one of Jack’s three friends, “who is this old
+catamaran? Why does she insist upon being your mother?--is it because
+her name is the same?--or”--
+
+Here again was Jack puzzled most wonderfully. To renounce her as a
+parent, and denounce her as a cheat, was something too strong even for
+_his_ assurance.
+
+“--Why,” said our hero, “I believe, if truth were to be told, she is my
+mother.”
+
+“Truth to be told!” said Lord Tom, “why, Jack, although there may, in
+these wicked days, be something like reason in the proverb that says,
+‘it is a wise child who knows his own father,’--the adage cannot hold
+good as regards the female parent;--there can be no great doubt about
+_that_.”
+
+“Why,” said Jack again, who generally began his speeches with
+why,--why, he knew not,--“why, you see, my mother”--And then again
+nature interposed:--it was not feeling, it was not tenderness, nor even
+affection, which held him back, or checked the tongue on which some
+flippant falsehood was gathering--it was instinct,--not better in its
+character perhaps (if so good) than that of a chimpanzee, but it was
+enough to paralyze his efforts to shuffle off the relationship between
+himself and the maltreated A. Z. at the pickle-shop at the corner of
+Little Queen Street, Holborn--“Why,” again said Jack, “I am sorry
+we made so bad a shot,--because I believe it is a good deal my own
+fault--I have driven her to it, eh! Can’t keep at work and”--
+
+Brag had now fallen into his own trap; his impudence for once failed
+him, and he stood confessed the son of the determined husband-hunting
+widow of the deceased tallow chandler.
+
+“But, Jack,” said Lord Tom, “what did your amiable parent mean by the
+brass plate, and the carpenter’s shop--the mansion and the villa?”
+
+“Oh, that,” said Jack, “was all passion. When a woman’s back’s up,
+she’ll say anything, no matter what. I am sorry it has happened,
+because it has exposed her, and certainly has not come off the bat,
+clean, smack smooth, and no mistake.”
+
+“No, that you cannot say,” said Lord Tom; “however, never mind it; the
+old lady will forgive you. You must go and see her, and make it up.
+Suppose we all go in a body and apologise, and I’ll explain to her the
+circumstances of the affair, and convince her that you really were
+totally ignorant that _she_ was the advertiser, eh! Shall we do _that_?”
+
+This proposition produced a violent accession to Jack’s already raging
+fever. The thought of Lord Tom Towzle and the two “nobs,” as he called
+them, proceeding _en masse_ through the shop to the back-parlour
+beforementioned, under the row of wooden candles fluttering in the
+breeze, was perfect misery to him.
+
+“No, no,” said Brag, “by no means! I have always noticed that a woman
+cools soonest when left alone.--My mother,” said Brag, assuming a new
+tone, and which he thought to be the wisest, “is a woman of what you
+call strong feeling--mighty high--old family--and proud as Lucifer.
+She’s in a passion; and when she is out of it I’ll go to her--mollify
+her, eh!--smooth her down, and make all snug and comfortable.”
+
+“--‘And no mistake,’ Jack,” said Lord Tom. “Well, all I hope is, your
+nerves won’t be shaken for the race to-morrow. ‘Slap-bang’ is the
+favourite; and riding a winning horse is no very hard task”--
+
+“Nervous!” said Jack, who began as usual to rally--“what is to shake
+my nerves?--an angry woman? No, no: I know the female sex too well to
+mind a few passing clouds; and as for the _exposé_, as the French call
+it, it’s nothing to me. My mother, as I have just said, is a woman of
+excellent family; how can I help her having been so silly as to marry a
+tallow chandler.”
+
+This mode of putting the case set Jack’s friends laughing with him
+rather than at him. Like a cat, Jack generally contrived to fall upon
+his legs, however “high” the tumble; and they all agreed that he was
+perfectly right, and that he had behaved in the most moderate and
+judicious manner: and when they parted, renewed the appointment for the
+morrow with the usual cordiality.
+
+As for Johnny, far different indeed were his feelings: the scene on
+the bridge was one which never could be effaced from his memory. The
+coquelicot bonnet; the striped parasol; the white and green feathers;
+the buff boots; the object of the visit; the conversation; the
+disclosure; the mystery of the plate, and the history of the villa;
+and, above all, the exhibition of the shop-card, and the conviction
+that he was the son of A. Z. at the pickle-shop--it was all vastly well
+for his tiger friends to laugh it off--but what would form the subject
+of their conversation after dinner that very day at Crockford’s,
+where the conclave would be secured from his intrusion? What would be
+the nickname which was ever after destined to distinguish him in the
+contemporaneous history of society?
+
+It was clear that his end, as far as that sort of “life” was concerned,
+was drawing to a close. Two practicable measures now presented
+themselves to his imagination, both of which are said to go by
+destiny--hanging or marriage--the halter or the altar, and, according
+to Jack’s counterchanged aspiration of the _h_, it was difficult to
+discover his preference by his own pronunciation of the word. His mind
+was soon made up; and being assured that his secrets--as he considered
+the shop, the door-plate, and the villa--would, in the hands in which
+they had now been authoritatively deposited, be secrets not many hours
+longer, he resolved within himself that he had no time to lose in
+bringing the widow to action; and, as the reader already is aware, that
+let what might have happened, he never intended to ride “Slap-bang”
+over the forbidden lands of Wrigglesworth--that evening and the next
+day were to be devoted to the grand experiment of his life.
+
+In putting this affair into execution, the natural infirmity of his
+disposition was remarkably exemplified. Convinced that Frank Rushton
+was satisfied of the prepossession of both Mrs. Dallington and Miss
+Englefield in his favour, and equally assured of the wisdom of Lord
+Tom’s advice as to the course to be pursued, he determined in the
+outset to act upon the principle of the one, and adopt the practice
+recommended by the other:--that is to say, to play off both the ladies
+one against the other, but not to commit himself to either, by writing;
+it being evident to the meanest capacity (except that of Johnny’s)
+that neither of two sisters, nor of two women, indeed, who were _not_
+sisters, living in the same house, and in circumstances such as those
+in which Mrs. Dallington and Blanche were placed, could possibly
+receive anything like a proposal, or even a probable approach to it,
+without communicating the circumstance to the other. The mingled vanity
+and stupidity of Johnny, in the midst of his gaiety and amiability,
+prevented this single circumstance striking him; and, secure in his
+own influence over both the fair creatures, and his intimate knowledge
+of “females,” he resolved upon Lord Tom’s assumed doctrine, that both
+ladies being actually engaged to other men, neither would commit
+herself to the other by the acknowledgment of a passion for him: this
+decided him to fire both his barrels in rapid succession, giving the
+unmarried lady the preference by a few hours.
+
+Having, however, revolved the affair in his mind, he again changed his
+original intention as to the mode of attack, and resolved to address
+the widow personally--and the sister by letter;--for, in spite of Lord
+Tom’s _friendly_ caution about writing, Jack did not feel himself quite
+a match for the tender delicacy of Blanche in the way of dialogue;
+having moreover, with all his avowed notions of practical advances,
+a most sensitive apprehension of a scream or a fainting-fit, which
+he feared might alarm the family, arouse the widow to a sense of his
+libertine insincerity, and explode the whole of his great undertaking.
+
+Accordingly, in the course of the afternoon of the day upon
+which the unlucky affair of A. Z.--the alpha and omega of his
+destruction--occurred, he proceeded to one of his favourite haunts,
+and in pursuance of the scheme which he had now arranged, addressed a
+letter to Miss Englefield, avowing, not, it must be owned, in the most
+direct and explicit terms, but in a tone and language which it was
+impossible for any lady to mistake or misapprehend,--a devotion the
+most perfect and entire to her mind and person; alluding, in as good
+English as he could contrive to write, to the encouragement he felt he
+had received, trusting to her kindness and consideration, if he were
+mistaken, to forgive him; and hinting that Mr. Rushton himself was not
+altogether unconscious of the preference of which he felt so proud.
+
+This he despatched before he slept, which he did at his “little place
+in Surrey;” and when he woke from a sort of fitful slumber in which he
+had passed the night, he began bitterly to repent of a step which he
+had taken while under the influence of a kind of desperation. However,
+as it _was_ done, he determined to “go the whole hog,” and follow up
+this feint at the unmarried lady, which might after all be turned into
+a real attack in case of a failure with the widow.
+
+Accordingly, at the earliest decent period for calling upon anybody,
+Brag proceeded to make his visit to Mrs. Dallington; but here again his
+courage failed him. His mind was made up to the deciding step of trying
+his fortune, and as he went along, he rehearsed--or, as they say of
+birds, recorded all the sweet notes in which he should address her, if
+he found her alone. As he proceeded, his spirits mounted, until he had
+worked himself into a serviceable state of amativeness: he reached the
+door,--knocked--the noise seemed like thunder:
+
+  “He trembled at the sound himself had made”--
+
+his courage began, like that of Acres in the play, to “ooze out at his
+fingers’ ends;” and the terror he experienced when the servant told him
+his mistress _was_ at home, can scarcely be imagined.
+
+The crisis had arrived; and as it _was_ to come, perhaps it was better
+it should have occurred before any of his mother’s intemperate
+disclosures on the bridge had reached what Jack was in the habit of
+calling “the West end.” He mounted the stairs with his throat a little
+parched, and his hands a little cold; but when the door of the boudoir
+was opened, and he found his charming hostess alone, the sight was
+fatal.
+
+“Why, my dear Mr. Brag,” said Mrs. Dallington, holding out her hand
+towards him, “where _have_ you been--hiding yourself in the country? I
+believe you have some attraction at your place in Surrey, of which we
+here in town are not aware.”
+
+The allusion was not pleasant. Brag--the undaunted, unabashed
+lady-killer--sat himself down in a chair opposite the sofa on which he
+found the widow seated writing at a table before it, and felt assured
+that, by some telegraphic or other communication, the fair object of
+his hopes and ambition had received the intelligence of the affair on
+the bridge:--so ’tis that
+
+  “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
+
+“No,” said Brag, endeavouring to collect himself, “I have been staying
+in Hertfordshire for the last few days.”
+
+“I assure you we have missed you very much,” said the lady, who,
+fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, for Brag--was, for
+reasons of her own, in the best possible humour for encouraging his
+civilities,--“you can’t think how dull we have been without you. My
+belief is, that your friend Lord Tom is the cause of your abdication
+from town: he is so fond of his shooting matches and his steeple
+chases, and you, we hear, are his prime minister: in short, he cannot
+exist without you.”
+
+“Oh!” said Brag, looking very much obliged, and very silly, “you
+flatter me. I assure you I just do these sort of things by way of a
+start now and then; but--I--it isn’t my taste--it obliges Tom--and that
+sort of thing; but--I--I--feel”--
+
+“What!” said the widow, “do you mean to disown your affection for a
+sporting life, who are, as Sir Charles Lydiard says, the very life of
+sporting?”
+
+“Sir Charles is very civil,” said Brag, who began to feel conscious
+of an approach to his subject: “I don’t think _he_ is very fond of
+sport--of any sort,” was added in a whisper scarcely audible.
+
+“He is a strange creature, isn’t he?” said Mrs. Dallington. “A most
+excellent man--kind, and all _that_--but _so_ cold in his manner--I am
+sure he makes enemies by it.”
+
+“Why,” said Brag, looking down, and rubbing his hat, “I don’t know what
+he may be to females--he _is_ certainly--rather--eh!--rather”--
+
+“Oh!” said Mrs. Dallington, “don’t be afraid, I shall not repeat a
+word you say about him. I quite agree with you. Women, Mr. Brag,”
+and the widow suited her looks to the word--“are fond of spirit and
+vivacity. The days of sad, sickly, sighing swains, are gone by: society
+is enlightened, and diffidence seems to be considered in these times
+merely a mark of stupidity. I suppose everything is destined to travel
+at an increased pace, and I, for one, admit a partiality for fast
+travelling, as far as _that_ goes.”
+
+This was pretty strong encouragement to an aspirant who was in a hurry,
+and engaged to ride “Slap-bang” across a county the next day--but Brag
+was Brag, every inch of him.
+
+“Yes,” said Brag, “it’s uncommon pleasant: I don’t think, however, I
+shall ever be caught giving up horses for steam.”
+
+This sudden digression from the figurative to the matter-of-fact,
+evidently disappointed the widow, who, truth to be told, had never
+appeared, either alone or in society, so cordial in her manner to our
+hero as upon this special occasion, upon which, of all others, it was
+most important to his views that she should be so. The first opening
+she had given him for a little self-recommendation in accordance with
+her avowed taste, he had botched,--missed his tip,--and become prosy.
+
+“I have got a good many shares in the rail-roads,” said Jack.
+
+This settled him, and, it must be confessed, fully justified his own
+preference for literary correspondence over verbal communication, upon
+tender subjects.
+
+Mrs. Dallington gave a look; Brag, luckily, did not see it. A pause
+ensued, but, as our volatile widow was playing a game, it did not last
+long.
+
+“I wonder,” said the widow, looking at Brag with an expression of
+interest--“I wonder _you_ have never married, Mr. Brag.”
+
+This bit of wonderment nearly took away his breath: his tongue seemed
+too big for his mouth;--he began to twiddle his fingers, felt his ears
+get red, and his nose cold.
+
+“Ha, ha!” said he, and rubbed his hat again.
+
+“So gay, so gallant, and so devoted to the fair,” continued Mrs.
+Dallington, “I should think you had only to ask and command. I do not
+at all understand why you haven’t yet thrown your handkerchief.”
+
+Brag, who did not in the least understand why he should perform any
+such operation, merely inclined his body.
+
+“I have been married myself,” said Mrs. Dallington, “and although I
+soon became a widow, I am quite sure that where there are reciprocity
+of affection, congeniality of taste, and sympathy of feeling, no state
+of society can be so truly satisfactory and so entirely good,--I have
+no word so short or so emphatic for it as that--as marriage.”
+
+“It must be uncommon agreeable, I should think,” said Brag, looking
+“uncommon” foolish.
+
+“Now there’s Frank Rushton,” said Mrs. Dallington, “a most delightful
+companion--a most accomplished scholar,--and, as I believe, extremely
+attached to my poor dear sister--and yet, you see, they don’t get
+married. I believe that all you agreeable, gay men of the world, try
+everything in your power to turn the heads of poor girls, without any
+serious intention of eventually making them happy.”
+
+This voluntary confession of facts and opinions, delivered in Mrs.
+Dallington’s most agreeable, off-hand manner, although it corroborated
+in Brag’s mind all his former belief of the interest he had created in
+the family, so astounded him, that with the opportunity at hand, for
+which he had so earnestly sought, he remained a mere listener at the
+mercy of his idol.
+
+“As for Blanche,” said the widow, “as I have great faith in the
+philosophy which inculcates the belief of a love of opposites, I am
+sure she, tender, shy, and retiring as she is, ought to be over head
+and ears in love with Frank; but I don’t believe she cares the least
+bit in the world about him. To be sure she has a right to please
+herself. She has a large fortune, and nobody to control her, and, _I_
+think, would make a most admirable wife for any man who knew how to
+appreciate her. However, I know nothing about her views or proceedings;
+we have no confidences; we each go our own way. I never trouble _her_
+with my advice, and, of course, _she_ never presumes to give me any.”
+
+“I am sure,” said Brag, “you would make anybody in love with
+wedlock--I’m--sure--You wonder that Miss Englefield does not marry Mr.
+Rushton;--I--often--think--I do indeed--that--you--I beg your pardon--I
+mean Sir Charles--eh!--and no mistake”--
+
+“Oh!” said the widow, “I quite understand you. Sir Charles is a good
+creature--but as for love, I don’t believe he ever thinks of such a
+thing. Certainly he is not of _our_ opinion as to gaiety and vivacity.”
+
+“I was thinking,” said Brag, looking as white as a sheet, and crumpling
+his remarkably nice hat in a paroxysm of something between hope and
+fear, “--that--you--really ought not to permit--eh!--this--he is such
+an odd man--eh!”
+
+“My dear Mr. Brag,” said Mrs. Dallington, “there are secrets in all
+families.”
+
+Brag perfectly agreed in the proposition, and directly did there flit
+before his eyes coquelicot bonnets, striped parasols, buff boots, brass
+plates, green and white feathers, and a tribe of visions more horrible
+than Fuseli’s fiercest efforts after a supper of half-boiled pork.
+
+“There _are_ people with whom we become habitually familiarized,” said
+Mrs. Dallington, “but who never touch the heart.”
+
+“Is Mr. Rushton,” stammered Jack, “one of those?”
+
+“Why really,” replied Mrs. Dallington,--“Blanche not being here to
+answer for herself--for although you never inquired after her, I ought
+perhaps to have told you she has been out of town for two days, and
+does not return till to-morrow,--_I_ was not so particularly referring
+to _her_ case.”
+
+This must have opened the eyes of a mole. Brag, in a moment, became
+aware that Mrs. Dallington could know nothing of his rash note to
+Blanche, and felt more convinced than ever that the widow was his own.
+
+“The case,” stammered John--“you don’t--that is--really”--
+
+“You are a most amiable creature!” said Mrs. Dallington. “I see how
+diffident you are of your own merits--how unconscious you are of your
+own power!”
+
+“Yes,” faltered Brag, quite overcome--“yes--am I--that is--may I--do I
+make myself understood?--is--that is--don’t I--eh!--if--but”--
+
+--“Sir Charles Lydiard,” said a servant, throwing open the door, and
+announcing the worthy baronet, who entered the room with his usual mild
+placidity of manner, and after shaking hands with the lady, turned
+round, and beheld--his aversion. The look he gave Mrs. Dallington
+expressed all his feelings upon _that_ point: nor was it lost upon
+Brag himself, who collected his hat, gloves, and switch-stick, and
+having gathered them up, made his bow, and left his adorable widow
+_tête-à-tête_ with the baronet, perfectly assured of his triumphant
+success with her, and bitterly repenting having exposed so much of his
+heart to her less well-provided-for sister.
+
+Never, to be sure, was there a more perfect illustration of the
+character of the swaggering pretender to _bonnes fortunes_ than the
+melancholy proceedings of our wretched little hero. The ball was at his
+foot--the game was in his hands--and yet he, the slayer of hearts, and
+the assassin of reputations, cowered before the fostering kindness of
+his liberal hostess, and sneaked out of the presence of the man whom
+he believed to be his defeated rival, in ridiculing whom he had first
+joined with his mistress to take a step of which we shall hear more
+hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+There are some people upon whom advice is thrown away, and who, holding
+themselves to be wiser than their councillors, rush “_in medias res_”
+where
+
+  ----“Angels fear to tread.”
+
+Mr. Brag, who did not want for that sort of intellectual quality called
+cunning, was nevertheless, as has been already made tolerably evident,
+favoured by nature with an overbalancing share of conceit, and when
+he had ascertained the tone of the widow’s feelings towards him, and
+satisfied himself that his case was reduced to something very like “ask
+and have,” he resolved upon taking the step against which his friend
+Lord Tom had so strenuously advised him, and which, as a matter of
+assurance, was rendered “trebly hazardous” by his having previously
+adopted it with regard to her sister.
+
+The Irish gentleman’s definition of a bottle of soda water we will
+not stop to repeat, but it would have applied with tolerable accuracy
+to the character of our hero. Although he had extracted from Mrs.
+Dallington what he believed to be quite sufficient to justify his
+best hopes, he felt in the solitude of his “little place in Surrey” a
+consciousness of inability to conduct the storm personally, or carry
+her heart by a _coup de main_--unless, indeed, a letter might be so
+considered--and therefore, spite of the advice of his experienced
+Mentor, he proceeded to address the fair widow in an epistle, a
+repetition of which it is not necessary to inflict upon the reader, but
+which contained a distinct declaration and a formal proposal.
+
+Mr. Brag had now shot his bolt, and nothing remained but to see its
+effect. It must be admitted that even _he_ was in some sort nervous
+and fidgety; but that happy self-satisfaction, which when he was not
+required to make an effort never forsook him, kept his spirits on the
+“credit side of the account.” The letter, however, was gone--past
+recal--and therefore the next wisest thing to not sending it in the
+first instance, was to live upon the hopes of its success.
+
+Upon the popular “wheel within wheel” system, the widow had acted so
+as to induce the declaration which it contained, satisfied that by
+“playing” her baronet upon the occasion, she might “land” him,--but
+certainly not prepared to find that Blanche was placed in a similar
+position. As things turned out, the effect it produced was striking.
+
+Blanche had just returned from her two days’ visit to the country. The
+moment she entered the house, she hastened to her sister’s boudoir,
+where she found her in the very act of reading, with evident marks of
+amazement and exultation, the avowal of Mr. Brag’s affections.
+
+“My dear Blanche,” exclaimed Mrs. Dallington, “you are arrived at
+the very moment to congratulate me on a conquest. I have received a
+proposal”--
+
+“What!” said Blanche, “from Sir Charles?”
+
+“No,” replied her sister, in a tone which certainly conveyed the
+idea that she wished she had:--“I think you will guess without much
+difficulty, knowing the man.”
+
+“The Fates are propitious,” said Blanche; “I too have been so fortunate
+as to merit the decided approbation of a lover, who declares the
+happiness of his life, and the value of his existence, depend upon my
+answer.”
+
+“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Dallington:--“why, _my_ worshipper uses the
+very same expression. Yes--here it is:--‘The happiness of my life, and
+the value of my existence, depend upon your answer.’”
+
+“That _is_ curious,” said Blanche; “may I ask who the tender swain is?”
+
+“Guess,” said Mrs. Dallington.
+
+“I cannot,” replied her sister.
+
+“What! not our exquisite little friend Brag!” said Mrs. Dallington. “I
+was always sure how our acquaintance would end: I wonder it did not
+strike _you_.”
+
+“Why,” said Blanche, “the reason my suspicions did not lead that way is
+rather a good one--he has made me a proposal.”
+
+“When did you receive it?” said the widow.
+
+“Yesterday,” replied Blanche, “it was forwarded to me from town.”
+
+“I suppose it is a circular,” said the widow.
+
+“No, no,” said Blanche, “mine is the original, yours is the copy.”
+
+“What _can_ the man mean?” said Mrs. Dallington. “Does he really
+suppose himself so fascinating, that, like the rattlesnake, he has
+nothing to do but look at us to induce us to drop into his mouth? Now
+if he had confined his attentions to _me_”--
+
+“Ah!” interrupted Miss Englefield, “that is exactly the case; if he had
+confined his attentions to _me_, the affair would have been different:
+as it is”--
+
+“No, no,” said the widow, “don’t misunderstand me, my dear Blanche. I
+do assure you I am neither envious nor jealous. You should be welcome
+to all his attentions and all his affections--only please to observe
+that _I_ intended him to take the step he has taken, and availed
+myself of your absence to lead him on to a declaration.”
+
+“For what earthly purpose?” said Blanche.
+
+“Man,” said the widow, “is an imitative animal, and everybody knows the
+force of example.”
+
+“But do you want anybody for whom you have a regard to imitate Mr.
+Brag?” asked Blanche.
+
+“In the one particular of which we are now speaking,” replied the
+widow, “I do. It seems to me, Blanche, that the lives we are both
+leading are full of worry and vexation: yours, because you will not
+encourage your avowed lover; mine, because the man whose claim upon
+my affections I admit, will not avow himself. It strikes me that this
+most marvellous display of assurance on the part of our little friend
+may serve us both incalculably, by bringing both our gentlemen to a
+proper sense of their duty;--to excite poor dear Sir Charles into a
+determination, and to soothe Rushton into a reasonable state of mind.”
+
+“I confess,” said Blanche, “I do not exactly understand the course of
+proceeding by which this desirable end is to be attained.”
+
+“Let us both accept the little man,” said the widow. “The natural
+awkwardness of his position must produce a disclosure of his schemes;
+and what appears to me infinitely better fun, his vanity and conceit.
+That, which must happen, is, however, only a secondary object with
+me;--the discovery of the affair will show our capricious lovers that
+there _are_ men who, instead of hesitating to propose to one woman, are
+prepared to make offers to two; and moreover, my dear Blanche, the very
+notion that we are exposed to such temptations will urge our strange
+friends to some decided step. You must accept Mr. Brag.”
+
+“Me!” exclaimed Blanche: “I accept him--an antidote to everything like
+affection of any kind!”
+
+“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Dallington, “I am sure he is very genteel; he
+curls his hair, wears rings and chains, smokes cigars, rides races, and
+lives with Lord Tom Towzle. What would you have?--accept him you must.”
+
+“Never!” cried Blanche.
+
+“You must, my dear girl,” replied Mrs. Dallington, “and so will
+I:--yes, both of us--he is too charming to be monopolized by one. You
+must write to him.”
+
+“A billet-doux?” enquired Blanche.
+
+“Exactly so,” said Mrs. Dallington. “Let us both be desperately in love
+with Lord Tom’s tiger: you will see how odiously jealous Rushton will
+be in a day, and Sir Charles.--Oh! never mind; write--write--write, and
+I will dictate.”
+
+“Write what, my dear sister?” asked Miss Englefield.
+
+“A civil acceptance of his offer,” said Mrs. Dallington, “couched in
+terms becoming the gratitude of a young lady of small pretensions.”
+
+“I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear sister,” said Blanche, “but
+really”--
+
+“Really,” interrupted Mrs. Dallington, “you must allow _me_ to be the
+best judge of what is best suited to my juniors; so sit you down and
+write, and I will dictate.”
+
+“But what will the world say?” asked Blanche.
+
+“What world, my dear?” said Mrs. Dallington--“Mr. Brag’s world--or the
+world at large? What the one chooses to say will signify nothing to us;
+and what we may choose to do will signify as little to the other. Trust
+in _me_; be assured that I will not mislead you, whatever may be my
+intentions with respect to your scarecrow of a lover.”
+
+“_My_ lover!” cried Blanche, colouring crimson at the imputation--“your
+lover too!”
+
+“Both,” said the widow. “Now sit down; rely upon it, it is a kindness
+sometimes to be cruel:--so write.”
+
+Blanche, almost unresistingly, seated herself at the very identical
+table at which Jack had found Mrs. Dallington established the day
+before; and mechanically arranging the writing materials, looked at her
+sister with an expression of unconsciousness of what she was to say,
+and of enquiry as to the words she was to set down.
+
+“Are you ready to begin?” said the widow.
+
+“Yes,” said Blanche--“to obey your instructions most dutifully.”
+
+“Now, then,” said Mrs. Dallington, “write:--‘I scarcely know how to
+reply to your flattering letter.’”
+
+“I am sure I shall do it all wrong,” said Blanche writing.--
+
+“‘I have struggled for some time--’”
+
+“Some time,” repeated Blanche--“struggled with what?”
+
+“Go on,” said Mrs. Dallington:--“‘for some time with my feelings,--but
+the manner in which Mr. Rushton, whom you have often seen here,
+conducts himself towards me is’”--
+
+“What would you have me say, sister?” said Blanche, hesitating. “_You_
+know, if nobody else does, that I love him, and”--
+
+“Never mind that,” said the widow, “go on:--‘conducts himself towards
+me is such, that I can endure his treatment no longer.’”
+
+“My dear sister,” said Blanche, “you are laughing at me:--you wish me
+to expose myself.”
+
+“Why do you think so, my dear?” said Mrs. Dallington. “You have told
+me a hundred times that he torments you to death.”
+
+“Yes,” said Blanche, “but what I say to _you_, and what I write to this
+man”--
+
+“Well,” said the widow, “then put--‘vexes me,’ instead of ‘tormenting
+me.’”
+
+“That is better,” said Blanche, continuing to write.
+
+“‘That any man upon earth would be preferable in my eyes,’” said Mrs.
+Dallington.
+
+“No,” said Blanche, tossing up her head with unusual animation, and
+throwing down the pen, “_that_ I never _will_ write!”
+
+“What innocence!” said Mrs. Dallington. “My dear sister, we are only
+setting a simpleton-trap, and”--
+
+“It does not signify,” said Blanche, “I”--
+
+“No, it does _not_ signify, so write,” said the widow. “There now--go
+on--it will be _my_ turn next. Tell him you shall expect him to
+call--this evening. I will write him an equally tender answer, and make
+a similar appointment. What can it signify what one says to such a man
+under such circumstances?”
+
+“But, my dear creature,” said Blanche, “what an opinion he must form of
+us if he thinks we are both in love with him!”
+
+“It is quite clear that he _does_ think so now,” said Mrs. Dallington;
+“so this will not make it one bit the worse. Here--make room--let
+me write mine: all you have to do is to watch the results of our
+invitation, and be as cold as ice to Rushton when you next see him.
+Rely upon it, my dear innocent, we shall have fun, and, if I mistake
+not, husbands, out of this scheme, which, moderate as my pretensions
+are, I must say I think admirable, inasmuch as it mystifies three men
+at once,--and all--all for their own eventual good.”
+
+“I believe you take a pleasure in tormenting,” said Blanche, who was
+busy sealing her note, while her sister was rapidly writing her’s in
+that elegant and unintelligible hand which is the universal medium of
+lady-like correspondence, when, to their surprise and confusion, the
+door of the boudoir was thrown open, and Sir Charles Lydiard and Mr.
+Rushton were announced.
+
+“Hide your letter!” said Blanche.
+
+“Me!” said Mrs. Dallington, loud enough to be heard by Sir Charles;
+“trust to my fidelity.”
+
+“By Jove!” whispered Rushton to Lydiard, “they are writing--writing
+notes and hiding them!”
+
+“So I perceive,” said Sir Charles, coldly.
+
+“Well, ladies,” said Rushton, advancing towards Blanche, “we have found
+you busy.”
+
+Blanche bowed diffidently, and finished sealing her note.
+
+“What is the matter with you, Sir Charles?” said Mrs. Dallington; “you
+look out of sorts and out of spirits.”
+
+“No, madam,” said Lydiard, “I am neither; only I did not know whether I
+might venture to break in upon your literary avocations.”
+
+“Quite right, Sir Charles,” said Mrs. Dallington. “People who make up
+their minds not to pry into the business of their neighbours, are most
+likely not to be disturbed in their serenity.”
+
+“Miss Englefield,” said Rushton, “appears to be of a similar opinion.
+I confess I am not of a temper to bear with such things. I hate
+three-cornered notes, if they are not addressed to myself.”
+
+“You are equally right with Sir Charles,” said the widow. “I _am_
+writing a billet-doux, but I have just finished.”
+
+“Upon my word,” said Lydiard, “it must be a most interesting affair.
+I think I never saw you more animated than you seem to be while
+despatching this note: all I am afraid of is, that I have been the
+cause of its abrupt termination.”
+
+During this dialogue, Rushton endeavoured to draw Blanche into a
+conversation with regard to the note _she_ was writing, but she avoided
+answering his questions; and supported in the course she had adopted
+by her sister’s conduct towards Sir Charles, so completely damped the
+ardent spirits of her mercurial lover, that he crossed to the other
+side of the room, and threw himself upon the sofa.
+
+Mrs. Dallington having sealed her note, rang the bell, and directed
+the servant to send it immediately.
+
+“Now,” said Sir Charles, “I have found it out--you are merely trying
+me: the note, after all, is destined for me.”
+
+“As you doubt me, Sir Charles,” said Mrs. Dallington, “I shall leave
+you to discover the truth.”
+
+“I am certain,” said the baronet, with much more animation than he
+usually exhibited, “it can be to no one else. I shall return to my
+hotel to receive it.”
+
+“Do,” said the widow, “and justify me from your suspicions.” Saying
+which, the lady, with an air of being particularly piqued, left the
+room by one door, while Sir Charles, convinced that she had taken some
+deciding step with regard to himself, retired by the other, leaving the
+other pair of lovers _tête-à-tête_.
+
+The moment her sister left the room, Blanche rose to follow her.
+
+“Stay, Blanche,” said Rushton, “one moment.”
+
+“No, Mr. Rushton,” said Miss Englefield, “I am too angry with you to
+stay.”
+
+“Surely,” said Rushton, “you cannot be angry with my jealousy--a
+jealousy that springs only from excess of affection.”
+
+“No man,” said Blanche, “can possess real affection for any one of
+whose sincerity he has a constant doubt. I have forgiven these mad fits
+twenty times, always hoping and expecting that time would show you your
+error; but no,--our very last quarrel occurred ten minutes after our
+last reconciliation.”
+
+“Recollect, Blanche,” said Rushton, “the events of that day--the day
+before you left town:--there you were--the sought and admired of the
+party--speaking kindly and looking kindly to everybody except me, of
+whom, as I felt, you took no notice.”
+
+“Well, sir,” said Blanche, “and if I were cold, and even cross, you
+need not have been so greatly surprised, if you had recollected how you
+called me to account for sitting next Mr. Brag the last time he was
+here, and entering into a common conversation with him about some of
+his feats and enterprizes.”
+
+“By Heavens!” exclaimed Rushton, “how I hate that fellow--his easy
+assurance, his self-conceit: but the fault is all your’s and your
+sister’s. That very night there he was whispering his infernal nonsense
+in your ear, to your evident amusement and satisfaction, while I,
+distressed and disturbed by your conduct, was losing my money at écarté
+with Lady Begbrook, and you sat laughing at my folly and agitation.”
+
+“I _did_ laugh,” said Blanche, “but I did not laugh alone.”
+
+“No, no, that’s true,” said Rushton. “I dare say there are minds
+and tempers that can bear these irritations--I confess mine cannot.
+Possibly I expect too much; probably I am romantic; but, I _do_ say,
+and _will_ say, that however charming I may wish my wife to be, I
+do not exactly desire that she should be anxious to make herself
+universally agreeable, nor equally delightful, to everybody.”
+
+“Really, Mr. Rushton,” said Blanche, “these fancies of yours are
+unjustifiable and unbearable. I confess that it would cost me serious
+pain to terminate our acquaintance, in which I have, when you are
+rational, great happiness; but such conduct surely deserves to lose
+my esteem. I can neither smile nor sigh, walk nor sit down, talk
+nor be silent, go out nor come in, but you attribute some motive to
+my actions. They bring me a letter--of course it is from a rival; I
+dance with somebody--you are either angry or in despair. I am civil to
+Mr. Brag, my sister’s visiter, and the next moment I see you wholly
+unconscious of what you are doing, crushing my fan to atoms in revenge.
+Oh! Mr. Rushton, Mr. Rushton, such conduct in a lover is but the
+anticipation of tyranny in a husband.”
+
+“Tyranny, Blanche!” said Rushton, suddenly softened into subjection;
+“what an idea!”
+
+“I am afraid,” said Blanche, “that our hearts are not formed to be
+united: we had better agree upon one point--to part.”
+
+“There it is!” exclaimed Rushton; “the truth is out. You have now
+declared yourself; you hate me--you cast me off. I knew there was some
+new attachment formed. Yes, yes--we _will_ part, Miss Englefield. There
+is a woman in the world, thank Heaven! who has a better opinion of
+me than you have: from _her_ gentle heart my wounded spirit may find
+relief.”
+
+“Oh!” said Blanche, “I am quite aware of that lady’s name. Go,
+sir--leave me: let this be our last interview.”
+
+Blanche spoke these words with so much firmness, that she began to be
+afraid Rushton would take her at her word; nor did Rushton’s answer
+much relieve her apprehensions.
+
+“So be it!” said he. “I will conquer this feeling--I _will_ love where
+my love can be returned. But, madam, I insist upon one thing--tell me,
+who is the man who has supplanted me in your affections.”
+
+“Why,” said Blanche smiling--“should I do that?”
+
+“Why?” exclaimed Rushton--“because he shall at least set his life upon
+the hazard. Name him to me, I desire: tell me where he is to be found,
+and if----”
+
+“Mr. Rushton,” said Blanche, “I wish you a good morning. Whenever you
+are reasonable, and can conduct yourself temperately, I will explain my
+conduct to you. In your present state of excitement, I must leave you.”
+
+Saying which, the fair creature quitted the room, leaving the
+infuriated victim of love and jealousy in an agony of despair.
+
+The moment she was gone, he stared wildly round. In the crowd of
+conflicting passions which now assailed him, anger was in the
+ascendant; and, snatching his hat from the table, he rushed down stairs
+and quitted the house, swearing, almost audibly, that he never would
+enter it again.
+
+It was clear that the project of the ladies had been so far successful
+as to set the whole mass of affections and feelings of the two
+gentlemen into a state of fermentation; because, while this scene was
+acting at the widow’s, Sir Charles Lydiard had been to his hotel,
+where he found no note from the lady, and whence, after waiting a
+much longer time than would have been occupied in its transmission by
+her servant, he proceeded to take his ride, with a distracted brain,
+having come to a determination that the next day should conclude his
+acquaintance with the avowed and self-convicted coquette, who had now
+proved what he had long suspected, that she was merely playing a game
+with him for her own diversion. In this critical juncture we must for
+the present leave them, in order to introduce the reader to some new
+arrivals, as well as to give him some information of the convalescent
+mother, her dutiful daughter, and the philanthropic physician.
+
+The amiable person last named continued his attentions to the widow
+Brown and her daughter: his visits became diurnally regular; and the
+satisfaction he derived from the recovering health of the one, and
+the improving spirits of the other, assumed a character which became
+evident to both. The anxiety he expressed for their comfort, the
+assiduous attention with which he contrived little surprises in the way
+of excursions in the neighbourhood of their present residence, which
+he represented as conducive to the re-establishment of his patient,
+were marks of a feeling not to be concealed or disguised; nor, to say
+truth, did Mead appear at all desirous of practising any delusion upon
+either of his new friends. It was perfectly clear that he had formed
+an attachment, which from its nature and principle promised to be
+permanent.
+
+Mead had watched the conduct of Anne during the illness of her mother,
+had attentively regarded the workings of her mind, and had satisfied
+himself that she possessed every attribute desirable in a wife. Their
+acquaintance had commenced, and his acquaintance with her mother had
+been renewed, under circumstances which gave a deep interest in his
+mind to her fate and fortunes. Mead was one of those modest, unassuming
+men, who once in an age attain to eminence without having forced their
+way by impudent assurance, or having been pushed forward by favouritism
+or connexion. Success had not spoiled him; and while rising to the
+first rank in his profession, he was the same gentle, unassuming,
+affectionate being that he was, while toiling up the “steep ascent to
+fame.”
+
+It was not that Dr. Mead entertained the unfavourable opinions of the
+higher classes, which it is the continual effort of the lower orders
+to inculcate; but he felt the absolute necessity of something like
+parity of rank between the contracting parties to secure happiness in
+marriage. The daughter of a merchant, even though unfortunate, was
+neither so much inferior nor superior to the son of a country clergyman
+as to make the inequality of station seriously objectionable; and in
+Anne, Dr. Mead persuaded himself he perceived qualities and feelings
+calculated to sweeten the draught of life, and which would worthily
+adorn the partner of his future days. In his conduct in this affair
+there was nothing of romance or violence of passion. Indeed his love
+was what a romantic girl would consider extremely unsatisfactory--it
+was rational esteem founded upon conviction; and their intercourse was
+so unmixed with any of those flights in which such persons as Miss
+Englefield and Mr. Rushton were perpetually engaged, that, when the
+doctor made his declaration, it seemed as if it were the inevitable
+consequence of their constant association; and Anne’s acceptance of
+his offer, under the sanction of her delighted mother, was as calm and
+collected as if it were not the great deciding event of her life, and
+one which could only be looked upon as the happiest that had ever yet
+occurred in it.
+
+It may be that this calmness, and her apparent unconsciousness of the
+wonderful importance of the match in a worldly point of view, might
+have arisen in some degree from the recollection which never fades from
+woman’s mind, of her first love. Unworthy as he had proved himself, and
+changed so much from his former self, he still perhaps retained some
+hold on the heart he had betrayed, and would with callous indifference
+have broken:--these recollections might have had their share in
+producing the effects which, although Mead appeared perfectly satisfied
+with the gentleness of Anne’s conduct, were by no means agreeable to
+her mother, whose gratitude to Providence for what had occurred was
+unbounded.
+
+There was another point which was necessarily to be brought under
+discussion, to which Anne felt a diffidence and difficulty in
+alluding--the position of her brother George in society, and his close
+connexion with the doctor’s heartless rival. These matters, interwoven
+as they were with the probable renewal of her acquaintance with Brag
+when his sister should return to England, and the consciousness that
+she had committed herself by an acknowledgment of her attachment
+to him, preyed upon her spirits, and the brightness of her present
+prospects was marred by clouds, which, like the few existing professors
+of Nauscopy, she could behold in the far distance before they were
+visible to ordinary eyes. To the suspense in which the heart and
+mind are constantly kept by a protracted anticipation of coming
+evils, which, however remote, are sure to come, poor Anne, it must be
+owned, was a victim, and her efforts to rally from it were altogether
+unavailing.
+
+We have all felt that the most serious ills, or the most painful
+discussions, which have occurred to us, or in which we have been
+engaged, have, when they actually arrived, turned out not half so
+serious or so painful as we have expected; and upon this principle
+Anne devoutly prayed that the _denouement_, which she regarded with so
+much anxiety and dread, should arrive speedily. Her mother, to whom
+she imparted so much of her uneasiness as related to the announcement
+to her future husband of her brother’s rank in the army, assured her
+that nothing was to be apprehended on that score; that a man who had
+selected as a wife, the daughter of a distressed and needy woman,
+would not shrink from the fulfilment of his pledge to her, because her
+brother had been compelled to enter an honourable service even in its
+lowest grade.
+
+Mrs. Brown was a woman of good sense, but whatever Mead’s character and
+disposition might be, there is, in point of fact, as far as worldly
+matters go, a wide difference in the feelings of a man towards the
+female and male connexions of a family: a pretty milliner, or a smart
+actress, is a most agreeable _pro tempore_ companion; and there is
+not a man who would object to take either, to any of the _guinguettes_
+round town, in the bright blaze of sunshine to participate in the
+enjoyments of a Richmond stroll, or a Greenwich fish-dinner; but it
+would be rather a difficult matter to induce the same person to drive
+Jack Twigg, the brother of the one--or row Bill Bott, the father
+of the other--to either of those cockney Elysiums. The doctor was
+everything that could be amiable and generous, but the fact that the
+real nature of George’s service had never been imparted to him, but,
+on the contrary, the discussion had been carefully avoided, might of
+itself add to the objections which he might feel to having, by way of
+brother-in-law, a hard-fisted sergeant of a marching regiment.
+
+How he eventually was made acquainted with the facts, and what was
+the result of his knowledge of them as affecting his subsequent
+proceedings, the reader is soon destined to know: but as they are
+rather prominent features of our little history, it is right they
+should have a chapter to themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A few days had only elapsed since the final arrangement of Anne’s
+marriage, when the anxiety and worry by which she was annoyed in not
+having explicitly told her future husband her brother’s history were
+terminated in a manner certainly neither expected nor anticipated by
+her.
+
+It was evening when the doctor made his appearance at the Tusculum,
+evidently excited--that is to say, rather more animated than
+usual--full of something which he was anxious to impart, and still
+more desirous of imparting without flurrying his companions:--to use a
+homely phrase, he had a good deal to say, but did not know exactly how
+to begin.
+
+The difficulty he felt, arose from two sources:--the first cause of his
+embarrassment was, the consciousness that what he had to communicate
+could not fail, with all his caution, to awaken a combination of
+feelings in the minds of his hearers, the physical effect of which
+upon the constitution of the elder one he anticipated with some
+apprehension; and the other originated in the feeling that he was about
+to avow himself fully acquainted with every particular concerning a
+member of the family to which he was about to ally himself, whose name
+had scarcely ever been mentioned, and whose history had never been
+touched on.
+
+“I have news for you, ladies,” said Mead, after having talked upon
+some indifferent subjects, “which will surprise you; but I shall not
+tell you one word until you have promised me to behave calmly and
+temperately when I have told my story.”
+
+“News for _us_!” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“News from afar,” said the doctor.
+
+The blood rushed into Anne’s cheeks. She was assured whence, and whence
+only, news from afar could come to _them_--Mead had heard of her
+brother--of the brother of whose position in society she had avoided
+the mention--he knew it all--and not from her! She felt humiliated and
+abashed, and almost shuddered at the reflection that from mistaken
+pride,--unaccountable in a character like hers,--she had left the
+developement of the whole family history to chance, by which, Mead had
+become possessed of every particular, and was of course convinced that
+Anne, with all her good qualities, was not entirely ingenuous. As it
+happened, the circumstances of the case were such as not to give that
+colouring to her conduct; but, on the contrary, to lead the doctor to
+admire the diffidence and modesty of both mother and daughter in not
+having spoken much more of such a son and brother.
+
+“Your son”--said Mead.
+
+“I knew it must be poor George!” exclaimed Anne.
+
+“Your son is expected home almost immediately,” said the doctor.
+
+“Thank God!” said Mrs. Brown: “he is alive then and safe. Three years
+have passed since the date of his last letter.”
+
+“Dear, dear George!” said Anne--her joy still clouded by her
+self-condemnation.
+
+“When, my dear doctor,” said Mrs. Brown, “may we expect him?--and how
+have you heard this news?”
+
+“Promise me, both of you,” said Mead, “to hear what I have to say
+calmly, and I will tell you all. You have no reason for agitation; the
+news I bring is good--excellent! Now, recollect--no agitation----he is
+in England!”
+
+A flood of tears from the two listeners followed this announcement. I
+am not sure that the eyes of the narrator were quite dry.
+
+“Heaven be praised!” sobbed Mrs. Brown; “I shall see my dear, dear boy
+once more!”
+
+Anne remained mute, and motionless, and weeping.
+
+“Nay, ladies,” continued Mead, “I have seen him--have conversed with
+him,--and only succeeded by pointing out the absolute necessity of
+forbearance, in hindering his coming with me:--to-morrow you will clasp
+him to your hearts.”
+
+Had not the one reproach rankled in Anne’s mind, her happiness
+would have been as perfect as her mother’s: as it was, she felt she
+would give the world to enquire more about him--about his wife--his
+family--his circumstances; but she was tongue-tied.
+
+“Is he well?” said his mother--“and is his wife with him?”
+
+“She is,” said Mead--“I have seen _her_ too.”
+
+Another pang thrilled through Anne’s heart:--that wife was the
+sister of the man to whom she had herself been betrothed! The
+mother and daughter exchanged a look;--it was full of meaning, but
+incomprehensible to Mead.
+
+“I suppose she must be much altered,” said Mrs. Brown; “of that,
+however, _you_ can be no judge, not having known her before she went
+abroad.”
+
+“She is a very lovely creature,” said Mead; and observing a sudden
+change in the expression of Anne’s countenance, he added--“not that I
+mean to make anybody jealous.”
+
+Anne coloured: she felt that they were travelling over mined
+ground:--that the most natural thing in the world for George to
+have done when he found out the doctor, was to make some allusion to
+the brother of his wife with reference to his sister; and she began
+to worry herself into the belief that the whole history of the Brag
+affair had been detailed to her affianced lover, and that he was merely
+serpentining his way to the part of the details at which he might
+terminate his connexion with them altogether.
+
+“I never saw a sweeter expression of countenance!” continued Mead.
+“Her manners are perfect: in fact, nothing but a constant intercourse
+with the best society can give that sort of unconscious ease and
+gracefulness which seem inherent, and whose greatest charm is the total
+absence of effort or affectation.”
+
+Anne heard, and silently repeated to herself the words, “constant
+intercourse with the best society,” and her thoughts flew like
+lightning to the back parlour behind the shop, the dangling candles
+in front, the respectable Brag defunct, and his widow still extant;
+and the result of these hasty reminiscences was a confirmation of
+her belief that Mead was proceeding in an ironical strain, utterly at
+variance as it was with the general simplicity and amiability of his
+character, in order eventually to explode the whole affair, indignant
+at the treatment he had experienced, and disgusted with the connexion
+he had so nearly made.
+
+“Why,” said Mrs. Brown--and Anne would have given worlds that she had
+said nothing,--“she was always a smart, clever girl, and, I suppose,
+time has improved her into what she is.”
+
+“Her natural genius,” said Mead, “which, from some drawings I saw of
+hers, views of different parts of India, is evidently first-rate, has
+been--at least so your son told me--wonderfully improved by a residence
+in Italy, where art is so generally cultivated and understood; and her
+father, who, he says, was devoted to her, indulged her in a wish to
+reside upon the Continent for three years before his appointment.”
+
+The mother and daughter again exchanged looks. It became a doubt in
+both their minds whether Dr. Mead was suddenly seized with madness,
+or whether their dear George had caught the infection from the Brag
+family, and had been imposing on him in the most outrageous manner.
+
+“I never heard of my daughter-in-law’s having been abroad,” said Mrs.
+Brown.
+
+“She never could have been,” said Anne.
+
+“All I know is this,” said Mead:--“a gentleman called upon me about
+one o’clock to-day. He sent in his card, and, upon seeing his name,
+it struck me that it must be your George, whom I had heard you
+occasionally mention. I had remarked that you did not speak much of
+him, and, as there are secrets in all families, I apprehended, although
+you never hinted it, that there might exist some disagreement amongst
+you with which I could have no concern whatever; still the similarity
+of name excited the opinion that it might be _him_. I immediately
+received him in preference to my waiting patients. He told me that as
+soon as he and his wife arrived in town, he proceeded to Walworth,
+where the people of the house directed him to me, as knowing all about
+you. Our conversation grew more and more interesting; and having,
+evidently to his surprise, and, I flatter myself, not a disagreeable
+one, told him the nature of my engagement to dear Anne, he insisted on
+accompanying me hither to clasp you in his arms. I positively refused
+that, and, by way of an intermediate bargain, he begged me the moment
+I had despatched my professional business to call upon him and his
+wife at Mivart’s Hotel, where they have taken rooms. I did so, was
+introduced, and, as I have told you, am quite delighted with both of
+them.”
+
+“Mivart’s Hotel!--taken rooms!”--another look was exchanged.
+
+“Did he tell you,” said Mrs. Brown, “whether he had any family?”
+
+“I think he said one boy,” replied Mead: “however, he will be here in
+the morning. I am not sure whether your daughter-in-law will come with
+him. She is in rather delicate health; and the journey from Falmouth,
+where they landed, coming immediately on a fortnight’s bad weather in
+the chops of the Channel, after a long voyage, is something formidable
+to a person who, like her, has been used to all the luxuries of life.”
+
+Another look,--and an extra one from Anne, who looked at Mead to see
+whether there were any visible alteration in his countenance; for all
+he said was perfectly incomprehensible to her--if _he_ were sane and
+rational.
+
+“Did she,” said Anne, particularly anxious to discover the extent
+of her communication as to her brother’s engagement, as it might be
+called, with herself--“did she say anything about her brother?”
+
+“Brother!” said Mead; “no, my dear Anne; George, your brother, and my
+future brother-in-law, I hope,” (Anne blushed again,) “told me she was
+an only child.”
+
+“Did he?” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“An only child!” said Anne--and they were both more mystified than
+ever. Anne, however, who was more feelingly alive to the actual
+position of her brother, ventured a little farther: “Has George,” said
+she, “obtained any promotion since we heard from him?”
+
+“That,” said Mead, “is a question I cannot very satisfactorily answer.
+His card was a written one, and the name ‘Mr. Brown.’ As I before told
+you, my dear Anne, the name itself was enough for me.”
+
+This little speech tended very considerably to calm poor Anne’s doubts
+and fears. Whatever had occurred, it was clear that neither George nor
+Kate had touched upon the subject of her former engagement, and she
+began to take courage and feel more at ease than she had been during
+the earlier part of the conversation.
+
+Mrs. Brown’s delight at the prospect of again seeing her son was not
+a little qualified by the mystification which Mead’s account of him
+and his wife involved, and she longed for bed-time, in order to talk
+over the circumstances with her daughter. Her confidence in George’s
+veracity rendered her suspicious of the doctor’s accuracy; and out
+of both she established an idea that the Mr. Brown of whom they had
+been talking must be neither more nor less than some dashing swindler,
+who proposed to cheat the doctor, or somebody else, by pretending a
+relationship to the family with which he was about to connect himself.
+
+Of course, so long as the conversation lasted, George and his wife
+were the leading subjects of it; not that the doubts and surmises of
+the ladies were at all calmed or diminished by hearing Mead detail the
+particulars of a visit paid to Mr. Brown, during the time he was at the
+hotel, by one of the most fashionable coachmakers in town, to receive
+Mrs. Brown’s orders with regard to a carriage which was to be put in
+hand immediately, and finished as soon as possible.
+
+At last the trio separated for the night, the doctor well pleased to
+have found in his brother-in-law a gentleman so agreeable and highly
+respectable, but wondering more than ever that he should have suffered
+his mother and sister to exist in the manner they were living at
+Walworth, and where, had it not been for the accidental circumstance
+of Anne’s application to him, they would in all probability have been
+living still; and coupling these matters with the looks which he could
+not at length fail to see Mrs. Brown and her daughter interchange, he
+unsettled his mind into a belief that there must be some mystery in the
+affair, of which he should like to be master.
+
+“My dear Anne,” said Mrs. Brown, as she threw herself into the armed
+chair in her bedchamber, “what on earth can all this mean? Delighted
+as I am at the prospect of so soon seeing my boy, I am astounded and
+astonished at what Mead tells us. What can have happened to George,
+to induce him to talk and act as he represents him to have done this
+morning?”
+
+“I,” said Miss Brown, “cannot comprehend it. But I am even more
+surprised at what he has _not_ said to Robert, than at what he _has_.
+He may have made money; he may be able to live at an expensive
+hotel; and he may be able to let Kate have a carriage: but one would
+have thought one of his first enquiries would have been after his
+brother-in-law. Now, of Jack, it is clear he never spoke; for if he
+had, and before Robert had told him all, the chances are”--(here her
+voice faltered a little)--“_my_ name would have been mentioned too.”
+
+“My dear child,” said Mrs. Brown, “how should George afford any of
+the luxuries of which Mead speaks?--besides, knowing, as I do, the
+tenderness of his affection, and the generosity of his heart, do you
+think, if he had acquired anything like the property which this person
+seems to possess, that we should have been forgotten? No, no!--rely
+upon it, there is some great mistake in the business somewhere. George
+would never have left his mother and sister to work for their bread, if
+he had had the means of putting them at their ease.”
+
+“Besides,” said Anne, “when the whole of the conversation of _this_ Mr.
+Brown with Robert is put together, it does not appear to contain one
+word in allusion to our family concerns. It is true, Mr. Brown went
+to Walworth, and was referred to Robert by Mrs. Hutchins; but, except
+a simple enquiry after our health, he seems to have made no allusion
+whatever to anything that happened either before his departure or
+during his absence. My belief is, like yours, that it is somebody who
+for some purpose has thought fit to personate George, although, to be
+sure, it would be difficult to conjecture for what.”
+
+“I would rather it were anything,” said Mrs. Brown, “than that my once
+honourable, high-minded boy should have endeavoured to impose upon Mead
+with such extraordinary falsehoods as those which it appears he must
+have told, if it be him.”
+
+“Besides,” said Anne, who grew energetic and eloquent as she proceeded,
+“Kate never _could_ draw; the things she took home from school were all
+done by the drawing-master: and as for the Continent, she never was
+even as far as Calais.”
+
+“It seems to me, Anne,” said the matron, “to be one tissue of falsehood
+and pretension from beginning to end.”
+
+In this sort of condemnatory strain did Mrs. Brown and her daughter
+converse, till, twelve o’clock striking, they considered it proper to
+part for the night, in order to indulge themselves with a separate
+reconsideration of the whole affair.
+
+The morning came--breakfast was eaten:--the doctor departed as usual
+for town, and the ladies began to count the minutes until George, or
+the person who had assumed his name, should make his appearance. At
+length the happy moment came; the old lady clasped her son to her
+heart, and the young one clung round the neck of her brother. George
+IT WAS--that was clear; and although his features had become somewhat
+sharpened by time, and his complexion was mellowed into a durable brown
+by the effects of the climate, he was not so much altered as might have
+been expected.
+
+“Well, my dear mother,” said George, as soon as he could collect
+himself sufficiently to speak, “what gratitude do we not owe to
+Providence! As far as Anne is concerned, I am delighted with her
+choice: I wanted nothing but her comfortable establishment in life to
+make me perfectly happy.”
+
+“And how is your wife, George?” said his mother; “our doctor says she
+is in delicate health.”
+
+“She is, I am sorry to say, a sad invalid,” said George. “I hope,
+however, her native climate, unfavourable as it is to foreigners, may
+restore her. She was very anxious to come with me to-day, but she
+really is not strong enough to bear even so short an excursion.”
+
+“We have seen scarcely anything of Brag since you went,” said Mrs.
+Brown, anxious as much as possible to soften down his infamous conduct,
+out of respect to the feelings of his blameless sister.
+
+“I rejoice to hear it,” said George. “I trust I never may have the
+misfortune of seeing him again.”
+
+“But I suppose,” said Anne, who was always for peace-making, “you
+_will_ see him for the sake of my sister-in-law?”
+
+“I don’t imagine,” said Mr. Brown, “that your sister-in-law is very
+likely to see much of _him_. In fact,” continued he, “I think, when she
+gets strong enough, we shall in all probability go to the Continent,
+unless perhaps I should stop a month or two in England for a little
+shooting.”
+
+Here the ladies exchanged looks of a similar character to those of the
+night before.
+
+“To be sure,” continued he, “whatever miseries and unhappinesses I may
+have undergone since we parted, my career has been one of the most
+extraordinary, and most prosperous, that man ever ran. How I have
+deserved such blessings, I know not.”
+
+“What rank have you now in the army, George?” said his mother.
+
+“Army!” said her son; “you know I have left the army.”
+
+“Left it!” exclaimed the old lady, more confirmed than ever in the
+suspicion that something was wrong somewhere and somehow:--“why then,
+how do you live?”
+
+“How!--as a man of fortune should live,” said George,--“upon my
+property.”
+
+“My dear George,” said Anne, “what _are_ you talking of?”
+
+“Nothing but what you know of,” replied he.
+
+“We know of nothing, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Brown, “but of your having
+been made clerk to Sir Cadwallader Adamthwaite’s secretary.”
+
+“Why, my dear mother,” said George, “I never made a remittance to you
+without writing fully upon all my affairs.”
+
+“Remittance!” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“Letters!” said Anne--“my dear brother, we have not received a line
+from you for upwards of three years; and, during all our distresses,
+your silence caused perhaps the keenest pang of all.”
+
+“Distresses!” exclaimed George--“why this--what--three years!--there
+have been roguery and robbery here! From the moment my fortunes
+changed, I regularly remitted you as much as my means would afford; and
+although wondering never to have heard from you through the agent whom
+I directed to forward my letters to you, and to receive any you chose
+to trust to his care, I felt assured by his answers that your silence
+was a matter of choice; and, ascertaining through him that you were
+both well, contented myself with fulfilling my duty and gratifying my
+inclinations, without waiting for reply or acknowledgment. The truth
+will be easily discovered. This very agent, I find on my arrival here,
+has failed, and is recently dead; I have, of course, had no time to
+investigate his affairs, but I very much fear I shall be an eventual
+loser of four or five thousand pounds by him.”
+
+Here the ladies looked at each other again. Anne had read in some book
+something about shaking the pagoda tree in India, but it seemed as if
+her brother must have picked it clean.
+
+“Three years!” said George--“why then you know nothing of the leading
+events of my life--of the entire change in my circumstances.”
+
+“I see you are in mourning, George,” said Anne, who did not know how to
+ask for whom?
+
+“Yes,” said George, “I am sorry to say I am--for my father-in-law; a
+more generous-hearted, noble-minded man, never lived.”
+
+“In mourning for poor Mr. Brag, now!” said his mother.
+
+“Brag!” said George--“I sicken at the very name.”
+
+“Oh, George,” said Anne, “consider Kate!”
+
+“Kate!” exclaimed Brown, turning deadly pale--“Kate!--Oh! Anne, it
+must be more than three years since you got any of my letters.--Lost,
+wretched woman!”
+
+“Lost!” said Anne--“why, is not she at the hotel?”
+
+“In her grave!” said George, “a grave which closed upon a life of
+wantonness and disgrace.”
+
+“Then you are married again?” said Anne.
+
+In answer to this question, it seems better to adopt the narrative
+style, inasmuch as many circumstances had occurred during the period of
+George’s involuntary cessation of correspondence with his mother, which
+it would be difficult for him personally to describe or explain.
+
+The reader has traced the career of Mr. George Brown up to the point
+of his becoming clerk to the military secretary of Sir Cadwallader
+Adamthwaite. His readiness, activity, and assiduity, were so
+remarkable, that the general, who was one of the kindest-hearted
+men upon the face of the earth, took the trouble to ascertain the
+particulars of his history; and finding him to be in every essential
+point a gentleman, resolved on procuring him a commission in the
+army, which he did; and when it was obtained, and George appointed,
+the clerk was dignified into assistant military secretary, and the
+assistant military secretary became one of the general’s family.
+
+It was during a year or fourteen months of probation before the arrival
+of his commission, that Mrs. George Brown (_née_ Brag) began to evince
+very strong symptoms of a propensity, which even the thirst produced by
+a hot climate cannot justify in one of the “fair sex,” as her brother
+would call them; and upon more occasions than one, George, on his
+return from head-quarters, found her in a state which, as authors say
+who are not able to depict what they wish, “may be better imagined than
+described.” It rarely happens that when this vice exists in woman, it
+is the only one to which she sooner or later addicts herself. Grown
+reckless by habitual intemperance, her temper became violent; and
+impatient of rebuke, she taxed her husband with cruelty and inhumanity
+for merely remonstrating upon conduct so disgraceful to herself, and
+which must be so injurious to him. The most depraved women, however,
+find admirers, and Mrs. Brown, degraded as she was, found hers. The
+justification she attempted to plead for the irregularity of her life
+was, the delusion which had been practised upon her by George as to
+the place she was to occupy in the world; that her husband’s rank,
+of course, excluded her from good society, such as, she said, “she
+had always been used to:” and, in short, having awakened from a dream
+of girlish love, she bitterly repented of the step she had taken,
+and became careless of everything but the gratification of her worst
+propensities.
+
+This career did not last long. It would be neither pleasant nor
+profitable to enter into the particulars of her unfortunate case; a few
+months’ intemperance brought her life to its close, and left George a
+widower, commiserated by his comrades rather for the sufferings he had
+undergone, than for the loss he had sustained. All these circumstances
+he had detailed in his missing letters to his mother, in one of which
+he had also communicated the intelligence of his wife’s death to her
+surviving parent; but, with great goodness of heart and tenderness of
+feeling, avoiding all mention of the unhappy circumstances in which she
+died.
+
+If George and Kate had given themselves time to consider the step which
+they unfortunately took, and had not been blinded by youthful love,
+they could have anticipated nothing but evil from such a marriage. Kate
+was evidently labouring under the belief that George was an officer;
+and the question whether his rank would enable her to live with people
+such as she had been accustomed to visit and receive, never entered
+her mind. She first began to feel her difficulties when she embarked
+on board the ship which was to take them to India; but even _there_
+the superiority of her manners induced a special attention to her, and
+infinitely better accommodation was contrived for her than she had
+any _right_ to: in short, from the moment they were fairly launched
+in the world, and she saw the path she had chosen, she became fretful
+and irritable, her pride wounded by finding herself unable to speak
+to, or associate with the wives of the officers with whom she was
+domesticated, and her vanity hurt by being permitted to stand in the
+verandah of the mess-room, _to look in and see_ the company dancing
+when the officers gave a ball.
+
+That it _was_ humiliating and provoking nobody can deny, but she
+ought to have calculated upon such evils before she married; that is,
+if she knew enough of “the service” to enable her to appreciate the
+relative value of its different ranks: however, it is not my province
+to reason upon the wisdom or propriety of her early proceedings. Her
+ruin and fall may be fairly traced to her first great act of filial
+disobedience; and her fate adds another to the numerous instances
+already upon record, of the ill-success of runaway matches.
+
+The day on which Ensign Brown made his first appearance in Sir
+Cadwallader Adamthwaite’s drawing-room, was a most important era of
+his life; and when he found himself warmly received by the general,
+and presented _pro formâ_ to his daughter, who, of course, knew him
+perfectly well by sight, he could not restrain a feeling of regret that
+his unfortunate wife had not so conducted herself through what he
+admitted to have been a trial, that she might have overcome all the
+hardships she had previously endured, and have enjoyed the satisfaction
+of finding herself placed by her husband’s promotion, in society from
+which her girlish thoughtlessness had excluded her.
+
+Sir Cadwallader’s kind act of justice to the merits of Ensign Brown
+gave general satisfaction, and met with universal approbation; and he
+was welcomed to the mess of his regiment with the most unequivocal
+marks of friendship and esteem. His official avocations prevented
+his doing regimental duty, and his evenings were occupied in a
+participation in the pleasures of Sir Cadwallader’s hospitable mansion.
+
+It might displease the reader if I were to doubt that he anticipates
+the result of this introduction of the ensign into the house of
+the general. He most probably guesses rightly; but as there _are_
+circumstances which render the case somewhat dissimilar from most
+others, he must be told the particulars.
+
+Ellen Adamthwaite, Sir Cadwallader’s daughter, was the beloved of his
+heart. Her mother had died young--a mother from whom Sir Cadwallader
+had received, besides the most endearing proofs of constancy and
+affection, the vast fortune which he possessed, and which enabled
+him to support _en prince_ the highest offices, to which his noble
+profession and his gallant conduct had led him. Upon Ellen--the dear,
+the gentle Ellen--the love, the devotion, which once was her mother’s
+due, devolved at her mother’s death: and although Ellen, who was
+everything father could desire, could not but feel conscious of her
+power over him, she was the least presuming of daughters, the most
+gentle, and most amiable of girls.
+
+When Sir Cadwallader was offered the commandership-in-chief and
+second seat in council at the presidency to which he was attached, he
+accepted it, upon the chivalrous feeling of the greatest soldier, not
+only of the day, but of the land we live in--that he was the King’s
+servant, and equally bound to obey his commands in the highest and
+lowest of offices; and although possessed of wealth which rendered
+the appointment pecuniarily unimportant, he readily relinquished his
+domestic ease and comfort for the more _negatively_ active domination
+over an Oriental army.
+
+While holding this appointment, his constant endeavour appeared to be,
+to make everybody happy around him. There was nothing in the state of
+the country which seemed to require any of the austerity of military
+discipline; and the routine duty, although comprehending an extensive
+range, was not that which required the vigilance and activity of war.
+He “took the thing easy” himself, and his greatest pleasure was to see
+everybody subordinate to himself do exactly the same. He never grumbled
+if he saw men in “mufti” or “white jackets;” desired every man to “make
+himself comfortable” when he came to dinner; and, in short, was about
+the best-natured being that ever melted under an Indian sun.
+
+That he had taken a great fancy to Brown was clear. Major Mopes,
+whose death-like countenance never relaxed into a smile, but of whom
+Sir Cadwallader had the highest opinion, inasmuch as he saved His
+Excellency all the trouble, not only of writing but of thinking,
+had spoken very highly of George, and enlarged upon the meritorious
+course he had pursued in entering the army, as he had done, in order
+to relieve his mother, who _had been_ in such a different position in
+society, from all charge for his support. This recommendation led Sir
+Cadwallader to talk to him: he found him well-informed, well-read,
+intelligent, and, in fact, a gentleman. The prepossession thus created,
+and which went to the extent of procuring him the commission, extended
+further, and the only phrase--it is a simple one, and best suits the
+general’s feeling, is,--“he liked him.”
+
+How often such prepossessions take hold of people, and how seldom are
+they erroneous!--how unaccountable are the sympathies by which such
+prepossessions are created! The moment Sir Cadwallader heard George’s
+story, and received the testimonials of his merit and ability, he
+resolved to serve him,--and, in fact, to restore him to his place in
+society as a gentleman, which he pronounced him to be to his daughter,
+while he was yet his secretary’s clerk, as he was sitting with her in
+the windward varhandah smoking his chilum.
+
+Ellen Adamthwaite, who, of course, saw George almost every day,
+accidentally, or perhaps incidentally, could not help participating
+in the interest which her father took in his fate, especially as the
+history of his wife’s misconduct and death were matters of notoriety in
+the family, from Major Mopes’s frequent recurrence to the circumstance
+of their elopement from England,--and the commiserating “What a pity
+it is that nothing can be done to reclaim a person originally so
+respectable!” which was so often on his lips.
+
+When George became by royal authority a gentleman, and Ellen found she
+might look at him, and even speak to him, without any indecorum, she
+certainly felt more than ever the hardship of his case while doing the
+duty which his filial affection had imposed upon him, even regretting,
+as he did himself, the cause which, no doubt, was truly assigned for
+his wife’s distressing dereliction from every religious, moral, and
+social duty.
+
+Nothing more readily excites an interest in a woman’s heart than a
+bit of the romance of real life. George, selected by her kind-hearted
+father for favour and promotion, was brought into her society the son
+of a ruined merchant, who had received the education of a gentleman,
+and had been educated in the expectation of succeeding to his father’s
+wealth. He enters the army as a private soldier, to relieve his mother
+from the burthen of maintaining him, and he elopes with a girl who
+is desperately in love with him. In his past life, therefore, there
+appeared a combination of events, sufficiently romantic to awaken a
+particular feeling towards him; and it was not many days after his
+domestication at the general’s, before Ellen found her eyes resting
+upon his intelligent countenance much oftener than upon any other
+object in the room.
+
+There was a manly modesty in George’s manner--a sort of consciousness
+of what he might have been, of what he had been, and yet, of what he
+_was_, which was peculiarly conciliating. Sir Cadwallader lost no
+opportunity of bringing him forward. It seemed, indeed, to be his
+study to make him appear to the best possible advantage in company, in
+order, as it might be thought, to justify the partiality he had evinced
+for him, and the good opinion he entertained of him.
+
+In London the circle is so extensive, that although some hundred or
+two people whisper, and look wise, and nod and wink at each other when
+a flirtation becomes a little too evident, there are seven or eight
+hundred others to whom it is a matter of no interest; and, moreover,
+whatever people think, they keep their thoughts as far distant as
+possible from the flirters themselves. Within the confined ring-fence
+of an Indian presidency, the slightest movement of that nature at
+head-quarters creates a universal sensation; all the worst passions of
+mankind are concentered and pemmican’d in a little community of that
+sort; envy and jealousy assume the garb of friendship and esteem; and
+some miserable wretch, whose hatred towards one of the parties has been
+engendered or fostered by the remembrance of a slight or neglect,
+thinks it a duty he owes to so excellent a man as his Excellency
+the commander-in-chief, to mention to him what people say about his
+daughter and Mr. Somebody, whose society and conversation she happens
+to prefer to that of the considerate friend of her father.
+
+Two months had not flown over George’s head in his new capacity
+before the whole tribe were in motion. “To be sure,” says one, “Sir
+Cadwallader is an extraordinary man:--he can’t but see it.” “Perhaps he
+does not object to it,” says another. “La!” cries a third: “what! let
+his daughter marry a man from the ranks!” “Hush!” says a fourth--“the
+less we say about _that_ the better: rose from the ranks himself.”
+“Flogged at Chatham for stealing a cock turkey,” says a fifth. “Hush!”
+says a sixth, “here comes his Excellency.” Out turns the guard--ruffle
+goes the drum--rattledum slap go the muskets--and his Excellency is
+immediately surrounded by the little group in the full exercise of
+Koo-too-ism, who, the moment before, were exercising their historical
+and biographical faculties in commenting upon the folly of his
+Excellency’s conduct, and in descanting upon the obscurity of his
+Excellency’s birth.
+
+That Ellen and George were somehow more paired off together, than any
+other two of the party, is most certain. In her conversation with him
+she did not disguise her esteem and regard for his good qualities,
+which made themselves evident upon every possible occasion; while _he_,
+regarding her as a superior being, felt that sort of admiration which
+wise men say is not compatible with tenderness. The whole economy of
+love, however, is so intricate, so perplexing, so mysterious, and so
+perilous, that there exists no rule throughout the whole system without
+an exception.
+
+George once or twice thought that Miss Adamthwaite looked more than she
+said; and though he had not sufficiently considered the matter even to
+assure himself that of all girls in the world she was the very last for
+whom he ought to encourage an affection, a word dropped by one of his
+friends on the staff, suddenly brought to his mind the real position
+in which he was placed. Then it was he taxed himself with selfishness
+in seeking her society; then it was he resolved to alienate himself
+from the delight which her conversation and accomplishments afforded
+him:--he would mix more generally in society; he would dine abroad
+whenever he could, and would go out immediately after his official
+business was over; he would not go to tiffin, nor walk for an hour or
+two with Ellen in the varhandah: in short, he would not endanger her
+peace or comfort by giving occasion for remarks, which although wholly
+without foundation, might wound her feelings or injure her reputation.
+
+It was not till the moment he made these resolutions that the real
+state of his heart became known to himself. It was only _then_ he
+discovered that he could not act upon his own determination. When
+tiffin was announced the next day, Sir Cadwallader forced him to
+stay and partake of it--desired his daughter to lay _her_ commands
+upon him:--then, by his Excellency’s orders, they played chess
+together,--and then came in some visiters--George, of course, could
+not leave _them_:--and then--and then--in fact, the very first day
+after _that_ in which he had decided upon a total alteration in his
+proceedings, was passed precisely as the thirty or forty preceding days
+had been passed.
+
+It is a generally admitted axiom, that “abstinence is less difficult
+than moderation;” and so it seems thought George: for failing in his
+project of philosophically decreasing his happiness gradually, he came
+to the resolution of abandoning it altogether.
+
+The project George meditated to carry this “stern resolve” into
+execution, was one which did honour to his heart; but it required a
+confederate, and that very circumstance enhanced its difficulty. The
+moment he had ascertained the real state of his feelings, he more
+attentively--perhaps tenderly would be a better word--watched the
+dear girl to whom he was devoted. It was too true:--looks and actions
+which he had attributed to friendship, or even to a compliance with
+her father’s wishes, now that he had ventured to think of love, bore
+a totally different character. Whatever dress he had accidentally
+praised, Ellen more constantly wore; the flower he preferred was always
+in her bosom; the songs he loved to hear, she sang; and opinions which
+he had once expressed, she adopted for her own.
+
+Oh! those who have never felt the tender, galling anxiety of a state
+like this, cannot appreciate George’s feelings during the week after he
+had made the discovery of his real position. What had he done?--gained
+the affections of his benefactor’s daughter! It was not vanity that
+suggested the truth: the word once spoken that gave _that_ turn to his
+thoughts, decided it. The fascination was over him--he was conscious
+that he was beloved. How he acted under this impression remains to be
+seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Amongst his friends--for of a few associates he had many--the friend
+George fixed upon as the one to aid him in his rescue from the
+commission of what he considered the damning crime of ingratitude, was
+the surgeon of his own regiment--a man of sense and shrewdness, and one
+who was professionally taciturn upon subjects not intended for general
+conversation:--to him, after mature deliberation, George proceeded, and
+having begged his private ear, told him he wanted his immediate aid.
+
+“What!--a duel?” said Dr. Short.
+
+“No, my dear doctor,” said George, “I am ill--seriously ill. I have
+a constant pain in my side. I ought not to stay here. I must resign
+my assistant-secretaryship and go home for my health. I want a sick
+certificate.”
+
+“Umph!” said Short--“I see--yes--on which side is the
+pain--left--right?”
+
+“Intensely severe on the right side,” said George. “I cannot lift my
+arm perpendicularly without feeling the most excruciating torture.”
+
+“Umph!” said the doctor. “You know what Abernethy said upon that point
+to the old woman who said the same thing to _him_--eh!--What a fool you
+must be to try!--eh!”
+
+“I assure you, doctor, mine is no laughing matter,” said George.
+
+“Let’s see your tongue. Umph!--clean as a whistle, and red as
+beet-root. Won’t do--eh! No tricks upon travellers--no case of liver.
+Can’t do what you want--or what you don’t want. Did Sir Cadwallader
+send you to me?”
+
+“No, indeed,” said George, “no human being is aware of my visit to you.”
+
+“Why did you make a secret of it, eh?” said Short. “Every man has a
+liver; every liver is subject to disease. What’s the use of mystery?”
+
+“I know of no mystery,” said George.
+
+“Won’t do, Mr. Assistant-secretary,” said Short. “A surgeon ought to
+have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand. Cannot say I
+have all those qualities; but as far as the eye goes, I think, I can
+see as far as my neighbours--eh!”
+
+“I don’t know what you should make a merit of seeing,” said George. “I
+have no disguises--I wish to be candid with you.”
+
+“Ah!” said Short, “now I see. You want to tell me you have nothing
+the matter with you: and yet you want me to give you a sick
+certificate--eh!--that’s it--umph!”
+
+“My dear doctor,” said George, “I believe you _do_ know something of my
+feelings, for you certainly have guessed my wishes. I am _not_ ill,--at
+least in body; but I may be saved from being ill in body, in mind, in
+reputation, and in conscience, if you will but grant your fiat for
+shipping me to England.”
+
+“_I_ know,” said Short, “you are as safe in _my_ care as a baby on her
+mother’s bosom:--but I say--those grey eyes and black eyelashes are
+the devil!--aren’t they?--umph!--sweet creature! Come, no nonsense, or
+you get no certificate. You know it is all mighty fine your coming to
+me, looking as mysterious as a playhouse conspirator: everybody here,
+except your two selves, and perhaps Sir Cad. knows the whole story.”
+
+“What story?” said George:--“no word has ever passed my lips--”
+
+“No: but a great many have passed the lips of other people,” said
+Short. “As for your own words, they are what we call superfluous--the
+eyes have it--eh!--umph!”
+
+“What you say, doctor,” said George, “makes me miserable.”
+
+“Very!” said Short. “I know--it makes every man miserable to have
+gained the affections of a charming, amiable girl, with a hundred
+and fifty thousand pounds:--it is quite a calamity! Poor Mr.
+Assistant-secretary!--you can’t think how I pity you!”
+
+“Doctor, this is no joking matter,” said George. “It is useless, I
+perceive, to attempt disguise with _you_: you have seen or heard
+what I never suspected could have been even remarkable. If I wished
+your assistance upon this point when I came into this room, it is ten
+thousand times more desirable to me now.”
+
+“Umph!” said Short. “Why?”
+
+“Why!” exclaimed George:--“we have so suddenly and deeply plunged into
+this discussion; you assume so much, and I have such perfect faith and
+confidence in you, that--”
+
+“You are good enough to propose telling me what I know already,”
+interrupted Short.
+
+“No, not what you know already,” said George, “but what my resolution
+is. The general, in the outset of my career here, befriended me,
+espoused my cause, restored me to society, and made me what I am. I am
+admitted into his family, and I evince my gratitude to him for all his
+kindnesses by--”
+
+“--By permitting his daughter to fall in love with you!” said
+Short:--“how can _you_ help that?”
+
+“If such should be the case,” said George, “it is my duty instantly to
+quit this place.”
+
+“To be sure!” said Short--“and add to all the other marks of your
+sense of the General’s obligations by leaving his only darling child to
+break her heart.”
+
+“Do not talk in this way, doctor,” said the assistant secretary, “it is
+I”--
+
+“Pshaw!” said Short. “No nonsense: stay where you are--I’ll give you no
+certificate.”
+
+“Then I must go without one,” said George. “Private business in
+England”--
+
+“Very private, indeed!” said Short. “I say, stay where you are.”
+
+“My dear friend,” said George, “it is impossible! What you have told me
+now, in addition to a remark which I accidentally overheard, renders it
+imperatively necessary that I should go. It is the only favour I have
+ventured to ask of you, or of any man since I have been here: grant me
+the certificate, let me show it to Sir Cadwallader, and tear myself
+away from the only place in the world where I care to live.”
+
+“Oh!” said Short, putting his finger to his nose--“mutual, I see. Umph!”
+
+“I did not say--”
+
+“Yes, you did,” said Short. “How do you know Sir Cad. will let you go?”
+
+“If he could,” said George, “which for worlds I would not he should,
+even fancy what is passing in this room, he would--”
+
+“What!” said Short--“do you think he does not know what is passing in
+your mind and that of Miss Ellen’s?”
+
+“What _is_ passing in our minds?” asked George.
+
+“_Our_ minds!” said Short--“umph!--that’s it--_our_ minds! The glorious
+_we_ of literature is not more commanding than the ‘our’ of you two.
+Why, you are over head and ears in love with each other, and you
+cannot help showing it wherever you are. I know the symptoms, Mr.
+Assistant-secretary--have had the complaint myself: so has Sir Cad.--a
+great practitioner in _that_ way:--d’ye think he is blind?”
+
+“I know he is everything that is kind and good,” said George.
+
+“Well, then, perhaps his goodness and kindness may go the length of
+wishing you to be his son-in-law,” said Short.
+
+“Impossible!” said George--“a creature he has made--”
+
+“Umph!” said Short,--“don’t see how that interferes--eh! You had better
+talk to _her_ of your heart than to _me_ of your liver. See what _he_
+says--or, if you don’t like that, _I_ will.”
+
+“Doctor!” said George, looking extremely fierce.
+
+“I will,” said Short;--“that is to say, I shall tell his Excellency
+officially that you have applied for a sick certificate; and, if you’ll
+trust to me, I’ll work it to the best advantage. If Sir Cad. is crusty,
+you shall have it. A pain in the side makes no show:--I can’t tell
+whether you have a pain in your side or not. If he demur to your going,
+you shall be in excellent health; if he frown, and expresses a wish
+that way, you shall be shipped for Cheltenham in a fortnight.”
+
+“I knew,” said George, “you would be my friend.”
+
+“I _am_ your friend,” said the doctor, “therefore I want you to stop.
+You have enemies here as well as your betters. Your going would be
+a triumph to some half-dozen of the fellows who have been dangling
+after Miss Ellen for the last two years, and who have never got
+so much as a smile from her for their pains. No, no: mark me, Mr.
+Assistant-secretary;--put the affair into my hands, and you shall have
+the sick certificate when _I_ think you want it, and not before.”
+
+George, it must be confessed, was incalculably surprised at the evident
+notoriety of an attachment of which he even fancied himself unconscious
+only a few days before. That the lookers-on see more than the players,
+is generally said, and here was a proof of the correctness of the
+saying: the very circumstance, however, of its having become a topic of
+general conversation strengthened, as we have seen, his determination
+to put an end to the scandal through the aid of his friend Short.
+
+Had he not been bound to his military duty by military law, his retreat
+could have been easily managed; but it was absolutely necessary that
+the very man from whom he wished to keep his motives for going, secret,
+should be the person, and the only person, who could dispense with
+his services, and grant him leave to put his plan into execution.
+As it was, he had only to trust to the doctor, whose proceedings he
+endeavoured to accelerate by pointing out to him the dangers of delay.
+
+That he was not slow to act, George soon discovered. At dinner the
+next day Sir Cadwallader began to throw out hints that he was aware
+of George’s intention of applying for the certificate, and in general
+terms censured the conduct of commanding officers who, by permitting
+themselves to be parties to a deception practised under the connivance
+of medical officers, committed themselves as accomplices to what, after
+all, however strong the phrase might sound, was little better than a
+deliberate fraud.
+
+“There’s jobbing all over the world,” said his Excellency. “One is
+never safe. Any fellow that wants to shirk duty, makes friends with the
+doctor, and out comes a sick certificate.--What’s the matter?--liver,
+to be sure! As Short says, ‘Who can see a pain in the side?’”
+
+Nobody spoke, because nobody exactly comprehended what his Excellency
+meant by this gratuitous observation, except George, who felt himself
+get extremely red in the face,--a very natural consequence of being
+talked _at_ by a commander-in-chief. Ellen did not know to whom the
+observation referred, and looked round the table to see if any of the
+half-dozen guests were affected. Her look rested on George: their
+eyes met: they both became suddenly embarrassed, and Sir Cadwallader,
+who was good at a long shot, saw the glance and the response, which
+confirmed his suspicions, and decided his course of conduct.
+
+The evening of this day was passed as agreeably as the evening before,
+but Ellen felt a difference in George’s manner towards her: she could
+scarcely define what it was, or how to account for it, and yet it
+somehow connected itself in her mind with her father’s hypothetical
+observation at dinner. The guests departed, unregretted by either of
+the lovers, for so, unconsciously they were; and the party was reduced
+to a trio, composed of Sir Cadwallader, Ellen, and the assistant
+military secretary, who always lingered last of the throng, were it
+never so late.
+
+“So,” said Sir Cadwallader, after a short pause, “I suppose, Mr.
+Brown, you felt the force of my little remark at dinner about sick
+certificates--eh! I hope you did--it was meant expressly for _you_.”
+
+“Sir!” faltered George, anticipating the burst of displeasure which he
+was assured would follow this announcement.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said his Excellency, “I understand you have been applying
+to Short for one of those melancholy testimonials of ill health, with a
+liver as sound as a roach, and the constitution of a ploughman.”
+
+“I assure your Excellency,” said George, “that--I am not capable of
+deception upon any point:--I”--
+
+“I don’t know what you call deception, Mr. Brown,” said Sir
+Cadwallader; “you are in good health, and you want the doctor to say
+you are sick, in order to quit your duty, and leave those who wish you
+well.”
+
+Ellen, who began to feel extremely uneasy, and think her presence at
+such a scene was scarcely necessary, rose to depart.
+
+“Stay, Miss,” said the General--“wait to hear what the gentleman has to
+say for himself.”
+
+“Really, papa,” said Ellen--
+
+“Really, Miss,” said the General--“recollect I am commanding officer
+here: obey orders--sit you down, Miss. If you wished for leave of
+absence, Mr. Brown, why not have applied to me upon any fair ground? I
+hate shamming--eh!”
+
+“It is impossible,” said George, “for me either to extenuate or explain
+my fault. It is now known to you, sir:--there can be no difficulty in
+my going _now_.”
+
+“Why so, sir?” said his Excellency.
+
+“You have exhibited my thoughtless--my ungrateful conduct, in its
+proper light,” said George: “I cannot--indeed, I cannot remain longer
+with you.”
+
+“Suppose, sir, I cannot spare you,” said the General.
+
+“_My_ services, sir,” said, or rather sobbed, George, “are of no
+importance. I--”
+
+“That’s matter of opinion,” said the General. “But suppose _I_ could
+manage without you--look at that young lady there--d’ye think _she_
+could spare you?”
+
+“Oh, father!” said Ellen, who had sat trembling, and cold, and pale,
+during the conversation--“I--don’t wish to interfere.”
+
+“You don’t!” said Sir Cadwallader--“not interfere!--you _do_ wish to
+interfere, Miss. Lord bless your heart! Elly,--haven’t I been young
+myself--eh? No, no, you can’t cheat _me_, cunning as you are:--you
+love this fellow, and he loves _you_.”
+
+“Father!” said Ellen.
+
+Brown said nothing, but looked as if the world was on the point of
+annihilation.
+
+“Don’t contradict me, Elly,” said the General: “where’s the
+harm?--where’s the wrong? When I heard George’s story, I was resolved
+to restore him to his proper place in society. I brought him into
+my house--into my family--and you have fallen in love with each
+other:--that’s _my_ affair. What then? When I first knew your poor dear
+mother--the best of women and of wives!--what was I?--a subaltern--the
+second son of a grocer at Gloucester. That was it, George--her mother
+was an heiress.--It sounds vain now--she fell in love with me, as
+I did with _her_. Well, I became possessed of her fortune; _that_
+enabled me to purchase up in my profession: and if it had not been
+for that, I might have been now a hoary-headed lieutenant, or at best
+a captain of sixty-two, going through my daily ‘Halt--left wheel,’
+till my legs ached, instead of being here a titled and decorated
+commander-in-chief. What has that dear woman to whom, under Providence,
+I owe everything, left me?--this girl--this child of my heart--the
+dearest--the only object of my affections! Half a glance tells me the
+state of the case.”
+
+Ellen sat with her eyes fixed upon her father--George’s filled with
+tears--and what gem is brighter than a soldier’s tear so shed?
+
+“Your conduct, sir,” said the General, “has done you the greatest
+honour. I appreciate it in the highest degree. But it won’t do--go
+you do not. If my Elly here is foolish enough to sympathize with her
+father in his predilections, and chooses to give her heart to an
+ensign without a shilling, what am I to do?--why, I’ll tell you, Mr.
+Brown,--religiously to realize whatever wishes she may entertain, for
+the sake of her beloved mother, and to take care that she does not make
+a foolish match with somebody not half so worthy of her.”
+
+“My dear father,” said Ellen--
+
+“_Tace, tace!_ daughter of mine,” said Sir Cadwallader:--“don’t
+coquet,--don’t try to deceive me. George, come here:--I am
+serious--take her hand, my good, excellent fellow! You, who have been
+so admirable a son, cannot fail to make a good husband. This is my firm
+conviction.”
+
+“But, sir,” said Miss Adamthwaite, rising, “I”--
+
+“Oh!” said the general, “you don’t like him! Oh! that, indeed, is a
+different affair:--then I am out in my reckoning, and there’s an end of
+the business.”
+
+“I didn’t say,” said Ellen,--and bursting into tears, she caught her
+father round the neck, and her head dropped upon his shoulder.
+
+“Come here, George,” said Sir Cadwallader--“come here!--take her from
+me! I know what she means:--she is your’s!”--“I have neither chick nor
+child but this beloved one!” continued the General, who seemed to have
+caught the infection of weeping--“I have nobody to please but her and
+myself. I think I have taken the surest method of doing both. I hate
+fine speeches--I don’t want thanks--so, my dear souls, God bless you
+both! I’m off--a syllable more from me would spoil it all. Talk over
+your own matters. Let these be the last tears I ever see you shed;
+and to-morrow the babblers, and tattlers, and scandal-mongers, shall
+have the pleasure of hearing how the old general has been fool enough
+to give his only daughter to a penniless subaltern! Good night! my
+children--good night!”
+
+Saying which, away went Sir Cadwallader, leaving the affianced lovers
+in a state of doubt whether they were awake or in a dream. George gazed
+on the blushing girl, even yet doubting whether she would fulfil her
+father’s intentions. Their eyes met:--those doubts vanished. Words were
+inadequate to the expression of their feelings:--he caught her in his
+arms and pressed her to his panting heart:--at which particular moment,
+Major Mopes, military secretary to his Excellency Sir Cadwallader
+Adamthwaite, and Captain Narcissus Fripps, his Excellency’s senior
+aide-du-camp, passed along the varhandah, into which all the doors and
+windows of his Excellency’s drawing-room opened.
+
+This exhibition of mutual tenderness was, it must be admitted,
+something likely to make a commotion in a small circle. It, however,
+produced effects upon the military secretary and the aide-du-camp
+of a totally different character. Major Mopes, who had the highest
+opinion of George, and whose praises of his conduct had mainly
+conduced to create the interest which the general took in him, was
+horror-stricken. The idea that _he_ had been chiefly instrumental in
+bringing him into Sir Cadwallader’s family, the happiness of which he
+was now so evidently attempting to destroy, filled him with regret and
+indignation: all he hoped was, that his companion, Captain Fripps,
+might not have seen all that _he_ had witnessed. He felt that if the
+secret were confined to himself, George might yet be saved; that an
+appeal to his sense of honour and right feeling would induce him
+immediately to withdraw himself from a sphere so dangerous as that in
+which he now was moving,--little thinking that George had decided upon
+doing so a week before.
+
+The aide-du-camp, however, _had_ seen the sight--which so startled him,
+that he, like the major, but from very different motives, did not speak
+a word. At the end of the varhandah they parted for the night, during
+which, while Major Mopes lay considering how he might best save George
+and Ellen, and smother the whole affair, the captain was arranging the
+manner in which it would be best to communicate the circumstance to the
+general so as to obtain the greatest possible credit for himself, and
+secure the immediate dismissal of his apparently favoured rival in the
+general’s consideration. For which purpose, the ingenuous and ingenious
+gentleman, instead of going to bed, as was his original intention,
+returned to the barracks and to the quarters of his bosom friend,
+Ensign Honeyman, whom he had just left, in order to avail himself of
+his advice: thus, in the very first instance, himself doing all the
+mischief to Ellen’s character and reputation, the preservation of which
+from injury was to be made the ostensible ground of his communication
+of the fact to her father.
+
+Honeyman, who was the inseparable companion of Fripps, agreed entirely
+with his friend on the course to be pursued in order to overthrow
+Brown; and it was accordingly settled that the captain should, the
+very first thing in the morning, make a confidential report to his
+Excellency of what had occurred.
+
+Meanwhile the unconscious lovers, whose parting kiss formed the subject
+of contemplation for both the gallant heroes, were thinking of each
+other and of the happiness which had taken them so completely by
+surprise, that they could scarcely think what had passed during the
+evening anything but a bright, yet baseless vision. The old general was
+the only one of the inmates of the house who slept soundly. He went to
+bed to rest upon the consciousness of having made two people happy--of
+having realised his intentions of providing for George--and gratified
+his wish of giving Ellen the man to whom, insensibly and unconsciously,
+she had become devotedly attached:--and, above all this, he revelled
+in the pleasure of having found out their secret, and anticipated any
+communication on the subject from either of themselves:--add to this,
+his just appreciation of George’s anxiety to quit the only place in the
+world which was dear to him--to surrender all the worldly advantages it
+afforded, to preserve the being he loved from the anger of her parent,
+the malice of her _friends_--or, putting it as an extreme case, the
+ills of a marriage with a man who would have nothing but an ensign’s
+half-pay, even if, under the circumstances, he could secure that--and
+the amount of Sir Cadwallader’s self-gratulation may be in some degree
+ascertained.
+
+The gun had scarcely announced the dawn of day when Captain Narcissus
+Fripps was up and stirring; there was no time to be lost. It was his
+turn to ride with the general before breakfast; the opportunity would
+be favourable; the success of the disclosure was unquestionable. The
+getting rid of George was his great object; for the captain’s jealousy
+of the interloper, as he considered him, was not so much excited by his
+evident success with the young lady, as by the favourable estimation
+in which the young lady’s father held him and his character: and when
+jealousy takes possession of the mind, it leaves room for no other
+passions but such as may be made subservient to its own ends, and which
+may be called into action for its own revengeful gratification.
+
+Lavater says, that “he, who being master of the fittest moment to crush
+his enemy, magnanimously neglects it, is born to be a conqueror.”
+Captain Narcissus Fripps, whatever heroic deeds he might have been
+destined to do in other days, did by no means display this evidence
+of future success; and although George was neither his, nor any other
+man’s enemy, he resolved that two hours should not elapse before he was
+irrecoverably ruined in Sir Cadwallader’s estimation.
+
+The captain was a fair, sickly-looking man, always extremely well
+dressed, his hair assiduously ringleted on his cheeks and over his
+forehead. He wore divers rings upon his fingers, and sundry chains
+around his neck; his clothes fitted him as if they were his skin. His
+voice was drawling, and he lisped a little. When he talked, he pawed
+the air with his hands flappingly, something after the fashion of a
+kangaroo; and when he wished to be particularly lively, playfully
+patted the arm of the person with whom he was conversing, affecting
+himself always to be excessively shocked at everything that everybody
+said to him: in short, nobody could exactly make him out. He was
+considered excessively fine--evidently fancied himself a beauty, and
+was not quite free from a suspicion of aiding nature in the getting up
+of his complexion, by borrowing a tinge from art.
+
+To have been treated neglectfully by a young lady of Ellen’s
+qualifications, and that she should so readily have permitted such
+marked advances on the part of one so unquestionably his inferior in
+rank and station, (for the Fripps’ blood had been ennobled in a remote
+degree from Narcissus,) was galling beyond measure; although his
+attentions to Miss Adamthwaite had never gone much farther than singing
+to her by moonlight, accompanying himself on the guitar, or making her
+a pair of card-racks, or painting a couple of rose-buds on the top
+of a cotton box. If she sometimes worked at those often-mentioned,
+indescribable strips of muslin which engage the attention of modern
+fine ladies, he would thread her needle for her; and in winding off
+silk on his thumbs he was most assiduous and skilful. It was therefore
+the indignity which he considered the circumstance to involve, rather
+than the jealousy of a lover, which urged him on to ruin George. _His_
+fate, however, was sealed, and when the horses were at the door,
+Captain Narcissus felt his heart beat with anxiety for the discovery.
+“Lie still, little flutterer,” said he, as he pressed his hand to his
+bosom; and mounting his steed, rode slowly off with his Excellency the
+Commander of the forces, to make their accustomed matutinal excursion.
+
+Horseback, it must be confessed, whether the pace be a walk, trot,
+amble, canter, or gallop, is not altogether suitable or convenient for
+confidential communication; and when the captain found the general
+resolved upon adopting the penultimate pace of those enumerated, he
+felt the difficulty of breaking the business to him insuperable.
+Indeed, Sir Cadwallader was not particularly partial to his
+aide-du-camp’s society, and preferred, when circumstances permitted,
+the company of Major Mopes, who, upon the morning in question,
+stayed at home to counteract, if possible, the ill effects of the
+representation which the captain went abroad expressly to make.
+
+After a start of a mile or so, Sir Cadwallader pulled up, and suggested
+to the captain that they should dismount, and walk up to a rising
+ground on the other side of a fordable nullah, in order to get a view
+of the town at a point from which Miss Adamthwaite had made a drawing,
+but which the general had himself never happened to visit. This was
+more fortunate for Narcissus than even _he_ could have hoped; the
+place--the subject--all naturally tended to the point he had in view.
+The “little flutterer” would lie still no longer: the aptness of the
+opportunity delighted him, and he was decided to avail himself of it
+forthwith.
+
+“Were you here with Ellen when she made the sketch?” said Sir
+Cadwallader.
+
+“Oh! dear, no, general,” said Fripps, “I never come out upon sketching
+parties with ladies: I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing.”
+
+“I don’t see the harm of it,” said his Excellency. “In Italy, Ellen
+used to pass the greatest part of the day in drawing from Nature: it
+would have been dull work if she had thought it necessary to have
+remained always alone.”
+
+“Oh, dear Italy!” said Narcissus, sighing and turning up his eyes--“the
+climate is so charming there.”
+
+“Climate makes no great difference in conduct,” said Sir Cadwallader.
+
+“No, to be sure,” said the captain, “but--I am so very particular, I
+never presume on the good-nature of the dear ladies. Indeed what I see
+going on with other people sometimes shocks me--not only on account of
+my own feelings as they regard delicacy, but as far as the honour and
+happiness of those I esteem and respect are concerned.”
+
+“Honour and happiness!” said the General,--“what the deuce have honour
+and happiness to do with a water-colour drawing?”
+
+“Oh! dear no, general,” said the captain, pawing the air, “I did not
+say they had; but--perhaps to the artist they may be something.”
+
+“I hope, if you mean Ellen,” said Sir Cadwallader, “they have a great
+deal to do with her.”
+
+“Really, general,” said Fripps, “I don’t know what to say; but I have
+something to tell you which you ought to know.”
+
+“Why, then, out with it, Fripps,” said Sir Cadwallader.
+
+“Oh! I can’t tell you all at once,” said the captain. “I know you will
+be very angry--but I’m sure I ought to tell you: and yet I don’t know
+how I shall ever be able to do such a thing!”
+
+“What! is there a plot brewing, or a mutiny hatching?” said the General.
+
+“Oh! no sir,” said Fripps, “it is nothing public; it is----oh, I can’t
+tell you!”
+
+“Why,” said the General, “I am not very particular as to time; only as
+you have begun, you may as well go on.”
+
+“Oh, it’s so very fie-fie! Sir Cadwallader,” said Narcissus.
+
+“Very what?” said his Excellency.
+
+“Very naughty, sir,” replied the aide-du-camp.
+
+“Who is it about?” asked his Excellency.
+
+“That is what I’m almost afraid to say,” continued Fripps. “I never
+was so shocked in my life!--I declare I did not recover myself for two
+hours after.”
+
+“After what?” said the General:--“do speak out.”
+
+“I don’t know how to explain,” said Fripps, wringing his hands like
+
+  “Some sad widow o’er her babe deploring”--
+
+“but I’ll endeavour.”
+
+“Is it anything about my daughter?” said Sir Cadwallader, who,
+although unaware that any scene had taken place, had long remarked the
+aide-du-camp’s growing dislike of George.
+
+“La, General!--you are such a man,” said Fripps, “I declare, you seem
+to know everything by intuition.”
+
+“Well,” said his Excellency, “what has she been doing?”
+
+“I know I shall never be able to explain it quite,” said Fripps;
+“but--I--think I may mention that--people think--I--that is, Mr.
+Brown--is--rather too free--and particular--and--”
+
+“Umph!” said Sir Cadwallader. “If _I_ don’t find fault, and _she_
+does not find fault with his attentions,--that is, if he does pay
+her particular attention,--there is no great harm in _that_, Captain
+Fripps.”
+
+“No, sir,” said the captain; “but I’m sure you cannot guess. It is no
+fault of Miss Ellen’s--that I am certain of:--but--you have no idea.
+Oh! upon my word--that Mr. Brown--I speak, you know, in confidence to
+you, sir--but--he is such a rude man.”
+
+“Rude!” said Sir Cadwallader--“do you think so? As far--”
+
+“Ah! that’s where it is,” said Fripps, pawing and ambling about--“I
+can’t--it is something so very fie-fie--only you ought to know it:
+but, I declare, I don’t know how to say it out.”
+
+“When did all this occur?” said Sir Cadwallader.
+
+“I haven’t lost a moment in telling your Excellency,” said Fripps:
+“what I saw happened last night.”
+
+“Oh!” said the General--(every doubt of George’s honourable conduct
+having been released by learning the date of the affair, whatever it
+was, which had shocked the delicacy of the exquisite Narcissus)--“was
+it very bad?”
+
+“I never did such a thing myself in all my life, Sir Cadwallader,” said
+Fripps; “and, upon my honour! I am sorry to have seen it: it has quite
+upset me.”
+
+“You didn’t catch them in what the book-makers call ‘an interesting
+situation,’ Captain Fripps, did you?” said Sir Cadwallader.
+
+“La! General, you are such a man,” said Fripps. “I declare, how you
+guessed it I cannot think--but you are right: so the moment I saw it,
+I said to myself--well! if ever--Oh! gracious--to think of the man that
+his Excellency has raised to his present station!--to think of--”
+
+“That will do, captain,” said the General. “I am quite aware of the
+excellence of your intentions, and I thank you for your excessive care
+of Ellen’s interest and prospects:--now let us look at the prospect
+before us.”
+
+“Well!” said Fripps to himself, “if ever I saw such a man!”--“To think,
+you know, of that nasty, great, coarse creature, Brown--well, if ever
+I--”
+
+“I think she has done it remarkably well,” said the general, putting
+his hand varhandah-wise over his eyes, to look at the beautiful
+panorama before them.
+
+“What, sir?” said Fripps, ambling about and twiddling his curls.
+
+“The view,” replied the General. “That bungalow in the foreground is a
+beautiful object, and she has made the most of it. It is odd enough,
+often as I have been on the Mulligopatemy road, I never was here
+before.”
+
+Fripps looked at his Excellency with amazement, and almost began to
+repent not having himself been more lively with Miss Ellen, to whose
+reputed fortune Narcissus would have had no earthly objection, even
+encumbered with the lady herself.
+
+“And so,” said Sir Cadwallader, returning to the subject, “you
+surprised _my_ daughter and my assistant military secretary in an
+interesting situation--eh?”
+
+“Upon my word, General, it was not intentional on my part,” said
+Fripps. “I had just been taking some of Hoffman’s capillaire and water,
+and a sponge biscuit with Ensign Honeyman at his quarters, where we had
+been singing some little Sicilian duets to the guitar by moonlight, and
+time flew so quickly, that it was near eleven o’clock before we thought
+of separating. When I came home I met Major Mopes at the gate, and we
+went together through the varhandah, and there--I really--I assure you
+it is the first time I ever saw such a thing--but there--there--Oh! how
+shall I describe the scene?”
+
+“You saw Mr. Brown kiss my daughter, perhaps:--I understand perfectly,”
+said the General:--“that’s enough, Captain Fripps; we will settle
+_that_ gentleman’s affair after breakfast. So, come, let us take to our
+horses, and finish our ride.”
+
+It must be admitted that Captain Fripps felt disagreeably disappointed
+by the manner in which his Excellency received his account of the
+glaring indecorum which he had overseen; but he knew that he was a
+man of few words, with great promptitude and decision of action, and
+he still encouraged the hope of seeing his antipathy--the assistant
+military secretary, most unceremoniously expelled the house in the
+course of the morning.
+
+Differently, indeed, had the friendly Major Mopes been engaged during
+the same period. He had seen and conversed with George, who, it must be
+admitted, elated as he was by the wonderful piece of good-fortune which
+had befallen him, indulged his playfulness of disposition by leading
+the major by a very circuitous route to the real state of the case;
+indeed he dexterously avoided coming to the point till he perceived,
+by his worthy friend’s manner and countenance, that he must not carry
+the joke much further. When he had explained all, and, to establish
+the certainty of his statement, presented the military secretary to
+Ellen Adamthwaite herself, in the character of her affianced lover, the
+major’s gratification and joy were complete.
+
+The breakfast, it must be owned, was a trial to the principal
+performers. Ellen, of course, had been informed by George of the
+discovery of their parting embrace by the two staff-officers--Mopes
+still thinking that Narcissus, who was generally occupied by thoughts
+of himself, had not seen equally clear with himself.
+
+The moment arrived; the general entered the breakfast-room. Curries,
+rice, Bombay ducks, Java red fish, eggs, European ham, hump and kabobs,
+were thickly intermingled with grapes, strawberries, mangoes, and
+plantains. The grateful fumes of coffee filled the atmosphere; and the
+tea, unchilled by the waving Punkah, sparkled in its cups. Ellen took
+her seat with downcast eyes, after having received a certain number
+of paternal kisses from his Excellency; and Captain Narcissus Fripps,
+after having shaken hands with George Brown, deposited himself at the
+end of the table, directly opposite the gallant yet melancholy Mopes,
+major and military secretary.
+
+As the meal proceeded, Fripps could not help noticing certain looks
+which were passing between his four companions, especially as even
+the countenance of the major was every now and then illuminated by a
+cursory expression more nearly approaching to a smile than he had ever
+seen them before. The General looked at George; George looked at Ellen;
+and Ellen, affecting to repress his intelligent glances by a half-comic
+seriousness, was blushing crimson.
+
+Captain Narcissus Fripps began to feel exceedingly awkward and
+embarrassed. It was clear that his companions were in a confederacy,
+and that he was, by general consent, “basketed.” Very few words were
+spoken, and nobody seemed inclined to break the silence. Narcissus
+felt assured that the General had availed himself of the first moment
+after their return home to lecture his daughter upon the dreadful
+impropriety which he had witnessed; but this he could hardly reconcile
+with the fact that Brown was placed next her at table, and permitted
+to look and talk to her, little or much, as suited his fancy; while
+the eyes of Ellen plainly exhibited the existence of an intelligence
+between them--which eyes _will_ exhibit in the just degree to which
+such intelligence extends.
+
+It all at once struck the captain, that upon a principle not
+unfrequently acted upon,--of doing what in certain circles is called,
+“wiping it up, and saying nothing about it,” the General meant to
+take no public notice of the event which he had communicated, but
+that, instead of kicking the assistant military secretary out of the
+house, he would give him some detached appointment, which would have
+the effect of removing him from his present sphere of action, and his
+nomination to which, would be attributed to the General’s continued
+and unchanged regard for him, rather than as a manœuvre to separate
+him from his daughter. This idea the gentle Narcissus cherished; and
+perfectly conscious that the embarrassment in which they all appeared
+involved must have arisen from his solicitude for the peace and honour
+of the family, and coupling these effects with the absence of all
+remark from the General, touching the matter, he resolved to act upon
+the same principle, assimilate his conduct to that of Sir Cadwallader,
+and take the first occasion to make him sensible of the caution he
+proposed to adopt, and the course he intended to pursue.
+
+It ought to be mentioned that Captain Fripps was not a very great
+favourite with anybody at head-quarters. The major indeed called him
+“Molly Fripps,” and that too in a sad and solemn tone; and George was
+quite aware that he affected to despise _him_. The stiffness of the
+breakfast-party would not of itself, therefore, have startled him, but
+the character of the stiffness of this particular morning puzzled him
+exceedingly; for although little was said, so much more was looked than
+usual, that never did captain more greatly rejoice than did this of
+ours, when the repast was terminated by the departure of Ellen.
+
+The young lady’s exit was shortly followed by those of the major and
+George, and once again the aide-du-camp was alone with the General.
+
+“Well, captain,” said Sir Cadwallader, “I suppose you think my conduct
+very strange.”
+
+“No, upon my honour! not, sir,” said Fripps: “I quite appreciate it--so
+considerate--and so wise--and so like your Excellency.”
+
+“I am glad you approve of it,” said the General:--“but who told you the
+history of my proceedings since our return home?”
+
+“Oh! nobody told me,” said the captain; “I would not talk about it to
+anybody for the world.”
+
+“Then how have you acquired the knowledge of what I have done, and what
+I propose to do?” said his Excellency.
+
+“I conclude,” said Fripps, “that your Excellency means to take no
+notice of what I told you, to the parties themselves, but get rid of
+Mr. Brown in some way or other, so as to prevent the _eclat_.”
+
+“Prevent the _eclat_ of an affair known to two or three people!”
+exclaimed the General--“no, no.”
+
+“I protest, sir,” said Fripps, “it shall never pass my lips: I have too
+much regard for Miss Adamthwaite. It would be very shocking, I know, to
+let it spread; but my duty to _you_, as well as my esteem for _her_,
+would keep me silent as the tomb upon the subject.”
+
+“You need not restrain yourself, Captain Fripps,” said Sir Cadwallader,
+“on _my_ account or hers.”
+
+“I know, sir,” said Fripps, “that you have been so kind and good to Mr.
+Brown; and what a shocking vice ingratitude is!--And to think of his
+venturing to embrace any young lady, and especially your daughter!”
+
+“Did you ever hear an old song that I used to sing when I was a sub.,”
+said the general:--
+
+    “‘My mother having heard that Colin he had kiss’d me,
+      Proposed to the youth that to-morrow we should wed:
+    To church then we went, paid the parson his fees,
+      And so got holy licence to kiss when we please.’”
+
+“Oh! dear, no,” said Fripps, shuddering, and pawing, and making
+curtseying bows, “I never heard such a song as _that_ in all my life.”
+
+“Well, it may serve to enlighten you then,” said the General. “What
+if Ellen Adamthwaite and George Brown are about to do a similar
+thing--what should you say _then_?”
+
+“What!” exclaimed the captain--“you _don’t_ mean, sir,--that--”
+
+“I do mean so,” said Sir Cadwallader.
+
+“What! that delicate fair creature,” said Fripps, in a soliloquizing
+tone, “to--”
+
+“--Yes, is likely very soon to become _Brown_, Captain Fripps,” said
+the General.
+
+“Why, then, the discovery I made--”
+
+“Was nothing very important after all,” said the General. “Your
+kindness and consideration for her and me are nevertheless equally
+admirable; only if you had not gone back to your friend Mr. Honeyman’s
+quarters, and told _him_ what you had seen, before you mentioned it to
+_me_, our obligations perhaps would have been somewhat greater.”
+
+“Well, I declare, Sir Cadwallader,” said Fripps, “I only told him
+because I--”
+
+“Because you happened to be sure of finding _him_ up,” said the
+General, “and you were not so sure of getting hold of anybody else at
+that time to whom to give the interesting information.”
+
+“Oh dear, dear!--I shall never be able to look at Miss Ellen again,”
+said the captain. “I admit it was--how could you have known it,
+sir?--dear me!--what a deceitful toad Honeyman must be to have betrayed
+me.”
+
+“We will not discuss the matter any further,” said the General. “I
+agree with _you_ that it would be irksome for you to associate with my
+daughter and her husband after what has occurred, and therefore you
+have my full permission to resign your aide-du-campship, and join your
+regiment. I am a plain, blunt man, as you know, and of few words.”
+
+“Oh, dear Sir Cadwallader!” said Fripps, “do not force me to leave you:
+everything may be arranged, and I--”
+
+“I wish you good morning, Captain Fripps,” said the General. “My
+daughter bids me decline on _her_ part a scene of leave-taking, and
+will not in all probability return home until after your departure.
+Brown’s name will be in orders as aide-du-camp this afternoon; and, as
+I am now allowed only one, you will see the necessity of marching in
+‘double quick.’ Good morning.” Saying which, his Excellency retired
+from the apartment, muttering humourously to himself--
+
+  “But never more be officer of mine.”
+
+“Well, if ever!” said Narcissus--“dear me--this is most uncommonly
+unpleasant! I declare I could scratch that nasty creature Honeyman’s
+eyes out, for such a sly trick. I’ll go to him--tax him with his
+conduct:--but I am sure we shall make it up before we part; because I
+am quite certain he did not mean to injure me.”
+
+And so Fripps went on murmuring to himself, until, to his utter
+dismay, one of Sir Cadwallader’s servants made his appearance with his
+Excellency’s compliments--wished to know when his “things would be
+ready for moving.” This question was conclusive. The circumstance which
+had occurred--the awkward position in which he had placed himself by
+his tittle-tattle, and the intentions so evidently displayed in his
+conduct, all conspired to induce him to exert himself in fulfilling
+his Excellency’s wish for his speedy disappearance. His servant was
+directed to make immediate preparations for the start; and the captain
+himself proceeded to Honeyman, to reproach and bid him farewell. Their
+quarrel was, as the captain had anticipated, soon reconciled; and from
+the door of his dear friend’s quarters, Fripps, after eating a tiffin
+of fowl-sandwiches, raspberry tarts, and barleysugar-drops, moistened
+by some lemonade, took his departure to join his regiment at Bombay.
+
+It is strange how much the loss of one, to a constant association with
+whom we have become habituated, affects us. Ellen, who cared no more
+for Narcissus than for any other officer in his Majesty’s service,
+naval or military, and in all human probability much less, could not
+look at his vacant place at tiffin without a feeling of regret. Perhaps
+this feeling, considering the consequences his removal involved, as far
+as regarded his worldly circumstances, might have been strengthened by
+the recollection that, however innocently, unconsciously certainly,
+and most unintentionally, she herself had been the cause of his
+ejection. Certain it was, she was out of spirits, and George saw she
+was. He could not help feeling uneasy at the symptoms he observed, but
+his anxiety was considerably relieved when he had ascertained that
+his _friend_ was actually gone, and saw that Ellen, when her George
+filled his chair at dinner, was as much at her ease as she could be,
+knowing that the events which had occurred during the day were most
+undoubtedly forming the topic of conversation at every other table in
+the presidency.
+
+We must not bestow sufficient space upon the episode of our history, to
+dwell at length upon the proceedings at head-quarters until the day of
+George’s marriage to Ellen was fixed. When the matrimonial termination
+to their acquaintance was announced as decided and inevitable, the
+public opinion of the forty or fifty estimable ladies and gentlemen,
+who formed the public of the place, turned wonderfully in favour of
+George. He was a most agreeable person--so clever; and it was so
+judicious of the General to advance merit, and consult the happiness
+of his child. And at last the day came, and they were married, and
+proceeded to pass the honeymoon in the picturesque bungalow which
+formed the effective foreground of Ellen’s last East-Indian view.
+
+The happiness of this most happy pair--for so they were--was not,
+however, destined to continue long uninterrupted: a sudden attack,
+and short illness, deprived them in the third month of their married
+life of the kind-hearted, generous parent, the founder of their
+fortunes and felicity. This event, of course, decided them upon
+returning to England, and induced George to retire from the army.
+Having entered it, as an officer, much too late to expect in peaceable
+times promotion, even by purchase, to any valuable extent, he yielded
+to the solicitations of his Ellen, who had seen enough of military
+life as a soldier’s daughter, not to desire a continuance of it as a
+soldier’s wife. Her tastes,--her pursuits,--were those of retirement
+and quiet, and the blessing of being so much her own mistress as not
+to be destined by a Horse-Guards’ order to pass ten or twelve years of
+her life in an East-Indian cantonment or a West-Indian barrack, was too
+great to be refused. So implicit was Sir Cadwallader’s reliance upon
+George, that, at the old gentleman’s death, he found himself, with some
+trifling limitations, in the possession of property, real and personal,
+to the amount of upwards of seven thousand a-year.
+
+In this position was George Brown when he returned to England; and
+it may easily be imagined that the circumstances detailed in this
+narrative, when related by himself to his mother and sister upon the
+occasion of his first visit to them, produced in their hearts and minds
+sentiments of gratitude to Providence, by which a course of events so
+propitious to their beloved, deserving relative, had been ordained.
+
+
+                        END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                       PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
+                      Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+  p.38, l.15: Removed a redundant (double) that (that he was a choice
+  spirit).
+  p.52, l.11: Removed double quotation mark at the end of the sentence
+  (Brag as Brag thought of himself).
+  p.53, l.13: Added a hyphen (hand-in-glove).
+  p.81, l.19: Corrected name (Ilfracombe).
+  p.124, l.23: Typo corrected (to explain herself).
+  p.160, l.13: Added a full stop (directed to A. Z.).
+  p.175, l.1: Typo corrected (we were only anxious).
+  p.256, l.2 and p.261, l.10: The author (T. Hook) uses the spelling in
+  Gilbert Gurney: Varhandah.
+  Throughout the text: keeping aide-du-camp even though it seems wrong.
+  Except as noted above, original spelling and punctuation have been
+  retained.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78686 ***