![Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 3 [of 3] cover](/books/content/36810/OEBPS/3771752932553494746_36810-cover.png)
CHAPTER XXV.
A REVELATION.
No sooner was Rose in London than she made her way to the hospital indicated in the anonymous note which had been the cause of her and her husband’s unwelcome return to town.
She had never been inside a hospital before. There was something bewildering in its vastness and its antiquity. Close by ran swift the current of City life, ever turbid and boisterous. In there all was calm and still. The one thought that brightened and hallowed the spot was the life that had been saved, especially among the poor, to whom our great hospitals are indeed a blessing and a boon.
‘I want to see a patient in the women’s ward,’ said Rose to the porter, as she alighted at the entrance.
The porter expressed his fear that she had come in vain, unless she had a better clue to identification.
In his despair he sent the lady in the direction of the women’s ward, and there her difficulties began anew. There were many poor suffering ones in the women’s wards. How could they tell where was the one she sought? As she was waiting, one of the staff came downstairs.
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed; ‘Miss Howard, how came you here?’
He knew the actress, and at once rushed to rescue her from the dilemma.
Rose had little to go by. The note had been sent from Sloville. It was clear that someone connected with Sloville was lying ill—perhaps dying—there. Under the guidance of one of the nurses she went softly from one bed to another. One nurse after another was appealed to. At length one was found who had the charge of a case in one of the wards. Her patient had at times spoken of the town in question; but she was ill, very ill, and the nurse was afraid any excitement might be fatal. When the medical man in charge of the case was consulted he shook his head despairingly. The thread of life was nearly worn out. A woman from Sloville had been there to see her, and the little talk between the two had considerably increased the patient’s danger. Originally the woman in question had been run over by a cab outside one of the theatres. Her constitution was entirely gone, and the injuries inflicted on the system had been serious. After three months’ nursing she had been sufficiently healed to leave the hospital, and had led a more or less wandering life. Then she had gone down hop-picking in Kent; had caught cold; that cold had settled on her lungs. There was no earthly hope for her, and there she lay, wrestling not for dear life, but with grim death. But there was no immediate danger. Good nursing and tender care might lengthen her days for a short season.
‘If Miss Howard would return to-morrow, the doctor would try and get her into a proper state for a little talk.’
‘I would rather see her now,’ said the lady.
‘Impossible, madam; quite impossible, madam,’ said the medico, and Rose had reluctantly to retire.
‘Surely I have enough on hand,’ said she to herself, ‘if all the note hints is true. People said when I left the stage I should find life tame and dull. I have not found it so at present. I believe no life is tame and dull if one is determined to make the most of it. After she had left the stage, Mrs. Siddons, from the want of excitement, was never happy. I am not a Mrs. Siddons, happily,’ said the retired actress to herself.
The morning came, and Rose was again at the hospital. The medical man was there to meet her, and they went together to the patient’s bedside. In that emaciated face, purified by disease from its former grossness, few would have recognised ‘our Sally.’
We are a merciful people. Let our tramps live as they may, we take good care of them in our hospitals.
‘Father never gives beggars anything,’ said a little boy to one of the fraternity in a small country town; ‘but he always prays for them.’
We may show a stern face to the tramp; but once inside a hospital we give him something more than prayers—proper food, trained nursing, the best science that can be procured for love or money. Comforts, nay, luxuries, he could never procure for himself. Indeed, in all desirable respects, he is as well off as a millionaire.
But to return to our Sally, lying there calmly in her clean bed, in a long and lofty ward, apparently indifferent to all external things, simply satisfied with life such as it was.
‘A lady has come to see you,’ said the doctor, in his pleasant tones, ‘A lady from Sloville.’
‘Take her away. I am that bad I can’t speak to her.’
‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to see her? She says you sent her a letter to come.’
‘No, it warn’t me. It was that Sloville woman as was here last week. I told her not to bother, and now she’s gone and done it.’
A fit of coughing came, and conversation ceased.
Then the nurse administered a little stimulus, and that revived her.
‘Leave us alone,’ said the poor woman.
The others withdrew, and Rose stepped forward.
‘You’ve been good to my boy,’ said the patient slowly, as if it were hard to talk.
‘What do you mean? The boy I took from Sloville?’
‘Yes.’
‘But someone has written to me to say that he is the heir of Sir Watkin Strahan.’
‘Yes, he is. I stole him.’
‘Stole him! Why, how could you do such a thing?’ asked the actress excitedly.
‘For revenge!’ exclaimed the poor woman, with all the energy she could collect, and then fell back exhausted. For a time both were silent, and Rose watched with pity the face, stained by intemperance and sensuality and all evil living, wondering what could be the connection between that poor pauper in the hospital and the proud deceased Baronet.
‘Read this paper,’ said the poor woman.
‘Oct. 187-. Saw my pore boy on a brogham at the theatre. I knowed him at once. His father is Sir Watkin Strahan, and he was on the box of Miss Howard’s brogham. I lost him as I was going to speak to him. The peeler told me to be off.’
‘Then, it was you that left him at Sloville, where I took him up?’
‘Yes,’ said the poor woman feebly, adding: ‘Come nearer.’
Rose complied with the request.
‘I was an underservant in Sir Watkin’s house. He was a wicked man. He took a fancy to me. I war young and good-looking, and a fool.’
The old, old story, thought Rose to herself, for the poor woman gave her plenty of time to think, so slowly and feebly did the words come out of her mouth.
‘One day the missus came and caught me in his room. I was turned out into the street, without a character and without a friend. I vowed I’d be even with him, and I run off with his boy.’
‘How could you manage that?’
‘Oh, that was easy enough. The nursemaid was allus a talking to the sodgers in the park. And an Italian Countess helped me. She had an idea that if she could get rid of the child and the wife she would marry the master.’
‘But was no effort made to get the child back?’
‘Oh yes! But I managed to get a dead baby, the very moral of his’n. An Italian lady staying in the house helped me. I dressed it in his clothes. The master thought it his own, and had it buried in the family vault.’
‘That was very wrong of you.’
‘Perhaps it was. But had not the master and missus both wronged me? Arter that I got married, but me and my husband were always quarrelling about the boy, and that made me take to drink, and then, when I lost my husband, I drank worse and worse.’
‘And then you went on the tramp, and left the boy at Sloville, and I took him.’
‘Yes.’
‘He is a good boy.’
‘He allus was.’
‘But why did you not see him righted?’
‘I did one day. I had a letter sent to Sir Watkin, and he sent me word it was all a lie, that his boy was dead. Then his lady died, and he went abroad, and—’
‘And you never saw him again?’
‘Only twice. When I saw him outside your theater and tried to speak to him. But he pushed me into the street, and then I met with my accident. He’s a hard un and a bad un.’
‘And when again?’
‘Not very long ago; when they had the election at Sloville. I was there and he too, but he would not look at me. Oh, he was harder than ever!’
‘Speak not of him now—he’s dead.’
‘Dead! Oh, dear!’ said the woman. ‘Do you mean to say he’s really dead?’
‘Yes,’ said the actress, ‘he died only a few days since.’
‘And I am dying—oh, dear! What a wicked woman I’ve been! What mischief I’ve done!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why, I meant to restore the boy.’
‘It is too late—the boy has no father now. Is this truth you tell me? It is a strange story.’
‘The truth, so help me God.’
Then she sank back utterly overcome. At length she said:
‘I’ve not long to live, have I?’
‘I fear not.’
‘You’ll see me buried decent?’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘And you’ll be kind to the boy and see that he has his rights?’
‘If I can.’
‘That makes me feel better.’
‘I am glad of that.’
‘How can I be otherwise? You’re but a woman, and I am no more.’
‘They’re all kind here,’ said the woman, sobbing.
‘It is because they love God.’
‘Ah, so the parson says. Sir Watkin used to tell me the parson told lies.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Yes—I don’t now.’
‘God is our Father, and He loves us all.’
‘What, me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘What, me, with all my wickedness?’
‘Yes, you and I, with all our guilt and sin. His heart pants with tenderness for all. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he should turn to Him and live. He sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to save us.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Yes, with all my heart. I should be wretched indeed if I did not. Daily my prayer is, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
‘Ah, I like to hear you talk. I’ve not heerd such talk since I was a gal, and then I did not believe it. But it does me good now.’
‘Yes, but I must not talk any longer, or you will be excited and get worse. Try and have a little sleep, and I will go home and pray for you.’
‘Thanks, miss,’ said the woman gratefully; ‘you’ll come and see me to-morrow?’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Rose, as she turned to go home.
But that to-morrow never came. At midnight the summons came, and all that was left of ‘our Sally’ was a silent form of clay.
Some of us go out of the world one way and some another.
Happy they who can exclaim, with Cicero, ‘O preclarum diem,’ or with Paul, ‘I know in whom I have believed;’ or with Job, ‘Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’
Unhappy those who with dim eye, as it restlessly sweeps the horizon of the future, can see no beacon to a haven of light, no pole-star pointing to a land of eternal rest—
‘No God, no heaven, no earth in the void world—
The wide, gray, lawless, deep, unpeopled world.’
Rose rushed home as rapidly as the cab she hired could carry her. Wentworth was in.
‘What am I to do?’ she said, as she told him the whole story.
‘Better send for the boy,’ he said.
‘Oh no, not yet. He is comfortable where he is, learning to be a sailor. He’s fond of the sea, and it will be a pity to take him from it.’
The fact is, the young waif, as Rose thought him, was placed, at her expense, on board one of the training-ships lying off Greenhithe. They are noble institutions, these training-ships—saving lads who, if left to themselves, might become tempted by circumstances or bad companions into crime, and at the same time supplying us with what we English emphatically require at the present day—English sailors on whom captains can rely on board our merchant ships and men-of-war. There was no difficulty in getting the actress’s protégé there, and there he was rapidly training into a good sailor and a fine fellow, well-built, obedient to his superiors, handy, and hardy, and sturdy, morally and physically, as all sailors should be.
The next thing was to talk to a lawyer. In this wicked world lawyers are necessary evils. Sometimes, however, they do a great deal of good. The lawyer recommended Wentworth to call on the family lawyer of the deceased Baronet. He came back looking unhappy and uncomfortable, as people often do when they have interviews with lawyers who are supposed to be on the other side. He found him in comfortable quarters on a first floor in Bedford Row, Holborn, looking the very image of respectability—bald, and in black, with an appearance partly suggestive of the fine old clergyman of the port-wine school, with a touch of the thorough man of the world; a lawyer, in short, who would give an air of plausibility and rectitude to any cause in which he was embarked.
To him Wentworth apologized for making an intrusion.
‘No apology at all was needed, my dear sir. Happy to make your acquaintance. I have not only read your books—very clever, too, Mr. Wentworth—but I heard of you more than once through Sir Watkin Strahan.’
‘Perhaps in no complimentary terms?’
‘Well, you know the late Baronet was a man of strong passions, and, when annoyed, I must admit that his language was what we might call a little unparliamentary.’
‘It is about his business I have called. You are aware there is an heir?’
‘Oh yes; Colonel Strahan, the brother.’
‘I don’t mean him. A son.’
‘A son! Impossible. The deceased baronet had only one son, and the fine fellow—’
‘Is now alive.’
‘Nonsense, my dear sir. He was buried in the family vault, after the doctor and the family were satisfied of his identity, and I was present at the funeral. There was a coroner’s inquest held in order to leave no room for doubt.’
‘I think not,’ said Wentworth, as he proceeded to unfold the details of his case, to which the lawyer listened at first with a severely judicial air, and then with an incredulous smile.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ he asked, when Wentworth had finished his statement.
‘Pretty much so,’ replied Wentworth.
‘Then,’ replied the lawyer, with a triumphant air, ‘we have little to fear. Sergeant B.’—naming a popular advocate of the day—‘would laugh the case out of court in a quarter of an hour. You have a quarrel with the deceased. Your good lady has—to put it not too strongly—been insulted and shamefully ill-treated by him. Who would believe that, in promoting this suit—should you be so ill-advised as to do that—you came into court with clean hands? The idea is perfectly preposterous.’
The worst of it was that Wentworth, as he withdrew, was compelled to own that there was not a little truth in what the lawyer had said.
It was not law but equity that was required in his particular case. In England law and equity, alas! have often different meanings.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE ITALIAN COUNTESS.
‘How lovely!’ said a lady to a gentleman on the deck by her side, as they were drinking in all the beauty of the scene as one of the fine ships of the Orient Company dropped her anchor in the Bay of Naples. ‘And look what a swarm of boats have come out to greet us!’
They were a swarm indeed, some of them with divers to exhibit their prowess, some with fruit and flowers, some with the lava ornaments in the manufacture of which the Neapolitans exhibit such exquisite skill, and others with musicians—vocal and instrumental—keeping up for the time quite a serenade. These Neapolitans gain but little, it is to be feared, on such occasions, but the Neapolitans are a frugal people, and make a little go a long way.
The lady was Rose, the gentleman by her side was her husband.
‘Yes; and see, one of the boats has a young girl who has come on deck with flowers, which she is fastening in the gentlemen’s coats in hope of a small fee. How pretty she looks!’
The girl approached Rose, to whom she offered a flower.
‘Why, it speaks the language of hope,’ said Rose. ‘I take it as a good omen that here we shall find the Italian lady of whom we have come in search.’
‘Let us hope that it may be so. We have no time to lose if we mean to go on shore. The health officer has done his duty, and given leave for the captain to land his passengers. Let us hasten to get on board the steam launch. I see already they have got our luggage. Fortunately for me there is not much of it.’
And in a few minutes they were at the custom-house. The only difficulty was a small box of cigars, on which Wentworth had to pay a most exorbitant duty.
At the end of the quay they found a crowd of coachmen waiting for hire, shouting and gesticulating in the wildest manner. Rose was quite frightened at their appearance, and with the noise they made. However, they found one who did not charge more than double the ordinary fare to drive them to the hotel. As they drove along they encountered, of course, some of the awful drain smells for which the city has long been famous.
‘I don’t wonder, now,’ said Rose, as they pulled up before a grand hotel, ‘at the saying, “See Naples and die.” How can people live where such smells are met with everywhere? But if that Italian Countess is alive we may find her. Perhaps she can help us to establish our boy’s claim.’
That same morning an Italian Countess came home from her daily drive in a great state of trepidation. She had seen an English face that she remembered but too well—it was that of Miss Howard, the celebrated actress. She had ordered the coachman to keep the lady in sight; but that was impossible, the crowd was too great, and she returned home not a little agitated. Was it fancy or fact? was a question she could not determine.
What could she do? Well, she drove off to the English Consul next day. Perhaps he could tell her. Alas, he was in utter ignorance of the matter.
There were the hotels; she would drive to them and make inquiries. There were only a few of them, as a rule, patronized by the English. It would be easy to make inquiries. She did so, but she could hear of no Miss Howard at any of them. All day long she was driving up and down the principal streets, but in vain. There is not much to see in Naples itself, it is the country round that is the attraction, and Rose and her husband were out all day long studying the remains of Pompeii, climbing up Mount Vesuvius, sailing to Sorrento or Capri, exploring the ruins of Baiæ, and the grave of Virgil. There was much to see, and they had no intention to let the grass grow under their feet. Daily they returned at a late hour to their hotel, charmed but wearied; and thus they had but little time to spend in the streets, looking at the shops, or studying the manners and customs of the people.
The Countess pondered over the matter deeply. She lived a retired life herself; she had few friends; her establishment was on a very moderate scale. There were those who said she was not a Countess, that her title was merely an assumed one. This was unfair, as most of the ladies one meets in Naples are Countesses, and the presumption therefore was in favour of her ladyship’s claims. Countess or no Countess, she was in a very troubled state. She had seen a face that reminded her of old times in London—of her intrigue with Sir Watkin Strahan—of her worming herself into the confidence of his lady—of her participation in the abduction of the heir—in fact, of her revenge; and she sighed as she thought how little good she had gained by it. Her ladyship’s maid was alarmed. What had come to the Countess it was beyond her power to imagine.
‘Have you anything on your mind?’ said her old Italian priest as he sat in the first-floor of one of the villas that looked over Naples on to its lovely bay and the sea beyond, whilst Vesuvius on the left was indicating, in its usual way, that it was suffering a good deal in its inside. The old priest lunched with her ladyship every day.
‘Anything on my mind?’ said the lady. ‘Oh, dear father, no. Why talk to me in this way this bright afternoon, when all nature seems so bright and gay? Ah, it is a beautiful world when one is young—the terraces, the gardens, the flowers, the blue sea, the old castle beneath, the streets with the jewellers’ shops, the fine churches with their sacred services and sacred paintings. How I love them all! I could not live away from La Belle Naples. Oh, that I could stay here for ever!’
‘That were a foolish wish, daughter,’ said the holy man. ‘Naples is very fine and its bay is beautiful, but you have something better to look at. See, the crucifix! Behold Who bleeds and suffers there—Who founded the Catholic Church of which I am a humble member, and in whose name I speak. At one time, if I may believe what I hear, you were not quite so fond of Naples as you seem to be now. I have heard that you went to the land of the heretics—that Island of England which has so long denied the faith, but which I am glad to find is abandoning its heresy, repenting of its sin, and returning to the Holy See. When we see the sister of an English Prime Minister find salvation in the bosom of the Holy Church, when our sacred officials are run after in all the highest circles, when they astonish all London by their works of charity and labours of love, by their eloquence and learning and saintly lives; when these Islanders, insolent and haughty as they are to one another, crowd as they do to Rome, and prostrate themselves at Rome’s feet as they do, we know that the end is near—that the time of the triumph of the one Catholic and Universal Church, to whom St. Peter committed the care of the keys, is at hand. Pray that that blessed time may soon arrive. I have been to St. Paul’s—I know Westminster Abbey—it would rejoice my heart to hear that once more there was performed in them the Holy Service of the Mass.’
‘Holy father, that is my daily prayer.’
‘I am glad to hear you say so. But tell me, when you were among the heretics were you always a daughter of the Church?’
‘Always, holy father. I fulfilled my mission—you know what that was.’
‘I have heard something of it.’
‘I should think so,’ replied the lady with a smile. ‘I had money, and I drew around me its worshippers. I was of an old Italian family, and stood well in the upper London circles. I had beauty—smile not, holy father, though you see me old and yellow and wrinkled—and beauty, as you know, never spreads its net in vain. I believe, also, I had wit, and wit goes far in that land of fogs and foxhunters, of prudish women and milksops, of cant and humbug.’
‘Ah,’ said the monk, with a smile of approbation, ‘you seem not to have liked those English—those heretics—those lunatic sightseers who, as they never can be happy at home, come to us to forget their sorrows, and who fancy that by doing so they are amusing themselves.’
‘Truly no, holy father. How could I? They do not even worship the Virgin Mary!’
The holy father shook his head and sighed.
‘I think, daughter, you wished to have a chat with me. There was something on your mind.’
‘Holy father, you are right; and as I cannot come to church to make confession I have sent for you.’
‘Yes; in the name of the Holy Father, and armed with his authority, I may hear confession and grant, to the truly penitent, absolution. The Apostle Peter had that power, he received it from the great Head of the Church; and our Popes—His true followers—have ever used that power for the cure of poor sinners, for the good of the Church, for the glory of His Blessed Name. We humble ministers hear private confessions. It is a sacred privilege, to be guarded jealously; but I know its value. I have seen how the weak and erring mortal who has confessed to his priest has had a heavy weight taken off his heart, has lost the cares and sorrows which were darkening and shortening his days, has gained joy and gladness as he thus realizes the Divine favour and feels certain that after the pangs of death are over we shall rescue him from the pains of purgatory, and he shall pass away to the mansions of the new Jerusalem, shall walk its golden streets, shall drink of its surpassing joys, shall join in its celestial harmonies, and take his stand with the great company of the elect gathered by the labours of the Holy Catholic Church out of every age and country under heaven. This is what we gain by means of the Mass, and yet the heretics scoff at the service and audaciously assert—in this respect only following the arch-heretic, Luther—that the Mass is simply a means for getting money out of the pockets of the people.’
‘What awful blasphemy!’ said the lady with a shudder, at the same time making the sign of the cross. ‘Glad indeed was I to leave that horrid country. It is full of Free Catholics.’
‘Free Catholics!’ said the priest, in a tone of alarm. ‘What can they be?’
‘Alas, holy father! they are everywhere—in Paris, in Brussels, in London. They are only Catholics in form, but not in heart. In fact, they are no better than Protestants.’
‘Not exactly—if they keep up the forms of the Holy Church they are better than Protestants,’ said the priest, ‘who in denying the form deny the faith, as the holy Apostle says, and are worse than infidels. But, my daughter, time is wearing away.’
‘Ah, truly, holy father, it is luncheon-time. Already I hear by the gong that it is served.’
The father knew the rules of the house, and timed his visit accordingly. Soup, fowl, fish, with cut of roast lamb, a choice bottle of Italian wine—it won’t bear transplanting, nor a sea voyage—a few grapes and green figs, with a cigarette and a demitasse of coffee, were not to be despised. He found alike his piety and his benevolence all the better for such a feast. The Countess kept a cook and a butler, and they were neither of them novices by any means. There has been good eating and drinking on the shores of the Bay of Naples, at any rate since the time of the Romans. Naples owes its fame, and probably its existence, to the superlative loveliness of its situation. As old Sam Rogers sang:
‘Not a grove,
Citron or pine or cedar: not a grot
Seaward, and mantled with the gadding vine,
But breathes enchantment;’
and thus it was that the bon vivants of the old world loved the favoured spot—that Baiæ was the Brighton of the Romans. Between it and Puteoli rolled the Lucrine Lake, over which skimmed the small yachts of fashionable visitors, while around were the oyster-beds for the luxurious tables of Rome. It was there Sergius Orata of blessed memory established the fine oyster-beds which have ever since been a model for all succeeding ages, and a name grateful in the ears of the epicure.
The lady and her guest had coffee served up in an adjoining apartment. The lady lit up her cigarette, the gentleman did the same. It is wonderful how tobacco quickens the conversational powers. High-born dames, as well as Irish fish women, in this respect own the influence of the seductive weed.
‘Ah, father,’ said the Countess, ‘you have known me long. I have confidence in you.’
‘Yes; I have known madame long—friend of the good cause, a supporter of the true Church—liberal with her money and her time, strict in the observance of holy days. What would you, my daughter?’
‘Ah, father,’ said the lady with a sigh; ‘it was not always so—I have lived.’
‘Yes; many of us who now pose as saints can say as much,’ said the holy father. ‘What a blessed thing it is to be able to find out what is true life, what are true joys—the ecstasy of being lost in the Divine Being, of being waited on by angels, hasting to guide one the way to Paradise, of appealing to the sweet Virgin Mary, of having her as an intercessor night and day for our sins in the court of Heaven! Compared with these things, what are the pleasures of sense and sin—which are soon vanished, and always leave a sting behind?’
‘Oh yes, father; I can feel and realize all this, but I am not happy. I am in great anxiety—I have a great weight on my mind. My medical man tells me to avoid excitement, that I suffer from disease of the heart, that any day I may have an attack which may be attended with fatal consequences.’
‘Oh, dear madame, calm yourself. You look well—madame speaks and walks well. There is assuredly little serious to contemplate. These doctors, who are they?—ignorant quacks who, for their own selfish ends, make us believe that we are on the way to death when in reality we are in the enjoyment of health and strength. Remember how, in a cholera year, Death met the Devil as he was on his way to Vienna. “I shall slay twenty thousand people,” said Death. In a day or two they met again. “Ah!” said the Devil, “only ten thousand died of cholera.” “Ah,” said Death, “that is true.” “How, then,” asked the Devil, “did you make up your number?” “Easy enough,” was the reply; “ten thousand were killed by the cholera and the other ten died of fright!” Ah, these doctors, they do a lot of mischief! They are also, I fear, men of science—that is, men of no religion. It is dangerous for one’s soul to have them about us. It is the priest, your ladyship, who is the true friend of all in sickness or adversity, or doubt or sorrow.’
‘Oh, father, I believe you. And now to business.’
‘With all my heart.’
‘There is no one who is likely to overhear us?’
‘None. The house is silent as the grave,’ of which it really reminded one with its funereal embellishments, its ghastly pictures of saints and martyrs—the work of old masters they said, horrible to look on—and crucifixes of every kind. In some parts of Italy this show is supposed to indicate the possession of true piety, and that, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.
‘Well, father, let me state a case in which I am interested.’
‘I am all attention.’
‘In the fair city of Florence there was a girl, fair in person, a fine figure, a sunny face, a gift of song. She was the child of pious parents in the neighbouring mountains. The father was an officer in the Pope’s army. When all Europe dashed its armies, not in vain, against the holy rock of St. Peter’s, the father died as a brave man should. The mother lived on on her small estate on the mountains. The girl loved the city, and the museums, and the gardens, and the picture galleries. She would not go back to the solitude of her country home; in fact, she ran away, and one morning she met an English milor. He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born; he told her he loved her to distraction—she would always be happy with him. In a foolish hour the silly girl went on board milor’s yacht, that was lying in the bay—just as the yachts of milors lie there to-day.’
‘Ah! that was bad,’ said the priest.
‘Yes, it was indeed, holy father,’ continued the lady. ‘The girl remained there; she believed in the milor; she learnt his language; she amused his idle hours. He did not know his own mind; she did not know hers, and both thought they were happy.’
‘It was bad,’ said the priest. ‘Evil came of it. You need tell me no more. Evil always comes of such liaisons. Where the Church does not bless, the great enemy of souls, like a roaring lion, comes in.’
‘But there is a good deal more to be told.’
‘Proceed, madam, I am all attention.’
‘The milor was lost sight of. The lady appears in London. Socially, she had kept her reputation untouched; she assumed an Italian title of nobility. There are only too many in London, especially among rich parvenues, who throw open their doors to anyone with a foreign title, whether real or assumed.’
‘So I have heard, madam.’
‘The Italian lady in this way made many acquaintances and some friendships. Amongst the latter was a lady in weak health, and in great trouble of body and mind. The Italian lady was interested in her; she seemed so sad and sorrowful—almost as sad and sorrowful as herself. The lady had many confidences to make. She was the wife of the rich milor; she was about to present him with a child—a son and heir it was to be hoped. She dreaded the event, she was so weak and sad.’
‘“What will you?” said the Italian lady to the English one. “That you come and stay with me—that you be my companion and friend. Everything shall be placed in your hands.” The Italian lady was delighted. In the first place it would give her an opportunity to meet her English milor again; perhaps to regain her old authority over him. Alas! she was mistaken.’
‘And it was quite as well, too,’ said the priest. ‘Her better part was that of a penitent; it was only thus the ministers of the Church could absolve her of her sin.’
‘Milor had lost all interest in the Italian woman who had given up to him her youth, her love, her innocence, and her life. Milor felt no pleasure at once more recognising her as established in his grand house in town as the friend and companion of his wife.’
‘Was this madame, this Italian Countess, this friend of yours, very much distressed, was she broken-hearted?’ asked the priest with a quiet smile.
‘Not exactly. Her idea was to take a grand revenge.’
‘Ah! that is more the way of Italians. But what was that revenge? Did she stab the milor? did she poison his wife?’
‘Neither the one nor the other. As one of the household—as its mistress as it were for the time being—she saw how she could revenge herself in a better way.’
‘Revenge! Ah, that is sinful, I fear,’ said the priest. ‘“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Hear David, “O Lord, to whom vengeance belongeth, show Thyself.” Ah, it may be sweet for a time,’ said the priest, as he shook his head.
‘Holy father,’ replied the lady, ‘you are right, as you always are. We women have not men’s heads, we have only hearts, and those hearts often fill us with bad passions.’
‘I fear that is too true,’ said the priest. ‘But pray proceed with your narrative.’
‘Well, her plans were artfully laid. The servants were her creatures. The medical man was her dupe. She had sole command of the mansion. The poor dying wife had begged her to take the trouble off her hands. Milor fancied she was his slave; he in reality was her dupe. She made him believe that his child was dead. She did more, she paid some women to take care of a child which she pretended, with strict injunctions to secrecy, was the heir. Gold did it all. At that time the lady had plenty of gold.’
‘Which might have been better spent in the service of the Holy Catholic Church, which needs the treasures of the faithful, and gives them interest for the money, which will yield rich fruit through the countless ages of eternity.’
‘Ah, my friend did not think of such things. She was in the world and of it. There, in that island of heretics, she had given up her religious observances, and had almost lost her religious faith. Oh, how much better it is for the woman to stop in the land where the poetry of youth ripens and matures, till in her old age she has all the ardour and the blessedness of a devotee.’
‘You speak truly and well,’ said the priest, with an approving smile; and though he did not often smile, his smile, when it did appear on his marble face, was encouraging.
‘My father,’ said the penitent, weeping, ‘I can keep up the deception no longer—I speak of myself!’
‘I thought as much,’ he replied. ‘I am afraid you have done a great wrong. But what has become of the child?’
‘I know not; and the father is dead.’
‘Oh,’ said the priest, ‘you should have brought him to Italy and placed him in the school of the Monastery of St. Joseph.’
‘Yes, holy father, I ought to have brought him up in the true faith. I hear his father is dead; I hear they believe there is no heir; I hear the brother and his family are now in possession of the estate. I know all about them. They are of the Low Church school which hates our faith, abuses its priests, and even the Holy Father—’
‘Hush!’ said the priest, ‘do not sully your lips with the foolishness and wickedness of these poor Protestants. I have heard them talk their blasphemies in Naples, and even at Rome itself. It is the holy Inquisition that we need to put a stop to such vile calumnies.’
‘I had my revenge; but I know not what became of the boy. If we could gain his rights we could make a Catholic of him. I am no longer a penitent, holy father. I feel as if I had been a mighty instrument in paving the way for the return of the true religion to that unhappy land. Here,’ placing in the priest’s hand a handsome casket, ‘are the documents which will establish his claim. You go to London. You will see the lawyer of the family; he cannot deny the claim. Oh, I feel so joyful! I’ve gained my revenge! and is it not a sanctified one, as it is for the good of the Church?’
‘Daughter,’ said the priest, ‘I would fain say in the language of the Holy Book, “Many daughters have done well, but thou hast surpassed them all.” Still, it seems to me so marvellous, I can scarcely understand it.’
‘The mystery is being cleared up. I saw an English actress in the street yesterday, who I believe can help us in the matter. But in the meanwhile let us see these documents. We shall have done a great work for the Church if we can take these documents, find the child, establish his claims in a court of law, and secure him as a true son of the Church. Ah, that will be grand!’ said the Countess joyfully. ‘I gain a son for the Church.’
‘Heaven will reward you, daughter,’ said the priest; ‘but hasten and fetch the casket.’
The Countess left the room to find it. In a little while she returned with it in her hands.
‘There it is,’ said she, as she handed it to the priest.
‘What a lovely casket!’ said the priest.
‘Ah, one thinks of what it contains,’ said the lady; ‘a title—an estate—a life, which will all be handed over to the Church.’
With a trembling hand the priest opened it; the Countess in an equally excited state looking on.
In the casket was an official-looking wrapper.
‘It is all right,’ said the Countess; ‘break the seal and master its contents.’
‘All in good time,’ said the priest. ‘Don’t agitate yourself; be calm.’
‘I am,’ said the Countess; ‘but delay not. Secure the prize; the hour has come.’
Suddenly the priest turned red and white. ‘In the name of the Holy Father,’ he said, ‘what have we here?’
‘Why, documents of the highest importance.’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ exclaimed the priest in a rage. ‘Nothing but an old English newspaper,’ as he threw it on the ground, with something that sounded like a rather expressive Italian oath.
The lady shrieked and nearly fainted away, only she thought better of it. The situation, it occurred to her, would be neither interesting nor picturesque. Alas! she had no help for it. That English maid-servant, of whom she fancied she had made a dupe, was more than a match for her after all, and had tampered with the documents she had carefully sealed and religiously guarded these many years.
All she could do was weep, and weep she did, till she nearly wept herself to death, failing of her long-treasured scheme of revenge. Of her servant she had lost all trace. To find her was out of the question; her only hope was in Miss Howard.
But they never met. The Countess and the priest could do nothing; and Rose and her husband soon tired of the fruitless search and returned, to remember in after years the delights of the Bay of Naples—‘the most beautiful spot in the world,’ writes George Eliot. Everything takes us back to the past. It was in the bay that pious Æneas landed. Caligula, and Nero, and Tiberius, all loved the spot. The grotto of the Sybil was near, too; the tomb of Virgil is yet shown in that neighbourhood. Capua, famed for its luxury and ease, was not far off. No wonder the world flocks to the Bay of Naples. I stay at the Hotel de Vesuve, kept by Mr. Mella, well-known to English members of the Coaching Club, and where I find excellent accommodation. And he tells me 80,000 visitors pass through his hotel in the course of a year. It is a classical education to stop in Naples for a while. I love it best in the summer, when you can revel on green figs, and apricots, and peaches, and oranges for a song. In the winter there are fogs and snow at times. But there is this drawback in the summer, and that is its intense heat, which drives everyone away. From the deck of the steamer the view is charming, as Naples with its terraces, and castles, and hills rises before you; and at night, when all is still, and the gas-lamps glitter all round the bay for miles, it looks like fairyland.
In Naples itself there is little to see, with the exception of the museum, which, when Garibaldi was Dictator, was thrown open to the public, and in which some, or rather all, the most precious works of art discovered in Pompeii are preserved. It is not enough to go to Pompeii—you must visit the museum in Naples as well. But the brasses and the marbles in the museum are especially fine, such as the Farnese Bull, and the Farnese Hercules, and the Roman Emperors. In the churches there is little to see, and nothing to admire. There are showy shops in the Toledo, and at the end, as you enter, an arcade as handsome as is to be found anywhere in Europe. There are good public gardens where you may hear excellent music on a summer night, and no city has better tramcars, and more civil drivers and conductors. I have no fault to find with the cabs, except that their drivers never leave you alone, and lie in wait for you at your going out and coming in. It is in its crowded and bustling streets that the charm of Naples consists. Surely there never was a people who lived so much in the open air, and drank so much water flavoured with lemon. The Neapolitans are a sober people, and industrious as well. They are fearfully taxed, and, with their scanty wages, how they manage to make both ends meet is a mystery. They are much given to sleep in the summertime anywhere, on the broad street or the sea-wall; and of a Sunday afternoon they are much given to crowd into some rickety old cart, and tear along as fast and far as the horse can go.
There is very little beauty among the common people, and you have plenty of scope for observation, as women dress their back hair in the broad streets, and the babies are washed in the same public manner. Nor can you wonder that this is so, as you contemplate the dingy streets and high houses, divided by narrow lanes, just like Yarmouth Rows, where no fresh air can enter, no ray of sunlight can shine. What strikes a stranger especially is the awful noise. There is an everlasting clatter of wheels and cracking of whips, and braying of donkeys—and in Naples they bray louder than anywhere else; and how the hawkers shout! and they are numerous, and seem to supply everyone. It is amusing to see them transacting business. The customer is high up in the balcony, suspended in mid air. She needs a bit of fish, and she lets down a basket to the hawker below. That gives rise to a good deal of talk, as the Neapolitans are a much-gesticulating people. If a bargain is struck, the basket is hauled up with the fish inside.
An old French writer complained of the English people that they were very ignorant, as they never spoke French. In a similar spirit the ignorance of the Neapolitans struck me. None of them could speak a word of English.
There are others who call it the City of Flowers. This is nothing but a mistake. But the cactus grows everywhere, and thus, wherever you go—on the rail, or by the villa, or the flat-roomed cabin where the poor peasant lives—you have a good display of green; and in the public gardens the palm-tree grows luxuriantly, and you are reminded of the tropics at every step; and thus the hot hours glide peacefully on, while the retailers of lemon and water do a roaring trade, and the ragged who have no money curl themselves in the dark arches, met with at every corner, and sleep the sleep of the just. All Naples is asleep in the middle of the day, and even the policeman nods. Happily he has little to do, as, ignorant and priest-ridden as the people may be, they never get drunk. At night the city is gay, as families, old and young, rush off to the music-hall, or to hear the bands play, or to navigate the peaceful waters by the light of Chinese lanterns. I suppose they fancy they cool themselves. The fact is, Naples is always hot in summer. All day long the burning sun bakes up the streets and the shops, and the old bits of rocks, all built over; and the heat seems to me to radiate from them all night long. If it were not for the tramcars, which are numerous and cheap, and the conductors of which are uncommonly civil and well-behaved, locomotion would be impossible. There are no flags more trying than those of Naples, and as the cabs drive all over the road you are never safe. People who are deaf, who are old and infirm, are in constant danger, in spite of the thundering crack of the cabman’s whip, or the ear-splitting note of the conductor’s horn. Motion seems to begin about five, and still the tumult rages as I retire to rest.
After all, the chief fault I find with the people is the way they work their horses and donkeys. The latter, at any rate, have a hard time of it, as they drag the heavy load on a cart of two long poles with beams laid across of the most primitive order. I fancy the old country cart remains as it was in the time of the Romans. Sometimes a horse or mule or bullock is harnessed on one side; but the patient ass, who does the chief of the work, no one seems to pity.
On a hot day it also stirs my indignation to see a horse dragging a cart with fourteen or fifteen strapping men inside, and on a Sunday everyone seems to drive, and as fast as he can. The swell and the costermonger all tear along at a frightful pace, and thus secure—what in England some good people are trying to insure—a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN BRUSSELS.
‘Of course, this is a plant, my dear.’
‘Really, Colonel,’ said the lady addressed, ‘I wish you would not use such improper language; children so easily pick up slang. You ought to be very careful. It is too bad, just as we are about to move to England, where you will take your rightful place in county society as head of our ancient family.’
‘You’re right there,’ said the Colonel to his lady in a laughing tone; ‘you’re right there, I believe. We are one of the oldest families in the country. It was one of them who was with Noah in the ark. You recollect the old epitaph—
‘Colonel,’ said the lady, ‘I am ashamed of you.’
‘What for, dearest?’
‘For quoting such a worldly poet. We were not allowed to read him in school. I am sure many of his poems are highly improper.’
‘Oh, then you’ve looked into him, have you?’
‘Certainly not,’ said the lady, with an affected shake of her head.
‘Then how can you condemn him?’
‘Easily enough. He was of the world. His was an unsanctified genius. He had no part or lot in the one thing needful.’
‘At any rate,’ replied the Colonel, ‘he’s buried in Westminster Abbey.’
‘The more’s the pity.’
‘And he was the friend of the clergy.’
‘Yes, of the carnal and unregenerate. There are too many of such, alas, in the Church of England—wolves in sheep’s clothing.’
The lady was an Evangelical of the bitterest type.
‘Well, dear, we won’t discuss the question,’ said the Colonel meekly. ‘What am I to reply to this letter?’
‘What, the letter from London, from Mr. Wentworth? Short and sharp. Say the idea is perfectly ridiculous. We can hear of no compromise. It is quite out of the question for us to give up our rights just as Providence has opened to us a means of extended usefulness. Mr. Wentworth is only a newspaper writer, a man of no position in society, and I am told his wife was actually an actress.’
‘Yes, I believe so,’ said the Colonel. This was enough. The Colonel’s lady was one of the elect—a model in a certain section of society of holy living. Yet, under a sanctified exterior, she was as hard, and bitter, and selfish, and uncharitable as it was possible for any woman to be, and the beauty of it was, that she thought herself, and was considered by her friends, to be in a state of exalted spiritualism, living in close communion with God.
Such people are by no means uncommon, the creatures of a self-deception of a most odious kind. Their language is full of Scripture phraseology; they delight in pious hymns; all their reading is confined to pious biographies, especially religious diaries, the morbid revelations of which record at nauseous length their diseased state of mind, which they assume to be the direct results of a Divine inspiration and tokens of a Divine love. When they are in distress, it is not the natural result of the circumstances in which they are placed, or the conditions of ordinary life, but the Divine will and purpose. If they neglect the laws of health, and are ill in consequence, it is the Lord’s doing. If they lose their money owing to imprudence in trusting it in rotten companies, it is the Lord’s doing. If trade is bad and creature comforts fail, or they live beyond their means and are in embarrassed circumstances, it is the Lord’s doing, to wean them from the world and its sinful vanities, and to lead them back to Himself.
There are no mysteries to them; all is clear, and their knowledge of the Divine way is only equalled by their thorough acquaintance with those of His great adversary the devil. In them, peace of mind is the result of this knowledge. To the carnal mind their self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction is amusing. It is almost beautiful, the smile with which they listen to one another, and the calm contempt with which they regard everyone not of their way of thinking. By the side of them an iceberg is genial, and their power is as great as their faith. All the artillery of heaven is in their hands. Peace is theirs, but it is truly a peace that passeth all understanding; they are not as other men are. To the outer world their cry is, ‘Procul este, profani!’
But let us return to the Colonel’s lady.
She continues:
‘We are not wealthy, you see,’ she was wont to say to the kind-hearted Belgian ladies, when they called on her for a subscription. ‘We are, I may say, living quite up to our income, and we have got our duty to do to the family, and the Colonel keeps the money-bags so tight that I can never get a franc. But what I can do I do, and, after all, it matters little—the contemptible dross of the world—if I can give to the needy the riches, that never fade nor pass away, of the Divine Word.’
And thus the lady excused to herself, as so many of us do, her lack of true charity.
‘Well,’ said the Colonel, ‘what shall I say to this Wentworth?’
‘Take no notice of him. Refer him to your lawyer in London. The path of duty is very clear. We find ourselves, by a merciful interposition of Providence, restored to our rightful position in society. You to take your place as the head of one of the old county families, I to still labour for my blessed Master in a sphere of increased usefulness. You owe it to your family to at once take possession of the title and estate, and not to have a moment’s delay.’
‘But,’ said the Colonel, ‘if there should be a grain of truth in this cock-and-bull story it might be awkward. I should like to have an inquiry made about this boy.’
‘Pray, do nothing of the kind. You only open the way to fraud and imposition. Your late brother never treated us fairly. He was often positively rude to me, and his son—if this boy is such—has no claims on us.’
‘Well,’ said the Colonel, ‘I should not like to behave shabbily.’
‘What do you mean, Colonel?’ said the lady indignantly. ‘I am not the one to recommend you to do that. The boy is no concern of ours. We take what the law gives us. It is a duty we owe to society to do that. I am aware,’ added the lady, ‘that Sir Watkin had a son, that the infant was stolen, and that the dead body was placed in the family vault. Not all the lawyers in London, and they are bad enough, can upset that.’
‘But suppose the wrong child was buried?’
‘Fiddle-de-dee!’ said the lady. ‘We know better than that. The estates are fairly ours, and we return to England as soon as we can to take our rights. Mr. Wentworth and his wife between them have concocted this villainous story, which no decent person would ever think of believing.’
Wentworth and his wife were quite aware of that; they believed in the boy, who was—to judge from the family portraits—a striking representation of the deceased Baronet at his time of life. But would the world believe it? that was the question to be asked.
Poor Sally on her deathbed had no inducement to tell a lie. Unfortunately, she had kept her secret too long. She had hoped to have made a harvest of the boy, but death had come to her, and all her hopes had ended in the grave. As is often the case, she was too clever by half.
Wentworth and his wife had an unpleasant time of it. Indeed, the family lawyer had intimated in a genial mood that he might possibly feel it his painful duty to place them in the dock, on a charge of conspiracy to defraud—a situation for which neither of them had any fancy. Their best friends seemed to regard the story with suspicion. What jury would be convinced by the testimony of ‘our Sally,’ whose head was generally fuddled with drink, and whom they could not even produce in court? It was true that the lad very much resembled the deceased Baronet. It was quite within probability that the latter was his father, but that did not legally make him the son and heir. It was felt that they had better talk over the matter with the lad himself, who was then an officer on board one of the floating hotels plying between Liverpool and New York.
Accordingly, Rose undertook the task of interviewing him in one of those sumptuous hotels for which Liverpool is famed. The boy had never heard of Sir Watkin, nor were his recollections of the deceased Sally of a very decided character. He had, however, never believed that she was his mother, and from her mysterious hints when under the influence of drink he had come to the conclusion that he had been stolen, though when or why he could not make out.
It is true there was an old woman at Sloville, a pal of Sally’s, the one who had written to Rose, who had the identical dress which the baby wore when it was stolen, but it was felt that the production of the article in question in court would not much advance matters. She had not stolen the baby. She could only say that the deceased Sally had asserted she had, and had bidden her be quiet, as one day or other she would astonish everybody by the wonderful revelation she had it in her power to make. It was true that Sally had been suspected, and the more so that she was no more to be seen, having been clever enough to put the detectives on the wrong scent.
It was hinted that an Italian lady had been mixed up in the matter. The world said there had been an intrigue between the Baronet and a fair Italian, and that thus she had revenged herself for his throwing her overboard.
‘Actresses,’ continued the Colonel’s lady, ‘are not particular sort of people, and newspaper writers are not much better, I believe. I can’t think how old county families can be civil to them. In my young days such an idea would have been scouted, and I must say then they knew their place. My papa helped the local printer to start a paper on condition that it was to support Church and State. Occasionally my papa had the man up in the Castle, and would sit down to a bottle of port with him, but he never took any notice of him elsewhere, nor ever introduced him to his family. I believe the man was a very respectable tradesman. He was regular in his attendance at church, and always stood by our family in election contests; but the modern literary man gives himself the most ridiculous airs, fancies he is a genius because he can scribble, and that he can wield the destinies of the nation because he is connected with some low paper. I hear he belongs to clubs, and goes into society just as if he were a gentleman. Every time,’ added the lady piteously, ‘every time that I take up an English newspaper, I see the country going to the bad, the people more intolerant of good government, the upper classes more careless as to the future, recklessly acting in accordance with the motto, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” The Sunday is desecrated by all classes, and the Lord will have no pity in the day of His wrath for Sabbath-breakers. The philosophers are in favour of Godless education, and now they tell me there are people who argue that Atheists have a right to sit in a Christian Parliament. Oh dear! the vials of God’s wrath will soon be flung down upon that unhappy country. The signs of the times tell us that we have reached the beginning of the end. There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the day of the Lord shall come.’
The gallant Colonel was accustomed to that sort of thing, and took it calmly. Whether he believed what his wife said I don’t know. He always acted as if he did; never contradicted her, as he had found that to be no use; attended her to church, sat out with well-bred polish the dreary minutes devoted to staring the domestics out of countenance called family prayers. He was always ready at his wife’s bidding to attend Bible-readings for the select few, and when joked on the subject by his chums, if he had any at his club, never gave railing for railing, but took it as if it was a cross laid on him to bear.
That he was a sincere believer no one, however, who caught him apart from the presiding influence of his wife believed for a moment. He swore too much for that, and occasionally he had been heard, when sentimental and under the influence of wine, to refer to Cremorne, to Evans’s and the Cider Cellars, to the Closerie du Lilas, to the Mabille, and other places in London and Paris where wicked people, in old times, were wont to enjoy themselves after their kind. Beneath his frosted exterior there was a good deal of the old Adam yet.
Once upon a time, according to William of Malmesbury, a merchant named Swelf had been in the habit of calling on the holy St. Wolstan once a year, to receive his advice in the healing of his spiritual ailments. After giving the needed absolution, the prelate observed:
‘You often repeat the sins which you have confessed, because, as the proverb goes, opportunity makes the thief. Wherefore, I advise you to become a monk, which if you do, you will not long have the opportunity for these sins.’
Upon this, the other rejoined that he could not possibly become a monk, because he found it so difficult to bring his mind to it.
‘Go your ways,’ said the bishop, in somewhat of a passion: ‘a monk you will become, whether you choose it or not, but only when the appliances and means of vice have waxen old in you;’ which fact, adds the historian, ‘we afterwards witnessed, because when now broken down by old age, he betook himself to our monastery.’
It was the decay of nature rather than the growth of grace which made that man a monk. What we lack in old age is the power to sin. The body ceases to be the servant of the senses. We lead a better life possibly, from a conventional point of view, but is it not often terribly against the grain? A man gives up a dissipated career because his strength is not equal to its demands. His vitality has been prematurely exhausted.
The conversation referred to took place in the breakfast-room of one of the attractive residences lining the route to the Bois du Cambre, which all my readers know is one of the fairest suburbs of Brussels, and of which, as most of them have gone there, I doubt not, to spend a happy day, I need say no more. The family did not reside there, but far away in the suburb, where rents and wages and provisions were alike cheap. The Colonel had gone abroad to educate his daughters more cheaply than he could in London, and the plan had so far succeeded that the young ladies had managed to read a good many French novels, the perusal of which not a little interfered with the enjoyment of family prayers, Bible-reading, and religious conferences, to which they were invariably taken by their mamma, and other means of grace. The family funds had been rather restricted, and at Brussels the mamma had assured herself that there was an exceptionally attractive Evangelical ministry in the Church of England, under the special license of the Bishop of London, and that was enough for her, the Colonel merely considering he could vegetate more cheaply in Belgium than in London. But they were all quite ready to leave for England; the Colonel to strut as a baronet and landed proprietor, the young ladies with a view to the matrimonial market—for, alas! they had met with few eligibles in Brussels—and the mamma that she might carry on on a larger scale and with increased success the missionary operations of which she had been the centre in Brussels. If she had not done much good among the people, she had—and that was her one great reward—managed considerably to annoy the priests, who glared at her with evil eyes as they watched her sallying forth daily with her bag of tracts. Money it was hard to get out of the Colonel’s lady, even in the most urgent cases; but no one was more ready with her tracts.