Far above rubies (Vol. 1 of 3)

Although, in the course of his conversation with Arthur Dudley, Mr. Black had intimated his intention of running up to town on the Monday following, and probably remaining there, he did not carry that desirable project into practice, but rather announced his intention of favouring Hertfordshire with his presence for some time longer.

“That is to say, if Mrs. Dudley be not quite weary of us,” he added; which, of course, left Heather no resource but to entreat a prolongation of Mr. and Mrs. Black’s stay, which she did so kindly, that Mr. Black thanked her for her invitation.

“Just as if you had given her a chance of not inviting you,” remarked Miss Hope, with a sneer.

“True; I forgot I was not speaking to Miss Hope, whose frankness is notorious,” retorted Mr. Black; having given the lady which tit, for her tat, he strolled out, in excellent temper, on to the lawn.

Spite of his dislike to the country—a dislike that was, perhaps, as genuine as anything about him (his vanity and selfishness excepted), he liked Berrie Down Hollow. It was an establishment which, notwithstanding some blemishes, in most respects met his views.

On an income of a few hundreds a year, which had to be dragged out of the land, it is scarcely needful to say, Mr. Dudley, of Berrie Down, could not “do things” in the same style as Mr. Black, of Stanley Crescent, who reckoned his returns loosely by thousands.

From cellar to garret, the house in Stanley Crescent proclaimed the existence either of unlimited means, or unlimited credit.

From the hall to the farthest bedchamber, Berrie Down Hollow told its tale of shortness of money and of utter honesty.

No bills were run in that pleasant Hertfordshire home; no duns ever came clamouring for payment through the gates flanked by pyracantha.

Let post-time bring what ill news it might, such ill news never arrived in the shape of an intimation that any tradesman was weary of waiting for a settlement of his “little account;” that, if a remittance for the amount of his bill (inclosed) were not immediately forwarded, the writer would place the matter forthwith in the hands of his solicitor.

Honest and honourable, as Lord Kemms had said, were these poor incompetent Dudleys. Senselessly honest, Mr. Black decided.

To live beyond their means—to owe money, the payment of which was in the least uncertain or problematical, would have seemed to them the depth of humiliation.

A horror of debt, a dread of incurring expenses which their income did not fully warrant, a proud spirit of independence, a resolute determination to spend no more than they could well afford to pay—these were the traits in his country relations which filled Mr. Black with a vague amazement, with an almost contemptuous pity.

That any man—and, more especially, any woman—should hesitate about refurnishing a house, when upholsterers existed ready to send in goods on credit, was a want of courage which, though perhaps not unnatural, was simply unintelligible to Mr. Black. That a family should refrain from luxuries, remain quietly at home, dress plainly, and strive, by a prudent economy, to make both ends meet, seemed to him the very acme of folly.

To “cut a dash” on nothing—to take a house with no certain prospect of ever paying rent for it—to furnish that house throughout on credit—to run bills for every article under heaven for which bills could by possibility be run—to trust to luck for meeting the Christmas accounts—to look on every tradesman as a mere speculator, who took his risk of ever receiving sixpence, to whom customers were as uncertain forms of profit as Lim. Lia. Co.s to Mr. Black, or else as “knowing cards,” who made the substantial householders carry them safe through the midnight flittings of a dozen less honest neighbours—these were a few of the articles to be found in the only confession of faith to which Mr. Black heartily subscribed.

From his youth upward, no delicate scruples concerning wronging his fellows had troubled the conscience of Mr. Black; and it seemed quite as strange to him to witness the remarkable honesty which obtained at Berrie Down, as it would to a pickpocket to behold a purse found in the street restored forthwith to its rightful owner.

No doubt the theory of honesty was an excellent, a beautiful science; but to carry that theory into every-day practice, appeared to Mr. Black absurd. According to his gospel, it was foolish to do without anything which could be procured for the ordering.

“Any fool,” he opined, “could buy with money; but it required some cleverness to buy without money. If I had been one of that sort, afraid of this, and that, and ’tother, I should have stayed on servant to somebody all my life. Success is just like a woman—faint heart won’t win her; and see what I have done—just look at me.”

This was the fashion in which he addressed Alick Dudley, or any other individual on whom he hoped the sight of his exalted position might produce a beneficial effect. From the way in which he talked of his successes, it was only fair to presume his achievements had astonished no one more than himself. Perpetually he seemed trying to lay his hand on his good fortune, in order to realise it; failing in this attempt, he desired to see his neighbour’s hand touch the glittering heap, so as to make sure it was no deception—no sham.

All his life he had been used to making believe. In the days when he lodged at Hoxton, he was wont to entertain his landlady with accounts of the great people he knew, who were going to do something for him; and shabby, out at elbows, patchy about the feet, and much dinged as regarded his head-gear, he still, meeting former acquaintances in the street, would ignore Hoxton, and ask them, the first time they were out Clapham way, to give him a call.

He had been a liar from the beginning, and even in prosperity lying forsook him not; but like as the wicked, of whom King David makes mention, were clothed with cursing, so falsehood was to Mr. Black as the garment which covered him, and as the girdle wherewith he was girded continually.

His life had been a shifting scene of unfair dealing; of false pretences; of uncertain climbing; of incessant struggle either to retain, or to regain, a desirable position; and because his memory retained nothing but a confused recollection of excusing, inventing, distorting, misrepresenting, scheming, cheating, planning, the atmosphere at Berrie Down almost took away his breath by its rarity.

To the advantage, however, of being associated with a man like Arthur Dudley—against whose honour and integrity even slander could not make an accusation—who really had broad acres and fair lands—something tangible in the way of property—Mr. Black was by no means blind.

Society, he knew, had a foolish confidence in such individuals; and now, when, perhaps, for the first time in his life he was striving to make his fortune honestly and legitimately, he could not help feeling that the accession of such an ally gave him greater confidence even in himself.

Walking over the soft green turf at Berrie Down, he began to imagine he had done with tacking and veering, and hoisting false colours for ever; at last, it was going to pay him to be straightforward. If there were some things concerning the Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited, which he deemed it wiser to keep in the background, still there was no necessity for beating about the bush. There was the Company—a good scheme, a tangible scheme, with no humbug about it; but rather, on the contrary, containing in itself almost every element necessary to insure success.

Very different was this venture to any with which he had ever previously been associated. Hitherto, he had looked for nothing beyond what he could make by merely promoting a company. He had assisted to usher dozens of ill-conditioned, unhealthy, rickety commercial infants into the world, and when he had pocketed his midwife’s fee for his services there was an end of the matter. As a rule, these infants had either scarcely survived their birth, or else had grown up into disreputable swindles; and Mr. Black, having sense enough to know this kind of practice could scarcely continue to pay him for ever, most earnestly desired to get hold of something which really had, in its own nature, some fair chance of existence; and working it up thoroughly, make that a stepping-stone to future successes, up which he could safely climb to the very summit of the hill of Fortune.

He was weary, not of the dishonesty of his previous career, but of its anxieties, its uncertainties, its never-ending, always beginning work. Though a strong and hearty man to look at, he felt the years spent in planning and scheming—in “raising the wind,” in getting “paper melted,” in running about praying for bills to be renewed, in staving off bankruptcy, in softening the hearts of obdurate creditors—had told, and were telling, on his constitution. He knew, if no one else did, how often he had climbed and fallen; how often he had touched Fortune, and been spurned by her; how continually luck had travelled with him to a certain point, and then, suddenly taken herself off in a huff, leaving her former favourite to retrace his steps, or fight his way onward, as best he could. How he had lain through the long nights planning; how he had thought in the darkness of ways and means; how he had racked his brains, marvelling whence help was to be obtained; how he had walked the City streets in rain, in snow, in frost, in the broiling summer weather, in the winter, when the cruel east winds were careering up Cheapside; how he had got soaked to the skin, and how his clothes had dried again on him; how he had turned into taverns, and drank brandy till he felt strong enough to go out again and face the worst,—all these miseries were fresh in Mr. Black’s mind; to all of them, he hoped, with all his heart and soul, he had said farewell for ever!

The pace at which he had been travelling, he felt, must tell at last; over the stones, over the stones! backward and forward, in all weathers, with all sorts of anxieties dogging his steps; up and down hundreds of thousands of stairs; across the thresh-holds of scores and scores of offices;—how all this had wearied his mind and worn his body, he fully understood only when he stood under the trees at Berrie Down, resting idly at last.

There was no sham about Mr. Black’s affection for London; but there was equally no question that he felt a short stay in the country might do his health much good; might clear his head, as he expressed it, and enable him on his return to town to resume work with greater energy than ever.

“Talk about a change to Hastings or Brighton,” he said to Arthur Dudley, “why, it’s nothing to this. To walk along the shore in either place, is simply walking down Regent Street, nothing else! Upon my soul, I would quite as soon take a day’s holiday in one as the other; and as for quiet, could the traffic in the City make more noise any time than that precious old sea? No; give me this solitude, this stillness, this perfect freedom, and I am content to leave watering-places to fast young women and idle men.”

And no doubt Mr. Black was sincere in this statement. Though the appointments at Berrie Down were not on that scale of magnificence which Mr. Black would have liked to see his kinsman affect, still the very absence of this magnificence tended to make the house a comfortable one at which to visit.

The furniture might be old-fashioned and the draperies faded; yet to Mr. Black there was a certain novelty in sitting down on a chair which was undoubtedly paid for, that counterbalanced, to some extent, the effect of well-worn carpets, ancient sofas, spider-legged tables, and a square six-octave piano.

Besides, the mere fact of seeing people able to do without luxuries, able to resist the lust of the eye and the pride of life, produced a salutary though vague impression on the mind of a man who had been brought up amongst a class which believes almost exclusively in externals, and pins its faith to goods and chattels, to fine feathers, to unlimited gilding, to many servants, and big houses filled with much French polish and varnish in profusion, with silk curtains and soft carpets, and pictures in heavy, costly frames.

If Arthur Dudley could afford to live in such poor style without losing caste, then what might Arthur Dudley not achieve if he were able to live in better style? A desirable connection certainly Mr. Black held that man to be, who, without any adventitious aid whatsoever, could remain a gentleman amid surroundings that “would settle me,” mentally finished the promoter.

That there was something in birth, beyond a father leaving personal and freehold property to his son—that there was something also in rank over and above houses and lands—money and more money—Mr. Black began to believe; and in the pleasant summer-time, amongst the green Hertfordshire fields, under the drooping trees, the promoter came gradually to understand something else, namely, that a woman who, like Heather, could manage to make herself and others happy, on an utterly inadequate income, might, mated to a different husband, have proved a treasure beyond all price.

Even Mrs. Ormson, he knew, could never have shed so sweet a content over any home as Heather Dudley. “I believe,” thought Mr. Black, “she would even have made that dog-kennel in Hoxton something worth looking forward to coming home to at night. She is not clever—that is, she could never fight her way in the world, nor go out into it like many women—but she is worth a barge-load of any I ever knew, for all that. By Jove! married to a clever man, would not she have made a home for him?” And then Mr. Black went on to consider, in a mournful kind of way, that let him climb to what worldly height he would, domestic comfort was a thing the future could not hold for him; that, though he might have servants and carriages, a house as fine as Lord Kemms, money at his banker’s, and an income large enough to satisfy even his most extravagant desires, he could never expect to pass through any door which might afford him admission to such a paradise as that, in and out of which Arthur Dudley passed at his own sweet pleasure, all unconscious of the blessings he enjoyed.

Never before had Mr. Black remained long enough at Berne Down to appreciate the quiet beauty of that calm home life. A hurried visit from Saturday till Monday, a scramble for trains, a hot walk to church, pressing anxieties which made the still monotony of the country almost maddening to a man whose brain was in a constant whirl of excitement; a day or two, perhaps occasionally, through the week—when picnics were planned and excursions undertaken—had formerly been Mr. Black’s experience of Berrie Down.

Most people know how wearisome and unendurable the stillness of night is when sleep refuses to close the tired eyelids, when either from pain of body, or distress of mind, the hours are passed in restlessness instead of rest. The silence of the country, its inaction, its dead-aliveness had been hitherto to Mr. Black precisely what sleepless nights prove to many a sufferer. He could not take repose out of it; and as day, with its work and its turmoil, seems preferable to the long, drawn-out darkness, through every hour of which ascends the moaning prayer, “Would to God it were morning!” so even the noise and tumult of town appeared to Mr. Black sounds to be desired in preference to the awful and fearful quiet of that still life at Berrie Down.

But now the Hollow was to him as a calm summer’s night, when refreshing sleep steals down upon the worn and the weary, giving them rest after toil, strength to rise and meet the trouble of the coming day.

The silence did not irritate him now, the utter repose of the life did not chafe his temper. He wanted to think, and he found time to do it. There was nothing pressing which required his return to town. He could let the express from Palinsbridge speed away to London, and leave him still behind at Berrie Down; he could lounge about the fields and build castles in the air at his leisure; he could stand and listen to the rustling of the wind among the trees without a thought of how time was going; he could lie on the grass, and plan his plans, and scheme his schemes, without ever a passing footfall to disturb him.

Further, he liked the liberty of the house. He could go and come, he could be alone or with the family, just as pleased him best.

There was no fuss about dress, no strict adherence to hours. If he went out for a quiet walk, dinner did not wait for him, and still he was not expected to starve the whole day, in consequence.

Mrs. Dudley had no black looks for guests who lounged in late to breakfast. There was always sunshine at Berrie Down; there was always some one to give that soft answer that turneth away wrath; there was no squabbling, no jealousy, no selfishness. In that house, it was not who should retain, but who should give up. Boys and girls alike, it was the same, who could do most for each other; and, beyond all, who could do most for Heather.

Naturally a shrewd man, Mr. Black could not choose but notice all these peculiarities of the household at Berrie Down; and as he began to take a personal interest in the members composing that household, so, in the ordinary course of, things, he necessarily looked deeper than he had ever done before, only to see more and more in Heather to admire.

She was his antagonist, he felt, and yet he would have given much to have had her on his side. She would be averse to leaving Berrie Down, and yet it was she, more than any other member of the family, he desired to have in town.

“By Jove! she is a woman,” he remarked in confidence to Mrs. Ormson; but finding his enthusiasm failed to kindle a corresponding flame in that lady’s bosom, he pursued the subject no further.

Even the very animals about Berrie Down seemed to Mr. Black different to the animals he had seen elsewhere: chickens that flew on Agnes’ shoulder the moment she appeared in the poultry-yard; dogs that relieved each other at the gate, and sat looking up and down Berrie Down Lane the whole day long, like sentries on duty; a terrier that let Lally’s pet kitten make a pillow of him; a cat which was turned into the pigeon-house every night to prevent the rats doing mischief, and allowed the pigeons to roost on her back without entering the slightest protest against such a proceeding; horses that ate apples and plums in any quantity—that would search Alick’s pockets for bread, and pick the flowers out of Agnes’ belt daintily and lightly; a goat which ruled supreme in yard and paddock, which reduced even a huge Newfoundland to a state of abject terror, which played such antics as Mr. Black had never previously imagined could be gone through by an animal—which would get into the dog-kennel and keep its rightful occupant at bay—which would stand guard over the kennel and prevent Nero coming out—which would then be off chasing the smaller dogs about—butting at the colts, and causing them to rear and paw, and then scamper off round the fields, followed full flight by Jinny, who was fleeter of foot than any of them. She was a disreputable goat, of low tastes; who drank ale and ate tobacco; who preferred sour apples to wholesome grass; who had an objection to letting herself be milked, and who, when she became the mother of a kid, seemed to think the creature had been sent into the world to be rolled over and butted, and hunted and teazed, from morning till night.

A shocking thief was Jinny also, who would make her way into the larder and eat up bread and pies with an appreciative appetite which ought to have proved eminently gratifying to Mrs. Piggott; who might be found standing on her hind legs, sharing the horses’ corn; who was discovered one day, on the top of a little rustic summer-house, munching with infinite relish the earliest pears that grew on the sunniest wall of the garden. Every day Arthur vowed vengeance against that goat; and yet every succeeding morrow discovered Jinny at fresh tricks, engaged in carrying out some new mischief.

Then the pigeons! the ridiculous fantails and the consequential pouters,—the pouters so irresistibly like a parish clerk, the fantails so vain that, in walking backwards to exhibit their outspread feathers, they often fell head over heels, to the intense delight of Lally. Lovely pigeons! that would flutter down at sound of Heather’s voice, and settle on head and hand, soft balls of white, smooth feathers, waiting to be fed.

It might, according to Mr. Black’s idea, be a useless life; but, for all that, it was very tranquil and very sweet, and pleasant also from sunrise to sunset—a succession of summer days without a cloud.

Further, if, in the midst of so many romantic and countrified sights and sounds, it be not prosaic to make mention of such common matters as eating and drinking, I may add that the edible arrangements at Berrie Down met with Mr. Black’s unqualified approval.

To a man who had been content for years and years with chops and steaks, a pennyworth, daily, of potatoes, and a like value of bread, partaken of after the manner of those modern Israelites, City people in haste, and washed down by a pint or half a pint of bitter, it may readily be believed that the orthodox dinners which he deemed it the correct thing to partake of in Stanley Crescent were rather unappreciated luxuries.

What did he care for white soups and lobster patties—for entrées and Italian creams? The human being who had ever thought himself lucky to sit down to a pound of thinly-sliced beef or ham which he brought in with him wrapped up in a piece of newspaper; who had purchased American cheese, and supped on that delicacy in his Hoxton retirement; who had eaten shrimps at Gravesend, and partaken of Delafield and Co.’s entire as supplied after due adulteration by the landlord of the “Jolly Sandboys,” was not likely to contract a passion in his later years for Anglo-Gallic cookery, for réchauffés and made dishes, for disguised vegetables and non-comprehensible meats; for sour wines and fashionable sweets. On such subjects he and Miss Hope stood at opposite poles; and it was the funniest thing imaginable to hear the two wrangling over the different opinions which they held. To have heard them talk, any outsider might have supposed a new religion had been introduced, and that while the one held there was no safety out of the old faith, the other believed that to like a good-sized joint was a remnant of barbarism, a superstition only prevalent amongst the very lowest classes in the community.

For Miss Hope likewise, Berrie Down was liberty hall; and therefore, while Mr. Black breakfasted off ham and fowl, eggs, and sirloins of beef, thick slices of bread and butter, and tea in quantity, the spinster, seated opposite to him, regaled herself with claret, fruits, and what Mr. Black vaguely called “green meat”—which meant lettuces, mustard and cress, and other delicacies of the same primitive nature.

Often Mr. Black openly declared his wonder that “all the trash she eat did not kill her;” while Miss Hope was eloquent on the subject of English gluttony, and declared with more candour and politeness that she had never eaten a dinner in England fit for a civilized human being to partake of.

“Not,” she added, turning apologetically to Mrs. Dudley, “but that I consider Mrs. Piggott for England an admirable cook, and if she would only allow me to give her a few hints, I think you would find a change for the better, both in your expenditure and in your table.”

Ever ready to meet the views of her husband’s relations, Heather requested Miss Hope to extend to Mrs. Piggott the benefit of her experience; only to find, however, that such benefit had been previously offered and unceremoniously declined in words following—

“If I cooked well enough for your sister, Mr. Arthur’s mamma—Miss Hope, mum—and if I please Mrs. Dudley, mum, I don’t want no instructions from you, mum. No offence, I hope; if offence, I humbly beg pardon. I’m too old to learn new tricks.”

To the truth of which last clause Miss Hope assented with such unnecessary readiness, that Mrs. Piggott’s temper was excited instead of mollified; and when the lady in the kindest manner possible subsequently suggested “going into the kitchen to prepare a few dishes,” Mrs. Piggott locked herself up in the store-room with a huge Bible and her spectacles, and sat there till Bessie came to say the performances were over, and the messes ready for sending to table.

“And messes they be, miss,” declared Mrs. Piggott, after due inspection. “If Mr. Arthur or Mrs. Dudley either likes that trash, I shall be greatly astonished; but lor, miss! them old maids is all alike. If it’s not cats, it’s dogs; and if it’s not dogs, it’s meddling in other folkses business, and going about from house to house carrying their nasty prying ways about with them among their luggage. Who ever heard of boiling lettuce-leaves afore, or of putting onions, and sugar, and eggs among green pease, spiling the flavour of them? It’s not Christian, that’s what I say; and you tell me she fried them potatoes in oil; and that soup—why, it is thick with grease—butter, is it, miss? I wonder how much she has used! And a quart of cream, do you tell me? Well, if that is ’conomical cooking, I don’t know what ’conomy is. I hope master will like his dinner, that is all—I only hope he may.”

Which was about as great a fib as Mrs. Piggott ever uttered; for most devoutly did she hope the good things Miss Hope had prepared might come out untasted.

“Poking about, indeed!—messing in the kitchen. I wonder how she would like me to go into the drawing-room this evening, and offer to play the pianner to her? Talk about servants knowing their places! It would be well if ladies learnt theirs, I’m thinking. Her sister would never have dreamt of doing such a thing; and as for Mr. Arthur’s wife, she is too soft and easy; she ought to know better than allow such goings on.”

Thus Mrs. Piggott—who, after refusing to take service with the second Mrs. Dudley, or in the republic which succeeded that lady’s marriage to Dr. Marsden—had come over to Berrie Down some twelve months after Heather’s arrival there, and stated that, “having heard a good report of Mr. Arthur’s wife, she had no objection to serve her, if she were in want of a cook.”

With which offer Heather closing, Mrs. Piggott a week later entered the gates of Berrie Down, and virtually resumed possession of all her old authority. Amongst her goods and chattels were a Bible, a cookery book, a tea-caddy (with a key), a pair of spectacles, a work-box, and her marriage lines—all articles without which Mrs. Piggott never travelled.

A staunch Protestant, Mrs. Piggott read her Bible diligently on Sundays, and on what she called particular occasions—such, for instance, as the death of a relative, the news of some frightful railway accident, shipwreck, or colliery explosion, the sickness of any member of the Berrie Down household, the birth of a child, or in times of special aggravation.

But if she perused the sacred volume occasionally, she pored over her cookery book daily. From the valuable receipts it contained she had culled fragrant flowers in the shape of savoury dishes, curious puddings, wonderful sweetmeats, and a method of making puff-paste, in which even the housekeeper at Moorlands had not disdained to request instruction.

And after that, for Miss Hope to come with “her foreign notions, her garlic, her shalots, her tarragon, her basil, her clear soups (like dish-water), her meat done to rags, her vegetables cooked till all flavour was boiled out of them; her fruit breakfasts, her messy salads, her pinches of flavouring, her newfangled sauces, her endless dishes, with not a good mouthful on each.”

If Mrs. Piggott had not, at this trying period, found a sympathizing listener in Bessie Ormson, for want of vent her indignation must have killed her; as it was, Bessie took the keen edge off the knife that stabbed the cook, made fun of Miss Hope and Miss Hope’s stew-pans, and told poor Mrs. Piggott that the result of the French dinner had been a failure. “We all unaccountably lost our appetites,” said the young lady, slyly; “the dishes were capital, no doubt, but then, if one be not hungry, you know,” and then Miss Ormson looked archly at Mrs. Piggott, and the pair laughed wickedly.

“I hope you have plenty of cold meat in the larder,” Bessie went on, “for we shall all be starving by supper time;” and these words proving prophetic, Mrs. Piggott’s anger was appeased; and next day she unbent so far as to inform Miss Hope she would not mind watching how she made “that there sauce,” for she thought it very good indeed.

The conqueror can always afford to be a little generous, and in this instance Bessie held that Mrs. Piggott acquitted herself with considerable credit.

“Far be it from me to say the things were in their own nature detestable,” remarked Miss Ormson to her uncle; “under the circumstances, I do not think we can tell anything about them. We don’t jump to the conclusion that an air is unmusical because an utterly incompetent person attempts to play it, and clearly, Miss Hope knows as much concerning cookery as I do.”

“There may be something in that,” agreed Mr. Black; “talking about music, why don’t you play and sing, like your cousins?”

“My brain never would bear the harass and excitement of the sharps and flats,” answered Bessie, plaintively; and with that reply the promoter, who had lately taken it into his head every member of the family ought to do something well, and contribute to the success of the general social “rising” about to take place, was fain to rest satisfied.

By Edmund Yates, Author of “The Forlorn Hope,” “Kissing the Rod,” etc. Reprinted from “All the Year Round.” 3 vols.

By Mrs. E. Lynn Linton, Author of “Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg,” etc. 3 vols.

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By J. A. Maitland. 2 vols.

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Told in detail for the first time, chiefly by the aid of Original Letters, Official and other Documents, and Contemporary Memoirs recently made Public; and comprising a Sketch of the Life of the Countess de la Motte, pretended Confidant of Marie-Antoinette, and Particulars of the Careers of the other Actors in this remarkable Drama. By Henry Vizetelly. Illustrated with an exact representation of the Diamond Necklace, and a Portrait of the Countess de la Motte, engraved on steel. 2 vols. 25s.

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