Guy Deverell, v. 2 of 2

The Guests Together.

Varbarriere marched slowly up, and entered his dressing-room with a "glooming" countenance and a heavy heart. Everything looked as if he had left it but half an hour ago. He poked the fire and sat down.

He felt like a surgeon with an operation before him. There was a loathing of it, but he did not flinch.

Reader, you think you understand other men. Do you understand yourself? Did you ever quite succeed in defining your own motives, and arriving at the moral base of any action you ever did? Here was Varbarriere sailing with wind and tide full in his favour, right into the haven where he would be—yet to look in his face you would have said "there is a sorrowful man," and had you been able to see within, you would have said, "there is a man divided against himself." Yes, as every man is. Several spirits, quite distinct, not blending, but pleading and battling very earnestly on opposite sides, all in possession of the "house"—but one dominant, always with a disputed sway, but always carrying his point—always the prosperous bully.

Yes, every man is a twist of many strands. Varbarriere was compacted of several Varbarrieres—one of whom was the stronger and the most infernal. His feebler associates commented upon him—despised him—feared him—sought to restrain him but knew they could not. He tyrannised, and was to the outer world the one and indivisible Varbarriere.

Monsieur Varbarriere the tyrant was about to bring about a fracas that night, against which the feebler and better Varbarrieres protested. Varbarriere the tyrant held the knife over the throat of a faithless woman—the better Varbarrieres murmured words of pity and of faint remonstrance. Varbarriere the tyrant scrupled not to play the part of spy and traitor for his ends; the nobler Varbarrieres upbraided him sadly, and even despised him. But what were these feeble angelic Varbarrieres? The ruler is the state, l'état c'est moi! and Varbarriere the tyrant carried all before him.

As the dark and somewhat corpulent gentleman before the glass adjusted his necktie and viewed his shirt-studs, he saw in his countenance, along with the terrible resolution of that tyrant, the sorrows and fears of the less potent spirits; and he felt, though he would not accept, their upbraidings and their truth; so with a stern and heavy heart he descended to the drawing-room.

He found the party pretty nearly assembled, and the usual buzz and animation prevailing, and he smiled and swayed from group to group, and from one chair to another.

Doocey was glad, monstrous glad to see him.

"I had no idea how hard it was to find a good player, until you left us—our whist has been totally ruined. The first night we tried Linnett; he thinks he plays, you know; well, I do assure you, you never witnessed such a thing—such a caricature, by Jupiter—forgetting your lead—revoking—everything, by Jove. You may guess what a chance we had—my partner, I give you my honour, against old Sir Paul Blunket, as dogged a player as there is in England, egad, and Sir Jekyl there. We tried Drayton next night—the most conceited fellow on earth, and no head—Sir Paul had him. I never saw an old fellow so savage. Egad, they were calling one another names across the table—you'd have died laughing; but we'll have some play now you've come back, and I'm very glad of it."

Varbarriere, while he listened to all this, smiling his fat dark smile, and shrugging and bowing slightly as the tale required these evidences, was quietly making his observations on two or three of the persons who most interested him. Beatrix, he thought, was looking ill—certainly much paler, and though very pretty, rather sad—that is, she was ever and anon falling into little abstractions, and when spoken to, waking up with a sudden little smile.

Lady Jane Lennox—she did not seem to observe him—was seated like a sultana on a low cushioned seat, with her rich silks circling grandly round her. He looked at her a little stealthily and curiously, as men eye a prisoner who is about to suffer execution. His countenance during that brief glance was unobserved, but you might have read there something sinister and cruel.

"I forget—had the Bishop come when you left us?" said Sir Jekyl, laying his hand lightly from behind on the arm of Varbarriere. The dark-featured man winced—Sir Jekyl's voice sounded unpleasantly in his reverie.

"Ah! Oh! The Bishop? Yes—the Bishop was here when I left; he had been here a day or two," answered Varbarriere, with a kind of effort.

"Then I need not introduce you—you're friends already," said Sir Jekyl.

At which moment the assembled party learned that dinner awaited them, and the murmured arrangements for the procession commenced, and the drawing-room was left to the click of the Louis Quatorze clock and the sadness of solitude.

"We had such a dispute, Monsieur Varbarriere, while you were away," said Miss Blunket.

"About me, I hope," answered the gentleman addressed, in tolerable English, and with a gallant jocularity.

"Well, no—not about you," said old Miss Blunket, timidly. "But I so wished for you to take part in the argument."

"And why wish for me?" answered the sardonic old fellow, amused, maybe the least bit in the world flattered.

"Well, I think you have the power, Monsieur Varbarriere, of putting a great deal in very few words—I mean, of making an argument so clear and short."

Varbarriere laughed indulgently, and began to think Miss Blunket a rather intelligent person.

"And what was the subject, pray?"

"Whether life was happier in town or country."

"Oh! the old debate—country mouse against town mouse," replied Varbarriere.

"Ah, just so—so true—I don't think anyone said that, and—and—I do wish to know which side you would have taken."

"The condition being that it should be all country or all town, of course, and that we were to retain our incomes?"

"Yes, certainly," said Miss Blunket, awaiting his verdict with a little bit of bread suspended between her forefinger and thumb.

"Well, then, I should pronounce at once for the country," said Varbarriere.

"I'm so glad—that's just what I said. I'm sure, said I, I should have Monsieur Varbarriere on my side if he were here. I'm so glad I was right. Did not you hear me say that?" said she, addressing Lady Jane Lennox, whose steady look, obliquely from across the table a little higher up, disconcerted her.

Lady Jane was not thinking of the debate, and asked in her quiet haughty way—

"What is it?"

"Did I not say, yesterday, that Monsieur Varbarriere would vote for the country, in our town or country argument, if he were here?"

"Oh! did you? Yes, I believe you did. I was not listening."

"And which side, pray, Lady Jane, would you have taken in that ancient debate?" inquired Varbarriere, who somehow felt constrained to address her.

"Neither side," answered she.

"What! neither town nor country—and how then?" inquired Varbarriere, with a shrug and a smile.

"I think there is as much hypocrisy and slander in one as the other, and I should have a new way—people living like the Chinese, in boats, and never going on shore."

Varbarriere laughed—twiddled a bit of bread between his finger and thumb, and leaned back, and looked down, still smiling, by the edge of his plate; and was there not a little flush under the dark brown tint of his face?

"That would be simply prison," ejaculated Miss Blunket.

"Yes, prison; and is not anything better than liberty with its liabilities? Why did Lady Hester Stanhope go into exile in the East, and why do sane men and women go into monasteries?"

Varbarriere looked at her with an odd kind of interest, and sighed without knowing it; and he helped himself curiously to sweetbread, a minute later, and for a time his share in the conversation flagged.

Lady Jane, he thought, was looking decidedly better than when he left—very well, in fact—very well indeed—not at all like a person with anything pressing heavily on her mind.

He glanced at her again. She was talking to old Sir Paul Blunket in a bold careless way, which showed no sign of hidden care or fear.

"Have you been to town since?" inquired Sir Jekyl, who happened to catch Varbarriere's eye at that moment, and availed himself of a momentary lull in what we term the conversation, to put his question.

"No; you think I have been pleasuring, but it was good honest business, I assure you."

"Lady Alice here fancied you might have seen the General, and learned something about his plans," continued Sir Jekyl.

"What General?—Lennox—eh?" inquired Varbarriere.

"Yes. What's your question, Lady Alice?" said the Baronet, turning to that lady, and happily not observing an odd expression in Varbarriere's countenance.

"No question; he has not been to London," answered the old lady, drawing her shawl which she chose to dine in about her, chillily.

"Is it anything I can answer?" threw in Lady Jane, who, superbly tranquil as she looked, would have liked to pull and box Lady Alice's ears at that moment.

"Oh no, I fancy not; it's only the old question, when are we to see the General; is he coming back at all?"

"I wish anyone could help me to an answer," laughed Lady Jane, with a slight uneasiness, which might have been referred to the pique which would not have been unnatural in a handsome wife neglected.

"I begin to fear I shall leave Marlowe without having seen him," said Lady Alice, peevishly.

"Yes, and it is not complimentary, you know; he disappeared just the day before you came, and he won't come back till you leave; men are such mysterious fellows, don't you think?" said Sir Jekyl.

"It doesn't look as if he liked her company. Did he ever meet you, Lady Alice?" inquired Sir Paul Blunket in his bluff way, without at all intending to be uncivil.

"That, you think, would account for it; much obliged to you, Sir Paul," said Lady Alice, sharply.

Sir Paul did not see it, or what she was driving at, and looked at her therefore with a grave curiosity, for he did not perceive that she was offended.

"Sir Paul has a way of hitting people very hard, has not he, Lady Alice? and then leaving them to recover of themselves," said Sir Jekyl.

"There's not a great deal of civility wasted among you," observed Lady Alice.

"I only meant," said Sir Paul, who felt that he should place himself right, "that I could not see why General Lennox should avoid Lady Alice, unless he was acquainted with her. There's nothing in that."

"By-the-bye, Lady Alice," said Sir Jekyl, who apprehended a possible scene from that lady's temper, and like a good shepherd wished to see his flock pasture peaceably together—"I find I can let you have any quantity you like of that plant you admired yesterday. I forget its name, and the Bishop says he has got one at the Palace with a scarlet blossom; so, perhaps, if you make interest with him—what do you say, my lord?"

So having engaged the good Bishop in floral conversation with that fiery spirit, the Baronet asked Sir Paul whether he believed all that was said about the great American cow; and what he thought of the monster parsnip: and thus he set him and Lady Alice ambling on different tracts, so that there was no risk of their breaking lances again.

A Visitor in the Library.

The company were now pecking at those fruits over which Sir Jekyl was wont to chuckle grimly, making pleasant satire on his gardener, vowing he kept an Aladdin's garden, and that his greengages were emeralds, and his gooseberries rubies.

In the midst of the talk, the grave and somewhat corpulent butler stood behind his master's chair, and murmured something mildly in his ear.

"What's his name?" inquired Sir Jekyl.

"Pullet, please, sir."

"Pullet! I never heard of him. If he had come a little earlier with a knife and fork in his back, we'd have given a good account of him."

His jokes were chuckled to Lady Alice, who received them drowsily.

"Where have you put him?"

"In the library, please, sir."

"What kind of looking person?"

"A middlish sort of a person, rayther respectable, I should say, sir; but dusty from his journey."

"Well, give him some wine, and let him have dinner, if he has not had it before, and bring in his card just now."

All this occurred without exciting attention or withdrawing Sir Jekyl from any sustained conversation, for he and Lady Alice had been left high and dry on the bank together by the flow and ebb of talk, which at this moment kept the room in a rattle; and Sir Jekyl only now and then troubled her with a word.

"Pullet!" thought Sir Jekyl, he knew not why, uneasily. "Who the devil's Pullet, and what the plague can Pullet want? It can't be Paulett—can it? There's nothing on earth Paulett can want of me, and he would not come at this hour. Pullet—Pullet—let us see." But he could not see, there was not a soul he knew who bore that name.

"He's eating his dinner, sir, the gentleman, sir, in the small parlour, and says you'll know him quite well, sir, when you see him," murmured the butler, "and more—"

"Have you got his card?"

"He said, sir, please, it would be time enough when he had heat his dinner."

"Well, so it will."

And Sir Jekyl drank a glass of claret, and returned to his ruminations.

"So, I shall know Pullet quite well when I see him," mused the Baronet, "and he'll let me have his card when he has had his dinner—a cool gentleman, whatever else he may be." About this Pullet, however, Sir Jekyl experienced a most uncomfortable suspense and curiosity. A bird of ill omen he seemed to him—an angel of sorrow, he knew not why, in a mask.

While the Baronet sipped his claret, and walked quite alone in the midst of his company, picking his anxious steps, and hearing strange sounds through his valley of the shadow of death, the promiscuous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen dissolved itself. The fair sex rose, after their wont, smiled their last on the sable file of gentlemen, who stood politely, napkin in hand, simpering over the backs of their chairs, and, some of them majestically alone, others sliding their fair hands affectionately within the others' arms, glided through the door in celestial procession.

"I shall leave you to-morrow, Sir Jekyl," began the Bishop, gravely, changing his seat to one just vacated beside his host, and bringing with him his principal chattels, his wine-glasses and napkin.

"I do hope, my lord, you'll reconsider that," interrupted Sir Jekyl, laying his fingers kindly on the prelate's purple sleeve. A dismal cloud in Sir Jekyl's atmosphere was just then drifting over him, and he clung, as men do under such shadows, to the contact of good and early friendship.

"I am, I assure you, very sorry, and have enjoyed your hospitality much—very much; but we can't rest long, you know: we hold a good many strings, and matters won't wait our convenience."

"I'm only afraid you are overworked; but, of course, I understand how you feel, and shan't press," said Sir Jekyl.

"And I was looking for you to-day in the library," resumed the Bishop, "anxious for a few minutes, on a subject I glanced at when I arrived."

"I—I know," said Sir Jekyl, a little hesitatingly.

"Yes, the dying wish of poor Sir Harry Marlowe, your father," murmured the Bishop, looking into his claret-glass, which he slowly turned about by the stem; and, to do him justice, there was not a quarter of a glassful remaining in the bottom.

"I know—to be sure. I quite agree with your lordship's view. I wish to tell you that—quite, I assure you. I don't—I really don't at all understand his reasons; but, as you say, it is a case for implicit submission. I intend, I assure you, actually to take down that room during the spring. It is of no real use, and rather spoils the house."

"I am happy, my dear Sir Jekyl, to hear you speak with so much decision on the subject—truly happy;" and the venerable prelate laid his hand with a gentle dignity on the cuff of Sir Jekyl's dress-coat, after the manner of a miniature benediction. "I may then discharge that quite from my mind?"

"Certainly—quite, my lord. I accept your views implicitly."

"And the box—the other wish—you know," murmured the Bishop.

"I must honestly say, I can't the least understand what can have been in my poor father's mind when he told me to—to do what was right with it—was not that it? For I do assure you, for the life of me, I can't think of anything to be done with it but let it alone. I pledge you my honour, however, if I ever do get the least inkling of his meaning, I will respect it as implicitly as the other."

"Now, now, that's exactly what I wish. I'm perfectly satisfied you'll do what's right."

And as he spoke the Bishop's countenance brightened, and he drank slowly, looking up toward the ceiling, that quarter of a glass of claret on which he had gazed for so long in the bottom of the crystal chalice.

Just then the butler once more inclined his head from the back of Sir Jekyl's chair, and presented a card to his master on the little salver at his left side. It bore the inscription, "Mr. Pelter, Camelia Villa," and across this, perpendicularly, after the manner of a joint "acceptance" of the firm, was written—"Pelter and Crowe, Chambers, Lincoln's Inn Fields," in bold black pencilled lines.

"Why did not you tell me that before?" whispered the Baronet, tartly, half rising, with the card in his hand.

"I was not haware, Sir Jekyl. The gentleman, said his name exactly like Pullet."

"In the library? Well—tell him I'm coming," said Sir Jekyl; and his heart sank, he knew not why.

"Beg your pardon, my lord, for a moment—my man of business, all the way from London, and I fancy in a hurry. I shall get rid of him with a word or two—you'll excuse me? Dives, will you oblige me—take my place for a moment, and see that the bottle does not stop; or, Doocey, will you?—Dives is doing duty at the foot."

Doocey had hopes that the consultation with the butler portended a bottle of that wonderful Constantia which he had so approved two days before, and took his temporary seat hopefully.

Sir Jekyl, with a general apology and a smile glided away without fuss, and the talk went on much as before.

When the parlour-door shut behind Sir Jekyl, his face darkened. "I know it's some stupid thing," he thought, as he walked down the gallery with rapid steps, toward the study, the sharp air agitating, as he did so, his snowy necktie and glossy curls.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Pelter?—very happy to see you. I had not a notion it was you—the stupid fellow gave me quite another name. Quite well, I hope?"

"Quite well, Sir Jekyl, I thank you—a—quite well," said the attorney, a stoutish, short, wealthy-looking man, with a massive gold chain, a resolute countenance, and a bullet head, with close-cut greyish hair.

Pelter was, indeed, an able, pushing fellow, without Latin or even English grammar, having risen in the office from a small clerkship, and, perhaps, was more useful than his gentlemanlike partner.

"Well—a—well, and what has brought you down here? Very glad to see you, you know; but you would not run down for fun, I'm afraid," said Sir Jekyl.

"Au—no—au, well, Sir Jekyl, it has turned out, sir—by gad, sir, I believe them fellows are in England, after all!"

"What do you mean by them fellows?" said Sir Jekyl, with a very dark look, unconsciously repeating the attorney's faulty grammar.

"Strangways and Deverell, you know—I mean them—Herbert Strangways, and a young man named Deverell—they're in England, I've been informed, very private—and Strangways has been with Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg—the office—you know; and there is something on the stocks there."

As the attorney delivered this piece of intelligence he kept his eye shrewdly on Sir Jekyl, rather screwed and wrinkled, as a man looks against a storm.

"Oh!—is that all? There's nothing very alarming, is there, in that?—though, d—— me, I don't see, Mr. Pelter, how you reconcile your present statement with what you and your partner wrote to me twice within the last few weeks."

"Very true, Sir Jekyl; perfectly true, sir. Our information misled us totally; they have been devilish sharp, sir—devilish sly. We never were misled before about that fellow's movements—not that they were ever of any real importance."

"And why do you think them—but maybe you don't—of more consequence now?"

Pelter looked unpleasantly important, and shook his head.

"What is it—I suppose I may know?" said Sir Jekyl.

"It looks queerish, Sir Jekyl, there's no denying that—in fact, very queerish indeed—both me and my partner think so. You recollect the deed?"

"No—devil a deed—d—— them all!—I don't remember one of them. Why, you seem to forget it's nearly ten years ago," interrupted the Baronet.

"Ah!—no—not ten—the copy of the deed that we got hold of, pretending to be a marriage settlement. It was brought us, you know, in a very odd way, but quite fair."

"Yes, I do remember—yes, to be sure—that thing you thought was a forgery, and put in our way to frighten us. Well, and do you fancy that's a genuine thing now?"

"I always thought it might—I think it may—in fact, I think it is. We have got a hint they rely on it. And here's a point to be noted: the deed fixes five-and-twenty as the period of his majority; and just as he attains that age, his father being nearly that time dead, they put their shoulders to the wheel."

"Put their d—d numbskulls under it, you mean. How can they move—how can they stir? I'd like to know how they can touch my title? I don't care a curse about them. What the plague's frightening you and Crowe now? I'm blest if I don't think you're growing old. Why can't you stick to your own view?—you say one thing one day and another the next. Egad, there's no knowing where to have you."

The Baronet was talking bitterly, scornfully, and with all proper contempt of his adversaries, but there's no denying he looked very pale.

"And there certainly is activity there; cases have been with counsel on behalf of Guy Deverell, the son and heir of the deceased," pursued Mr. Pelter, with his hands in his pockets, looking grimly up into the Baronet's face.

"Won't you sit down?—do sit down, Pelter; and you haven't had wine?" said Sir Jekyl.

"Thanks—I've had some sherry."

"Well, you must have some claret. I'd like a glass myself."

He had rung the hell, and a servant appeared.

"Get claret and glasses for two."

The servant vanished deferentially.

"I'm not blaming you, mind; but is it not odd we should have known nothing of this son, and this pretended marriage till now?"

"Odd!—oh dear, no!—you don't often know half so much of the case at the other side—nothing at all often till it's on the file."

"Precious satisfactory!" sneered Sir Jekyl.

"When we beat old Lord Levesham, in Blount and Levesham, they had not a notion, no more than the man in the moon, what we were going on, till we produced the release, and got a direction, egad." And the attorney laughed over that favourite recollection.

Pelter opens his mind.

"Take a glass of claret. This is '34. Maybe you'd like some port better?"

"No, thanks, this will do very nicely," said the accommodating attorney. "Thirty-four? So it is, egad! and uncommon fine too."

"I hope you can give me a day or two—not business, of course—I mean by way of holiday," said Sir Jekyl. "A little country air will do you a world of good—set you up for the term."

Mr. Pelter smiled, and shook his head shrewdly.

"Quite out of the question, Sir Jekyl, I thank you all the same—business tumbling in too fast just now—I daren't stay away another day—no, no—ha, ha, ha! no rest for us, sir—no rest for the wicked. But this thing, you know, looks rather queerish, we thought—a little bit urgent: the other party has been so sly; and no want of money, sir—the sinews of war—lots of tin there."

"Yes, of course; and lots of tin here, too. I fancy fellows don't like to waste money only to hold their own; but, egad, if it comes to be a pull at the long purse, all the worse for them," threw in the Baronet.

"And their intending, you know, to set up this marriage," continued the attorney without minding; "and that Herbert Strangways being over here with the young pretender, as we call him, under his wing; and Strangways is a deuced clever fellow, and takes devilish sound view of a case when he lays his mind to it. It was he that reopened that great bankruptcy case of Onslow and Grawley, you remember."

Sir Jekyl assented, but did not remember.

"And a devilish able bit of chess-play that was on both sides—no end of concealed property—brought nearly sixty thousand pounds into the fund, egad! The creditors passed a vote, you remember—spoke very handsomely of him. Monstrous able fellow, egad!"

"A monstrous able fellow he'll be if he gets my property, egad! It seems to me you Pelter and Crowe are half in love with him," said Sir Jekyl, flushed and peevish.

"We'll hit him a hard knock or two yet, for all that—ha, ha!—or I'm mistaken," rejoined old Mr. Pelter.

"Do you know him?" inquired Sir Jekyl; and the servant at the same time appearing in answer to his previous summons, he said—

"Go to the parlour and tell Mr. Doocey—you know quietly—that I am detained by business, but that we'll join them in a little time in the drawing-room."

So the servant, with a reverence, departed.

"I say, do you?"

"Just a little. Seven years ago, when I was at Havre, he was stopping there too. A very gentlemanlike man—sat beside him twice at the table d'hôte. I could see he knew d—d well who I was—wide awake, very agreeable man, very—wonderful well-informed. Wonderful ups and downs that fellow's had—clever fellow—ha, ha, ha!—I mentioned you, Sir Jekyl; I wanted to hear if he'd say anything—fishing, hey? Old file, you know"—and the attorney winked and grinned agreeably at Sir Jekyl. "Capital claret this—cap-i-tal, by Jupiter! It came in natural enough. We were talking of England, you see. He was asking questions; and so, talking of country gentlemen, and county influence, and parliamentary life, you know, I brought in you, and asked him if he knew Sir Jekyl Marlowe." Another wink and a grin here. "I asked, a bit suddenly, you know, to see how he'd take it. Did not show, egad! more than that decanter—ha, ha, ha!—devilish cool dog—monstrous clever fellow—not a bit; and he said he did not know you—had not that honour; but he knew a great deal of you, and he spoke very handsomely—upon my honour—quite au—au—handsomely of you, he did."

"Vastly obliged to him," said Sir Jekyl; but though he sneered I think he was pleased. "You don't recollect what he said, I dare say?"

"Well, I cannot exactly."

"Did he mention any unpleasantness ever between us?" continued Sir Jekyl.

"Yes, he said there had, and that he was afraid Sir Jekyl might not remember his name with satisfaction; but he, for his part, liked to forget and forgive—that kind of thing, you know, and young fellows being too hot-headed, you know. I really—I don't think he bears you personally any ill-will."

"There has certainly been time enough for anger to cool a little, and I really, for my part, never felt anything of the kind towards him; I can honestly say that, and I dare say he knows it. I merely want to protect myself against—against madmen, egad!" said Sir Jekyl.

"I think that copy of a marriage settlement you showed me had no names in it," he resumed.

"No, the case is all put like a moot point, not a name in it. It's all nonsense, too, because every man in my profession knows a copying clerk never has a notion of the meaning of anything—letter, deed, pleading—nothing he copies—not an iota, by Jove!"

"Finish the bottle; you must not send it away," said Sir Jekyl.

"Thanks, I'm doing very nicely; and now as they may open fire suddenly, I want to know"—here the attorney's eyes glanced at the door, and his voice dropped a little—"any information of a confidential sort that may guide us in—in——"

"Why, I fancy it's all confidential, isn't it?" answered Sir Jekyl.

"Certainly—but aw—but—I meant—you know—there was aw—a—there was a talk, you know, about a deed. Eh?"

"I—I—yes, I've heard—I know what you mean," answered Sir Jekyl, pouring a little claret into his glass. "They—those fellows—they lost a deed, and they were d—d impertinent about it; they wanted—you know it's a long time ago—to try and slur my poor father about it—I don't know exactly how, only, I think, there would have been an action for slander very likely about it, if it had not stopped of itself."

Sir Jekyl sipped his claret.

"I shan't start till three o'clock train to-morrow, if you have anything to say to me," said the attorney, looking darkly and expectingly in Sir Jekyl's face.

"Yes, I'll think over everything. I'd like to have a good talk with you in the morning. You sleep here, you know, of course."

"Very kind. I hope I shan't be in your way, Sir Jekyl. Very happy."

Sir Jekyl rang the bell.

"I shan't let you off to-morrow, unless you really can't help it," he said; and, the servant entering, "Tell Mrs. Sinnott that Mr. Pelter remains here to-night, and would wish—do you?—to run up to your room. Where's your luggage?"

"Precious light luggage it is. I left it at the hotel in the town—a small valise, and a——"

"Get it up here, do you mind, and let us know when Mr. Pelter's room is ready."

"Don't be long about dressing; we must join the ladies, you know, in the drawing-room. I wish, Pelter, there was no such thing as business; and that all attorneys, except you and Crowe, of course, were treated in this and the next world according to their deserts," an ambiguous compliment at which Pelter nodded slyly, with his hands in his pockets.

"You'll have to get us all the information you can scrape together, Sir Jekyl. You see they may have evidence of that deed—I mean the lost one, you know—and proving a marriage and the young gentleman legitimate. It may be a serious case—upon my word a very serious case—do you see? And term begins, you know, immediately so there really is no time to lose, and there's no harm in being ready."

"I'll have a long talk with you about it in the morning, and I am devilish glad you came—curse the whole thing!"

The servant here came to say that Mr. Pelter's room was ready, and his luggage sent for to the town.

"Come up, then—we'll look at your room."

So up they went, and Pelter declared himself charmed.

"Come to my room, Mr. Pelter—it's a long way off, and a confoundedly shabby crib; but I've got some very good cigars there," said Sir Jekyl, who was restless, and wished to hear the attorney more fully on this hated business.

The Pipe of Peace.

Sir Jekyl marched Mr. Pelter down the great stair again, intending to make the long journey rearward. As they reached the foot of the stairs, Monsieur Varbarriere, candle in hand, was approaching it on the way to his room. He was walking leisurely, as large men do after dinner, and was still some way off.

"By Jove! Why did not you tell me?" exclaimed the attorney, stopping short. "By the law! you've got him here."

"Monsieur Varbarriere?" said the Baronet.

"Mr. Strangways, sir—that's he."

"That Strangways!" echoed the Baronet.

"Herbert Strangways," whispered Mr. Pelter, and by this time M. Varbarriere was under the rich oak archway, and stopped, smiling darkly, and bowing a little to the Baronet, who was for a moment surprised into silence.

"How do you do, Mr. Strangways, sir?" said the attorney, advancing with a shrewd resolute smile, and extending his hand.

M. Varbarriere, without the slightest embarrassment, took it, bowing with a courtly gravity.

"Ah, Monsieur Pelter?—yes, indeed—very happy to meet you again."

"Yes, sir—very happy, Mr. Strangways; so am I. Did not know you were in this part of the world, Mr. Strangways, sir. You remember Havre, sir?"

"Perfectly—yes. You did not know me by the name of Varbarriere, which name I adopted on purchasing the Varbarriere estates shortly after I met you at Havre, on becoming a naturalised subject of France."

"Wonderful little changed, Monsieur Barvarrian—fat, sir—a little stouter—in good case, Mr. Strangways; but six years, you know, sir, does not count for nothing—ha, ha, ha!"

"You have the goodness to flatter me, I fear," answered Varbarriere, with a smile somewhat contemptuous, and in his deep tones of banter.

"This is my friend, Mr. Strangways, if he'll allow me to call him so—Mr. Herbert Strangways, Sir Jekyl," said the polite attorney, presenting his own guest to the Baronet.

"And so, Monsieur Varbarriere, I find I have an additional reason to rejoice in having made your acquaintance, inasmuch as it revives a very old one, so old that I almost fear you may have forgotten it. You remember our poor friend, Guy Deverell, and—"

"Perfectly, Sir Jekyl, and I was often tempted to ask you the same question; but—but you know there's a melancholy—and we were so very happy here, I had not courage to invite the sadness of the retrospect, though a very remote one. I believe I was right, Sir Jekyl. Life's true philosophy is to extract from the present all it can yield of happiness, and to bury our dead out of our sight."

"I dare say—I'm much of that way of thinking myself. And—dear me!—I—I suppose I'm very much altered." He was looking at Varbarriere, and trying to recover in the heavy frame and ponderous features before him the image of that Herbert Strangways whom, in the days of his early coxcombry, he had treated with a becoming impertinence.

"No—you're wonderfully little changed—I say honestly—quite wonderfully like what I remember you. And I—I know what a transformation I am—perfectly," said Varbarriere.

And he stood before Sir Jekyl, as he would display a portrait, full front—Sir Jekyl held a silver candlestick in his hand, Monsieur Varbarriere his in his—and they stood face to face—in a dream of the past.

Varbarriere's mystic smile expanded to a grin, and the grin broke into a laugh—deep and loud—not insulting—not sneering.

In that explosion of sonorous and enigmatic merriment Sir Jekyl joined—perhaps a little hesitatingly and coldly, for he was trying, I think, to read the riddle—wishing to be quite sure that he might be pleased, and accept these vibrations as sounds of reconciliation.

There was nothing quite to forbid it.

"I see," said Monsieur Varbarriere, in tones still disturbed by laughter, "in spite of your politeness, Sir Jekyl, what sort of impression my metamorphosis produces. Where is the raw-boned youth—so tall and gawky, that, egad! London bucks were ashamed to acknowledge him in the street, and when they did speak could not forbear breaking his gawky bones with their jokes?—ha, ha, ha! Now, lo! here he stands—the grand old black swine, on hind legs—hog-backed—and with mighty paunch and face all draped in fat. Bah! ha, ha, ha! What a magician is Father Time! Look and laugh, sir—you cannot laugh more than I."

"I laugh at your fantastic caricature, so utterly unlike what I see. There's a change, it's true, but no more than years usually bring; and, by Jove! I'd much rather any day grow a little full, for my part, than turn, like some fellows, into a scarecrow."

"No, no—no scarecrow, certainly," still laughed Varbarriere.

"Egad, no," laughed the attorney in chorus. "No corners there, sir—ribs well covered—hey? nothing like it coming on winter;" and grinning pleasantly, he winked at Sir Jekyl, who somehow neither heard nor saw him, but said—

"Mr. Pelter, my law adviser here, was good enough to say he'd come to my room, which you know so well, Monsieur Varbarriere, and smoke a cigar. You can't do better—pray let me persuade you."

He was in fact tolerably easily persuaded, and the three gentlemen together—Sir Jekyl feeling as if he was walking in a dream, and leading the way affably—reached that snuggery which Varbarriere had visited so often before.

"Just one—they are so good," said he. "We are to go to the drawing-room—aren't we?"

"Oh, certainly. I think you'll like these—they're rather good, Mr. Pelter. You know them, Monsieur Varbarriere."

"I've hardly ever smoked such tobacco. Once, by a chance, at Lyons, I lighted on a box very like these—that is, about a third of them—but hardly so good."

"We've smoked some of these very pleasantly together," said Sir Jekyl, cultivating genial relations.

Varbarriere, who had already one between his lips, grunted a polite assent with a nod. You would have thought that his whole soul was in his tobacco, as his dark eyes dreamily followed the smoke that thinly streamed from his lips. His mind, however, was busy in conjecturing what the attorney had come about, and how much he knew of his case and his plans. So the three gentlemen puffed away in silence for a time.

"Your nephew, Mr. Guy Strangways, I hope we are soon to see him again?" asked Sir Jekyl, removing his cigar for a moment.

"You are very good. Yes, I hope. In fact, though I call it business, it is only a folly which displeases me, which he has promised shall end; and whenever I choose to shake hands, he will come to my side. There is no real quarrel, mind," and Varbarriere laughed, "only I must cure him of his nonsense."

"Well, then we may hope very soon to see Mr. Strangways. I call him Strangways, you know, because he has assumed that name, I suppose, permanently."

"Well, I think so. His real name is Deverell—a very near relation, and, in fact, representative of our poor friend Guy. His friends all thought it best he should drop it, with its sad associations, and assume a name that may be of some little use to him among more affluent relatives," said M. Varbarriere, who had resolved to be frank as day and harmless as doves, and to disarm suspicion adroitly.

"A particularly handsome fellow—a distinguished-looking young man. How many things, Monsieur Varbarriere, we wish undone as we get on in life!"

The attorney lay back in his chair, his hands in his pockets, his heels on the carpet, his cigar pointing up to the ceiling, and his eyes closed luxuriously. He intended making a note of everything.

"I hope to get him on rapidly in the French service," resumed Varbarriere, "and I can make him pretty comfortable myself while I live, and more so after I'm gone; and in the meantime I am glad to put him in a field where he must exert himself, and see something of labour as well as of life."

There was a knock at the door, and the intelligence that Mr. Pelter's luggage was in his room. He would have stayed, perhaps, but Sir Jekyl, smiling, urged haste, and as his cigar was out, he departed. When he was quite gone, Sir Jekyl rose smiling, and extended his hand to Varbarriere, who took it smiling in his own way; also, Sir Jekyl was looking in the face of the large man who stood before him, and returning his gaze a little cloudily; and laughing, both shook hands for a good while, and there was nothing but this low-toned laughter between them.

"At all events, Herbert, I'm glad we have met, very glad—very, very. I did not think I'd have felt it quite this way. I've your forgiveness to ask for a great deal. I never mistook a man so much in my life. I believe you are a devilish good fellow; but—but I fancied, you know, for a long time, that you had taken a hatred to me, and—and I have done you great injustice; and I wish very much I could be of any use to—to that fine young fellow, and show any kindness worth the name towards you."

Sir Jekyl's eyes were moist, he was smiling, and he was shaking Varbarriere's powerful hand very kindly. I cannot analyse his thoughts and feelings in that moment of confusion. It had overcome him suddenly—it had in some strange way even touched Varbarriere. Was there dimly seen by each a kindly solution of a life-long hatred—a possibility of something wise, perhaps self-sacrificing, that led to reconciliation and serenity in old days?

Varbarriere leaned his great shoulders to the wall, his hand still in Sir Jekyl's, still smiling, and looked almost sorrowfully, while he uttered something between a long pant and a sigh.

"Wonderful thing life is—terrible battle, life!" murmured Varbarriere, leaning against the wall, with his dark eyes raised to the far cornice, and looking away and through and beyond it into some far star.

There are times when your wide-awake gentlemen dream a little, and Sir Jekyl laughed a pensive and gentle little laugh, shaking his head and smiling sadly in reply.

"Did you ever read Vathek?" asked the Baronet, "rather a good horror—the fire, you know—ah, ha!—that's a fire every fellow has a spark of in him; I know I have. I've had everything almost a fellow wants; but this I know, if I were sure that death was only rest and darkness, there's hardly a day I live I would not choose it." And with this sentiment came a sincere and odd little laugh.

"My faith! I believe it's true," said Varbarriere with a shrug, and a faint smile of satiety on his heavy features.

"We must talk lots together, Herbert—talk a great deal. You'll find I'm not such a bad fellow after all. Egad, I'm very glad you're here!"

A Rencontre in the Gallery.

It was time now; however, that they should make their appearance in the drawing-room; so, for the present, Varbarriere departed. He reached his dressing-room in an undefined state—a sort of light, not of battle fires, but of the dawn in his perspective; when, all on a sudden, came the image of a white-moustached, white-browed, grim old military man, glancing with a clear, cold eye, that could be cruel, from the first-class carriage window, up and down the platform of a gas-lit station, some hour and a half away from Slowton, and then sternly at his watch.

"The stupid old fogey!" thought Varbarriere, with a pang, as he revised his toilet hurriedly for the drawing-room. "Could that episode be evaded?"

There was no time to arrive at a clear opinion on this point, nor, indeed, to ascertain very clearly what his own wishes pointed at. So, in a state rather anarchic, he entered the gallery, en route for the drawing-room.

Monsieur Varbarriere slid forth, fat and black, from his doorway, with wondrous little noise, his bulk considered, and instantly on his retina, lighted by the lamp at the cross galleries, appeared the figure of a tall thin female, attired in a dark cloak and bonnet, seated against the opposite wall, not many steps away. Its head turned, and he saw Donica Gwynn. It was an odd sort of surprise; he had just been thinking of her.

"Oh! I did not think as you were here, sir; I thought you was in Lunnon."

"Yet here I am, and you too, both unexpectedly." A suspicion had crossed his mind. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Gwynn?"

"Well, I thank you, sir."

"Want me here?"

"No, sir; I was wrote for by missus please."

"Yes," he said very slowly, looking hard at her. "Very good, Mrs. Gwynn; have you anything to say to me?"

It would not do, of course, to protract this accidental talk; he did not care to be seen tête-à-tête with Donica Gwynn in the gallery.

"No, sir, please, I han't nothing to say, sir," and she courtesied.

"Very well, Mrs. Gwynn; we're quite secret, hey?" and with another hard look, but only momentary, in her face, he proceeded toward the head of the staircase.

"Beg parding, sir, but I think you dropt something." She was pointing to a letter, doubled up, and a triangular corner of which stuck up from the floor, a few yards away.

"Oh! thank you," said Varbarriere, quickly retracing his steps, and picking it up.

A terrible fact for the world to digest is this, that some of our gentlemen attorneys are about the most slobbering men of business to be found within its four corners. They will mislay papers, and even lose them; they are dilatory and indolent—quite the reverse of our sharp, lynx-eyed, energetic notions of that priesthood of Themis, and prone to every sort and description of lay irregularity in matters of order and pink tape.

Our friend Pelter had a first-rate staff, and a clockwork partner beside in Crowe, so that the house was a very regular one, and was himself, in good measure, the fire, bustle, and impetus of the firm. But every virtue has its peccant correspondent. If Pelter was rapid, decided, daring, he was also a little hand-over-hand. He has been seen in a hurry to sweep together and crunch like a snowball a drift of banknotes, and stuff them so impressed into the bottom of his great-coat pocket! What more can one say?

This night, fussing out at his bed-room door, he plucked his scented handkerchief from his pocket, and, as he crossed his threshold, with it flirted forth a letter, which had undergone considerable attrition in that receptacle, and was nothing the whiter, I am bound to admit, especially about the edges, for its long sojourn there.

Varbarriere knew the handwriting and I. M. M. initials in the left-hand lower angle. So, with a nod and a smile, he popped it into his trowsers pocket, being that degree more cautious than Pelter.

Sir Jekyl was once more in high spirits. To do him justice, he had not affected anything. There had been an effervescence—he hardly knew how it came about. But his dangers seemed to be dispersing; and, at the worst, were not negotiation and compromise within his reach?

Samuel Pelter, Esq., gentleman attorney and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, like most prosperous men, had a comfortable confidence in himself; and having heard that Lady Alice Redcliffe was quarrelling with her lawyer, thought there could be no harm in his cultivating her acquaintance.

The old lady was sitting in a high-backed chair, very perpendicularly, with several shawls about and around her, stiff and pale; but her dusky eyes peered from their sunken sockets, in grim and isolated observation.

Pelter strutted up. He was not, perhaps, a distinguished-looking man—rather, I fear, the contrary. His face was broad and smirking, with a short, broad, blue chin, and a close crop of iron-grey on his round head, and plenty of crafty crow's-feet and other lines well placed about.

He stood on the hearthrug, within easy earshot of Lady Alice, whom he eyed with a shrewd glance, "taking her measure," as his phrase was, and preparing to fascinate his prey.

"Awful smash that, ma'am, on the Smather and Sham Junction," said Pelter, having fished up a suitable topic. "Frightful thing—fourteen killed—and they say upwards of seventy badly hurt. I'm no chicken, Lady Alice, but by Jove, ma'am, I can't remember any such casualty—a regular ca-tas-trophe, ma'am!"

And Pelter, with much feeling, gently lashed his paunch with his watch-chain and bunch of seals, an obsolete decoration, which he wore—I believe still wears.

Lady Alice, who glowered sternly on him during this speech, nodded abruptly with an inarticulate sound, and then looked to his left, at a distant picture.

"I trust I see you a great deal better, Lady Alice. I have the pleasure, I believe, to address Lady Alice Redcliffe—aw, haw, h'm," and the attorney executed his best bow, a ceremony rather of agility than grace. "I had the honour of seeing you, Lady Alice Redcliffe, at a shower-flow—flower-show, I mean—in the year—let me see—egad, ma'am, twelve—no—no—thirteen years ago. How time does fly! Of course all them years—thirteen, egad!—has not gone for nothing. I dare say you don't perceive the alterations in yourself—no one does—I wish no one else did—that was always my wish to Mrs. P. of a morning—my good lady, Mrs. Pelter—ha, ha, ha! Man can't tether time or tide, as the Psalm says, and every year scribbles a wrinkle or two. You were suffering, I heard then, ma'am, chronic cough, ma'am—and all that. I hope it's abated—I know it will, ma'am—my poor lady is a martyr to it—troublesome thing—very—awful troublesome! Lady Alice."

There was no reply, Lady Alice was still looking sternly at the picture.

"I remember so well, ma'am, you were walking a little lame then, linked with Lord Lumdlebury—(we have had the honour to do business occasionally for his lordship)—and I was informed by a party with me that you had been with Pincendorf. I don't think much of them jockeys, ma'am, for my part; but if it was anything of a callosity—"

Without waiting for any more, Lady Alice Redcliffe rose in solemn silence to her full height, beckoned to Beatrix, and said grimly—

"I'll change my seat, dear, to the sofa—will you help me with these things?"

Lady Alice glided awfully to the sofa, and the gallant Mr. Pelter instituted a playful struggle with Beatrix for possession of the shawls.

"I remember the time, miss, I would not have let you carry your share; but, as I was saying to Lady Alice Redcliffe—"

He was by this time tucking a shawl about her knees, which, so soon as she perceived, she gasped to Beatrix—

"Where's Jekyl?—I can't have this any longer—call him here."

"As I was saying to you, Lady Alice, ma'am, our joints grow a bit rusty after sixty; and talking of feet, I passed the Smather and Slam Junction, ma'am, only two hours after the collision; and, egad! there were three feet all in a row cut off by the instep, quite smooth, ma'am, lying in the blood there, a pool as long as the passage up-stairs—awful sight!"

Lady Alice rose up again, with her eyes very wide, and her mouth very close, apparently engaged in mental prayer, and her face angry and pink, and she beckoned with tremulous fingers to Sir Jekyl, who was approaching with one of his provoking smiles.

"I say, Mr. Pelter, my friend Doocey wants you over there; they're at logger-heads about a law point, and I can't help them."

"Hey! if it's practice I can give them a wrinkle maybe;" and away stumped the attorney, his fists in his pockets, smirking, to the group indicated by his host.

"Hope I haven't interrupted a conversation? What can I do for you?" said Sir Jekyl, gaily.

"What do you mean, Jekyl Marlowe—what can you mean by bringing such persons here? What pleasure can you possibly find in low and dreadful society?—none of your family liked it. Where did you find that man? How on earth did you procure such a person? If I could—if I had been well enough, I'd have rung the bell and ordered your servant to remove him. I'd have gone to my bed-room, sir, only that even there I could not have felt safe from his intrusions. It's utterly intolerable and preposterous!"

"I had no idea my venerable friend, Pelter, could have pursued a lady so cruelly; but rely upon me, I'll protect you."

"I think you had better cleanse your house of such persons; at all events, I insist they shan't be allowed to make their horrible sport of me!" said Lady Alice, darting a fiery glance after the agreeable attorney.

Old Donnie and Lady Jane.

"Can you tell me, child, anything about that horrible fat old Frenchman, who has begun to speak English since his return?" asked Lady Jane Lennox of Beatrix, whom she stopped, just touching her arm with the tip of her finger, as she was passing. Lady Jane was leaning back indolently, and watching the movements of M. Varbarriere with a disagreeable interest.

"That's Monsieur Varbarriere," answered Beatrix.

"Yes, I know that; but who is he—what is he? I wish he were gone," replied she.

"I really know nothing of him," replied Beatrix, with a smile.

"Yes, you do know something about him: for instance, you know he's the uncle of that handsome young man who accompanied him." This Lady Jane spoke with a point which caused on a sudden a beautiful scarlet to tinge the young girl's cheeks.

Lady Jane looked at her, without a smile, without archness, with a lowering curiosity and something of pain, one might fancy, even of malignity.

Lady Jane hooked her finger in Beatrix's bracelet, and lowering her eyes to the carpet, remained silent, it seemed to the girl undecided whether to speak or not on some doubtful subject. With a vague interest Beatrix watched her handsome but sombre countenance, till Lady Jane appearing to escape from her thoughts, with a little toss of her beautiful head and a frown, said, looking up—

"Beatrix, I have such frightful dreams sometimes. I am ill, I think; I am horribly nervous to-night."

"Would you like to go to your room? Maybe if you were to lie down, Lady Jane—"

"By-and-by, perhaps—yes." She was still stealthily watching Varbarriere.

"I'll go with you—shall I?" said Beatrix.

"No, you shan't," answered Lady Jane, rudely.

"And why, Lady Jane?" asked Beatrix, hurt and surprised.

"You shall never visit my room; you are a good little creature. I could have loved you, Beatrix, but now I can't."

"Yet I like you, and you meet me so! why is this?" pleaded Beatrix.

"I can't say, little fool; who ever knows why they like or dislike? I don't. The fault, I suppose, is mine, not yours. I never said it was yours. If you were ever so little wicked," she added, with a strange little laugh, "perhaps I could; but it is not worth talking about," and with a sudden change from this sinister levity to a seriousness which oscillated strangely between cruelty and sadness, she said—

"Beatrix, you like that young man, Mr. Strangways?" Again poor Beatrix blushed, and was about to falter an exculpation and a protest; but Lady Jane silenced it with a grave and resolute "Yes—you like him;" and after a little pause, she added—"Well, if you don't marry him, marry no one else;" and shortly after this, Lady Jane sighed heavily.

This speech of hers was delivered in a way that prevented evasion or girlish hypocrisy, and Beatrix had no answer but that blush which became her so; and dropping her eyes to the ground, she fell into a reverie, from which she was called up by Lady Jane, who said suddenly—

"What can that fat Monsieur Varbarriere be? He looks like Torquemada, the Inquisitor—mysterious, plausible, truculent—what do you think? Don't you fancy he could poison you in an ice or a cup of coffee; or put you into Cardinal Ballue's cage, and smile on you once a year through the bars?"

Beatrix smiled, and looked on the unctuous old gentleman with an indulgent eye, comparatively.

"I can't see him so melodramatically, Lady Jane," she laughed. "To me he seems a much more commonplace individual, a great deal less interesting and atrocious, and less like the abbot."

"What abbot?" said Lady Jane, sharply, "Now really that's very odd."

"I meant," said Beatrix, laughing, "the Abbot of Quedlinberg, in Canning's play, who is described, you know, as very corpulent and cruel."

"Oh, I forgot; I don't think I ever read it; but it chimed in so oddly with my dreams."

"How, what do you mean?" cried Beatrix, amused.

"I dreamed some one knocked at night at my door, and when I said 'come in,' that Monsieur Varbarriere put in his great face, with a hood on like a friar's, smiling like—like an assassin; and somehow I have felt a disgust of him ever since."

"Well, I really think he would look rather well in a friar's frock and hood," said Beatrix, glancing at the solemn old man again with a little laugh. "He would do very well for Mrs. Radcliff's one-handed monk, or Schedone, or some of those awful ecclesiastics that scare us in books."

"I think him positively odious, and I hate him," said Lady Jane, quietly rising. "I mean to steal away—will you come with me to the foot of the stair?"

"Come," whispered Beatrix; and as Lady Jane lighted her candle, in that arched recess near the foot of the stair, where, in burnished silver, stand the files of candles, awaiting the fingers which are to bear them off to witness the confidences of toilet or of dejection, she said—

"Well, as you won't take me with you, we must part here. Good-night, Lady Jane."

Lady Jane turned as if to kiss her, but only patted her on the cheek, and said coldly—

"Good-bye, little fool—now run back again."

When Lady Jane reached the gallery at the top of the staircase, she, too, saw Donica Gwynn seated where Varbarriere had spoken to her.

"Ha! Donica," cried she suddenly, in the accents of early girlhood, "I'm so glad to see you, Donica. You hardly know me now?"

And Lady Jane, in the light of one transient, happy smile, threw her jewelled arms round the neck of the old housekeeper, whose visits of weeks at a time to Wardlock were nearly her happiest remembrances of that staid old mansion.

"You dear old thing! you were always good to me; and I such a madcap and such a fury! Dull enough now, Donnie, but not a bit better."

"My poor Miss Jennie!" said old Donica Gwynn, with a tender little laugh, her head just a little on one side, looking on her old pet and charge with such a beautiful, soft lighting up of love in her hard old face as you would not have fancied could have beamed there. Oh! most pathetic mystery, how in our poor nature, layer over layer, the angelic and the evil, the mean and the noble, lie alternated. How sometimes, at long intervals, in the wintriest life and darkest face, the love of angels will suddenly beam out, and show you, still unwrecked, the eternal capacity for heaven.

"And grown such a fine 'oman—bless ye—I allays said she would—didn't I?"

"You always stood up for me, old Donnie Don. Come into my room with me now, and talk. Yes—come, and talk, and talk, and talk—I have no one, Bonnie, to talk with now. If I had I might be different—I mean better. You remember poor mamma, Donnie—don't you?"

"Dear! to be sure—yes, and a nice creature, and a pretty—there's a look in your face sometimes reminds me on her, Miss Jennie. And I allays said you'd do well—didn't I?—and see what a great match, they tell me, you a' made! Well well! and how you have grown!—a fine lady, bless you," and she laughed so softly over those thin, girlish images of memory, you'd have said the laugh was as far away and as sad as the remembrance.

"Sit down, Donnie Don," she said, when they had entered the room. "Sit down, and tell me everything—how all the old people are, and how the old place looks—you live there now? I have nothing to tell, only I'm married, as you know—and—and I think a most good-for-nothing creature."

"Ah, no, pretty Miss Jane, there was good in you always, only a little bit hasty, and that anyone as had the patience could see; and I knowed well you'd be better o' that little folly in time."

"I'm not better, Donnie—I'm worse—I am worse, Donnie. I know I am—not better."

"Well, dear! and jewels, and riches, and coaches, and a fine gentleman adoring you—not very young, though. Well, maybe all the better. Did you never hear say, it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave?"

"Yes, Donnie, it's very well; but let us talk of Wardlock—and he's not a fine man, Donnie, who put that in your head—he's old, and ugly, and"—she was going to say stupid, but the momentary bitterness was rebuked by an accidental glimpse of the casket in which his splendid present was secured—"and tell me about Wardlock, and the people—is old Thomas Jones there still?"

"No, he's living at Glastonhowe now, with his grandson that's married—very happy; but you would not believe how old he looks, and they say can't remember nothink as he used to, but very comfortable."

"And Turpin, the gardener?"

"Old Turpin be dead, miss, two years agone; had a fit a few months before, poor old fellow, and never was strong after. Very deaf he was of late years, and a bit cross sometimes about the vegetables, they do say; but he was a good-natured fellow, and decent allays; and though he liked a mug of ale, poor fellow, now and then, he was very regular at church."

"Poor old Turpin dead! I never heard it—and old? he used to wear a kind of flaxen wig."

"Old! dearie me, that he was, miss, you would not guess how old—there's eighty-five years on the grave-stone that Lady Alice put over him, from the parish register, in Wardlock churchyard, bless ye!"

"And—and as I said just now about my husband, General Lennox, that he was old—well, he is old, but he's a good man, and kind, and such a gentleman."

"And you love him—and what more is needed to make you both happy?" added Donica; "and glad I am, miss, to see you so comfortably married—and such a nice, good, grand gentleman; and don't let them young chaps be coming about you with their compliments, and fine talk, and love-making."

"What do you mean, woman? I should hope I know how to behave myself as well as ever Lady Alice Redcliffe did. It is she who has been talking to you, and, I suppose, to every one, the stupid, wicked hag."

"Oh, Miss Jennie, dear!"