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A Simpleton

by Charles Reade · English · Gutenberg #2301 · 731,585 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Simpleton

Author: Charles Reade


        
Release date: May 17, 2006 [eBook #2301]
                Most recently updated: March 5, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2301

Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SIMPLETON ***




Produced by Donald Lainson





A SIMPLETON


By Charles Reade




PREFACE.


It has lately been objected to me, in studiously courteous terms of
course, that I borrow from other books, and am a plagiarist. To this
I reply that I borrow facts from every accessible source, and am not a
plagiarist. The plagiarist is one who borrows from a homogeneous work:
for such a man borrows not ideas only, but their treatment. He who
borrows only from heterogeneous works is not a plagiarist. All fiction,
worth a button, is founded on facts; and it does not matter one straw
whether the facts are taken from personal experience, hearsay, or
printed books; only those books must not be works of fiction.

Ask your common sense why a man writes better fiction at forty than he
can at twenty. It is simply because he has gathered more facts from each
of these three sources,--experience, hearsay, print.

To those who have science enough to appreciate the above distinction,
I am very willing to admit that in all my tales I use a vast deal of
heterogeneous material, which in a life of study I have gathered from
men, journals, blue-books, histories, biographies, law reports, etc. And
if I could, I would gladly specify all the various printed sources to
which I am indebted. But my memory is not equal to such a feat. I can
only say that I rarely write a novel without milking about two hundred
heterogeneous cows into my pail, and that “A Simpleton” is no exception
to my general method; that method is the true method, and the best, and
if on that method I do not write prime novels, it is the fault of the
man, and not of the method.

I give the following particulars as an illustration of my method:

In “A Simpleton,” the whole business of the girl spitting blood, the
surgeon ascribing it to the liver, the consultation, the final solution
of the mystery, is a matter of personal experience accurately recorded.
But the rest of the medical truths, both fact and argument, are all from
medical books far too numerous to specify. This includes the strange
fluctuations of memory in a man recovering his reason by degrees. The
behavior of the doctor's first two patients I had from a surgeon's
daughter in Pimlico. The servant-girl and her box; the purple-faced,
pig-faced Beak and his justice, are personal experience. The business of
house-renting, and the auction-room, is also personal experience.

In the nautical business I had the assistance of two practical seamen:
my brother, William Barrington Reade, and Commander Charles Edward
Reade, R.N.

In the South African business I gleaned from Mr. Day's recent handbooks;
the old handbooks; Galton's “Vacation Tourist;” “Philip Mavor; or, Life
among the Caffres;” “Fossor;” “Notes on the Cape of Good Hope,” 1821;
“Scenes and Occurrences in Albany and Caffre-land,” 1827; Bowler's
“South African Sketches;” “A Campaign in South Africa,” Lucas; “Five
Years in Caffre-land,” Mrs. Ward; etc., etc., etc. But my principal
obligation on this head is to Mr. Boyle, the author of some admirable
letters to the Daily telegraph, which he afterwards reprinted in a
delightful volume. Mr. Boyle has a painter's eye, and a writer's pen,
and if the African scenes in “A Simpleton” please my readers, I hope
they will go to the fountain-head, where they will find many more.

As to the plot and characters, they are invented.

The title, “A Simpleton,” is not quite new. There is a French
play called La Niaise. But La Niaise is in reality a woman of rare
intelligence, who is taken for a simpleton by a lot of conceited fools,
and the play runs on their blunders, and her unpretending wisdom. That
is a very fine plot, which I recommend to our female novelists. My aim
in these pages has been much humbler, and is, I hope, too clear to need
explanation.

CHARLES READE.




A SIMPLETON.




CHAPTER I.


A young lady sat pricking a framed canvas in the drawing-room of Kent
Villa, a mile from Gravesend; she was making, at a cost of time and
tinted wool, a chair cover, admirably unfit to be sat upon--except by
some severe artist, bent on obliterating discordant colors. To do her
justice, her mind was not in her work; for she rustled softly with
restlessness as she sat, and she rose three times in twenty minutes, and
went to the window. Thence she looked down, over a trim flowery
lawn, and long, sloping meadows, on to the silver Thames, alive with
steamboats ploughing, white sails bellying, and great ships carrying to
and fro the treasures of the globe. From this fair landscape and epitome
of commerce she retired each time with listless disdain; she was waiting
for somebody.

Yet she was one of those whom few men care to keep waiting. Rosa
Lusignan was a dark but dazzling beauty, with coal-black hair, and
glorious dark eyes, that seemed to beam with soul all day long; her
eyebrows, black, straightish, and rather thick, would have been majestic
and too severe, had the other features followed suit; but her black
brows were succeeded by long silky lashes, a sweet oval face, two
pouting lips studded with ivory, and an exquisite chin, as feeble as any
man could desire in the partner of his bosom. Person--straight, elastic,
and rather tall. Mind--nineteen. Accomplishments--numerous; a poor
French scholar, a worse German, a worse English, an admirable dancer,
an inaccurate musician, a good rider, a bad draughtswoman, a bad
hairdresser, at the mercy of her maid; a hot theologian, knowing
nothing, a sorry accountant, no housekeeper, no seamstress, a fair
embroideress, a capital geographer, and no cook.

Collectively, viz., mind and body, the girl we kneel to.

This ornamental member of society now glanced at the clock once more,
and then glided to the window for the fourth time. She peeped at the
side a good while, with superfluous slyness or shyness, and presently
she drew back, blushing crimson; then she peeped again, still more
furtively; then retired softly to her frame, and, for the first time,
set to work in earnest. As she plied her harpoon, smiling now, the large
and vivid blush, that had suffused her face and throat, turned from
carnation to rose, and melted away slowly, but perceptibly, and ever so
sweetly; and somebody knocked at the street door.

The blow seemed to drive her deeper into her work. She leaned over it,
graceful as a willow, and so absorbed, she could not even see the door
of the room open and Dr. Staines come in.

All the better: her not perceiving that slight addition to her furniture
gives me a moment to describe him.

A young man, five feet eleven inches high, very square shouldered and
deep chested, but so symmetrical, and light in his movements, that his
size hardly struck one at first. He was smooth shaved, all but a short,
thick, auburn whisker; his hair was brown. His features no more then
comely: the brow full, the eyes wide apart and deep-seated, the lips
rather thin, but expressive, the chin solid and square. It was a face
of power, and capable of harshness; but relieved by an eye of unusual
color, between hazel and gray, and wonderfully tender. In complexion
he could not compare with Rosa; his cheek was clear, but pale; for
few young men had studied night and day so constantly. Though but
twenty-eight years of age, he was literally a learned physician; deep in
hospital practice; deep in books; especially deep in German science,
too often neglected or skimmed by English physicians. He had delivered a
course of lectures at a learned university with general applause.

As my reader has divined, Rosa was preparing the comedy of a cool
reception; but looking up, she saw his pale cheek tinted with a lover's
beautiful joy at the bare sight of her, and his soft eye so divine with
love, that she had not the heart to chill him. She gave him her hand
kindly, and smiled brightly on him instead of remonstrating. She lost
nothing by it, for the very first thing he did was to excuse himself
eagerly. “I am behind time: the fact is, just as I was mounting my
horse, a poor man came to the gate to consult me. He had a terrible
disorder I have sometimes succeeded in arresting--I attack the cause
instead of the symptoms, which is the old practice--and so that detained
me. You forgive me?”

“Of course. Poor man!--only you said you wanted to see papa, and he
always goes out at two.”

When she had been betrayed into saying this, she drew in suddenly, and
blushed with a pretty consciousness.

“Then don't let me lose another minute,” said the lover. “Have you
prepared him for--for--what I am going to have the audacity to say?”

Rosa answered, with some hesitation, “I MUST have--a little. When I
refused Colonel Bright--you need not devour my hand quite--he is forty.”

Her sentence ended, and away went the original topic, and grammatical
sequence along with it. Christopher Staines recaptured them both. “Yes,
dear, when you refused Colonel Bright”--

“Well, papa was astonished; for everybody says the colonel is a most
eligible match. Don't you hate that expression? I do. Eligible!”

Christopher made due haste, and recaptured her. “Yes, love, your papa
said”--

“I don't think I will tell you. He asked me was there anybody else; and
of course I said 'No.'”

“Oh!”

“Oh, that is nothing; I had not time to make up my mind to tell the
truth. I was taken by surprise; and you know one's first impulse is to
fib--about THAT.”

“But did you really deceive him?”

“No, I blushed; and he caught me; so he said, 'Come, now, there was.'”

“And you said, 'Yes, there is,' like a brave girl as you are.”

“What, plump like that? No, I was frightened out of my wits, like a
brave girl as I am not, and said I should never marry any one he could
disapprove; and then--oh, then I believe I began to cry. Christopher,
I'll tell you something; I find people leave off teasing you when you
cry--gentlemen, I mean. Ladies go on all the more. So then dear papa
kissed me, and told me I must not be imprudent, and throw myself away,
that was all; and I promised him I never would. I said he would be sure
to approve my choice; and he said he hoped so. And so he will.”

Dr. Staines looked thoughtful, and said he hoped so too. “But now
it comes to the point of asking him for such a treasure, I feel my
deficiencies.”

“Why, what deficiencies? You are young, and handsome, and good, and ever
so much cleverer than other people. You have only to ask for me, and
insist on having me. Come, dear, go and get it over.” She added, mighty
coolly, “There is nothing so DREADFUL as suspense.”

“I'll go this minute,” said he, and took a step towards the door; but he
turned, and in a moment was at her knees. He took both her hands in his,
and pressed them to his beating bosom, while his beautiful eyes poured
love into hers point-blank. “May I tell him you love me? Oh, I know you
cannot love me as I love you; but I may say you love me a little, may I
not?--that will go farther with him than anything else. May I, Rosa, may
I?--a little?”

His passion mastered her. She dropped her head sweetly on his shoulder,
and murmured, “You know you may, my own. Who would not love you?”

He parted lingeringly from her, then marched away, bold with love and
hope, to demand her hand in marriage.

Rosa leaned back in her chair, and quivered a little with new emotions.
Christopher was right; she was not capable of loving like him; but
still the actual contact of so strong a passion made her woman's nature
vibrate. A dewy tear hung on the fringes of her long lashes, and she
leaned back in her chair and fluttered awhile.

That emotion, almost new to her, soon yielded, in her girlish mind, to a
complacent languor; and that, in its turn, to a soft reverie. So she was
going to be married! To be mistress of a house; settle in London (THAT
she had quite determined long ago); be able to go out into the streets
all alone, to shop, or visit; have a gentleman all her own, whom she
could put her finger on any moment and make him take her about, even to
the opera and the theatre; to give dinner-parties her own self, and even
a little ball once in a way; to buy whatever dresses she thought proper,
instead of being crippled by an allowance; have the legal right of
speaking first in society, even to gentlemen rich in ideas but bad
starters, instead of sitting mumchance and mock-modest; to be Mistress,
instead of Miss--contemptible title; to be a woman, instead of a girl;
and all this rational liberty, domestic power, and social dignity were
to be obtained by merely wedding a dear fellow, who loved her, and was
so nice; and the bright career to be ushered in with several delights,
each of them dear to a girl's very soul: presents from all her friends;
as many beautiful new dresses as if she was changing her body or her
hemisphere, instead of her name; eclat; going to church, which is a
good English girl's theatre of display and temple of vanity, and there
tasting delightful publicity and whispered admiration, in a heavenly
long veil, which she could not wear even once if she remained single.

This bright variegated picture of holy wedlock, and its essential
features, as revealed to young ladies by feminine tradition, though not
enumerated in the Book of Common Prayer writ by grim males, so entranced
her, that time flew by unheeded, and Christopher Staines came back from
her father. His step was heavy; he looked pale, and deeply distressed;
then stood like a statue, and did not come close to her, but cast a
piteous look, and gasped out one word, that seemed almost to choke
him,--“REFUSED!”

Miss Lusignan rose from her chair, and looked almost wildly at him with
her great eyes. “Refused?” said she, faintly.

“Yes,” said he, sadly. “Your father is a man of business; and he took
a mere business view of our love: he asked me directly what provision
I could make for his daughter and her children. Well, I told him I had
three thousand pounds in the Funds, and a good profession; and then I
said I had youth, health, and love, boundless love, the love that can
do, or suffer, the love that can conquer the world.”

“Dear Christopher! And what COULD he say to all that?”

“He ignored it entirely. There! I'll give you his very words. He said,
'In that case, Dr. Staines, the simple question is, what does your
profession bring you in per annum?'”

“Oh! There! I always hated arithmetic, and now I abominate it.”

“Then I was obliged to confess I had scarcely received a hundred pounds
in fees this year; but I told him the reason; this is such a small
district, and all the ground occupied. London, I said, was my sphere.”

“And so it is,” said Rosa, eagerly; for this jumped with her own little
designs. “Genius is wasted in the country. Besides, whenever anybody
worth curing is ill down here, they always send to London for a doctor.”

“I told him so, dearest,” said the lover. “But he answered me directly,
then I must set up in London, and as soon as my books showed an income
to keep a wife, and servants, and children, and insure my life for five
thousand pounds”--

“Oh, that is so like papa. He is director of an insurance company, so
all the world must insure their lives.”

“No, dear, he was quite right there: professional incomes are most
precarious. Death spares neither young nor old, neither warm hearts
nor cold. I should be no true physician if I could not see my own
mortality.” He hung his head and pondered a moment, then went on, sadly,
“It all comes to this--until I have a professional income of eight
hundred a year at least, he will not hear of our marrying; and the cruel
thing is, he will not even consent to an engagement. But,” said the
rejected, with a look of sad anxiety, “you will wait for me without
that, dear Rosa?”

She could give him that comfort, and she gave it him with loving
earnestness. “Of course I will; and it shall not be very long. Whilst
you are making your fortune, to please papa, I will keep fretting, and
pouting, and crying, till he sends for you.”

“Bless you, dearest! Stop!--not to make yourself ill! not for all the
world.” The lover and the physician spoke in turn.

He came, all gratitude, to her side, and they sat, hand in hand,
comforting each other: indeed, parting was such sweet sorrow that they
sat, handed, and very close to one another, till Mr. Lusignan, who
thought five minutes quite enough for rational beings to take leave in,
walked into the room and surprised them. At sight of his gray head and
iron-gray eyebrows, Christopher Staines started up and looked confused;
he thought some apology necessary, so he faltered out, “Forgive me, sir;
it is a bitter parting to me, you may be sure.”

Rosa's bosom heaved at these simple words. She flew to her father,
and cried, “Oh, papa! papa! you were never cruel before;” and hid her
burning face on his shoulder; and then burst out crying, partly for
Christopher, partly because she was now ashamed of herself for having
taken a young man's part so openly.

Mr. Lusignan looked sadly discomposed at this outburst: she had taken
him by his weak point; he told her so. “Now, Rosa,” said he, rather
peevishly, “you know I hate--noise.”

Rosa had actually forgotten that trait for a single moment; but, being
reminded of it, she reduced her sobs in the prettiest way, not to offend
a tender parent who could not bear noise. Under this homely term, you
must know, he included all scenes, disturbances, rumpuses, passions; and
expected all men, women, and things in Kent Villa to go smoothly--or go
elsewhere.

“Come, young people,” said he, “don't make a disturbance. Where's the
grievance? Have I said he shall never marry you? Have I forbidden him
to correspond? or even to call, say twice a year. All I say is, no
marriage, nor contract of marriage, until there is an income.” Then he
turned to Christopher. “Now if you can't make an income without her, how
could you make one with her, weighed down by the load of expenses a wife
entails? I know her better than you do; she is a good girl, but rather
luxurious and self-indulgent. She is not cut out for a poor man's wife.
And pray don't go and fancy that nobody loves my child but you. Mine is
not so hot as yours, of course; but believe me, sir, it is less selfish.
You would expose her to poverty and misery; but I say no; it is my duty
to protect her from all chance of them; and, in doing it, I am as much
your friend as hers, if you could but see it. Come, Dr. Staines, be
a man, and see the world as it is. I have told you how to earn my
daughter's hand and my esteem: you must gain both, or neither.”

Dr. Staines was never quite deaf to reason: he now put his hand to his
brow and said, with a sort of wonder and pitiful dismay, “My love
for Rosa selfish! Sir, your words are bitter and hard.” Then, after a
struggle, and with rare and touching candor, “Ay, but so are bark and
steel; yet they are good medicines.” Then with a great glow in his heart
and tears in his eyes, “My darling shall not be a poor man's wife,
she who would adorn a coronet, ay, or a crown. Good-by, Rosa, for the
present.” He darted to her, and kissed her hand with all his soul. “Oh,
the sacrifice of leaving you,” he faltered; “the very world is dark
to me without you. Ah, well, I must earn the right to come again.” He
summoned all his manhood, and marched to the door. There he seemed to
turn calmer all of a sudden, and said firmly, yet humbly, “I'll try and
show you, sir, what love can do.”

“And I'll show you what love can suffer,” said Rosa, folding her
beautiful arms superbly.

It was not in her to have shot such a bolt, except in imitation; yet how
promptly the mimic thunder came, and how grand the beauty looked, with
her dark brows, and flashing eyes, and folded arms! much grander and
more inspired than poor Staines, who had only furnished the idea.

But between these two figures swelling with emotion, the representative
of common sense, Lusignan pere, stood cool and impassive; he shrugged
his shoulders, and looked on both lovers as a couple of ranting novices
he was saving from each other and almshouses.

For all that, when the lover had torn himself away, papa's composure was
suddenly disturbed by a misgiving. He stepped hastily to the stairhead,
and gave it vent. “Dr. Staines,” said he, in a loud whisper (Staines was
half way down the stairs: he stopped). “I trust to you as a gentleman,
not to mention this; it will never transpire here. Whatever we do--no
noise!”




CHAPTER II.


Rosa Lusignan set herself pining as she had promised; and she did it
discreetly for so young a person. She was never peevish, but always sad
and listless. By this means she did not anger her parent, but only made
him feel she was unhappy, and the house she had hitherto brightened
exceeding dismal.

By degrees this noiseless melancholy undermined the old gentleman, and
he well-nigh tottered.

But one day, calling suddenly on a neighbor with six daughters, he heard
peals of laughter, and found Rosa taking her full share of the senseless
mirth. She pulled up short at sight of him, and colored high; but it
was too late, for he launched a knowing look at her on the spot, and
muttered something about seven foolish virgins.

He took the first opportunity, when they were alone, and told her he was
glad to find she was only dismal at home.

But Rosa had prepared for him. “One can be loud without being gay at
heart,” said she, with a lofty, languid air. “I have not forgotten your
last words to HIM. We were to hide our broken hearts from the world. I
try to obey you, dear papa; but, if I had my way, I would never go
into the world at all. I have but one desire now--to end my days in a
convent.”

“Please begin them first. A convent! Why, you'd turn it out of window.
You are no more fit to be a nun than--a pauper.”

Not having foreseen this facer, Rosa had nothing ready; so she received
it with a sad, submissive, helpless sigh, as who would say, “Hit me,
papa: I have no friend now.” So then he was sorry he had been so clever;
and, indeed, there is one provoking thing about “a woman's weakness”--it
is invincible.

The next minute, what should come but a long letter from Dr. Staines,
detailing his endeavors to purchase a practice in London, and his
ill-success. The letter spoke the language of love and hope; but the
facts were discouraging; and, indeed, a touching sadness pierced through
the veil of the brave words.

Rosa read it again and again, and cried over it before her father, to
encourage him in his heartless behavior.

About ten days after this, something occurred that altered her mood.

She became grave and thoughtful, but no longer lugubrious. She seemed
desirous to atone to her father for having disturbed his cheerfulness.
She smiled affectionately on him, and often sat on a stool at his knee,
and glided her hand into his.

He was not a little pleased, and said to himself, “She is coming round
to common-sense.”

Now, on the contrary, she was farther from it than ever.

At last he got the clew. One afternoon he met Mr. Wyman coming out of
the villa. Mr. Wyman was the consulting surgeon of that part.

“What! anybody ill?” said Mr. Lusignan. “One of the servants?”

“No; it is Miss Lusignan.”

“Why, what is the matter with her?”

Wyman hesitated. “Oh, nothing very alarming. Would you mind asking her?”

“Why?”

“The fact is, she requested me not to tell you: made me promise.”

“And I insist upon your telling me.”

“And I think you are quite right, sir, as her father. Well, she is
troubled with a little spitting of blood.”

Mr. Lusignan turned pale. “My child! spitting of blood! God forbid!”

“Oh, do not alarm yourself. It is nothing serious.”

“Don't tell me!” said the father. “It is always serious. And she kept
this from me!”

Masking his agitation for the time, he inquired how often it had
occurred, this grave symptom.

“Three or four times this last month. But I may as well tell you at
once: I have examined her carefully, and I do not think it is from the
lungs.”

“From the throat, then?”

“No; from the liver. Everything points to that organ as the seat
of derangement: not that there is any lesion; only a tendency to
congestion. I am treating her accordingly, and have no doubt of the
result.”

“Who is the ablest physician hereabouts?” asked Lusignan, abruptly.

“Dr. Snell, I think.”

“Give me his address.”

“I'll write to him, if you like, and appoint a consultation.” He added,
with vast but rather sudden alacrity, “It will be a great satisfaction
to my own mind.”

“Then send to him, if you please, and let him be here to-morrow morning;
if not, I shall take her to London for advice at once.”

On this understanding they parted, and Lusignan went at once to his
daughter. “O my child!” said he, deeply distressed, “how could you hide
this from me?”

“Hide what, papa?” said the girl, looking the picture of
unconsciousness.

“That you have been spitting blood.”

“Who told you that?” said she, sharply.

“Wyman. He is attending you.”

Rosa colored with anger. “Chatterbox! He promised me faithfully not to.”

“But why, in Heaven's name? What! would you trust this terrible thing to
a stranger, and hide it from your poor father?”

“Yes,” replied Rosa, quietly.

The old man would not scold her now; he only said, sadly, “I see how it
is: because I will not let you marry poverty, you think I do not love
you.” And he sighed.

“O papa! the idea!” said Rosa. “Of course, I know you love me. It was
not that, you dear, darling, foolish papa. There! if you must know, it
was because I did not want you to be distressed. I thought I might get
better with a little physic; and, if not, why, then I thought, 'Papa is
an old man; la! I dare say I shall last his time;' and so, why should I
poison your latter days with worrying about ME?”

Mr. Lusignan stared at her, and his lip quivered; but he thought the
trait hardly consistent with her superficial character. He could not
help saying, half sadly, half bitterly, “Well, but of course you have
told Dr. Staines.”

Rosa opened her beautiful eyes, like two suns. “Of course I have done
nothing of the sort. He has enough to trouble him, without that. Poor
fellow! there he is, worrying and striving to make his fortune, and gain
your esteem--'they go together,' you know; you told him so.” (Young cats
will scratch when least expected.) “And for me to go and tell him I am
in danger! Why, he would go wild. He would think of nothing but me and
my health. He would never make his fortune: and so then, even when I
am gone, he will never get a wife, because he has only got genius and
goodness and three thousand pounds. No, papa, I have not told poor
Christopher. I may tease those I love. I have been teasing YOU this ever
so long; but frighten them, and make them miserable? No!”

And here, thinking of the anguish that was perhaps in store for those
she loved, she wanted to cry; it almost choked her not to. But she
fought it bravely down: she reserved her tears for lighter occasions and
less noble sentiments.

Her father held out his arms to her. She ran her footstool to him, and
sat nestling to his heart.

“Please forgive me my misconduct. I have not been a dutiful daughter
ever since you--but now I will. Kiss me, my own papa! There! Now we are
as we always were.”

Then she purred to him on every possible topic but the one that now
filled his parental heart, and bade him good-night at last with a
cheerful smile.

Wyman was exact, and ten minutes afterwards Dr. Snell drove up in a
carriage and pair. He was intercepted in the hall by Wyman, and, after a
few minutes' conversation, presented to Mr. Lusignan.

The father gave vent to his paternal anxiety in a few simple but
touching words, and was proceeding to state the symptoms as he had
gathered them from his daughter; but Dr. Snell interrupted him politely,
and said he had heard the principal symptoms from Mr. Wyman. Then,
turning to the latter, he said, “We had better proceed to examine the
patient.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Lusignan. “She is in the drawing-room;” and he led
the way, and was about to enter the room, when Wyman informed him it was
against etiquette for him to be present at the examination.

“Oh, very well!” said he. “Yes, I see the propriety of that. But oblige
me by asking her if she has anything on her mind.”

Dr. Snell bowed a lofty assent; for, to receive a hint from a layman was
to confer a favor on him.

The men of science were closeted full half an hour with the patient. She
was too beautiful to be slurred over, even by a busy doctor: he felt her
pulse, looked at her tongue, and listened attentively to her lungs, to
her heart, and to the organ suspected by Wyman. He left her at last with
a kindly assurance that the case was perfectly curable.

At the door they were met by the anxious father, who came with throbbing
heart, and asked the doctors' verdict.

He was coolly informed that could not be given until the consultation
had taken place; the result of that consultation would be conveyed to
him.

“And pray, why can't I be present at the consultation? The grounds on
which two able men agree or disagree must be well worth listening to.”

“No doubt,” said Dr. Snell; “but,” with a superior smile, “my dear sir,
it is not the etiquette.”

“Oh, very well,” said Lusignan. But he muttered, “So, then, a father is
nobody!”

And this unreasonable person retired to his study, miserable, and gave
up the dining-room to the consultation.

They soon rejoined him.

Dr. Snell's opinion was communicated by Wyman. “I am happy to tell you
that Dr. Snell agrees with me, entirely: the lungs are not affected, and
the liver is congested, but not diseased.”

“Is that so, Dr. Snell?” asked Lusignan, anxiously.

“It is so, sir.” He added, “The treatment has been submitted to me, and
I quite approve it.”

He then asked for a pen and paper, and wrote a prescription. He assured
Mr. Lusignan that the case had no extraordinary feature, whatever; he
was not to alarm himself. Dr. Snell then drove away, leaving the parent
rather puzzled, but, on the whole, much comforted.

And here I must reveal an extraordinary circumstance.

Wyman's treatment was by drugs.

Dr. Snell's was by drugs.

Dr. Snell, as you have seen, entirely approved Wyman's treatment.

His own had nothing in common with it. The Arctic and Antarctic poles
are not farther apart than was his prescription from the prescription he
thoroughly approved.

Amiable science! In which complete diversity of practice did not
interfere with perfect uniformity of opinion.

All this was kept from Dr. Staines, and he was entirely occupied in
trying to get a position that might lead to fortune, and satisfy Mr.
Lusignan. He called on every friend he had, to inquire where there was
an opening. He walked miles and miles in the best quarters of London,
looking for an opening; he let it be known in many quarters that he
would give a good premium to any physician who was about to retire, and
would introduce him to his patients.

No: he could hear of nothing.

Then, after a great struggle with himself, he called upon his uncle,
Philip Staines, a retired M.D., to see if he would do anything for him.
He left this to the last, for a very good reason: Dr. Philip was an
irritable old bachelor, who had assisted most of his married relatives;
but, finding no bottom to the well, had turned rusty and crusty, and now
was apt to administer kicks instead of checks to all who were near and
dear to him. However, Christopher was the old gentleman's favorite, and
was now desperate; so he mustered courage, and went. He was graciously
received--warmly, indeed. This gave him great hopes, and he told his
tale.

The old bachelor sided with Mr. Lusignan. “What!” said he, “do you
want to marry, and propagate pauperism? I thought you had more sense.
Confound it all I had just one nephew whose knock at my street-door did
not make me tremble; he was a bachelor and a thinker, and came for a
friendly chat; the rest are married men, highwaymen, who come to say,
'Stand and deliver;' and now even you want to join the giddy throng.
Well, don't ask me to have any hand in it. You are a man of promise; and
you might as well hang a millstone round your neck as a wife. Marriage
is a greater mistake than ever now; the women dress more and manage
worse. I met your cousin Jack the other day, and his wife with seventy
pounds on her back; and next door to paupers. No; whilst you are a
bachelor, like me, you are my favorite, and down in my will for a lump.
Once marry, and you join the noble army of foot-pads, leeches, vultures,
paupers, gone coons, and babblers about brats--and I disown you.”

There was no hope from old Crusty. Christopher left him, snubbed and
heart-sick. At last he met a sensible man, who made him see there was
no short cut in that profession. He must be content to play the up-hill
game; must settle in some good neighborhood; marry, if possible, since
husbands and fathers of families prefer married physicians; and so be
poor at thirty, comfortable at forty, and rich at fifty--perhaps.

Then Christopher came down to his lodgings at Gravesend, and was very
unhappy; and after some days of misery, he wrote a letter to Rosa in a
moment of impatience, despondency, and passion.

Rosa Lusignan got worse and worse. The slight but frequent hemorrhage
was a drain upon her system, and weakened her visibly. She began to lose
her rich complexion, and sometimes looked almost sallow; and a slight
circle showed itself under her eyes. These symptoms were unfavorable;
nevertheless, Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman accepted them cheerfully, as fresh
indications that nothing was affected but the liver; they multiplied and
varied their prescriptions; the malady ignored those prescriptions, and
went steadily on. Mr. Lusignan was terrified but helpless. Rosa resigned
and reticent.

But it was not in human nature that a girl of this age could always and
at all hours be mistress of herself. One evening in particular she stood
before the glass in the drawing-room, and looked at herself a long
time with horror. “Is that Rosa Lusignan?” said she, aloud; “it is her
ghost.”

A deep groan startled her. She turned; it was her father. She thought he
was fast asleep; and so indeed he had been; but he was just awaking, and
heard his daughter utter her real mind. It was a thunder-clap. “Oh, my
child! what shall I do?” he cried.

Then Rosa was taken by surprise in her turn. She spoke out. “Send for
a great physician, papa. Don't let us deceive ourselves; it is our only
chance.”

“I will ask Mr. Wyman to get a physician down from London.”

“No, no; that is no use; they will put their heads together, and he will
say whatever Mr. Wyman tells him. La! papa, a clever man like you, not
to see what a cheat that consultation was. Why, from what you told me,
one can see it was managed so that Dr. Snell could not possibly have an
opinion of his own. No; no more echoes of Mr. Chatterbox. If you really
want to cure me, send for Christopher Staines.”

“Dr. Staines! he is very young.”

“But he is very clever, and he is not an echo. He won't care how many
doctors he contradicts when I am in danger. Papa, it is your child's one
chance.”

“I'll try it,” said the old man, eagerly. “How confident you look! your
color has come back. It is an inspiration. Where is he?”

“I think by this time he must be at his lodgings in Gravesend. Send to
him to-morrow morning.”

“Not I! I'll go to him to-night. It is only a mile, and a fine clear
night.”

“My own, good, kind papa! Ah! well, come what may, I have lived long
enough to be loved. Yes, dear papa, save me. I am very young to die; and
he loves me so dearly.”

The old man bustled away to put on something warmer for his night walk,
and Rosa leaned back, and the tears welled out of her eyes, now he was
gone.

Before she had recovered her composure, a letter was brought her, and
this was the letter from Christopher Staines, alluded to already.

She took it from the servant with averted head, not wishing it to be
seen she had been crying, and she started at the handwriting; it seemed
such a coincidence that it should come just as she was sending for him.


MY OWN BELOVED ROSA,--I now write to tell you, with a heavy heart, that
all is vain. I cannot make, nor purchase, a connection, except as others
do, by time and patience. Being a bachelor is quite against a young
physician. If I had a wife, and such a wife as you, I should be sure
to get on; you would increase my connection very soon. What, then,
lies before us? I see but two things--to wait till we are old, and our
pockets are filled, but our hearts chilled or soured; or else to marry
at once, and climb the hill together. If you love me as I love you, you
will be saving till the battle is over; and I feel I could find energy
and fortitude for both. Your father, who thinks so much of wealth, can
surely settle something on YOU; and I am not too poor to furnish a house
and start fair. I am not quite obscure--my lectures have given me a
name--and to you, my own love, I hope I may say that I know more than
many of my elders, thanks to good schools, good method, a genuine love
of my noble profession, and a tendency to study from my childhood. Will
you not risk something on my ability? If not, God help me, for I shall
lose you; and what is life, or fame, or wealth, or any mortal thing to
me, without you? I cannot accept your father's decision; YOU must decide
my fate.

You see I have kept away from you until I can do so no more. All this
time the world to me has seemed to want the sun, and my heart pines and
sickens for one sight of you.

Darling Rosa, pray let me look at your face once more.

When this reaches you I shall be at your gate. Let me see you, though
but for a moment, and let me hear my fate from no lips but yours.--My
own love, your heart-broken lover,

CHRISTOPHER STAINES.


This letter stunned her at first. Her mind of late had been turned away
from love to such stern realities. Now she began to be sorry she had not
told him. “Poor thing!” she said to herself, “he little knows that now
all is changed. Papa, I sometimes think, would deny me nothing now; it
is I who would not marry him--to be buried by him in a month or two.
Poor Christopher!”

The next moment she started up in dismay. Why, her father would miss
him. No; perhaps catch him waiting for her. What would he think? What
would Christopher think?--that she had shown her papa his letter.

She rang the bell hard. The footman came.

“Send Harriet to me this instant. Oh, and ask papa to come to me.”

Then she sat down and dashed off a line to Christopher. This was for
Harriet to take out to him. Anything better than for Christopher to be
caught doing what was wrong.

The footman came back first. “If you please, miss, master has gone out.”

“Run after him--the road to Gravesend.”

“Yes, miss.”

“No. It is no use. Never mind.”

“Yes, miss.”

Then Harriet came in. “Did you want me, miss?”

“Yes. No--never mind now.”

She was afraid to do anything for fear of making matters worse. She went
to the window, and stood looking anxiously out, with her hands working.
Presently she uttered a little scream and shrank away to the sofa. She
sank down on it, half sitting, half lying, hid her face in her hands,
and waited.


Staines, with a lover's impatience, had been more than an hour at the
gate, or walking up and down close by it, his heart now burning with
hope, now freezing with fear, that she would decline a meeting on these
terms.

At last the postman came, and then he saw he was too soon; but now in
a few minutes Rosa would have his letter, and then he should soon know
whether she would come or not. He looked up at the drawing-room windows.
They were full of light. She was there in all probability. Yet she did
not come to them. But why should she, if she was coming out?

He walked up and down the road. She did not come. His heart began to
sicken with doubt. His head drooped; and perhaps it was owing to this
that he almost ran against a gentleman who was coming the other way. The
moon shone bright on both faces.

“Dr. Staines!” said Mr. Lusignan surprised. Christopher uttered an
ejaculation more eloquent than words.

They stared at each other.

“You were coming to call on us?”

“N--no,” stammered Christopher.

Lusignan thought that odd; however, he said politely, “No matter, it is
fortunate. Would you mind coming in?”

“No,” faltered Christopher, and stared at him ruefully, puzzled more and
more, but beginning to think, after all, it might be a casual meeting.

They entered the gate, and in one moment he saw Rosa at the window, and
she saw him.

Then he altered his opinion again. Rosa had sent her father out to him.
But how was this? The old man did not seem angry. Christopher's heart
gave a leap inside him, and he began to glow with the wildest hopes.
For, what could this mean but relenting?

Mr. Lusignan took him first into the study, and lighted two candles
himself. He did not want the servants prying.

The lights showed Christopher a change in Mr. Lusignan. He looked ten
years older.

“You are not well, sir,” said Christopher gently.

“My health is well enough, but I am a broken-hearted man. Dr. Staines,
forget all that passed here at your last visit. All that is over. Thank
you for loving my poor girl as you do; give me your hand; God bless you.
Sir, I am sorry to say it is as a physician I invite you now. She is
ill, sir, very, very ill.”

“Ill! and not tell me!”

“She kept it from you, my poor friend, not to distress you; and she
tried to keep it from me, but how could she? For two months she has
had some terrible complaint--it is destroying her. She is the ghost of
herself. Oh, my poor child! my child!”

The old man sobbed aloud. The young man stood trembling, and ashy pale.
Still, the habits of his profession, and the experience of dangers
overcome, together with a certain sense of power, kept him up; but,
above all, love and duty said, “Be firm.” He asked for an outline of the
symptoms.

They alarmed him greatly.

“Let us lose no more time,” said he. “I will see her at once.”

“Do you object to my being present?”

“Of course not.”

“Shall I tell you what Dr. Snell says it is, and Mr. Wyman?”

“By all means--after I have seen her.”

This comforted Mr. Lusignan. He was to get an independent judgment, at
all events.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Dr. Staines paused and leaned
against the baluster. “Give me a moment,” said he. “The patient must not
know how my heart is beating, and she must see nothing in my face but
what I choose her to see. Give me your hand once more, sir; let us both
control ourselves. Now announce me.”

Mr. Lusignan opened the door, and said, with forced cheerfulness, “Dr.
Staines, my dear, come to give you the benefit of his skill.”

She lay on the sofa, just as we left her. Only her bosom began to heave.

Then Christopher Staines drew himself up, and the majesty of knowledge
and love together seemed to dilate his noble frame. He fixed his eye on
that reclining, panting figure, and stepped lightly but firmly across
the room to know the worst, like a lion walking up to levelled lances.




CHAPTER III.


The young physician walked steadily up to his patient without taking his
eye off her, and drew a chair to her side.

Then she took down one hand--the left--and gave it him, averting her
face tenderly, and still covering it with her right; “For,” said she to
herself, “I am such a fright now.” This opportune reflection, and her
heaving bosom, proved that she at least felt herself something more
than his patient. Her pretty consciousness made his task more difficult;
nevertheless, he only allowed himself to press her hand tenderly with
both his palms one moment, and then he entered on his functions bravely.
“I am here as your physician.”

“Very well,” said she softly.

He gently detained the hand, and put his finger lightly to her pulse; it
was palpitating, and a fallacious test. Oh, how that beating pulse, by
love's electric current, set his own heart throbbing in a moment!

He put her hand gently, reluctantly down, and said, “Oblige me by
turning this way.” She turned, and he winced internally at the change in
her; but his face betrayed nothing. He looked at her full; and, after
a pause, put her some questions: one was as to the color of the
hemorrhage. She said it was bright red.

“Not a tinge of purple?”

“No,” said she hopefully, mistaking him.

He suppressed a sigh.

Then he listened at her shoulder-blade and at her chest, and made her
draw her breath while he was listening. The acts were simple, and usual
in medicine, but there was a deep, patient, silent intensity about his
way of doing them.

Mr. Lusignan crept nearer, and stood with both hands on a table, and his
old head bowed, awaiting yet dreading the verdict.

Up to this time, Dr. Staines, instead of tapping and squeezing, and
pulling the patient about, had never touched her with his hand, and only
grazed her with his ear; but now he said “Allow me,” and put both hands
to her waist, more lightly and reverently than I can describe; “Now draw
a deep breath, if you please.”

“There!”

“If you could draw a deeper still,” said he, insinuatingly.

“There, then!” said she, a little pettishly.

Dr. Staines's eye kindled.

“Hum!” said he. Then, after a considerable pause, “Are you better or
worse after each hemorrhage?”

“La!” said Rosa; “they never asked me that. Why, better.”

“No faintness?”

“Not a bit.”

“Rather a sense of relief, perhaps?”

“Yes; I feel lighter and better.”

The examination was concluded.

Dr. Staines looked at Rosa, and then at her father. The agony in that
aged face, and the love that agony implied, won him, and it was to the
parent he turned to give his verdict.

“The hemorrhage is from the lungs”--

Lusignan interrupted him: “From the lungs!” cried he, in dismay.

“Yes; a slight congestion of the lungs.”

“But not incurable! Oh, not incurable, doctor!”

“Heaven forbid! It is curable--easily--by removing the cause.”

“And what is the cause?”

“The cause?”--he hesitated, and looked rather uneasy.--“Well, the cause,
sir, is--tight stays.”

The tranquillity of the meeting was instantly disturbed. “Tight stays!
Me!” cried Rosa. “Why, I am the loosest girl in England. Look, papa!”
 And, without any apparent effort, she drew herself in, and poked her
little fist between her sash and her gown. “There!”

Dr. Staines smiled sadly and a little sarcastically: he was evidently
shy of encountering the lady in this argument; but he was more at his
ease with her father; so he turned towards him and lectured him freely.

“That is wonderful, sir; and the first four or five female patients
that favored me with it, made me disbelieve my other senses; but Miss
Lusignan is now about the thirtieth who has shown me that marvellous
feat, with a calm countenance that belies the herculean effort. Nature
has her every-day miracles: a boa-constrictor, diameter seventeen
inches, can swallow a buffalo; a woman, with her stays bisecting her
almost, and lacerating her skin, can yet for one moment make herself
seem slack, to deceive a juvenile physician. The snake is the miracle of
expansion; the woman is the prodigy of contraction.”

“Highly grateful for the comparison!” cried Rosa. “Women and snakes!”

Dr. Staines blushed and looked uncomfortable. “I did not mean to be
offensive; it certainly was a very clumsy comparison.”

“What does that matter?” said Mr. Lusignan, impatiently. “Be quiet,
Rosa, and let Dr. Staines and me talk sense.”

“Oh, then I am nobody in the business!” said this wise young lady.

“You are everybody,” said Staines, soothingly. “But,” suggested he,
obsequiously, “if you don't mind, I would rather explain my views to
your father--on this one subject.”

“And a pretty subject it is!”

Dr. Staines then invited Mr. Lusignan to his lodgings, and promised to
explain the matter anatomically. “Meantime,” said he, “would you be good
enough to put your hands to my waist, as I did to the patient's.”

Mr. Lusignan complied; and the patient began to titter directly, to put
them out of countenance.

“Please observe what takes place when I draw a full breath.

“Now apply the same test to the patient. Breathe your best, please, Miss
Lusignan.”

The patient put on a face full of saucy mutiny.

“To oblige us both.”

“Oh, how tiresome!”

“I am aware it is rather laborious,” said Staines, a little dryly; “but
to oblige your father!”

“Oh, anything to oblige papa,” said she, spitefully. “There! And I do
hope it will be the last--la! no; I don't hope that, neither.”

Dr. Staines politely ignored her little attempts to interrupt the
argument. “You found, sir, that the muscles of my waist, and my
intercostal ribs themselves, rose and fell with each inhalation and
exhalation of air by the lungs.”

“I did; but my daughter's waist was like dead wood, and so were her
lower ribs.”

At this volunteer statement, Rosa colored to her temples. “Thanks, papa!
Pack me off to London, and sell me for a big doll!”

“In other words,” said the lecturer, mild and pertinacious, “with us the
lungs have room to blow, and the whole bony frame expands elastic
with them, like the woodwork of a blacksmith's bellows; but with this
patient, and many of her sex, that noble and divinely framed bellows is
crippled and confined by a powerful machine of human construction; so it
works lamely and feebly: consequently too little air, and of course too
little oxygen, passes through that spongy organ whose very life is air.
Now mark the special result in this case: being otherwise healthy and
vigorous, our patient's system sends into the lungs more blood than that
one crippled organ can deal with; a small quantity becomes extravasated
at odd times; it accumulates, and would become dangerous; then Nature,
strengthened by sleep, and by some hours' relief from the diabolical
engine, makes an effort and flings it off: that is why the hemorrhage
comes in the morning, and why she is the better for it, feeling neither
faint nor sick, but relieved of a weight. This, sir, is the rationale of
the complaint; and it is to you I must look for the cure. To judge from
my other female patients, and from the few words Miss Lusignan has let
fall, I fear we must not count on any very hearty co-operation from her:
but you are her father, and have great authority; I conjure you to use
it to the full, as you once used it--to my sorrow--in this very room.
I am forgetting my character. I was asked here only as her physician.
Good-evening.”

He gave a little gulp, and hurried away, with an abruptness that touched
the father and offended the sapient daughter.

However, Mr. Lusignan followed him, and stopped him before he left the
house, and thanked him warmly; and to his surprise, begged him to call
again in a day or two.

“Well, Rosa, what do you say?”

“I say that I am very unfortunate in my doctors. Mr. Wyman is a
chatterbox and knows nothing. Dr. Snell is Mr. Wyman's echo. Christopher
is a genius, and they are always full of crotchets. A pretty doctor!
Gone away, and not prescribed for me!”

Mr. Lusignan admitted it was odd. “But, after all,” said he, “if
medicine does you no good?”

“Ah! but any medicine HE had prescribed would have done me good, and
that makes it all the unkinder.”

“If you think so highly of his skill, why not take his advice? It can do
no harm.”

“No harm? Why, if I was to leave them off I should catch a dreadful
cold; and that would be sure to settle on my chest, and carry me off,
in my present delicate state. Besides, it is so unfeminine not to wear
them.”

This staggered Mr. Lusignan, and he was afraid to press the point; but
what Staines had said fermented in his mind.

Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman continued their visits and their prescriptions.

The patient got a little worse.

Mr. Lusignan hoped Christopher would call again, but he did not.

When Dr. Staines had satisfied himself that the disorder was easily
curable, then wounded pride found an entrance even into his loving
heart. That two strangers should have been consulted before him! He was
only sent for because they could not cure her.

As he seemed in no hurry to repeat his visit, Mr. Lusignan called on
him, and said, politely, he had hoped to receive another call ere this.
“Personally,” said he, “I was much struck with your observations; but my
daughter is afraid she will catch cold if she leaves off her corset, and
that, you know, might be very serious.”

Dr. Staines groaned, and, when he had groaned, he lectured. “Female
patients are wonderfully monotonous in this matter; they have a
programme of evasions; and whether the patient is a lady or a housemaid,
she seldom varies from that programme. You find her breathing life's air
with half a bellows, and you tell her so. 'Oh, no,' says she; and does
the gigantic feat of contraction we witnessed that evening at your
house. But, on inquiry, you learn there is a raw red line ploughed
in her flesh by the cruel stays. 'What is that?' you ask, and flatter
yourself you have pinned her. Not a bit. 'That was the last pair. I
changed them, because they hurt me.' Driven out of that by proofs of
recent laceration, they say, 'If I leave them off I should catch my
death of cold,' which is equivalent to saying there is no flannel in the
shops, no common sense nor needles at home.”

He then laid before him some large French plates, showing the organs
of the human trunk, and bade him observe in how small a space, and with
what skill, the Creator has packed so many large yet delicate organs,
so that they should be free and secure from friction, though so close to
each other. He showed him the liver, an organ weighing four pounds, and
of large circumference; the lungs, a very large organ, suspended in the
chest and impatient of pressure; the heart, the stomach, the spleen, all
of them too closely and artfully packed to bear any further compression.

Having thus taken him by the eye, he took him by the mind.

“Is it a small thing for the creature to say to her Creator, 'I can pack
all this egg-china better than you can,' and thereupon to jam all
those vital organs close, by a powerful, a very powerful and ingenious
machine? Is it a small thing for that sex, which, for good reasons, the
Omniscient has made larger in the waist than the male, to say to her
Creator, 'You don't know your business; women ought to be smaller in the
waist than men, and shall be throughout the civilized world'?”

In short, he delivered so many true and pointed things on this trite
subject, that the old gentleman was convinced, and begged him to come
over that very evening and convince Rosa.

Dr. Staines shook his head dolefully, and all his fire died out of him
at having to face the fair. “Reason will be wasted. Authority is the
only weapon. My profession and my reading have both taught me that
the whole character of her sex undergoes a change the moment a man
interferes with their dress. From Chaucer's day to our own, neither
public satire nor private remonstrance has ever shaken any of their
monstrous fashions. Easy, obliging, pliable, and weaker of will than men
in other things, do but touch their dress, however objectionable, and
rock is not harder, iron is not more stubborn, than these soft and
yielding creatures. It is no earthly use my coming--I'll come.”

He came that very evening, and saw directly she was worse. “Of course,”
 said he, sadly, “you have not taken my advice.”

Rosa replied with a toss and an evasion, “I was not worth a
prescription!”

“A physician can prescribe without sending his patient to the druggist;
and when he does, then it is his words are gold.”

Rosa shook her head with an air of lofty incredulity.

He looked ruefully at Mr. Lusignan and was silent. Rosa smiled
sarcastically; she thought he was at his wit's end.

Not quite: he was cudgelling his brains in search of some horribly
unscientific argument, that might prevail; for he felt science would
fall dead upon so fair an antagonist. At last his eye kindled; he had
hit on an argument unscientific enough for anybody, he thought. Said he,
ingratiatingly, “You believe the Old Testament?”

“Of course I do, every syllable.”

“And the lessons it teaches?”

“Certainly!”

“Then let me tell you a story from that book. A Syrian general had a
terrible disease. He consulted Elisha by deputy. Elisha said, 'Bathe
seven times in a certain river, Jordan, and you will get well.' The
general did not like this at all; he wanted a prescription; wanted to
go to the druggist; didn't believe in hydropathy to begin, and, in any
case, turned up his nose at Jordan. What! bathe in an Israelitish
brook, when his own country boasted noble rivers, with a reputation for
sanctity into the bargain? In short, he preferred his leprosy to such
irregular medicine. But it happened, by some immense fortuity, that
one of his servants, though an Oriental, was a friend, instead of a
flatterer; and this sensible fellow said, 'If the prophet told you to do
some great and difficult thing, to get rid of this fearful malady, would
not you do it, however distasteful? and can you hesitate when he merely
says, Wash in the Jordan, and be healed?' The general listened to
good sense, and cured himself. Your case is parallel. You would take
quantities of foul medicine; you would submit to some painful operation,
if life and health depended on it; then why not do a small thing for
a great result? You have only to take off an unnatural machine which
cripples your growing frame, and was unknown to every one of the
women whose forms in Parian marble the world admires. Off with that
monstrosity, and your cure is as certain as the Syrian general's; though
science, and not inspiration, dictates the easy remedy.”

Rosa had listened impatiently, and now replied with some warmth, “This
is shockingly profane. The idea of comparing yourself to Elisha, and me
to a horrid leper! Much obliged! Not that I know what a leper is.”

“Come, come! that is not fair,” said Mr. Lusignan. “He only compared the
situation, not the people.”

“But, papa, the Bible is not to be dragged into the common affairs of
life.”

“Then what on earth is the use of it?”

“Oh, papa! Well, it is not Sunday, but I have had a sermon. This is the
clergyman, and you are the commentator--he! he! And so now let us go
back from divinity to medicine. I repeat” (this was the first time she
had said it) “that my other doctors give me real prescriptions, written
in hieroglyphics. You can't look at them without feeling there MUST be
something in them.”

An angry spot rose on Christopher's cheek, but he only said, “And are
your other doctors satisfied with the progress your disorder is making
under their superintendence?”

“Perfectly! Papa, tell him what they say, and I'll find him their
prescriptions.” She went to a drawer, and rummaged, affecting not to
listen.

Lusignan complied. “First of all, sir, I must tell you they are
confident it is not the lungs, but the liver.”

“The what!” shouted Christopher.

“Ah!” screamed Rosa. “Oh, don't!--bawling!”

“And don't you screech,” said her father, with a look of misery and
apprehension impartially distributed on the resounding pair.

“You must have misunderstood them,” murmured Staines, in a voice that
was now barely audible a yard off. “The hemorrhage of a bright red
color, and expelled without effort or nausea?”

“From the liver--they have assured me again and again,” said Lusignan.

Christopher's face still wore a look of blank amazement, till Rosa
herself confirmed it positively.

Then he cast a look of agony upon her, and started up in a passion,
forgetting once more that his host abhorred the sonorous. “Oh, shame!
shame!” he cried, “that the noble profession of medicine should be
disgraced by ignorance such as this.” Then he said, sternly, “Sir, do
not mistake my motives; but I decline to have anything further to do
with this case, until those two gentlemen have been relieved of it; and,
as this is very harsh, and on my part unprecedented, I will give you
one reason out of many I COULD give you. Sir, there is no road from the
liver to the throat by which blood can travel in this way, defying
the laws of gravity; and they knew, from the patient, that no strong
expellent force has ever been in operation. Their diagnosis, therefore,
implies agnosis, or ignorance too great to be forgiven. I will not share
my patient with two gentlemen who know so little of medicine, and know
nothing of anatomy, which is the A B C of medicine. Can I see their
prescriptions?”

These were handed to him. “Good heavens!” said he, “have you taken all
these?”

“Most of them.”

“Why, then you have drunk about two gallons of unwholesome liquids,
and eaten a pound or two of unwholesome solids. These medicines have
co-operated with the malady. The disorder lies, not in the hemorrhage,
but in the precedent extravasation that is a drain on the system; and
how is the loss to be supplied? Why, by taking a little more nourishment
than before; there is no other way; and probably Nature, left to
herself, might have increased your appetite to meet the occasion. But
those two worthies have struck that weapon out of Nature's hand; they
have peppered away at the poor ill-used stomach with drugs and draughts,
not very deleterious I grant you, but all more or less indigestible, and
all tending, not to whet the appetite, but to clog the stomach, or turn
the stomach, or pester the stomach, and so impair the appetite, and so
co-operate, indirectly, with the malady.”

“This is good sense,” said Lusignan. “I declare, I--I wish I knew how to
get rid of them.”

“Oh, I'll do that, papa.”

“No, no; it is not worth a rumpus.”

“I'll do it too politely for that. Christopher, you are very
clever--TERRIBLY clever. Whenever I threw their medicines away, I was
always a little better that day. I will sacrifice them to you. It IS
a sacrifice. They are both so kind and chatty, and don't grudge me
hieroglyphics; now you do.”

She sat down and wrote two sweet letters to Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman,
thanking them for the great attention they had paid her; but finding
herself getting steadily worse, in spite of all they had done for her,
she proposed to discontinue her medicines for a time, and try change of
air.

“And suppose they call to see whether you are changing the air?”

“In that case, papa--'not at home.'”

The notes were addressed and despatched.

Then Dr. Staines brightened up, and said to Lusignan, “I am now happy to
tell you that I have overrated the malady. The sad change I see in Miss
Lusignan is partly due to the great bulk of unwholesome esculents
she has been eating and drinking under the head of medicines. These
discontinued, she might linger on for years, existing, though not
living--the tight-laced cannot be said to live. But if she would be
healthy and happy, let her throw that diabolical machine into the
fire. It is no use asking her to loosen it; she can't. Once there, the
temptation is too strong. Off with it, and, take my word, you will be
one of the healthiest and most vigorous young ladies in Europe.”

Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her
doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. “They
are as loose as they can be. See!”

“That part of the programme is disposed of,” said Christopher. “Please
go on to No. 2. How about the raw red line where the loose machine has
sawed you?”

“What red line? No such thing! Somebody or other has been peeping in at
my window. I'll have the ivy cut down to-morrow.”

“Simpleton!” said Mr. Lusignan, angrily. “You have let the cat out of
the bag. There is such a mark, then, and this extraordinary young man
has discerned it with the eye of science.”

“He never discerned it at all,” said Rosa, red as fire; “and, what is
more, he never will.”

“I don't want to. I should be very sorry to. I hope it will be gone in a
week.”

“I wish YOU were gone now--exposing me in this cruel way,” said Rosa,
angry with herself for having said an idiotic thing, and furious with
him for having made her say it.

“Oh, Rosa!” said Christopher, in a voice of tenderest reproach.

But Mr. Lusignan interfered promptly. “Rosa, no noise. I will not have
you snapping at your best friend and mine. If you are excited, you had
better retire to your own room and compose yourself. I hate a clamor.”

Rosa made a wry face at this rebuke, and then began to cry quietly.

Every tear was like a drop of blood from Christopher's heart. “Pray
don't scold her, sir,” said he, ready to snivel himself. “She meant
nothing unkind: it is only her pretty sprightly way; and she did not
really imagine a love so reverent as mine”--

“Don't YOU interfere between my father and me,” said this reasonable
young lady, now in an ungovernable state of feminine irritability.

“No, Rosa,” said Christopher, humbly. “Mr. Lusignan,” said he, “I hope
you will tell her that, from the very first, I was unwilling to enter on
this subject with HER. Neither she nor I can forget my double character.
I have not said half as much to her as I ought, being her physician; and
yet you see I have said more than she can bear from me, who, she knows,
love her and revere her. Then, once for all, do pray let me put this
delicate matter into your hands: it is a case for parental authority.”

“Unfatherly tyranny, that means,” said Rosa. “What business have
gentlemen interfering in such things? It is unheard of. I will not
submit to it, even from papa.”

“Well, you need not scream at me,” said Mr. Lusignan; and he shrugged
his shoulders to Staines. “She is impracticable, you see. If I do my
duty, there will be a disturbance.”

Now this roused the bile of Dr. Staines. “What, sir!” said he, “you
could separate her and me by your authority, here in this very room; and
yet, when her life is at stake, you abdicate! You could part her from a
man who loved her with every drop of his heart,--and she said she loved
him, or, at all events, preferred him to others,--and you cannot part
her from a miserable corset, although you see in her poor wasted face
that it is carrying her to the churchyard. In that case, sir, there is
but one thing for you to do,--withdraw your opposition and let me
marry her. As her lover I am powerless; but invest me with a husband's
authority, and you will soon see the roses return to her cheek, and
her elastic figure expanding, and her eye beaming with health and the
happiness that comes of perfect health.”

Mr. Lusignan made an answer neither of his hearers expected. He said,
“I have a great mind to take you at your word. I am too old and fond of
quiet to drive a Simpleton in single harness.”

This contemptuous speech, and, above all, the word Simpleton, which had
been applied to her pretty freely by young ladies at school, and always
galled her terribly, inflicted so intolerable a wound on Rosa's vanity,
that she was ready to burst: on that, of course, her stays contributed
their mite of physical uneasiness. Thus irritated mind and body, she
burned to strike in return; and as she could not slap her father in the
presence of another, she gave it Christopher back-handed.

“You can turn me out of doors,” said she, “if you are tired of your
daughter, but I am not such a SIMPLETON as to marry a tyrant. No; he has
shown the cloven foot in time. A husband's AUTHORITY, indeed!” Then she
turned her hand, and gave it him direct. “You told me a different
story when you were paying your court to me; then you were to be my
servant,--all hypocritical sweetness. You had better go and marry a
Circassian slave. They don't wear stays, and they do wear trousers; so
she will be unfeminine enough, even for you. No English lady would
let her husband dictate to her about such a thing. I can have as many
husbands as I like, without falling into the clutches of a tyrant. You
are a rude, indelicate--And so please understand it is all over between
you and me.”

Both her auditors stood aghast, for she uttered this conclusion with a
dignity of which the opening gave no promise, and the occasion, weighed
in masculine balances, was not worthy.

“You do not mean that. You cannot mean it,” said Dr. Staines, aghast.

“I do mean it,” said she, firmly; “and, if you are a gentleman, you will
not compel me to say it twice--three times, I mean.”

At this dagger-stroke Christopher turned very pale, but he maintained
his dignity. “I am a gentleman,” said he, quietly, “and a very
unfortunate one. Good-by, sir; thank you kindly. Good-by, Rosa; God
bless you! Oh, pray take a thought! Remember, your life and death are in
your own hand now. I am powerless.”

And he left the house in sorrow, and just, but not pettish, indignation.

When he was gone, father and daughter looked at each other, and there
was the silence that succeeds a storm.

Rosa, feeling the most uneasy, was the first to express her
satisfaction. “There, HE is gone, and I am glad of it. Now you and I
shall never quarrel again. I was quite right. Such impertinence! Such
indelicacy! A fine prospect for me if I had married such a man! However,
he is gone, and so there's an end of it. The idea! telling a young lady,
before her father, she is tight-laced! If you had not been there I could
have forgiven him. But I am not; it is a story. Now,” suddenly exalting
her voice, “I know you believe him.”

“I say nothing,” whispered papa, hoping to still her by example. This
ruse did not succeed.

“But you look volumes,” cried she: “and I can't bear it. I won't bear
it. If you don't believe ME, ask my MAID.” And with this felicitous
speech, she rang the bell.

“You'll break the wire if you don't mind,” suggested her father,
piteously.

“All the better! Why should not wires be broken as well as my heart? Oh,
here she is! Now, Harriet, come here.”

“Yes, miss.”

“And tell the truth. AM I tight-laced?”

Harriet looked in her face a moment to see what was required of her, and
then said, “That you are not, miss. I never dressed a young lady as wore
'em easier than you do.”

“There, papa! That will do, Harriet.”

Harriet retired as far as the keyhole; she saw something was up.

“Now,” said Rosa, “you see I was right; and, after all, it was a match
you did not approve. Well, it is all over, and now you may write to your
favorite, Colonel Bright. If he comes here, I'll box his old ears. I
hate him. I hate them all. Forgive your wayward girl. I'll stay with
you all my days. I dare say that will not be long, now I have quarrelled
with my guardian angel; and all for what? Papa! papa! how CAN you sit
there and not speak me one word of comfort? 'SIMPLETON?' Ah! that I am
to throw away a love a queen is scarcely worthy of; and all for what?
Really, if it wasn't for the ingratitude and wickedness of the thing, it
is too laughable. Ha! ha!--oh! oh! oh!--ha! ha! ha!”

And off she went into hysterics, and began to gulp and choke
frightfully.

Her father cried for help in dismay. In ran Harriet, saw, and screamed,
but did not lose her head; this veracious person whipped a pair of
scissors off the table, and cut the young lady's stay-laces directly.
Then there was a burst of imprisoned beauty; a deep, deep sigh of relief
came from a bosom that would have done honor to Diana; and the scene
soon concluded with fits of harmless weeping, renewed at intervals.

When it had settled down to this, her father, to soothe her, said he
would write to Dr. Staines, and bring about a reconciliation, if she
liked.

“No,” said she, “you shall kill me sooner. I should die of shame.”

She added, “Oh, pray, from this hour, never mention his name to me.”

And then she had another cry.

Mr. Lusignan was a sensible man: he dropped the subject for the present;
but he made up his mind to one thing--that he would never part with Dr.
Staines as a physician.

Next day Rosa kept her own room until dinner-time, and was as unhappy
as she deserved to be. She spent her time in sewing on stiff flannel
linings and crying. She half hoped Christopher would write to her, so
that she might write back that she forgave him. But not a line.

At half-past six her volatile mind took a turn, real or affected. She
would cry no more for an ungrateful fellow,--ungrateful for not seeing
through the stone walls how she had been employed all the morning; and
making it up. So she bathed her red eyes, made a great alteration in her
dress, and came dancing into the room humming an Italian ditty.

As they were sitting together in the dining-room after dinner, two
letters came by the same post to Mr. Lusignan from Mr. Wyman and Dr.
Snell.

Mr. Wyman's letter:--


DEAR SIR,--I am sorry to hear from Miss Lusignan that she intends to
discontinue medical advice. The disorder was progressing favorably, and
nothing to be feared, under proper treatment.

Yours, etc.


Dr. Snell's letter:--


DEAR SIR,--Miss Lusignan has written to me somewhat impatiently and
seems disposed to dispense with my visits. I do not, however, think it
right to withdraw without telling you candidly that this is an unwise
step. Your daughter's health is in a very precarious condition.

Yours, etc.


Rosa burst out laughing. “I have nothing to fear, and I'm on the brink
of the grave. That comes of writing without a consultation. If they
had written at one table, I should have been neither well nor ill. Poor
Christopher!” and her sweet face began to work piteously.

“There! there! drink a glass of wine.”

She did, and a tear with it, that ran into the glass like lightning.

Warned by this that grief sat very near the bright, hilarious surface,
Mr. Lusignan avoided all emotional subjects for the present. Next day,
however, he told her she might dismiss her lover, but no power should
make him dismiss his pet physician, unless her health improved.

“I will not give you that excuse for inflicting him on me again,” said
the young hypocrite.

She kept her word. She got better and better, stronger, brighter, gayer.

She took to walking every day, and increasing the distance, till she
could walk ten miles without fatigue.

Her favorite walk was to a certain cliff that commanded a noble view of
the sea. To get to it she must pass through the town of Gravesend; and
we may be sure she did not pass so often through that city without some
idea of meeting the lover she had used so ill, and eliciting an APOLOGY
from him. Sly puss!

When she had walked twenty times, or thereabouts, through the town, and
never seen him, she began to fear she had offended him past hope. Then
she used to cry at the end of every walk.

But by and by bodily health, vanity, and temper combined to rouse the
defiant spirit. Said she, “If he really loved me, he would not take my
word in such a hurry. And besides, why does he not watch me, and find
out what I am doing, and where I walk?”

At last she really began to persuade herself that she was an ill-used
and slighted girl. She was very angry at times, and disconsolate at
others; a mixed state in which hasty and impulsive young ladies commit
lifelong follies.

Mr. Lusignan observed the surface only: he saw his invalid daughter
getting better every day, till at last she became a picture of health
and bodily vigor. Relieved of his fears, he troubled his head but little
about Christopher Staines. Yet he esteemed him, and had got to like
him; but Rosa was a beauty, and could do better than marry a struggling
physician, however able. He launched out into a little gayety, resumed
his quiet dinner-parties; and, after some persuasion, took his now
blooming daughter to a ball given by the officers of Chatham.

She was the belle of the ball beyond dispute, and danced with ethereal
grace and athletic endurance. She was madly fond of waltzing, and here
she encountered what she was pleased to call a divine dancer. It was
a Mr. Reginald Falcon, a gentleman who had retired to the seaside to
recruit his health and finances sore tried by London and Paris. Falcon
had run through his fortune, but had acquired, in the process, certain
talents which, as they cost the acquirer dear, so they sometimes repay
him, especially if he is not overburdened with principle, and adopts the
notion that, the world having plucked him, he has a right to pluck the
world. He could play billiards well, but never so well as when backing
himself for a heavy stake. He could shoot pigeons well, and his shooting
improved under that which makes some marksmen miss--a heavy bet against
the gun. He danced to perfection; and being a well-bred, experienced,
brazen, adroit fellow, who knew a little of everything that was going,
he had always plenty to say. Above all, he had made a particular study
of the fair sex; had met with many successes, many rebuffs; and, at
last, by keen study of their minds, and a habit he had acquired of
watching their faces, and shifting his helm accordingly, had learned
the great art of pleasing them. They admired his face; to me, the
short space between his eyes and his hair, his aquiline nose, and thin
straight lips, suggested the bird of prey a little too much: but to
fair doves, born to be clutched, this similitude perhaps was not very
alarming, even if they observed it.

Rosa danced several times with him, and told him he danced like an
angel. He informed her that was because, for once, he was dancing with
an angel. She laughed and blushed. He flattered deliciously, and it cost
him little; for he fell in love with her that night, deeper than he had
ever been in his whole life of intrigue. He asked leave to call on
her: she looked a little shy at that, and did not respond. He instantly
withdrew his proposal, with an apology and a sigh that raised her pity.
However, she was not a forward girl, even when excited by dancing and
charmed with her partner; so she left him to find his own way out of
that difficulty.

He was not long about it. At the end of the next waltz he asked her if
he might venture to solicit an introduction to her father.

“Oh, certainly,” said she. “What a selfish girl I am! this is terribly
dull for him.”

The introduction being made, and Rosa being engaged for the next three
dances, Mr. Falcon sat by Mr. Lusignan and entertained him. For this
little piece of apparent self-denial he was paid in various coin:
Lusignan found out he was the son of an old acquaintance, and so the
door of Kent Villa opened to him; meantime, Rosa Lusignan never passed
him, even in the arms of a cavalry officer, without bestowing a glance
of approval and gratitude on him. “What a good-hearted young man!”
 thought she. “How kind of him to amuse papa; and now I can stay so much
longer.”

Falcon followed up the dance by a call, and was infinitely agreeable:
followed up the call by another, and admired Rosa with so little
disguise that Mr. Lusignan said to her, “I think you have made a
conquest. His father had considerable estates in Essex. I presume he
inherits them.”

“Oh, never mind his estates,” said Rosa, “he dances like an angel, and
gossips charmingly, and IS so nice.”

Christopher Staines pined for this girl in silence: his fine frame got
thinner, his pale cheek paler, as she got rosier and rosier; and how?
Why, by following the very advice she had snubbed him for giving her. At
last, he heard she had been the belle of a ball, and that she had been
seen walking miles from home, and blooming as a Hebe. Then his deep
anxiety ceased, his pride stung him furiously; he began to think of his
own value, and to struggle with all his might against his deep love.
Sometimes he would even inveigh against her, and call her a fickle,
ungrateful girl, capable of no strong passion but vanity. Many a hard
term he applied to her in his sorrowful solitude; but not a word when he
had a hearer. He found it hard to rest: he kept dashing up to London and
back. He plunged furiously into study. He groaned and sighed, and fought
the hard and bitter fight that is too often the lot of the deep that
love the shallow. Strong, but single-hearted, no other lady could
comfort him. He turned from female company, and shunned all for the
fault of one.

The inward contest wore him. He began to look very thin and wan; and all
for a Simpleton!

Mr. Falcon prolonged his stay in the neighborhood, and drove a handsome
dogcart over twice a week to visit Mr. Lusignan.

He used to call on that gentleman at four o'clock, for at that hour Mr.
Lusignan was always out, and his daughter always at home.

She was at home at that hour because she took her long walks in the
morning. While her new admirer was in bed, or dressing, or breakfasting,
she was springing along the road with all the elasticity of youth, and
health, and native vigor, braced by daily exercise.

Twenty-one of these walks did she take, with no other result than health
and appetite; but the twenty-second was more fertile--extremely fertile.
Starting later than usual, she passed through Gravesend while Reginald
Falcon was smoking at his front window. He saw her, and instantly doffed
his dressing-gown and donned his coat to follow her. He was madly in
love with her, and being a man who had learned to shoot pigeons and
opportunities flying, he instantly resolved to join her in her walk, get
her clear of the town, by the sea-beach, where beauty melts, and propose
to her. Yes, marriage had not been hitherto his habit, but this girl was
peerless: he was pledged by honor and gratitude to Phoebe Dale; but hang
all that now. “No man should marry one woman when he loves another; it
is dishonorable.” He got into the street and followed her as fast as he
could without running.

It was not so easy to catch her. Ladies are not built for running; but
a fine, tall, symmetrical girl who has practised walking fast can cover
the ground wonderfully in walking--if she chooses. It was a sight to see
how Rosa Lusignan squared her shoulders and stepped out from the
waist like a Canadian girl skating, while her elastic foot slapped the
pavement as she spanked along.

She had nearly cleared the town before Falcon came up with her.

He was hardly ten yards from her when an unexpected incident occurred.
She whisked round the corner of Bird Street, and ran plump against
Christopher Staines; in fact, she darted into his arms, and her face
almost touched the breast she had wounded so deeply.




CHAPTER IV.


Rosa cried “Oh!” and put up her hands to her face in lovely confusion,
coloring like a peony.

“I beg your pardon,” said Christopher, stiffly, but in a voice that
trembled.

“No,” said Rosa, “it was I ran against you. I walk so fast now. Hope I
did not hurt you.”

“Hurt me?”

“Well, then, frighten you?”

No answer.

“Oh, please don't quarrel with me in the STREET,” said Rosa, cunningly
implying that he was the quarrelsome one. “I am going on the beach.
Good-by!” This adieu she uttered softly, and in a hesitating tone that
belied it. She started off, however, but much more slowly than she was
going before; and, as she went, she turned her head with infinite grace,
and kept looking askant down at the pavement two yards behind her:
moreover she went close to the wall, and left room at her side for
another to walk.

Christopher hesitated a moment; but the mute invitation, so arch yet
timid, so pretty, tender, sly, and womanly, was too much for him, as it
has generally proved for males, and the philosopher's foot was soon
in the very place to which the Simpleton with the mere tail of her eye
directed it.

They walked along, side by side, in silence, Staines agitated, gloomy,
confused, Rosa radiant and glowing, yet not knowing what to say for
herself, and wanting Christopher to begin. So they walked along without
a word.

Falcon followed them at some distance to see whether it was an admirer
or only an acquaintance. A lover he never dreamed of; she had shown such
evident pleasure in his company, and had received his visits alone so
constantly.

However, when the pair had got to the beach, and were walking slower and
slower, he felt a pang of rage and jealousy, turned on his heel with an
audible curse, and found Phoebe Dale a few yards behind him with a white
face and a peculiar look. He knew what the look meant; he had brought it
to that faithful face before to-day.


“You are better, Miss Lusignan.”

“Better, Dr. Staines? I am health itself thanks to--hem!”

“Our estrangement has agreed with you?” This very bitterly.

“You know very well it is not that. Oh, please don't make me cry in the
streets.”

This humble petition, or rather meek threat, led to another long
silence. It was continued till they had nearly reached the shore.
But, meantime, Rosa's furtive eyes scanned Christopher's face, and her
conscience smote her at the signs of suffering. She felt a desire to
beg his pardon with deep humility; but she suppressed that weakness. She
hung her head with a pretty, sheepish air, and asked him if he could not
think of something agreeable to say to one after deserting one so long.

“I am afraid not,” said Christopher, bluntly. “I have an awkward habit
of speaking the truth; and some people can't bear that, not even when it
is spoken for their good.”

“That depends on temper, and nerves, and things,” said Rosa,
deprecatingly; then softly, “I could bear anything from you now.”

“Indeed!” said Christopher, grimly. “Well, then, I hear you had no
sooner got rid of your old lover, for loving you too well and telling
you the truth, than you took up another,--some flimsy man of fashion,
who will tell you any lie you like.”

“It is a story, a wicked story,” cried Rosa, thoroughly alarmed. “Me, a
lover! He dances like an angel; I can't help that.”

“Are his visits at your house like angels'--few and far between?” And
the true lover's brow lowered black upon her for the first time.

Rosa changed color, and her eyes fell a moment. “Ask papa,” she said.
“His father was an old friend of papa's.”

“Rosa, you are prevaricating. Young men do not call on old gentlemen
when there is an attractive young lady in the house.”

The argument was getting too close; so Rosa operated a diversion. “So,”
 said she, with a sudden air of lofty disdain, swiftly and adroitly
assumed, “you have had me watched?”

“Not I; I only hear what people say.”

“Listen to gossip and not have me watched! That shows how little you
really cared for me. Well, if you had, you would have made a little
discovery, that is all.”

“Should I?” said Christopher, puzzled. “What?”

“I shall not tell you. Think what you please. Yes, sir, you would have
found out that I take long walks every day, all alone; and what is
more, that I walk through Gravesend, hoping--like a goose--that somebody
really loved me, and would meet me, and beg my pardon; and if he had, I
should have told him it was only my tongue, and my nerves, and things;
my heart was his, and my gratitude. And after all, what do words
signify, when I am a good, obedient girl at bottom? So that is what
you have lost by not condescending to look after me. Fine
love!--Christopher, beg my pardon.”

“May I inquire for what?”

“Why, for not understanding me; for not knowing that I should be sorry
the moment you were gone. I took them off the very next day, to please
you.”

“Took off whom?--Oh, I understand. You did? Then you ARE a good girl.”

“Didn't I tell you I was? A good, obedient girl, and anything but a
flirt.”

“I don't say that.”

“But I do. Don't interrupt. It is to your good advice I owe my health;
and to love anybody but you, when I owe you my love and my life, I must
be a heartless, ungrateful, worthless--Oh, Christopher, forgive me! No,
no; I mean, beg my pardon.”

“I'll do both,” said Christopher, taking her in his arms. “I beg your
pardon, and I forgive you.”

Rosa leaned her head tenderly on his shoulder, and began to sigh. “Oh,
dear, dear! I am a wicked, foolish girl, not fit to walk alone.”

On this admission, Christopher spoke out, and urged her to put an end to
all these unhappy misunderstandings, and to his new torment, jealousy,
by marrying him.

“And so I would this very minute, if papa would consent. But,” said she,
slyly, “you never can be so foolish to wish it. What! a wise man like
you marry a simpleton!”

“Did I ever call you that?” asked Christopher, reproachfully.

“No, dear; but you are the only one who has not; and perhaps I should
lose even the one, if you were to marry me. Oh, husbands are not so
polite as lovers! I have observed that, simpleton or not.”

Christopher assured her that he took quite a different view of her
character; he believed her to be too profound for shallow people to read
all in a moment: he even intimated that he himself had experienced no
little difficulty in understanding her at odd times. “And so,” said he,
“they turn round upon you, and instead of saying, 'We are too shallow to
fathom you,' they pretend you are a simpleton.”

This solution of the mystery had never occurred to Rosa, nor indeed
was it likely to occur to any creature less ingenious than a lover: it
pleased her hugely; her fine eyes sparkled, and she nestled closer still
to the strong arm that was to parry every ill, from mortal disease to
galling epithets.

She listened with a willing ear to all his reasons, his hopes, his
fears, and, when they reached her father's door, it was settled that
he should dine there that day, and urge his suit to her father after
dinner. She would implore the old gentleman to listen to it favorably.

The lovers parted, and Christopher went home like one who has awakened
from a hideous dream to daylight and happiness.

He had not gone far before he met a dashing dogcart, driven by an
exquisite. He turned to look after it, and saw it drive up to Kent
Villa.

In a moment he divined his rival, and a sickness of heart came over him.
But he recovered himself directly, and said, “If that is the fellow, she
will not receive him now.”

She did receive him though: at all events, the dogcart stood at the
door, and its master remained inside.

Christopher stood, and counted the minutes: five, ten, fifteen, twenty
minutes, and still the dogcart stood there.

It was more than he could bear. He turned savagely, and strode back to
Gravesend, resolving that all this torture should end that night, one
way or other.


Phoebe Dale was the daughter of a farmer in Essex, and one of the
happiest young women in England till she knew Reginald Falcon, Esq.

She was reared on wholesome food, in wholesome air, and used to churn
butter, make bread, cook a bit now and then, cut out and sew all her
own dresses, get up her own linen, make hay, ride anything on four legs;
and, for all that, was a great reader, and taught in the Sunday school
to oblige the vicar; wrote a neat hand, and was a good arithmetician,
kept all the house accounts and farm accounts. She was a musician,
too,--not profound, but very correct. She would take her turn at the
harmonium in church, and, when she was there, you never heard a wrong
note in the bass, nor an inappropriate flourish, nor bad time. She could
sing, too, but never would, except her part in a psalm. Her voice was
a deep contralto, and she chose to be ashamed of this heavenly organ,
because a pack of envious girls had giggled, and said it was like a
man's.

In short, her natural ability and the range and variety of her useful
accomplishments were considerable; not that she was a prodigy; but she
belonged to a small class of women in this island who are not too high
to use their arms, nor too low to cultivate their minds; and, having a
faculty and a habit deplorably rare amongst her sex, viz., Attention,
she had profited by her miscellaneous advantages.

Her figure and face both told her breed at once: here was an old English
pastoral beauty; not the round-backed, narrow-chested cottager, but the
well-fed, erect rustic, with broad, full bust and massive shoulder, and
arm as hard as a rock with health and constant use; a hand finely cut,
though neither small nor very white, and just a little hard inside,
compared with Luxury's soft palm; a face honest, fair, and rather large
than small; not beautiful, but exceedingly comely; a complexion not pink
and white, but that delicately blended brickdusty color, which tints the
whole cheek in fine gradation, outlasts other complexions twenty years,
and beautifies the true Northern, even in old age. Gray, limpid, honest,
point-blank, searching eyes; hair true nut-brown, without a shade of red
or black; and a high, smooth forehead, full of sense. Across it ran
one deep wrinkle that did not belong to her youth. That wrinkle was the
brand of trouble, the line of agony. It had come of loving above her,
yet below her, and of loving an egotist.

Three years before our tale commenced, a gentleman's horse ran away with
him, and threw him on a heap of stones by the roadside, not very far
from Farmer Dale's gate. The farmer had him taken in. The doctor said he
must not be moved. He was insensible; his cheek like delicate wax; his
fair hair like silk stained with blood. He became Phoebe's patient, and,
in due course, her convalescent: his pale, handsome face and fascinating
manners gained one charm more from weakness; his vices were in abeyance.

The womanly nurse's heart yearned over her child; for he was feeble as
a child; and, when he got well enough to amuse his weary hours by making
love to her, and telling her a pack of arrant lies, she was a ready
dupe. He was to marry her as soon as ever his old uncle died, and left
him the means, etc., etc. At last he got well enough to leave her, and
went away, her open admirer and secret lover. He borrowed twenty pounds
of her the day he left.

He used to write her charming letters, and feed the flame; but one day
her father sent her up to London, on his own business, all of a sudden,
and she called on Mr. Falcon at his real address. She found he did not
live there--only received letters. However, half-a-crown soon bought his
real address, and thither Phoebe proceeded with a troubled heart, for
she suspected that her true lover was in debt or trouble, and obliged to
hide. Well, he must be got out of it, and hide at the farm meantime.

So the loving girl knocked at the door, asked for Mr. Falcon, and was
shown in to a lady rather showily dressed, who asked her business.

Phoebe Dale stared at her, and then turned pale as ashes. She was
paralyzed, and could not find her tongue.

“Why, what is the matter now?” said the other, sharply.

“Are you married to Reginald Falcon?”

“Of course I am. Look at my wedding-ring.”

“Then I am not wanted here,” faltered Phoebe, ready to sink on the
floor.

“Certainly not, if you are one of the bygones,” said the woman,
coarsely; and Phoebe Dale waited to hear no more, but found her way,
Heaven knows how, into the street, and there leaned, half-fainting, on
a rail, till a policeman came, and told her she had been drinking, and
suggested a cool cell as the best cure.

“Not drink; only a breaking heart,” said she, in her low, mellow voice
that few could resist.

He got her a glass of water, drove away the boys that congregated
directly, and she left the street. But she soon came back again, and
waited about for Reginald Falcon.

It was night when he appeared. She seized him by the breast, and taxed
him with his villany.

What with her iron grasp, pale face, and flashing eyes, he lost his
cool impudence, and blurted out excuses. It was an old and unfortunate
connection; he would give the world to dissolve it, if he could do it
like a gentleman.

Phoebe told him to please himself: he must part with one or the other.

“Don't talk nonsense,” said this man of brass; “I'll un-Falcon her on
the spot.”

“Very well,” said Phoebe. “I am going home; and, if you are not there by
to-morrow at noon”--She said no more, but looked a great deal. Then she
departed, and refused him her hand at parting. “We will see about that
by and by,” said she.

At noon my lord came down to the farm, and, unfortunately for Phoebe,
played the penitent so skilfully for about a month, that she forgave
him, and loved him all the more for having so nearly parted with him.

Her peace was not to endure long. He was detected in an intrigue in the
very village.

The insult struck so home that Phoebe herself, to her parents'
satisfaction, ordered him out of the house at once.

But, when he was gone, she had fits of weeping, and could settle to
nothing for a long time.

Months had elapsed, and she was getting a sort of dull tranquillity,
when, one evening, taking a walk she had often with him, and mourning
her solitude and wasted affection, he waylaid her, and clung to
her knees, and shed crocodile tears on her hands, and, after a long
resistance, violent at first, but fainter and fainter, got her in his
power again, and that so completely that she met him several times by
night, being ashamed to be seen with him in those parts by day.

This ended in fresh promises of marriage, and in a constant
correspondence by letter. This pest knew exactly how to talk to a woman,
and how to write to one. His letters fed the unhappy flame; and, mind
you, he sometimes deceived himself, and thought he loved her; but it
was only himself he loved. She was an invaluable lover; a faithful,
disinterested friend; hers was a vile bargain; his, an excellent one,
and he clung to it.

And so they went on. She detected him in another infidelity, and
reproached him bitterly; but she had no longer the strength to break
with him. Nevertheless, this time she had the sense to make a struggle.
She implored him, on her very knees, to show her a little mercy in
return for all her love. “For pity's sake, leave me!” she cried. “You
are strong, and I am weak. You can end it forever, and pray do. You
don't want me; you don't value me: then, leave me, once and for all, and
end this hell you keep me in.”

No; he could not, or he would not, leave her alone. Look at a bird's
wings!--how like an angel's! Yet so vile a thing as a bit of birdlime
subdues them utterly; and such was the fascinating power of this mean
man over this worthy woman. She was a reader, a thinker, a model
of respectability, industry, and sense; a businesswoman, keen and
practical; could encounter sharp hands in sharp trades; could buy or
sell hogs, calves, or beasts with any farmer or butcher in the country,
yet no match for a cunning fool. She had enshrined an idol in her heart,
and that heart adored it, and clung to it, though the superior head saw
through it, dreaded it, despised it.

No wonder three years of this had drawn a tell-tale wrinkle across the
polished brow.


Phoebe Dale had not received a letter for some days; that roused her
suspicion and stung her jealousy; she came up to London by fast train,
and down to Gravesend directly.

She had a thick veil that concealed her features; and with a little
inquiring and bribing, she soon found out that Mr. Falcon was there with
a showy dogcart. “Ah!” thought Phoebe, “he has won a little money at
play or pigeon-shooting; so now he has no need of me.”

She took the lodgings opposite him, but observed nothing till this very
morning, when she saw him throw off his dressing-gown all in a hurry and
fling on his coat. She tied on her bonnet as rapidly, and followed him,
until she discovered the object of his pursuit. It was a surprise to
her, and a puzzle, to see another man step in, as if to take her
part. But as Reginald still followed the loitering pair, she followed
Reginald, till he turned and found her at his heels, white and lowering.

She confronted him in threatening silence for some time, during which he
prepared his defence.

“So it is a LADY this time,” said she, in her low, rich voice, sternly.

“Is it?”

“Yes, and I should say she is bespoke--that tall, fine-built gentleman.
But I suppose you care no more for his feelings than you do for mine.”

“Phoebe,” said the egotist, “I will not try to deceive you. You have
often said you are my true friend.”

“And I think I have proved it.”

“That you have. Well, then, be my true friend now. I am in love--really
in love--this time. You and I only torment each other; let us part
friends. There are plenty of farmers in Essex that would jump at you. As
for me, I'll tell you the truth; I have run through every farthing;
my estate mortgaged beyond its value--two or three writs out against
me--that is why I slipped down here. My only chance is to marry Money.
Her father knows I have land, and he knows nothing about the mortgages;
she is his only daughter. Don't stand in my way, that is a good girl; be
my friend, as you always were. Hang it all, Phoebe, can't you say a word
to a fellow that is driven into a corner, instead of glaring at me like
that? There! I know it is ungrateful; but what can a fellow do? I must
live like a gentleman or else take a dose of prussic acid; you don't
want to drive me to that. Why, you proposed to part, last time,
yourself.”

She gave him one majestic, indescribable look, that made even his
callous heart quiver, and turned away.

Then the scamp admired her for despising him, and could not bear to lose
her. He followed her, and put forth all those powers of persuading and
soothing, which had so often proved irresistible. But this time it was
in vain. The insult was too savage, and his egotism too brutal, for
honeyed phrases to blind her.

After enduring it a long time with a silent shudder, she turned and
shook him fiercely off her like some poisonous reptile.

“Do you want me to kill you? I'd liever kill myself for loving such a
thing as THOU. Go thy ways, man, and let me go mine.” In her passion she
dropped her cultivation for once, and went back to the THOU and THEE of
her grandam.

He colored up and looked spiteful enough; but he soon recovered his
cynical egotism, and went off whistling an operatic passage.

She crept to her lodgings, and buried her face in her pillow, and rocked
herself to and fro for hours in the bitterest agony the heart can feel,
groaning over her great affection wasted, flung into the dirt.

While she was thus, she heard a little commotion. She came to the window
and saw Falcon, exquisitely dressed, drive off in his dogcart, attended
by the acclamations of eight boys. She saw at a glance he was gone
courting; her knees gave way under her, and, such is the power of the
mind, this stalwart girl lay weak as water on the sofa, and had not the
power to go home, though just then she had but one wish, one hope--to
see her idol's face no more, nor hear his wheedling tongue, that had
ruined her peace.

The exquisite Mr. Falcon was received by Rosa Lusignan with a certain
tremor that flattered his hopes. He told her, in charming language, how
he had admired her at first sight, then esteemed her, then loved her.

She blushed and panted, and showed more than once a desire to interrupt
him, but was too polite. She heard him out with rising dismay, and he
offered her his hand and heart.

But by this time she had made up her mind what to say. “O Mr. Falcon!”
 she cried, “how can you speak to me in this way? Why, I am engaged.
Didn't you know?”

“No; I am sure you are not, or you would never have given me the
encouragement you have.”

“Oh, all engaged young ladies flirt--a little; and everybody here knows
I am engaged to Dr. Staines.”

“Why, I never saw him here.”

Rosa's tact was a quality that came and went; so she blushed, and
faltered out, “We had a little tiff, as lovers will.”

“And you did me the honor to select me as cat's-paw to bring him on
again. Was not that rather heartless?”

Rosa's fitful tact returned to her.

“Oh, sir, do not think so ill of me. I am not heartless, I am only
unwise; and you are so superior to the people about you; I could not
help appreciating you, and I thought you knew I was engaged, and so I
was less on my guard. I hope I shall not lose your esteem, though I have
no right to anything more. Ah! I see by your face I have behaved very
ill: pray forgive me.”

And with this she turned on the waters of the Nile, better known to you,
perhaps, as “crocodile tears.”

Falcon was a gentleman on the surface, and knew he should only make
matters worse by quarrelling with her. So he ground his teeth, and said,
“May your own heart never feel the pangs you have inflicted. I shall
love you and remember you till my dying day.”

He bowed ceremoniously and left her.

“Ay,” said he to himself, “I WILL remember you, you heartless jilt, and
the man you have jilted me for. Staines is his d--d name, is it?”

He drove back crestfallen, bitter, and, for once in his life,
heart-sick, and drew up at his lodgings. Here he found attendants
waiting to receive him.

A sheriff's officer took his dogcart and horse under a judgment; the
disturbance this caused collected a tiny crowd, gaping and grinning, and
brought Phoebe's white face and eyes swollen with weeping to the window.

Falcon saw her and brazened it out. “Take them,” said he, with an oath.
“I'll have a better turn-out by to-morrow, breakfast-time.”

The crowd cheered him for his spirit.

He got down, lit a cigar, chaffed the officer and the crowd, and was, on
the whole, admired.

Then another officer, who had been hunting him in couples with the
other, stepped forward and took HIM, for the balance of a judgment debt.

Then the swell's cigar fell out of his mouth, and he was seriously
alarmed. “Why, Cartwright,” said he, “this is too bad. You promised not
to see me this month. You passed me full in the Strand.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” said Cartwright, with sullen irony. “I've got a
twin-brother; a many takes him for me, till they finds the difference.”
 Then, lowering his voice, “What call had you to boast in your club you
had made it right with Bill Cartwright, and he'd never see you? That got
about, and so I was bound to see you or lose my bread. There's one or
two I don't see, but then they are real gentlemen, and thinks of me as
well as theirselves, and doesn't blab.”

“I must have been drunk,” said Falcon apologetically. “More likely
blowing a cloud. When you young gents gets a-smoking together,
you'd tell on your own mothers. Come along, colonel, off we go to
Merrimashee.”

“Why, it is only twenty-six pounds. I have paid the rest.”

“More than that; there's the costs.”

“Come in, and I'll settle it.”

“All right, sir. Jem, watch the back.”

“Oh, I shall not try that game with a sharp hand like you, Cartwright.”

“You had better not, sir,” said Cartwright; but he was softened a little
by the compliment.

When they were alone, Falcon began by saying it was a bad job for him.

“Why, I thought you was a-going to pay it all in a moment.”

“I can't; but I have got a friend over the way that could, if she chose.
She has always got money, somehow.”

“Oh, if it is a she, it is all right.”

“I don't know. She has quarrelled with me; but give me a little time.
Here! have a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while I try it on.”

Having thus muffled Cartwright, this man of the world opened his window
and looked out. The crowd had followed the captured dogcart, so he had
the street to himself. He beckoned to Phoebe, and after considerable
hesitation she opened her window.

“Phoebe,” said he, in tones of tender regret, admirably natural and
sweet, “I shall never offend you again; so forgive me this once. I have
given that girl up.”

“Not you,” said Phoebe, sullenly.

“Indeed I have. After our quarrel, I started to propose to her; but I
had not the heart; I came back and left her.”

“Time will show. If it is not her, it will be some other, you false,
heartless villain.”

“Come, I say, don't be so hard on me in trouble. I am going to prison.”

“So I suppose.”

“Ah! but it is worse than you think. I am only taken for a paltry thirty
pounds or so.”

“Thirty-three, fifteen, five,” suggested Cartwright, in a muffled
whisper, his mouth being full of biscuit.

“But once they get me to a sponging-house, detainers will pour in, and
my cruel creditors will confine me for life.”

“It is the best place for you. It will put a stop to your wickedness,
and I shall be at peace. That's what I have never known, night or day,
this three years.”

“But you will not be happy if you see me go to prison before your eyes.
Were you ever inside a prison? Just think what it must be to be cooped
up in those cold grim cells all alone; for they use a debtor like a
criminal now.”

Phoebe shuddered; but she said, bravely, “Well, tell THEM you have been
a-courting. There was a time I'd have died sooner than see a hair of
your head hurt; but it is all over now; you have worn me out.”

Then she began to cry.

Falcon heaved a deep sigh. “It is no more than I deserve,” said he.
“I'll pack up my things, and go with the officer. Give me one kind word
at parting, and I'll think of it in my prison, night and day.”

He withdrew from the window with another deep sigh, told Cartwright,
cheerfully, it was all right, and proceeded to pack up his traps.

Meantime Phoebe sat at her window and cried bitterly. Her words had been
braver than her heart.

Falcon managed to pay the trifle he owed for the lodgings, and presently
he came out with Cartwright, and the attendant called a cab. His things
were thrown in, and Cartwright invited him to follow. Then he looked up,
and cast a genuine look of terror and misery at Phoebe. He thought she
would have relented before this.

Her heart gave way; I am afraid it would, even without that piteous and
mute appeal. She opened the window, and asked Mr. Cartwright if he would
be good enough to come and speak to her.

Cartwright committed his prisoner to the subordinate, and knocked at the
door of Phoebe's lodgings. She came down herself and let him in. She led
the way upstairs, motioned him to a seat, sat down by him, and began to
cry again. She was thoroughly unstrung.

Cartwright was human, and muttered some words of regret that a poor
fellow must do his duty.

“Oh, it is not that,” sobbed Phoebe. “I can find the money. I have found
more for him than that, many's the time.” Then, drying her eyes, “But
you must know the world, and I dare say you can see how 'tis with me.”

“I can,” said Cartwright, gravely. “I overheard you and him; and, my
girl, if you take my advice, why, let him go. He is a gentleman skin
deep, and dresses well, and can palaver a girl, no doubt; but bless
your heart, I can see at a glance he is not worth your little finger,
an honest, decent young woman like you. Why, it is like butter fighting
with stone. Let him go; or I will tell you what it is, you will hang for
him some day, or else make away with yourself.”

“Ay, sir,” said Phoebe, “that's likelier; and if I was to let him go to
prison, I should sit me down and think of his parting look, and I should
fling myself into the water for him before I was a day older.”

“Ye mustn't do that anyway. While there's life there's hope.”

Upon this Phoebe put him a question, and found him ready to do anything
for her, in reason--provided he was paid for it. And the end of it all
was, the prisoner was conveyed to London; Phoebe got the requisite sum;
Falcon was deposited in a third-class carriage bound for Essex. Phoebe
paid his debt, and gave Cartwright a present, and away rattled the train
conveying the handsome egotist into temporary retirement, to wit, at
a village five miles from the Dales' farm. She was too ashamed of her
young gentleman and herself to be seen with him in her native village.
On the road down he was full of little practical attentions; she
received them coldly; his mellifluous mouth was often at her car,
pouring thanks and praises into it; she never vouchsafed a word of
reply. All she did was to shudder now and then, and cry at intervals.
Yet, whenever he left her side, her whole body became restless; and when
he came back to her, a furtive thrill announced the insane complacency
his bare contact gave her. Surely, of all the forms in which love
torments the heart, this was the most terrible and pitiable.


Mr. Lusignan found his daughter in tears.

“Why, what is the matter now?” said he, a little peevishly. “We have had
nothing of this sort of thing lately.”

“Papa, it is because I have misconducted myself. I am a foolish,
imprudent girl. I have been flirting with Mr. Falcon, and he has taken a
CRUEL advantage of it--proposed to me--this very afternoon--actually!”

“Has he? Well, he is a fine fellow, and has a landed estate in Norfolk.
There's nothing like land. They may well call it real property--there is
something to show; you can walk on it, and ride on it, and look out of
window at it: that IS property.”

“Oh, papa! what are you saying? Would you have me marry one man when I
belong to another?”

“But you don't belong to any one except to me.”

“Oh, yes; I do. I belong to my dear Christopher.”

“Why, you dismissed him before my very eyes; and very ill you behaved,
begging your pardon. The man was your able physician and your best
friend, and said nothing that was not for your good; and you treated him
like a dog.”

“Yes, but he has apologized.”

“What for? being treated like a dog?”

“Oh, don't say so, papa! At all events, he has apologized, as a
gentleman should whenever--whenever”--

“Whenever a lady is in the wrong.”

“Don't, papa; and I have asked him to dinner.”

“With all my heart. I shall be downright glad to see him again. You used
him abominably.”

“But you need not keep saying so,” whined Rosa. “And that is not all,
dear papa; the worst of it is, Mr. Falcon proposing to me has opened my
eyes. I am not fit to be trusted alone. I am too fond of dancing, and
flirting will follow somehow. Oh, think how ill I was a few months ago,
and how unhappy you were about me! They were killing me. He came and
saved me. Yes, papa, I owe all this health and strength to Christopher.
I did take them off, the very next day, and see the effect of it and my
long walks. I owe him my life, and what I value far more, my good looks.
La! I wish I had not told you that. And after all this, don't I belong
to my Christopher? How could I be happy or respect myself if I married
any one else? And oh, papa! he looks wan and worn. He has been fretting
for his Simpleton. Oh, dear! I mustn't think of that--it makes me cry;
and you don't like scenes, do you?”

“Hate 'em!”

“Well, then,” said Rosa, coaxingly, “I'll tell you how to end them.
Marry your Simpleton to the only man who is fit to take care of her. Oh,
papa! think of his deep, deep affection for me, and pray don't snub
him if--by any chance--after dinner--he should HAPPEN to ask
you--something.”

“Oh, then it is possible that, by the merest chance, the gentleman you
have accidentally asked to dinner, may, by some strange fortuity,
be surprised into asking me a second time for something very much
resembling my daughter's hand--eh?”

Rosa colored high. “He might, you know. How can I tell what gentlemen
will say when the ladies have retired and they are left alone
with--with”--

“With the bottle. Ay, that's true; when the wine is in, the wit is out.”

Said Rosa, “Well, if he should happen to be so foolish, pray think of
ME; of all we owe him, and how much I love him, and ought to love him.”
 She then bestowed a propitiatory kiss, and ran off to dress for dinner;
it was a much longer operation to-day than usual.

Dr. Staines was punctual. Mr. Lusignan commented favorably on that.

“He always is,” said Rosa, eagerly.

They dined together. Mr. Lusignan chatted freely, but Staines and Rosa
were under a feeling of restraint, Staines in particular; he could not
help feeling that before long his fate must be settled. He would either
obtain Rosa's hand, or have to resign her to some man of fortune who
would step in; for beauty such as hers could not long lack brilliant
offers. Longing, though dreading, to know his fate, he was glad when
dinner ended.

Rosa sat with them a little while after dinner, then rose, bestowed
another propitiatory kiss on her father's head, and retired with a
modest blush, and a look at Christopher that was almost divine.

It inspired him with the courage of lions, and he commenced the attack
at once.




CHAPTER V.


“Mr. Lusignan,” said he, “the last time I was here you gave me some
hopes that you might be prevailed on to trust that angel's health and
happiness to my care.”

“Well, Dr. Staines, I will not beat about the bush with you. My judgment
is still against this marriage; you need not look so alarmed; it does
not follow I shall forbid it. I feel I have hardly a right to, for my
Rosa might be in her grave now but for you; and, another thing, when I
interfered between you two I had no proof you were a man of ability; I
had only your sweetheart's word for that; and I never knew a case before
where a young lady's swan did not turn out a goose. Your rare ability
gives you another chance in the professional battle that is before you;
indeed, it puts a different face on the whole matter. I still think it
premature. Come now, would it not be much wiser to wait, and secure
a good practice before you marry a mere child? There! there! I
only advise; I don't dictate; you shall settle it together, you two
wiseacres. Only I must make one positive condition. I have nothing to
give my child during my lifetime; but one thing I have done for her;
years ago I insured my life for six thousand pounds; and you must do the
same. I will not have her thrown on the world a widow, with a child or
two, perhaps, to support, and not a farthing; you know the insecurity of
mortal life.”

“I do! I do! Why, of course I will insure my life, and pay the annual
premium out of my little capital, until income flows in.”

“Will you hand me over a sum sufficient to pay that premium for five
years?”

“With pleasure.”

“Then I fear,” said the old gentleman, with a sigh, “my opposition to
the match must cease here. I still recommend you to wait; but--there! I
might just as well advise fire and tow to live neighbors and keep cool.”

To show the injustice of this simile, Christopher Staines started up
with his eyes all aglow, and cried out, rapturously, “Oh, sir, may I
tell her?”

“Yes, you may tell her,” said Lusignan, with a smile. “Stop--what are
you going to tell her?”

“That you consent, sir. God bless you! God bless you! Oh!”

“Yes, but that I advise you to wait.”

“I'll tell her all,” said Staines, and rushed out even as he spoke, and
upset a heavy chair with a loud thud.

“Ah! ah!” cried the old gentleman in dismay, and put his fingers in his
ears--too late. “I see,” said he, “there will be no peace and quiet
now till they are out of the house.” He lighted a soothing cigar to
counteract the fracas.

“Poor little Rosa! a child but yesterday, and now to encounter the cares
of a wife, and perhaps a mother. Ah! she is but young, but young.”

The old gentleman prophesied truly; from that moment he had no peace
till he withdrew all semblance of dissent, and even of procrastination.

Christopher insured his life for six thousand pounds, and assigned the
policy to his wife. Four hundred pounds was handed to Mr. Lusignan to
pay the premiums until the genius of Dr. Staines should have secured him
that large professional income, which does not come all at once, even to
the rare physician, who is Capax, Efficax, Sagax.

The wedding-day was named. The bridesmaids were selected, the guests
invited. None refused but Uncle Philip. He declined, in his fine
bold hand, to countenance in person an act of folly he disapproved.
Christopher put his letter away with a momentary sigh, and would not
show it Rosa. All other letters they read together, charming pastime
of that happy period. Presents poured in. Silver teapots, coffeepots,
sugar-basins, cream-jugs, fruit-dishes, silver-gilt inkstands, albums,
photograph-books, little candlesticks, choice little services of china,
shell salt-cellars in a case lined with maroon velvet; a Bible, superb
in binding and clasps, and everything but the text--that was illegible;
a silk scarf from Benares; a gold chain from Delhi, six feet long or
nearly; a Maltese necklace, a ditto in exquisite filagree from Genoa;
English brooches, a trifle too big and brainless; apostle spoons; a
treble-lined parasol with ivory stick and handle; an ivory card-case,
richly carved; workbox of sandal-wood and ivory, etc. Mr. Lusignan's
City friends, as usual with these gentlemen, sent the most valuable
things. Every day one or two packages were delivered, and, in opening
them, Rosa invariably uttered a peculiar scream of delight, and her
father put his fingers in his ears; yet there was music in this very
scream, if he would only have listened to it candidly, instead of fixing
his mind on his vague theory of screams--so formed was she to please the
ear as well as the eye.

At last came a parcel she opened and stared at, smiling and coloring
like a rose, but did not scream, being too dumfounded and perplexed;
for lo! a teapot of some base material, but simple and elegant in form,
being an exact reproduction of a melon; and inside this teapot a canvas
bag containing ten guineas in silver, and a wash-leather bag containing
twenty guineas in gold, and a slip of paper, which Rosa, being now half
recovered from her stupefaction, read out to her father and Dr. Staines:


“People that buy presents blindfold give duplicates and triplicates;
and men seldom choose to a woman's taste; so be pleased to accept the
enclosed tea-leaves, and buy for yourself. The teapot you can put on the
hob, for it is nickel.”


Rosa looked sore puzzled again. “Papa,” said she, timidly, “have we any
friend that is--a little--deranged?”

“A lot.”

“Oh, then, that accounts.”

“Why no, love,” said Christopher. “I have heard of much learning making
a man mad, but never of much good sense.”

“What! Do you call this sensible?”

“Don't you?”

“I'll read it again,” said Rosa. “Well--yes--I declare--it is not so mad
as I thought; but it is very eccentric.”

Lusignan suggested there was nothing so eccentric as common sense,
especially in time of wedding. “This,” said he, “comes from the City. It
is a friend of mine, some old fox; he is throwing dust in your eyes with
his reasons; his real reason was that his time is money; it would have
cost the old rogue a hundred pounds' worth of time--you know the City,
Christopher--to go out and choose the girl a present; so he has sent his
clerk out with a check to buy a pewter teapot, and fill it with specie.”

“Pewter!” cried Rosa. “No such thing! It's nickel. What is nickel, I
wonder?”

The handwriting afforded no clew, so there the discussion ended: but it
was a nice little mystery, and very convenient; made conversation. Rosa
had many an animated discussion about it with her female friends.

The wedding-day came at last. The sun shone--ACTUALLY, as Rosa observed.
The carriages drove up. The bridesmaids, principally old schoolfellows
and impassioned correspondents of Rosa, were pretty, and dressed alike
and delightfully; but the bride was peerless; her Southern beauty
literally shone in that white satin dress and veil, and her head was
regal with the Crown of orange-blossoms. Another crown she had--true
virgin modesty. A low murmur burst from the men the moment they saw her;
the old women forgave her beauty on the spot, and the young women almost
pardoned it; she was so sweet and womanly, and so sisterly to her own
sex.

When they started for the church she began to tremble, she scarce knew
why; and when the solemn words were said, and the ring was put on
her finger, she cried a little, and looked half imploringly at her
bridesmaids once, as if seared at leaving them for an untried and
mysterious life with no woman near.

They were married. Then came the breakfast, that hour of uneasiness and
blushing to such a bride as this; but at last she was released. She sped
up-stairs, thanking goodness it was over. Down came her last box. The
bride followed in a plain travelling dress, which her glorious eyes and
brows and her rich glowing cheeks seemed to illumine: she was handed
into the carriage, the bridegroom followed. All the young guests
clustered about the door, armed with white shoes--slippers are gone by.

They started; the ladies flung their white shoes right and left with
religious impartiality, except that not one of their missiles went at
the object. The men, more skilful, sent a shower on to the roof of
the carriage, which is the lucky spot. The bride kissed her hand, and
managed to put off crying, though it cost her a struggle. The party
hurrahed; enthusiastic youths gathered fallen shoes, and ran and hurled
them again with cheerful yells, and away went the happy pair, the
bride leaning sweetly and confidingly with both her white hands on the
bridegroom's shoulder, while he dried the tears that would run now at
leaving home and parent forever, and kissed her often, and encircled her
with his strong arm, and murmured comfort, and love, and pride, and joy,
and sweet vows of lifelong tenderness into her ears, that soon stole
nearer his lips to hear, and the fair cheek grew softly to his shoulder.




CHAPTER VI.


Dr. Staines and Mrs. Staines visited France, Switzerland, and the Rhine,
and passed a month of Elysium before they came to London to face their
real destiny and fight the battle of life.

And here, methinks, a reader of novels may perhaps cry out and say,
“What manner of man is this, who marries his hero and heroine, and then,
instead of leaving them happy for life, and at rest from his uneasy pen
and all their other troubles, flows coolly on with their adventures?”

To this I can only reply that the old English novel is no rule to me,
and life is; and I respectfully propose an experiment. Catch eight old
married people, four of each sex, and say unto them, “Sir,” or “Madam,
did the more remarkable events of your life come to you before marriage
or after?” Most of them will say “after,” and let that be my excuse for
treating the marriage of Christopher Staines and Rosa Lusignan as merely
one incident in their lives; an incident which, so far from ending their
story, led by degrees to more striking events than any that occurred to
them before they were man and wife.

They returned, then, from their honey tour, and Staines, who was
methodical and kept a diary, made the following entry therein:--

“We have now a life of endurance, and self-denial, and economy, before
us; we have to rent a house, and furnish it, and live in it, until
professional income shall flow in and make all things easy: and we have
two thousand five hundred pounds left to do it with.”

They came to a family hotel, and Dr. Staines went out directly after
breakfast to look for a house. Acting on a friend's advice, he visited
the streets and places north of Oxford Street, looking for a good
commodious house adapted to his business. He found three or four at fair
rents, neither cheap nor dear, the district being respectable and rather
wealthy, but no longer fashionable. He came home with his notes, and
found Rosa beaming in a crisp peignoir, and her lovely head its natural
size and shape, high-bred and elegant. He sat down, and with her hand
in his proceeded to describe the houses to her, when a waiter threw open
the door--“Mrs. John Cole.”

“Florence!” cried Rosa, starting up.

In flowed Florence: they both uttered a little squawk of delight,
and went at each other like two little tigresses, and kissed in swift
alternation with a singular ardor, drawing their crests back like
snakes, and then darting them forward and inflicting what, to the male
philosopher looking on, seemed hard kisses, violent kisses, rather than
the tender ones to be expected from two tender creatures embracing each
other.

“Darling,” said Rosa, “I knew you would be the first. Didn't I tell you
so, Christopher?--My husband--my darling Florry! Sit down, love, and
tell me everything; he has just been looking out for a house. Ah!
you have got all that over long ago: she has been married six months.
Florry, you are handsomer than ever; and what a beautiful dress! Ah!
London is the place. Real Brussels, I declare,” and she took hold of her
friend's lace and gloated on it.

Christopher smiled good-naturedly, and said, “I dare say you ladies have
a good deal to say to each other.”

“Oceans,” said Rosa.

“I will go and hunt houses again.”

“There's a good husband,” said Mrs. Cole, as soon as the door closed
on him, “and such a fine man! Why, he must be six feet. Mine is rather
short. But he is very good; refuses me nothing. My will is law.”

“That is all right--you are so sensible; but I want governing a little,
and I like it--actually. Did the dressmaker find it, dear?”

“Oh, no! I had it by me. I bought it at Brussels on our wedding tour: it
is dearer there than in London.”

She said this as if “dearer” and “better” were synonymous.

“But about your house, Rosie dear?”

“Yes, darling, I'll tell you all about it. I never saw a moire
this shade before. I don't care for them in general; but this is so
distingue.”

Florence rewarded her with a kiss.

“The house,” said Rosa. “Oh, he has seen one in Portman Street, and one
in Gloucester Place.”

“Oh, that will never do,” cried Mrs. Cole. “It is no use being a
physician in those out-of-the-way places. He must be in Mayfair.”

“Must he?”

“Of course. Besides, then my Johnnie can call him in when they are just
going to die. Johnnie is a general prac., and makes two thousand a year;
and he shall call your one in; but he must live in Mayfair. Why, Rosie,
you would not be such a goose as to live in those places--they are quite
gone by.”

“I shall do whatever you advise me, dear. Oh, what a comfort to have a
dear friend: and six months married, and knows things. How richly it is
trimmed! Why, it is nearly all trimmings.”

“That is the fashion.”

“Oh!”

And after that big word there was no more to be said.

These two ladies in their conversation gravitated towards dress, and
fell flat on it every half-minute. That great and elevating topic held
them by a silken cord, but it allowed them to flutter upwards into other
topics; and in those intervals, numerous though brief, the lady who had
been married six months found time to instruct the matrimonial novice
with great authority, and even a shade of pomposity. “My dear, the way
ladies and gentlemen get a house--in the first place, you don't go about
yourself like that, and you never go to the people themselves, or you
are sure to be taken in, but to a respectable house-agent.”

“Yes, dear, that must be the best way, one would think.”

“Of course it is; and you ask for a house in Mayfair, and he shows you
several, and recommends you the best, and sees you are not cheated.”

“Thank you, love,” said Rosa; “now I know what to do; I'll not forget a
word. And the train so beautifully shaped! Ah! it is only in London or
Paris they can make a dress flow behind like that,” etc., etc.

Dr. Staines came back to dinner in good spirits; he had found a house in
Harewood Square; good entrance hall, where his gratuitous patients might
sit on benches; good dining-room where his superior patients might wait;
and good library, to be used as a consulting-room. Rent only eighty-five
pounds per annum.

But Rosa told him that would never do; a physician must be in the
fashionable part of the town.

“Eventually,” said Christopher; “but surely at first starting--and you
know they say little boats should not go too far from shore.”

Then Rosa repeated all her friend's arguments, and seemed so unhappy at
the idea of not living near her, that Staines, who had not yet said
the hard word “no” to her, gave in; consoling his prudence with the
reflection that, after all, Mr. Cole could put many a guinea in his
way, for Mr. Cole was middle-aged,--though his wife was young,--and had
really a very large practice.

So next day, the newly-wedded pair called on a house-agent in Mayfair,
and his son and partner went with them to several places. The rents of
houses equal to that in Harewood Square were three hundred pounds a year
at least, and a premium to boot.

Christopher told him these were quite beyond the mark. “Very well,” said
the agent. “Then I'll show you a Bijou.”

Rosa clapped her hands. “That is the thing for us. We don't want a large
house, only a beautiful one, and in Mayfair.”

“Then the Bijou will be sure to suit you.”

He took them to the Bijou.

The Bijou had a small dining-room with one very large window in two
sheets of plate glass, and a projecting balcony full of flowers; a still
smaller library, which opened on a square yard enclosed. Here were a
great many pots, with flowers dead or dying from neglect. On the first
floor a fair-sized drawing-room, and a tiny one at the back: on the
second floor, one good bedroom, and a dressing-room, or little bedroom:
three garrets above.

Rosa was in ecstasies. “It is a nest,” said she.

“It is a bank-note,” said the agent, stimulating equal enthusiasm, after
his fashion. “You can always sell the lease again for more money.”

Christopher kept cool. “I don't want a house to sell, but to live in,
and do my business; I am a physician: now the drawing-room is built over
the entrance to a mews; the back rooms all look into a mews: we shall
have the eternal noise and smell of a mews. My wife's rest will be
broken by the carriages rolling in and out. The hall is fearfully small
and stuffy. The rent is abominably high; and what is the premium for, I
wonder?”

“Always a premium in Mayfair, sir. A lease is property here: the
gentleman is not acquainted with this part, madam.”

“Oh, yes, he is,” said Rosa, as boldly as a six years' wife: “he knows
everything.”

“Then he knows that a house of this kind at a hundred and thirty pounds
a year in Mayfair is a bank-note.”

Staines turned to Rosa. “The poor patients, where am I to receive them?”

“In the stable,” suggested the house agent.

“Oh!” said Rosa, shocked.

“Well, then, the coach-house. Why, there's plenty of room for a
brougham, and one horse, and fifty poor patients at a time: beggars
musn't be choosers; if you give them physic gratis, that is enough: you
ain't bound to find 'em a palace to sit down in, and hot coffee and rump
steaks all round, doctor.”

This tickled Rosa so that she burst out laughing, and thenceforward
giggled at intervals, wit of this refined nature having all the charm of
novelty for her.

They inspected the stables, which were indeed the one redeeming feature
in the horrid little Bijou; and then the agent would show them the
kitchen, and the new stove. He expatiated on this to Mrs. Staines. “Cook
a dinner for thirty people, madam.”

“And there's room for them to eat it--in the road,” said Staines.

The agent reminded him there were larger places to be had, by a very
simple process, viz., paying for them.

Staines thought of the large, comfortable house in Harewood Square. “One
hundred and thirty pounds a year for this poky little hole?” he groaned.

“Why, it is nothing at all for a Bijou.”

“But it is too much for a bandbox.”

Rosa laid her hand on his arm, with an imploring glance.

“Well,” said he, “I'll submit to the rent, but I really cannot give the
premium, it is too ridiculous. He ought to bribe me to rent it, not I
him.”

“Can't be done without, sir.”

“Well, I'll give a hundred pounds and no more.”

“Impossible, sir.”

“Then good morning. Now, dearest, just come and see the house at
Harewood Square,--eighty-five pounds and no premium.”

“Will you oblige me with your address, doctor?” said the agent.

“Dr. Staines, Morley's Hotel.”

And so they left Mayfair.

Rosa sighed and said, “Oh, the nice little place; and we have lost it
for two hundred pounds.”

“Two hundred pounds is a great deal for us to throw away.”

“Being near the Coles would soon have made that up to you: and such a
cosey little nest.”

“Well the house will not run away.”

“But somebody is sure to snap it up. It is a Bijou.” She was
disappointed, and half inclined to pout. But she vented her feelings
in a letter to her beloved Florry, and appeared at dinner as sweet as
usual.

During dinner a note came from the agent, accepting Dr. Staine's offer.
He glozed the matter thus: he had persuaded the owner it was better
to take a good tenant at a moderate loss, than to let the Bijou be
uninhabited during the present rainy season. An assignment of
the lease--which contained the usual covenants--would be prepared
immediately, and Dr. Staines could have possession in forty-eight hours,
by paying the premium.

Rosa was delighted, and as soon as dinner was over, and the waiters
gone, she came and kissed Christopher.

He smiled, and said, “Well, you are pleased; that is the principal
thing. I have saved two hundred pounds, and that is something. It will
go towards furnishing.”

“La! yes,” said Rosa, “I forgot. We shall have to get furniture now.
How nice!” It was a pleasure the man of forecast could have willingly
dispensed with; but he smiled at her, and they discussed furniture,
and Christopher, whose retentive memory had picked up a little of
everything, said there were wholesale upholsterers in the City who sold
cheaper than the West-end houses, and he thought the best way was to
measure the rooms in the Bijou, and go to the city with a clear idea of
what they wanted; ask the prices of various necessary articles, and
then make a list, and demand a discount of fifteen per cent on the whole
order, being so considerable, and paid for in cash.

Rosa acquiesced, and told Christopher he was the cleverest man in
England.

About nine o'clock Mrs. Cole came in to condole with her friend, and
heard the good news. When Rosa told her how they thought of furnishing,
she said, “Oh no, you must not do that; you will pay double for
everything. That is the mistake Johnnie and I made; and after that
a friend of mine took me to the auction-rooms, and I saw everything
sold--oh, such bargains; half, and less than half, their value. She
has furnished her house almost entirely from sales, and she has the
loveliest things in the world--such ducks of tables, and jardinieres,
and things; and beautiful rare china--her house swarms with it--for an
old song. A sale is the place. And then so amusing.”

“Yes, but,” said Christopher, “I should not like my wife to encounter a
public room.”

“Not alone, of course; but with me. La! Dr. Staines, they are too full
of buying and selling to trouble their heads about us.”

“Oh, Christopher, do let me go with her. Am I always to be a child?”

Thus appealed to before a stranger, Staines replied warmly, “No,
dearest, no; you cannot please me better than by beginning life in
earnest. If you two ladies together can face an auction-room, go by all
means; only I must ask you not to buy china or ormulu, or anything that
will break or spoil, but only solid, good furniture.”

“Won't you come with us?”

“No; or you might feel yourself in leading-strings. Remember the Bijou
is a small house; choose your furniture to fit it, and then we shall
save something by its being so small.”

This was Wednesday. There was a weekly sale in Oxford Street on Fridays;
and the ladies made the appointment accordingly.

Next day, after breakfast, Christopher was silent and thoughtful awhile,
and at last said to Rosa, “I'll show you I don't look on you as a child;
I'll consult you in a delicate matter.”

Rosa's eyes sparkled.

“It is about my Uncle Philip. He has been very cruel; he has wounded
me deeply; he has wounded me through my wife. I never thought he would
refuse to come to our marriage.”

“And did he? You never showed me his letter.”

“You were not my wife then. I kept an affront from you; but now, you
see, I keep nothing.”

“Dear Christie!”

“I am so happy, I have got over that sting--almost; and the memory of
many kind acts comes back to me; and I don't know what to do. It seems
ungrateful not to visit him--it seems almost mean to call.”

“I'll tell you; take me to see him directly. He won't hate us forever,
if he sees us often. We may as well begin at once. Nobody hates me
long.”

Christopher was proud of his wife's courage and wisdom. He kissed
her, begged her to put on the plainest dress she could, and they went
together to call on Uncle Philip.

When they got to his house in Gloucester Place, Portman Square, Rosa's
heart began to quake, and she was right glad when the servant said “Not
at home.”

They left their cards and address; and she persuaded Christopher to take
her to the sale-room to see the things.

A lot of brokers were there, like vultures; and one after another
stepped forward and pestered them to employ him in the morning. Dr.
Staines declined their services civilly but firmly, and he and Rosa
looked over a quantity of furniture, and settled what sort of things to
buy.

Another broker came up, and whenever the couple stopped before an
article, proceeded to praise it as something most extraordinary. Staines
listened in cold, satirical silence, and told his wife, in French, to do
the same. Notwithstanding their marked disgust, the impudent, intrusive
fellow stuck to them, and forced his venal criticism on them, and made
them uncomfortable, and shortened their tour of observation.

“I think I shall come with you to-morrow,” said Christopher, “or I shall
have these blackguards pestering you.”

“Oh, Florry will send them to the right-about. She is as brave as a
lion.”

Next day Dr. Staines was sent for into the City at twelve to pay the
money and receive the lease of the Bijou, and this and the taking
possession occupied him till four o'clock, when he came to his hotel.

Meantime, his wife and Mrs. Cole had gone to the auction-room.

It was a large room, with a good sprinkling of people, but not crowded
except about the table. At the head of this table--full twenty feet
long--was the auctioneer's pulpit, and the lots were brought in turn to
the other end of the table for sight and sale.

“We must try and get a seat,” said the enterprising Mrs. Cole, and
pushed boldly in; the timid Rosa followed strictly in her wake, and so
evaded the human waves her leader clove. They were importuned at every
step by brokers thrusting catalogues on them, with offers of their
services, yet they soon got to the table. A gentleman resigned one
chair, a broker another, and they were seated.

Mrs. Staines let down half her veil, but Mrs. Cole surveyed the company
point-blank.

The broker who had given up his seat, and now stood behind Rosa, offered
her his catalogue. “No, thank you,” said Rosa; “I have one;” and she
produced it, and studied it, yet managed to look furtively at the
company.

There were not above a dozen private persons visible from where
Rosa sat; perhaps as many more in the whole room. They were easily
distinguishable by their cleanly appearance: the dealers, male or
female, were more or less rusty, greasy, dirty, aquiline. Not even the
amateurs were brightly dressed; that fundamental error was confined to
Mesdames Cole and Staines. The experienced, however wealthy, do not hunt
bargains in silk and satin.

The auctioneer called “Lot 7. Four saucepans, two trays, a kettle, a
bootjack, and a towel-horse.”

These were put up at two shillings, and speedily knocked down for five
to a fat old woman in a greasy velvet jacket; blind industry had sewed
bugles on it, not artfully, but agriculturally.

“The lady on the left!” said the auctioneer to his clerk. That meant
“Get the money.”

The old lady plunged a huge paw into a huge pocket, and pulled out a
huge handful of coin--copper, silver, and gold--and paid for the lot;
and Rosa surveyed her dirty hands and nails with innocent dismay. “Oh,
what a dreadful creature!” she whispered; “and what can she want with
those old rubbishy things? I saw a hole in one from here.” The broker
overheard, and said, “She is a dealer, ma'am, and the things were given
away. She'll sell them for a guinea, easy.”

“Didn't I tell you?” said Mrs. Cole.

Soon after this the superior lots came on, and six very neat bedroom
chairs were sold to all appearance for fifteen shillings.

The next lot was identical, and Rosa hazarded a bid,--“Sixteen
shillings.”

Instantly some dealer, one of the hook-nosed that gathered round each
lot as it came to the foot of the table, cried “Eighteen shillings.”

“Nineteen,” said Rosa.

“A guinea,” said the dealer.

“Don't let it go,” said the broker behind her. “Don't let it go, ma'am.”

She colored at the intrusion, and left off bidding directly, and
addressed herself to Mrs. Cole. “Why should I give so much, when the
last were sold for fifteen shillings?”

The real reason was that the first lot was not bid for at all, except by
the proprietor. However, the broker gave her a very different solution;
he said, “The trade always run up a lady or a gentleman. Let me bid for
you; they won't run me up; they know better.”

Rosa did not reply, but looked at Mrs. Cole.

“Yes, dear,” said that lady; “you had much better let him bid for you.”

“Very well,” said Rosa; “you can bid for this chest of drawers--lot 25.”

When lot 25 came on, the broker bid in the silliest possible way, if
his object had been to get a bargain. He began to bid early and
ostentatiously; the article was protected by somebody or other there
present, who now of course saw his way clear; he ran it up audaciously,
and it was purchased for Rosa at about the price it could have been
bought for at a shop.

The next thing she wanted was a set of oak chairs.

They went up to twenty-eight pounds; then she said, “I shall give no
more, sir.”

“Better not lose them,” said the agent; “they are a great bargain;” and
bid another pound for her on his own responsibility.

They were still run up, and Rosa peremptorily refused to give any more.
She lost them, accordingly, by good luck. Her faithful broker looked
blank; so did the proprietor.

But, as the sale proceeded, she being young, the competition, though
most of it sham, being artful and exciting, and the traitor she employed
constantly puffing every article, she was drawn in to wishing for
things, and bidding by her feelings.

Then her traitor played a game that has been played a hundred times, and
the perpetrators never once lynched, as they ought to be, on the spot.
He signalled a confederate with a hooked nose; the Jew rascal bid
against the Christian scoundrel, and so they ran up the more enticing
things to twice their value under the hammer.

Rosa got flushed, and her eye gleamed like a gambler's, and she bought
away like wildfire. In which sport she caught sight of an old gentleman,
with little black eyes that kept twinkling at her.

She complained of these eyes to Mrs. Cole. “Why does he twinkle so? I
can see it is at me. I am doing something foolish--I know I am.”

Mrs. Cole turned, and fixed a haughty stare on the old gentleman. Would
you believe it? instead of sinking through the floor, he sat his ground,
and retorted with a cold, clear grin.

But now, whenever Rosa's agent bid for her, and the other man of straw
against him, the black eyes twinkled, and Rosa's courage began to ooze
away. At last she said, “That is enough for one day. I shall go. Who
could bear those eyes?”

The broker took her address; so did the auctioneer's clerk. The
auctioneer asked her for no deposit; her beautiful, innocent, and
high-bred face was enough for a man who was always reading faces, and
interpreting them.

And so they retired.

But this charming sex is like that same auctioneer's hammer, it cannot
go abruptly. It is always going--going--going--a long time before it is
gone. I think it would perhaps loiter at the door of a jail, with the
order of release in its hand, after six years' confinement. Getting up
to go quenches in it the desire to go. So these ladies having got up to
go, turned and lingered, and hung fire so long, that at last another set
of oak chairs came up. “Oh! I must see what these go for,” said Rosa, at
the door.

The bidding was mighty languid now Rosa's broker was not stimulating
it; and the auctioneer was just knocking down twelve chairs--oak and
leather--and two arm-chairs, for twenty pounds, when, casting his eyes
around, he caught sight of Rosa looking at him rather excited. He looked
inquiringly at her. She nodded slightly; he knocked them down to her at
twenty guineas, and they were really a great bargain.

“Twenty-two,” cried the dealer.

“Too late,” said the auctioneer.

“I spoke with the hammer, sir.”

“After the hammer, Isaacs.”

“Shelp me God, we was together.”

One or two more of his tribe confirmed this pious falsehood, and
clamored to have them put up again.

“Call the next lot,” said the auctioneer, peremptorily. “Make up your
mind a little quicker next time, Mr. Isaacs; you have been long enough
at it to know the value of oak and moroccar.”

Mrs. Staines and her friend now started for Morley's Hotel, but went
round by Regent Street, whereby they got glued at Peter Robinson's
window, and nine other windows; and it was nearly five o'clock when they
reached Morley's. As they came near the door of their sitting-room, Mrs.
Staines heard somebody laughing and talking to her husband. The
laugh, to her subtle ears, did not sound musical and genial, but keen,
satirical, unpleasant; so it was with some timidity she opened the door,
and there sat the old chap with the twinkling eyes. Both parties stared
at each other a moment.

“Why, it is them,” cried the old gentleman. “Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!”

Rosa colored all over, and felt guilty somehow, and looked miserable.

“Rosa dear,” said Dr. Staines, “this is our Uncle Philip.”

“Oh!” said Rosa, and turned red and pale by turns; for she had a great
desire to propitiate Uncle Philip.

“You were in the auction-room, sir?” said Mrs. Cole, severely.

“I was, madam. He! he!”

“Furnishing a house?”

“No, ma'am. I go to a dozen sales a week; but it is not to buy--I enjoy
the humors. Did you ever hear of Robert Burton, ma'am?”

“No. Yes; a great traveller, isn't he? Discovered the Nile--or the
Niger--or SOMETHING?”

This majestic vagueness staggered old Crusty at first, but he recovered
his equilibrium, and said, “Why, yes, now I think of it, you are right;
he has travelled farther than most of us, for about two centuries ago
he visited that bourn whence no traveller returns. Well, when he was
alive--he was a student of Christchurch--he used to go down to a certain
bridge over the Isis and enjoy the chaff of the bargemen. Now there are
no bargemen left to speak of; the mantle of Bobby Burton's bargees has
fallen on the Jews and demi-semi-Christians that buy and sell furniture
at the weekly auctions; thither I repair to hear what little coarse wit
is left us. Used to go to the House of Commons; but they are getting too
civil by half for my money. Besides, characters come out in an auction.
For instance, only this very day I saw two ladies enter, in gorgeous
attire, like heifers decked for sacrifice, and reduce their spoliation
to a certainty by employing a broker to bid. Now, what is a broker?
A fellow who is to be paid a shilling in the pound for all articles
purchased. What is his interest, then? To buy cheap? Clearly not. He is
paid in proportion to the dearness of the article.”

Rosa's face began to work piteously.

“Accordingly, what did the broker in question do? He winked to another
broker, and these two bid against one another, over their victim's head,
and ran everything she wanted up at least a hundred per cent above the
value. So open and transparent a swindle I have seldom seen, even in an
auction-room. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!”

His mirth was interrupted by Rosa going to her husband, hiding her head
on his shoulder, and meekly crying.

Christopher comforted her like a man. “Don't you cry, darling,” said he;
“how should a pure creature like you know the badness of the world all
in a moment? If it is my wife you are laughing at, Uncle Philip, let me
tell you this is the wrong place. I'd rather a thousand times have her
as she is, than armed with the cunning and suspicions of a hardened old
worldling like you.”

“With all my heart,” said Uncle Philip, who, to do him justice, could
take blows as well as give them; “but why employ a broker? Why pay a
scoundrel five per cent to make you pay a hundred per cent? Why pay a
noisy fool a farthing to open his mouth for you when you have taken the
trouble to be there yourself, and have got a mouth of your own to bid
discreetly with? Was ever such an absurdity?” He began to get angry.

“Do you want to quarrel with me, Uncle Philip?” said Christopher, firing
up; “because sneering at my Rosa is the way, and the only way, and the
sure way.”

“Oh, no,” said Rosa, interposing. “Uncle Philip was right. I am very
foolish and inexperienced, but I am not so vain as to turn from good
advice. I will never employ a broker again, sir.”

Uncle Philip smiled and looked pleased.

Mrs. Cole caused a diversion by taking leave, and Rosa followed her
down-stairs. On her return she found Christopher telling his uncle all
about the Bijou, and how he had taken it for a hundred and thirty pounds
a year and a hundred pounds premium, and Uncle Philip staring fearfully.

At last he found his tongue. “The Bijou!” said he. “Why, that is a name
they gave to a little den in Dear Street, Mayfair. You haven't ever been
and taken THAT! Built over a mews.”

Christopher groaned. “That is the place, I fear.”

“Why the owner is a friend of mine; an old patient. Stables stunk him
out. Let it to a man; I forget his name. Stables stunk HIM out. He said,
'I shall go.' 'You can't,' said my friend; 'you have taken a lease.'
'Lease be d--d,' said the other; 'I never took YOUR house; here's quite
a large stench not specified in your description of the property--IT
CAN'T BE THE SAME PLACE;' flung the lease at his head, and cut like the
wind to foreign parts less odoriferous. I'd have got you the hole for
ninety; but you are like your wife--you must go to an agent. What! don't
you know that an agent is a man acting for you with an interest opposed
to yours? Employing an agent! it is like a Trojan seeking the aid of
a Greek. You needn't cry, Mrs. Staines; your husband has been let in
deeper than you have. Now, you are young people beginning life; I'll
give you a piece of advice. Employ others to do what you can't do,
and it must be done; but never to do anything you can do better for
yourselves! Agent! The word is derived from a Latin word 'agere,' to
do; and agents act up to their etymology, for they invariably DO the
nincompoop that employs them, or deals with them, in any mortal way. I'd
have got you that beastly little Bijou for ninety pounds a year.”

Uncle Philip went away crusty, leaving the young couple finely mortified
and discouraged.

That did not last very long. Christopher noted the experience and Uncle
Phil's wisdom in his diary, and then took his wife on his knee, and
comforted her, and said, “Never mind; experience is worth money, and
it always has to be bought. Those who cheat us will die poorer than we
shall, if we are honest and economical. I have observed that people are
seldom ruined by the vices of others; these may hurt them, of course;
but it is only their own faults and follies that can destroy them.”

“Ah! Christie,” said Rosa, “you are a man! Oh, the comfort of being
married to A MAN. A man sees the best side. I do adore men. Dearest, I
will waste no more of your money. I will go to no more sales.”

Christopher saw she was deeply mortified, and he said, quietly, “On the
contrary, you will go to the very next. Only take Uncle Philip's advice,
employ no broker; and watch the prices things fetch when you are not
bidding; and keep cool.”

She caressed his ears with both her white hands, and thanked him for
giving her another trial. So that trouble melted in the sunshine of
conjugal love.

Notwithstanding the agent's solemn assurance, the Bijou was out of
repair. Dr. Staines detected internal odors, as well as those that
flowed in from the mews. He was not the man to let his wife perish by
miasma; so he had the drains all up, and actually found brick drains,
and a cesspool. He stopped that up, and laid down new pipe drains, with
a good fall, and properly trapped. The old drains were hidden, after
the manner of builders. He had the whole course of his new drains marked
upon all the floors they passed under, and had several stones and boards
hinged to facilitate examination at any period.

But all this, with the necessary cleaning, whitewashing, painting, and
papering, ran away with money. Then came Rosa's purchases, which, to her
amazement, amounted to one hundred and ninety pounds, and not a carpet,
curtain, or bed amongst the lot. Then there was the carriage home from
the auction-room, an expense one avoids by buying at a shop, and
the broker claimed his shilling in the pound. This, however, Staines
refused. The man came and blustered. Rosa, who was there, trembled.
Then, for the first time, she saw her husband's brow lower; he seemed
transfigured, and looked terrible. “You scoundrel,” said he, “you set
another villain like yourself to bid against you, and you betrayed the
innocent lady that employed you. I could indict you and your confederate
for a conspiracy. I take the goods out of respect for my wife's credit,
but you shall gain nothing by swindling her. Be off, you heartless
miscreant, or I'll”--

“I'll take the law, if you do.”

“Take it, then! I'll give you something to howl for;” and he seized him
with a grasp so tremendous that the fellow cried out in dismay, “Oh!
don't hit me, sir; pray don't.”

On this abject appeal, Staines tore the door open with his left hand,
and spun the broker out into the passage with his right. Two movements
of this angry Hercules, and the man was literally whirled out of sight
with a rapidity and swiftness almost ludicrous; it was like a trick in
a pantomime. A clatter on the stairs betrayed that he had gone down the
first few steps in a wholesale and irregular manner, though he had just
managed to keep his feet.

As for Staines, he stood there still lowering like thunder, and his
eyes like hot coals; but his wife threw her tender arms around him, and
begged him consolingly not to mind.

She was trembling like an aspen.

“Dear me,” said Christopher, with a ludicrous change to marked
politeness and respect, “I forgot YOU, in my righteous indignation.”
 Next he became uxorious. “Did they frighten her, a duck? Sit on my
knee, darling, and pull my hair, for not being more considerate--there!
there!”

This was followed by the whole absurd soothing process, as practised by
manly husbands upon quivering and somewhat hysterical wives, and ended
with a formal apology. “You must not think that I am passionate; on the
contrary, I am always practising self-government. My maxim is, Animum
rege qui nisi paret imperat, and that means, Make your temper your
servant, or else it will be your master. But to ill-use my dear little
wife--it is unnatural, it is monstrous, it makes my blood boil.”

“Oh, dear! don't go into another. It is all over. I can't bear to see
you in a passion; you are so terrible, so beautiful. Ah! they are fine
things, courage and strength. There's nothing I admire so much.”

“Why, they are as common as dirt. What I admire is modesty, timidity,
sweetness; the sensitive cheek that pales or blushes at a word, the
bosom that quivers, and clings to a fellow whenever anything goes
wrong.”

“Oh, that is what you admire, is it?” said Rosa dryly.

“Admire it?” said Christopher, not seeing the trap; “I adore it.”

“Then, Christie, dear, you are a Simpleton, that is all. And we are made
for one another.”

The house was to be furnished and occupied as soon as possible; so Mrs.
Staines and Mrs. Cole went to another sale-room. Mrs. Staines remembered
all Uncle Philip had said, and went plainly dressed; but her friend
declined to sacrifice her showy dress to her friend's interests. Rosa
thought that a little unkind, but said nothing.

In this auction-room they easily got a place at the table, but did not
find it heaven; for a number of secondhand carpets were in the sale,
and these, brimful of dust, were all shown on the table, and the dirt
choked, and poisoned our fair friends. Brokers pestered them, until at
last Rosa, smarting under her late exposure, addressed the auctioneer
quietly, in her silvery tones: “Sir, these gentlemen are annoying me by
forcing their services on me. I do not intend to buy at all unless I can
be allowed to bid for myself.”

When Rosa, blushing and amazed at her own boldness, uttered these words,
she little foresaw their effect. She had touched a popular sore.

“You are quite right, madam,” said a respectable tradesman opposite her.
“What business have these dirty fellows, without a shilling in their
pockets, to go and force themselves on a lady against her will?”

“It has been complained of in the papers again and again,” said another.

“What! mayn't we live as well as you?” retorted a broker.

“Yes, but not to force yourself on a lady. Why, she'd give you in charge
of the police if you tried it on outside.”

Then there was a downright clamor of discussion and chaff.

Presently up rises very slowly a countryman so colossal, that it seemed
as if he would never have done getting up, and gives his experiences. He
informed the company, in a broad Yorkshire dialect, that he did a bit
in furniture, and at first starting these brokers buzzed about him like
flies, and pestered him. “Aah damned 'em pretty hard,” said he, “but
they didn't heed any. So then ah spoke 'em civil, and ah said, 'Well,
lads, I dinna come fra Yorkshire to sit like a dummy and let you buy
wi' my brass; the first that pesters me again ah'll just fell him on
t' plaace, like a caulf, and ah'm not very sure he'll get up again in a
hurry.' So they dropped me like a hot potato; never pestered me again.
But if they won't give over pestering you, mistress, ah'll come round
and just stand behind your chair, and bring nieve with me,” showing a
fist like a leg of mutton.

“No, no,” said the auctioneer, “that will not do. I will have no
disturbance here. Call the policeman.”

While the clerk went to the door for the bobby, a gentleman reminded
the auctioneer that the journals had repeatedly drawn attention to the
nuisance.

“Fault of the public, not mine, sir. Policeman, stand behind that lady's
chair, and if anybody annoys her put him quietly into the street.”

“This auction-room will be to let soon,” said a voice at the end of the
table.

“This auction-room,” said the auctioneer, master of the gay or grave at
a moment's notice, “is supported by the public and the trade; it is not
supported by paupers.”

A Jew upholsterer put in his word. “I do my own business; but I like to
let a poor man live.”

“Jonathan,” said the auctioneer to one of his servants, “after this sale
you may put up the shutters; we have gone and offended Mr. Jacobs. He
keeps a shop in Blind Alley, Whitechapel. Now then, lot 69.”

Rosa bid timidly for one or two lots, and bought them cheap.

The auctioneer kept looking her way, and she had only to nod.

The obnoxious broker got opposite her, and ran her up a little out of
spite; but as he had only got half a crown about him, and no means of
doubling it, he dared not go far.

On the other side of the table was a figure to which Rosa's eyes often
turned with interest--a fair young boy about twelve years old; he had
golden hair, and was in deep mourning. His appearance interested Rosa,
and she wondered how he came there, and why; he looked like a lamb
wedged in among wolves, a flower among weeds. As the lots proceeded, the
boy seemed to get uneasy; and at last, when lot '73 was put up, anybody
could see in his poor little face that he was there to bid for it.

“Lot '73, an armchair covered in morocco. An excellent and useful
article. Should not be at all surprised if it was made by Gillow.”

“Gillow would though,” said Jacobs, who owed him a turn.

Chorus of dealers.--“Haw! haw!”

The auctioneer.--“I like to hear some people run a lot down; shows they
are going to bid for it in earnest. Well, name your own price. Five
pounds to begin?”

Now if nobody had spoken the auctioneer would have gone on, “Well, four
pounds then--three, two, whatever you like,” and at last obtained a bona
fide offer of thirty shillings; but the moment he said “Five pounds to
begin,” the boy in black lifted up his childish treble and bid thus,
“Five pound ten”--“six pounds”--“six pound ten”--“seven pounds”--“seven
pound ten”--“eight pounds”--“eight pound ten”--“nine pounds”--“nine
pound ten”--“ten pounds!” without interruption, and indeed almost in a
breath.

There was a momentary pause of amazement, and then an outburst of chaff.

“Nice little boy!”

“Didn't he say his lesson well?”

“Favor us with your card, sir. You are a gent as knows how to buy.”

“What did he stop for? If it's worth ten, it is worth a hundred.”

“Bless the child!” said a female dealer, kindly, “what made you go on
like that? Why, there was no one bid against you! you'd have got it for
two pounds--a rickety old thing.”

Young master began to whimper. “Why, the gentleman said, 'Five pounds
to BEGIN.' It was the chair poor grandpapa always sat in, and all the
things are sold, and mamma said it would break her heart to lose it. She
was too ill to come, so she sent me. She told me I was not to let it
be sold away from us for less than ten pounds, or she sh--should be
m--m--miserable,” and the poor little fellow began to cry. Rosa followed
suit promptly but unobtrusively.

“Sentiment always costs money,” said Mr. Jacobs, gravely.

“How do you know?” asked Mr. Cohen. “Have YOU got any on hand? I never
seen none at your shop.”

Some tempting things now came up, and Mrs. Staines bid freely; but
all of a sudden she looked down the table, and there was Uncle Philip,
twinkling as before. “Oh, dear! what am I doing now!” thought she. “I
have got no broker.”

She bid on, but in fear and trembling, because of those twinkling eyes.
At last she mustered courage, wrote on a leaf of her pocket-book, and
passed it down to him: “It would be only kind to warn me. What am I
doing wrong?”

He sent her back a line directly: “Auctioneer running you up himself.
Follow his eye when he bids; you will see there is no bona fide bidder
at your prices.”

Rosa did so, and found that it was true.

She nodded to Uncle Philip; and, with her expressive face, asked him
what she should do.

The old boy must have his joke. So he wrote back: “Tell him, as you see
he has a fancy for certain articles, you would not be so discourteous as
to bid against him.”

The next article but one was a drawing-room suite Rosa wanted; but the
auctioneer bid against her; so at eighteen pounds she stopped.

“It is against you, madam,” said the auctioneer.

“Yes, sir,” said Rosa; “but as you are the only bidder, and you have
been so kind to me, I would not think of opposing you.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth, when they were greeted with
a roar of Homeric laughter that literally shook the room, and this time
not at the expense of the innocent speaker.

“That's into your mutton, governor.”

“Sharp's the word this time.”

“I say, governor, don't you want a broker to bid for ye?”

“Wink at me next time, sir; I'll do the office for you.”

“No greenhorns left now.”

“That lady won't give a ten-pund note for her grandfather's armchair.”

“Oh, yes, she will, if it's stuffed with banknotes.”

“Put the next lot up with the owner's name and the reserve price. Open
business.”

“And sing a psalm at starting.”

“A little less noise in Judaea, if you please,” said the auctioneer, who
had now recovered from the blow. “Lot 97.”

This was a very pretty marqueterie cabinet; it stood against the wall,
and Rosa had set her heart upon it. Nobody would bid. She had muzzled
the auctioneer effectually.

“Your own price.”

“Two pounds,” said Rosa.

A dealer offered guineas; and it advanced slowly to four pounds and half
a crown, at which it was about to be knocked down to Rosa, when suddenly
a new bidder arose in the broker Rosa had rejected. They bid slowly and
sturdily against each other, until a line was given to Rosa from Uncle
Philip.

“This time it is your own friend, the snipe-nosed woman. She telegraphed
a broker.”

Rosa read, and crushed the note. “Six guineas,” said she.

“Six-ten.”

“Seven.”

“Seven-ten.”

“Eight.”

“Eight-ten.”

“Ten guineas,” said Rosa; and then, with feminine cunning, stealing a
sudden glance, caught her friend leaning back and signalling the broker
not to give in.

“Eleven pounds.”

“Twelve.”

“Thirteen.”

“Fourteen.”

“Sixteen.”

“Eighteen.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty guineas.”

“It is yours, my faithful friend,” said Rosa, turning suddenly round
to Mrs. Cole, with a magnificent glance no one would have thought her
capable of.

Then she rose and stalked away.

Dumfounded for the moment, Mrs. Cole followed her, and stopped her at
the door.

“Why, Rosie dear, it is the only thing I have bid for. There I've sat by
your side like a mouse.”

Rosa turned gravely towards her. “You know it is not that. You had only
to tell me you wanted it. I would never have been so mean as to bid
against you.”

“Mean, indeed!” said. Florence, tossing her head.

“Yes, mean; to draw back and hide behind the friend you were with,
and employ the very rogue she had turned off. But it is my own fault.
Cecilia warned me against you. She always said you were a treacherous
girl.”

“And I say you are an impudent little minx. Only just married, and going
about like two vagabonds, and talk to me like that!”

“We are not going about like two vagabonds. We have taken a house in
Mayfair.”

“Say a stable.”

“It was by your advice, you false-hearted creature.”

“You are a fool.”

“You are worse; you are a traitress.”

“Then don't you have anything to do with me.”

“Heaven forbid I should, you treacherous thing!”

“You insolent--insolent--I hate you.”

“And I despise you.”

“I always hated you at bottom.”

“That's why you pretended to love me, you wretch.”

“Well, I pretend no more. I am your enemy for life.”

“Thank you. You have told the truth for once in your life.”

“I have. And he shall never call in your husband; so you may leave
Mayfair as soon as you like.”

“Not to please you, madam. We can get on without traitors.”

And so they parted, with eyes that gleamed like tigers.

Rosa drove home in great agitation, and tried to tell Christopher; but
choked, and became hysterical. The husband-physician coaxed and scolded
her out of that; and presently in came Uncle Philip, full of the humors
of the auction-room. He told about the little boy with a delight that
disgusted Mrs. Staines, and then was particularly merry on female
friendships. “Fancy a man going to a sale with his friend, and bidding
against him on the sly.”

“She is no friend of mine. We are enemies for life.”

“And you were to be friends till death,” said Staines, with a sigh.

Philip inquired who she was.

“Mrs. John Cole.”

“Not of Curzon Street?”

“Yes.”

“And you have quarrelled with her?”

“Yes.”

“Well, but her husband is a general practitioner.”

“She is a traitress.”

“But her husband could put a good deal of money in Christopher's way.”

“I can't help it. She is a traitress.”

“And you have quarrelled with her about an old wardrobe.”

“No, for her disloyalty, and her base good-for-nothingness. Oh! oh! oh!”

Uncle Philip got up, looking sour. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Christopher,”
 said he, very dryly.

Christopher accompanied him to the foot of the stairs. “Well,
Christopher,” said he, “matrimony is a blunder at the best; and you have
not done the thing by halves. You have married a simpleton. She will be
your ruin.”

“Uncle Philip, since you only come here to insult us, I hope in future
you will stay at home.”

“Oh! with pleasure, sir. Good-by!”




CHAPTER VII.


Christopher Staines came back, looking pained and disturbed. “There,”
 said he, “I feared it would come to this. I have quarrelled with Uncle
Philip.”

“Oh! how could you?”

“He affronted me.”

“What about?”

“Never you mind. Don't let us say anything more about it, darling. It is
a pity, a sad pity--he was a good friend of mine once.”

He paused, entered what had passed in his diary, and then sat down, with
a gentle expression of sadness on his manly features. Rosa hung about
him, soft and pitying, till it cleared away, at all events for the time.

Next day they went together to clear the goods Rosa had purchased.
Whilst the list was being made out in the office, in came the
fair-haired boy, with a ten-pound note in his very hand. Rosa caught
sight of it, and turned to the auctioneer, with a sweet, pitying face:

“Oh! sir, surely you will not take all that money from him, poor child,
for a rickety old chair.”

The auctioneer stared with amazement at her simplicity, and said, “What
would the vendors say to me?”

She looked distressed, and said, “Well, then, really we ought to raise a
subscription, poor thing!”

“Why, ma'am,” said the auctioneer, “he isn't hurt: the article belonged
to his mother and her sister; the brother-in-law isn't on good terms;
so he demanded a public sale. She will get back four pun ten out of it.”
 Here the clerk put in his word. “And there's five pounds paid, I forgot
to tell you.”

“Oh! left a deposit, did he?”

“No, sir. But the laughing hyena gave you five pounds at the end of the
sale.”

“The laughing hyena, Mr. Jones?”

“Oh! beg pardon; that is what we call him in the room. He has got such a
curious laugh.”

“Oh! I know the gent. He is a retired doctor. I wish he'd laugh less
and buy more: and HE gave you five pounds towards the young gentleman's
arm-chair! Well, I should as soon have expected blood from a flint. You
have got five pounds to pay, sir: so now the chair will cost your mamma
ten shillings. Give him the order and the change, Mr. Jones.”

Christopher and Rosa talked this over in the room whilst the men were
looking out their purchases. “Come,” said Rosa; “now I forgive him
sneering at me; his heart is not really hard, you see.” Staines, on the
contrary, was very angry. “What!” he cried, “pity a boy who made one
bad bargain, that, after all, was not a very bad bargain; and he had no
kindness, nor even common humanity, for my beautiful Rosa, inexperienced
as a child, and buying for her husband, like a good, affectionate,
honest creature, amongst a lot of sharpers and hard-hearted cynics--like
himself.”

“It WAS cruel of him,” said Rosa, altering her mind in a moment, and
half inclined to cry.

This made Christopher furious. “The ill-natured, crotchety, old--the
fact is, he is a misogynist.”

“Oh, the wretch!” said Rosa warmly. “And what is that?”

“A woman-hater.”

“Oh! is that all? Why, so do I--after that Florence Cole. Women are
mean, heartless things. Give me men; they are loyal and true.”

“All of them?” inquired Christopher, a little satirically. “Read the
papers.”

“Every soul of them,” said Mrs. Staines, passing loftily over the
proposed test. “That is, all the ones I care about; and that is my own,
own one.”

Disagreeable creatures to have about one--these simpletons!

Mrs. Staines took Christopher to shops to buy the remaining requisites:
and in three days more the house was furnished, two female servants
engaged, and the couple took their luggage over to the Bijou.

Rosa was excited and happy at the novelty of possession and authority,
and that close sense of house proprietorship which belongs to woman. By
dinner-time she could have told you how many shelves there were in every
cupboard, and knew the Bijou by heart in a way that Christopher never
knew it. All this ended, as running about and excitement generally does,
with my lady being exhausted, and lax with fatigue. So then he made her
lie down on a little couch, while he went through his accounts.

When he had examined all the bills carefully he looked very grave, and
said, “Who would believe this? We began with three thousand pounds. It
was to last us several years--till I got a good practice. Rosa, there is
only fourteen hundred and forty pounds left.”

“Oh, impossible!” said Rosa. “Oh, dear! why did I ever enter a
saleroom?”

“No, no, my darling; you were bitten once or twice, but you made some
good bargains too. Remember there was four hundred pounds set apart for
my life policy.”

“What a waste of money!”

“Your father did not think so. Then the lease; the premium; repairs of
the drains that would have poisoned my Rosa; turning the coach-house
into a dispensary; painting, papering, and furnishing; china, and linen,
and everything to buy. We must look at this seriously. Only fourteen
hundred and forty pounds left. A slow profession. No friends. I have
quarrelled with Uncle Philip: you with Mrs. Cole; and her husband would
have launched me.”

“And it was to please her we settled here. Oh, I could kill her: nasty
cat!”

“Never mind; it is not a case for despondency, but it is for prudence.
All we have to do is to look the thing in the face, and be very
economical in everything. I had better give you an allowance for
housekeeping; and I earnestly beg you to buy things yourself whilst you
are a poor man's wife, and pay ready money for everything. My mother was
a great manager, and she always said, 'There is but one way: be your own
market-woman, and pay on the spot; never let the tradesmen get you on
their books, or, what with false weight, double charges, and the things
your servants order that never enter the house, you lose more than a
hundred a year by cheating.'”

Rosa yielded a languid assent to this part of his discourse, and it
hardly seemed to enter her mind; but she raised no objection; and in due
course he made her a special allowance for housekeeping.

It soon transpired that medical advice was to be had, gratis, at the
Bijou, from eight till ten: and there was generally a good attendance.
But a week passed, and not one patient came of the class this couple
must live by. Christopher set this down to what people call “the
transition period:” his Kent patients had lost him; his London patients
not found him. He wrote to all his patients in the country, and many of
his pupils at the university, to let them know where he was settled: and
then he waited.

Not a creature came.

Rosa bore this very well for a time, so long as the house was a novelty;
but when that excitement was worn out, she began to be very dull,
and used to come and entice him out to walk with her: he would look
wistfully at her, but object that, if he left the house, he should be
sure to lose a patient.

“Oh, they won't come any more for our staying in--tiresome things!” said
Rosa.

But Christopher would kiss her, and remain firm. “My love,” said he,
“you do not realize how hard a fight there is before us. How should you?
You are very young. No, for your sake, I must not throw a chance away.
Write to your female friends: that will while away an hour or two.”

“What, after that Florence Cole?”

“Write to those who have not made such violent professions.”

“So I will, dear. Especially to those that are married and come to
London. Oh, and I'll write to that cold-blooded thing, Lady Cicely
Treherne. Why do you shake your head?”

“Did I? I was not aware. Well, dear, if ladies of rank were to come
here, I fear they might make you discontented with your lot.”

“All the women on earth could not do that. However, the chances are she
will not come near me: she left the school quite a big girl, an immense
girl, when I was only twelve. She used to smile at my capriccios; and
once she kissed me--actually. She was an awful Sawny, though, and so
affected: I think I will write to her.”

These letters brought just one lady, a Mrs. Turner, who talked to Rosa
very glibly about herself, and amused Rosa twice: at the third visit,
Rosa tried to change the conversation. Mrs. Turner instantly got up, and
went away. She could not bear the sound of the human voice, unless it
was talking about her and her affairs.

And now Staines began to feel downright uneasy. Income was going
steadily out: not a shilling coming in. The lame, the blind, and the
sick frequented his dispensary, and got his skill out of him gratis, and
sometimes a little physic, a little wine, and other things that cost him
money: but of the patients that pay, not one came to his front door.

He walked round and round his little yard, like a hyena in its cage,
waiting, waiting, waiting: and oh! how he envied the lot of those who
can hunt for work, instead of having to stay at home and wait for others
to come, whose will they cannot influence. His heart began to sicken
with hope deferred, and dim forebodings of the future; and he saw, with
grief, that his wife was getting duller and duller, and that her days
dragged more heavily, far than his own; for he could study.

At last his knocker began to show signs of life: his visitors were
physicians. His lectures on “Diagnosis” were well known to them; and one
after another found him out. They were polite, kind, even friendly; but
here it ended: these gentlemen, of course, did not resign their patients
to him; and the inferior class of practitioners avoided his door like a
pestilence.

Mrs. Staines, who had always lived for amusement, could strike out no
fixed occupation; her time hung like lead; the house was small; and in
small houses the faults of servants run against the mistress, and she
can't help seeing them, and all the worse for her. It is easier to keep
things clean in the country, and Rosa had a high standard, which her two
servants could never quite attain. This annoyed her, and she began to
scold a little. They answered civilly, but in other respects remained
imperfect beings; they laid out every shilling they earned in finery;
and, this, I am ashamed to say, irritated Mrs. Staines, who was wearing
out her wedding garments, and had no excuse for buying, and Staines
had begged her to be economical. The more they dressed, the more she
scolded; they began to answer. She gave the cook warning; the other,
though not on good terms with the cook, had a gush of esprit de corps
directly, and gave Mrs. Staines warning.

Mrs. Staines told her husband all this: he took her part, though without
openly interfering; and they had two new servants, not so good as the
last.

This worried Rosa sadly; but it was a flea-bite to the deeper nature,
and more forecasting mind of her husband, still doomed to pace that
miserable yard, like a hyena, chafing, seeking, longing for the patient
that never came.

Rosa used to look out of his dressing-room window, and see him pace the
yard. At first, tears of pity stood in her eyes. By and by she got angry
with the world; and at last, strange to say, a little irritated with
him. It is hard for a weak woman to keep up all her respect for the man
that fails.

One day, after watching him a long time unseen, she got excited, put on
her shawl and bonnet, and ran down to him: she took him by the arm:
“If you love me, come out of this prison, and walk with me; we are too
miserable. I shall be your first patient if this goes on much longer.”
 He looked at her, saw she was very excited, and had better be humored;
so he kissed her and just said, with a melancholy smile, “How poor are
they that have not patience!” Then he put on his hat, and walked in the
Park and Kensington Gardens with her. The season was just beginning.
There were carriages enough, and gay Amazons enough, to make poor Rosa
sigh more than once.

Christopher heard the sigh; and pressed her arm, and said, “Courage,
love, I hope to see you among them yet.”

“The sooner the better,” said she, a little hardly.

“And, meantime, which of them all is as beautiful as you?”

“All I know is, they are more attractive. Who looks at me, walking
tamely by?”

Christopher said nothing: but these words seemed to imply a thirst for
admiration, and made him a little uneasy.

By and by the walk put the swift-changing Rosa in spirits, and she began
to chat gayly, and hung prattling and beaming on her husband's arm,
when they entered Curzon Street. Here, however, occurred an incident,
trifling in itself, but unpleasant. Dr. Staines saw one of his best
Kentish patients get feebly out of his carriage, and call on Dr. Barr.
He started, and stopped. Rosa asked what was the matter. He told her.
She said, “We ARE unfortunate.”

Staines said nothing; he only quickened his pace; but he was greatly
disturbed. She expected him to complain that she had dragged him out,
and lost him that first chance. But he said nothing. When they got home,
he asked the servant had anybody called.

“No, Sir.”

“Surely you are mistaken, Jane. A gentleman in a carriage!”

“Not a creature have been since you went out, sir.”

“Well, then, dearest,” said he sweetly, “we have nothing to reproach
ourselves with.” Then he knit his brow gloomily. “It is worse than I
thought. It seems even one's country patients go to another doctor when
they visit London. It is hard. It is hard.”

Rosa leaned her head on his shoulder, and curled round him, as one she
would shield against the world's injustice; but she said nothing; she
was a little frightened at his eye that lowered, and his noble frame
that trembled a little, with ire suppressed.

Two days after this, a brougham drove up to the door, and a tallish,
fattish, pasty-faced man got out, and inquired for Dr. Staines.

He was shown into the dining-room, and told Jane he had come to consult
the doctor.

Rosa had peeped over the stairs, all curiosity; she glided noiselessly
down, and with love's swift foot got into the yard before Jane. “He is
come! he is come! Kiss me.”

Dr. Staines kissed her first, and then asked who was come.

“Oh, nobody of any consequence. ONLY the first patient. Kiss me again.”

Dr. Staines kissed her again, and then was for going to the first
patient.

“No,” said she; “not yet. I met a doctor's wife at Dr. Mayne's, and she
told me things. You must always keep them waiting; or else they think
nothing of you. Such a funny woman! 'Treat 'em like dogs, my dear,' she
said. But I told her they wouldn't come to be treated like dogs or any
other animal.”

“You had better have kept that to yourself, I think.”

“Oh! if you are going to be disagreeable, good-by. You can go to your
patient, sir. Christie, dear, if he is very--very ill--and I'm sure I
hope he is--oh, how wicked I am; may I have a new bonnet?”

“If you really want one.”

On the patient's card was “Mr. Pettigrew, 47 Manchester Square.”

As soon as Staines entered the room, the first patient told him who and
what he was, a retired civilian from India; but he had got a son there
still, a very rising man; wanted to be a parson; but he would not
stand that; bad profession; don't rise by merit; very hard to rise at
all;--no, India was the place. “As for me, I made my fortune there in
ten years. Obliged to leave it now--invalid this many years; no TONE.
Tried two or three doctors in this neighborhood; heard there was a new
one, had written a book on something. Thought I would try HIM.”

To stop him, Staines requested to feel his pulse, and examine his tongue
and eye.

“You are suffering from indigestion,” said he. “I will write you a
prescription; but if you want to get well, you must simplify your diet
very much.”

While he was writing the prescription, off went this patient's tongue,
and ran through the topics of the day and into his family history again.

Staines listened politely. He could afford it, having only this one.

At last, the first patient, having delivered an octavo volume of
nothing, rose to go; but it seems that speaking an “infinite deal of
nothing” exhausts the body, though it does not affect the mind; for the
first patient sank down in his chair again. “I have excited myself too
much--feel rather faint.”

Staines saw no signs of coming syncope; he rang the bell quietly, and
ordered a decanter of sherry to be brought; the first patient filled
himself a glass; then another; and went off, revived, to chatter
elsewhere. But at the door he said, “I had always a running account with
Dr. Mivar. I suppose you don't object to that system. Double fee the
first visit, single afterwards.”

Dr. Staines bowed a little stiffly; he would have preferred the money.
However, he looked at the Blue Book, and found his visitor lived at 47
Manchester Square; so that removed his anxiety.

The first patient called every other day, chattered nineteen to the
dozen, was exhausted, drank two glasses of sherry, and drove away.

Soon after this a second patient called. This one was a deputy
patient--Collett, a retired butler--kept a lodging-house, and waited at
parties; he lived close by, but had a married daughter in Chelsea. Would
the doctor visit her, and HE would be responsible?

Staines paid the woman a visit or two, and treated her so effectually,
that soon her visits were paid to him. She was cured, and Staines, who
by this time wanted to see money, sent to Collett.

Collett did not answer.

Staines wrote warmly.

Collett dead silent.

Staines employed a solicitor.

Collett said he had recommended the patient, that was all. He had never
said he would pay her debts. That was her husband's business.

Now her husband was the mate of a ship; would not be in England for
eighteen months.

The woman, visited by lawyer's clerk, cried bitterly, and said she and
her children had scarcely enough to eat.

Lawyer advised Staines to abandon the case, and pay him two pounds
fifteen shillings expenses. He did so.

“This is damnable,” said he. “I must get it out of Pettigrew; by-the-by,
he has not been here this two days.”

He waited another day for Pettigrew, and then wrote to him. No answer.
Called. Pettigrew gone abroad. House in Manchester Square to let.

Staines went to the house-agent with his tale. Agent was impenetrable
at first; but, at last, won by the doctor's manner and his unhappiness,
referred him to Pettigrew's solicitor; the solicitor was a respectable
man, and said he would forward the claim to Pettigrew in Paris.

But by this time Pettigrew was chattering and guzzling in Berlin; and
thence he got to St. Petersburg. In that stronghold of gluttony,
he gormandized more than ever, and, being unable to talk it off his
stomach, as in other cities, had apoplexy, and died.

But long before this Staines saw his money was as irrecoverable as his
sherry; and he said to Rosa, “I wonder whether I shall ever live to
curse the human race?”

“Heaven forbid!” said Rosa. “Oh, they use you cruelly, my poor, poor
Christie!”

Thus for months the young doctor's patients bled him, and that was all.

And Rosa got more and more moped at being in the house so much, and
pestered Christopher to take her out, and he declined: and, being a man
hard to beat, took to writing on medical subjects, in hopes of getting
some money from the various medical and scientific publications; but he
found it as hard to get the wedge in there as to get patients.

At last Rosa's remonstrances began to rise into something that
sounded like reproaches. One Sunday she came to him in her bonnet, and
interrupted his studies, to say he might as well lay down the pen, and
talk. Nobody would publish anything he wrote.

Christopher frowned, but contained himself, and laid down the pen.

“I might as well not be married at all as be a doctor's wife. You are
never seen out with me, not even to church. Do behave like a Christian,
and come to church with me now.”

Dr. Staines shook his head.

“Why, I wouldn't miss church for all the world. Any excitement is better
than always moping. Come over the water with me. The time Jane and I
went, the clergyman read a paper that Mr. Brown had fallen down in a
fit. There was such a rush directly, and I'm sure fifty ladies went
out--fancy, all Mrs. Browns! Wasn't that fun?”

“Fun? I don't see it. Well, Rosa, your mind is evidently better adapted
to diversion than mine is. Go you to church, love, and I'll continue my
studies.”

“Then all I can say is, I wish I was back in my father's house. Husband!
friend! companion!--I have none.”

Then she burst out crying violently; and, being shocked at what she had
said, and at the agony it had brought into her husband's face, she went
off into hysterics; and as his heart would not let him bellow at her,
or empty a bucket on her as he would on another patient, she had a good
long bout of them: and got her way, for she broke up his studies for
that day, at all events.

Even after the hysterics were got under, she continued to moan and sigh
very prettily, with her lovely, languid head pillowed on her husband's
arm; in a word, though the hysterics were real, yet this innocent young
person had the presence of mind to postpone entire convalescence, and
lay herself out to be petted all day. But fate willed it otherwise:
while she was sighing and moaning, came to the door a scurrying of feet,
and then a sharp, persistent ringing that meant something. The moaner
cocked eye and ear, and said, in her every-day voice, which, coming so
suddenly, sounded very droll, “What is that, I wonder?”

Jane hurried to the street-door, and Rosa recovered by magic; and,
preferring gossip to hysterics, in an almost gleeful whisper, ordered
Christopher to open the door of the study. The Bijou was so small that
the following dialogue rang in their ears:--

A boy in buttons gasped out, “Oh, if you please, will you ast the doctor
to come round directly; there's a haccident.”

“La, bless me!” said Jane, and never budged.

“Yes, miss. It's our missus's little girl fallen right off an i-chair,
and cut her head dreadful, and smothered in blood.”

“La, to be sure!” And she waited steadily for more.

“Ay, and missus she fainted right off; and I've been to the regler
doctor, which he's out; and Sarah, the housemaid, said I had better come
here; you was only just set up, she said; you wouldn't have so much to
do, says she.”

“That is all SHE knows,” said Jane. “Why, our master--they pulls him in
pieces which is to have him fust.”

“What an awful liar! Oh, you good girl!” whispered Dr. Staines and Rosa
in one breath.

“Ah, well,” said Buttons, “any way, Sarah says she knows you are clever,
'cos her little girl as lives with her mother, and calls Sarah aunt, has
bin to your 'spensary with ringworm, and you cured her right off.”

“Ay, and a good many more,” said Jane, loftily. She was a housemaid of
imagination; and while Staines was putting some lint and an instrument
case into his pocket, she proceeded to relate a number of miraculous
cures. Dr. Staines interrupted them by suddenly emerging, and inviting
Buttons to take him to the house.

Mrs. Staines was so pleased with Jane for cracking up the doctor, that
she gave her five shillings; and, after that, used to talk to her a
great deal more than to the cook, which judicious conduct presently set
all three by the ears.

Buttons took the doctor to a fine house in the same street, and told
him his mistress's name on the way--Mrs. Lucas. He was taken up to the
nursery, and found Mrs. Lucas seated, crying and lamenting, and a woman
holding a little girl of about seven, whose brow had been cut open by
the fender, on which she had fallen from a chair; it looked very ugly,
and was even now bleeding.

Dr. Staines lost no time; he examined the wound keenly, and then said
kindly to Mrs. Lucas, “I am happy to tell you it is not serious.” He
then asked for a large basin and some tepid water, and bathed it so
softly and soothingly that the child soon became composed; and the
mother discovered the artist at once. He compressed the wound, and
explained to Mrs. Lucas that the principal thing really was to avoid an
ugly scar. “There is no danger,” said he. He then bound the wound
neatly up, and had the girl put to bed. “You will not wake her at any
particular hour, nurse. Let her sleep. Have a little strong beef-tea
ready, and give it her at any hour, night or day, she asks for it. But
do not force it on her, or you will do her more harm than good. She had
better sleep before she eats.”

Mrs. Lucas begged him to come every morning; and, as he was going,
she shook hands with him, and the soft palm deposited a hard substance
wrapped in paper. He took it with professional gravity and seeming
unconsciousness; but, once outside the house, went home on wings. He
ran up to the drawing-room, and found his wife seated, and playing at
reading. He threw himself on his knees, and the fee into her lap; and,
while she unfolded the paper with an ejaculation of pleasure, he said,
“Darling, the first real patient--the first real fee. It is yours to buy
the new bonnet.”

“Oh, I'm so glad!” said she, with her eyes glistening. “But I'm afraid
one can't get a bonnet fit to wear--for a guinea.”

Dr. Staines visited his little patient every day, and received his
guinea. Mrs. Lucas also called him in for her own little ailments, and
they were the best possible kind of ailments: for, being imaginary,
there was no limit to them.

Then did Mrs. Staines turn jealous of her husband. “They never ask me,”
 said she; “and I am moped to death.”

“It is hard,” said Christopher, sadly. “But have a little patience.
Society will come to you long before practice comes to me.”

About two o'clock one afternoon a carriage and pair drove up, and a
gorgeous footman delivered a card--“Lady Cicely Treherne.”

Of course Mrs. Staines was at home, and only withheld by propriety
from bounding into the passage to meet her school-fellow. However, she
composed herself in the drawing-room, and presently the door was opened,
and a very tall young woman, richly but not gayly dressed, drifted into
the room, and stood there a statue of composure.

Rosa had risen to fly to her; but the reverence a girl of eighteen
strikes into a child of twelve hung about her still, and she came
timidly forward, blushing and sparkling, a curious contrast in color
and mind to her visitor; for Lady Cicely was Languor in person--her hair
whitey-brown, her face a fine oval, but almost colorless; her eyes
a pale gray, her neck and hands incomparably white and beautiful--a
lymphatic young lady, a live antidote to emotion. However, Rosa's
beauty, timidity, and undisguised affectionateness were something so
different from what she was used to in the world of fashion, that she
actually smiled, and held out both her hands a little way. Rosa seized
them, and pressed them; they left her; and remained passive and limp.

“O Lady Cicely,” said Rosa, “how kind of you to come.”

“How kind of you to send to me,” was the polite, but perfectly cool
reply. “But how you are gwown, and--may I say impwoved?--You la petite
Lusignan! It is incwedible,” lisped her ladyship, very calmly.

“I was only a child,” said Rosa. “You were always so beautiful and tall,
and kind to a little monkey like me. Oh, pray sit down, Lady Cicely, and
talk of old times.”

She drew her gently to the sofa, and they sat down hand in hand; but
Lady Cicely's high-bred reserve made her a very poor gossip about
anything that touched herself and her family; so Rosa, though no
egotist, was drawn into talking about herself more than she would have
done had she deliberately planned the conversation. But here was an old
school-fellow, and a singularly polite listener, and so out came her
love, her genuine happiness, her particular griefs, and especially the
crowning grievance, no society, moped to death, etc.

Lady Cicely could hardly understand the sentiment in a woman who so
evidently l

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