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Phoebe, Junior

by Mrs. Oliphant · English · Gutenberg #28629 · 871,660 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Phoebe, Junior

Author: Mrs. Oliphant


        
Release date: April 28, 2009 [eBook #28629]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHOEBE, JUNIOR ***




Produced by Delphine Lettau, Marcia Brooks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net







Chronicles of Carlingford

PHOEBE, JUNIOR

MRS OLIPHANT




CONTENTS.


   CHAP.                               PAGE

      I. THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS            1

     II. THE LEADING MEMBER               9

    III. MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL           16

     IV. A COUNTRY PARTY                 26

      V. SELF-DEVOTION                   31

     VI. A MORNING CALL                  38

    VII. SHOPPING                        45

   VIII. THE DORSETS                     52

     IX. COMING HOME                     59

      X. PAPA                            67

     XI. PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS           74

    XII. GRANGE LANE                     81

   XIII. THE TOZER FAMILY                88

    XIV. STRANGERS                       96

     XV. A DOMESTIC CRISIS              104

    XVI. THE NEW GENTLEMAN              113

   XVII. A PUBLIC MEETING               119

  XVIII. MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS              127

    XIX. THE NEW CHAPLAIN               134

     XX. THAT TOZER GIRL!               142

    XXI. A NEW FRIEND                   148

   XXII. A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT          155

  XXIII. TIDED OVER                     164

   XXIV. A VISIT                        169

    XXV. TEA                            177

   XXVI. THE HALL                       185

  XXVII. A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES      192

 XXVIII. THE NEW PUPIL                  200

   XXIX. URSULA'S ENTRÉES               209

    XXX. SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE       217

   XXXI. SOCIETY                        224

  XXXII. LOVE-MAKING                    230

 XXXIII. A DISCLOSURE                   236

  XXXIV. AN EXTRAVAGANCE                244

   XXXV. THE MILLIONNAIRE               251

  XXXVI. FATHER AND SON                 258

 XXXVII. A PLEASANT EVENING             267

XXXVIII. AN EXPEDITION                  273

  XXXIX. A CATASTROPHE                  281

     XL. THE SINNED-AGAINST             287

    XLI. A MORNING'S WORK               298

   XLII. A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK           307

  XLIII. THE CONFLICT                   312

   XLIV. PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL            326

    XLV. THE LAST                       336




PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.




CHAPTER I.

THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.


Miss Phoebe Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon and leading
member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford, married, shortly
after his appointment to the charge of Salem Chapel, in that town, the
Reverend Mr. Beecham, one of the most rising young men in the
denomination. The marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young
lady's family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable people
in a good way of business, and not destitute of means; and the position
was one which they had always felt most suitable for their daughter, and
to which she had been almost, it may be said, brought up. It is,
however, scarcely necessary to add that it was not quite so agreeable to
the other leading members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to
say that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon asserted
vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father before him had
established an excellent business, and who had paid for his pew in Salem
as long as any one could recollect, and supported every charity, and
paid up on all occasions when extra expense was necessary, was in every
way a more desirable son-in-law than a poor minister who was always
dependent on pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any
day. Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even among such
an independent body as the congregation at Salem Chapel, which has its
own especial charms, and neither the young people who had been her
companions nor the old people who had patronized and snubbed her, felt
any satisfaction in seeing Phoebe thus advanced over them to the honours
and glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All her
little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many offensive
manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in life. Her
_trousseau_, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so
abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth comments which
nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer's blooming
bride. A grocer's lady has a right to anything her parents can afford;
but to see a minister's wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the
quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young
Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on
the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor's wife,
caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of
Carlingford; and "_that_ Phoebe a-sweeping in as if the chapel belonged
to her," was almost more than the oldest sitter could bear. Phoebe, it
must be added, felt her elevation to the full, and did not spare her
congregation. Sometimes she would have the audacity to walk from the
vestry to the pew, as if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in
humbly by the door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite led the
singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention to the choir than
if it did not exist; and once she had even paused on her way to her
seat, and turned down the gas, which was blazing too high, with an air
of proprietorship that nobody could endure.

"Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?" said Mrs.
Brown. "Brown would never be outdone by him in subscriptions you may be
sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if the truth was known. I never gave my
money to build a castle for the Tozers."

Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or less
eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished, everybody being
too anxious to see "what they would do next," the feeling could not be
ignored. Phoebe herself, with a courage which developed from the moment
of her marriage, took the initiative.

"It never answers," she said, solemnly, "to marry one of the flock; I
knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would be so infatuated,
and marry me when I told you not, for your own interests--"

"They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is," said Mr.
Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in consideration of
that sweet consciousness of its cause which stole over all his being.
Phoebe laughed, too, but not with so delicious a gratification. She felt
that there were people, even in Salem, who might be jealous of him.

"The end of it all is, we must not stay here," she said. "You must find
another sphere for your talents, Henery, and I'm sure it will not be
difficult. If you get put on that deputation that is going down to the
North, suppose you take a few of your best sermons, dear. That can never
do any harm--indeed it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise, perhaps,
to some vacant congregation. I have always heard that chapels in the
North were very superior to here. A different class of society, and
better altogether. These Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort
of society for you."

"Well, there's truth in that," said Mr. Beecham, pulling up his
shirt-collar. "Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one was accustomed
to." And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion about the sermons. The
consequence was that an invitation followed from a chapel in the North,
where indeed Mrs. Phoebe found herself in much finer society, and grew
rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start, the
process went on for many years by which a young man from Homerton was
then developed into the influential and highly esteemed pastor of an
important flock. Things may be, and probably are, differently managed
now-a-days. Mr. Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not of an
elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have to say is a
prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but doubly so to a
popular minister. He had an unbounded wealth of phraseology. Sentences
seemed to melt out of his mouth without any apparent effort, all set in
a certain cadence. He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is
easy to make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression is
so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long and successful
career in the provinces, to what might be called the Surrey side of
congregational eminence in London; and from thence attained his final
apotheosis in a handsome chapel near Regent's Park, built of the whitest
stone, and cushioned with the reddest damask, where a very large
congregation sat in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a
satisfaction no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft
as their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes kept
everything snug under foot.

It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection. The seats
were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each line on a slightly
higher level than the one in front of it, so that everybody saw
everything that was going on. No dimness or mystery was wanted there;
everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and
respectability. It might not be a place very well adapted for saying
your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home--and it was
a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do
at home; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the
greatest comfort, not to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the
poor folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the cold
Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those warm and ruddy pews.
It would be a little amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed
pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal
which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in
general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing
to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I
fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family
pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat
of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which
you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves. The real
congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude. Its value in mere
velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs was something amazing, and the
amount these comfortable people represented in the way of income would
have amounted to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and
Bethesdas, with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked between
such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and the parish churches,
which are like the nets in the Gospel, and take in all kinds of fish,
bad and good. The pew-holders in the Crescent Chapel were universally
well off; they subscribed liberally to missionary societies, far more
liberally than the people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G.
They had everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their
houses. They no more economized on their minister than they did on their
pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on their choir which
made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash their teeth. From all this
it will be seen that the atmosphere of the Crescent Chapel was of a
very distinct and individual kind. It was a warm, luxurious air,
perfumy, breathing of that refinement which is possible to mere wealth.
I do not say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and dressmakers,
which you procure ready made at schools, and which can only be kept up
at a very high cost, abounded and pervaded the place. Badly dressed
people felt themselves out of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy
footprint upon the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a
crime. Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because many of the
people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected to take out their own
carriages or work their own horses on Sunday; and there were many more
who, though they did not possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom
incompatible with poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off
than the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and
well-to-do. And they were at the same time what you might safely call
well-informed people--people who read the newspapers, and sometimes the
magazines, and knew what was going on. The men were almost all liberal
in politics, and believed in Mr. Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women
often "took an interest" in public movements, especially of a charitable
character. There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound nor high,
but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock which had invited
Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when he reached the climax of his
career. They gave him a very good salary, enough to enable him to have a
handsome house in one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is
not a fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way. The
rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been known to
suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the Beechams were well
aware of; and they were not above the amiable weakness of making it
known that their house was in a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh.
This single fact of itself might suffice to mark the incalculable
distance between the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and
the young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford. And
the development outside was not less remarkable than the development
within.

It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to middle age,
even without any remarkable interposition of fortune; I do not say
dissipate, or even dispel, which is much more doubtful--but they
change. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecham commenced life, they had both the
warmest feeling of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All
the circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence of
separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour, which
in the common mind lies at the bottom of all dissent. In saying this we
no more accuse Dissenters in religion than Dissenters in politics, or in
art, or in criticism. The first dissenter in most cases is an original
thinker, to whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself before he
can give up, for the superlative truth which has taken possession of
him, all the habits, the pious traditions of his life. He is the real
Nonconformist--half martyr, half victim, of his convictions. But that
Nonconformity which has come to be the faith in which a large number of
people are trained is a totally different business, and affects a very
different kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction has no
more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of a Breton peasant
trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the unbounded certainty of any
other traditionary believer. For this reason we may be allowed to
discuss the changes of feeling which manifested themselves in Mr. and
Mrs. Beecham without anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being
persons of original mind, they were what their training and
circumstances, and a flood of natural influences, made them. They began
life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social caste, and
believing themselves to be superior to their superiors in that
enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe distinguished
the connection. The first thing which opened their minds to a dawning
doubt whether their enlightenment was, in reality, so much greater than
that of their neighbours, was the social change worked in their position
by their removal from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North,
Dissent attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the fact that
they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so simple as to be
quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting intelligence, brought up
in a little Tory borough, still holding for Church and Queen. The
amazing difference which this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Phoebe
Beecham, _née_ Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden
introduction to "circles" which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and to
houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman, would have
humbly waited, would have turned the young woman's head, had she not
felt the overpowering necessity of keeping that organ as steady as
possible, to help her to hold her position in the new world. Phoebe was a
girl of spirit, and though her head went round and round, and everything
felt confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her own and
to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to tell how much her
social elevation modified her sectarian zeal. Phoebe was only a woman, so
that I am free to assign such motives as having a serious power over
her. Let us hope Mr. Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a
more lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.

But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together in this
modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached the lofty
eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded Nonconformists
as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham indeed had many friends in the Low,
and even some in the Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote
various public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He spoke
of "our brethren within the pale of the Establishment" always with
respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. "Depend upon it, my dear Sir,"
he would even say sometimes to a liberal brother, "the Establishment is
not such an unmitigated evil as some people consider it. What should we
do in country parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
dirty work for us, my dear brother--the dirty work." These sentiments
were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr. Beecham's congregation, some
of whom were hot Voluntaries, and gave their ministers a little trouble.
But the most part took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were
satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
of Mr. Beecham's flock.

Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
young artist shake in his shoes, a solution was found for the
difficulty.

"Tell you what, Sir," said Mr. Copperhead; "I'll give it to the
minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of art don't
often come his way; and you'll get a block of the best, Mr.
Chipstone--the very best, Sir, no expense spared--and begin another for
me."

This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, though I
will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing about certain
other combinations which will be fully discussed in this history. The
Beechams were mightily surprised when the huge marble head, almost as
large as a Jupiter, though perhaps not otherwise so imposing, arrived at
the Terrace; but they were also gratified.

"It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle," Mrs. Beecham
said with a glance at her daughter, Phoebe, junior, who, with all her
pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration before that image of
wealth and fabulous luxury.

"What a grand head it is!" cried the young enthusiast, gazing rapt upon
the complacent marble whisker so delightfully curled and bristling with
realistic force.

"It looks well, I must say, it looks well," said Mr. Beecham himself,
rubbing his hands, "to receive such a token of respect from the leading
member of the flock." And certainly no more perfect representation of a
bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's sanctuary.




CHAPTER II.

THE LEADING MEMBER.


Mr. Copperhead, to whom so much allusion has been made, was a well-known
man in other regions besides that of the Crescent Chapel. His name,
indeed, may be said to have gone to the ends of the earth, from whence
he had conducted lines of railway, and where he had left docks, bridges,
and light-houses to make him illustrious. He was one of the greatest
contractors for railways and other public works in England, and, by
consequence, in the world. He had no more than a very ordinary
education, and no manners to speak of; but at the same time he had that
kind of faculty which is in practical work what genius is in literature,
and, indeed, in its kind is genius too, though it neither refines nor
even (oddly enough) enlarges the mind to which it belongs. He saw the
right track for a road through a country with a glance of his eye; he
mastered all the points of nature which were opposed to him in the
rapidest survey, though scientifically he was great in no branch of
knowledge. He could rule his men as easily as if they were so many
children; and, indeed, they were children in his hands. All these gifts
made it apparent that he must have been a remarkable and able man; but
no stranger would have guessed as much from his appearance or his talk.
There were people, indeed, who knew him well, and who remained
incredulous and bewildered, trying to persuade themselves that his
success must be owing to pure luck, for that he had nothing else to
secure it. The cause of this, perhaps, was that he knew nothing about
books, and was one of those jeering cynics who are so common under one
guise or another. Fine cynics are endurable, and give a certain zest
often to society, which might become too civil without them; but your
coarse cynic is not pleasant. Mr. Copperhead's eye was as effectual in
quenching emotion of any but the coarsest kind as water is against
fire. People might be angry in his presence--it was the only passion he
comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the more generous
sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when this large, rich, costly
man came by. People who were brought much in contact with him became
ashamed of having any feelings at all; his eye upon them seemed to
convict them of humbug. Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with
a jeer in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His own
belief was that he could "spot" humbug wherever he saw it, and that
nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much humbug is there in
this world that his belief was justified. But there are few more awful
people than those ignoble spectators whose jeer arrests the moisture in
the eye, and strangles the outcry on their neighbour's lip.

Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether from the
ranks. His father before him had been a contractor, dealing chiefly with
canals and roads, and the old kind of public works; a very rough
personage indeed, but one to whose fingers gold had stuck, perhaps
because of the clay with which they were always more or less smeared.
This ancestor had made a beginning to the family, and given his son a
name to start with. _Our_ Mr. Copperhead had married young, and had
several sons, who were all in business, and all doing well; less
vigorous, but still moderately successful copies of their father. When,
however, he had thus done his duty to the State, the first Mrs.
Copperhead having died, he did the only incomprehensible action of his
life--he married a second time, a feeble, pretty, pink-and-white little
woman, who had been his daughter's governess; married her without rhyme
or reason, as all his friends and connections said. The only feasible
motive for this second union seemed to be a desire on Mr. Copperhead's
part to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer at,
and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs. Copperhead the
second was gushing and susceptible, and as good a butt as could be
imagined. She kept him in practice when nobody else was at hand. She was
one of those naturally refined but less than half-educated, timid
creatures who are to be found now and then painfully earning the bread
which is very bitter to them in richer people's houses, and preserving
in their little silent souls some fetish in the shape of a scrap of
gentility, which is their sole comfort, or almost their sole comfort.
Mrs. Copperhead's fetish was the dear recollection that she was "an
officer's daughter;" or rather this had been her fetish in the days when
she had nothing, and was free to plume herself on the reflected glory.
Whether in the depths of her luxurious abode, at the height of her good
fortune, she still found comfort in the thought, it would be hard to
tell. Everybody who had known her in her youth thought her the most
fortunate of women. Her old school companions told her story for the
encouragement of their daughters, as they might have told a fairy tale.
To see her rolling in her gorgeous carriage, or bowed out of a shop
where all the daintiest devices of fashion had been placed at her feet,
filled passers-by with awe and envy. She could buy whatever she liked,
festoon herself with finery, surround herself with the costliest
knick-knacks; the more there were of them, and the costlier they were,
the better was Mr. Copperhead pleased. She had everything that heart
could desire. Poor little woman! What a change from the
governess-chrysalis who was snubbed by her pupil and neglected by
everybody! and yet I am not sure that she did not--so inconsistent is
human nature--look back to those melancholy days with a sigh.

This lady was the mother of Clarence Copperhead, the young man who was
at Oxford, her only child, upon whom (of course) she doted with the
fondest folly; and whom his father jeered at more than at any one else
in the world, more even than at his mother, yet was prouder of than of
all his other sons and all his possessions put together. Clarence, whom
I will not describe, as he will, I trust, show himself more effectually
by his actions, was like his mother in disposition, or so, at least, she
made herself happy by thinking; but by some freak of nature he was like
his father in person, and carried his mouse's heart in a huge frame,
somewhat hulking and heavy-shouldered, with the same roll which
distinguished Mr. Copperhead, and which betrayed something of the
original navvy who was the root of the race. He had his father's large
face too, and a tendency towards those demonstrative and offensive
whiskers which are the special inheritance of the British Philistine.
But instead of the large goggle eyes, always jeering and impudent, which
lighted up the paternal countenance, Clarence had a pair of mild brown
orbs, repeated from his mother's faded face, which introduced the oddest
discord into his physiognomy generally. In the family, that is to say
among the step-brothers and step-sisters who formed Mr. Copperhead's
first family, the young fellow bore no other name than that of the
curled darling, though, indeed, he was as far from being curled as any
one could be. He was not clever; he had none of the energy of his race,
and promised to be as useless in an office as he would have been in a
cutting or a yard full of men. I am not sure that this fact did not
increase secretly his father's exultation and pride in him. Mr.
Copperhead was fond of costly and useless things; he liked them for
their cost, with an additional zest in his sense of the huge vulgar use
and profit of most things in his own life. This tendency, more than any
appreciation of the beautiful, made him what is called a patron of art.
It swelled his personal importance to think that he was able to hang up
thousands of pounds, so to speak, on his walls, knowing all the time
that he could make thousands more by the money had he invested it in
more useful ways. The very fact that he could afford to refrain from
investing it, that he could let it lie there useless, hanging by so many
cords and ribbons, was sweet to him. And so also it was sweet to him to
possess a perfectly useless specimen of humanity, which had cost him a
great deal, and promised to cost him still more. He had plenty of useful
sons as he had of useful money. The one who was of no use was the apex
and glory of the whole.

But these three made up a strange enough family party, as may be
supposed. The original Copperheads, the first family, who were all of
the same class and nature, would have made a much noisier, less
peaceable household; but they would have been a much jollier and really
more harmonious one. Mr. Copperhead himself somewhat despised his elder
sons, who were like himself, only less rich, less vigorous, and less
self-assertive. He saw, oddly enough, the coarseness of their manners,
and even of their ways of thinking; but yet he was a great deal more
comfortable, more at his ease among them, than he was when seated
opposite his trembling, deprecating, frightened little wife, or that
huge youth who cost him so much and returned him so little. Now and
then, at regular periodical intervals, the head of the family would go
down to Blackheath to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the
second and the favourite, where there were romping children and a
portly, rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts,
and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles
over the imperfections of the family.

"My sons buy their wives by the hundred-weight," he would say jocularly
at breakfast the day after; "thirteen stone if she is a pound, is Mrs.
Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and satin, not to speak of mutton
and beef. Your mother comes cheap," he would add aside to Clarence, with
a rolling laugh. Thus he did not in the least exempt his descendants
from the universal ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when
he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his
University man, who had very little on the whole to say for himself,
Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as the failure in
jollity. "You are a couple of ghosts after Joe and his belongings, you
two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow. You don't expect me to hear that
penny-whistle of yours," he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture
of pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness and silence, and
personal awe of him. He was quite out of his element between these two,
and yet the very fact pleasantly excited his pride.

"I speak as gentlemen generally speak," said Clarence, who was sometimes
sullen when attacked, and who knew by experience that his father was
rarely offended by such an argument.

"And I am sure, dear, your papa would never wish you to do otherwise,"
said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive frightened glance at her
husband. He rolled out a mighty laugh from the head of the table where
he was sitting. He contemplated them with a leer that would have been
insulting, had he not been the husband of one and the father of the
other. The laugh and the look called forth some colour on Mrs.
Copperhead's cheek, well as she was used to them; but her son was less
susceptible, and ate his breakfast steadily, and did not care.

"A pretty pair you are," said Mr. Copperhead. "I like your gentility.
How much _foie gras_ would you eat for breakfast, I wonder, my lad, if
you had to work for it? Luckily for you, I wasn't brought up to talk, as
you say, like a gentleman. I'd like to see you managing a field of
navvies with that nice little voice of yours--ay, or a mob before the
hustings, my boy. You're good for nothing, you are; a nice delicate
piece of china for a cupboard, like your mother before you. However,
thank Heaven, we've got the cupboard," he said with a laugh, looking
round him; "a nice big 'un, too, well painted and gilded; and the time
has come, through not talking like a gentleman, that I can afford you.
You should hear Joe. When that fellow talks, his house shakes.
Confounded bad style of house, walls like gingerbread. How the boards
don't break like pie-crust under Mrs. Joe's fairy foot, I can't make
out. By Jove, ma'am, one would think I starved you, to see you beside
your daughter-in-law. Always had a fine healthy appetite had Mrs. Joe."

There was nothing to answer to this speech, and therefore a dead silence
ensued. When the master of the house is so distinctly the master,
silence is apt to ensue after his remarks. Mrs. Copperhead sipped her
tea, and Clarence worked steadily through his breakfast, and the head of
the family crumpled the Times, which he read at intervals. All sorts of
jokes had gone on at Joe's table the morning before, and there had been
peals of laughter, and Mrs. Joe had even administered a slap upon her
husband's ruddy cheek for some pleasantry or other. Mr. Copperhead, as
he looked at his son and his wife, chuckled behind the Times. When they
thought he was occupied they made a few gentle remarks to each other.
They had soft voices, with that indescribable resemblance in tone which
so often exists between mother and son. Dresden china; yes, that was the
word; and to see his own resemblance made in that delicate _pâte_, and
elevated into that region of superlative costliness, tickled Mr.
Copperhead, and in the most delightful way.

"How about your ball?" was his next question, "or Clarence's ball, as
you don't seem to take much interest in it, ma'am? You are afraid of
being brought in contact with the iron pots, eh? You might crack or go
to pieces, who knows, and what would become of me, a wretched widower."
Mr. Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not excite
any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his question, "How about
the ball?"

"The invitations are all sent out, Mr. Copperhead; ninety-five--I--I
mean a hundred and thirty-five. I--I beg your pardon, they were in two
lots," answered the poor woman nervously. "A hundred and
thirty-eight--and there is--a few more--"

"Take your time, ma'am, take your time, we'll get at the truth at last,"
said her husband; and he laid down his paper and looked at her. He was
not angry nor impatient. The twinkle in his eye was purely humorous. Her
stumblings amused him, and her nervousness. But oddly enough, the most
furious impatience could not have more deeply disconcerted her.

"There are a few more--some old friends of mine," she went on, confused.
"They were once rather--kind--took an interest; that is--"

"Oh, the baronet and his daughters," said Mr. Copperhead, "by all means
let's have the baronet and his daughters. Though as for their taking an
interest--if you had not been a rich man's wife, ma'am, living in a
grand house in Portland Place--"

"It was not now," she said, hurriedly. "I do not suppose that any one
takes an interest--in me now--"

Mr. Copperhead laughed, and nodded his head. "Not many, ma'am, I should
think--not many. You women must make up your minds to that. It's all
very well to take an interest in a pretty girl; but when you come to a
certain age--Well, let's proceed, the baronet--"

"And his two girls--"

"Ah, there's two girls! that's for you, Clarence, my boy. I thought
there must be a motive. Think that fellow a good _parti_, eh? And I
would not say they were far wrong if he behaves himself. Make a note of
the baronet's daughter, young man. Lord, what a world it is!" said Mr.
Copperhead, reflectively. "I should not wonder if you had been scheming,
too."

"I would not for the world!" cried the poor little woman, roused for
once. "I would not for anything interfere with a marriage. That is the
last thing you need fear from me. Whether it was a girl I was fond of,
or a girl I disliked--so long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know
the harm that is done by other people's meddling--nothing, nothing,
would induce me to interfere."

Mr. Copperhead laid down his paper, and looked at her. I suppose,
however little a man may care for his wife, he does not relish the idea
that she married him for anything but love. He contemplated her still
with amused ridicule, but with something fiercer in his eyes. "Oh--h!"
he said, "you don't like other people to interfere? not so much as to
say, it's a capital match, eh? You'll get so and so, and so and so, that
you couldn't have otherwise--carriages perhaps, and plenty of money in
your pocket (which it may be you never had in your life before), and
consideration, and one of the finest houses in London, let us say in
Portland Place. You don't like that amount of good advice, eh? Well, I
do--I mean to interfere with my son, to that extent at least--you can do
what you like. But as you're a person of prodigious influence, and
strong will, and a great deal of character, and all that," Mr.
Copperhead broke out with a rude laugh, "I'm afraid of you, I am--quite
afraid."

Fortunately, just at this moment his brougham came round, and the great
man finished his coffee at a gulp, and got up. "You look out for the
baronet's daughters, then--" he said, "and see all's ready for this ball
of yours; while I go and work to pay the bills, that's my share. You do
the ornamental, and I do the useful, ha, ha! I'll keep up my share."

It was astonishing what a difference came upon the room the moment he
disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony. His voice, his look,
his heavy person, even his whiskers had been out of character. Now the
air seemed to flutter after the closing of the door like water into
which something offensive has sunk, and when the ripples of movement
were over the large handsome room had toned down into perfect accord
with its remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather
red--not with tears, but with the inclination to shed tears, which she
carefully restrained in her son's presence. He still continued to eat
steadily--he had an admirable appetite. But when he had finished
everything on his plate, he looked up and said, "I hope you don't mind,
mamma; I don't suppose you do; but I don't like the way my father speaks
to you."

"Oh, my dear!" cried the mother, with an affected little smile, "why
should I mind? I ought to know by this time that it's only your papa's
way."

"I suppose so--but I don't like it," said the young man, decisively. He
did not notice, however, as after second thoughts he returned to the
game-pie, that his mother's eyes were redder than ever.




CHAPTER III.

MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL.


This ball was an event, not only in Mr. Copperhead's household, but even
in the connection itself, to which the idea of balls, as given by
leading members of the flock, was somewhat novel. Not that the young
people were debarred from that amusement, but it was generally attained
in a more or less accidental manner, and few professing Christians
connected with the management of the chapel had gone the length of
giving such an entertainment openly and with design. Mr. Copperhead,
however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices. He was
so rich that any community would have felt it ought to extend a certain
measure of indulgence to such a man. Very wealthy persons are like
spoilt children, their caprices are allowed to be natural, and even when
we are angry with them we excuse the vagaries to which money has a
right. This feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially
among the classes engaged in money-making, who generally recognize a
man's right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more acutely
than the hereditary possessors of wealth. I do not believe that his
superior knowledge of the best ways of using money profitably ever
hinders a money-making man from lavish expenditure; but it gives him a
double zest in spending, and it makes him, generally, charitable towards
the extravagances of persons still richer than himself. A ball, there
was no doubt, was a worldly-minded entertainment, but still, the chapel
reflected, it is almost impossible not to be a little worldly-minded
when you possess such a great share of the world's goods, and that, of
course, it could not be for himself that Mr. Copperhead was doing this,
but for his son. His son, these amiable casuists proceeded, was being
brought up to fill a great position, and no doubt society did exact
something, and as Mr. Copperhead had asked all the chief chapel people,
his ball was looked upon with very indulgent eyes. The fact that the
minister and his family were going staggered some of the more particular
members a little, but Mr. Beecham took high ground on the subject and
silenced the flock. "The fact that a minister of religion is one of the
first persons invited, is sufficient proof of the way our friend means
to manage everything," said the pastor. "Depend upon it, it would be
good for the social relations of the country if your pastors and
teachers were always present. It gives at once a character to all the
proceedings." This, like every other lofty assertion, stilled the
multitude. Some of the elder ladies, indeed, groaned to hear, even at
the prayer-meetings, a whisper between the girls about this ball and
what they were going to wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the
newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially
current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
was put down.

To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more interesting
than to Phoebe, junior, who was a very well-instructed young woman, and
even on the point of dress had theories of her own. Phoebe had, as her
parents were happy to think, had every advantage in her education. She
had possessed a German governess all to herself, by which means, even
Mr. Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy which
Germans communicate by their very touch must have got into her, besides
her music and the language which was her primary study. And she had
attended lectures at the ladies' college close by, and heard a great
many eminent men on a great many different subjects. She had read, too,
a great deal. She was very well got up in the subject of education for
women, and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and cooking were
three of the higher arts which ought to be studied by girls. It is not
necessary for me to account for the discrepancies between those two
systems, in the first place because I cannot, and in the second place,
because there is in the mind of the age some ineffable way of
harmonizing them which makes their conjunction common. Phoebe was
restrained from carrying out either to its full extent. She was not
allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because Mr. Beecham felt
the connection might think it strange to see his daughter's name in the
papers, and, probably, would imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress
of her, which he thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was
not allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to which
Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven, they had no need
of such messings; that she did not wish her daughter to make a slave of
herself, and that Cook would not put up with it. Between these two
limits Phoebe's noble ambition was confined, which was a "trial" to her.
But she did what she could, bating neither heart nor hope. She read
Virgil at least, if not Sophocles, and she danced and dressed though she
was not allowed to cook.

As she took the matter in this serious way, it will be understood that
the question of dress was not a mere frivolity with her. A week before
the ball she stood in front of the large glass in her mother's room,
contemplating herself, not with that satisfaction which it is generally
supposed a pretty young woman has in contemplating her own image. She
was decidedly a pretty young woman. She had a great deal of the hair of
the period, nature in her case, as (curiously, yet very truly) in so
many others, having lent herself to the prevailing fashion. How it comes
about I cannot tell, but it is certain that there does exist at this
present moment, a proportion of golden-haired girls which very much
exceeds the number we used to see when golden hair had not become
fashionable--a freak of nature which is altogether independent of dyes
and auriferous fluid, and which probably has influenced fashion
unawares. To be sure the pomades of twenty years ago are, Heaven be
praised! unknown to this generation, and washing also has become the
fashion, which accounts for something. Anyhow, Phoebe, junior, possessed
in perfection the hair of the period. She had, too, the complexion which
goes naturally with those sunny locks--a warm pink and white, which, had
the boundaries between the pink and the white been a little more
distinct, would have approached perfection too. This was what she was
thinking when she looked at herself in her mother's great glass. Mrs.
Beecham stood behind her, more full-blown and more highly-coloured than
she, but very evidently the rose to which this bud would come in time.
Phoebe looked at her own reflection, and then at her mother's, and sighed
such a profound sigh as only lungs in the most excellent condition could
produce.

"Mamma," she said, with an accent of despair, "I am too pink, a great
deal too pink! What am I to do?"

"Nonsense, my pet," said Mrs. Beecham; "you have a lovely complexion;"
and she threw a quantity of green ribbons which lay by over her child's
hair and shoulders. A cloud crossed the blooming countenance of Phoebe,
junior. She disembarrassed herself of the ribbons with another sigh.

"Dear mamma," she said, "I wish you would let me read with you now and
then, about the theory of colours, for instance. Green is the
complementary of red. If you want to bring out my pink and make it more
conspicuous than ever, of course you will put me in a green dress. No,
mamma, dear, not that--I should look a fright; and though I dare say it
does not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I
suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody says so; and
in that case it is our duty to keep it up."

"You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour," said Mrs. Beecham.
"In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues, and dark girls wore reds
and yellows. It was quite simple. Have a white tarlatan, then; every
girl looks well in that."

"You don't see, mamma," said Phoebe, softly, suppressing in the most
admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being understood, "that a
thing every girl looks well in, is just the sort of thing that no one
looks _very_ well in. White shows no invention. It is as if one took no
trouble about one's dress."

"And neither one ought, Phoebe," said her mother. "That is very true. It
is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and ribbons, when we might
be occupied about much more important matters."

"That is not my opinion at all," said Phoebe. "I should like people to
think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of all the trouble that
has to be taken to get up this ball!"

"I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense," said Mrs. Beecham,
shaking her head. "Yes, when one comes to think of that. But then, you
see, wealth has its duties. I don't defend Mr. Copperhead--"

"I don't think he wants to be defended, mamma. I think it is all
nonsense about wasting time. What I incline to, if you won't be shocked,
is black."

"Black!" The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's breath. "As if you were
fifty! Why, I don't consider myself old enough for black."

"It is a pity," said Phoebe, with a glance at her mother's full colours;
but that was really of so much less importance. "Black would throw me
up," she added seriously, turning to the glass. "It would take off this
pink look. I don't mind it in the cheeks, but I am pink all over; my
white is pink. Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It
would tone us down," said Phoebe, decisively, "and it would throw us up."

"But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear--"

"Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to look my best?
which I think is my duty to you and to Providence; or am I just," said
Phoebe, with indignation, "to look a little insipidity--a creature with
no character--a little girl like everybody else?"

The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the Phoebes went to
Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in velvet, with Honiton lace
(point, which Phoebe, with her artistic instincts, would have much
preferred, being unattainable); the younger in tulle, flounced to
distraction, and largely relieved with blue. And the consequence of this
toilette, and of the fact that Phoebe did her duty by her parents and by
Providence, and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell
a hopeless victim to her fascinations, and scarcely could be induced to
leave her side all night. The ball was about as remarkable a ball as
could have been seen in London. The son of the house had contemplated
with absolute despair the list of invitations. He had deprecated the
entertainment altogether. He had said, "We know nobody," with a
despairing impertinence which called forth one of his father's roars of
laughter. And though Mr. Copperhead had done all he could to assume the
position of that typical Paterfamilias who is condemned to pay for those
pleasures of his family which are no pleasure to him, yet common-sense
was too much for him, and everybody felt that he was in reality the
giver and enjoyer of the entertainment. It was Mr., not Mrs.
Copperhead's ball. It was the first of the kind which had ever taken
place in his house; the beginning of a new chapter in his social
existence. Up to this moment he had not shown any signs of being smitten
with that craze for "Society," which so often and so sorely affects the
millionnaire. He had contented himself hitherto with heavy and showy
dinners, costing Heaven knows how much a head (Mr. Copperhead knew, and
swelled visibly in pride and pleasure as the cost increased), which he
consumed in company with twenty people or so of kindred tastes to
himself, who appreciated the cost and understood his feelings. On such
people, however, his Dresden china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe
were much more in their way than the elegant University man and the
well-bred mother, who was "a poor little dowdy," they all said.
Therefore the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his circle
must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories were to be
appreciated as they deserved.

The hunger of wealth for that something above wealth which the
bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when he has
struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his own way, began
to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure, in this first essay, the
company which he assembled in his fine rooms in Portland Place, to see
all his fine things and celebrate his glory, was not a fine company, but
they afforded more gratification to Mr. Copperhead than if they had been
ever so fine. They were people of his own class, his old friends,
invited to be dazzled, though standing out to the utmost of their power,
and refusing, so far as in them lay, to admit how much dazzled they
were. It was a more reasonable sort of vanity than the commoner kind,
which aims at displaying its riches to great personages, people who are
not dazzled by any extent of grandeur, and in whose bosoms no jealousy
is excited towards the giver of the feast. Mr. Copperhead's friends had
much more lively feelings; they walked about through the great rooms,
with their wives on their arms, in a state of semi-defiance, expressing
no admiration, saying to each other, "This must have cost Copperhead a
pretty penny," as they met in doorways; while the ladies put their
flowery and jewelled heads together and whispered, "Did you ever see
such extravagance? And what a dowdy _she_ is with it all!" This was the
under-current of sentiment which flowed strong in all the passages, and
down the rapids of the great staircase; a stream of vigorous human
feeling, the existence of which was as deeply gratifying to the
entertainer as the sweetest flattery. The lord and the ladies who might
have been tempted to his great house would not have had a thought to
spare for Mr. Copperhead; but the unwilling applause of his own class
afforded him a true triumph.

Amid this throng of people, however, there could be little doubt that
the one young lady who attracted his son was the least eligible person
there, being no other than Phoebe Beecham, the pastor's daughter. Almost
the only other utterly ineligible girl was a pale little maiden who
accompanied Sir Robert Dorset and his daughters, and who was supposed to
be either their governess or their humble companion. The Dorsets were
the only people who had any pretensions to belong to "society," in all
those crowded rooms. They were distantly related to Mrs. Copperhead,
and had been, she gratefully thought, kind to her in her youth, and
they had no particular objection to be kind to her now that she was
rich, though the Baronet, as Mr. Copperhead always called him, winced at
so rampant a specimen of wealth, and "the girls" did not see what good
it was to keep up relations with a distant cousin, who though so
prodigiously rich was of no possible use, and could neither make parties
for them, nor chaperon them to the houses of the great. When they had
received her present invitation, they had accepted it with surprise and
hesitation. Chance only had brought them to London at that time of the
year, the most curious time surely to choose for a ball, but convenient
enough as affording a little amusement at a season when little amusement
was ordinarily to be had. Sir Robert had consented to go, as a man with
no occupation elsewhere might consent to go to the Cannibal Islands, to
see how the savages comported themselves. And little Ursula May, another
poor relative on the other side of the house, whom they had charitably
brought up to town with them, might go too, they decided, to such a
gathering. There was no Lady Dorset, and the girls were "girls" only by
courtesy, having passed the age to which that title refers. Such good
looks as they had were faded, and they were indifferently dressed. This
last circumstance arose partly from the fact that they never dressed
very well, and partly because they did not think it necessary to put
themselves to much trouble for poor Mrs. Copperhead's ball. Their little
companion, Ursula, was in a white frock, the sort of dress which Phoebe
had rebelled against. She was all white and had never been to a ball
before. This little party, which represented the aristocracy at the
Copperhead's ball, went to the entertainment with a little expectation
in their minds: What sort of people would be there? Would they be
"frights?" They were not likely to be interesting in any other way, the
Miss Dorsets knew; but to little Ursula a ball was a ball, and meant
delight and glory she was aware, though she did not quite know how. The
expectations of the party, however, were strangely disappointed. Instead
of being "a set of frights," Mrs. Copperhead's guests were found to be
resplendent in toilette. Never, even under a ducal roof, had these
ladies found themselves in such a gorgeous assembly, and never before,
perhaps, even at the Duchess's grandest receptions, had they been unable
to discover a single face they knew. Sir Robert was even more appalled
by this discovery than his daughters were. He put up his glass and
peered more and more wistfully into the crowd. "Don't know a soul," he
repeated at intervals. Poor Sir Robert! he had not thought it possible
that such an event could happen to him within the four seas. Accordingly
the Dorsets clung, somewhat scared, to Mrs. Copperhead's side, and
Ursula along with them, who looked at the crowd still more wistfully
than Sir Robert did, and thought how nice it would be to know somebody.
Unfortunately the Miss Dorsets were not attractive in personal
appearance. Clarence Copperhead, though he was not indifferent to a
baronet, was yet not sufficiently devoted to the aristocracy to do more
than dance once, as was his bounden duty, with each of the sisters. "It
seems so strange not to know any one," these ladies said. "Isn't it?"
said Clarence. "_I_ don't know a soul." But then he went off and danced
with Phoebe Beecham, and the Miss Dorsets stood by Mrs. Copperhead,
almost concealing behind them the slight little snow-white figure of
little Ursula May.

Clarence was a very well-behaved young man on the whole. He knew his
duty, and did it with a steady industry, working off his dances in the
spirit of his navvy forefather. But he returned between each duty dance
to the young lady in black, who was always distinguishable among so many
young ladies in white, and pink, and green, and blue. The Miss Dorsets
and Ursula looked with interest and something like envy at that young
lady in black. She had so many partners that she scarcely knew how to
manage them all, and the son of the house returned to her side with a
pertinacity that could not pass unremarked. "Why should one girl have so
much and another girl so little?" Ursula said to herself; but, to be
sure, she knew nobody, and the young lady in black knew everybody. On
the whole, however, it became evident to Ursula that a ball was not
always a scene of unmixed delight.

"It is very kind of you to remember what old friends we are," said
Phoebe. "But, Mr. Clarence, don't be more good to me than you ought to
be. I see your mother looking for you, and Mr. Copperhead might not like
it. Another time, perhaps, we shall be able to talk of old days."

"There is no time like the present," said the young man, who liked his
own way. I do not mean to say that it was right of Phoebe to dance with
him, especially dances she had promised to other people. But he was the
personage of the evening, and that is a great temptation. Mr. Copperhead
himself came up to them more than once, with meaning in his eyes.

"Don't be too entertaining, Miss Phoebe," he said; for he saw no reason
why he should not speak plainly in his own house, especially to the
minister's daughter. "Don't be too entertaining. This is Clarence's
ball, and he ought to be civil to other people too."

"Oh, please go away!" cried Phoebe, after this admonition. But Clarence
was sullen, and stood his ground.

"We are going to have our waltz out," he said. "It is not my ball a
bit--let him entertain his people himself. How should I know such a set
of guys? I know nobody but you and the Dorset girls, who are in society.
Parents are a mistake," said the young man, half rebellious, half
sullen, "they never understand. Perhaps you don't feel that, but I
should think girls must see it sometimes as well as men."

"Girls don't use such strong expressions," said Phoebe, smiling, as they
flew off in the uncompleted waltz. She danced very well, better than
most of the ladies present, and that was the reason Clarence assigned to
his mother for his preference of her. But when Mr. Copperhead saw that
his remonstrance was unheeded by the young people, he went up to Mrs.
Beecham, with a rich man's noble frankness and courage. "I am delighted
to see you here, ma'am, and I hope you have remarked how well Miss Phoebe
is entertaining my boy. Do you see them dancing? She's been away from
you a long time, Mrs. Beecham, as girls will when they get hold of
somebody that pleases them. Shouldn't you like me to go and fetch her
back?" Mrs. Beecham, with cheeks that were very full blown indeed, and
required a great deal of fanning, called back her child to her side at
the end of that dance. She scolded Phoebe behind her fan, and recalled
her to a sense of duty. "A pastor's daughter has to be doubly
particular," she said; "what if your poor papa was to get into trouble
through your thoughtlessness?"

"I was not thoughtless, mamma; forgive me for answering back," said
Phoebe, very meekly; and she showed no signs of sulkiness, though
Clarence was carried off and kept from approaching her again.

Unfortunately, however, when Clarence was removed from Phoebe, he fell
into still greater peril. The eldest Miss Dorset and her mother, both of
them with equally benevolent intentions, introduced him simultaneously
to Ursula May. "The poor little girl has not danced once," Mrs.
Copperhead, who had recollections of standing by herself for a whole
evening, unnoticed, whispered in his ear, and Miss Dorset spoke to him
still more plainly. "We brought her," she said, "but I cannot get her
partners, for I don't know anybody." And what could Clarence do but
offer himself? And Ursula, too, was a good dancer, and very pretty--far
prettier than Phoebe.

"Confound him! there he is now for ever with that girl in white," said
his father to himself, with great rage. Dozens of good partners in pink
and blue were going about the room. What did the boy mean by bestowing
himself upon the two poor ones, the black and the white. This disturbed
Mr. Copperhead's enjoyment, as he stood in the doorway of the ball-room,
looking round upon all the splendour that was his, and feeling disposed,
like Nebuchadnezzar, to call upon everybody to come and worship him. He
expanded and swelled out with pride and complacency, as he looked round
upon his own greatness, and perceived the effect made upon the
beholders. When that effect did not seem sufficiently deep, he called
here and there upon a lingerer for applause. "That's considered a very
fine Turner," he said, taking one of them into a smaller room. "Come
along here, you know about that sort of thing--I don't. I should be
ashamed to tell you how much I gave for it; all that money hanging there
useless, bringing in nothing! But when I do buy anything I like it to be
the very best that is to be had."

"I'd as soon have a good chromo," said the person addressed, "which
costs a matter of a five-pound note, and enough too, to hang up against
a wall. But you can afford it, Copperhead. You've the best right of any
man I know to be a fool if you like."

The great man laughed, but he scarcely liked the compliment. "I am a
fool if you like," he said, "the biggest fool going. I like a thing that
costs a deal, and is of no use. That's what I call luxury. My boy,
Clarence, and my big picture, they're dear; but I can afford 'em, if
they were double the price."

"If I were you," said his friend, "I wouldn't hang my picture in this
little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time with all the
riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and Robinson's niece, both
of them worth a cool hundred thousand; and you leave him to flourish
about all over the place with a chit in a white frock, and another in a
black one. I call that waste, not luxury, for my part."

"I don't want to sell either the boy or the picture," said the rich man,
with a laugh. But nevertheless he was annoyed that his son should be
such an ass. Miss Smith and Miss Robinson were as fine as their
milliners could make them. The first of these ladies had an emerald
locket almost as big as a warming-pan, and Miss Robinson's pearls were a
little fortune in themselves; but the chosen objects of that young
idiot's attentions wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny
trinkets, and gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead
knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself. Thus it will
be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in this world, even in
the midst of envious friends and the most splendid entertainment which
money could supply.




CHAPTER IV.

A COUNTRY PARTY.


"Very funny, now," said Sir Robert. "I don't know that such a thing ever
happened to me before. Give you my word for it, I didn't know a single
soul, not one; and there must have been a couple of hundred or so there.
Jove! I never thought there were as many people in England that I didn't
know."

"How could you know Mr. Copperhead's friends?" said Sophy Dorset. "What
I wonder is, that she should have asked us. Not but that it was amusing
enough, once in a way, just to see how such people look."

"They looked very much like other people, my dear. Finer, though. I
haven't seen so many jewels at an evening party for ages. Very much like
other people. Fatter, perhaps, the men, but not the women. I notice,"
said Sir Robert, who himself was spare, "that City men generally have a
tendency to fat."

"They are so rich," said Miss Dorset, with gentle disgust.

She was the quiet one, never saying much. Sophy, who was lively,
conducted the conversation. They were all seated at breakfast, later
than usual, on the morning after the Copperheads' ball. It was a hazy
morning, and the party were seated in a large sitting-room in the "very
central" locality of Suffolk Street, looking down that straight little
street upon the stream of carriages and omnibuses in the foggy distance.
It was not for pleasure that this country party had come to London. Sir
Robert's second son, who was in India, had sent his eldest children home
to the care of his father and sisters. They were expected at Portsmouth
daily, and the aunts, somewhat excited by the prospect of their charge,
had insisted upon coming to town to receive them. As for Ursula May, who
was a poor relation on the late Lady Dorset's side, as Mrs. Copperhead
had been a poor relation on Sir Robert's, London at any season was a
wonder and excitement to her, and she could not sufficiently thank the
kind relations who had given her this holiday in her humdrum life. She
was the daughter of a poor clergyman in the little town of Carlingford,
a widower with a large family. Ursula was the eldest daughter, with the
duties of a mother on her much burdened hands; and she had no special
inclination towards these duties, so that a week's escape from them was
a relief to her at any time. And a ball! But the ball had not been so
beatific as Ursula hoped. In her dark blue serge dress, close up to the
throat and down to the wrists, she did not look so pale as she had done
in her snow-white garments on the previous night; but she was at the
best of times a shadowy little person, with soft, dark brown hair, dark
brown eyes, and no more colour than the faintest of wild rose tints; but
the youthfulness, and softness, and roundness of the girl showed to full
advantage beside the more angular development of the Miss Dorsets, who
were tall, and had lost the first smooth curves of youth. To Ursula, not
yet twenty, these ladies looked very mature, almost aged, being one of
them ten, and the other eight years older than herself. She looked up to
them with great respect; but she felt, all the same--how could she help
it?--that in some things, though the Miss Dorsets were her superiors, it
was best to be Ursula May.

"Poor Clara!" said Sir Robert. "She was always a frightened creature.
When I recollect her, a poor little governess, keeping behind backs at
the nursery parties--and to see her in all her splendour now!"

"She would keep behind backs still, if she could," said Miss Dorset.

"Think of that, Ursula," cried Sophy; "there is an example for you. She
was a great deal worse off than you are; and to see her now, as papa
says! You may have a house in Portland Place too, and ask us to balls,
and wear diamonds. Think of that! Though last night you looked as
frightened as she."

"Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head. How it is that
girls are not ruined," said Miss Dorset, shaking her head, "ruined! by
such examples, I cannot tell. They must have stronger heads than we
think. As poor as Cinderella one day, and the next as rich as the
Queen--without any merit of theirs, all because some chance man happens
to take a fancy to them."

"Quite right," said Sir Robert; "quite right, my dear. It is the natural
course of affairs."

Miss Dorset shook her head. She went on shaking her head as she poured
out the tea. She was not given to eloquence, but the subject inspired
her.

"Don't think of it, Ursula; it is not the sort of thing that good girls
ought to think of," and the elder sister made signs to Sophy, who was
reckless, and did not mind the moral effect of the suggestion.

"Poor Mrs. Copperhead! I shall never have a house in Portland Place, nor
any diamonds, except Aunt Mary's old brooch. I shall live and die an old
maid, and nobody will waste a thought upon me," said Sophy, who made
this prophecy at her ease, not expecting it to come true; "but I don't
envy poor Clara, and if you marry such a man as Mr. Copperhead, though I
shall admire you very much, Ursula, I shan't envy you."

"Is young Mr. Copperhead as bad as his father?" said Ursula, simply.

She was so far from thinking what meaning could be attached to her
words, that she stopped and looked, wondering, from one to another when
they laughed.

"Ha! ha! ha!" said Sir Robert; "not so bad, either!"

Poor Ursula was extremely serious. She turned with relief to Miss
Dorset, who was serious too.

"My dear, we don't know much about Clarence; he is a heavy young man. I
don't think he is attractive. Have you had a letter from the Parsonage
this morning?" said Anne Dorset, with a very grave face; and as it
turned out that Ursula had a letter, Miss Dorset immediately plunged
into discussion of it. The girl did not understand why the simple little
epistle should be so interesting, nor did she perceive yet what the
laughter was about. To tell the truth, Ursula, who was not clever, had
thought young Mr. Copperhead very _nice_. He had asked her to dance when
nobody else did; he had talked to her as much as he could have talked to
Sophy Dorset herself. He had rehabilitated her in her own eyes after the
first disappointment and failure of the evening, and she was prepared to
think, whatever might be said about the father, that the son was "very
kind" and very agreeable. Why should they laugh? Ursula concluded that
there must be some private joke of their own about Clarence (what a
pretty, interesting, superior name Clarence was!) which she could not be
permitted to know.

"If you talk like that," said Anne Dorset to Sophy, "you will set her
little head afloat about good matches, and spoil her too."

"And a very good thing," said Sophy. "If you had put the idea into my
head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why shouldn't she think of a
good match? Can she live there for ever in that dreadful Parsonage,
among all those children whom she does not know how to manage? Don't be
absurd, Anne; except an elder daughter like you here and there, you
know, girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change what is the
course of nature, as papa says."

"Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly."

"Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because I am unmarried,
I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and no one finds any fault."

"Not all surely; not near _all_."

"Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever they write,
whenever they speak in public. When men are so mean, why should we train
girls up to unnatural high-mindedness? Why, that is the sort of girl who
ought to make a good marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody
'hooked' for her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and all
that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind."

Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head. It was all she
could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was beyond her power, and if it
had not been beyond her power, what would have been the good of it?
Sophy had a story which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been
romantic, and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before, she
had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the good living he
was waiting for in order to marry was not likely to come through Sir
Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed his serious doubt whether
they were likely to be happy together, and broke off the engagement. He
married somebody else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the
shame as she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly
indignant with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten long
ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot that Sophy had been
jilted, and she did not forget it herself, which was worse. Therefore
Miss Dorset attempted no argument with her sister. She shook her gentle
head, and said nothing. Anne was the elder sister born, the
maiden-mother, who is a clearly defined type of humanity, though rare,
perhaps, like all the finer sorts. She resolved in her own mind to take
private means for the fortification and preservation of Ursula, whose
position, as elder sister of a motherless family, interested her
especially as being like her own; but Anne owned within herself that
she had never been so young as little Ursula May.

Ursula, for her part, thought very little about the question which had
thus moved her cousins. She thought Mr. Clarence Copperhead was very
nice, and that if she had but known as many people, and had as many
partners as that young lady in black, she would have enjoyed the ball
very much. After all, now that it was over, she felt that she had
enjoyed it. Three dances were a great deal better than none at all, and
to have that pretty white frock given to her by Sir Robert was no small
matter. Besides, for in this as in other things the uses of adversity
are sometimes sweet, the pretty dress, which no doubt would have been
torn and crumpled had she danced much, was almost quite fresh now, and
would do very well at Carlingford if there should be any balls
there--events which happened occasionally, though Ursula had never been
lucky enough to go to any of them. And Cousin Sophy had given her a set
of Venetian beads and Cousin Anne a bracelet. This good fortune was
quite enough to fill her mind with satisfaction, and prevent any undue
meditation upon good matches or the attentions of Clarence Copperhead.
Ursula was as different as possible from Phoebe Beecham. She had no
pretensions to be intellectual. She preferred the company even of her
very smallest brothers and sisters to the conversation of her papa,
though he was known to be one of the most superior men in the diocese.
Even when her elder brother Reginald, of whom she was very fond, came
home from college, Ursula was more than indifferent to the privileged
position of elder sister, by which she was permitted to sit up and
assist at the talks which were carried on between him and his father.
Reginald was very clever too; he was making his own way at the
university by means of scholarships, the only way in which a son of Mr.
May's was likely to get to the university at all, and to hear him talk
with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy was a very fine thing
indeed; how Phoebe Beecham, if the chance had been hers, would have
prized it; but Ursula did not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a
pantomime, or the poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame
Tussaud's exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets
with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and speculate
what was going to be worn next season. Poor little girl! with such
innocent and frivolous tastes, it may be supposed she did not find her
position as elder sister and housekeeper a very congenial one. Her
father was no more than Incumbent of St. Roque, an old perpetual curacy
merged in a district church, which was a poor appointment for an
elderly man with a family; he was very clever and superior, but not a
man who got on, or who did much to help his children to get on; and had
Ursula been of the kind of those who suffer and deny themselves by
nature, she would have had her hands full, and abundant opportunity
afforded her to exercise those faculties. But she was not of this frame
of mind. She did what she was obliged to do as well as time and
opportunity permitted; but she did not throw herself with any enthusiasm
into her duties. To keep seven children in good condition and discipline
in a small house, on a small income, is more, it must be allowed, than
most girls of twenty are equal to; only enthusiasm and self-devotion
could make such a task possible, and these qualifications poor little
Ursula did not possess. Oh! how glad she was to get away from it all,
from having to think of Janey and Johnny, and Amy and little Robin. She
was not anxious about how things might be going on in her absence, as
kind Miss Dorset thought she must be. The happiness of escaping was
first and foremost in her thoughts.




CHAPTER V.

SELF-DEVOTION.


"Mr. Copperhead's manner is not pleasant sometimes, that is quite true.
We must make allowances, my dear. Great wealth, you know, has its
temptations. You can't expect a man with so much money and so many
people under him to have the same consideration for other people's
feelings. He says to this man go and he goeth, and to that man come and
he cometh."

"That is all very well," said Phoebe; "but he has no right, that I can
think of, to be rude to mamma and me."

"He was not exactly rude, my dear," said Mrs. Beecham. "We must not say
he was rude. Clarence ought to have divided his attentions more equally,
we must admit, and his father was annoyed--for the moment. I have no
doubt he has forgotten all about it long ago, and will be as pleasant as
ever next time we meet."

"I am quite sure of it," said the pastor, "and at the worst it was but
his manner--only his manner. In short, at the committee meeting
yesterday nothing could have been nicer. He went even out of his way to
send, as it were, a kind message to Phoebe. 'I needn't ask if Miss Phoebe
enjoyed herself,' he said. Depend upon it, my dear, if there was a
temporary annoyance it is both forgotten and forgiven, so far as Mr.
Copperhead is concerned."

"Forgiven!" Phoebe said to herself; but she thought it wiser to say
nothing audible on the subject. Her father and mother, it was evident,
were both disposed to extend any amount of toleration to the leading
member. It was he who was the best judge as to what he had a right to be
annoyed about. The family party were in Mr. Beecham's study, where the
large bust of Mr. Copperhead stood on the mantelpiece, the chief
decoration. How could any one be so wicked as to rebel against the
influence of so great a personage? Phoebe had her own ideas, but she was
wise and kept them to herself.

"And now," said Mrs. Beecham, solemnly, "what is to be done, my dear,
about this letter from my good papa?"

Phoebe was standing in front of a book-case, apparently looking for a
book. She said nothing; but it was easy to perceive by the erectness of
her shoulders, and the slight movement that ran through her, that her
attention was fully engaged.

"Ah, yes indeed, what about it?" the pastor said. He put down the pen,
which he had been holding in his hand by way of symbol that, amiable as
he was, his attention to his woman-kind was an encroachment upon time
which might be more usefully employed. But this was a serious question;
he had no suggestion to offer, but he sat and twiddled his thumbs, and
looked at his wife with interest suddenly aroused.

"There is a great deal to be thought of," said Mrs. Beecham, "it is not
a simple matter of family devotion. Of course if I had no other ties,
nor other duties, everything would be easy. I should go at once to my
poor suffering mamma."

Mrs. Beecham was a clever woman, but she had not been able to get it out
of her mind, owing to the imperfections of her education in youth, that
it was a vulgar thing to say father and mother. "But in the present
circumstances," she continued, her husband having given his assent to
this speech, "it is clear that I cannot do what I wish. I have you to
think of, my dear, and the children, and the duties of my position. On
the other hand, of course I could not wish, as poor mamma's only
daughter, to have my sister-in-law called in. She is not the kind of
person; she is underbred, uneducated. Of course she would be thinking of
her own children, and what would be best for them. My parents have done
all that ought to be expected from them for Tom. Considering all things,
what they have to dispose of ought to go to Phoebe and Tozer. But Mrs.
Tom would not see that."

"It is very true, my dear; I don't suppose she would," said Mr. Beecham,
with an anxious air.

"Mrs. Tom," said his wife, with some heat, "would think her own had the
first claim. She maintained it to my very face, and after that what have
we to expect? It's us that are Tozers," she said; "as for you, Phoebe,
you belong to another family. I put it in my own language of course, not
in her vulgar way."

"It is a very serious question altogether," said the pastor, with some
solemnity. "I don't see how you can get away, and I don't know what is
to be done."

"Whatever is to be done, I won't leave poor mamma in the hands of Mrs.
Tom," cries Mrs. Beecham, "not whatever it costs me. She's capable of
anything, that woman is. To have her in the same town is bad enough, but
in the same house nursing poor mamma! You and I would never see a penny
of the money, Henery, nor our children--not a penny! besides the
vexation of seeing one's own parents turned against one. I know very
well how it would be."

Mr. Beecham ceased twiddling his thumbs. The crisis was too serious for
that indulgence. "The position is most difficult," he said, "I see it
all. It is easy to see it for that matter, but to decide what are we to
do is not easy. To go back to Carlingford after so many changes, would
it be good for you?"

"It would kill me," said Mrs. Beecham, with energy, "you know it would
kill me. Envy drove us out, and envy would bring me to the grave. I
don't deceive myself, that is what I see before me, if I tear myself
from all my duties and go. But on the other hand----"

"Listen, mamma!" cried Phoebe, turning round suddenly; "if grandmamma is
ill, and you are afraid to leave her alone, why not send me?"

Both her parents turned towards Phoebe, as she spoke; they listened to
her with wonder and consternation, yet with admiring looks. Then they
looked at each other consulting, alarmed. "You!" said Mrs. Beecham, and
"You!" echoed the pastor, repeating in his great astonishment what his
wife said.

"Yes, indeed, me--why not me? it would be only my duty," said Phoebe,
with great composure. "And there is nothing to keep me from going. I
almost think I should like it--but anyhow, mamma, if you think it
necessary, whether I like it or not--"

"Phoebe, my darling, you are the best child in the world," cried her
mother, rising up, and going to her hastily. She gave her a kiss of
maternal enthusiasm, and then she looked at her husband. "But should we
take advantage of it?" she said.

"You see, my dear," said Mr. Beecham, hesitating, "you might find many
things different from what you are used to. Your grandpapa Tozer is an
excellent man--a most excellent man--"

"Yes, yes," said his wife, with some impatience. She was as conscious as
he was of the great elevation in the social scale that had occurred to
both of them since they left Carlingford, and knew as well as he did
that the old people had remained stationary, while the younger ones had
made such advances; but still she did not like to hear her husband
criticize her father. What there was to be said, she preferred to say
herself. "Yes, yes," she said, "Phoebe knows there is a difference; they
are old-fashioned folks, and don't live quite as we live. Some things
would strike you very strangely, my dear, some things you would not
like; and then Phoebe may be, for anything I can tell, at a turning-point
in her own life."

"If you mean about the Copperheads, mamma, dismiss that from your mind,"
said Phoebe. "There is no sort of hurry. We may be thrown together in
after-life, and of course no one can tell what may happen, but in the
mean time there is nothing of the sort in my mind--nor in any one
else's. Do not think of that for a moment. I am at no turning-point. I
am quite ready and quite willing to go wherever you please."

Once more the parent pair looked at each other. They had been very
careful not to bring their children into contact, since they were
children, with the homelier circumstances of the life in which they
themselves had both taken their origin. They had managed this really
with great skill and discretion. Instead of visiting the Tozers at
Carlingford, they had appointed meetings at the sea-side, by means of
which the children were trained in affectionate acquaintance with their
grandparents, without any knowledge of the shop. And Mr. Tozer, who was
only a butterman at Carlingford, presented all the appearance of an old
Dissenting minister out of it--old-fashioned, not very refined perhaps,
as Mrs. Beecham allowed, but very kind, and the most doting of
grandfathers. The wisp of white neckcloth round his neck, and his black
coat, and a certain unction of manner all favoured the idea.
Theoretically, the young people knew it was not so, but the impression
on their imagination was to this effect. Mrs. Tozer was only
"grandmamma." She was kind too, and if rather gorgeous in the way of
ribbons, and dressing generally in a manner which Phoebe's taste
condemned, yet she came quite within the range of that affectionate
contempt with which youth tolerates the disadvantages of its seniors.
But the butterman's shop! and the entire cutting off from everything
superior to the grocers and poulterers of Carlingford--how would Phoebe
support it? This was what Mr. and Mrs. Beecham asked each other with
their eyes--and there was a pause. For the question was a tremendous
one, and neither knew in what way to reply.

"Phoebe, you are a very sensible girl--" said her father at last,
faltering.

"I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating me as if I were
sensible," said Phoebe. "I know well enough that grandpapa is in
business--if that is what you are afraid of--"

"Has been in business," said Mrs. Beecham. "Your grandpapa has retired
for some time. To be sure," she added, turning to her husband, "it is
only Tom that has the business, and as I consider Mrs. Tom
objectionable, Phoebe need not be brought in contact--"

"If Phoebe goes to Carlingford," said the pastor, "she must not be
disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds to that. They must
not call her stuck up and proud."

"Henery," said Mrs. Beecham, "I can put up with a great deal; but to
think of a child of mine being exposed to the tongues of those Browns
and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more than I can bear. What I went through
myself, you never knew, nor any one breathing--the looks they gave me,
the things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every time I
passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated, and more refined
like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's time, before you came, Henery, he
was a very gentleman-like young man, and he used to come to the ----
High Street constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked
him--no more than I did you!"

"Your father used to ask me," said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully. "It was very
kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place; and a great many things
arise, there is no doubt, in that way."

"Not by my doing," said the lady; "and when we were married, Henery, the
things I did to please them! Thank Heaven, they know the difference now;
but if they were to set themselves, as I could quite expect of them,
against my child--"

"Mamma," said Phoebe, tranquilly, "I think you forget that it is me you
are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's daughter owes to herself.
I have had my training. I don't think you need be frightened for me."

"No; I think Phoebe could manage them if any one could," said her father,
complacently.

She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She had a book in
her hand, which of itself was a proof of Phoebe's pretensions. It was, I
think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart Mill's "Dissertations." Phoebe
was not above reading novels or other light literature, but this only in
the moments dedicated to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a
time not for amusement, but for work.

"Phoebe don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there," said Mrs. Beecham,
flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies
of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a
more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all
these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had
felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small
folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between the
shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought she had felt
it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful whether Phoebe Tozer
had felt anything of the kind; but she thought so now; and then it was a
fact that she was born Phoebe Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas
Phoebe Beecham had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the
limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town, and though
she knew how much the Crescent congregation thought of a stray
millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing which seemed too natural to
Miss Beecham to leave any room for remark), her mother thought that it
might have a bad effect upon Phoebe's principles in every way, should she
find out the lowly place held by the connection in such an
old-fashioned, self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would
Phoebe think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns and the
Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from the shop; but
the shop was still there, greasy and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's
own respected papa was still "the butterman." How would Phoebe bear it?
This was the uppermost thought in her mind.

"You know, my darling," she said afterwards, when they had left the
study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room, "there
will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly; I don't like even to
hear your papa say anything about dear old grandpapa. He is my own, and
I ought to stand up for him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a
great deal to put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are
used to have things so different. They think differently, and they talk
differently. Even with your sense, Phoebe, you will find it hard to get
on."

"I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma."

"You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and I am afraid.
You know, we are not great people, Phoebe. I have always let you know
that--and that it is far finer to elevate yourself than to be born to a
good position. But when you see really the place which poor dear
grandpapa and grandmamma think so much of, I am sure I don't know what
you will say."

"I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma. I am not
prejudiced," said Phoebe. "So long as an occupation is honest and
honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what does it matter? One
kind of work is just as good as another. It is the spirit in which it is
done."

"Oh, honest!" said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted. "Of
course, it was all that. Nothing else would have answered papa. Your
uncle Tom has the--business now. You need not go there, my dear, unless
you like. I am not fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above
our station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for it;
and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except just for a
formal call, I don't think you need go there, and even that only if
grandmamma can spare you. You must be civil to everybody, I suppose; but
you need not go further; they are not society for you. You will hear
people talk of me by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but
don't believe it, Phoebe. I always felt aspirations towards a very
different kind of life."

"Oh, don't be afraid, mamma," said Phoebe, calmly; "I shall be able to
keep them at a distance. You need not fear."

"Yes, my dear," said the anxious mother; "but not too much at a distance
either. That is just what is so difficult. If they can find an excuse
for saying that my child is stuck up! Oh! nothing would please them more
than to be able to find out something against my child. When you have
apparently belonged to that low level, and then have risen," said Mrs.
Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, "there is nothing these kind of
people will not say."

These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Phoebe's mind; but
they did not change her resolution. If it was necessary that some one
should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people
at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's
daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as
herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense
of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what
she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than
the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt
herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made
her preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people who
would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to "put up
with." But what of that? Strong in a sense of duty, and superior to all
lesser inducements, she felt herself able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham
assisted with very divided feelings at the preparations. It was on her
lips to say, "Never mind the evening dresses; you will not want them."
But then the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks
see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use for such
things, would be sweet.

"No, Henery; she shall take them all," she said to her husband. "They
shall see the kind of society my child is in; very different from their
trumpery little teas! They shall see that you and I, we grudge nothing
for Phoebe--and I dare be sworn there is not one of them like her, not
even among the quality! I mean," said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a
flush of distress at her own failure in gentility, "among those who
think themselves better than we are. But Phoebe will let them see what a
pastor's family is out of their dirty little town. She will bring them
to their senses. Though I hesitated at first when it was spoken of, I am
very glad now."

"Yes; Phoebe is a girl to find her level anywhere," said the pastor,
complacently. And they forgot what she would have to put up with in
their satisfaction and admiration for herself.




CHAPTER VI.

A MORNING CALL.


Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty bound, upon their
relation two days after her ball. "You had better come with us, Ursula,"
said Miss Dorset. "Sophy does not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead
asked a great many questions about you. She is very tender-hearted to
the ---- young." Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult
to remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish our
friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory to their
own ears. "She was like you once, you know," she added, half
apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the least disposed to take
offence, did not ask how, but assented, as she would have assented had
Cousin Anne told her to get ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs
and put on her little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long
drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue serge jacket
which corresponded with her dress. She had not any great opinion of her
own good looks, but she hoped that she was "lady-like," notwithstanding
the simplicity of her costume. This was her only aspiration. In her
heart she admired the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by
her cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and softness,
which seemed to Ursula a very inferior "style;" but yet if she looked
lady-like that was always something, and both Sir Robert and his
daughter looked at her approvingly as she stood buttoning her gloves,
waiting for them.

"If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very
agreeable, Ursula," said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little.
Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to
herself, she would try to be _nice_--was not that a girl's first duty?
She tried for her part to be _nice_ to everybody, to talk when she
could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her
friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance
into the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even
Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to
her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly
handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which
were totally out of Ursula's way.

"There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room," Anne
said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good
enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.

"The drawing-room carpet will do very well," he said. "It will last out
my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself."

This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too,
like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think
of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking
in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as
Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at
them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were
occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy
her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were "the fashion."
Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate
Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell
Janey of--which would be next best.

Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her
visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of
them. They were the nearest approach to "her own people" that the poor
soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with
deprecating looks.

"I am sure you are very good--very good to say so. I am afraid it was
not much amusement to you. They were not the kind of people--"

"I scarcely knew a soul," said Sir Robert; "it was a curious sensation.
It does one good now and then to have a sensation like that. It shows
you that after all you are not such a fine fellow as you thought
yourself. Once before I experienced something of the same feeling. It
was at a ball at the Tuileries--but even then, after a while, I found
English people I knew, though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by
Jove! except yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here."

Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was intended to
feel it.

"Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable people," she
said, with a little spirit. "He prefers his old friends."

"That is very nice of him," cried Anne, "so much the kindest way. I
liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people come and ask me to
dance for duty, pretending not to see that my dancing days are over."

"She talks nonsense," said Sir Robert. "Clara, I must trust to you to
put this notion out of Anne's head. Why should her dancing days be over?
I am not a Methuselah, I hope. She has no right to shelve herself so
early, has she? I hope to see her make a good match before I die."

"So long as she is happy--" said Mrs. Copperhead, faltering. She was not
any advocate for good matches. "Oh, there is Mr. Copperhead!" she added,
with a little start, as a resounding knock was heard. "He does not often
come home so early; he will be very glad to see you, Sir Robert. Are you
going to stay long in town, Miss May?"

"Not long, only till the children arrive," said Anne, looking
compassionately at the rich man's nervous wife. She had been quiet
enough, so long as she was alone. Now a little fever seemed to be
awakened in her. She turned to Ursula and began to talk to her quickly--

"Do you like being in town? It is not a good time of the year. It is
nicer in May, when everything looks cheerful; but I always live in
London. You will come back for the season, I suppose?"

"Oh no," said Ursula. "I never was in London before. Cousin Anne brought
me for a great pleasure. I have been twice to the theatre, and at the
ball here."

"Oh yes, I forgot, you were at the ball--and you danced, did you dance?
I cannot remember. There were so many people. Oh yes, I recollect. I
spoke to Clarence--"

"I danced three times," said Ursula. "I never was at a ball before. It
was very nice. Mr. Copperhead was so kind--"

"What is that about Mr. Copperhead being kind? Was I kind? I am always
kind--ask my wife, she will give me a good character," said the master
of the house, coming up to them. "Ah, the Baronet! how do you do, Sir
Robert? I don't often see you in my house."

"You saw us the other evening," said Sir Robert, courteously, "and we
have just come, Anne and I, to let Clara know how much we enjoyed
it. It was really splendid. I don't know when I have seen so
much--um--luxury--so great a display of--of--beautiful things--and--and
wealth."

"Glad to hear you were pleased," said Mr. Copperhead, "no expense was
spared at least. I don't often throw away my money in that way, but when
I do I like things to be regardless of expense. That is our way in the
city; other people have to make a deal of gentility go a long way, but
with us, who don't stand on our gentility--"

"It is not much to stand upon, certainly, in the way of giving balls,"
said Sir Robert. "I quite agree with you that money should not be spared
when a good effect is to be produced. Anne, my dear, if you have said
all you have to say to Clara, you must recollect that we have a great
deal to do--"

"You are not going the moment I come in," said Mr. Copperhead. "Come, we
must have some tea or something. Not that I care very much for tea, but
I suppose you'll be shocked if I offer you anything else in the
afternoon. Haven't you ordered tea, Mrs. Copperhead? I can't teach my
wife hospitality, Sir Robert--not as I understand it. She'd see you come
and go a dozen times, I'll be bound, without once thinking of offering
anything. That ain't my way. Tea! and directly, do you hear."

"Yes," said Mrs. Copperhead, in a nervous tremor; "bring tea, Burton,
please. It is rather early, but I do so hope you will stay." She gave
Miss Dorset an appealing glance, and Anne was too kind to resist the
appeal.

"To be sure they'll stay," said Mr. Copperhead. "Ladies never say no to
a cup of tea, and ours ought to be good if there's any virtue in money.
Come and look at my Turner, Sir Robert. I ain't a judge of art, but it
cost a precious lot, if that is any test. They tell me it's one of the
best specimens going. Come this way."

"You won't mind?" said poor Mrs. Copperhead. "He is very hospitable, he
cannot bear that any one should go without taking something. It is
old-fashioned, but then Mr. Copperhead--"

"It is a most kind fashion, I think," said Anne Dorset, who had a
superstitious regard for other people's feelings, "and Mr. Copperhead is
quite right, I never say no to a cup of tea."

Just then Clarence came in with his hands in his pockets, so curiously
like his father in his large somewhat loose figure, as unlike him in
aspect and expression, that even the gentle Anne could scarcely help
smiling. When he had shaken hands with Miss Dorset he dropped naturally
into a seat beside Ursula, who, dazzled by his position as son of the
house, and flattered by what she called his "kindness," was as much
pleased by this sign of preference as if Clarence Copperhead had been a
hero.

"I hope you have recovered my father's ball," he said.

"Recovered! Mr. Copperhead."

"Yes, you think it uncivil; but I myself have scarcely recovered yet.
The sort of people he chose to collect--people whom nobody knew."

"But, Mr. Copperhead," said Ursula, "if it was his old friends, as your
mother says, how much more noble of him than if they had been fine
people he did not care for! As for me, I don't know any one anywhere. It
was all the same to me."

"That was very lucky for you," said the young man. "My good cousins did
not take it so easily. They are your cousins, too?"

"Oh, yes--they are so good," cried Ursula. "Cousin Sophy laughs at me
sometimes, but Cousin Anne is as kind as an angel. They have always been
good to us all our lives."

"You live near them, perhaps? Sir Robert has been kind enough to ask me
to the Hall."

"No, not near. We live at Carlingford. It is not a place like the
Dorsets'; it is a poor little town where papa is one of the clergymen.
We are not county people like them," said Ursula, with anxious honesty,
that he might not have a false idea of her pretensions. "I have never
been anywhere all my life, and that is why they brought me here. It was
by far the most beautiful party I ever saw," she added, with a little
enthusiasm. "I never was at a real dance before."

"I am glad you thought it pretty," said Clarence. "I suppose it was
pretty; when the rooms are nice," and he looked round the handsome room,
not without a little complacency, "and when there is plenty of light and
flowers, and well-dressed people, I suppose no dance can help being a
pretty sight. That was about all. There was no one worth pointing out."

"Oh, there were some very pretty people," said Ursula; "there was a
young lady in black. She was always dancing. I should have liked to know
her. You danced with her a great many times, Mr. Copperhead."

"Ah!" said Clarence. He was not more foolish than his neighbours, but it
flattered him that his dancing with one person should have been noticed,
especially by a pretty creature, who herself had attracted him and
shared the privilege. "That was Miss Beecham. I did not dance with her
above three or four times. Of course," he said, apologetically, "we are
old friends."

Ursula did not know why he should apologize. She did not intend to
flirt, not having any knowledge of that pastime as yet. She was quite
simple in her mention of the other girl, who had attracted her
attention. Now having said all she could remember to say, she stopped
talking, and her eyes turned to the elder Mr. Copperhead, who came back,
followed by Sir Robert. There was a largeness about the rich man, which
Ursula, not used to rich men, gazed at with surprise. He seemed to
expand himself upon the air, and spread out his large person, as she had
never known any one else do. And Sir Robert, following him, looked so
strangely different. He was very reluctant to be so led about, and, as
it were, patronized by the master of the house, and his repugnance took
a curious form. His nose was slightly drawn up, as if an odour of
something disagreeable had reached him. Ursula, in her innocence,
wondered what it was.

"Here's the Baronet, Clarence," said Mr. Copperhead, who was slightly
flushed; "and he doubts the Turner being genuine. My Turner! Go off at
once to those picture people, Christie, whatever you call them, and tell
them I want proofs that it's genuine. I am not the sort of man, by
George! to be cheated, and they ought to know that. They have had many a
hundred pounds of my money, but they shall never have another penny if I
don't get proofs. It ain't pleasant, I can tell you, to hear the
Baronet, or any one else for that matter, running down my pictures."

"I did not run it down," said Sir Robert, with another little curl of
his nostrils. (What could there be in this grand big house that could
make a disagreeable smell?) "I only said that I had seen copies that
were so wonderfully good that none but an expert could tell the
difference; that was all. I don't say that yours is one of them."

"No; nor no one shall!" cried Mr. Copperhead. "We shall have the
experts, as you call them, and settle it. By George! there shall be
nothing uncertain in my house. You can tell the men it is Sir Robert
Dorset who suggested it. There's nothing like a title (even when it
isn't much of a title) to keep people up to their work. Not meaning any
disrespect to Sir Robert, I could buy him and his up five times over.
But I ain't Sir Robert, and never will be. Say Sir Robert, Clarence, my
boy; that'll bear weight."

"It was an unfortunate observation on my part," said Sir Robert,
stiffly. "I have a picture myself, which I bought for a Correggio, and
which is a mere copy, I believe, though a very nice one. I hold my
tongue on the subject, and nobody is the wiser. Anne, my dear, I think
we must go now."

"That would never suit me," said the rich man; "holding my tongue ain't
my way, is it, Mrs. Copperhead? What! going, after all, without your
tea? I am afraid, ma'am, the Baronet is touchy, and doesn't like what I
said. But nobody minds me, I assure you. I say what I think, but I don't
mean any harm."

"Oh, no," said Anne, drawing herself up, while her father took leave of
poor little tremulous Mrs. Copperhead. "We really must go; we have
stayed longer than we meant to stay. Ursula--"

"Your little companion?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Ah; you should take care,
Miss Dorset, of these little persons. They stand in the way of the young
ladies themselves often enough, I can tell you. And so can Mrs.
Copperhead; she knows."

He laughed, and both Anne and Ursula became aware that something
offensive was meant; but what it was, neither of them could make out.
Mrs. Copperhead, whose intelligence had been quickened on that point,
perceived it, and trembled more and more.

"Good-bye, dear," she said to Ursula in an agony. "Though we are not
cousins, we are connections, through your kind Cousin Anne; for she lets
me call her my Cousin Anne too. Perhaps you will come and pay me a visit
sometimes, if--if you can be spared."

"Oh, yes; I should be very glad," said Ursula, confused.

She did not understand why Sir Robert should be in such a hurry, when
both young Mr. Copperhead and his mother were so kind. As for the other
Mr. Copperhead, he did not interest Ursula. But he went down to the door
with them in an excess of civility, offering Anne his arm, which she was
obliged to take, much against her will; and even Ursula felt a passing
pang of humiliation when the footman threw open the great door before
them, and no carriage was visible.

"Oh, you are walking!" said Mr. Copperhead, with one of his big laughs.

After all, a laugh could hurt nobody. Why was it that they all felt
irritated and injured? Even Sir Robert grew scarlet, and when they were
outside on the broad pavement turned almost angrily upon his daughter.

"I tell you what, Anne," he said; "not if it was to save my life, shall
I ever enter that brute's doors again."

"Oh, papa; poor Mrs. Copperhead!" cried kind Anne, with a wail in her
voice. That was all the reply she made.




CHAPTER VII.

SHOPPING.


Next day a telegram came from Southampton, announcing the arrival of the
little Dorsets, which Ursula rejoiced over with the rest, yet was
dreadfully sorry for in her heart. "Now we shall be able to get home,"
the sisters said, and she did her best to smile; but to say that she was
glad to leave London, with all its delights, the bright streets and the
shop-windows, and the theatres, and the excitement of being "on a
visit," would be a great deal more than the truth. She was glad,
sympathetically, and to please the others; but for herself, her heart
fell. It was still winter, and winter is not lively in Carlingford; and
there was a great deal to do at home, and many things "to put up with."
To be sure, that was her duty, this was only her pleasure; but at
twenty, pleasure is so much more pleasant than duty. Ursula did not at
all rebel, nor did she make painful contrasts in her mind, as so many
young people do; asking why are others so well off, and I so badly off?
but her heart sank. All the mendings, all the keepings in order, the
dinners to be invented with a due regard for the butcher's bill, the
tradespeople to be kept in good humour, the servant to be managed, and
papa, who was more difficult than the servant, and more troublesome than
the children! If Ursula sighed over the prospect, I don't think the
severest of recording angels would put a very bad mark against her. She
had been free of all this for ten wonderful days. No torn frocks, no
unpleasant baker, no hole in the carpet, no spoiled mutton-chops, had
disturbed her repose. All these troubles, no doubt, were going on as
usual at home, and Janey and the maid were struggling with them as best
they could. Had Ursula been very high-minded and given up to her duty,
no doubt she would have been too much moved by the thought of what her
young sister might be enduring in her absence, to get the good of her
holiday; but I fear this was not how she felt it. Janey, no doubt, would
get through somehow; and it was very sweet to escape for ever so short a
time, and have a real rest. Therefore, it must be allowed that, when
Ursula went to her bed-room after this news arrived, she relieved
herself by "a good cry." Two or three days longer, what difference could
that have made to those children? But after her headache was relieved in
this way, the cloud dispersed a little. The thought of all she had to
tell Janey consoled her. She counted over the spare contents of her
purse, and calculated that, after all, she would have enough to buy the
necktie; and she had all her presents to exhibit; the ball-dress, that
unhoped-for acquisition; the Venetian beads; the bracelet, "Which is
really good--_good_ gold; fancy!" said Ursula to herself, weighing it in
her hand. How Janey would be interested, how she would be dazzled! There
was a great deal of consolation in this thought. In the afternoon her
cousins took her out "shopping," an occupation which all young girls and
women like. They bought a great many things "for the spring," and "for
the children," while Ursula looked on with admiration. To be able to buy
things three months in advance, three months before they could possibly
be wanted, what luxury! and yet the Dorsets were not rich, or so, at
least, people said.

"Now, Ursula," said Cousin Anne, "we have made all our purchases.
Suppose you choose frocks for the children at home."

"Oh, me?" cried poor Ursula, forgetting grammar. She blushed very red,
and looked, not without indignation, into Anne Dorset's mild eyes. "You
know I have not any money; you know we can't afford it!" she cried, with
starting tears.

"But I can," said Cousin Anne; "at least, I have some money just now.
Money always goes, whether one buys things or not," she added, with a
little sigh. "It runs through one's fingers. When one has something to
show for it, that is always a satisfaction. Come, this would be pretty
for little Amy; but it is you who must choose."

"But, Cousin Anne! Dresses! If it was a necktie or a ribbon; but
frocks--"

"Frocks would be most useful, wouldn't they? One for Amy, and one for
Janey. I suppose Robin does not wear frocks now?"

"He has been in knickerbockers these two years," said Ursula, half
proud, half sorry; "and the worst of it is, they can't be made at home.
Papa says, boys' clothes made at home are always spoiled, and the tailor
is so dear. Oh, Cousin Anne, are you really, really going to be so very,
very good--!"

Mrs. Copperhead came into the shop while they were choosing. Poor little
woman! she who trembled so in her own house, how everybody bowed down
before her at Messrs. Margrove and Snelcher's! It was all she could do
to extricate herself from a crowd of anxious officials, all eager to
supply her with everything that heart could desire, when she saw the
little party. She came up to them, almost running in her eagerness, her
small pale face flushed, and leaned on Anne Dorset's chair and whispered
to her.

"You will not be angry, dear kind Anne. You are always so good to
everybody. Oh, forgive me! forgive me!"

Ursula could not help hearing what she said.

"There is nothing to forgive _you_, Mrs. Copperhead."

"Oh, dear Anne! But I am more than myself, you know! He does not mean
it; he never was brought up to know better. He thinks that is how people
behave--"

"Please don't say anything, dear Mrs. Copperhead."

"Not if you will forgive--not if you will promise to forgive. Poor
Clarence is heart-broken!" cried the poor woman. "He is so frightened
for what you must think."

"We don't think anything," said Sophy, breaking in; "it is one of our
good qualities as a family that we never think. Come and help us; we are
choosing frocks for Ursula's sisters. She has two. What are their ages,
Ursula? You, who live in town, and know the fashions, come and help us
to choose."

And how respectful all the shopmen grew when the nameless country party
was joined by the great Mrs. Copperhead--or rather the great Mr.
Copperhead's wife, at whose command was unlimited credit, and all the
contents of the shop if she chose. One hurried forward to give her a
chair, and quite a grand personage, a "head man," came from another
counter to take the charge of pleasing such a customer. Ursula could not
but look upon the whole transaction with awe. Mrs. Copperhead was a very
humble, timid woman, and Mr. Copperhead was not nice; but it was
something to command the reverence of all the people in such a grand
shop--a shop which Ursula by herself would scarcely have ventured to
enter, and in which she felt timid and overwhelmed, saying, "Sir" to the
gentleman who was so good as to ask what she wanted. But here Mrs.
Copperhead was not afraid. She gave herself up with her whole heart to
the delightful perplexity of choice, and when that matter was settled,
looked round with searching eyes.

"Don't they want something else?" she said, "it is so long since I have
bought any children's things. It reminds me of the days when Clarence
was little, when I took such pride in his dress. Come with me into the
cloak room, my dear, I am sure they must want jackets or something."

Ursula resisted with pitiful looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy whispered
into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which, instead of quenching
her ardour, brought it up instantly to boiling point. Her pale little
languid countenance glowed and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in
hers, half smiling, half crying.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "you can give me such a pleasure, if you will!
You know we are connections, almost relations. Let me send them
something. Dear children, I wish I could see them. Come and look at the
little jackets and mantles. I have often thought, if Providence had
given me a little girl, what pleasure I should have had in dressing her.
Hats too! I am sure they must want hats. Come, my dear, come and look at
them." Ursula did not know what to do. A little pride and a great deal
of shyness kept her back, but Mrs. Copperhead was too much in earnest to
be crossed. She bought a couple of very smart little upper garments for
Amy and Janey, and then, clandestinely taking no one into her
confidence, for Ursula herself, and gave secret orders to have them all
sent to the Dorsets' lodgings that night. She was quite transformed so
long as this transaction lasted. Her languid countenance grew bright,
her pale eyes lighted up.

"You have given me such a pleasure," she said, holding Ursula's hands,
and standing up on tip-toe to kiss her. "I am so much obliged to you. I
could almost think that Clarence was little again, or that he had got a
little sister, which was always my heart's desire. Ah, well! often,
often, it seems better for us not to have our heart's desire, my dear;
at least I suppose that is how it must be."

"I do not know how to thank you," said Ursula, "you have been so
kind--so very kind."

"I have been kind to myself," said Mrs. Copperhead, "I have so enjoyed
it; and, my dear," she added, with some solemnity, still holding Ursula
by the hands, "promise you will do me one favour more. It will be such a
favour. Whenever you want anything for yourself or your sister will you
write to me? I am always in London except in autumn, and I should so
like to do your commissions. People who live in London know how to get
bargains, my dear. You must promise to let me do them for you. It will
make me so happy. Promise!" cried the little woman, quite bright in her
excitement. Ursula looked at the two others who were looking on, and did
not know what to say.

"She thinks you are too expensive an agent for her," said Sophy Dorset,
"and I think so too."

Mrs. Copperhead's face faded out of its pleasant glow.

"There are two things I have a great deal too much of," she said, "money
and time. I am never so happy as when I am buying things for children,
and I can see that she will trust me--won't you, my dear? Must we say
good-bye now? Couldn't I take you anywhere? Look at that big carriage,
all for me alone, a little light woman. Let me take you somewhere. No!
Ah, Cousin Anne, you have not forgiven us for all you said."

"We have some other things to do," said Anne, drawing back. As for
Ursula, she would not at all have objected to the splendour of the
carriage. And her heart was melted by the lonely little woman's pathetic
looks. But the other ladies stood out. They stood by while poor Mrs.
Copperhead got into the carriage and drove off, her pale reproachful
little face looking at them wistfully from the window. It was afternoon
by this time, getting dark, and it was a tolerably long walk along the
lighted, crowded streets.

"Cousin Anne, I am afraid we have hurt her feelings," said Ursula; "why
wouldn't you go?"

"Go!" cried mild Anne Dorset; "get into that man's carriage after
yesterday? Not for the world! I can put up with a great deal, but I
can't go so far as that."

"She never did any harm," said Sophy, "poor little soul! You see now,
Ursula, don't you, how fine it is to marry a rich man, and have
everything that your heart can desire?"

Ursula looked at her wondering. To tell the truth, Mrs. Copperhead's
eagerness to buy everything she could think of for the unknown children
at Carlingford, the manner with which she was regarded in the great
shop, her lavish liberality, her beautiful carriage, and all the fine
things about her, had brought Ursula to this very thought, that it was
extremely fine to marry a rich man. Sophy's irony was lost upon her
simple-minded cousin, and so indeed was Mrs. Copperhead's pathos. That
she was very kind, and that she was not very happy, were both apparent,
but Ursula did not connect the unhappiness with the fact that she was a
rich man's wife. Mr. Copperhead certainly was not very _nice_; but when
people got so old as that, they never were very happy, Ursula thought,
and what had the money to do with it? She looked confused and puzzled at
Sophy, wondering what she meant. Yes, indeed, to marry a rich man, to be
able to buy presents for everyone, to make the children at home
perfectly happy without any trouble to one's self! Could any one doubt
that it was very nice? Alas! Ursula did not think it at all likely that
this would ever be in her power.

"Poor Mrs. Copperhead!" said Anne, as they made their way along the
crowded street, where it was difficult for them to walk together, much
less to maintain any conversation. And presently Ursula, keeping as
close as possible to her cousin's side, but compelled to make way
continually for other passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to
which the misty afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the
quickly passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background.
She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that she could
dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their way through the
current of people in Oxford Street and Regent Street, as undisturbed as
if she had been shut up in her own room--nay, more so--for the external
sights and sounds which flitted vaguely by her, disguised those dreams
even from herself. Mrs. Copperhead had once been poorer than she was, a
poor little governess. What if somewhere about, in some beautiful house,
with just such a carriage at the door, a beautiful young hero should be
waiting who would give all those dazzling delights to Ursula? Then what
frocks she would buy, what toys, what ornaments! She would not stop at
the girls, but drive to the best tailor's boldly, and bid him send down
some one to take Johnnie's measure, and Robin's, and even Reginald's;
and then she would go to the toy-shop, and to the bookseller, and I
can't tell where besides; and finally drive down in the fairy chariot
laden with everything that was delightful, to the very door. She would
not go in any vulgar railway. She would keep everything in her own
possession, and give each present with her own hands--a crowning delight
which was impossible to Mrs. Copperhead--and how clearly she seemed to
see herself drawing up, with panting horses, high-stepping and splendid,
to the dull door of the poor parsonage, where scarcely anything better
than a pony-carriage ever came! How the children would rush to the
window, and "even papa," out of his study; and what a commotion would
run through Grange Lane, and even up into the High Street, where the
butcher and the baker would remember with a shiver how saucy they had
sometimes been--when they saw what a great lady she was.

A dreamy smile hovered upon Ursula's face as she saw all the little
scenes of this little drama, mixed up with gleams of the shop-windows,
and noises of the streets, and great ghosts of passing omnibuses, and
horses steaming in the frosty air. How many girls, like her, go dreaming
about the prosaic streets? It was not, perhaps, a very elevated or
heroic dream, but the visionary chariot full of fine things for the
children, was better than Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, or many another
chariot of romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and who
shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead,
and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next
morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula's
thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took
great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be
frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk
Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But
Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed
it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the
pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May
with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the
dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy.
Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and
money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do,
what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so
easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the
quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the
disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.

This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it
was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great
many ideas into her mind.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DORSETS.


Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of
the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though
they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which
had brought them "home" at this inhospitable time of the year; and to
get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the
anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture
of emotions, anxious to be "very fond" of them, yet feeling difficulties
in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with
big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour.
They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange
faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not
understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little
heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily
conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The
obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win
their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and
poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so
strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness,
and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her
still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand
could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power
on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they
were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which
stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself,
had made up her mind to "take no notice of the little wretches."

"Fancy!" she said; "shrinking at Anne--Anne, of all people in the world!
There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little
disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are
John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must
be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to
love."

"Oh, much, Sophy," said Anne, drying her eyes; "they are our own flesh
and blood."

"I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least,
they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her,
can I?--whom I never saw?"

The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.

"I hope they will get to like us," she said. "Poor little darlings!
everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that
they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust
to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them--"

"I am going to help little Ursula with her packing," said Sophy hastily;
and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw
herself down in a chair by the fire, "Anne is too good to live," she
cried. "She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things
like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre--_Anne!_ why, a
little dog knows better--as I said before."

"I don't think they are very pretty children," said Ursula, not knowing
how to reply.

"Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?" said Sophy, who was
relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. "The whole
question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image
that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps
when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing
like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it
belongs to like it by instinct--but the rest of the world--"

"Oh, Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.

"You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's
children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula.
Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have
separate interests--if these mites go on looking at me with those big
scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some
day--I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne,
to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have
been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to
stay here?"

"In London?" said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands
involuntarily clasping each other. "Oh! I hope you won't think me very
silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased--I have so many presents
to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs.
Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is
not like London," she added, with a sigh.

"No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great
cold-hearted wilderness."

"Oh, Cousin Sophy!"

"My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and
cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw
for you?"

"I have seen nothing but kindness," said Ursula, with a little heat of
virtuous indignation; "there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the
gentlemen were kind--or at least they meant to be kind."

"The gentlemen?" said Sophy, amused. "Do you mean the Copperheads?
Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into
Carlingford to see you?"

"If you please, Cousin Sophy," said the girl, simply. She had not been
thinking any thoughts of "the gentlemen" which could make her blush, but
somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her
packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting
into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now,
though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.

"Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole--"

"Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good."

"Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing;
not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your
temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and
papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to
put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example--"

"Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She
can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house,
and everything--"

"And a bear, a brute of a husband."

"Ah! Does she mind very much?" asked Ursula, with composure. This
drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs.
Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to
herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back
turned, "I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as
she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are
old."

"Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others," said Sophy.
"You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything
that your heart could desire?"

"Cousin Sophy, I am not going to--marry any one," said Ursula, loftily,
carrying her head erect. "I hope I am not like that, thinking of such
things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of
me, after living together ten days."

She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and there were
tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in reply, to make the
young heroine more angry, hastened to apologize.

"It was a silly question," she said. "I have a very good opinion of you,
Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know you as if we had been
together all your life. I am sure you do not think anything a nice girl
ought not to think; but I hope you will never be deceived and persuaded
to marry any one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice and
young, and good, like yourself."

"Oh, no!" cried the girl, with energy. "But most likely I shall not
marry any one," she added, with a half sigh; "Janey may, but the eldest
has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never
married."

"Nor Cousin Sophy either." Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl.
"Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a
clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country."

"I do not think I am very fond of clergymen," said Ursula, recovering
her ease and composure. "They are always in and about, and everything
has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish
people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When
you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never
gives any trouble," she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.

"Papa?" said Sophy, somewhat surprised; "but you would not--" she was
going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent
gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance
words might bear, she refrained. "I think I must send Seton to help
you," she said, "you can not get through all that packing by yourself."

"Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are
your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!" said the girl, coming quickly to her
and stealing two arms round her, "you have been so good to me! as if it
was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had
in my life--to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I
shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!"

"My dear!" cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace.
Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened
in spite of herself. "But you must let me send Seton to you," she said,
hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust
herself to make any further response; for if she "gave way" at all, who
could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been
married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all
gone well--and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might
have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness
to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had
shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed
her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in
the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature,
and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to
make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of
Mrs. John.

"I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing," said Sophy.
"I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her
awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,"
Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer.
She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.

"I think we shall get on after a while," she said, softly. "They said
their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without
crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear."

"Anne!" cried Sophy, "you are too much for mere human nature: you are
too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches
when I hear you speak of them so."

"Hush!" said Anne, "I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very
strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust
of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children
just when they come to an age to understand?"

"John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went
away. You speak as if children were all one's life."

"A great part of it," said Anne, gently. "No, dear, I am not clever like
you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it
runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and
everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even
I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that
matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must
bring up."

"And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when
they need you no longer," said Sophy, indignantly; "you are left to bear
the trouble--others have the recompense."

"It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself.
Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing,
when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is," said Anne, with a
little colour rising in her cheeks, "not worth having. I think we have
only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my
wages; I like to be of a little consequence," she said, laughing.
"Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something."

"In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you."

"So be it--I don't object," said Anne; "but I don't think so, for they
have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful.
The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work
are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are
ladies whose absence would make no difference."

"I, for instance."

"You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do
more, you would be happier, my dear."

"To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let
me pet them and make idols of them--as you will do?"

"Well, how are you getting on now?" said Sir Robert, coming in. "Ah! I
see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When
they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't
want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled
us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something
might have been _said_ at least, on her part, some offer to take her
share."

Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone,
and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease
which is natural in a family question.

"Of course," she said, "your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir,
probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It
may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else
could be----"

"John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want
with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the
father only thirty--absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I
had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the
family. John was always an ass," said Sir Robert, with a crossness which
sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher
than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was
capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family,
but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most
painful of efforts.

"That may be very true," said Sophy, "but all the same, it is only right
that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well
off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would
have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all,
they are Dorsets, though they are not like John."

"Well, well, I suppose you are right," said Sir Robert, grumbling, "and,
thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home."

Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply
concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert
relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the
poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would
be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough,
though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could
not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had
plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life.
The sad reflection that the children whom she tended were not her own,
did not visit her mind, as, perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her
angry through the very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different
temperament, she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the
children and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. "God
bless the children--and, oh, make my Sophy happy!" she said. She had
never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself. It had come to her
unconsciously, in her occupations, in her duties, as natural as the soft
daylight, and as little sought after. But Sophy was different. Sophy
wanted material for happiness--something to make her glad; she did not
possess it, like her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the
children's room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with her
packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went to bed.
Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box full to
overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in brown paper; and what
with the fatigue and the tumult of feeling in her simple soul, Ursula
was ready to cry when her cousin came in and sat down beside her.

"I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so good to me," she
said.

"My dear, everybody will be good to you," said Miss Dorset, "so long as
you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more good than bad. I hope when
you come to Easton you will be still happier."

Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to say much.
"Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way of looking
at affairs.

"There is very little difference in places," said Anne, "when your heart
is light you are happy everywhere." Ursula felt that it was somewhat
derogatory to her dignity to have her enjoyment set down to the score of
a light heart. But against such an assertion what could she say?




CHAPTER IX.

COMING HOME.


The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning was a mighty
one; there were the children, the ayah, the new nurse whom Anne had
engaged in town, to take charge of her little nephews as soon as they
got accustomed to their new life; and Seton, the ancient serving-woman,
whom the sisters shared between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak
of Sir Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was within
a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled together as far
as that town. The Dorset party went farther on to the next station, from
which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down
Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of
her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and
solitary among the crowd. "Disgraceful of May not to send some one to
meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming," said Sir Robert. And
Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully
about her. But as soon as the train was gone, her name was called in a
somewhat high-pitched voice, and turning round she found herself hugged
by Janey, while Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her
hand by way of showing his satisfaction.

"We didn't come up till we could make sure that the Dorsets were out of
the way," said Janey, "and, oh, is it really you? I am so glad to get
you home."

"Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the kindest friends we
have in the world," said Ursula. "How is papa? Is he in a good humour?
And the rest? Why did not some more come to meet me? I made sure there
would be four at least."

"Amy and Robin have gone out to tea--they didn't want to go; but papa
insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of
course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the
bag," said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. "What
a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else
you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in
the trunk when you went away."

"Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!"

"What?" said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred
to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the
parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather
did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders,
which would not curl or _crêper_, or do anything that hair ought to do.
She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of
impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of
angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit,
who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a
school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as
they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the
ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and
gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the
passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus
they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at
the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that
genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at
this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth.
There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray
bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But
how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station
and St. Roque.

"Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?" said Ursula. "How dull it is! You should
see London----"

"Ursula," said Janey firmly, "once for all, I am not going to stand this
London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than--I am
like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to
ignorant ears," said Janey, drawing herself up, "and your letters were
quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your
disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!" said
the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.

"That time you were at the dentist's--" said Ursula, "and call that
seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went
to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery.
And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!"

"Well, I should like to go to the theatre," said Janey, with a sigh.
"But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest.
Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking
_me_."

"You are five years younger than I am," said Ursula, with dignity.
"Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till
you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in _that_?"

"Your new dress--your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you
can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I
ever go to a ball."

"I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people," said Ursula,
drawing herself up. "Of course at this time of the year nobody is in
town, and we hardly knew any one--and of course--"

"Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are out of town in
winter," cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula
had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister,
she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir
Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the
more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with
Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again,
and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired
in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to
form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies
are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went,
and made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get home as
she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was a terrible
falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the last step of all.
Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder to her companion,
averting her head; and this was all poor Ursula had to look to. The
dreary Carlingford street, papa finding fault, everything going wrong,
and Janey laughing at her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the
little Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes more
she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though Janey, like
the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her elbow to move her
sister.

"Ursula!" the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge, "what's the
matter? won't you speak to me?" And Janey, who had her own
disappointment too, and had expected to be received with enthusiasm,
burst out crying, regardless of appearances, in the middle of the
street.

"Janey, for Heaven's sake--people will see you! I am sure it is I who
should cry, not you," said Ursula, in sudden distress.

"I don't care who sees me," sobbed Janey. "You have been enjoying
yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to
come back, or glad to see us--Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?" she
said with a fresh burst of tears.

Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had
been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite
true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought
of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen
anything out of Carlingford. "Don't be so foolish, Janey," she said, "I
_am_ glad;--and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you
do nothing but laugh----"

"I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!" cried Janey,
drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was
made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other
dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very
close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the
gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face
for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall,
with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in
correct English clerical dress.

"Has it all begun already?" he said, when they came close up to him, but
without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of
talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house
was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned
windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they
inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended
to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of
shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate
and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or
going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were
outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.

"Oh, Reginald!" cried Ursula. "You have come home!"

"Yes--for good," he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Or for bad--who
can tell? At all events, here I am."

"Why should it be for bad?" cried Janey, whose voice was always audible
half-way up the street. "Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened.
He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That _is_ being provided
for, papa says; and a beautiful old house."

"Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who
was chosen."

"But papa says he can live at home and let the house," cried Janey.
"There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it
is nice, because there is no work--but look at Reginald, he does not
like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me--"

"Come in," said Reginald hastily, "I don't want all my affairs, and my
character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops." Janey stopped
indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she
feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been
playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's
clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation.
Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of
which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's
orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.

"Oh, what a muddle!" she cried; "I don't wonder that Reginald does not
care for living at home."

"Oh, I wish papa heard you!" cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way
into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There
was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old
work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were
waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More
toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old
carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the
floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes.
How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. "Oh, I don't
wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home," she said once
again to herself, with tears in her eyes.

"I hope you have enjoyed yourself," her brother said, as she dropped
wearily into the old easy-chair. "We have missed you very much; but I
don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even
at this time of the year?"

"Oh, pleasant!" said Ursula. "If you had been with me, how you would
have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn,
what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on
the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those
big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great
mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and
servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And
I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset
laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel," said Ursula fervently. "I
never knew any one so good in my life."

"That is not saying much," said Janey, "for none of us are very good,
and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old maid."

"Oh, Janey! how dare you?"

"And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says she was
jilted, and that she will never get a husband."

"Hold your tongue," said Reginald fiercely, "if we are to hear what my
father says at second hand through an imp like you--"

"Oh, yes," said Janey, mocking, "that is because you are not friends
with papa."

"Janey, come and help me to take off my things," said Ursula, seeing
that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his
sister's ears. "If you were older, you would not talk like that," she
said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. "Oh, dear Janey, you can't
think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like
us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it
childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne."

"Stuff!" said Janey. "Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who
said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does."

Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart;
for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the
reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed
fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited
her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any
unbounded faith in papa.

"Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of,
has sent you," said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great
parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss
Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for
the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness,
were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace
of colour, Janey was struck dumb.

"Is that," she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, "for _me_?"

"This is for you; though you think them old maids--and that they will
never get husbands," said Ursula, indignantly. "What a thing for a girl
to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband.
There is not one in the world half good enough for her--not one! Yes,
this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things
in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say,
'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about
us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose
frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like
best.'"

Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She
was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit
her to give in all at once.

"I dare say you told her how badly off we were," she said.

"I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word--not a word, as
if it were a charity--only to please you--to let you see that you were
remembered; but I dare say it is quite true after all," said Ursula,
with lofty irony, "that Cousin Anne will never get a husband, and that
they are old maids."

"Oh, you know I didn't mean it!" said Janey, giving way to her tears.

Then Ursula got up and took off her hat and smoothed her hair, feeling
satisfied with her success, and went downstairs again to Reginald, who
was seated on the dingy sofa waiting for her, to answer her questions
about the great event which had happened since she had been away.
Ursula's mind was full of the shock of the sharp impression made by her
return, though the impression itself began to wear away.

"I can understand why you don't care about living at home," she said.
"Oh I wonder if I could do anything to mend it! I am so glad you have
got something, Reginald. If you have a good servant, you might be quite
comfortable by yourself, and we could come and see you. I should not
feel it a bit--not a single bit; and it would be so much nicer for you."

"You are mistaken," said her brother. "It is not staying at home I
object to. We are not very tidy or very comfortable, perhaps, but we all
belong to each other, at least. It is not that, Ursula."

"What is it, then? Janey says," said Ursula, drawing a long breath of
awe and admiration, "that you are to have two hundred and fifty pounds a
year."

"For doing nothing," he said.

"For doing nothing?" She looked up at him a little bewildered, for his
tone struck Ursula as not at all corresponding with the delightful
character of the words he said. "But, Reginald, how nice, how very nice
it sounds! How lucky you must have been! How could it happen that such a
delightful thing should come to one of us? We are always so unlucky,
papa says."

"If you think this luck--" said Reginald. "He does, and he is quite
pleased; but how do you suppose I can be pleased? Thrust into a place
where I am not wanted--where I can be of no use. A dummy, a practical
falsehood. How can I accept it, Ursula? I tell you it is a sinecure!"

Ursula looked at him with eyes round with wonder. He seemed to be
speaking in some different language of which she understood nothing.
"What is a sinecure?" she said.




CHAPTER X.

PAPA.


"Ursula has come back!" cried the little ones, who had returned from
their tea-party, running to meet their father at the door.

Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger children. He
was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of them; but he had never
forgiven Providence for leaving him with his motherless family upon his
hands, a man so utterly unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this
exactly into words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it.
There were so many things that he could have done better, and there were
so many people who could have done this better; and yet it was precisely
to him, not a person adapted to the charge of children, that it had been
given to do it! This seemed to argue a want of judgment in the
regulation of mortal affairs, which irritated him all the more because
he was a clergyman, and had to persuade other people that everything
that happened to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture,
and literary power, and wrote very pleasant "thoughtful" papers for some
of the Church magazines; but these compositions, though very easy to
read, were only brought into the world by elaborate precautions on the
part of the family, which scarcely dared to speak above its breath when
papa was "writing;" for on such occasions he could be very savage, as
the occasional offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person,
good-looking, and of very bland and delightful manners, when he chose.
But yet he had never made friends, and was now at fifty-five the
incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and a humble position in the
church hierarchy of Carlingford. He preached better than any other of
the Carlingford clergymen, looked better, had more reputation out of the
place; and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well
connected. Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in life.
Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his opinions were
moderate and did not stand in his way--indeed within the limits of
moderation he had been known to modify his principles, now inclining
towards the high, then towards the low, according as circumstances
required, though never going too far in either direction. Such a man
ought to have been successful, according to all rules, but he was not.
He was generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James, was in
India, doing well, and had often sent a contribution towards the comfort
of the family, and especially to help Reginald at College. But James had
married a year before, and accordingly was in a less favourable position
for sending help. And indeed these windfalls had never produced much
effect upon the family, who heard of James' gifts vaguely without
profiting by them. All this _donna à penser_ to the elder children.
Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at their father
through, they were more bold in judging him than, perhaps, they ought to
have been; and he did not take pains to fascinate his children, or throw
the glamour of love into their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and
as a part of nature, that he himself was the first person to be
considered in all matters. So he was, of course--so the father, the
bread-winner, the head of the family, ought to be; and when he has a
wife to keep him upon that pedestal, and to secure that his worship
shall be respected, it becomes natural, and the first article of the
family creed; but somehow when a man has to set forth and uphold this
principle himself, it is less successful; and in Mr. May's case it was
not successful at all. He was not severe or tyrannical, so that they
might have rebelled. He only held the conviction quite honestly and
ingeniously, that his affairs came first, and were always to be attended
to. Nothing could be said against this principle--but it tells badly in
the management of a family unless, indeed, as we have said, it is
managed through the medium of the mother, who takes away all imputation
of selfishness by throwing an awful importance and tender sanctity over
all that happens to be desirable or necessary for "papa."

Mr. May had no wife to watch over the approaches of his study, and talk
of him with reverential importance to her children. This was not his
fault, but his misfortune. Bitterly had he mourned and resented the blow
which took her from him, and deeply felt the loss she was to him. This
was how he spoke of it always, the loss to him; and probably poor Mrs.
May, who had adored and admired her husband to the last day of her life,
would have been more satisfied with this way of mourning for her than
any other; but naturally Ursula, who thought of the loss to herself and
the other children, found fault with this limitation of the misfortune.
A man who has thus to fight for himself does not appear in an amiable
aspect to his family, to whom, as to all young creatures, it seemed
natural that _they_ should be the first objects; and as they were a
great trouble and burden to him, perhaps the children did not always
bear their most amiable aspect to their father. Both looked selfish to
the other, and Mr. May, no doubt, could have made out quite as good a
case as the children did. He thought all young people were selfish,
taking everything they could, trying to extract even the impossible from
the empty purse and strained patience of their elders; and they thought
that he was indifferent to them, thinking about himself, as it is a
capital sin in a parent to do; and both of them were right and both
wrong, as indeed may be said in every case to which there are two sides.

"Ursula has come!" cried the two little ones. Amy and Robin could read
their father's face better than they could read those instruments of
torture called printed books, and they saw that he was in a good humour,
and that they were safe to venture upon the playful liberty of seizing
him, one by each hand, and dragging him in. He was a tall man, and the
sight of him triumphantly dragged in by these imps, the youngest of whom
was about up to his knees, was pretty, and would have gone to the heart
of any spectator. He was not himself unconscious of this, and when he
was in a good humour, and the children were neat and tolerably dressed,
he did not object to being seen by the passers-by dragged up his own
steps by those two little ones. The only passers-by, however, on this
occasion were a retired shopkeeper and his wife, who had lately bought
one of the oldest houses in Grange Lane, and who had come out for a walk
as the day was fine. "Mark my words, Tozer," the lady was saying,
"that's a good man though he's a church parson. Them as children hangs
onto like that, ain't got no harm in them."

"He's a rum un, he is," said Mr. Tozer in reply. It was a pity that the
pretty spectacle of the clergyman with his little boy and girl should
have been thus thrown away upon a couple of Dissenters, yet it was not
without its effect. Amy pulled one arm and Robin pulled the other. They
were dark-haired children like all the Mays, and as this peculiarity is
rare among children, it gave these two a certain piquancy.

"Well, well," he said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his
newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much
geniality, and took one child on each knee.

"I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Ursula," he said; "of course, we have
missed you. Janey has done her best, but she is not very clever at
housekeeping, nor does she understand many things that people require,
as you have learned to do."

"Oh, I am so glad you have missed me!" said Ursula, "I mean sorry; I
have enjoyed myself very, very much. The Dorsets were so kind, kinder
than anybody ever was before."

"And, papa, they have sent me a new dress."

"And me too, papa," chirruped little Amy on his knee.

"You too, Mouse! it was very kind of them; and you went to the Tower and
did all the lions, Ursula? that is the lot of country cousins, and the
Dorsets would spare you nothing, I suppose."

"We went to much better things," said Ursula, producing her theatres and
her ball as she had done before. "And, oh, papa, I like them so much. I
wish we lived a little nearer. Those poor little Indian children, I fear
they will be too much for Cousin Anne; they look so pale and so peevish,
not like our children here."

"Well, they are not pale at all events," said Mr. May, putting them
down; "run and play like good children. You will have heard that we have
had something happening to us, even in this quiet place, while you were
away."

"Oh, I was so astonished," said Ursula, "but Reginald doesn't seem to
like it. That is so odd; I should have thought he would have been
overjoyed to get something. He used to talk so about having no
interest."

"Reginald is like a great many other people. He does not know his own
mind," said Mr. May, his countenance overcasting. Ursula knew that sign
of coming storms well enough, but she was too much interested to
forbear.

"What is a sinecure, papa?" she asked, her brother's last word still
dwelling in her mind.

"A piece of outrageous folly," he cried, getting up and striding about
the room, "all springing from the foolish books boys read now-a-days,
and the nonsense that is put into their minds. Mean! it means that your
brother is an ass, that is what it means. After all the money that has
been spent upon him--"

"But, papa, we have not spent much, have we? I thought it was his
scholarship?" said Ursula with injudicious honesty. Her father turned
upon her indignantly.

"I am not aware that I said we. _We_ have nothing to spend upon any one,
so far as I know. I said I--the only person in the house who earns any
money or is likely to do so, if Reginald goes on in this idiotical way."

Ursula grew red. She was Mr. May's own daughter, and had a temper too.
"If I could earn any money I am sure I would," she cried, "and only too
glad. I am sure it is wanted badly enough. But how is a girl to earn any
money? I wish I knew how."

"You little fool, no one was thinking of you. Do a little more in the
house, and nobody will ask you to earn money. Yes, this is the shape
things are taking now-a-days," said Mr. May, "the girls are mad to earn
anyhow, and the boys, forsooth, have a hundred scruples. If women would
hold their tongues and attend to their own business, I have no doubt we
should have less of the other nonsense. The fact is everything is
getting into an unnatural state. But if Reginald thinks I am going to
maintain him in idleness at his age--"

"Papa, for Heaven's sake don't speak so loud, he will hear you!" said
Ursula, letting her fears of a domestic disturbance overweigh her
prudence.

"He will hear me? I wish him to hear me," said Mr. May, raising his
voice. "Am I to be kept from saying what I like, how I like, in my own
house, for fear that Reginald should hear me, forsooth! Ursula, I am
glad to have you at home; but if you take Reginald's part in his folly,
and set yourself against the head of the family, you had better go back
again and at once. _He_ may defy me, but I shall not be contradicted by
a chit of a girl, I give you my word for that."

Ursula was silent; she grew pale now after her redness of hasty and
unconsidered self-defence. Oh, for Cousin Anne to shield and calm her;
what a difference it made to plunge back again thus into trouble and
strife.

"He thinks it better to be idle at his father's expense than to do a
little work for a handsome salary," said Mr. May; "everything is right
that is extracted from his father's pocket, though it is contrary to a
high code of honour to accept a sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it
not? The one wrongs nobody, while the other wrongs you and me and all
the children, who want every penny I have to spend; but Reginald is much
too fine to think of that. He thinks it quite natural that I should go
on toiling and stinting myself."

"Papa, it may be very wrong what he is doing; but if you think he wants
to take anything from you--"

"Hold your tongue," said her father; "I believe in deeds, not in words.
He has it in his power to help me, and he chooses instead, for a
miserable fantastic notion of his own, to balk all my care for him. Of
course the hospital was offered to him out of respect for me. No one
cares for _him_. He is about as much known in Carlingford as--little Amy
is. Of course it is to show their respect to me. And here he comes with
his fantastic nonsense about a sinecure! Who is he that he should make
such a fuss? Better men than he is have held them, and will to the end
of the chapter. A sinecure! what does he call a sinecure?"

"That is just what I want to know," said Ursula under her breath, but
her father did not, fortunately, hear this ejaculation. Reginald had
gone out, and happily was not within hearing, and Mr. May calmed down by
degrees, and told Ursula various circumstances about the parish and the
people which brought him down out of his anger and comforted her after
that passage of arms. But the commotion left him in an excitable state,
a state in which he was very apt to say things that were disagreeable,
and to provoke his children to wrath in a way which Ursula thought was
very much against the scriptural rule.

"Things in the parish are going on much as usual," he said, "Mrs. Sam
Hurst is as kind as ever."

"Indeed!" said Ursula with a suppressed snort of anger. Mr. May gave the
kind of offensive laugh, doubly offensive to every woman, which men give
when their vanity is excited, and when there is, according to the common
expression, a lady in the case.

"Yes, she is very kind," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "She has had
the children to tea a great many times since you have been away. To show
my sense of her kindness, you must ask her one of these days. A woman
who understands children is always a valuable friend for a man in my
position--and also, Ursula, for a girl in yours."

"She may understand children, but they are not fond of her," said
Ursula, with a gleam of malice which restored her father to good humour.
He had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was
tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite
sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already;
but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does,
to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility
over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins
against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and
angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and their fear and anger delighted
their father. He liked to speak of her to provoke them, and partly for
that, partly for other reasons of his own, kept up a decorous
semi-flirtation with his neighbour who lived next door, and thus excited
the apprehensions and resentment of the girls every day of their lives.
When Ursula thought of Mrs. Sam Hurst she wished for the Dorsets no
more. It was above all things, she felt, her duty to be here on the spot
to defend the family from that woman's machinations. The idea put energy
into her. She ceased to be tired, ceased to feel herself, "after her
journey," capable of nothing but sitting still and hearing of all that
had been done since she went away.

In the course of the evening, however, Ursula took advantage of a quiet
moment to look into the dictionary and make herself quite safe about the
meaning of the word sinecure. It was not the first time she had heard
it, as may be supposed. She had heard of lucky people who held
sinecures, and she had heard them denounced as evil things, but without
entering closely into the meaning. Now she had a more direct interest in
it, and it must be confessed that she was not at all frightened by the
idea, or disposed to reject it as Reginald did. Ursula had not learnt
much about public virtue, and to get a good income for doing nothing, or
next to nothing, seemed to her an ideal sort of way of getting one's
livelihood. She wished with a sigh that there were sinecures which could
be held by girls. But no, in that as in other things "gentlemen" kept
all that was good to themselves; and Ursula was disposed to treat
Reginald's scruples with a very high hand. But she did not choose that
her father should attack him with all these disagreeable speeches about
maintaining him in idleness, and taunts about the money that had been
spent on his education. That was not the way to manage him, the girl
felt; but Ursula resolved to take her brother in hand herself, to argue
with him how foolish it was, to point out to him that if he did not take
it some one else would, and that the country would not gain anything
while he would lose, to laugh at his over delicacy, to show him how
delightful it would be if he was independent, and what a help to all his
brothers and sisters. In short, it seemed quite simple to Ursula, and
she felt her path mapped out before her, and triumphed in every stage of
her argument, inventing the very weakest replies for Reginald to make.
Full of the inspiration of this purpose, she felt that it was in every
way well that she had come home. With Reginald settled close by, going
away no longer, standing by her in her difficulties, and even perhaps,
who could tell? taking her to parties, and affording her the means now
and then of asking two or three people to tea, the whole horizon of her
life brightened for Ursula. She became reconciled to Carlingford. All
that had to be done was to show Reginald what his duty was, and how
foolish he was to hesitate, and she could not allow herself to suppose
that _when it was put before him properly_ there could long remain much
difficulty upon that score.




CHAPTER XI.

PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS.


A few days after Ursula's return home, another arrival took place in
Carlingford. Phoebe Beecham, after considering the case fully, and
listening with keen interest to all the indications she could pick up as
to the peculiarities of her grandfather's house, and the many things in
life at Carlingford which were "unlike what she had been used to," had
fully made up her mind to dare the difficulties of that unknown
existence, and to devote herself in her mother's place to the care of
her grandmother and the confusion of Mrs. Tom. This was partly
undertaken out of a sense of duty, partly out of that desire for change
and the unknown, which has to content itself in many cases with the very
mildest provision, and partly because Phoebe's good sense perceived the
necessity of the matter. She was by no means sure what were the special
circumstances that made "Mrs. Tom" disagreeable to her mother, but she
was deeply sensible of the importance of preventing Mrs. Tom from
securing to herself and her family all that Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had to
leave. Phoebe was not mercenary in her own person, but she had no idea of
giving up any "rights," and she felt it of the utmost importance that
her brother, who was unfortunately by no means so clever as herself,
should be fully provided against all the contingencies of life. She was
not concerned about herself in that particular. Phoebe felt it a matter
of course that she should marry, and marry well. Self-confidence of this
assured and tranquil sort serves a great many excellent purposes--it
made her even generous in her way. She believed in her star, in her own
certain good-fortune, in herself; and therefore her mind was free to
think and to work for other people. She knew very well by all her mother
said, and by all the hesitations of both her parents, that she would
have many disagreeable things to encounter in Carlingford, but she felt
so sure that nothing could really humiliate _her_, or pull her down from
her real eminence, that the knowledge conveyed no fears to her mind.
When this confidence in her own superiority to all debasing influences
is held by the spotless princess in the poem, it is the most beautiful
of human sentiments, and why it should not be equally elevated when
entertained by a pink and plump modern young woman, well up in all
nineteenth century refinements, and the daughter of the minister of the
Crescent Chapel, it would be hard to say. Phoebe held it with the
strongest faith.

"Their ways of thinking, perhaps, and their ways of living, are not
those which I have been used to," she said; "but how does that affect
me? I am myself whatever happens; even if poor dear grandmamma's habits
are not refined, which I suppose is what you mean, mamma, that does not
make me unrefined. A lady must always be a lady wherever she is--Una,"
she continued, using strangely enough the same argument which has
occurred to her historian, "is not less a princess when she is living
among the satyrs. Of course, I am not like Una--and neither are they
like the wild people in the wood."

Mrs. Beecham did not know much about Una, except that she was somebody
in a book; but she kissed her daughter, and assured her that she was "a
real comfort," and devoted herself to her comfort for the few days that
remained, doing everything that it was possible to do to show her love,
and, so to speak, gratitude to the good child who was thus throwing
herself into the breach. The Beechams were in no want of money to buy
what pleased them, and the mother made many additions to Phoebe's
wardrobe which that young lady herself thought quite unnecessary, not
reflecting that other sentiments besides that of simple love for herself
were involved.

"They shall see that my daughter is not just like one of their
common-looking girls," Mrs. Beecham said to her husband; and he shared
the feeling, though he could not but think within himself that her
aspect was of very much more importance than the appearance of Phoebe
Tozer's child could possibly be as _his_ daughter.

"You are quite right, my dear," he replied, "vulgar people of that sort
are but too ready to look down upon a pastor's family. They ought to be
made to see the difference."

The consequence of this was that Phoebe was fitted out like a young
princess going on her travels. Ursula May would have been out of her
wits with delight, had half these fine things come her way; but Phoebe
took them very calmly.

"I have never undervalued dress," she said, "as some girls do; I think
it is a very important social influence. And even without that, mamma,
so long as it pleases you--" So with this mixture of philosophy and
affection all went well.

"We must call on Mrs. Copperhead before you go; they would think it
strange, after all the interest they have shown in us."

"Have they shown an interest in us?" said Phoebe. "Of course we must
call--and Mrs. Copperhead is a lady, but as for Mr. Copperhead, mamma--"

"Hush! he is the leading member, and very influential in the connection.
A pastor's family must not be touchy, Phoebe. We must put up with a great
many things. There ought to be peace among brethren, you know, and
harmony is the first thing that is essential in a church--"

"I wonder if harmony would be as essential, supposing Mr. Copperhead to
come to grief, mamma."

"Phoebe! slang from you--who have always set your face against it."

"What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a person?" said
Phoebe gravely; and thus saying she opened the door for her mother, and
they went out in their best gowns to pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead
was very civil to the pastor's family. It was not in her to be uncivil
to any one; but in her soft heart she despised them a little, and
comported herself to them with that special good behaviour and dignified
restraint which the best natured people reserve for their inferiors. For
though she went to chapel, taken there by Mr. Copperhead, she was
"church" at heart. The interest which Mrs. Beecham took in everything,
and the praises she bestowed on the ball, did not relax her coldness.
They were too well off, too warm and silken to call forth her
sympathies, and there was little in common between them to afford any
ground for meeting.

Yes, Mr. Copperhead was quite well--she was quite well--her son was
quite well. She hoped Mr. Beecham was well. She had heard that most
people were pleased with the ball, thank you. Oh, Miss Beecham was going
away--indeed! She hoped the weather would be good; and then Mrs.
Copperhead sat erect upon her sofa, and did not try to say any more.
Though she had not the heart of a mouse, she too could play the great
lady when occasion served. Clarence, however, was much more hospitable
than his mother. He liked Phoebe, who could talk almost as if she was in
society, as girls talk in novels. He knew, of course, that she was not
in society, but she was a girl whom a fellow could get on with, who had
plenty to say for herself, who was not a lay figure like many young
ladies; and then she was pretty, pink, and golden, "a piece of colour"
which was attractive to the eye. He soon found out where she was going,
and let her know that he himself intended a visit to the neighbourhood.

"The Dorsets live near," he said. "Relations of my mother. You saw them
at the ball. I dare say you will meet them somewhere about." This, it
is to be feared, Clarence said in something of his mother's spirit, with
a warm sense of superiority, for he knew that the pastor's daughter was
very unlikely to meet the Dorsets. Phoebe, however, was equal to the
occasion.

"I am not at all likely to meet them," she said with a gracious smile.
"For one thing, I am not going to enjoy myself, but to nurse a sick
person. And sick people don't go to parties. Besides, you know the
foolish prejudices of society, properly so called. I think them foolish
because they affect me," said Phoebe, with engaging frankness. "If they
did not affect me, probably I should think them all right."

"What foolish prejudices?" said Clarence, thinking she was about to say
something about her inferior position, and already feeling flattered
before she spoke.

"About Dissenters, you know," she said; "of course, you must be aware
that we are looked down upon in society. It does not matter, for when
people have any sense, as soon as they know us they do us justice; but
of course you must be aware that the prejudice exists."

Clarence did know, and with some bitterness; for Mr. Copperhead, though
he did not care much, perhaps, about religion, cared for his chapel, and
stood by it with unswerving strictness. His son, who was an Oxford man,
and respectful of all the prejudices of society, did not like this. But
what could he do against the obstinate dissentership of his father?
This, as much as anything else, had acted upon the crowd the night of
the ball, and made them all nobodies. He hesitated to make any reply,
and his face flushed with shame and displeasure. Phoebe felt that she had
avenged upon Clarence his mother's haughty politeness. She had brought
home to him a sense of the social inferiority which was common to them
both. Having done this, she was satisfied, and proceeded to soften the
blow.

"It cannot fall upon you, who are in so much better a position, as it
does upon us," said Phoebe. "We are the very head and front of the
offending, a Dissenting minister's family!--Society and its charms are
not for us. And I hope we know our place," she said, with mock humility;
"when people have any sense and come to know us it is different; and for
the foolish ones I don't care. But you see from that, I am not likely to
meet your cousins, am I?" she added with a laugh.

"If you mean that they are among the foolish ones----"

"Oh, no; I don't. But you can't suppose they will take the trouble to
find _me_ out. Why should they? People entirely out of my range, and
that have nothing to do with me. So you may be quite sure I am right
when I say we sha'n't meet."

"Well," said Clarence, piqued, "I am going to Easton, and I shall see
you, if Mrs. Beecham will give me permission to call."

"She will give you the address along with that; but till then,
good-bye," said Phoebe. To tell the truth, she had no desire to see
Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. Perhaps he meant something, perhaps
he did not--at this stage of the proceedings it was a matter of
indifference to Phoebe, who certainly had not allowed "her affections" to
become engaged. If he did mean anything, was it likely that he could
support unmoved the grandfather and grandmother who were, or had been,
"in trade?" On the other hand, was it not better that he should know the
worst? Phoebe was no husband-hunter. She contemplated the issue with calm
and composure, however it might turn out.

"He asked me if he might call," said Mrs. Beecham, in some excitement.
"I don't care much to have you seen, my darling, out of your own
father's house."

"Just as you please, mamma--just as it suits best," said Phoebe,
dismissing the subject. She was not anxious. A good deal depended on
whether he meant anything or nothing, but even that did not conclude the
subject, for she had not made up her own mind.

"Why didn't you tell them about the Mays?" said Clarence, as the two
ladies went out. "They live in Carlingford, and I should think it would
be pleasant on both sides."

"My dear boy, you forget the difference of position," said Mrs.
Copperhead. "They are Dissenters."

"Oh, I like that," cried Clarence, half angry, as himself sharing the
disadvantages of the connection. "A needy beggar like May has a great
deal to stand upon. I like that."

"But it is true all the same," said Mrs. Copperhead, shaking her head.
"And you can see the difference at once. I dare say Miss Beecham is a
very clever young woman, but between her and Miss May what a difference
there is! Any one can see it--"

"I am afraid then I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother. They are both
pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort of thing give me Phoebe.
She is worth twenty of the other. As sharp as a needle, and plenty to
say for herself. This is the kind of girl I like."

"I am very sorry for it. I hope that is not the kind of wife you will
like," said Mrs. Copperhead, with a sigh.

"Oh, wife! they haven't a penny, either the one or the other," said
Clarence, with delightful openness, "and we may be sure that would not
suit the governor even if it suited me."

In the mean time Mrs. Beecham and Phoebe were walking up the broad
pavement of Portland Place towards their home.

"It is pleasant to see the mother and the son together," said Mrs.
Beecham, who was determined to see everything in the best light that
concerned the Copperheads. "They are so devoted to each other, and,
Phoebe, dear--I don't like to talk in this way to a sensible girl like
you, but you must see it with your own eyes. You have certainly made a
great impression upon Clarence Copperhead. When he said he hoped to see
you in Carlingford, and asked, might he call? it was exactly like asking
my permission to pay you his addresses; it is very flattering, but it is
embarrassing as well."

"I do not feel particularly flattered, mamma; and I think if I were you
I would not give him the address."

Mrs. Beecham looked anxiously in her daughter's face.

"Is it from prudence, Phoebe, or is it that you don't like him, that you
wouldn't have him if he asked you?"

"We must wait till he does ask me," said Phoebe, decisively. "Till then I
can't possibly tell. But I don't want him at Carlingford. I know that
grandpapa and grandmamma are--in trade."

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Beecham, in a subdued voice.

"Dissenters, and in trade; and he is going to stay with the Dorsets,
fine county people. Don't give him the address; if we meet by chance,
there is no harm done. I am not ashamed of any one belonging to me. But
you can say that you don't think his father would like him to be
visiting me at Carlingford--which I am sure would be quite true."

"Indeed he might go much farther without finding any one so well worth
visiting," said the mother, indignant, to which Phoebe nodded her head in
tranquil assent.

"That is neither here nor there," she said; "you can always tell him so,
and that will please Mr. Copperhead, if ever he comes to hear of it. He
thought at one time that I was too entertaining. One knows what that
means. I should like him to see how little I cared."

"But, my dear, Clarence Copperhead would be worth--a little attention.
He could give a girl--a very nice position," Mrs. Beecham faltered,
looking at her daughter between every word.

"I am not saying anything against Clarence Copperhead," said Phoebe, with
composure, "but I should like his dear papa to know how little I care,
and that you have refused him my 

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