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Modern Flirtations: A Novel

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Title: Modern Flirtations: A Novel

Author: Catherine Sinclair


        
Release date: July 30, 2013 [eBook #43358]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN FLIRTATIONS: A NOVEL ***

Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_. The Table of Contents was not present in the
original text and has been produced for the reader's convenience.


[Illustration: Granville intercepting the Stranger.--See page 176]


MODERN FLIRTATIONS,

A NOVEL:

BY CATHERINE SINCLAIR,

AUTHOR OF "BEATRICE."

[Illustration: Blind Uncle Arthur endeavoring to escape from the
flames.--See page 334]

STRINGER & TOWNSEND, NEW YORK




MODERN FLIRTATIONS,

A NOVEL:


BY CATHERINE SINCLAIR,

AUTHOR OF

"BEATRICE, OR THE UNKNOWN RELATIVES," "MODERN ACCOMPLISHMENTS," "MODERN
SOCIETY," "HILL AND VALLEY," "SHETLAND AND THE SHETLANDERS,"
"HOLIDAY HOUSE," "CHARLIE SEYMOUR," ETC.


    "I clasped my hand close to my breast,
    While my heart was as light as a feather,
    Yet nothing I said, I protest,
    But, ---- 'Madam! 'tis very fine weather!'"

    RITSON'S SONGS.


NEW-YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, PUBLISHERS,
222 BROADWAY.




CONTENTS

    PREFACE

    CHAPTER

    I.
    II.
    III.
    IV.
    V.
    VI.
    VII.
    VIII.
    IX.
    X.
    XI.
    XII.
    XIII.
    XIV.
    XV.
    XVI.
    XVII.
    XVIII.
    XIX.
    XX.
    XXI.
    XXII.
    XXIII.
    XXIV.
    XXV.
    XXVI.
    XXVII.
    XXVIII.
    XXIX.
    XXX.
    XXXI.
    XXXII.
    XXXIII.
    XXXIV.
    XXXV.
    XXXVI.
    XXXVII.
    XXXVIII.
    XXXIX.
    XL.
    XLI.
    XLII.
    XLIII.
    XLIV.
    XLV.
    XLVI.
    XLVII.




PREFACE.


It was the rule of a celebrated equestrian, which might be adapted to
authors as well as to horsemen, that every one should ride as if he
expected to be thrown, and drive as if he expected to be upset.
Impunity in publishing, far from rendering an author presumptuous,
should tend rather to increase his timidity, the danger being greater
always of venturing too much, than of hazarding too little; and the
more cause any writer has to feel grateful for the lenient judgment of
an enlightened public, the more circumspect should he become, not to
trespass by an obtrusive reappearance on that notice which has already
perhaps been, as in respect to the author herself, beyond all
expectation favorable.

An old proverb declares that "a goose-quill is more powerful than a
lion's claw," and authors have been called "keepers of the public
conscience;" but no influence is perhaps so extensive as that
exercised by what is termed "light reading," which has now in a great
measure superseded public places and theatrical entertainments,
affording a popular resource with which the busiest men relax their
hard-working minds, and the idlest occupy their idleness. It becomes a
deep responsibility, therefore, of which the author trusts she has
ever felt duly sensible, to claim the leisure hours of so many, while
it is her first desire that whatever be the defect of these pages, no
actual evil may be intermingled, and the cause of sound religion and
morality supported, for her feelings are best expressed in the words
of the poet,

    "If I one soul improve, I have not liv'd in vain."

Novel-reading, formerly considered the lowest resource of intellectual
vacuity, has been lately promoted to a new place in the literary
world, since men of the brightest genius as well as of the highest
attainments in learning and philosophy, allow their pens occasionally
to wander in the attractive regions of fiction; therefore works of
imagination, no longer merely a clandestine amusement to frivolous
minds, are now avowedly read and enjoyed, to beguile an idle hour, or
to cheer a gloomy one, by men of science, of wisdom, and of piety.
Such is the general encouragement given now to works of fancy, that,
as the literary existence of authors depends on attracting readers,
there will scarcely be encouragement enough soon to induce historians
and biographers to dip the pen of veracity into the ink of
retrospection, while it is perhaps to be lamented that when so large a
proportion of the public attention is occupied by novelists, their
works being certain of instant circulation, for a very short period
and for no more, few authors afford themselves time to aspire at the
highest grade of imaginary composition. When such volumes are really
true to nature, they convey very important truths in a form more
popular than a dry sententious volume of moral precepts, and perhaps
history itself can scarcely afford so graphic a portrait of human life
as many of those fictitious volumes, written under the inspiration of
genius, which portray in vivid coloring, the thoughts and motives by
which men are internally influenced.

The Life of Cleopatra, or the Memoirs of Agrippina, can afford
scarcely so much direction to young ladies respecting their views of
life and manners in the present day, as might be conveyed by a
judiciously-drawn portrait of that world as it is, on the stage of
which they are about to be personally introduced; and a large
proportion of those elaborate volumes dignified with the name of
history, can only be considered in the main fictitious, because, while
biographers would confidently state the private opinions, secret
intentions, and real characters of illustrious men who lived and acted
several hundred years ago, they cannot justly estimate the actual
dispositions and motives of their own most intimate friends, nor
confidently point out what circumstances have influenced the greatest
events in their own day. If two authors, entertaining opposite
political sentiments, were to write the history of last year, every
fact recorded, and every individual mentioned must inevitably be
represented, or misrepresented, according to the writer's own private
feelings, while each would believe he was writing unadulterated truth.

Thus poetry and fiction, when true to the principles of human life,
exhibit the mind and soul of man visibly to the senses; and history,
which has been called "the Newgate Calendar of Kings and Emperors,"
supplies the facts of human existence, and may be considered a
portrait of men's persons and external actions.

In writing a story of domestic life, it is singular to reflect how
commonly men are remembered by their eccentricities, and loved for
their very faults, while the most difficult task in fiction is, to
describe amiable persons so as to render them at all interesting and
not utterly insipid. Probably it may be for this reason that modern
writers too frequently, instead of describing the principles which
ennoble human nature, and the sentiments which embellish life, have
painted in vivid coloring, all that is low, mean, and vicious in
society, introducing their readers into scenes, the reality of which
would be shunned with abhorrence, and flinging over vice such a mantle
of genius as converts the deformities of society into subjects of
interest--unfortunately even of sympathy.

Were authors obliged hereafter, to live with the characters they
create, how few would desire to share with them in such a world! Even
where the intention is to represent an attractive character, it seldom
appears as one which could be an agreeable acquisition to any family
circle; and in works of sentiment or feeling, nothing is less
successfully pictured than a generous and refined attachment, fitted
to survive every trial or vicissitude of existence, between those who
are to love each other for ever. Few stories could be written, if
lovers in a romance acted with the slightest degree of confidence or
esteem; but such narratives are generally founded on a teazing
succession of narrow-minded suspicions, and unwarrantable concealments
on the part of heroes and heroines, who condemn each other unheard,
and go through volumes of heart-breaking alienation, enough to
terminate life itself, rather than ask the most simple explanation,
while the reader cannot but feel a certain conviction in closing the
last page, that an engagement begun with cavilling jealousies and
painful recriminations, can never become productive of lasting peace.

The mothers and daughters in fashionable society have of late been so
harshly stigmatized by the press, that it seems as if some authors had
taken up a porcupine's quill dipped in gall, to ridicule their conduct
and motives, while not a pen has yet been drawn from the scabbard, nor
a drop of ink spilled in their justification; but the weight of
censure might become greatly lightened by being more equitably divided
among all who are entitled to carry a share, and in these volumes an
endeavor is made to rectify the balance more justly, though with what
success remains to be discovered by the author herself, as not a
single friend ever sees her pages, or puts on the spectacles of
criticism till after they are printed. The only peculiarity to which
she makes any pretension, in once more presuming to publish, is, that
avoiding all caricature, all improbability, and all personality, she
has introduced a few individuals acting and thinking in the ordinary
routine of every-day life, while her highest ambition is to represent
in natural colors, the conduct and feelings of men elevated and
ennobled by the influence of Christianity.

When Dr. Johnson remarked once that it required a clever person to
talk nonsense well, Boswell replied, "Yes, sir! If you were to
represent little fishes speaking, you would make them talk like great
whales;" and on a similar plan, authors describing society, instead
of sketching the good-humoured chit-chat and lively _persiflage_
with which the business and amusements of fashionable life are carried
on, too frequently fill up their dialogues with set speeches, moral
essays, and long quotations, such as never are extemporized in any
drawing-room, where too energetic a stroke given to the shuttlecock of
conversation makes it instantly fall to the ground. The flagrant
impossibilities by which a carelessly-written narrative is carried on,
destroys often at once the illusion. Persons are described, who may be
overheard speaking aloud their most secret thoughts when supposing
themselves alone, soliloquizing audibly in the streets, journalizing a
history of their own crimes, becoming permanent guests in houses to
which they have no introduction, preserving the noblest sentiments
amidst the most degraded habits, and dying enlightened Christians when
they have lived as dissolute infidels.

A celebrated mathematician threw aside a novel once in disgust, saying
that "it proved nothing;" but in these pages the author has
endeavoured to prove much. Amidst the bustle and business, the joys
and sorrows of life, she has attempted to illustrate how truly
"wisdom's ways are of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,"--how
superior is the Christian standard of principle to the mere worldly
code of honour or expediency, and how much of the happiness intended
for man by his Creator is ruined and forfeited by the perversity of
his own will, in neglecting the good of others, and in vainly
grasping, like a spoiled child, at more than is intended for his
share. While thus writing a fiction, which may perhaps be denominated
a large religious tract in high life, the author humbly submits her
pages to the judgment of others, and cannot conclude in the words of a
more universally venerated, or of a more generally popular fictitious
author than the excellent Bunyan:

     "Thus I set pen to paper with delight,
     And quickly had my thought--in black and white;
     For having now my method by the end,
     Still as I pulled it came, and so I penned
     It down, until at last it came to be,
     For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."




MODERN FLIRTATIONS.




CHAPTER I.


The newspapers have recently adopted a strange habit of sometimes
unexpectedly seizing an individual's name, long since retired from
public notice, and gibbetting it up before the world's eye, when least
anticipated, by volunteering a paragraph to announce, that some aged
lord, or ex-minister, whom no one has remembered to think of for half
a century or more, is residing on his estates, and enjoying, the
editor is happy to understand, astonishing health, considering his
advanced years. In observance of this custom, an exclamation of
irritability and astonishment, too violent to be worthy of record, was
elicited one day, from a dignified and very distinguished-looking old
gentleman, with a venerable head, such as Titian might have painted,
and a high lofty forehead bearing the traces of deep thought and
feeling, when, after having seated himself on his favorite arm chair
at the United Service Club in Edinburgh, his eye rested with a look of
kindling amazement on these few lines, in large consequential-looking
type, on a leading column of the Courant.

_June 1829._ "We are happy to inform our readers that the brave and
noble veteran, once a distinguished hero in many a well-fought fight,
Sir Arthur Dunbar, G.C.B., is yet alive, reposing on his well-earned
laurels, at a retired mansion in the marine village of Portobello.
Though frequently and most severely wounded in battle, besides being
deprived of an arm in Lord Rodney's engagement during the year '82, the
Admiral's health continues unimpaired and his cheerfulness invariable,
at the advanced age of 70."

"Pshaw! stuff and nonsense! Some enemy is resolved to make a
laughing-stock of me in my old age!" exclaimed he, angrily pointing out
the paragraph to his gay young relative, Louis De Crespigny, who was
familiarly leaning over the high back of his chair; and then crumpling
up the offending Courant with an obvious wish that it might be consumed
in the flames--"I hope this is only the work of some wretched
penny-a-liner; but if I even suspected that my conceited, good-looking
scoundrel of a nephew had a hand in the jest, I would cut him off with a
shilling,--or rather without one, for I could scarcely raise so much as
a shilling to leave him, and he knows that. This is most thoroughly
ridiculous! I, who have been dead, buried, and forgotten for years, to
be made as conspicuous here, as a hair-dresser's wig-block! The editor
shall be prosecuted,--horse-whipped,--or--or made as absurd as he has
made me!"

"Why really, Admiral, I wish he had as much good to say of us all, and
then the sooner he paragraphs about me the better!--'We are happy to
inform our readers that the agreeable and fascinating Cornet De
Crespigny, of the 15th Light Hussars, now in his eighteenth year, is
still alive!'--the public likes to know the exact age of distinguished
men, such as you and I, Admiral!"

"The public is an ass!" replied Sir Arthur, breaking into a smile;
"and perhaps I am another, to mind what is said at all, but that
rascal of an editor has made me ten years older than I am; besides
which, though a grey-haired Admiral of sixty-four is not probably much
addicted to blushing, he really has put my modest merit out of
countenance. I would rather pay the newspapers any day for overlooking
than for praising me. We ought to live or die for our country; but
now, when I am no longer needed, let me stay in peace on the shelf,
like," added he, giving a comic smile at his empty sleeve, "like a
cracked tea-cup with the handle off!"

"But, Sir Arthur!" replied the young Cornet warmly, "you who never
turned your back on friend or foe, are not very likely to remain
quietly on the shelf, as long as every man who lives must respect you,
and every man who dies continues to appoint you, as my father did, his
executor, the trustee of his estates, and the guardian of his
children, asking you to lend them a hand, as you have done to me in
all the difficulties of life."

"I have but one hand to lend, and that is much at your service, in
whatever way it can be useful! the other, though absent without leave,
has been my own best friend, as the loss of that arm was the luckiest
hit in the world. It obtained me a step at the time, and the pension
has supported me ever since. What with my nephew's frantic
extravagance, and my two young nieces being but indifferently provided
for, I often wish, like every body else, for a larger income. Poor
girls!" added Sir Arthur, knitting his bushy eye-brows into a
portentous frown, which gave to his venerable countenance a look of
noble and manly sorrow. "No one can blame them! but it was little
short of insanity in my brother to leave such young children under the
sole guardianship of a heartless spendthrift like your friend and my
nephew Sir Patrick, who would sell his soul for sixpence."

"Yes! and squander it the next minute," added young De Crespigny,
laughing. "I saw Pat produce a £20 note yesterday at Tait's
auction-room, and a buzz of wonder ran all through the circle of his
friends. Such a sight had not been seen in his pocket for many a day,
and he threatened to put it up to auction, saying, he was sure we
would all give double the value for it, as a rarity, considering the
quarter from which it came. He really seems to pique himself on his
poverty, and has the art of doing what another man would be cut for,
with so much grace and apparent unconsciousness, that his friends
really forget to disapprove."

"I never forget!" replied the Admiral, slowly rising and adjusting his
spectacles. "I am even told the incorrigible rascal has mortgaged the
legacy he pretends to expect from me! He would do anything short of a
highway robbery for money, and has done some things that seem to a man
of honor quite as bad. But," added Sir Arthur, growing more and more
angry, "as long as he can give his friends a good bottle of claret,
they ask no questions! Patrick Dunbar has caused me the only feeling
of shame I ever had occasion for, and yet to see that proud
snuff-the-moon look of his, you would suppose the world scarcely big
enough to hold him! With his chin in the air, as I saw him yesterday,
he will certainly knock his forehead some day against the sky!"

"You cannot wonder, Sir Arthur, that Dunbar is in immense favor with
himself, when he is so admired, and almost idolized in society. He
certainly has the handsomest countenance in Scotland;--as my uncle
Doncaster says, Pat is a portrait of Vandyke in his best style. With
that grand, chivalrous, Chevalier-Bayard look, he is the best rider
who ever sat on horseback! I could not but laugh when he mounted
yesterday for a ride along Princes Street, and turned to me, with his
lively, victorious laugh, saying, 'Now I am going to give the ladies a
treat!'"

"The insufferable coxcomb!" said Sir Arthur, relaxing into an
irresistible smile of indulgent affection. "From the day he first
came staggering into this world to astonish us all, he has thought
himself the finest sight between this and Whitehall!"

"Of course he does! Pat is asked for so many locks of his hair, by
various young ladies, that his valet keeps a wig to supply them; and
he might almost pay his debts with the countless collection he has
received of sentimental rings, displaying forgotten forget-me-nots, in
turquoises and gold! Who, on the wide earth, except yourself, Sir
Arthur, would ever dream of finding fault with our gay, dashing,
high-spirited friend, Dunbar, the life of society, the model of dress,
equipage, and good living. Why! the very instant he opens his lips,
all dulness vanishes like a spectre! I wish the whole world were
peopled with such men; but he promises to shoot himself as soon as he
sees his own equal. He staked his reputation one day that he would!"

"His reputation!! the sooner he parts with it the better! Let Patrick
Dunbar exchange his own with the first man he meets in the street, and
he will gain by the bargain."

"Pardon me there, Sir Arthur, your nephew is universally allowed to be
the best fellow upon earth!"

"Very probably! 'the best fellow upon earth' generally means a
selfish, extravagant, scatter-brained roue; but I must be off! There
is a cold, sharp, cutting wind, blowing in at the back of my neck,
which makes me feel like Charles the First when the axe fell. If you
have any influence, De Crespigny, with my scape-grace of a nephew--all
nephews are scape-graces, as far as my experience goes--try to make
him more like yourself, and I shall be grateful, with all my heart."

"Like me!!!" said the young Cornet, turning away with a smile; but it
was a smile of bitterness, almost amounting to remorse, while he
hastily grasped a newspaper, and flung himself into a seat. "No! no!
Sir Arthur, he is not quite so bad as that. Dunbar has his faults; he
wears them upon his sleeve, and attempts no disguise; but there are
many worse men in the world, who are held up as examples by those who
know no better. Whenever I reform myself, you may depend upon my
lecturing our friend, but not till then. We must both sow all our wild
oats first."

"Yes! and endure the fruit of them afterwards," replied Sir Arthur,
with a look of anxious kindness at his young relative. "That is the
only crop where to sow is more agreeable than to reap! But I waste
words! Young men will be young men, and I might as well ask this east
wind not to blow, or try to turn the sea from its course, as attempt
to stop the mad career of that scatter-brained madcap! It would matter
less if he only fell himself hereafter, like a pebble in the stream;
but the fatal eddy extends in a wide circle, which must reach the
interests of those helpless young girls, my nieces; and I cannot but
grieve over the consequences which may, and must befall them, after I
go to that rest which is in the grave, and to that hope which is
beyond it."

"Never trouble your head about that which shall occur then, Sir Arthur!
'Too much care once made an old man grey.' My motto is, '_apres moi le
deluge_!' This little world of ours got on wonderfully well before we
came into it, and will do astonishingly well again, after we make our
exit," said young De Crespigny, with a strange medley in his tone, of
melancholy thought, and contemptuous derision. "Pat tells me that both
my young cousins promise to turn out a perfect blaze of beauty, with
long shining ringlets that they almost tread upon in walking, teeth
that would make the fortune of a dentist, and complexions that
Rowland's kalydor could not improve. Ten years hence, I shall propose
to one or both of them myself, if that will give you satisfaction."

"Perfect! but as marrying two sisters at once is not quite customary,
let your intentions be limited to Agnes. She is several years the
eldest; and I like the good old patriarchal rule of marrying by
seniority; besides which, she is quite a little flirt already, though
scarcely yet in her teens. She will be a young lady, entirely suited
for the ordinary marrying and giving in marriage of every-day life;
but little Marion is the very light of my eyes, and I must match her
by a very high standard indeed. It will be a dark day for me, if ever
I am obliged to part with her at all; and being now only in her sixth
year, I may, without selfishness, hope to keep her beside me for my
few remaining days. I must begin match-making for Agnes, however,
directly, and your offer shall be duly considered. A future peer, with
countless thousands in expectancy, and not particularly ill-looking,
does not fall in our way every morning."

"So all the young ladies seem to think!" replied the young Cornet, in
his most conceited tone. "Girls dislike nothing so much as to marry on
a competence; there is a great deal of romance in marrying on nothing,
and a great deal of comfort in marrying on wealth; but a mere vulgar
competence has neither romance nor reality. Now I can offer both!
First, actual starvation on a Cornet's pay; and then, with my uncle's
leave, the pumpkin will turn to a carriage, and the mice into horses;
but in the meantime, Sir Arthur, Pat tells me you keep a capital
chop-house at Portobello, so pray invite me to drop in some day at
six, to begin my siege of your pretty niece. I must come and see,
before I can conquer," added Mr. De Crespigny, in a tone of peculiar
conceit, with which he always spoke either to ladies or of them.
"Probably next week I may find my way to this _terra incognita_
of yours. Is it across the Queensferry, or where?"

"My good friend! you are not so pre-eminently ignorant of geography as
you would appear; for did I not see you honoring that dullest of all
dull places, the little obscure village of Portobello, with your
august presence, only yesterday. I nearly spitted you on the point of
my umbrella, you hurried so rapidly past, evidently wishing to escape
from that girl in a cloak, who seemed to beset your footsteps!"

"Impossible!!!" exclaimed young De Crespigny, coloring violently, and
starting from his seat. "Could it be in the nature of things that I
should cut you!"

"True enough! I might have said, like Lady Towercliffe to Prince
Meimkoff, '_vous m'avez coupe_.'"

"Indeed!" continued the cornet, trying to conceal his countenance. "I
wish you had cut my throat in return!"

"If it is to be done, I would rather somebody else did! Why, De
Crespigny! you will set the house on fire with that violent poker
exercise! Your own face is on fire already! Have more regard for your
complexion! Ah! now it is pale enough! Are you ill? My dear fellow!
what is the matter?"

"Nothing! I am merely looking at the beautiful sunset!"

"What! does the sun set in the east to-night?" asked Sir Arthur,
jestingly; "that is worth looking at!"

"I am annoyed with a spasm of toothache!" said De Crespigny, putting a
handkerchief to his face, which nearly covered it; and then suddenly
throwing open the window, he looked far out, as if in search of his
groom. He leaned forward so long, however, that Sir Arthur kindly but
vehemently remonstrated on the danger of exposing himself, while in so
much pain, to the cold air; enumerated a whole host of remedies for
decayed teeth; suggested the great comfort and convenience of having
the offender extracted by Hutchins, and ended by hoping his young
friend would still have a tooth left for his proposed dinner at
Portobello.

"Depend upon me for that," replied Mr. De Crespigny, with forced
vivacity. "I shall ferret you out next week. I have little doubt your
pasture is excellent in that quarter, and there is no one from whom I
would be half so happy to receive a soup ticket."

"Keep your flattery for the ladies, where it will always be
acceptable, and where I hear you are already an experienced
practitioner in the arts of captivation. As for my dinner, I consider
it an imposition to ask any friend, and not give him the best my cook
and cellar can furnish; and you may expect whenever you do come, to
find a notice over my door, 'hot joints every day!'"

"But it was the society of your house, and not the dinner, to which my
agreeable anticipations were directed; and there, you know, I cannot
be disappointed! as somebody wisely said, when shown a tempting bill
of fare, 'show me a bill of the company!'"

"That reminds me to say, you must not expect my pretty niece to be at
my little bathing machine of a house! It would not be fair to inveigle
you under such false pretences; but I promise you an old man's
welcome, and the best that my cottage can produce; aged as this
newspaper makes me I enjoy every inch of life, and hope you, at the
same age, will do the same. I may almost apply to my little villa that
favourite saying in Spain,

    'My home, my home! though thou'rt but small,
    Thou art to me th' Escurial.'"

With a cordial shake of the hand, and a smile of cheerful benignity,
Sir Arthur withdrew, and as his firm and stately step receded, Mr. De
Crespigny watched him with a look of respectful interest, which ended
in his turning away after the admiral had disappeared, and heaving a
deep sigh, while a cloud of care darkened on his forehead, and a look
of angry vexation shaded his previously animated eyes.

Day after day passed on, subsequent to the preceding conversation,
during which Sir Arthur frequently postponed his chop, to what he
considered an atrociously late hour, in hopes of his promised guest
appearing. Once the admiral felt positively convinced that he had seen
him enter a Portobello omnibus at four o'clock, but still he appeared
not. Week after week elapsed, and still Sir Arthur ate his dinner
alone, in long-surviving expectation that either his own not very
dutiful nephew, or young De Crespigny, would "cast up;" but at last
these hopes and wishes were ended by his hearing that Sir Patrick's
embarrassments had caused him to leave Edinburgh by moonlight, and
that, soon after, Mr. De Crespigny as suddenly departed, no one knew
why, when, or wherefore.




CHAPTER II.


The two most dashing, bold, and mischievous boys at Eton during their
day, had formerly been Sir Patrick Dunbar and Louis De Crespigny, who
astonished the weak minds of masters and pupils, by the strange and
startling invention displayed in their exploits, as well as by the
ingenuity with which both got safely out of every threatening
predicament, and the sly humor or cunning with which they frequently
shifted the disgrace, or even the punishment, of their offences, on
others who deserved it less, or perhaps not at all. Invariably at the
head of every mad exploit, or at the bottom of every secret design,
how they could possibly have escaped being expelled was a frequent
topic of subsequent wonder among their contemporaries in the classes;
but their delight was to run as near the wind as possible, and still
to display their skilful pilotage by baffling justice, and evading the
utmost rigor of the law, while always ready rather to do harm than to
do nothing.

When very young, the two enterprising friends, both since gazetted
into the 15th Light Huzzars, had shown an early predilection for
military life, by frequently escaping to the neighbouring barracks,
assisted by a ladder of rope on which they descended every night from
the windows. A gay, joyous reception invariably awaited these lively
boys at the mess-table, where they sung many a jovial song, and
cracked many a merry jest over their claret, till, after some hours
spent in rapturous festivity, they stole silently back within bounds,
and were re-admitted at the window, by their respective fags, who had
received orders, under pain of death, to keep awake and answer their
signals for the ladder by instantly lowering it. The spirits of both
these young companions were more like the effect of intoxication, than
mere sober enjoyment; and, on one occasion, they set the table in a
roar, by having a rivalship which would best imitate the gradual
progress of becoming tipsy, though drinking nothing but cold water; in
which exhibition they showed so much talent for mimicry, taking off
the surrounding officers before their faces, and making so many
home-thrusts and personal remarks, that the scene was never afterwards
forgotten in the regiment. On another occasion Sir Patrick caused
himself to be placed in a coffin, stolen from the undertakers, and was
carried through the barracks by his companions, who made paper
trumpets with which they played the dead march in Saul, while all the
sentries saluted as they passed. Such juvenile exploits in the dawn of
life were now the subject of many a laughing reminiscence, and had
been followed by others on a more extended scale and of more matured
enterprise, at Mr. Brownlow's, a private tutor, where the two young
men afterwards distinguished themselves in a way not easily to be
forgotten, causing their better disciplined companions to wonder,
though in very few instances to admire.

In the favorite aristocratic achievements of driving stage-coaches,
breaking lamps, wringing off knockers, assaulting watchmen, with other
fistic and pugilistic exploits, they were nearly unrivalled; and
occasionally their genius had soared into an extraordinary display of
dexterity, in transposing the signs suspended over shops, and in
filching silk handkerchiefs from the pockets of their friends, merely
as amateurs, but still the deed was done, and the laugh raised
literally at the expense of the sufferer, as the plunder was retained
to be a future trophy of success. Each successive stage of their
youth, in short, supplied an inexhaustible fund of standing jests and
lively anecdotes, the wit of which mainly consisted in their mischief,
while they betrayed an utter recklessness about the opinions or the
feelings of others, till at length the patience of their unfortunate
private tutor was so completely exhausted that he gave them a secret
hint to withdraw, which they accordingly lost no time in preparing to
do, but not till they had enjoyed a very characteristic revenge. When
Mr. Brownlow had taken a party of friends with him one evening to the
theatre, Sir Patrick suddenly discharged from the gallery the whole
contents of a prodigious bag of flour, which powdered all the heads,
faces, and coats, in the pit, perfectly white, and caused an uproar of
anger and of irresistible laughter throughout the house; and the same
evening Louis De Crespigny, as a farewell frolic, abstracted a stuffed
bear from the neighbouring hair-dresser's, and having equipped it in
the costume of Mr. Brownlow, hung it from the lamp-post, where a
panic-struck crowd was speedily assembled by the alarming report that
the reverend gentleman had committed suicide. A strict investigation
took place respecting the authors of these unpardonable tricks, but,
though suspicion fell at once upon the real culprits, and the
circumstantial evidence against them seemed irresistibly strong, Sir
Patrick argued his own cause with so much skill and vivacity, while De
Crespigny looked so innocently unconscious of the whole affair, that,
with a silent frown from the master, of stern reproof and suspicion,
they were, not honorably acquitted, but allowed to return home without
any public mark of censure or disgrace; and soon after both joined
their regiment at Dublin.

De Crespigny and Sir Patrick had but one companion whom they
acknowledged as their equal at Eton, in all the spirit, enterprise,
and vivacity of their characters, but who was, in a thousand other
respects their superior, for seldom, indeed, has there been known, in
one so young, a character of as much intensity, or which displayed a
combination so singular, of superb talents, rare judgment, sound
principle, deep piety, and energetic feeling, as in Richard Granville,
an object of admiration to all, and of envy to many; though jealously
lost half of its bitterness in association with one so eloquent and
single-hearted in conversation, so courteously amiable and
conciliatory in manner, and with so fine a principle of tact, ready as
far as possible to enhance the pleasures, to palliate the faults, and
to share the sorrows of all his companions. Cultivated in all that
could adorn the heart as well as the head, in whatever was amiable,
high-spirited and generous, Richard Granville had but to follow the
impulse of natural feeling as well as of principle, and he out-did the
very wishes of his friends, while no one excelled him in all the manly
exercises suited to his early years. His countenance was illuminated
with an expression of intellectual energy, at times almost sublime,
while there was a living grace and amiability in his manner
irresistibly attractive. Brave, liberal, and resolute, he entered with
eagerness into all the offensive recreations of his companions, and no
one excelled him in riding, fencing, and cricket, while he was the
best shot in his own country; but he firmly declined ever to squander
his time or money on any game of chance, cards, billiards, or gambling
in any form. While Sir Patrick's betting-book was from the first a
model of skill, in hedging bets, and all the manoeuvres of
jockey-ology, young Granville said all that eloquence and affection
could dictate, to point out how dangerous and dishonorable was the
course on which he seemed about to enter, but in vain, for Sir Patrick
finished the discussion by offering to bet him £5 he would not be
ruined in less than ten years. "I have a fortune and constitution
which will last me till thirty," said the young baronet; "and I do not
wish to live a day longer."

"It is easy," said Prince Eugene, "to be modest when one is
successful; but it is difficult not to be envied." While the very
presence of young Granville in the room, with his riotous young
associates, seemed as if it held up a glass to their mind's eye,
testifying the folly and evil of their course, yet Richard Granville
abhorred display, while Sir Patrick and De Crespigny frequently
declared he was "too clever and too good for them;" and unavoidable
circumstances afterwards combined to estrange the young men still
more. A law-suit had been going on almost since the period of their
birth, conducted in an amicable way by their guardians, in which the
interests of all three were so deeply concerned, and the case so
exceedingly complicated, that years passed on, during which the youths
had all grown to manhood, and the case remained still undecided; while
the one-sided view which was given to Dunbar and De Crespigny on the
subject caused in them an angry feeling of hostility and rancour
against their amiable and high-minded young relative, who was so
enthusiastically desirous to enter the English church, and devote
himself to those sacred duties, that he scarcely wished a favorable
decree, which would prevent the necessity for his pursuing a
profession at all.

A Scotch law-suit may be compared to a game at battle-dore between the
tribunals of England and Scotland, while the gaping client sees the
shuttle-cock for ever flying over his head, higher and higher out of
reach, and sent backwards and forwards with ceaseless diligence, but
no apparent progress; or it is like a kitten playing with a ball of
worsted, which is allowed to come often apparently within her grasp,
and is then, when she least expects, twitched away farther than
before. The Granville case had been decided by the Court of Session,
against the two cousins, Dunbar and Crespigny, but being appealed to
the House of Lords, was recommended for consideration, re-argued,
re-considered, and nearly reversed, while replies and duplies, remits
and re-revisals, commissions of inquiry, and new cases, followed each
other in ceaseless succession, and many of the lawyers who were young
men when the case began, grew grey in the service, while it yet
remained in suspense. A grand-uncle of Sir Patrick's had fifty years
before, bought an estate of £12,000 a-year from the Marquis of
Doncaster, to whom young De Crespigny was now heir presumptive; but
Mr. Dunbar having, it was conjectured, entertained some suspicion that
the title deeds were not perfectly valid, as an entail had been
discovered afterwards, by which it was generally thought that the land
must be restored to the original owner, he hastily and most unfairly
sold the property to the late Mr. Granville for £350,000, and dying
intestate, after having lost nearly the whole sum in a mining
speculation, it could not be proved whether Sir Patrick's father had
acted as an executor for the deceased or not, so as to render himself
responsible for his debts, and liable to refund the sum paid by Mr.
Granville. Thus, whether the entail held good, and carried the estate
back to Lord Doncaster, or whether it had been legally broken, so as
to entitle the Granville family to keep it, or whether, if it were
refunded, the price could be claimed from the heirs of Mr. Dunbar,
still continued a mystery never apparently to be solved.

For many generations past, the ancient Marquisate of Doncaster had
been inherited by a succession of only sons, all strict Papists, who
had each in his turn been reckoned by the next heirs exceedingly
sickly and unpromising, but still the wonder grew, for not one had
ever died, till he left a substitute in regular rotation, to supply
the vacancy which he created himself; and a long train of minorities
in the family had caused the accumulation of wealth and property to be
enormous, when the present proprietor succeeded fifty years before our
story commences. Nothing could exceed his own astonishment at the
unembarrassed magnificence of the fortune, of which he most
unexpectedly found himself in possession, as his father had been in
the habit of concealing the amount of his own income, and allowing his
heir rather less than nothing, saying, that as he himself had never
had anything to eat till he had no teeth to eat with, he was resolved
that his successor should be similarly treated. In pursuance of this
plan, the old nobleman even on his death-bed, had actually expired
with a practical joke on his lips. He sent for his son, gravely told
him that with debts, mortgages, and settlements, the very encumbered
estate he was about to inherit would scarcely pay its own expenses,
and recommended him to live in future with the most penurious economy.
When the will was opened, finding to his unutterable joy, that he had
merely been played upon by the old humorist, who, in reality left him
£40,000 per annum clear, so great was Lord Doncaster's surprise, that
he declared his good fortune at the time to be "almost incredible;"
and it might have been supposed, that he never afterwards completely
believed it, as his personal expenses were always in a style more
suited to the old Lord's threat than his performance, and he became a
fresh instance of what may be so often remarked, that the most
extravagant heirs in expectancy become the most avaricious in
possession.

There was one singular peculiarity in the settlements of Lord
Doncaster's family, that so long as he had no son, or if his son at
twenty-one declared himself a Protestant, he had the power of selling
or bequeathing the estates according to his own pleasure or caprice;
and the ancestor who had inserted this clause in his deed of entail,
made his intention evident, that the succession should go to the Roman
Catholic Church, rather than to a Protestant heir; but the present
peer had taken advantage, on so large a scale, of his own childless
privilege, to sell the family estates, that his two deceased sisters,
Lady Charlotte De Crespigny, and Lady Caroline Smytheson, used
secretly to complain, that little would be left for their children, if
he persevered in turning every acre into gold; yet no one ever could
guess how the large sums were squandered or melted away, which the old
Marquis was continually raising, unless they went, as was strongly
suspected, in the form of "secret service money," among the priests by
whom he was surrounded.

Nobody had a better right to be eccentric than Lord Doncaster!--old,
rich, unmarried, and originally educated at home,--a misfortune
sufficient in itself to engender so many peculiarities, as to render a
man unfit for society ever afterwards. The aged peer was shy, proud,
and arbitrary beyond all conception, avaricious about trifles, yet
lavish to excess on great occasions, suspicious of all men's motives
and intentions, and yet confiding to the last extreme of weakness, in
the Abbe Mordaunt, his confessor, despising all men, and yet anxious
beyond measure for the world's good opinion, addicted to the very
worst female society, when he might have enjoyed the best, hating
company, and yet sometimes plunging into it, when and where he was
least expected, jealous to excess of his next heir, Louis De
Crespigny, whom he enslaved to his caprices, as if even his existence
were to be given or withheld at his option, yet sometimes whimsically
cordial in his manner to him, though ready to take fire in an instant
if his condescension led the lively youth into the slightest approach
towards confidence or familiarity.

Mr. Howard Smytheson, the wealthy brother-in-law of Lord Doncaster,
having purchased most of the De Crespigny estates, as acre after acre,
farm after farm, and house after house, came successively into the
market, bequeathed them on his decease to an only daughter then an
infant, and it became a favorite day-dream with the old peer, that his
nephew and niece should be educated for each other, while to this end
he tried his utmost power of conciliation with the maiden sister of
Mr. Howard Smytheson, to whose care the young heiress had been
consigned, hoping that thus all the amputated limbs of his vast
property might yet be reunited in their pristine magnitude, to which
very desirable end he thenceforth directed his whole conversations
with young De Crespigny, to whom he more than hinted that, unless
their will were the same about this marriage, his own will after death
would be found very different from what his nephew probably
anticipated and wished.

The private vices of Lord Doncaster had been so very private, that
though much was suspected, little could be known; yet, while he had
few visible or personal expenses, and no imaginable outlet for his
fortune, he invariably spent all his income, and considerably more,
being one of those personages occasionally seen who excite the wonder
and speculation of relations and neighbours, by unaccountably
frittering away fortunes of almost royal splendor, without any
appearance of royal luxury or royal liberality. Wearied of the world,
in which he had nothing more to desire, and of himself, as he had
nothing to think of or to do,--bored in short with the want of a want,
Lord Doncaster's life was indeed a mere heartless pageant of mean
ostentation and fretful pride, sternly insulated in a state of
solitary old-bachelor despotism, and absorbed in himself to a degree
which no ordinary mind could conceive or comprehend. Encumbered with
so many unoccupied hours, it was a subject of as much wonder how he
disposed of his superfluous time, as of his superfluous fortune; but
he settled that question, by remarking one day to his nephew, that
"the great business of life is, to shuffle through the day anyhow till
dinner time." Like all parsimonious men, Lord Doncaster could not
endure to hear any one else reckoned affluent, and Louis De Crespigny
knew that a certain receipt for irritating him was, to over-estimate
everybody's income, consequently he amused himself occasionally by
audibly giving out Lord Towercliffe's fortune to be £15,000 a-year,
and estimating his friend Sir Patrick Dunbar's rent-roll at a clear
sum of £20,000 per annum, while he slyly watched his uncle's rising
choler, and patiently heard, for the fiftieth time, an elaborate
explanation, that it was impossible, and a sober calculation which
reduced both the offending parties almost to beggary.

In the month of August, as regularly as time revolved, Lord Doncaster
delighted to read in the newspapers, his own pompous advertisement,
the only original composition he was ever known to attempt, in which
he prohibited poachers and strangers from shooting on his moors in
Argyleshire, Mid-Lothian, Yorkshire, Galloway, Cromarty, and
Caithness, but except the annual appearance of this spirited
manifesto, no public evidence ever came forth of that extraordinary
wealth which property so extensive must be supposed to produce. No
charitable donations bore witness to Lord Doncaster's liberality--no
country objects were encouraged by his public spirit--and the
monuments daily arising in memory of departed merit, made a vain
appeal for his pecuniary tribute of respect and regret, for Lord
Doncaster neither respected nor regretted any man.

It was an often-repeated axiom of Lord Doncaster's, that every man
cheats or is cheated; but in one instance, and one only, his Lordship
had shown apparently some kind feeling, or rather perhaps he might be
said to have exhibited a capricious freak of benevolence, though the
result had been such as to afford him an excuse ever afterwards for
not again attempting a single act of gratuitous liberality.

The nearest relative to his ancient family, after Louis De Crespigny
and Miss Howard, was Mrs. Anstruther, a distant cousin, who, after
making a low and almost disgraceful marriage, had suddenly died, it
was believed by her own hands, thus consigning her two young children
to helpless, and apparently hopeless poverty, till at length they were
very unwillingly invited, or rather permitted to become residents in
an almost menial capacity at Beaujolie Castle, in Yorkshire, where, as
they could neither be drowned like kittens, nor shot like puppy-dogs,
the Marquis caused them to be treated like the "whipping boys" in
Charles the First's time--sometimes employed as playmates to amuse his
nephew and niece during their holiday visits to his residence, but
more frequently treated in a sort of mongrel way between dependents
and slaves by the heartless and tyrannical old peer, who considered
them as mere poachers on the preserve of his family honors, having
forced their way into existence by some untoward accident, and become
absolute blots in the creation, liable to be suspected, and even
accused to their faces of every low and vicious propensity, in
consequence of which, from an early age, he destroyed their
self-respect, and irritated their evil passions by the most rash and
unfounded aspersions--theft, swindling, lying, and gluttony, were
among the principal counts in his Lordship's indictment, when he
sometimes vented a paroxysm of ill-humor on these his unhappy
dependents; and many a time the tears of Mary Anstruther, and the
flashing eye of her brother Ernest, bore witness to the anger and
grief with which they listened to his bitter and often unmerited
upbraidings.

At times, however, Lord Doncaster found it convenient for his own
private purposes to patronize the Anstruthers, and threatened, in the
hearing of all his young relatives, that if Louis De Crespigny's
conduct did not in all respects satisfy him, an heir more subservient
to his wishes might be found, and though the culprit must be his
nephew, he need not be his successor, while the glance of his eye
towards Ernest aroused hopes, wishes, and even expectations of the
wildest extravagance, which were then confirmed for a time by his
being promoted to temporary attention and consideration, not only
displayed ostentatiously by their capricious patron, but extending to
the increased respect and observance of the servants, the thermometer
of whose obedience rose and fell according as the sunshine of Lord
Doncaster's favor shone upon his young relative or not; yet brief as
these periods of increased importance had always been, they made an
indelible impression on the young and ambitious minds of those usually
neglected children. "The child becomes a boy, the boy a youth, and
then the game of life begins in earnest."

Without education or principle, and with no friend on the wide earth
to confide in or to consult, the two young Anstruthers, like weeds
that will yet flourish though trampled upon, grew up vigorous in body,
and enthusiastically as well as devotedly attached to each other, with
a depth and power of affection which appeared, before long, the only
redeeming quality in characters wherein strong passions and weak
principles promised little, and threatened much, to all with whom they
might hereafter become associated.

The resemblance between them was as remarkable as their attachment,
both having dark Italian-looking countenances, of remarkable symmetry,
with a singularly excitable and determined expression in their large
lustrous eyes, while it was remarkable that neither could by
possibility look any one steadily in the face. There was a wild,
almost feverish brilliancy in the eye of Ernest, expressive of a fiery
impetuosity, amounting at times almost to an appearance of insanity,
when, after being obliged to crouch and flatter for his bread before
Lord Doncaster, he would retire with Mary, and give loose to all the
angry torrent of his long-suppressed emotions. The sister's heart
cowered sometimes before the flood of invectives and imprecations with
which he relieved his heart by speaking of his wrongs, while he seemed
to cherish a gnawing belief that fortune herself had shown him a most
unaccountable and undeserved enmity, which he was resolved, by fair or
by foul means, to subvert. "I shall yet rise above all the accidents
of fortune! It shall be done, I care not how, Mary," said he sternly.
"We must not be over-particular on that score, for, as the proverb
says, 'a cat in mittens will never catch mice!'"

Bold, fearless, and ready, with a keen appetite for danger, a fearless
ambition, consummate cunning, and an insatiable thirst for adventure,
it seemed sometimes as if he would put his mind into a pugilistic
attitude, and buffet his way forward to pre-eminence in spite of all
the malice of fortune and of mankind. With a temper vindictive, harsh,
and deadly, his blood mounted like mercury in a thermometer at the
very thought of success, and often when he spoke to his sister in the
lowest whisper of their future prospects, she would start and look
hastily round as if in terror, lest the wild dreams of his
undisciplined mind might be overheard and resented, for he nourished a
feverish hope, which he called a presentiment, but which amounted
almost to a monomania, that the splendid residence in which they were
now only tolerated on sufferance, "as reptile dependents," would one
day become his own.

If every man living might remove at pleasure all those who stand
inconveniently in his way, political economists would have nothing to
fear from a too rapidly increasing population, and the day-dreams of
Ernest, which gained strength and consistency every hour, were
prolific in both deaths and marriages. He carefully collected in the
Peerage all the instances there recorded, in which distant relations
had succeeded through a long mortality of twenty or five-and-twenty
intermediate heirs,--he remembered that neither Louis nor Caroline had
yet endured the measles,--he thought their Shetland ponies very
dangerous, and, in short, if their days had been measured by him, the
measure would have been short indeed. His personal vanity was
excessive, and amidst his wild schemes of aggrandisement, the first
and foremost had lately been to marry his lively, frolicsome, little
cousin, and occasional playmate, Caroline Howard Smytheson, in whose
infant manner, heedless and good-humored as she was, he flattered
himself there might be traced an evident appearance of preference,
while he could not but also remark, that before any of the young party
had attained the age of maturity, and Caroline was yet a mere infant.
Louis De Crespigny had already begun to exercise his genius for
flirtation in the society of his humble cousin Mary Anstruther,--humble
only in circumstances, but possessing that pride without principle,
which goes before a fall.

Time had ripened the faults of the two young Anstruthers, and
perfected also their extraordinary beauty of person, when, after
Ernest had attained the age of nineteen, a whim as sudden, and
apparently as unaccountable as their adoption, caused Lord Doncaster,
or rather the Abbe Mordaunt, unexpectedly to announce that they were
dismissed from the house. Various rumours were circulated among the
servants to account for this harsh and hasty decision, but nothing
could be discovered for certain. Ernest was reported to have expressed
himself with the greatest rancour and contempt respecting a report in
circulation, that Lord Doncaster intended to marry the Abbe Mordaunt's
beautiful niece, then on a visit at Kilmarnock Abbey, near Edinburgh.
The Abbe was said to have missed some valuable jewels belonging to his
niece Laura, who accused both the Anstruthers of having been seen in
her room,--a large sum of money, it was hinted, had mysteriously
disappeared--some people said that Ernest had been discovered at a
late hour of the night attempting to enter the sleeping apartment of
Lord Doncaster, without being able to give any satisfactory account of
his intentions, and others declared that Louis De Crespigny's
assiduities to Mary Anstruther had recently become rather too obvious,
while surmises arose against her character; but whatever might be the
cause, they were both hastily transferred on a few hours' notice from
the splendors of Kilmarnock Abbey, to a small obscure lodging at
Portobello. As Ernest was about to leave that house which had so long
been his home, with Mary sobbing in uncontrollable grief on his arm,
anger and despair were fearfully stamped on their young faces, when
the Abbe Mordaunt advancing silently, placed a small sum of money in
their hands, which the young man furiously dashed upon the ground, and
trampled upon, saying in accents of strong and almost terrifying
vehemence, while his countenance exhibited a dark insidious expression
of almost maniacal fury, "I would not be human if I did not hate your
niece and you!--my curse shall rest on both till I am revenged! Take
back your paltry gold, I shall build up my own fortune, or perish in
the ruins! I shall live by my own hands, or--by own hands I shall
die!"

From that day forward the names of Mary and Ernest Anstruther never
passed the lips of Lord Doncaster or the Abbe, who ordered the
servants also to abstain from ever mentioning them, which only piqued
the curiosity of the second table into greater activity than ever; but
though many vague conjectures, dark suspicions, and absurd rumours,
were promulgated throughout the establishment, nothing certain could
be ascertained, except that they returned no more to Kilmarnock Abbey,
and that a final extinguisher had been placed on all their prospects
and hopes from Lord Doncaster.

About this time Mrs. Bridget Smytheson sent Miss Howard, then only six
years old, to school, and seemed so little anxious to encourage an
intimacy between the young heiress and Louis De Crespigny, whom she
had long disliked, that Lord Doncaster, piqued and indignant, angrily
reminded her of his sister Lady Caroline's dying injunction, to which
she had promised implicit attention, that if the cousins, after they
were grown up, could be ascertained to have to have a disinterested
preference for each other, every opportunity should be given them to
become attached and engaged.

"Certainly, Lord Doncaster; and I shall fulfil my pledge," replied the
over-dressed, and rather under-bred aunt, in her usual tone of
fantastic affectation; "but these boy-and-girl intimacies are not the
most likely to produce that romantic love with which young people
ought to begin their married lives; and besides, how could their
preference be disinterested, where the brilliant prospects of both are
continually descanted on as motives to their union. No! I have a
considerable spice of romance in my composition; and when they do meet
again, it shall be under very different circumstances."

"What a creature to have the charge of any girl!" thought Lord
Doncaster, as he returned from handing her, with every appearance of
profound respect, into her pony-carriage. "There is another woman
half so insane out of bedlam; and that mad-cap child herself is as
wild as a horse with the reins broke. The greatest annoyance on earth
is, to have a rich and vulgar upstart among on's near connections."




CHAPTER III.


The life of Louis De Crespigny, from the hour he entered the army, was
one continued steeple-chase after pleasure and amusement, in whatever
form they could be courted, or at whatever expense they could be
enjoyed. At a very early age, he was already a veteran in the world
and its ways; for he stood "alone in his glory," the most admired,
courted, and idolized of mankind, a perfect adept in all the arts of
rendering himself agreeable in society, and possessing many pleasant
qualities, but none that were valuable. During a gay career of
dissipation and frivolity, he had entered with successive eagerness on
a thousand flirtations, though he always forgot to marry in the end,
while his heart, like a phoenix, was frequently consumed, yet never
destroyed, and always ready at the service of any young lady, with
youth, beauty, and accomplishments enough to excite his temporary
interest. Being of opinion, that, though not yet a peer, he ought
speedily to be one, young De Crespigny openly avowed the impossibility
of marrying while Lord Doncaster survived, and jocularly remarked,
that it would be a pity prematurely to cut off the hopes of his
hundred and one Scotch cousins, who lived, like Ernest Anstruther, on
the hope, that if his neck were broken at Melton, his succession might
yet be "cut up" amongst them; and to the friendly inquiries of his
many relatives, he frequently replied with a condoling look, that he
and his uncle were both "hopelessly well."

Lord Doncaster was not even yet, by any means, so great a
Methusalemite in age, nor so weighed down by infirmities, as his
lively nephew chose among the mothers and daughters of his intimate
acquaintance to represent; and some ladies whom young De Crespigny had
piqued or affronted, were actually ill-natured enough to hint, that
Lord Doncaster was still almost young and almost handsome! They had
even been so malicious as to insinuate, that his Lordship might
possibly have a genius for marrying his house-keeper, almost the only
respectable female who ever crossed his threshold; but Mrs. Fireland's
very mature age, and very antiquated dress, shewed how completely she
must have given up that point; and even her desire to please him in
her own department, became every hour so increasingly difficult, and
was attended with failures and disappointments so unforeseen and
unaccountable, that the good woman often shook her head ominously, in
alluding to his Lordship's numerous whims, saying, in a confidential
under tone, which seemed to mean more than met the ear, to the
steward, "he's petiklar! he's very petiklar! It would require a person
bespoke to order to please his Lordship." And certainly he had become
of late years more particular than ever.

One personage only seemed to have the art of doing no wrong in the
estimation of Lord Doncaster; and the respect which he withheld from
all mankind, was concentrated to an immeasurable degree on the Abbe
Mordaunt, who was the Cardinal Wolsey of Kilmarnock Abbey and
Beaujolie Castle. Proud, overbearing, harsh, and arbitrary, he ruled
over the house, the purse, and even the will of his patron, with
despotic and unlimited sway. Men are generally advanced in years
before the passions and feelings have stamped their indelible traces,
like the impression of a seal, which becomes permanent only after the
wax has began to cool; but in every feature of the Abbe's countenance,
might now be seen the evidences of a gloomy, severe, and almost
ferocious temper, yet never was there a greater triumph of art over
nature, than in the skill with which he adapted his looks and
conversation to the taste or caprice of those whom it was his interest
to govern, and the astonishing facility with which he could call up a
bland smile and insinuating voice, to supersede the habitual
haughtiness of his tone and manner.

Educated at St. Omers, in all the dark superstitions of that bigoted
college, the Abbe was nevertheless far from desirous to seek within
the walls of a cloister any protection from those temptations to
worldly indulgence, which he had not even the wish to resist. He
neither preached nor practised the virtues of his vocation, but
paraded a whole troop of vices openly in the public eye; and far from
attempting to reform mankind, he never attempted even to reform
himself. Though in personal appearance of distinguished ugliness, yet
such was the magic of his manner, that even by ladies he was
considered perfectly irresistible; and to all, whether old or young,
he generally succeeded in imparting a conviction, that he saw in her,
for the first time, a realization of female perfection and female
fascination. The Abbe was never known to stop half-way in arduously
pursuing any object of pleasure, profit, or ambition, nor, whatever
might be the impediments, was he ever seen to fail of success; for,
like Bonaparte, he did not know the meaning of the word "impossible."

After having recklessly squandered, in a career of almost startling
dissipation, the whole of his own patrimony, it was believed that he
had obtained fraudulent possession of £10,000 belonging to his very
beautiful niece, to whom he must have refunded it had she lived to
come of age, or had she married it must have been restored to her
children, but about the time our story commences, she was supposed
either to have died, or to have retired to a convent abroad, though
whether upon conviction or not, might be considered very doubtful, as
she had been educated by her mother in the Protestant faith, and it
was generally conjectured that to so sudden and entire a removal from
all former connections, her poverty more than her will must have
consented. Laura Mordaunt had resided much at Kilmarnock Abbe with her
uncle, to whom she seemed warmly and blindly attached, but the
gossiping world sometimes conjectured that perhaps the evident
partiality and admiration of Lord Doncaster might have roused in her
some ambitious thoughts, backed by the influence of the Abbe. Among
the peculiarities of the Marquis he had always professed a decided
contempt for all respectable ladies, and therefore his attentions to
Laura Mordaunt were at best a very questionable compliment, and became
naturally of a nature which few relatives would have wished to
encourage, yet Miss Mordaunt still remained a guest at Kilmarnock
Abbey, till the period of her sudden disappearance, which caused so
much astonishment among her intimate friends and near connections,
that the father of Richard Granville, her cousin, shortly before his
own death, wrote an affectionate letter, entreating her to return,
were it but for a few months, and to make a home of his house for the
future, should it suit her to do so; but to this kind and generous
offer no reply ever came, and as all communications were to pass
through the Abbe's hands, who alone knew his niece's direction, it
might be doubted whether the invitation ever reached that hand for
which it was intended.

That Lord Doncaster had cruelly disappointed Laura Mordaunt, as he had
already disappointed many others, her friend and cousin had good
reason to believe; and though unable to imagine any really romantic or
lasting attachment to a man, however elevated in rank or agreeable in
manners, of at least fifty years old, yet he knew that Laura, who
lived so retired that she could boast of few friends and no admirers,
might really have been dazzled with the splendour of his rank or the
fascination of his conversation; while it seemed the most
unaccountable part of the whole affair, that if such were the case,
the attachment had not been reciprocal, between a young and beautiful
girl, thrown so continually in his way, and an aged roue, who had so
evidently admired her.

If the probable duration of Lord Doncaster's life had been measured
according to the estimate formed of it in many an Edinburgh
drawing-room, it would have brought a very small premium indeed at the
insurance offices. By referring to that valuable record, Debrett's
peerage, it was satisfactorily proved that the De Crespignys were a
very short-lived family! One Lord Doncaster had died of a fall from
his horse at thirty-five; another had been killed in battle, at
forty-two; and not one of them had contrived very much to exceed
eighty, therefore hopes might be entertained of the popular and
fascinating Louis De Crespigny at last gaining the long-expected
"step." It might have been supposed by strangers in Edinburgh, that
there was but one marquisate in Britain, so frequently were the
strawberry-leaves of Lord Doncaster under animated discussion; and any
visitor who accidentally took Burke or Debrett in his hand, might
smile to observe that the pages naturally fell open where that
interesting paragraph presented itself to notice,

    "Doncaster, Marquis of. Heir presumptive, Louis Henry De
    Crespigny."

A tradition prevailed among the elder ladies of fashion now in
society, that a splendid set of diamonds, which had been long the
ornament and admiration of Queen Charlotte's drawing-rooms, were since
entailed, by an old Lady Doncaster, in the family; and many a young
beauty, in arranging a bright futurity on her own plan, had frequently
worn these far-famed jewels in her imagination, when presented at
Court as a Marchioness, the envy and admiration of all her
contemporaries. Meantime nothing could be more astonishing than to
find how much was known in Edinburgh concerning the modes of life,
temper, and character of the present Lord Doncaster, though he lived
not only secluded from society, but made it his peculiar study to
evade the scrutiny of impertinent curiosity, and was so anxious to
check the loquaciousness of servants, that his butler and housekeeper
had strict orders to keep up a sort of prison discipline in the
establishment, and not to allow a word to be spoken when at meals. It
was, however, authentically ascertained by some unknown means, that
Lord Doncaster, who had formerly been a man of dissipated habits and
irregular hours, now devoted himself to the care of his health as
diligently and intensely as a miser does to the care of his money, and
that to him it had become a subject of almost avaricious interest. If
the Marquis had a finger-ache, it was magnified in Edinburgh into a
case of certain death; but after a really severe illness, he was heard
jocularly to remark, in sporting phrase, "I have had another round
with death!" while he seemed confident, on these occasions, of always
coming off victorious, though few among the young ladies of his
nephew's acquaintance would have been found ready to back his
expectations, while Agnes Dunbar impatiently remarked, that Lord
Doncaster had been so long in the world, he seemed not to know how to
leave it.

It was generally understood by the juries who sat upon Lord
Doncaster's case in society, that his breakfast consisted of strong
gravy-soup and poached eggs, which were pronounced to be very
plethoric,--he ate no luncheon, which must be very exhausting at his
time of life,--he had an enormous appetite for dinner, which would
certainly drive blood to his head,--and above all, he took a hot
supper, which must be fatal at last;--every newspaper tends to prove,
that after eating a hearty supper the night before, people are
invariably found dead in their beds the next morning;--and it was
already unaccountable how many mornings Lord Doncaster had survived!
Any day in the world might bring accounts of his death,--some day must
do so, sooner or later,--hundreds of old people were dying
continually, and so might the superannuated peer; yet though his days
were numbered in so many houses, they nevertheless seemed to be
numberless, while gentlemen, older than himself, were often heard
impatiently speculating and wondering what will he would make, and
declaring they only wished to live, in order to know the result of so
many anxious conjectures, while his dutiful nephew gayly remarked,
that his uncle need never wait for parchment to write his will upon,
while the skin on his face looked so like it.

Still Lord Doncaster obstinately persevered in living on, while,
strange to say, many of the manoeuvring mamas who had been heard to
declare, that if an old person must die at any rate, they could spare
his Lordship better than any other mortal, became mortal themselves,
and were first consigned to the tomb. Even some of the young and
lovely girls, who had thought, in the morning of life, before the
freshness of their bloom had been dimmed, or the lustre of their
beauty had decayed, that this one obstacle to their happiness must be
removed,--many of these gay, joyous, and unthinking beings had sunk
unexpectedly into an early grave, while still Lord Doncaster, in a
most provoking and unprincipled manner, disappointed everybody, and
continued to exist in a world where he was anything but welcome,
resolved apparently, never, in an every-day vulgar way, to die at all.

In the mean time, Louis De Crespigny, devoted to the amusements of
life, but independent of all its finer sympathies, seemed to breathe
nothing but the exhilarating ether of life, joyous, giddy, and
intoxicating. He revelled in a laughing, lively, satirical
consciousness of his own exact position in society, and privately
resolved to make the most of it,--not that he deliberately made up his
mind to deceive,--his code of honor was rigid enough in respect to his
transactions with gentlemen, but in the case of young ladies it was
otherwise,--

            "Man, to man so oft unjust,
    Is always so to woman."

With ladies Mr. De Crespigny considered his own brilliant prospects
and personal fascinations to be fair, marketable produce, which there
could be no objection that he should use to the utmost advantage, for
bringing in the largest possible return of pleasure, profit, and
amusement. Accordingly, the gay young Cornet, living upon what he
could borrow, on the disinterested attentions of manoeuvring
mothers, and on the expectation of his uncle's speedy demise, made
himself the chosen attendant of half a hundred accomplished and
perfectly amiable young ladies, who laughed, talked, sang, and danced
with him, while he soon became but too intimately known as a ruthless
flirt, to many a young heart, and to many a happy home, where he took
care that it should be distinctly implied and understood, that nothing
but the jealous penuriousness of "that old quiz, Lord Doncaster,"
impeded his ardent wish to settle for life; while in the mean time,
wherever a good table and cellar were kept, he testified exactly such
a degree of partiality for the sister or daughter of his host, as made
her be considered his wife-presumptive, and secured him a regular
knife and fork in the house on all family festivals and state
occasions, without any trouble in either ordering or paying for the
entertainment. It has been said, that as a rolling stone gathers no
moss, neither does a roving heart gain any affection; but whatever
might be the case with others, Louis De Crespigny felt himself without
a doubt the idol of every drawing-room, where he sentimentalized,
rattled, and flirted in every style, with every girl under twenty, as
diligently as if he were canvassing for an election, while they
talked, looked, smiled, and dressed their very best; and the
excellence of any gentleman's wine might be accurately estimated by
the thermometer of Mr. De Crespigny's attention to the daughters; but
he had a declared abhorrence of family dinners, which looked too
business-like and domestic, as if he had really committed himself;
though, as Lady Towercliffe remarked to her four daughters one day,
"he never said anything to the purpose, when the purpose was
marriage."

Though Mr. De Crespigny seemed, at the "dignity dinners" in Edinburgh,
to live for no other object on earth, but the one fascinating young
lady, with whom it was his game at the time to appear _epris_, and
though she might probably be astonished and piqued during the following
week, to observe this indefatigable amateur in flirtations equally
assiduous in his attentions to another, and shooting like a brilliant
meteor in the ball-room, unheedingly past herself, yet she might
console herself by reflecting, that Mr. De Crespigny was in the habit
of confidentially hinting how much he felt embarrassed and annoyed by
the necessity of generalizing his intimacies, that no gossiping reports
might reach his whimsical relative. "Because actually!" he one day
whispered in confidence to Lady Towercliffe, "when my uncle becomes
irritable, he threatens to make all sorts of ridiculous marriages
himself; and it would be my last hour in his will, if he thought me
heretic enough merely to dance with a Protestant partner. He would not
engage so much as a housemaid of your persuasion; but for my own part,
I leave all these concerns to the Abbe Mordaunt, who, to do him
justice, lets me off very easily."

The difference of faith made wonderfully little difference in the
intentions of those young ladies who believed themselves the objects
of Mr. De Crespigny's unacknowledged preference, for every bit of
millinery in a ball-room was in a flutter of agitation whenever he
approached; and certainly no one ever excelled more in making those he
conversed with rise in their own opinion, from his tact in showing how
very high they stood in his, and the consequence was, that he already
possessed a rare and romantic collection of sentimental valentines,
sketches with his figure in the foreground, songs with the magical
name of Louis conspicuously introduced, withered bouquets, anagrams,
anonymous letters, and anonymous verses, all with a too-well-remembered
history belonging to them, which called up a smile of derision, or a
sigh of self-reproach, according as the case required, but all
treasured as relics of former happy hours, which had perhaps been the
history of a lifetime to the fair donors, and the diversion of a few
days only to himself, while he secretly applauded his own dexterity in
escaping the matrimonial noose, and to them there remained only the
silent remembrance of that intercourse, now for ever at an end, which
they had believed was to last for life.

Mr. De Crespigny's engagement book was nearly as complicated an affair
as any ledger or day-book, and much more so than his own banker's
account, for he arranged it on the most systematic principles of
profit and loss. In whatever house he had been invited to dine, he
considered himself as "owing a quadrille" to one of the young ladies
at the next assembly. If he had actually "sat under her father's
mahogany," as he termed it, she might be perhaps entitled to two
dances; and when he had spent the greater part of a summer in her
mother's country house, that established a sort of sinking fund in her
behalf, which entitled him to have the use of him as a partner,
whenever he happened accidentally to be disengaged, though indeed
nothing ever occurred accidentally in Captain De Crespigny's
arrangements, for he never acted on impulse, but always on systematic
calculation. He seemed, with his gay pell-mell manner, the most
off-hand, careless, and undesigning of men; but even in the trifling
affair of going to a ball, where he might literally have exclaimed, "I
am monarch of all I survey," he invariably carried in his mind's eye a
list of all those partners with whom policy or self-interest directed
him to dance, and very seldom indeed did he swerve from his
pre-conceived muster-roll.

It was a singular evidence of young De Crespigny's discretion and
skill, that, while paying attentions which should either have never
been paid at all, or never afterwards discontinued, and while, with all
its fascinations, Lady Towercliffe declared it was dangerous to a young
lady's happiness to be even introduced to him, still, in not one
instance had "his intentions" ever yet been asked, and neither fathers,
uncles, nor brothers had betrayed the slightest symptoms of
insurrection against his universal dominion, believing, as his excuse
for delaying to propose was so perfectly unanswerable and respectable,
that his intentions might safely be allowed to "lie on the table,"
while they awaited in breathless suspense the _denouement_, certainly
to take place on Lord Doncaster's death.

Some of Mr. De Crespigny's brother officers, envious perhaps of his
extraordinary success in society, threw out sceptical hints respecting
the certainty of his succession, and laughed sarcastically at the
indefatigable vanity with which he evidently liked being thus torn to
pieces among the chaperons and dowagers of society; but he laughed as
heartily as themselves. No one could ever get the start of him in a
joke; and his associates, when he came in competition with any one of
them, found it no laughing matter. He knew his own power--who does not
know that?--and difficulties only enhanced his triumph.

Lord Doncaster often dryly remarked, that the best economist in
Britain must certainly be Louis De Crespigny, as, to his certain
knowledge, he possessed only £300 a year, and yet he seemed to revel
in all the luxuries of life, besides having a great deal over for
extravagance. There was no occasion for the young Cornet ever to think
of dining at his club, as he might be entertained at the houses of
three or four friends in a day, if he could have mustered as many
appetites. In summer he incurred no expense, except to pay for his
place occasionally on the top of a coach, or in a steam-boat, from one
hospitable country house to another, where gigs were sent a stage to
meet him on the way, if he were expected by the mail, or if by sea, a
chariot might be seen waiting on the pier. He got "a mount" from one
friend, the best seat in a barouche from another, and often the vacant
place in a britschska from a third party, even to the expulsion of its
more legitimate occupiers.

"De Crespigny has nothing on earth, and you see how he looks!" remarked
his handsome friend Sir Patrick one day to Sir Arthur Dunbar; "yet how
magnificently he contrives to live at the expense of all those deluded
mortals who have disposable or indisposable daughters. His future
prospects act like a cork jacket in society, keeping him always at the
top. Last summer worthy Lord Towercliffe, with his rapidly increasing
family and rapidly decreasing income, took De Crespigny in his gig to
that old tumble-down castle of his in Argyleshire, where he spent six
weeks, ruining the family in champagne and wax candles. The house
became rather cold in September, so at last he accepted a cast in Lady
Winandermere's carriage to that nest of nieces and daughters at Castle
Highcombe, where he found excellent yachting and sea-bathing. There he
lingered a month, till the brother of those four pretty Miss Vavasours
bid still higher for his company, by offering him a mount at Kelso, and
mentioning that he had a first-rate French cook a '_cordon bleu_,' who
hires his own stall at the opera during the London season, and enjoys a
salary and perquisites amounting to more than the best curacy in the
English Church; and all this De Crespigny repays with a few frothy
nothings, which he is for ever repeating to any young lady who will
lend an ear. Those who beat the bush do not always snare the bird; and
I wonder the manoeuvring world does not yet see that he is evidently no
marrying man."

"What sort of looking individual, is a marrying man?" asked Sir
Arthur, slyly. "I am often told that you, for instance, do not look
like a marrying man; but pray point me out any one who does, that I
may become more a connoisseur on the subject than I am. As for what
you say of Louis De Crespigny, it sounds to my unpractised ear very
like swindling; and he is not the youth I took him for if he live in
such an element of deceit, sacrificing all sense of honor, all
confidence, and all good feeling, for a worthless and transient
popularity, or worse than all, for motives of mean, heartless
self-interest. Such a man is not worth the space he occupies in the
world!"

The Admiral's honest indignation would have been vented in still
stronger terms, could his upright and honorable mind have been made to
understand how entirely every thought, word, and action of Mr. De
Crespigny's life was based on the most unswerving principles of cold,
hard, unrelenting selfishness, and with what utter carelessness he
seemed ready to trample on the wounded feelings of others; for it
mattered not to him what degree of confidence he betrayed, or what
degree of sorrow he inflicted. If in one house where he had been
received as a son or a brother, he no longer found the cordial welcome
of other days, a hundred other doors were still opened wide to receive
him, where he could boast of having been "very nearly caught," and
carry on the same game as before, which was a pastime to him, though
fatal to the peace of many, who would willingly have died rather than
betray the injury their feelings had suffered, when, after passing
through the ordeal of his assiduities, they found themselves beguiled
and cheated of all that was deepest and most sacred in their earthly
affections--robbed without compunction by one who gave no return--who
watched with elated triumph the growing delusion of those whom he had
marked as victims to his own self-love, and whom he appeared to
consider all in all to his happiness, till they found out at last that
they were in reality less than nothing to him; yet the deception
admitted of no redress. He lived on in a sort of cowardly impunity;
for no young girl endowed with sensibility, and conscious of her own
injuries, could desire, after entrusting him with the whole story of
her hopes and affections, that the truth should be known; and his was
a crime against which no evidence can be brought; for who could
describe the tender nothings--the refined insinuations--the looks
which say everything and mean nothing--the wordless language of the
eyes, with which an undeclared love may be safely and yet obviously
professed? What but a smile of ridicule or of censure could attend on
such a detail of "unutterable things?" But with Louis De Crespigny
nothing was unutterable; for he could say and unsay the same things
two hundred times, and they always seemed to carry as much or as
little weight as he pleased at the moment, while he entered society as
a school-boy rushes into a garden, eagerly to pursue the brilliant
insects fluttering in the sunbeams, ready to crush and injure them all
for his momentary diversion, and yet on his guard to retreat in good
order, should there appear to be the slightest danger of annoyance or
discomfort to himself.




CHAPTER IV.


It was impossible to pass an hour in the society of Sir Arthur Dunbar,
without seeing much to admire, and much also to love,--there was a
sturdy, resolute, old-fashioned sense of honor in all his actions,
tempered by the kindest and most considerate attention to the
feelings, as well as to the interest of all with whom he might be
associated, and his sentiments were tinctured by a generous
liberality, only limited in action by the rigid restraints consequent
on a very narrow income, which he had never been known to exceed,
though he was often heard jocularly to remark, that the surplus, after
his yearly accounts were paid, would scarcely buy him a pair of
gloves.

Though the fire of Sir Arthur's eyes had been quenched by approaching
blindness, and his weather-beaten countenance had been scarred in
battle, and hardened by facing every tempest which had blown for half
a century, yet his aspect had an air of habitual distinction and
conscious dignity which commanded instant respect. There was an energy
in the expression of his feelings, and a straightforward pursuit of
what he thought right in all his actions, which gave him a singular
influence over the affections and the conduct of those with whom he
wished to associate, and the admirable use he made of which no one
afterwards ever had cause to regret. His early life had been one full
of action and of vigorous exertion, seeking, with old-fashioned
patriotism, the honor of his country, more than the promotion of his
own interests; but in advanced years, when no longer able publicly to
distinguish himself, he directed his time and talents to the diffusion
of happiness at home, and to a zealous, diligent, and humble
preparation for that long and quiet home to which he believed himself
rapidly approaching, and which he contemplated with the best of all
philosophy,--that of a truly devoted Christian.

With all the blunt frankness of his sailor-like manner, Sir Arthur
could nevertheless testify an almost feminine gentleness and sympathy
towards the unfortunate. He was often discovered to have exerted
clandestinely a degree of activity and zeal in serving the needy and
desolate, which to a mind less eager and generous, would have seemed
almost incredible,--he never lacerated the feelings of those who came
to him for comfort, by attempting to convince the sufferer, as most
people begin by doing, on such occasions, that the misfortune,
whatever it be, is all his own fault,--and he was quite as ready, as
well as better pleased, to rejoice with those that rejoiced, than to
weep with those that wept, without ever, at any period of life, having
found a place for envy in his kindest of hearts, which

    "Turn'd at the touch of joy or woe,
    And turning trembled too."

With a good humored smile at his own credulity in having believed that
Louis De Crespigny could ever be serious in proposing to sacrifice a
day of his gay and busy life, to a prosing tete-a-tete on the
sea-beach with an old man like himself, Sir Arthur dismissed the
subject from his thoughts, and finally relinquished all hope of seeing
his young friend, after a short soliloquy, in which he ended, by slyly
hoping that the gay Cornet would never cause those who might feel it
more, to regret his having jilted them.

Not many days following, the Admiral had retired at his usual early
hour to bed, and after some time passed in profound repose, he was
suddenly startled into wakefulness at the dawn of day, while the
watchman was calling the hour of "Past four o'clock," by a loud and
vehement knocking at the front-door of his house, accompanied by the
most fearful and vociferous out-cries of "murder!" It was the sharp,
shrill tone of a woman in the agony of fear, becoming more and more
vehement at every repetition of the cry, while Sir Arthur dressed with
the rapidity of a practised seaman, and hurried down stairs, where he
found his maid-of-all-work, and his man-of-all-work, already assembled
in breathless consternation round a trembling, terrified-looking
servant girl, whose eyes were gleaming with an expression of frantic
alarm, while, from her incoherent exclamations, Sir Arthur could only
gather that some act of unutterable horror had been perpetrated in an
opposite house, the windows of which were all partially closed, except
one in the upper story, which was wide open, and seemed to be much
broken and shattered.

Without waiting another moment to investigate the business, Sir Arthur
strode across the street, hurried in at the open door, and guided by a
momentary cry of childish distress, he mounted the staircase, with an
activity beyond his years, three steps at a time, and precipitately
entered the nearest room he could find. There he paused for a moment
on finding himself in a splendidly-furnished bed-room, adorned with a
degree of taste and elegance, far excelling what was customary in so
obscure-looking a lodging, and the Admiral was about hastily to
withdraw, when he became suddenly transfixed to the spot, and his eye
seemed perfectly blasted by the spectacle which met his agitated and
astonished gaze, while several moments elapsed before he had nerve to
advance, and ascertain the reality of a scene, which filled him with
horror.

On a magnificent couch, the rich coverlet of which was drenched in
blood, that had sprinkled the floor, and spouted to the very roof of
the room, lay the cold stiffened corpse of a young female, whose head
seemed to have been nearly severed from her body, while a violent
contusion appeared upon her forehead. The wrist of her right hand,
with which she had probably attempted to defend herself, had also been
deeply cut, and in her hand she grasped a quantity of dark hair, which
seemed to have been torn from the head of her assassin in the struggle
for life. Her teeth were clenched, and her eye-balls were starting
from their sockets with a look of agonised fear, most appalling to
behold, and her long fair hair which lay in disordered billows on her
shoulders, were matted with gore.

A table near the bed had been overturned and broken,--a knife of very
peculiar form, bent and distorted, lay conspicuously upon the pillow,
as if placed there on purpose to attract notice, and the carpet, on
which a pool of congealed blood had gathered, was likewise strewed
with money, rings, bijouterie, trinkets, and plate.

Nestled in a little crib, close beside the murdered woman, but plunged
in a slumber so profound, that it could not be natural, slept
undisturbed and uninjured, a lovely boy of about eight years old. His
head rested on his arm, and a clustering profusion of jetty black hair
fell over his blooming countenance, in which there was a look of
almost death-like repose. Awakened with the utmost difficulty by Sir
Arthur, the child, who appeared to be of wondrous beauty, opened for a
moment, a pair of bright blue, star-like eyes, and with a cry of
terror, called for his mother, but a moment afterwards, overcome by
irresistible drowsiness, his rosy cheek dropped upon the pillow, his
heavy eyes were closed, and he relapsed into the same strange,
mysterious insensibility as before.

It was a fearful sight, that young mother, with her look of ghastly
agony turned towards the ruddy healthful countenance of her child in
his peaceful slumbers, and it was evident that her last thought had
been for him, as his clothes were still convulsively held in her left
hand, while a vain attempt had obviously been made to tear them
asunder,--many deep cuts being visible on the child's night-gown,
though his person had been left uninjured.

Sir Arthur compassionately snatched the boy up in his arms, to hurry
him away from the dreadful scene, and called the watchman, who
instantly raised an alarm, and summoned the whole neighborhood to his
assistance, when before ten minutes had elapsed, the room was filled
with a crowd of agitated spectators, scared by the tremendous event,
and crowding around the bed in every attitude of astonishment, terror,
and commiseration, uttering exclamations of alarm, gazing helplessly
at the frightful spectacle, and forming a thousand conjectures
respecting the tragical event, instead of attempting to give any
rational assistance.

"Not a moment is to be lost!" said Sir Arthur, in the steady
authoritive tone of one accustomed in great emergencies, to command,
"Where are the other servants?" asked he, turning to the girl who had
first given an alarm, "and where is your master?"

"I have no master, Sir!" replied she in a low incoherent whisper. "I
think the lady was not married; but perhaps, Sir, she might be! A
gentleman called here last week."

"What was he like?" asked Sir Arthur, earnestly.

"A sort of clergyman, or gentleman, Sir! I don't know nothing about
him, but he visited sometimes at this here house. No good ever came of
it though, for my poor young mistress was always in sore distress
after he'd be gone away. Last time there be much loud talking and
argufying in the parlor, but it was none of my business to listen. I
never pays no attention to what the quality says!"

"Here is a most disastrous business!" exclaimed Sir Arthur, in a deep
and solemn tone, while he glanced at the crowd of white, livid, ashy
faces, collected around him. "Let us remember, my friends, that every
trifle we can observe here, may be of the utmost importance in
bringing this dreadful mystery to light. Touch nothing, but have all
your eyes about you to detect what you can, and let us instantly
search the house."

With the little boy in his arms, who had awakened, bewildered and
terrified by the sight of so many strangers, Sir Arthur, followed by
the whole troop of spectators, who huddled together with evident
symptoms of fearful apprehension, proceeded minutely to scrutinize the
whole house.

In one apartment on the garret floor, belonging, as the terrified
housemaid declared, to a person who had been taken in, she believed
out of charity, to teach the little boy, the bed was disordered, as if
the sleeper, when hastily rising, had thrown the bed-clothes almost
upon the floor. The window-frame was broken to shivers, by some one
violently forcing his way out; but no other sign appeared of the room
having been inhabited. Not an article of clothing could be found in
the drawers; not a book or a paper; and the search was about to be
abandoned, when Sir Arthur perceived in an obscure corner of the room,
a man's glove, stained with blood, and a red silk handkerchief, from
which the initials had evidently been erased with great care, though
he hoped that some one more accustomed to such investigations might
yet be able to trace them.

The next room which Sir Arthur attempted to enter had the door
double-locked; and though the party which accompanied him made a noise
of knocking and hammering that might have raised the dead, no answer
was returned, till at length, losing all patience, they broke it open,
and impetuously rushed forward, all gazing eagerly around, as if they
expected an immediate _denouement_ of the mystery to take place; but
some of those who were foremost shrunk back in astonishment, and
hastily made way for Sir Arthur, while the servant girl earnestly
whispered in his ear, with a look of anxiety and alarm, "This is Sarah
Davenport's room! the child's maid! Better not disturb her, Sir! She is
sometimes hardly right in her mind I think!"

When Sir Arthur, disregarding the simple girl's warning, advanced, he
perceived with surprise a very young woman, scarcely twenty, who
started up in bed, with a look of bewildered perplexity, as he
approached, asking in accents of tremulous alarm, what had occurred to
cause this extraordinary disturbance. Her cheek was of an ashy
paleness, her very lips were blanched, and her voice sounded husky and
hollow with agitation; but all this might be attributed to so sudden
an inroad of strangers, while again and again she asked with quivering
accents, whether any accident had occurred, and why they all appeared
so alarmed.

"At all events, my darling boy is safe!" added she, holding out her
arms to the child, who instantly recoiled from her, with looks of
unequivocal terror, and hiding his face on the shoulder of Sir Arthur,
he sobbed aloud with a degree of passionate grief and agitation which
seemed almost beyond his years. The observant eye of Sir Arthur
perceived that a dark scowl of malignity flitted for a moment across
the beautiful features of Sarah, whose brow became singularly
contracted over her flashing eyes; but making an effort instantly to
recover herself, she averted her countenance, and added in a subdued
voice of assumed tranquillity, "The child never knows me in a cap! I
forgot to take it off, but the hurry of seeing so many strangers has
confused me!"

In an instant she snatched off her night-cap, when her shoulders and
neck became covered with a cloud of dark massy ringlets, floating down
below her waist, and shading her pallid countenance, which had assumed
an expression of livid horror, and unnatural wildness. "Let him come
to me now!" added she again, stretching out her arms with a ghastly
smile; but the boy struggled more vehemently than before, and clung to
Sir Arthur with a tenacity and confidence, which deeply touched the
old veteran's heart, who tried to soothe the terrified child by every
endearment which his kind nature could suggest, while his attention
was nevertheless enchained by observing the rigid, marble look of the
young woman's countenance; the dragged and corpse-like appearance
which stole over her features, as if she had suffered a stroke of
paralysis.

"You have been frightened enough already, poor boy!" said Sir Arthur,
soothingly. "No one shall hurt you! With me at least you are safe!
Stay where you are, and do not be alarmed! No one shall touch you but
myself!"

The child seemed to understand Sir Arthur's promise of protection, and
his head drooped sleepily down, while his eyes again closed in that
deep unnatural slumber, from which he had been with so much difficulty
aroused, till at length,

    "Now like a shutting flower, the senses close,
    And on him lies the beauty of repose."

"Young woman!" said Sir Arthur, bending a look of penetrating scrutiny
on Sarah Davenport, "how came you to be quietly asleep, and partly
dressed too! while your mistress was murdered in the room immediately
below! Did you hear no disturbance? Was no alarm given?"

"My mistress!" exclaimed Sarah, clasping her hands in an attitude of
astonishment, and speaking as if every word would choke her, though
not a muscle of her face was altered from the fixed and rigid look it
had previously worn. "Oh! what will become of me!"

"What will become of you!" exclaimed Sir Arthur sternly, fixing his
penetrating eye upon her. "Think rather of your murdered mistress!
Come, come, girl! you performed that start very well; but I know good
acting! I greatly fear you are more concerned in this horrid business
than we at first suspected, and much more than you would wish to
acknowledge. Get up instantly, and follow me!"

There was something fearful and appalling in the silence which reigned
among the many persons who had gathered around, when Sarah, as a
prisoner, was led into the chamber of death. A look of shuddering
horror distorted for a moment her pale and haggard countenance, when
she was unwillingly drawn forward to the place where her deceased
mistress lay, and Sir Arthur, with silent solemnity, pointed to the
ghastly spectacle. His eyes were intensely and most mournfully fixed
on the prisoner's sullen and nearly livid countenance, while she
silently clung to a chair to support herself.

Sarah appeared neither startled nor astonished after the first thrill
of horror, but with a cold stony look of almost preternatural
calmness, she muttered to herself in a low tone, which became
nevertheless distinctly audible to all the spectators, and was
evidently meant to be heard,--

"Why am I brought here! I know nothing, about this! The poor lady has
committed suicide! No wonder! She often wished herself dead! She had a
miserable life of it, and has got rest at last! I wish!" added Sarah
suddenly, with vehement, almost frantic energy, "O how I wish that I
could change places with her! O that I could be that cold, senseless
image, without memory or feeling, without hope or fear, shut up from
living wretchedness in everlasting sleep!"

"Let us hope that the Almighty has in mercy received her never-dying
soul, and that in His own good time He will reveal the guilty
assassins who sent her so suddenly to judgment," said Sir Arthur
solemnly. "Unburden your own mind now, by confessing all, and be
assured it will relieve the agony you are so evidently suffering.
Murder is like fire, it cannot be smothered long."

"I know nothing! What could I know!" replied Sarah hurriedly. "She has
destroyed herself, or thieves have broken into the house and robbed
her. Could I help that?"

"No one has broken into this house," replied Sir Arthur, scanning the
expression of her fixed and apparently unalterable features. "But you
can perhaps tell us who escaped by that shattered window above? Not a
lock is broken--not a door is injured--not a trinket seems missing,
among the many scattered around the room. Here is money in abundance,
if gold had been the inducement! Some other motive has provoked this
crime--jealousy perhaps--or revenge----"

At the last word an angry hectic rushed over the face, arms, and neck
of the prisoner, and her eye glittered for a moment with an unnatural
fire, which rapidly faded away, leaving her as pale and death-like as
the corpse beside which she stood, and on which her eye now rested
with a look of cold and passionless indifference.

"It was only yesterday that she wished herself dead! this is her own
doing!" said Sarah, turning away. "Why am I brought here! This is too
dreadful! too shocking! It will drive me mad--it will! it will!" added
she, with rising agitation; and then suddenly bursting in a hideous
maniacal laugh, which rang with fearful sound through the gloomy
chamber, and caused the horror-struck spectators to fall hastily back,
"I would have saved her! I would! What woman ever sheds blood! but it
was too late! I would have saved her, as I saved the child; but it was
done--kill me! kill me! if you have any mercy, let me die! let me hide
myself in the grave for ever!" Saying these words, with a scream of
agony, she fell upon the floor in violent convulsions, from which it
was nearly an hour before she entirely recovered, when faint, weak,
and exhausted, Sir Arthur suggested that she could be carried to bed;
but before she left the room, anxious, if possible, to elucidate the
mystery, and to gain some clue for pursuing the actual murderer, he
detained Sarah during a moment, and desired that a glass of water
might be brought for her, hoping that the violent emotion she had
betrayed might lead her to a full confession. Laying his hand then
upon her arm, in tones of deep and awful solemnity, he looked at her,
and pointed once more to the corpse, saying,--

"By a dark and harrowing crime those lips are sealed in the silence of
death! What a tale they could disclose, if they might but once
describe all that passed in this room a few hours ago! Those very
walls have echoed this very night to her cries! You alone seem able to
throw any light upon the horrid deed. You could tell all, or I am
greatly mistaken. We shall yet know, at the day of judgment, if not
sooner, how this fearful act was done. Consider, Sarah Davenport, that
undying remorse will pursue you through life, and be the fitting
tenant of your soul, unless by timely repentance you avert the fearful
doom, and hereafter your heart will be tortured by the pangs of
eternal despair. Unfortunate woman! consider now, or during the long
period of your approaching imprisonment, whether it be better to
repent and confess at once, or to confess and suffer everlastingly."

Not a word or look gave evidence that Sarah so much as heard Sir
Arthur speak. Her large eyes were vacantly fixed on the ground, her
hands were firmly clenched, and her teeth were set with an air of
resolute determination, when, after a silence of several minutes,
during which her very stillness was frightful, supported by some of
the strangers around, she walked with almost mechanical
unconsciousness out of the room.

Again and again the house was searched that day--the very floors and
wainscots torn up; but not a trace could be discovered to throw light
upon the cause or circumstances of this disastrous event; and equally
remarkable was it, that no hint could be obtained of who or what the
murdered lady had been. There were books on the table in various
languages, but not one retained any name written on the boards, though
it was evident that on some a coat of arms had once been pasted, and
subsequently defaced. Not a letter or paper could be found with either
signature or direction, though one or two notes were discovered
beneath the pillow of the bed, all anonymous, but written in a similar
hand, and containing nothing that could identify the writer; and
several sketches of the child, beautifully executed in various
attitudes, were found in a portfolio, beside which were written many
simple verses, containing the most fervent expressions of tender
affection and anxious solicitude for the boy, and the most passionate
bursts of melancholy, but all conceived in general terms, which
baffled the researches of curiosity.

"This hand is disguised, yet surely I have seen it before," said Sir
Arthur, musingly examining the anonymous notes, which related chiefly
to remittances of money. "The face of that appalling spectacle
sometimes seems also familiar to me. Have I not met with it already,
or is this only the delusion of an excited mind? These deep and
prominent eyelids--the small aquiline nose--the delicately-pencilled
eye-brows--and that month of perfect grace and beauty, which seems
still almost to speak without a tongue, in the language of
heart-broken misery, telling of deceived affections--of blighted
hopes--of unpitied and solitary tears."

Sir Arthur seated himself on a chair beside the couch for some moments
in agitated reflection, vainly endeavoring to collect his thoughts,
and form them into some tangible remembrance. "It is a strange and
bewildering sensation, to look at the mute features of this death-like
image, and to feel as if once she had been known to me in her days of
youth and bloom. A vague harassing perplexity besets me in trying to
realize the floating and flickering remembrance, which dimly mock my
efforts to catch them. It seems like starting out on a dark night, and
trying to distinguish some busy scene, where figures and lights
appear, and vanish again before they can be identified. Where have we
met before? Surely in some dream of former days I once beheld those
fixed and glassy eyes lighted up with intelligence! but my treacherous
memory will not help me--it recalls enough to torture me with
perplexity, and not enough to be of any actual avail."

Sir Arthur wearied himself with intense efforts to identify the
lineaments before him, but in vain. They were lovely indeed, and many
a stranger came likewise to try whether they could be recognised, but
without success. The fearful story circulated like wild-fire--the
excitement and curiosity it produced became intense; but not a gleam
of light was thrown upon the dark and mysterious event.

Among the many who hurried to behold the murdered woman before her
remains were disturbed, two gentlemen arrived one evening after dusk,
and having ascertained that neither the Admiral nor any other stranger
was in the house, they gave Sir Arthur's servant, Martin, who was in
attendance, a handsome donation, and desiring him not to follow,
hurried up stairs, and remained in the room alone for several minutes.
Both were much muffled up, and evidently avoided any scrutiny of their
countenances; but they seemed greatly agitated on leaving the room;
and as they hastened past Martin, and threw themselves into a hackney
coach which awaited them at some distance, one of the party had
appeared so overcome, that he could not walk without support. Much
conjecture was aroused by this incident, which seemed to increase the
mystery and interest attached to the melancholy circumstances, and not
a doubt could be entertained that these untimely visitors had a more
than common connection with the affair, but of what nature, and to
what degree, could only admit of very vague conjecture.

Nothing could exceed the active interest taken in all the proceedings
by Sir Arthur, who seemed to forget all his years and infirmities,
while keenly promoting the cause of truth and justice. Much as he had
formerly bemoaned the trouble entailed upon him by deceased friends,
many of whom had bequeathed their estates and children to his
guardianship, he felt on this occasion, a pity so intense, for the
nameless, friendless, and helpless boy, thus unexpectedly and
tragically thrown on his compassion, that he publicly pledged himself
to harbor and protect the child in the mean time, trusting that some
connections might at last be found, to whom he more naturally
belonged. "Life has had a mournful commencement for him, poor boy! His
days are dark, and his friends are few," said Sir Arthur, with a
strong emotion of pity, "but we must hope for the best hereafter, and
do the best that can be done in the mean time, trusting that a wise
Providence, who cast him on my care and kindness, will also watch over
his future welfare."

On the night previous to that appointed by Sir Arthur for committing
to the grave the last remains of the murdered lady, he who had so
often faced death in every form, and "kiss'd the mouth of a cannon in
battle," yet felt himself awed and deeply affected in contemplating
the solemn preparations for committing to the tomb one so young, so
deeply injured, and so apparently unlamented. It was with mournful and
mysterious wonder that he stood beside the corpse, and contemplated
that mortal frame, from which the spirit had been so suddenly and so
cruelly driven; and he could not but imagine the scenes of love and
joy which those eyes had once probably looked upon--the busy thoughts
that had hurried through that lifeless head--the warm affections that
had flowed through that heart, now for ever at rest.

While yet his mind was dwelling with painful interest on all the
thoughts which crowded through his fancy, Martin hastily entered the
room, and in an agitated voice requested Sir Arthur's immediate
presence in the entrance-hall, as some persons were there who had
orders to communicate only with himself.

On arriving in the passage, Sir Arthur was astonished, and almost
startled, to find several porters in the passage, carrying a coffin
magnificently decorated, and covered with a velvet pall, on the summit
of which was conspicuously placed a large brass plate, with the date
of the murder engraved, and bearing no other inscription, but these
two words in German characters--

    _My Wife._

"This is strange!" said Sir Arthur, turning anxiously to the men. "Who
sent you here?"

"A gentleman left his orders with the undertaker, Sir. No questions
were to be asked; and he paid for everything at once, leaving neither
name nor direction," said the man who seemed to have charge of the
business. "We know nothing of him; but he desired us to deliver this
note into your own hands, and perhaps it may tell you more."

Sir Arthur hastily tore open the letter offered to him, giving an
impatient glance at the handwriting, which was exactly similar to that
of the anonymous notes he had already so carefully and so vainly
scrutinized. He was astonished; and solemn as the occasion was, almost
amused to observe that his name and direction had been carefully cut
out of the newspaper paragraph which he quarrelled with some weeks
before at the Club, and that this unknown correspondent, to prevent
the possibility of his writing being detected by those who examined
the outside, had pasted these printed letters on the cover, "Sir
Arthur Dunbar, Portobello." The packet was sealed with a plain
impression on black wax; the paper bore a broad black border; and
there was an evident tremulousness in the pen which had inscribed
these words:--

"Enclosed is the sum of £200, for the benefit of Sir Arthur Dunbar's
adopted ward, Henry De Lancey. The same amount shall be transmitted
annually, so long as no effort is made to trace from whence it
originates; and the day he comes of age, it shall be increased to £500
per annum. The first attempt to find out his connections will be
detected, and shall put a final period to all intercourse. The
unfortunate woman was married to one who remained ignorant, till a few
hours ago, of the circumstances attending her death. She disgraced his
name, and abandoned his house; nevertheless her child may one day,
perhaps, be acknowledged; and the whole expenses of his education
shall be liberally defrayed, till he is grown up and has chosen a
profession."

It was a strange, cold, heartless communication from a parent, without
one expression of relenting affection, one word of solicitude for his
happiness, or one expression of gratitude to Sir Arthur for taking
upon himself so arduous a charge; but still it was to a certain extent
most satisfactory, the Admiral being relieved of a great perplexity,
by having thus ascertained in what rank of life the interesting boy
should be educated, as he felt justified now in obtaining for him the
highest cultivation, an advantage to which he attached the utmost
importance, often repeating his favorite aphorism, that "principle is
the helm, and learning the main-sail, which carries a young man
forward in life; but both would be useless, unless the wind, which
'bloweth where it listeth,' be sent from Heaven to guide and direct
him safely into harbor."




CHAPTER V.


The day of trial at length arrived, and the court, from the roof to
the floor, seemed one sea of faces, crowded together like the "studies
of heads" on a painter's canvass. During the legal investigation,
which was conducted with deep solemnity and anxious perseverance, the
mystery became still deeper, and more inscrutable. No appearance of a
robbery could be observed, except that the finger of the lady's hand,
on which a wedding ring had probably been worn, was much bruised and
discolored, as if, immediately after her decease, it had been
violently torn off; and a vain attempt had evidently been made to
snatch away a gold chain hung round her neck, to which was appended a
small broken miniature frame, set with brilliants, and adorned with
what seemed to represent a very antique coronet. The portrait which it
once enclosed, had been, with obvious difficulty removed, as the marks
were visible all round, of some sharp-pointed instrument having been
inserted in the frame, to which there still adhered several broken
fragments of glass.

Sarah Davenport, who had been fully committed for trial, on suspicion
of being an accomplice, refused to give any references as to
character, and was strongly suspected of habitually concealing her
real name, and of more than once assuming those that were fictitious,
as her clothes and linen appeared to be marked with various initials,
but in not one case did they bear those that she pretended were her
own. It was evident that she labored under a powerful, but
forcibly-subdued excitement; yet, with a tone and manner externally
cold and hard as Siberian ice, she persisted in professing her own
perfect innocence, and her utter consciousness of anything that might
by possibility lead to a discovery of the perpetrators. She coldly,
and almost calmly, threw back glance for glance, on the spectators
nearest her, who were keenly watching every turn of her countenance,
while dark surmises, and fearful conjectures, were whispered in
murmurs of horror on every side; but at length her eye wandered to a
distant part of the court, when suddenly a livid paleness flashed upon
her face--an indescribable but startling lustre glittered in her
eyes--her whole frame shook, as in the coldest blast of winter, and
with a suppressed groan of agony and fear, she bowed her head upon her
hands, and sunk fainting upon the floor. At the same time, a man was
observed hastily to leave the court, and, gliding with rapid steps
through the narrow passages, disappeared, before any of those who
stood near had presence of mind to stop him, or could even identify
his appearance.

Nothing apparently touched the feelings of Sarah Davenport, except
when a suspicion seemed to be implied that she meant to injure the
boy; and when a question to this effect was put to her by the court,
she wrung her hands and burst into tears, saying, in accents of
piercing anguish, though with a shudder as if death were upon her,
"No! oh, no! Who suspects that I would injure a hair of his head! He
once loved me! Few--few but he, ever did!--none that have not
afterwards given me reason to hate them! I am a solitary, lost, and
desolate being; but let him not forget in after years, that I saved
his life!--that I saved it at a risk you never can conceive!"

An impulse of mournful interest and astonishment ran through the
assembled multitude, when they beheld the rare and singular beauty of
the child, after he was led into court; and it seemed as if the
spectators had ceased to breathe as soon as he began to answer some of
the questions which were skilfully put, to draw out his recollections
of past times, and especially the dark history of the last few weeks.
He was at first shy and intimidated, but gradually regained an
unexpected degree of self-possession, and spoke with a surprising
degree of intelligence and distinctness of all he remembered.

The boy retained a faint recollection of having been awakened, on the
night of the murder, by some violent scene of strife and horror; but
his faculties had evidently been so benumbed by opiates, that no
distinct impression remained; and to his own young mind, the whole
seemed like a fearful dream, too dreadful to look back upon even yet,
except with bewildering terror. He gave a clear account, however, of
the last evening he had passed with his mother, of whom he spoke in
accents of infantine affection, evidently unable yet to conceive that
he should see her face no more.

An old gentleman, he said, had come into the room and spoken angrily
to her; while, with astonishing precision, the boy acted over the
whole scene, recapitulated some of the language they had used, and
described how his mother had hung to him with frantic eagerness,
saying she would promise anything, if she might only retain her child;
how the stranger, who was very tall, and wore a black coat, had spoken
again with angry vehemence before he left the room; and how his
mother, when left alone, had prayed and wept over him with looks of
agonized and desolate grief, until he had been carried away to bed by
the maid, who administered some medicine to him, which she said the
doctor had ordered.

He spoke much also of a large room, hung with pictures, in which his
earliest days had been passed, and of a small dark apartment close
beside it, into which he had often been precipitately hurried,
apparently for concealment, and where toys and sweetmeats had been
always provided to keep him quiet, while he was punished with the
utmost severity, for making the slightest noise; and he still
remembered with looks of apprehension, the gentleman dressed in black,
who most frequently visited him there, and often caused his mother to
weep bitterly.

Sarah Davenport was then recalled, and rigidly cross-examined,
respecting the gentleman who had visited at the house; but she
doggedly asserted her entire ignorance respecting his rank in life, or
connections, and pertinaciously maintained that the lady's death had
been her own voluntary act, and that the sleeping potion had been
given to the boy by his mother's own imperative orders, as she did not
herself know even what it contained.

During a long and anxious consultation of the jury, there was a hushed
and intense silence in the court, so still and unbroken, that the
breathing of an infant would have been audible, while every eye
perused the countenance of the prisoner, with an intensity that
brought a hectic flush, burning like fire, upon her cheek, and she
gazed around with a glance of anger that caused her beauty for the
moment to look like that of a fiend or a fury.

At length, after arduously scrutinizing every atom of evidence that
could be gathered, the jury, though morally certain of the prisoner's
being an accomplice in the crime, felt unwillingly obliged to bring in
a verdict of "not proven," and she was immediately liberated, after
which, amidst the yells, jeers, and execrations of the populace who
were convinced of her criminality, she hurried from the court, and was
seen no more.

Nothing is half so attractive as a mystery, and many crowded at first,
with a temporary enthusiasm, to see the beautiful boy, so strangely
bereaved, and so cruelly abandoned; but the interest and excitement of
hearing and relating his story were soon superseded by greater wonders
and fresher news. In a world where all are rushing on headlong in
pursuit of novelty, and where events, great or small, are speedily
hurried into one common oblivion, people were tired at last of
thinking or talking about young Henry and his concerns.

Every one of the Admiral's friends hinted that he could have managed
the whole affair ten times better than Sir Arthur; all blamed him for
many things, and praised him for very few; the Admiral was wondered
at, criticised, discussed, admired, pitied, and censured, more than he
remembered to have been for many years before; and the givers of
advice were lavish of propositions and objections, all which were
borne by their venerable friend with good-humored indifference,
whether adopted or not. At length some perfectly new murders from
London came on the tapis in society; those who liked reading in the
Jack Sheppard style were satiated with studies from the life; the
Mording Post assumed a terrifying interest; and the lady of fashion
who consulted Sir Henry Halford about her appetite, because she could
no longer enjoy her murders and robberies at breakfast, would have
thought, when they were coming out hot and hot every week, that it was
a wearisome repetition to speculate another hour upon a murder nearly
a month old.

In short, "the Portobello story" ceased to be told or listened to.
Henry had had his day. There is no such thing now as a nine days'
wonder, because nothing lasts so long. Young De Lancey had been talked
of as much as any reasonable being could expect to be talked of; and
now it was universally voted a bore whenever the subject occurred in
conversation; for, as Lady Towercliffe remarked, with a very
long-drawn yawn, when, for the last time, it was alluded to in her
presence, "It was a shocking, barbarous, and really startling affair;
but all stories should be allowed to die out like an echo, which grows
fainter and fainter at every repetition. One cannot be for ever
talking of the same thing."

When Henry De Lancey lost one parent, he certainly gained another in
Sir Arthur, who often afterwards remarked, that in no instance could
virtue be more obviously its own parent, than in the case of any
kindness he had shown to this fascinating boy, whose gay, joyous
spirits became a source of perpetual amusement to him, while the
Admiral seemed to derive new life from watching the frolicsome gambols
of his young companion, occasionally enlivened by the gleeful vivacity
of his niece Marion, when she escaped a single day from the trammels
of school, bringing generally in her train two of her favorite
juvenile companions, Clara Granville and Caroline Smythe, both several
years older than herself.

On many occasions the sensibility of Henry De Lancey seemed already to
have attained almost the depth and intensity of manhood, so strong
were the bursts of natural feeling with which he occasionally spoke or
acted, while it was deeply affecting to trace throughout the
extraordinary progress thus early made in his education, the careful
culture given to his remarkable abilities--the pains bestowed by his
solitary parent to strengthen his mind for future difficulties and
sorrows, the earliest and worst of which she could so little have
foreseen or apprehended.

With considerable thoughtfulness of character, however, and natural
integrity of mind, which Sir Arthur was delighted from the first to
remark, yet, when the merry group of young friends assembled together
on the shore of Portobello, building houses of sand, or running
eagerly in search of shells, it would have been difficult to say which
was the most carelessly happy, while the Admiral seemed to borrow
their young spirits for the time, and gazed with ceaseless delight on
those joyous countenances, radiant with laughter and smiles, which
were archly turned towards their aged playmate, sometimes with a
challenge to run after them, or lighted up with smiles of affection
when they brought him a bouquet of his favorite flowers, torn roughly
from the stems, and crumpled in their little hands.

Sir Arthur often seemed almost ashamed to betray the engrossing
interest and delight he felt in his young companion, who gained every
day a stronger hold upon his affections, and it appeared as if he were
anxious to forget that a time had ever existed when the playful and
interesting boy was unknown to his heart; but a circumstance occurred,
not long after Henry's adoption, which brought painfully to mind, with
greatly increased solicitude, the fearful mystery that hung over his
origin, proving also that danger still threatened him from some
unforeseen quarter.

While the whole party of his young guests were noisily engaged on the
shore in a game at hide-and-seek, one day in the month of July, Sir
Arthur had seated himself on a bench within sight of them, sometimes
watching their gambols with pleasure, and frequently conning over a
newspaper, which proved by undeniable and satisfactory demonstration,
that the country was entirely ruined--that the Government was coming
to an end--that the Houses of Lords and Commons would be completely
demolished--that the ministry had not another day to exist--and, as a
grand climax, that anarchy, confusion, bankruptcy, and revolution,
were about finally to drop their extinguisher over Great Britain. Sir
Arthur had read the same thing in different words every day during
fifty years, and under twenty varied administrations; yet still the
wonder grew, how a constitution so mismanaged could so long survive,
and that when all was wrong at the head of the country, it still had a
leg to stand on. The Admiral's patriotic meditations had been several
times interrupted by repeated complaints from the little girls, that
Henry had hid himself so well, that they could not possibly find him;
but he was too much pre-occupied to give the subject much attention,
till at length Martin announced that the children's dinner had waited
some time, and that still the boy was not to be found, though his
companions had been searching for him at least half an hour.

Upon hearing this, Sir Arthur hastily started up, making a
considerable expenditure of energetic and wondrous explanations, while
he gazed around with increasing surprise at the wide waste of sand,
like an Arabian desert, with which he was on every side encompassed,
and where it seemed to him as if a mouse could not be long concealed.

A hasty and most anxious search was instantly commenced in the garden,
while Sir Arthur and Martin shouted the name of Henry at the full
pitch of their voices, but in vain; not a sound was heard in reply,
nor was there a spot unexamined in which he could by possibility be
lurking.

The Admiral now became seriously alarmed at so unaccountable a
disappearance, especially when the child's gardening tools, with which
he had been last observed, were found mutilated and broken, at a great
distance, on the beach--one of his shoes had fallen off close to the
water, and his hat lay nearly buried in the tide. Sir Arthur instantly
summoned the police to his aid, but the search continued fruitless,
till at length the dreadful conjecture became more and more probable,
that Henry must have rashly ventured into the water, and been washed
away by the waves--in pursuance of which apprehension Sir Arthur
summoned more assistance, that the water might instantly be dragged.

Martin, meantime, no less active than his master, had accidentally met
a stranger on the beach, who mentioned, on hearing of his alarm, that
on the road to Leith, half an hour before, he had observed a boy
struggling and screaming in the arms of a female, dressed like a
nursery-maid, who complained loudly that the child would not go home,
when a young man, rather strangely dressed, and of very singular
appearance, had instantly offered his assistance, and carried him
forcibly onwards. This gentleman said he had stopped the woman to
remonstrate with her on using the boy so roughly, as a cap was drawn
over his eyes, and he seemed to suffer agonies of terror, sobbing
convulsively, and trembling in every limb; but the man had answered in
reply, with a strong Irish accent, that he would see the child safe to
his friends, and let no one do the poor boy "a taste of harm." The
stranger added indifferently, that it was no affair of his, therefore
he ceased to interfere; but he thought both the man and the woman had
a very bad expression, and he would not trust either of them with his
dog for an hour, to use it kindly.

Without wasting time in returning to communicate what he had heard,
Martin hurried forward to Leith, where, with reckless speed and
untiring diligence, he threaded all the narrow streets, and elbowed
his way among carts, carriages, parcels, and passengers, till at
length he reached the pier, to which he had been so eagerly aiming his
steps. At its farthest point stood a smoking steam-boat in full boil,
while men and women, boxes, packages, bags, and trunks were pouring
in; and at length, as he breathlessly approached within some hundred
yards, an arbitrary little bell was rung, to summon stragglers on
board, and to hurry stragglers away.

A single plank, connecting the steam-boat with the pier, was on the
point of being withdrawn, when Martin approached; and while he paused,
in momentary hesitation whether to pursue his almost hopeless search,
the steward peremptorily desired him to hasten on board instantly, if
he were coming at all, as not a moment more could be lost.

At this moment a cry, almost amounting to a scream of childish joy,
became audible on the deck--a young boy was seen vehemently struggling
in the arms of a female; and in an instant, pursued by a man who
vainly endeavored to overtake him, he rushed past the steward, ran
across the temporary bridge, and clasped Martin round the knees,
exclaiming, with eager incoherent exclamations of almost hysterical
delight, "Take me, Martin! take me! O let me go home to Sir Arthur! I
did not come away without leave! I did not, indeed! That naughty,
horrid woman forced me! She tied a cap over my face, and would not let
me go back! I have been so frightened and so sorry," added the child,
bursting into tears, and sobbing as if his heart would break; "I
thought Sir Arthur would be angry, and I thought, perhaps, I would
never see him again! O take me home, Martin! take me home! and let me
never see these people again!"

The boy put his hand, with an air of happy confidence and security
into that of Martin, who snatched him up in his arms, with a thousand
expressions of joyful surprise; but a moment afterwards, when he
recollected himself, his first impulse was to secure the culprits who
had decoyed Henry away, and to deliver them up to a magistrate for
examination. With this intention, he looked hastily around, intending
to cause their immediate apprehension; but the steam-boat had sailed
off; and all the gesticulations he could make to bring them back only
caused the steward laughingly to shake his head, thinking that Martin
had merely missed his passage, as he deserved, for not showing more
alacrity in obeying his injunctions to embark.

At Portobello, meantime, Sir Arthur had suffered agonies of grief, and
even of self-reproach, thinking he had too securely relied on the
safety of his young protege; and with a heavy heart he was still
directing his steps, and conducting his assistants to the most
probable places for finding the child's body, having already ordered
his maid to have everything in readiness, in case a chance remained of
his being restored to life, when he felt a gentle pull at the skirt of
his coat, and, on looking down, he uttered a volley of joyful
exclamations, on beholding the radiant countenance of Henry, whom he
clasped in his arms with unutterable joy. While Martin and the boy
himself gave each his own history of the strange adventure, Sir Arthur
walked up and down in a state of irrepressible irritation, clenching
his teeth, and grasping his walking-stick firmly in his hand, as if
about to wreak instant vengeance on the miscreants. At length, after
exhausting his indignation, he took Henry again in his arms, declaring
he would never for a moment lose sight of him again.

Nothing in Henry's narrative threw the slightest gleam of light on the
plans or intentions of the strange man and woman, which seemed
destined to remain buried in impenetrable obscurity. They had
evidently been accomplices in decoying him from home; and the boy had
brought away from the steam-boat a small book which they had given
him, full of ribald songs and profane jests, but covered with
magnificent boards, and clasped with silver hinges, which seemed to
have once belonged to some ancient missal, and still retained in the
inside a collection of texts beautifully written in a very remarkable
hand, which seemed to be that of a highly-educated female.

For some time afterwards, several suspicious-looking people were seen
lurking about Sir Arthur's premises, late at night; and one evening a
shot was fired suddenly in at the drawing-room window, which passed so
near to Henry's head, that his hair was actually disturbed; but though
an active police had been placed on the watch, not a trace could be
obtained of the authors of this outrage.

As time wore on, and the mind of Henry rapidly expanded on all
subjects of classical learning and general science, the fearful and
melancholy events of his early years faded considerably from his mind,
while he made astonishing progress at the excellent school where Sir
Arthur placed him, exhibiting that happy, but rare combination of deep
thought, and refinement of mind, with extreme liveliness of fancy, and
enthusiasm of character. This threw a perfect witchery over his
conversation, which sparkled with vivacity, or flowed with uncommon
depth and power, as best suited the occasion, while at the same time,
during his intercourse with Sir Arthur, he became imbued with the
highest principles of honor and good-feeling; and from his master he
imbibed the most enlightened knowledge of the doctrines and duties of
Christianity, with the profoundest reverence for its precepts and
practice.

Sir Arthur felt a dreary blank during Henry's absence at school, which
became more and more intolerable as his eyesight was at length nearly
extinct; and he had serious thoughts of engaging a person to walk out
with him during the day, and to read to him during the evening, being
of opinion that it is the highest wisdom, as well as the best
Christianity, cheerfully to meet every appointed privation, and derive
from the blessings that remain, as much enjoyment as they can afford.

Sir Arthur often remarked to his friend, Lady Towercliffe, that it is a
misfortune to wear out a taste of any inoffensive occupation; and he
began to fear it might be possible for him to survive his enjoyment of
reading. "In my long life," he observed, "I have myself travelled all
the travels described by others, thought all the thoughts, and felt
all the feelings. If I read such a book as Robertson's America, for
instance, the question forces itself upon me, 'what the better would I
be of knowing this whole volume by heart!' The time was once, when a
romance carried me off into another existence altogether, and I seemed
to awaken as from a dream, when called back to the ordinary business
of life; but now I can anticipate from the first page, the whole
_denouement_ of every novel, and never for an instant forget my own
identity in reading the story."

"It is a shocking symptom of advancing years," said Lady Towercliffe.
"But you must wait till I publish."

"Yet," continued Sir Arthur, "there is one volume always new, in which
I never can tire of reading my own heart and character; and in the
Bible, the descriptions of eastern countries are so like what I have
observed myself of the scenery, customs, and manners, that they fill
me with recollections and associations that are of endless interest."

No sooner had Sir Arthur mentioned incidentally, to Lady Towercliffe,
and several friends, that he would willingly give a handsome salary to
a person of good reading and writing abilities, than it seemed as if
all the meritorious young men in Scotland happened at that very time
to be looking out for precisely such a situation; and it made Sir
Arthur almost melancholy in examining testimonials, which ought to
have procured any one of them a bishopric, to think that so many
admirable youths, of learning and talents, were ready to sacrifice
themselves for a mere home, and a pittance of £50 per annum!

No situation ever became vacant in the memory of man, for which Lady
Towercliffe had not some protege exactly suited; and no sooner did she
hear that Sir Arthur required a secretary and reader, than she wrote
him a note of seven pages, closely penned, in which she made it
evident that there was but one individual in the world who could suit,
or ought to suit, and that one individual was the bearer of her
despatch, who waited below for an answer.

It appeared that, with all her zeal in the cause, Lady Towercliffe
knew very little of the young man she so vehemently recommended; but
having accidentally met him in a bookseller's shop, he had been
employed by her to copy some verses in an album, and she thought him,
without exception, one of the most civil and grateful creatures in the
world, who really deserved encouragement.

When Sir Arthur sent for Mr. Howard up stairs, his kind heart was
almost shocked at the tone of wild energy, and the look of feverish
anxiety with which he entreated that his capabilities might be tried.
His figure, though youthful, was tall, gaunt, and meagre, while his
care-worn countenance, which bore a stern and melancholy aspect, was
lighted up by large, dark, flashing eyes, in which there gleamed an
expression of singular excitement. He appeared young and handsome, but
not prepossessing--so gloomy and determined was the expression of his
firmly-compressed mouth, that it seemed almost indicative of ferocity;
and his eye had that peculiarity invariably expressing evil--an
impossibility of looking any one steadily in the face.

"You see me under great disadvantage, Sir Arthur; friendless,
homeless, and poverty-struck," said Mr. Howard, with a look of eager,
deprecating solicitude, which spoke at once to the generous heart of
the Admiral, and filled him with commiseration. "Fate and fortune have
hitherto frustrated my efforts, and weighed me down with life-crushing
sorrows; but only give me employment, and I would not thank the Queen
to be my cousin!"

It was a favorite saying with Sir Arthur, that he would be more
ashamed to suspect mankind, than to be deceived by them; and if he had
a weakness in the world it was a total incapacity to give pain.
Touched by the nervous excitement in Mr. Howard's eye and manner,
which he attributed entirely to his necessitous circumstances, he
almost immediately engaged him, to the entire satisfaction of Lady
Towercliffe, who never asked or cared any more about her protege,
gratified that he had achieved "a job," and that by her interest, and
hers only, a place in the world had been filled up, which would have
been occupied by some one else, perhaps equally deserving, if she had
not interfered, and she was satisfied for the present to have been of
consequence to somebody, no matter whom.

Mr. Howard generally spoke in a subdued, mysterious voice, as if
afraid to let himself know what he was saying; yet sometimes his words
came forth with a rushing impetuosity, full of energy and fire, like
lightning itself. His hollow, blood-shot eyes, betrayed a wild,
watchful, suspicious expression, by no means prepossessing; and there
was something inscrutable in the bland, perpetual smile he always wore
upon his countenance, and in the frozen tranquillity of his manner,
which occasionally, though seldom, gave way to bursts of tempestuous
emotion. The very pupils of his eyes seemed to have become darker,
with a fearfully wild and ferocious expression when irritated, while
the fierce fire flashed out from beneath his lowering brows, with a
blaze of inexpressible fury; yet in a moment he could command himself
again into a cold, calm, and almost haughty exterior, while the
spectral paleness of his handsome countenance made him look like
marble itself.

Years passed on, during which Sir Arthur endured, rather than enjoyed,
Mr. Howard's attendance, whose pre-occupied air and vague manner
continually annoyed him; but his benevolent heart shrunk from
consigning the poor man to that hopeless and solitary want which he
seemed to apprehend must inevitably follow the loss of his present
situation, and from day to day he postponed the decision, till habit
grew into second nature, and he became so accustomed to hear "The
Times," column after column, spouted forth in a rather theatrical tone
by his reader, and to dictate notes and letters to his very silent and
diligent secretary, that he almost forgot at last to think of parting
with him.

When Henry returned for the first time from school, six or seven
months after Mr. Howard had become domesticated at Portobello, the
secretary professed a vehement fancy for the boy, would fetch and
carry for him like a tame dog, and loaded him with attentions; yet,
though in general most affectionately grateful to all who showed him
even a trifling kindness, these assiduities and flatteries were
lavished upon him in vain. The boy shrunk instinctively from Mr.
Howard's notice, but could assign no other reason to himself or others
for this apparently unreasonable antipathy, except merely that the
stranger resembled somebody he had seen before, but how, when, or
where, not a trace remained in his memory. This little caprice did not
appear to be noticed or resented by the secretary, till one day, when
Henry refused some bon-bons which Mr. Howard offered him, saying, the
last he accepted had made him sick, and when the boy soon after flew
gaily out of the room, Marion was for a moment startled and surprised
to observe the malignant scowl with which the eye of Mr. Howard
followed Henry. It was a glance, fell and malignant, that feared to be
seen, while his cheek became pale as death, but whether in anger or in
sorrow, Marion thought it impossible to divine.

As Henry grew older, his instinctive dread of Mr. Howard seemed only
to increase, but he was too considerate to disturb the tranquillity of
Sir Arthur by mentioning it, or to injure the poor man himself, by
giving way to a feeling of dislike so unaccountable, and yet so
perfectly unconquerable; but at length, after many years of such
prudent self-restraint, when nearly grown up to manhood he could not
help saying one day, in a careless tone, to the Admiral, after
witnessing a sudden outbreak of temper in Mr. Howard that morning,

"Your secretary always reminds me, Sir Arthur, of Sinbad's Old Man of
the Sea. It seems impossible to get handsomely rid of him, and he will
never certainly make a voluntary departure!"

"I fear not!" replied the Admiral, with something between a smile and
a sigh. "He does all I desire him, but without interest or pleasure,
and he has the most undisguised contempt for every living being,
almost amounting to hatred, yet he expresses unbounded gratitude for
being harbored in my house. What can I do? It would be cruel to kick
the man out of doors, merely because he is unhappy; but I have often
observed, Henry, that he is no favorite of yours, though that is the
only subject on which you have never been entirely open with me."

"Because I am heartily ashamed of my feelings, Sir Arthur, and you are
the last person on earth to whom I wish to tell anything against
myself. You have told me there are people with a loathing antipathy to
cats, and somewhat similar is the shuddering sensation with which I
see your worthy secretary enter the room. A sort of shiver comes over
me, and a wish to keep him off--to avoid his very glance and touch. He
has a strange under-look certainly! His smile makes me shudder! and
yet the feeling is quite undefinable! They say dogs and children have
an instinctive liking or antipathy to those who secretly like or hate
them, and perhaps my sensation is on somewhat similar grounds.

"There is something fearful in the eye of Mr. Howard, occasionally,
when I catch it fixed upon myself," added Henry rapidly, but in a sort
of musing, absent under-tone, while his voice acquired a deeper tinge
of thought, "I seem to have beheld him once in a dream! When he looks
at me in that strange and extraordinary manner, his eyes like the
flickering glare of light in a gloomy cavern, I feel and know that at
some period in my life I have seen such a countenance before! The time
and place have escaped me, but the remembrance is painful, and in his
presence I cannot but be convinced that I am in the presence of an
enemy. It is a feeling I can neither drive away, nor distinctly
realize!"

"Why did you never tell me this before, Henry?" asked the Admiral,
rising with agitation. "He has been hardly dealt with by fortune, but
surely you do not think----"

"Think!!--; I think nothing, Sir Arthur, for I know nothing, and I
ought not to have spoken as I have done,--it was wrong and rash. I
shall try to conquer this,--to conquer myself,--and, as they say,
acquired tastes are always the strongest, I may yet learn to like Mr.
Howard better than any one living; but, in the mean time, Sir Arthur,
he does occasionally look to me, very like some stray member of the
Lunatic Asylum!"

"I sometimes think," said Sir Arthur, "that Howard has a bee in his
bonnet."

"He has a whole hive of bees in his bonnet!" replied Henry in his
usual off-hand tone; but when he looked round, as is usual, when
people are spoken of, the individual himself, Mr. Howard, stood before
him. A mortal paleness had overspread his countenance, contending
emotions seemed flitting across his lowering brow, like shifting
clouds in a threatening sky, and his eye gleamed upon young De Lancey
with a look of maniacal fury; but the same artificial smile was on his
lips which he habitually assumed, while, in the blandest tone of
courtesy, he turned from the steady penetrating gaze of Henry to Sir
Arthur, saying, in a tone of servile cunning, but with a smile the
most ghastly that was ever seen on a human face,

"Every fool can find fault, but my livelihood fortunately depends not
on any boyish caprice. It is derived from the generosity of a noble
mind, unbiassed by cruel and unfounded prejudices, which may, however,
yet be my ruin. A small leak sinks a great ship, and even you, my
benefactor, may hereafter be influenced by the opinion of one who
avowedly hates me, though without cause,--I should have little to
dread if he were like you, but then who is? Come what may, however,
you deserve and shall ever retain my undying gratitude and attachment.
I have met with little kindness in life, and am never likely to forget
that little, from whatever benevolent heart it comes. In this bleak,
desolate, most harsh and cruel world, you are now my only friend."

"Those who have deserved friends, Mr. Howard, are seldom so entirely
destitute of them!" said Sir Arthur, with a certain tone of
interrogation in his voice, for he abhorred the slightest approach to
flattery, and always had an instinctive apprehension that it was
accompanied by deceit. "We are too ready often to throw the blame upon
human nature, when our own individual nature is to blame. For my own
part, I have met with little unkindness or ingratitude hitherto, and
would willingly look upon the sunny side of life, hoping all things,
and believing all things, of mankind in general, and of yourself among
the number."

The darkened sight of Sir Arthur prevented him from perceiving that in
the countenance of Mr. Howard there flitted a quick succession of
emotions, fiery and vivid as summer lightning, but Henry observed with
astonishment the powerful though ineffectual efforts he made to
control his agitation. His hands were clenched, till the very blood
seemed ready to spring; he gnawed his nether lip with frightful
vehemence, and his eyes shot fire from beneath his dark and frowning
brow. With a glance of unspeakable malevolence at Henry, and a hurried
bow to Sir Arthur, he hastened with rapid steps out of the room, and
subsequently out of the house.

"If there be a madman out of bedlam, Sir Arthur, that is he!"
exclaimed Henry, following with his eyes the rushing steps of Howard,
as he crossed the garden. "Before I go to college, let me hope you
will dismiss him. Give the man a trifling pension, or do anything for
him, rather than trust yourself in his hands, for I am mistaken,
indeed, if he is not a bad and dangerous man."

"Before you return here, I may perhaps be able to find some other
situation for him; but he has done nothing yet, Henry, to forfeit my
protection, and I scarcely think he would live, if I dismissed him. He
has drank a bitter cup of wretchedness, and without principle or hope,
he has more than hinted to me, that death itself will be his resource
if I turn him adrift. It was a well-meant officiousness of Lady
Towercliffe to force him upon my good offices, and I cannot yet see
any easy way to relieve myself of the charge, without causing more
distress than I can reconcile myself to occasioning."

"He is certainly a strange, mysterious being," replied Henry, wishing
to turn off a subject which he saw was agitating Sir Arthur with
perplexity; "but Mr. Howard is not probably the only man on earth whom
in the course of my existence I shall not be able to comprehend."




CHAPTER VI.


The most popular girl at Mrs. Penfold's "Seminary for Young Ladies,"
near Edinburgh, was Marion Dunbar, too much loved by her companions to
be envied; admired by all, and almost idolized by each, while beneath
the gay, sparkling surface of her joyous disposition, there rolled on
a warm current of sensibility and feeling sufficient to repay, and
more than repay, all the deep tenderness and enthusiastic affection
she excited among the little circle of her young and ardent friends.

Cast in the finest mould of classical beauty, and formed mentally as
well as personally in the very poetry of nature, the perfect grace and
symmetry of her features became enlivened frequently by a rich and
radiant smile, like a Hebe, glowing with the richest hues of health
and joy. Her splendid eyes sparkled with every passing emotion,
sometimes dimmed for a moment by tears of sensibility, but usually
glittering with smiles, while occasionally, when amused or delighted,
she burst into a comic, elfish laugh, the very essence of glee and
joyousness--a most enlivening accompaniment to what she said, while
her conversation, always fresh and unpremeditated, rushed straight
from her heart, fresh and natural as a mountain stream.

The color of a violet was not more deeply blue than the dark,
unfathomable eyes of Marion, shaded by a fringe of eye-lashes that
might have been mistaken for black. No description could do justice to
the fascination of her smile, without one shade of affectation, while
her pure transparent complexion, fresh as a bouquet of roses, took a
richer tint from all the fleeting emotions which chased each other
through her mind. A rich profusion of nut-brown hair played around her
high arched forehead of alabaster whiteness, and a thousand laughing
dimples quivered around her delicately-formed mouth, giving her a
merry, joyous look of girlish beauty, varied occasionally by a melting
softness of expression when she looked on any countenance that she
loved. On one occasion, a celebrated sculptor asked Sir Patrick's
permission to take a cast of Marion's head, and on obtaining the
desired permission, he observed, that if those features could be
turned into marble, he would stake his whole fame on the impossibility
of any critic pointing out a single defect. But while admiration is
given by the eye of an artist merely to symmetry, expression is the
mystery of beauty; and the charm of Marion, in the estimation of her
friends, was, that her face seemed like a mirror formed to reflect
every emotion of their own hearts.

The most stern and morose of human beings must have been conciliated
into some degree of regard by the deep tenderness of a character
"without one jarring atom form'd," which seemed made only to love and
to be loved. While her gay fancy revelled in "cheerful yesterdays and
confident to-morrows," the flowers that grew around her path, the
birds that sang as she passed, the very turf beneath her feet, and the
sky above her head, called forth her feelings. She had a tear to spare
for the sorrows of every one who claimed her sympathy, and a ready
smile for the joys of all her companions, while yet a great deal of
unoccupied love remained at her disposal, the chief portion of which
was bestowed with prodigal enthusiasm on her indulgent uncle Sir
Arthur, whose doting affection would have spoiled any other
disposition, but only rendered her more keenly to merit and to deserve
his partiality.

In the estimation of Sir Arthur, his "little Marion" never became a
day older, and he considered her a perfect prodigy in everything she
said or did, watching all her words, and entering into all her
juvenile feelings with a versatility of mind astonishing at his
advanced age. Nothing on earth is more touching than to see the warmth
of sensibility and enthusiasm yet surviving the chill of many a year
in this disappointing and sorrowing world; but there was a degree of
mutual confidence between Sir Arthur and his young niece which can
seldom exist with a disparity of years and circumstances. Besides all
her feminine gentleness, and almost poetical gracefulness of
character, Marion yet displayed at times a power of intellect and an
energetic strength of character for which a superficial observer would
have been totally unprepared; for her mind seemed always to rise in
proportion to the occasion, while she had been born apparently to
practise without reserve that beautiful Christian rule, for each
individual always to consider himself last. Rarely are deep feelings
and intense sensibility united with that high intelligence of mind,
and that vivid gladness of spirit peculiar to Marion; but the stream
of her mind was deep as well as sparkling, while during her early
years sorrow flitted through her cheerful, laughter-loving mind, like
the shadow of a butterfly in a bright sunny flower-bed. Pleased "she
knew not why, and car'd not wherefore," there was a peculiar grace in
all she did, and an infectious merriment in all she said, which
attracted a joyous group of companions continually around her, on whom
the light of her own buoyant vivacity seemed to be continually and
brightly reflected.

Nothing could be more pleasing and characteristic than to observe the
refined ingenuity with which, from the earliest age, Marion tried to
evade receiving the multitude of little presents with which it was Sir
Arthur's delight to surprise her. Trinkets and toys would have
multiplied around her, if she had not frequently made an ostentation
of possessing more than it was possible for her to use; and when Sir
Arthur allowed her a choice in any gift he was about to force on her
acceptance, she invariably selected that which seemed least expensive;
and her uncle afterwards told, that when, on the twelfth anniversary
of her birthday, he clasped a beautiful Maltese chain round her neck,
she said to him, with a deepening color and faltering voice, "I would
like better to love you for nothing, uncle Arthur! My drawers up
stairs are like a jeweler's shop already. You know I inherited half
dear mamma's ornaments, and Patrick says you bring Rundell and Bridge
in your pocket every time I have a holiday; but I would be quite as
happy to see you all for yourself."

The merry-eyed Marion seemed to "wear her heart upon her sleeve," and
to see only what was best in all those with whom she associated. With
her small means, it was truly astonishing how frequently and
ingeniously she invented some unobtrusive way of conferring a favor on
her companions, as if she were receiving rather than bestowing one;
and it certainly appeared as if she scarcely knew the difference.
There was not an individual among her numerous young contemporaries
who did not often relate traits of goodness in one whom they always
found ready to answer the largest drafts that could be drawn upon her
good offices, while the cheerfulness of her mind reflected itself on
all.

If one of her young friends rushed joyously forward to announce some
unexpected success, Marion's features seemed as if they had been put
together only for smiles and laughter, while her bright eye glittered
with instant gladness, and a glow of color mounted to her dimpling
cheek, as she felt and expressed with spontaneous warmth all that
kindness could dictate, and more; but if some unforeseen affliction
visited the hearts of her juvenile associates, there seemed no limits
to the patience with which she listened to their complaints, or to the
eager assiduity with which she endeavored to alleviate their sorrow.
The most trifling attentions she never overlooked, were it merely the
tying of a string, or the picking up of a handkerchief, which she did
with a good-humored grace all her own, and the trifling actions of
life are those by which the character can generally be most justly
appreciated. Great achievements are a conspicuous embroidery laid on
the surface often for effect, but the ground-work and material are
formed of what is most unobtrusive and often scarcely noticed. With
Marion, every kind and generous feeling was as natural as perfume to
the violet, and equally inseparable from her daily existence; her
ideas were fresh and vivid, while her manner was thoroughly
fascinating and thoroughly feminine, at the same time that all the
grace of look and expression added a surpassing charm to her lively
and intelligent conversation, every word of which sprang from the
spontaneous impulse of a heart full of natural emotion and
straightforward sentiments.

Many a difficult exercise she had secretly assisted to write for her
young contemporaries, many an unintelligible drawing she had touched
up, many a dress she had privately mended, many a little debt she had
clandestinely paid for her juvenile friends, and far from wishing to
be thanked, she shrunk with modest sensibility from letting her
services be over-estimated, even by those whom she had most exerted
herself to oblige. Whenever a kindness had been privately done at
school, the author of which could not be guessed at nor discovered,
few hesitated to declare that it must have proceeded from Marion
Dunbar, and none were ever mistaken in saying so.

It was indeed wonderful that the lovely and gay young school-girl
found time for a tenth part of her kind and tender affections, at Mrs.
Penfold's first-rate seminary for what Sir Arthur called
"fiddle-faddle education." There no taste was inculcated for quiet
pursuits or domestic intercourse, and it was one of Mrs. Penfold's
favorite axioms, that nature is always vulgar; but in her zeal for the
honor of her establishment she seemed resolute to make every pupil an
Admirable Chrichton,--or more,--not in studying the experience of past
ages, and reading the thoughts and feelings which have been recorded
for their instruction by millions of the best and wisest of their
predecessors in life, but in all the frivolities of existence; and to
this end the pupils were stinted in sleep and food, while they pursued
a course of application more incessant, though not so profound, as
that of students for a double first class at Oxford. The most eminent
masters were in hourly attendance to cultivate every thing but the
heart or understanding. The various arts of killing or of wasting time
were taught in perfection, by the best, or at least by the most
fashionable teachers; and, as the Admiral disapprovingly remarked to
her brother, "little Marion was surrounded by professors of every
thing on earth,--by professors of trumpery in all its branches, but by
no professors of common sense!"

With Mrs. Penfold each pupil was a favorite in exact proportion as she
appeared likely to acquire a talent for the difficult art of rising in
the world, by which she might reflect credit and celebrity on the
theatre of her education; and it seemed, therefore, by no means
intended as an expression of kindness, when the lady was heard one day
impatiently to exclaim in accents of reproach, "Marion Dunbar is all
heart, and no head! Some girls do nothing, but she does less than
nothing; and though she gets on in years, she gets on in no other
thing!"

Wearily busied in being taught, Marion yet felt that there was no
incitement, and one only, which made every effort a pleasure, while it
gave life to the dull routine of her heartless labors, and that
incitement was her fervent, incessant desire to please, not the
dictate of vanity, but of spontaneous sensibility; and while, with her
bright and beaming looks, she was by no means a prodigy, Marion very
much under-rated her own powers, believing, in the simplicity of her
heart, that she really was the most hopeless dunce on many subjects,
only able to recommend herself by diligence and by alacrity to oblige.

Even Mrs. Penfold was disarmed of half her severity, by the eagerness
with which Marion, buoyant with youth, and joyous as a bird on wing,
undertook any task, or suffered any penance to compensate for such
little _etourderies_ as had caused her to be in temporary disgrace; and
the stern schoolmistress herself could not but smile sometimes in the
midst of her gravest lecture, to observe the look of extreme anxiety
and self-reproach with which Marion listened to the catalogue of her
small indiscretions, and the grateful joy with which she heard that
there were any terms on which she might yet be restored to favor.
Caroline Smythe, her most frolicsome companion, frequently amused
herself by inventing imaginary scrapes into which Marion was supposed
to have fallen, and by sending her express to Mrs. Penfold for a
reprimand, while the lively girl watched, in laughing ambuscade, for
the bright beaming smile which flashed into the supposed culprit's
countenance, the instant she unexpectedly found herself honorably
acquitted.

Thus the foundation of Marion's mind was laid, and these were the
light breezes that ruffled the smooth current of her life; but
enchanted by the slightest pleasures, few ever bore the burden of her
annoyances so lightly, while a brilliant painted curtain hung over the
future, filled with images of anticipated joy, to be realized in all
their brightness and beauty, as soon as she became emancipated from
the dreary thralldom of Mrs. Penfold's manufactory of young ladies.

Meantime, Marion's mind grew and flourished, like some rare and
beautiful plant injudiciously cultivated, yet glowing in almost
unprecedented luxuriance. Plunged in this inextricable labyrinth of
educational troubles, she had to undergo lessons from sunrise till
sunset, while all the varied arts, sciences, and languages were piled
promiscuously on her brain, like an ill-grown coppice, distorted and
stunted for want of more judicious thinning and training. She could
name things in every language, but was told nothing of their nature
and properties; while, as Sir Arthur complained, "poor little Marion
was taught plenty of sound, but no sound sense, except what she had
inherited by nature, without paying £100 a-year for it."

In music Marion displayed great taste and expression, while her
flexible, richly-toned voice poured out sometimes a flood of harmony
most exquisite to hear, as the pathos of her full round intonations
drew forth the feeling and sympathy of all her auditors. Expression in
music is like expression of countenance, not to be taught or acquired,
but the spontaneous result of natural emotion, and with Marion music
was almost a passion, for her whole spirit seemed instinct with
melody, while her lark-like voice trilled its liquid notes with joyful
hilarity.

Signors and Signoras, who might have fitted their pupils to become
chorus-singers at the opera, were multiplied around the young ladies
at Mrs. Penfold's "College of Frivolity," followed in ceaseless
succession by Messieurs and Mesdames, who taught the young ladies to
maltreat pianofortes, by playing on them at the rate of 100 miles an
hour, or to speak foreign languages better than the natives, and to
write them better than they could write their own;--

    While hands, lips, and eyes were put to school,
    And each instructed feature had its rule.

On Sunday evenings, for the sake of effect, the girls were regularly
assembled to prayers, which were conducted like those of Frederick the
Great's soldiers, being performed simultaneously at the word of
command as a part of their exercise, without a semblance of reverence,
and within a very limited number of minutes, while they were hastily
slurred over by Mrs. Penfold herself, with scarcely an external aspect
of solemnity or interest. Sunday had long been considered by all the
pupils at Mrs. Penfold's as a privileged day for writing letters,
wearing best bonnets, peeping from behind a red silk curtain at the
congregation, criticising the clergyman's manner, dress, and
appearance, discussing, in suppressed whispers, who it would be
possible or impossible for them to think of marrying, and enjoying
rather a longer walk than common in strolling to church and returning
again.

Any knowledge of the Bible inculcated at Mrs. Penfold's was like all
the other acquirements taught in that establishment, more for show
than use. Each young pupil could repeat by heart, without hesitation
or mistake, the whole history of Jacob, Abraham, and any of the
patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, and enumerate all the kings who
ever reigned over Israel, but they remained utterly uninstructed
respecting the influence which the Divine revelation should obtain
over their own life and character, nor were they ever taught to
inquire what was their own nature, why they were placed upon the
earth, and whither they were likely to go after this perishable world
had passed from their sight. Summer flowers alone were implanted in
their minds, but no thoughts, hopes, or affections, such as may last
for winter wear. To them their birth seemed merely to have been the
commencement of an existence, given entirely for their own individual
pleasure or advantage, which was finally to terminate at their death.

Before Marion had been long at school, however, she formed an intimacy
which produced a permanent and most happy effect on all her subsequent
life and feelings. Clara Granville, several years older than herself,
had been nurtured, like her brother, in holiness, and in every
domestic excellence, while she lived only for the dictates of a
chastened and sanctified heart. Delicate in health, and fragile in
extreme to appearance, there was something almost seraphic in the
delicate purity of her lovely countenance, and in the tranquil
composure of her graceful manner. During a long and tedious illness,
with which Clara was seized, a short time before leaving school, she
testified a tender and almost exclusive affection for Marion, who
spent all her leisure hours--or rather moments, for hours were scarce
at Mrs. Penfold's--in the most assiduous attention to the beloved
invalid, and in imbibing those elements of good, those feelings and
principles of religion which were to be guides of all her future life,
and thus she became, before long, an enlightened, well informed, and
deeply pious Christian, not shrinking from the society of one who
excelled herself, but humbly and gratefully seeking, on all occasions,
her advice and instruction, while both had their hearts filled with a
fervent desire, steadily and consistently to pursue their own best
interests, and an anxious wish also to succor and benefit others, in
all the troubles and sorrows of life, though Marion was apt to feel
like the poet,--

    Ready to aid all beings, I would go
    The world around to succor human woe,
    Yet am so largely happy, that it seems,
    There are no woes, and sorrows are but dreams.

Marion's health and spirits were refreshed and invigorated by frequent
excursions to visit Sir Arthur, who endeared himself to his eager
young auditors, Henry and Marion, by expatiating with all the
freshness of youth, to their wondering ears, on the times long past,
when holidays, romping, sight-seeing, birth-days, and festivals, were
still in fashion, but these were the days of his own boyhood, before
children were too wise and busy to have time for natural enjoyment.
The Admiral was thought, by Mrs. Penfold, a sad marplot, having
already, as she knew, done all in his power to dissuade Sir Patrick
from placing the "little fairy," as he called his favorite, in such a
tread-mill as her school-room, where he said the only knowledge to be
acquired was, that knowledge of the world which ruins the heart, and
where fascination was to be taught as one of the fine arts, but all
his representations, whether in jest or in earnest, were in vain. Sir
Patrick, being the guardian of both his sisters, had determined to
expend a considerable part of the provision bequeathed by their father
in training them up as carefully, for the course of fashionable life,
as he would have trained a promising race-horse which was expected to
win the St. Leger, confidently anticipating a short and brilliant
career of admiration and success, ending with a splendid trousseau, a
chariot and four, and a profusion of wedding favors.

Even the gay, frolicsome Caroline Smythe, many years older than
Marion, and the most seditious and unruly of pupils, became speedily
tamed down to mechanical obedience at school, where, losing her
naturally intense enjoyment of mere existence, she seemed at best
almost a habitual drudge in the usual routine of labor. There was a
mystery never apparently to be fathomed about this lively girl, which
excited the most intense curiosity among her companions, but though
she was gifted with an extraordinary degree of volubility, which
astonished and diverted the whole school, talking in a rapid and
irregular manner of all events, past, present, or to come, with a
brilliant confusion of drollery and humor, still she never dropped a
hint which threw the most transient light on her own situation and
affairs. No one knew whence she came or who she was, but though
defying all the powers of all the masters to render her accomplished,
yet Mrs. Penfold evidently treated her with extraordinary
consideration, and almost with respect.

Many were the restrictions and directions given respecting her to the
scholars and teachers, which seemed to them most unaccountable, and
several of which were voted by the juvenile community to be so
peculiarly barbarous and oppressive, that though the young lady
herself seemed neither surprised nor annoyed by the rigid watchfulness
exercised over all her motions, it excited among her companions an
indignant pity, and a keen spirit of partizanship. She was never on
any occasion known to walk with the governesses and the other girls
beyond the narrow limits of the high garden walls, and on Sundays,
instead of attending the parish church, it was observed that one of
the teachers invariably remained at home to read prayers with her. No
general invitations sent for all the pupils by the friends of other
girls, were ever accepted for Caroline, who had special permission to
visit with Marion at Sir Arthur Dunbar's, but at no other house in the
visible world.

She never spoke of home,--received no letters, and once only had a
visitor, an object of keen and eager scrutiny to the little gossiping
community of Dartmore House, who discovered nothing more, however,
than that Caroline's aunt, Mrs. Smythe, was a gay, fantastic-looking,
showily-dressed little woman of no certain age, for whom her niece
seemed to care very little, as the whole flood of her affections was
concentrated on her companions at school. Money she had in the most
lavish abundance, while she squandered it with a degree of reckless,
and almost contemptuous profusion, perfectly startling to those who
scarcely received as much in a year as she seemed able to spend in a
day on presents for those she loved, which was the chief use to which
her large funds were devoted.

Marion, the companion and pet of her two elder companions, Clara and
Caroline, tried with all her powers to extend her affection also to
Mrs. Penfold, but her feelings found nothing to feed upon in the cold,
formal, rigid manner, and stern upright appearance of the
schoolmistress, who repelled all intercourse with her pupils,
considering them necessary grievances to be endured in her house, as a
source of existence to herself, but not of pleasure. Towards these
little slaves of education, driven from task to task with ceaseless
pertinacity, no confidence was shown, and between them conversation
became systematically discouraged. A governess was appointed to sleep
in each room to secure silence among the pupils, few of whom had that
glow of heart and imagination peculiar to Marion, and it was
fortunate, perhaps, that her large stock of sympathy was not more
frequently in requisition, as the most astounding confidences were
sometimes imparted to her wondering ears.

One young lady, in a high fever of romance, described to Marion at
great length, in the strictest confidence, an elopement which took
place from the school where she had last been educated, on which
occasion the young narrator had accompanied the bride part of her way,
and returned home without detection, by climbing in at an open window.
Another of the pupils asked if she did not think Monsieur D'Ambereau,
the Italian master, wore singularly handsome mustachios, adding that
it was a very common custom now for noblemen to go about in disguise,
teaching at boarding-schools, in order to see the young ladies; and a
third of Marion's young friends pointed out to her notice that many a
ringlet appeared to be more carefully curled than usual, and many a
dress to be put on with unwonted solicitude, when Monsieur Frescati,
the singing-master, was expected.

Girls in a boarding school are as unnaturally situated as nuns in a
convent, where the feelings and emotions, being checked in their
spontaneous course, are thrust into channels for which they never were
originally intended. Marion had a sufficient object in view, every
time she entered a room, from the desire she felt to please all with
whom she associated, which gave a vent to the warmth of her affections
in seeking the reciprocal attachment of her companions; but many of
the other pupils, shut out from nature with her sunshine and flowers,
her feelings and emotions, and wearied by a monotonous, uneventful
life of dictionaries and grammars, snatched at every legitimate or
illegitimate source of novelty or excitement, and their conversation
became as frivolous as a toy-shop, while the hopeless vacancy of their
thoughts obtained relief if even a blind fiddler or a hand-organ
appeared beneath their windows. It was an object of romantic interest
for the day, to most of the girls, if an officer in uniform passed
along the high-road within sight; an equestrian in plain clothes, if
tolerably mounted, furnished them with a subject of exclamations
during the following half-hour, and even the very Doctor, a mere
country pill-box, who prescribed for Mrs. Penfold's pupils, being
well-dressed, and not much above forty, would himself have been
astonished could he possibly have guessed the interest excited by his
visits, and the keen discussion that ensued after his exit, respecting
his slightly grey hair, and brilliant yellow gloves.

Each young lady at school had a large assortment of romantic stories
to relate, in a confidential under-tone, to her listening companions,
of lovers who had committed suicide, gone mad, or been, at the very
least, rendered miserable for life, in consequence of a disappointed
attachment; while the whole party impatiently anticipated the time,
not perhaps far distant, when their own turn would come to be
idolized, admired, courted, and finally married to some "perfect
love," with title, fortune, and establishment all pre-eminently
superlative. Pure as the swan that passes through the darkest and most
turbid stream, with plumage unsoiled, Marion's mind, in the meantime,
remained untainted by the atmosphere of evil and frivolity around her.
She caught at all that seemed good, avoided what was evil, and
rejected every thought that might injure the unsophisticated
excellence of her artless mind.

There arose, however, in time, one source of individual anxiety to
Marion, known only to herself and Mrs. Penfold; but it increased in
weight and urgency every year, throwing occasionally a shadow of care
over that bright young countenance, in general so beaming with joy,
though with true philosophy Marion tried often to forget what it had
proved impossible for her to remedy. Once a quarter, or at least
during every successive "half," the mortifying fact forced itself upon
her observation, that no bills were so irregularly paid as her own;
for while their amount rapidly accumulated, Sir Patrick's agent
forwarded annually the very smallest instalments, with a thousand
apologies, and many promises of a final satisfactory settlement at
some future period, which period never seemed any nearer; and Mrs.
Penfold often dryly remarked, in the hearing of Marion, that "short
accounts make long friends."

An appeal to Sir Arthur for his interference often occasionally
suggested itself to the mind of Marion; but she knew that his
influence was less than nothing, and she greatly feared lest his
vehement partiality to herself might lead him to overlook the very
limited nature of his income, and to volunteer some generous
sacrifice, such as she would rather suffer any privations than
occasion. The pension and half-pay of Sir Arthur very barely sufficed,
she knew, to defray his extensive charities, and to furnish sometimes
the hospitable table, and the bottle of first-rate claret, round which
it was his delight to gather a frequent circle of old brother
admirals; but his purse was little calculated to stand the shock of
such a draft as Sir Patrick would unhesitatingly have drawn upon it,
had the idea occurred to him that Sir Arthur might perhaps be induced
to take Marion's school bills upon himself.

In no instance was it more obvious than in that of Sir Patrick Dunbar,
how precisely in society men are generally estimated at their own
valuation. He was, like his sisters, pre-eminently handsome, while the
hauteur of his demeanor, bordering on a sort of well-bred contempt for
others, rendered his slightest notice an event of considerable
magnitude even to many whom the world might have deemed his superiors
in rank, fortune, and talents. There were a few exclusives, however,
among his own exclusive set, whom he admitted to the most unbounded
familiarity and good fellowship, inviting them to entertainments,
given much more as an ostentatious display of wealth and taste, than
from any feeling that might be dignified with the name of friendship;
and thus, by a reckless and unbounded profusion in dress, equipage,
and hospitality, unchecked by one sentiment of justice or of prudence,
the young Baronet obtained universal celebrity for his generosity and
good humor,--anecdotes of which were circulated with delighted
approbation in every house.

He was known to have tossed a sovereign one day to an old woman at a
cottage door, for merely reaching him a glass of water; he paid the
post-boys double always when travelling; he gave ten pounds at a
ladies' bazaar, for a paper card-case, which he presented the next
moment to Clara Granville; and he sent Marion a magnificent rosewood
box, filled with crystal perfume bottles, and gold tops, which cost
twenty pounds, when at that very time she had scarcely a frock to put
on, and was in agonies of vexation under an unpaid shoemaker's bill.

Sir Patrick's grooms and footmen always roundly estimated his income
at £20,000 a year; and his rent-roll certainly exceeded that of all
the parents united who paid Mrs. Penfold regularly for cramming their
children's understandings; but while Sir Patrick made it a matter of
accurate calculation to train Marion with skill and sagacity in the
way most likely to take her speedily off his hands, yet it was no part
of his calculation to pay for anything in money if he could do so in
words; and while he rattled off whole estates in a dice-box, and raced
himself into difficulties, entering horses for every cup, and dogs for
every coursing-match, he privately resolved that Marion and her
embarrassments should always remain both out of sight and out of mind.

Mrs. Penfold's grave and dry expression of countenance became graver
and drier every time she contemplated the rapidly-increasing amount of
Marion's bill, while she urgently impressed on her pupil's mind the
absolute necessity of entreating more zealously than ever for the
speedy payment of such very old scores.

Observing Sir Patrick so exceedingly profuse in his expenditure,
however, Mrs. Penfold believed there could be no cause to apprehend
any defalcation at last, being convinced that he might at any time
defray her demands with ease, though the only thing he never found it
convenient to command was ready money; and Marion soon discovered that
it made him frantic with ill-humor to be asked for any. Of this
peculiarity she had once an early instance, never afterwards to be
forgotten. Having received from Sir Arthur, on her fifteenth
birth-day, the first five sovereigns which it had ever been her good
fortune to possess, she accidentally heard Sir Arthur laughingly
complain during her mid-summer holidays at home, to Mr. De Crespigny,
that he had arrived at the bank that morning too late to present a
draft for money, and having given his last shilling to a beggar, he
was, according to his own expression, "completely cleaned out," not
having enough even to pay for being admitted to the exhibition of
pictures, and actually put to some temporary inconvenience by his
penniless condition for that day.

In all the pride of exhaustless wealth, Marion soon after stole up to
her brother's side, and displayed her glittering treasure; but afraid
to be suspected of conferring a favor, with intuitive delicacy she
asked Sir Patrick to take charge of it until the following Saturday,
that she might consider what to purchase on that day. Scarcely
conscious of what she said or did, the young Baronet mechanically
dropped the sovereigns into his pocket, where sovereigns in general
had a very short reign, and soon after sauntered away to the club.

Day after day elapsed, week after week, and every time Sir Patrick
entered the room, or drew out his pocket handkerchief, Marion thought
she was on the eve of being paid; but at length her holidays came to a
close, and still not a syllable transpired respecting her funds.
Rendered desperate at last by anxiety to re-enter school, laden with
presents to her favorite companions, Marion, who valued money only as
a means of being kind to others, ventured one day, with glowing
cheeks, and faltering voice, to remind Sir Patrick, for the first
time, of their little pecuniary transactions, which was so very
trifling that he had probably forgotten it.

"You tiresome little dear! am I never to hear the last of those
sovereigns!" exclaimed he angrily, throwing down his newspaper. "You
deserve not to be paid till Christmas! But here they are! No! I have
no change, I see, at present. Well! I shall remember it some other
time!"

That "other time" never came, however, and Marion returned penniless
to school, sympathizing more fully than she had ever done before, in
Mrs. Penfold's lamentations respecting Sir Patrick's carelessness
about money,--a subject which supplied that lady with a ready-made
excuse, whenever she was out of humor at any rate, for venting it all
on her unoffending pupil, whose sensitive heart became so imbued at
last with vexation and anxiety, that on attaining the age of sixteen,
she ventured to pen an earnest appeal to Sir Patrick, begging with all
the eloquence of natural feeling, that if the expenses of her
education were inconvenient, she might return home, where she would
willingly shew all the benefit derived from the advantages he had
already afforded her, by continuing her studies alone, and by devoting
herself entirely to his comfort, amusement, and happiness.

This letter, which cost Marion agonies of thought, and a shower of
tears, received no answer whatever; and with a sigh of unwonted
depression, she dismissed the subject from her thoughts, and trying to
hope the best, quietly resumed the course of her occupations,
comforted by the consolatory reflection, that in two years she would
have nothing more to learn--the whole range of human acquirement being
supposed to attain its completion by each of Mrs. Penfold's pupils at
the age of eighteen.

Clara Granville, and Caroline Smythe, having attained the highest acme
of perfection under the finishing hand of Mrs. Penfold, were about to
be emancipated in a few months from the thralldom of school, and to
astonish society by their brilliant acquirements; respecting the most
advantageous mode of displaying which, great pains had been taken to
instruct them, though the inclination seemed wanting in both girls,
being already surfeited with admiration and panegyric among their
masters and governesses, who vied with each other in praising their
two most advanced pupils, by whose influence they hoped hereafter to
obtain recommendations and employment.

Marion had strolled one evening with Caroline, farther than Miss
Smythe had ever been known to venture before; and the two young
friends were seated in an arbor at the extreme verge of the bounds
prescribed by Mrs. Penfold, in earnest conversation, while watching
with delight the declining sun, which superbly illuminated a heavy
mass of clouds in the western horizon. Time flew on, and darkness
nearly closed around them while they discussed with lively, careless
humor, all the petty annoyances of their daily life, and compared the
little hopes and fears they entertained for the future. As the hour
became later, Marion felt that the high exhilarating key in which
Caroline spoke, and her gay, well-rung-out laugh, made her almost
nervous in the obscure and solitary retreat to which they had
withdrawn; but ashamed of her own timidity, she determined to conquer
or conceal it.

Marion was flattered when a companion like Caroline, some years older
than herself, thus treated her with familiarity; though certainly,
neither on this occasion, nor on any other, was it with confidence, as
no living being seemed entirely in the confidence of Miss Smythe, who,
while she appeared gayly and heedlessly to rattle on in conversation,
yet kept a cautious silence respecting all that concerned herself.

Many very reserved persons pass for being perfectly open, by means of
a frank, free manner, and by speaking in a confidential tone
concerning the most private affairs of those with whom they converse;
and this Caroline did to excess, asking Marion, with every appearance
of kindness, a hundred questions, which in her own case she either
could not, or would not have answered, and testifying the most
cordial, unfeigned interest in all that related to the prospects or
feelings of her companion, who never attempted to conceal a wish or a
thought, and often forgot that the trust was not mutual.

Caroline was talking eagerly with great animation, and telling Marion
that the only injury she never would forgive, was, if any of those she
loved had a sorrow that did not allow her to share with them; and
especially if they permitted themselves to suffer from any pecuniary
difficulties which it was within her power to relieve, when suddenly
Marion laid a hand on her arm, making a hurried signal for silence,
while she whispered in a low undertone,

"I have scarcely heard you for the last five minutes. Did you observe
that strange-looking man, very much muffled up, who scrambled several
minutes ago to the top of the garden-wall? He was staring wildly about
him for some time, then gliding noiselessly down, and has suddenly
disappeared?"

"Where? where?" whispered Caroline, grasping Marion's hand with a look
of wild alarm, and speaking in a low, hoarse tone of extreme terror.
"For your life, Marion, do not stir! Tell me which way he went! He
must not see us. O how on earth has he traced me out!"

"Who?" asked Marion, bewildered and terrified, when she beheld a
degree of frantic alarm depicted on the countenance of her companion,
which seemed almost unaccountable. "Dear Caroline! whom do you fear?"

"A madman!" replied Miss Smythe, in accents of mingled anger and
disgust. "He has haunted me for years! He threatens either to murder
or to marry me; and you may guess which I think the worst! He has even
adopted my name! Did you never hear, Marion, that he actually put his
marriage to me last year in the newspapers! He besets my
footsteps--besieges my dwelling-place, persecutes me with letters,
sends me his picture, follows me to church, throws stones at my
windows in the night, and frightens my very life out, yet the law
leaves me unprotected, because he commits no actual breach of the
peace. It was to avoid him that I begged my aunt to let me live here!
How did he discover my retreat?"

Caroline seemed to have lost all command of herself in the agony of
her fear, and poured out a flood of words in the rapid and subdued
accents of extreme terror, while she retreated into the darkest corner
of the arbor to screen herself from observation, hastily dragging
Marion along with her, and whispering an eager request, if they were
discovered, that she would endeavor herself to get off, and fly
towards the house for assistance. "Meantime I shall engage his
attention; but if he once sees me, all hope of escape on my part would
be vain, while the very endeavor might irritate him! Everything
depends on you, Marion! Be resolute, and lose not a moment, or you may
be too late."

In agonized suspense and apprehension the two friends remained during
several minutes, cowering behind the overhanging branches, and
scarcely venturing to breathe, while Caroline bent her head eagerly
forward to catch the slightest sound, and grasped Marion's arm almost
convulsively, as if to secure her being perfectly immovable; at
length, after some time, she heaved a deep sigh, expressive of relief,
and looked up, saying

"He is surely gone! he must be gone! I never eluded his eye
before!--his sight is almost supernatural; but he must be gone at
last! Let us hurry home!"

"Stop!" whispered Marion, in an under tone, "I heard a rustling close
behind us, among the leaves and branches. Some one certainly
approaches!"

"Fly, then, Marion! all is over, and I must face the danger!" said
Caroline, with sudden energy, while rising and drawing herself up to
her full height, with resolute countenance, though her limbs evidently
trembled beneath her, she walked towards the door, saying, in a loud,
commanding accent, to a tall man, much muffled up in a loose
great-coat, who had now appeared at the door, "Who goes there?
Ernest!!" added she, in tones of remonstrance. "How dare you enter my
presence again! How dare you intrude here!"

"Be true to yourself and me!" replied the stranger, in a voice which
sounded harsh and excited, while the deep, full tones appeared to
Marion as if she had heard them before; but the darkness prevented her
from seeing him distinctly, even if his dress had not been sufficient
to disguise him from the most penetrating eye. "Say what you will, I
know you are glad to meet me," added he, in accents of increasing
wildness. "All that you do is dictated by others; but Caroline, in her
secret heart, loves me! I know that! By your looks, by your voice, by
your manner, it was revealed to me years ago! Yes, you love me, and
cannot deny it! Speak but the word, and we may both be happy,--happier
than the wildest dreams of fancy! No impediment can prevent it! Let
your aunt conceal you where she will, she cannot hide you from me. In
the farthest corner of the earth--in the deepest dungeon that was ever
dug, I shall find you out, and still free you from persecution. She
may do her worst, but love laughs at locksmiths, and I can still
enable you to elude her vigilance. I come now prepared, if you will
but consent to fly with me!--now,--this moment. If not,----"

The madman's voice, which had been loud and vehement, here dropped
into a low, stern, inaudible murmur, and his hand plunged into the
breast of his coat, seemed as if it grasped some weapon there, while
Marion, taking advantage of his pre-occupied attention, darted off
with the speed of thought, and almost as noiselessly fled towards the
house. A loud, angry cry to stop her, mingled with curses and
imprecations, from the madman, while he waved his singularly long arms
menacingly above his head, only accelerated her pace, while he
followed some steps in pursuit; but terror gave wings to her feet, and
rushing into the entrance-hall, she instantly rang the large dinner
bell, and raised an alarm, which assembled the whole household, all of
whom gazed with looks of panic-struck astonishment at Marion's pale
and ghastly countenance.

Not a moment required to be lost in explanation, for Mrs. Penfold
seemed at once to guess the whole nature and extent of Caroline's
danger, the instant her name was mentioned; therefore Marion had but
to point out the direction in which she might be found, when Mrs.
Penfold hastened forward, preceded by several of the more active
servants.

When Marion had rapidly executed some orders committed to her she
quickly returned towards the arbor, but not a trace remained there of
any one. The little table had been upset, several branches torn down
that surrounded the entrance, and the grass beneath was much trampled
and disfigured; but all was silent and deserted. After one hurried
glance of alarm and perplexity, Marion hastened forward to the garden
gate, which she found had been violently burst open, and on emerging
into the high road beyond, she there found Mrs. Penfold and her
servants all crowding round Caroline, who remained in a dead faint on
the ground for nearly half an hour.

A carriage was rapidly disappearing at full speed in the distance, but
already almost too far off to be distinguished; and Marion perceived
the figure of a man lurking behind the hedge close beside her; but
when she made it evident that he was observed, he rushed close up to
her side, saying, in a threatening tone, between his clenched teeth,
"You have provoked a madman!"

Scarcely had Marion time to utter an exclamation of sudden affright,
before he sprung over the hedge, and was seen running across the
neighboring fields, until his figure mingled with the surrounding
gloom, and vanished out of sight.

Mrs. Penfold's chief care, after Caroline's recovery from her alarming
swoon, was earnestly to enjoin that the circumstances of this
adventure should never be mentioned, or so much as remembered by those
who had witnessed them; a story so extraordinary and alarming, being
likely to injure her establishment, besides causing much unnecessary
gossip among the younger pupils; but had Marion ever been disposed to
consign, as desired, t

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