I have heard,


So you've come back, have you?


Friendships will not come by ordering,


All right,


Oh! George, you won't do that?


Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation.


It's the ugliest room I ever saw in my life,


It is not very pretty,


I'll go halves with you in the expense of redoing it,


Wouldn't that be extravagant, papa? The things have not been here quite four years yet.


Well, aunt,


Would you mind shutting the window, my dear? Would you mind shutting the window? I'm so warm that I'm afraid of the draught.


You don't mean to say that you've walked from King Street,


Indeed I do,--every step of the way. Cabs are so ruinous. It's a most unfortunate thing; they always say it's just over the two miles here. I don't believe a word of it, because I'm only a little more than the half-hour walking it; and those men will say anything. But how can I prove it, you know?


I really think it's too far for you to walk when it's so warm.


But what can I do, my dear? I must come, when I've specially come up to London to see you. I shall have a cab back again, because it'll be hotter then, and dear Lady Midlothian has promised to send her carriage at three to take me to the concert. I do so wish you'd go, Alice.


It's out of the question, aunt. The idea of my going in that way at the last moment, without any invitation!


It wouldn't be without an invitation, Alice. The marchioness has said to me over and over again how glad she would be to see you, if I would bring you.


Why doesn't she come and call if she is so anxious to know me?


My dear, you've no right to expect it; you haven't indeed. She never calls even on me.


I know I've no right, and I don't expect it, and I don't want it. But neither has she a right to suppose that, under such circumstances, I shall go to her house. You might as well give it up, aunt. Cart ropes wouldn't drag me there.


I think you are very wrong,--particularly under your present circumstances. A young woman that is going to be married, as you are--


As I am,--perhaps.


That's nonsense, Alice. Of course you are; and for his sake you are bound to cultivate any advantages that naturally belong to you. As to Lady Midlothian or the marchioness coming to call on you here in your father's house, after all that has passed, you really have no right to look for it.


And I don't look for it.


That sort of people are not expected to call. If you'll think of it, how could they do it with all the demands they have on their time?


My dear aunt, I wouldn't interfere with their time for worlds.


Nobody can say of me, I'm sure, that I run after great people or rich people. It does happen that some of the nearest relations I have,--indeed I may say the nearest relations,--are people of high rank; and I do not see that I'm bound to turn away from my own flesh and blood because of that, particularly when they are always so anxious to keep up the connexion.


I was only speaking of myself, aunt. It is very different with you. You have known them all your life.


And how are you to know them if you won't begin? Lady Midlothian said to me only yesterday that she was glad to hear that you were going to be married so respectably, and then--


Upon my word I'm very much obliged to her ladyship. I wonder whether she considered that she married respectably when she took Lord Midlothian?


Alice, don't be uncharitable. Whatever may have been Lady Midlothian's misfortunes no one can say they have resulted from her own fault.


Yes they can, aunt, if she married a man whom she knew to be a scapegrace because he was very rich and an earl.


She was the daughter of a nobleman herself, and only married in her own degree. But I don't want to discuss that. She meant to be good-natured when she mentioned your marriage, and you should take it as it was meant. After all she was only your mother's second cousin--


Dear aunt, I make no claim on her cousinship.


But she admits the claim, and is quite anxious that you should know her. She has been at the trouble to find out everything about Mr. Grey, and told me that nothing could be more satisfactory.


Upon my word I am very much obliged to her.


And when do you go, Alice?


Early in July, I believe. It will be very hot, but Kate must be back by the middle of August.


Oh! Kate is to go with you?


Of course she is. I could not go alone, or with no one but George. Indeed it was Kate who made up the party.


Of course you could not go alone with George,


That is exactly what I say. But, indeed, he is simply going as an escort to me and Kate, as we don't like the rôle of unprotected females. It is very good-natured of him, seeing how much his time is taken up.


I thought he never did anything.


That's because you don't know him, aunt.


No; certainly I don't know him. And has your father been told that he is going?


Of course he has.


And does-- And does Mr. Grey know that he is going?


I might tell you simply that he does, seeing that I wrote to him yesterday, letting him know that such were our arrangements; but I feel that I should not thus answer the question you mean to ask. You want to know whether Mr. Grey will approve of it. As I only wrote yesterday of course I have not heard, and therefore cannot say. But I can say this, aunt, that much as I might regret his disapproval, it would make no change in my plans.


Would it not? Then I must tell you, you are very wrong. It ought to make a change. What! the disapproval of the man you are going to marry make no change in your plans?


Not in that matter. Come, aunt, if we must discuss this matter let us do it at any rate fairly. In an ordinary way, if Mr. Grey had asked me to give up for any reason my trip altogether, I should have given it up certainly, as I would give up any other indifferent project at the request of so dear a friend,--a friend with whom I am so--so--so closely connected. But if he asked me not to travel with my cousin George, I should refuse him absolutely, without a word of parley on the subject, simply because of the nature and closeness of my connection with him. I suppose you understand what I mean, aunt?


I suppose I do. You mean that you would refuse to obey him on the very subject on which he has a right to claim your obedience.


He has no right to claim my obedience on any subject. At present he has no right to my obedience on any subject, but least of all on that. His advice he may give me, but I am quite sure he will not ask for obedience.


And if he advises you you will slight his advice.


If he tells me that I had better not travel with my cousin George I shall certainly not take his advice. Moreover, I should be careful to let him know how much I was offended by any such counsel from him. It would show a littleness on his part, and a suspicion of which I cannot suppose him to be capable.


My dear Alice, I need hardly say that if you had a mother living, or any person with you filling the place of a mother, I should not interfere in this matter.


Of course, Aunt Macleod, if you think I am wrong you have quite a right to say so.


I do think you are wrong,--very wrong, indeed; and if you persist in this I am afraid I must say that I shall think you wicked. Of course Mr. Grey cannot like you to travel with George Vavasor.


And why not, aunt?


Why not, Alice? Surely you do not wish me to say why not.


But I do wish you to say why not. How can I defend myself till the accusation is made?


You are now engaged to marry Mr. Grey, with the consent and approbation of all your friends. Two years ago you had--had--


Had what, aunt? If you mean to say that two years ago I was engaged to my cousin George you are mistaken. Three years ago I told him that under certain conditions I would become engaged to him. But my conditions did not suit him, nor his me, and no engagement was ever made. Mr. Grey knows the history of the whole thing. As far as it was possible I have told him everything that took place.


The fact was, Alice, that George Vavasor's mode of life was such that an engagement with him would have been absolute madness.


Dear aunt, you must excuse me if I say that I cannot discuss George Vavasor's mode of life. If I were thinking of becoming his wife you would have a perfect right to discuss it, because of your constant kindness to me. But as matters are he is simply a cousin; and as I like him and you do not, we had better say nothing about him.


I must say this--that after what has passed, and at the present crisis of your life--


Dear aunt, I'm not in any crisis.


Yes you are, Alice; in the most special crisis of a girl's life. You are still a girl, but you are the promised wife of a very worthy man, who will look to you for all his domestic happiness. George Vavasor has the name, at least, of being very wild.


The worthy man and the wild man must fight it out between them. If I were going away with George by himself, there might be something in what you say.


That would be monstrous.


Monstrous or not, it isn't what I'm about to do. Kate and I have put our purses together, and are going to have an outing for our special fun and gratification. As we should be poor travellers alone, George has promised to go with his sister. Papa knows all about it, and never thought of making any objection.


I can only say again, that I think Mr. Grey will be displeased,--and that he will have very great cause for displeasure. And I think, moreover, that his approbation ought to be your chief study. I believe, my dear, I'll ask you to let Jane get me a cab. I shan't have a bit too much time to dress for the concert. God bless you, my dear. Good-bye! I'll come to-morrow if I can.


He is free to go. If he does not trust me he is quite free to go.


DEAREST ALICE. I am glad you have settled your affairs,--foreign affairs, I mean,--so much to your mind. As to your home affairs they are not, to my thinking, quite so satisfactorily arranged. But as I am a party interested in the latter my opinion may perhaps have an undue bias. Touching the tour, I quite agree with you that you and Kate would have been uncomfortable alone. It's a very fine theory, that of women being able to get along without men as well as with them; but, like other fine theories, it will be found very troublesome by those who first put it in practice. Gloved hands, petticoats, feminine softness, and the general homage paid to beauty, all stand in the way of success. These things may perhaps some day be got rid of, and possibly with advantage; but while young ladies are still encumbered with them a male companion will always be found to be a comfort. I don't quite know whether your cousin George is the best possible knight you might have chosen. I should consider myself to be infinitely preferable, had my going been upon the cards. Were you in danger of meeting Paynim foes, he, no doubt, would kill them off much quicker than I could do, and would be much more serviceable in liberating you from the dungeons of oppressors, or even from stray tigers in the Swiss forests. But I doubt his being punctual with the luggage. He will want you or Kate to keep the accounts, if any are kept. He will be slow in getting you glasses of water at the railway stations, and will always keep you waiting at breakfast. I hold that a man with two ladies on a tour should be an absolute slave to them, or they will not fully enjoy themselves. He should simply be an upper servant, with the privilege of sitting at the same table with his mistresses. I have my doubts as to whether your cousin is fit for the place; but, as to myself, it is just the thing that I was made for. Luckily, however, neither you nor Kate are without wills of your own, and perhaps you may be able to reduce Mr. Vavasor to obedience. As to the home affairs I have very little to say here,--in this letter. I shall of course run up and see you before you start, and shall probably stay a week in town. I know I ought not to do so, as it will be a week of idleness, and yet not a week of happiness. I'd sooner have an hour with you in the country than a whole day in London. And I always feel in town that I've too much to do to allow of my doing anything. If it were sheer idleness I could enjoy it, but it is a feverish idleness, in which one is driven here and there, expecting some gratification which not only never comes, but which never even begins to come. I will, however, undergo a week of it,--say the last seven days of this month, and shall trust to you to recompense me by as much of yourself as your town doings will permit. And now again as to those home affairs. If I say nothing now I believe you will understand why I refrain. You have cunningly just left me to imply, from what you say, that all my arguments have been of no avail; but you do not answer them, or even tell me that you have decided. I shall therefore imply nothing, and still trust to my personal eloquence for success. Or rather not trust,--not trust, but hope. The garden is going on very well. We are rather short of water, and therefore not quite as bright as I had hoped; but we are preparing with untiring industry for future brightness. Your commands have been obeyed in all things, and Morrison always says


The mistress didn't mean this. The mistress did intend that.


God bless the mistress is what I now say, and send her home, to her own home, to her flowers, and her fruit, and her house, and her husband, as soon as may be, with no more of these delays which are to me so grievous, and which seem to me to be so unnecessary. That is my prayer. Yours ever and always. J. G.


I didn't give commands. He asked me how I liked the things, and of course I was obliged to say. I was obliged to seem to care, even if I didn't care.


No; I gave no commands,


Why should he find himself unhappy in London? Why should he pretend to condemn the very place which most men find the fittest for all their energies? Were I a man, no earthly consideration should induce me to live elsewhere. It is odd how we differ in all things. However brilliant might be his own light, he would be contented to hide it under a bushel!


I would come because it's my last day, but really I'm so hurried, and have so many things to do, that I hardly know how to manage it.


It's very kind,


I'm keeping the cab, so I can just stay twenty-five minutes. I've marked the time accurately, but I know the man will swear it's over the half-hour.


You'll have no more trouble about cabs, aunt, when you are back in Cheltenham.


The flies are worse, my dear. I really think they're worse. I pay the bill every month, but they've always one down that I didn't have. It's the regular practice, for I've had them from all the men in the place.


It's hard enough to find honest men anywhere, I suppose.


Or honest women either. What do you think of Mrs. Green wanting to charge me for an extra week, because she says I didn't give her notice till Tuesday morning? I won't pay her, and she may stop my things if she dares. However, it's the last time. I shall never come up to London again, my dear.


Oh, aunt, don't say that!


But I do say it, my dear. What should an old woman like me do, trailing up to town every year, merely because it's what people choose to call the season.


To see your friends, of course. Age doesn't matter when a person's health is so good as yours.


If you knew what I suffer from lumbago,--though I must say coming to London always does cure that for the time. But as for friends--! Well, I suppose one has no right to complain when one gets to be as old as I am; but I declare I believe that those I love best would sooner be without me than with me.


Do you mean me, aunt?


No, my dear, I don't mean you. Of course my life would have been very different if you could have consented to remain with me till you were married. But I didn't mean you. I don't know that I meant any one. You shouldn't mind what an old woman like me says.


You're a little melancholy because you're going away.


No, indeed. I don't know why I stayed the last week. I did say to Lady Midlothian that I thought I should go on the 20th; and, though I know that she knew that I really didn't go, she has not once sent to me since. To be sure they've been out every night; but I thought she might have asked me to come and lunch. It's so very lonely dining by myself in lodgings in London.


And yet you never will come and dine with me.


No, my dear; no. But we won't talk about that. I've just one word more to say. Let me see. I've just six minutes to stay. I've made up my mind that I'll never come up to town again,--except for one thing.


And what's that, aunt?


I'll come for your marriage, my dear. I do hope you will not keep me long waiting.


Ah! I can't make any promise. There's no knowing when that may be.


And why should there be no knowing? I always think that when a girl is once engaged the sooner she's married the better. There may be reasons for delay on the gentleman's part.


There very often are, you know,


But, Alice, you don't mean to say that Mr. Grey is putting it off?


No, aunt. Mr. Grey is not putting it off. It has been left to me to fix the time.


And why don't you fix it?


It is such a serious thing! After all it is not more than four months yet since I--I accepted him. I don't know that there has been any delay.


But you might fix the time now, if he wishes it.


Well, perhaps I shall,--some day, aunt. I'm going to think about it, and you mustn't drive me.


But you should have some one to advise you, Alice.


Ah! that's just it. People always do seem to think it so terrible that a girl should have her own way in anything. She mustn't like any one at first; and then, when she does like some one, she must marry him directly she's bidden. I haven't much of my own way at present; but you see, when I'm married I shan't have it at all. You can't wonder that I shouldn't be in a hurry.


I am not advocating anything like hurry, my dear. But, goodness gracious me! I've been here twenty-eight minutes, and that horrid man will impose upon me. Good-bye; God bless you! Mind you write.


What an auspicious omen for the future nuptials! Uncle John dines at home, and Mr. Grey joins in the dissipation of a dinner-party. We shall all be changed soon, I suppose, and George and I will take to keeping a little cottage in the country.


Kate. I think you are about the most unjust person I ever met. I would forgive your raillery, however painful it might be, if it were only fair.


And to whom is it unfair on the present occasion;--to your father?


It was not intended for him.


To yourself?


I care nothing as to myself; you know that very well.


Then it must have been unfair to Mr. Grey.


Yes; it was Mr. Grey whom you meant to attack. If I can forgive him for not caring for society, surely you might do so.


Exactly; but that's just what you can't do, my dear. You don't forgive him. If you did you might be quite sure that I should say nothing. And if you choose to bid me hold my tongue I will say nothing. But when you tell me all your own thoughts about this thing you can hardly expect but that I should let you know mine in return. I'm not particular; and if you are ready for a little good, wholesome, useful hypocrisy, I won't balk you. I mayn't be quite so dishonest as you call me, but I'm not so wedded to truth but what I can look, and act, and speak a few falsehoods if you wish it. Only let us understand each other.


You know I wish for no falsehood, Kate.


I know it's very hard to understand what you do wish. I know that for the last year or two I have been trying to find out your wishes, and, upon my word, my success has been very indifferent. I suppose you wish to marry Mr. Grey, but I'm by no means certain. I suppose the last thing on earth you'd wish would be to marry George?


The very last. You're right there at any rate.


Alice--! sometimes you drive me too hard; you do, indeed. You make me doubt whether I hate or love you most. Knowing what my feelings are about George, I cannot understand how you can bring yourself to speak of him to me with such contempt!


He has plenty to say for himself,


Oh yes; he can talk.


And he doesn't talk like a prig either, which was what I expected. He's uncommonly handsome.


I thought men never saw that in each other. I never see it in any man.


I see it in every animal--in men, women, horses, dogs, and even pigs. I like to look on handsome things. I think people always do who are ugly themselves.


And so you're going into raptures in favour of John Grey.


No, I'm not. I very seldom go into raptures about anything. But he talks in the way I like a man to talk. How he bowled my uncle over about those actors; and yet if my uncle knows anything about anything it is about the stage twenty years ago.


Well, Alice, and about that question of home affairs?


Let us finish off the foreign affairs first.


We have finished them; haven't we?


Finished them! why we haven't started yet.


No; you haven't started. But we've had the discussion. Is there any reason why you'd rather not have this thing settled.


No; no special reason.


Then why not let it be fixed? Do you fear coming to me as my wife?


No.


I cannot think that you repent your goodness to me.


No; I don't repent it;--what you call my goodness? I love you too entirely for that.


My darling! And if you love me--


I do love you.


Then why should you not wish to come to me?


I do wish it. I think I wish it.


But, Alice, you must have wished it altogether when you consented to be my wife.


A person may wish for a thing altogether, and yet not wish for it instantly.


Instantly! Come; I have not been hard on you. This is still June. Will you say the middle of September, and we shall still be in time for warm pleasant days among the lakes? Is that asking for too much?


It is not asking for anything.


Nay, but it is, love. Grant it, and I will swear that you have granted me everything.


John, do not press me about this till I return.


But then you will say the time is short. It would be short then.


I cannot answer you now;--indeed, I cannot. That is I cannot answer in the affirmative. It is such a solemn thing.


Will it ever be less solemn, dearest?


Never, I hope never.


He shall have the estate for his life. I don't think I have a right to leave it away from him. It never has been left away from the heir. But I'll tie it up so that he shan't cut a tree on it.


Where on earth does your nephew get his money?


Upon my word I don't know. He doesn't get it from me, and I'm sure he doesn't get it from my father.


It was grand of him, wasn't it?


It was very spirited. If you knew all, you would say so. They could get no one else to stand but that Mr. Travers, and he wouldn't come forward, unless they would guarantee all his expenses. I hope it didn't cost George much,


It did, though; nearly all he had got. But what matters? Money's nothing to him, except for its uses. My own little mite is my own now, and he shall have every farthing of it for the next election, even though I should go out as a housemaid the next day.


I grieved for her, greatly.


I'm sure you did, George.


Yes, I did;--for her, herself. Of course the world has given me credit for lamenting the loss of her money. But the truth is, that as regards both herself and her money, it is much better for me that we were never married.


Do you mean even though she should have lived?


Yes;--even had she lived.


And why so? If you liked her, her money was surely no drawback.


No; not if I had liked her.


And did you not like her?


No.


Oh, George!


I did not love her as a man should love his wife, if you mean that. As for my liking her, I did like her. I liked her very much.


But you would have loved her?


I don't know. I don't find that task of loving so very easy. It might have been that I should have learned to hate her.


If so, it is better for you, and better for her, that she has gone.


It is better. I am sure of it. And yet I grieve for her, and in thinking of her I almost feel as though I were guilty of her death.


But she never suspected that you did not love her?


Oh no. But she was not given to think much of such things. She took all that for granted. Poor girl! she is at rest now, and her money has gone, where it should go, among her own relatives.


Yes; with such feelings as yours are about her, her money would have been a burden to you.


I would not have taken it. I hope, at least, that I would not have taken it. Money is a sore temptation, especially to a poor man like me. It is well for me that the trial did not come in my way.


But you are not such a very poor man now, are you, George? I thought your business was a good one.


It is, and I have no right to be a poor man. But a man will be poor who does such mad things as I do. I had three or four thousand pounds clear, and I spent every shilling of it on the Chelsea election. Goodness knows whether I shall have a shilling at all when another chance comes round; but if I have I shall certainly spend it, and if I have not, I shall go in debt wherever I can raise a hundred pounds.


I hope you will be successful at last.


I feel sure that I shall. But, in the mean time, I cannot but know that my career is perfectly reckless. No woman ought to join her lot to mine unless she has within her courage to be as reckless as I am. You know what men do when they toss up for shillings?


Yes, I suppose I do.


I am tossing up every day of my life for every shilling that I have.


Do you mean that you're--gambling?


No. I have given that up altogether. I used to gamble, but I never do that now, and never shall again. What I mean is this,--that I hold myself in readiness to risk everything at any moment, in order to gain any object that may serve my turn. I am always ready to lead a forlorn hope. That's what I mean by tossing up every day for every shilling that I have.


He looked at me like the devil himself--making the hole in his face gape at me,


I'll endeavour to get the cold water for you, but as to the breakfasts, I can only hope you won't put me to severe trials by any very early hours. When people go out for pleasure it should be pleasure.


George, I wonder what your wishes really are about Alice?


That she shouldn't want her breakfast too early while we are away.


That means that I'm to hold my tongue, of course.


No, it doesn't.


Then it means that you intend to hold yours.


No; not that either.


Then what does it mean?


That I have no fixed wishes on the subject. Of course she'll marry this man John Grey, and then no one will hear another word about her.


She will no doubt, if you don't interfere. Probably she will whether you interfere or not. But if you wish to interfere--


She's got four hundred a year, and is not so good-looking as she was.


Yes; she has got four hundred a year, and she is more handsome now than ever she was. I know that you think so;--and that you love her and love no one else--unless you have a sneaking fondness for me.


I'll leave you to judge of that last.


And as for me,--I only love two people in the world; her and you. If ever you mean to try, you should try now.


What fine fellows those Alpine club men think themselves, and how thoroughly they despise the sort of enjoyment I get from mountains. But they're mistaken.


I don't see why either need be mistaken,


But they are mistaken. They rob the mountains of their poetry, which is or should be their greatest charm. Mont Blanc can have no mystery for a man who has been up it half a dozen times. It's like getting behind the scenes at a ballet, or making a conjuror explain his tricks.


But is the exercise nothing?


Yes; the exercise is very fine;--but that avoids the question.


And they all botanize,


I don't believe it. I believe that the most of them simply walk up the mountain and down again. But if they did, that avoids the question also. The poetry and mystery of the mountains are lost to those who make themselves familiar with their details, not the less because such familiarity may have useful results. In this world things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares. Look in there, through that valley, where you just see the distant little peak at the end. Are you not dreaming of the unknown beautiful world that exists up there;--beautiful, as heaven is beautiful, because you know nothing of the reality? If you make your way up there and back to-morrow, and find out all about it, do you mean to say that it will be as beautiful to you when you come back?


Yes;--I think it would,


Then you've no poetry in you. Now I'm made up of poetry.


It's nearly all over,


And I do think it has been a success. Always excepting about the money. I'm ruined for ever.


I'll make your money all straight,


Indeed you'll do nothing of the kind. I'm ruined, but you are ruineder. But what signifies? It is such a great thing ever to have had six weeks' happiness, that the ruin is, in point of fact, a good speculation. What do you say, Alice? Won't you vote, too, that we've done it well?


I think we've done it very well. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly.


That's good of you, Alice. Is it not, George? I like a person who will give a hearty meed of approbation.


But I am giving the meed of approbation to myself.


I like a person even to do that heartily. Not that George and I are thankful for the compliment. We are prepared to admit that we owe almost everything to you,--are we not, George?


I'm not; by any means,


Well, I am, and I expect to have something pretty said to me in return. Have I been cross once, Alice?


No; I don't think you have. You are never cross, though you are often ferocious.


But I haven't been once ferocious,--nor has George.


He would have been the most ungrateful man alive if he had. We've done nothing since we've started but realize from him that picture in 'Punch' of the young gentleman at Jeddo who had a dozen ladies to wait upon him.


And now he has got to go home to his lodgings, and wait upon himself again. Poor fellow! I do pity you, George.


No, you don't;--nor does Alice. I believe girls always think that a bachelor in London has the happiest of all lives. It's because they think so that they generally want to put an end to the man's condition.


It's envy that makes us want to get married,--not love,


It's the devil in some shape, as often as not. With a man, marriage always seems to him to be an evil at the instant.


Not always,


Almost always;--but he does it, as he takes physic, because something worse will come if he don't. A man never likes having his tooth pulled out, but all men do have their teeth pulled out,--and they who delay it too long suffer the very mischief.


I do like George's philosophy, it is so sharp, and has such a pleasant acid taste about it; and then we all know that it means nothing. Alice, I'm going up-stairs to begin the final packing.


I'll come with you, dear.


No, don't. To tell the truth I'm only going into that man's room because he won't put up a single thing of his own decently. We'll do ours, of course, when we go up to bed. Whatever you disarrange to-night, Master George, you must rearrange for yourself to-morrow morning, for I promise I won't go into your room at five o'clock.


How I do hate that early work,


I'll be down again very soon. Then we'll take one turn on the bridge and go to bed.


When are you to be married, Alice?


Oh, George! You ask me a question as though you were putting a pistol to my ear.


I'm sorry the question was so unpleasant.


I didn't say that it was unpleasant; but you asked it so suddenly! The truth is, I didn't expect you to speak at all just then. I suppose I was thinking of something.


But if it be not unpleasant,--when are you to be married?


I do not know. It is not fixed.


But about when, I mean? This summer?


Certainly not this summer, for the summer will be over when we reach home.


This winter? Next spring? Next year?--or in ten years' time?


Before the expiration of the ten years, I suppose. Anything more exact than that I can't say.


I suppose you like it?


What, being married? You see I've never tried yet.


The idea of it,--the anticipation. You look forward with satisfaction to the kind of life you will lead at Nethercoats? Don't suppose I am saying anything against it, for I have no conception what sort of a place Nethercoats is. On the whole I don't know that there is any kind of life better than that of an English country gentleman in his own place;--that is, if he can keep it up, and not live as the old squire does, in a state of chronic poverty.


Mr. Grey's place doesn't entitle him to be called a country gentleman.


But you like the prospect of it?


Oh, George, how you do cross-question one! Of course I like it, or I shouldn't have accepted it.


That does not follow. But I quite acknowledge that I have no right to cross-question you. If I ever had such right on the score of cousinship, I have lost it on the score of--; but we won't mind that, will we, Alice? Will we, Alice?


Will we what?


Recur to the old days.


Why should we recur to them? They are passed, and as we are again friends and dear cousins the sting of them is gone.


Ah, yes! The sting of them is gone. It is for that reason, because it is so, that we may at last recur to them without danger. If we regret nothing,--if neither of us has anything to regret, why not recur to them, and talk of them freely?


No, George; that would not do.


By heavens, no! It would drive me mad; and if I know aught of you, it would hardly leave you as calm as you are at present.


As I would wish to be left calm--


Would you? Then I suppose I ought to hold my tongue. But, Alice, I shall never have the power of speaking to you again as I speak now. Since we have been out together, we have been dear friends; is it not so?


And shall we not always be dear friends?


No, certainly not. How will it be possible? Think of it. How can I really be your friend when you are the mistress of that man's house in Cambridgeshire?


George!


I mean nothing disrespectful. I truly beg your pardon if it has seemed so. Let me say that gentleman's house;--for he is a gentleman.


That he certainly is.


You could not have accepted him were he not so. But how can I be your friend when you are his wife? I may still call you cousin Alice, and pat your children on the head if I chance to see them; and shall stop in the streets and shake hands with him if I meet him;--that is if my untoward fate does not induce him to cut my acquaintance;--but as for friendship, that will be over when you and I shall have parted next Thursday evening at London Bridge.


Oh, George, don't say so!


But I do.


And why on Thursday? Do you mean that you won't come to Queen Anne Street any more?


Yes, that is what I do mean. This trip of ours has been very successful, Kate says. Perhaps Kate knows nothing about it.


It has been very pleasant,--at least to me.


And the pleasure has had no drawback?


None to me.


It has been very pleasant to me, also;--but the pleasure has had its alloy. Alice, I have nothing to ask from you,--nothing.


Anything that you should ask, I would do for you.


I have nothing to ask;--nothing. But I have one word to say.


George, do not say it. Let me go up-stairs. Let me go to Kate.


Certainly; if you wish it you shall go. Certainly you shall go to Kate, if you refuse to hear me. But after all that has passed between us, after these six weeks of intimate companionship, I think you ought to listen to me. I tell you that I have nothing to ask. I am not going to make love to you. I am not going to make love to you. As for making love, as the word goes, that must be over between you and me. It has been made and marred, and cannot be remade. It may exist, or it may have been expelled; but where it does not exist, it will never be brought back again.


It should not be spoken of between you and me.


So, no doubt, any proper-going duenna would say, and so, too, little children should be told; but between you and me there can be no necessity for falsehood. We have grown beyond our sugar-toothed ages, and are now men and women. I perfectly understood your breaking away from me. I understood you, and in spite of my sorrow knew that you were right. I am not going to accuse or to defend myself; but I knew that you were right.


Then let there be no more about it.


Yes; there must be more about it. I did not understand you when you accepted Mr. Grey. Against him I have not a whisper to make. He may be perfect for aught I know. But, knowing you as I thought I did, I could not understand your loving such a man as him. It was as though one who had lived on brandy should take himself suddenly to a milk diet,--and enjoy the change! A milk diet is no doubt the best. But men who have lived on brandy can't make those changes very suddenly. They perish in the attempt.


Not always, George.


It may be done with months of agony;--but there was no such agony with you.


Who can tell?


But you will tell me the cure was made. I thought so, and therefore thought that I should find you changed. I thought that you, who had been all fire, would now have turned yourself into soft-flowing milk and honey, and have become fit for the life in store for you. With such a one I might have travelled from Moscow to Malta without danger. The woman fit to be John Grey's wife would certainly do me no harm,--could not touch my happiness. I might have loved her once,--might still love the memory of what she had been; but her, in her new form, after her new birth,--such a one as that, Alice, could be nothing to me. Don't mistake me. I have enough of wisdom in me to know how much better, ay, and happier a woman she might be. It was not that I thought you had descended in the scale; but I gave you credit for virtues which you have not acquired. Alice, that wholesome diet of which I spoke is not your diet. You would starve on it, and perish.


I have learned this since we have been again together, Alice; and finding you, not the angel I had supposed, finding you to be the same woman I had once loved,--the safety that I anticipated has not fallen to my lot. That's all. Here's Kate, and now we'll go for our walk.


George, will you tell me whether you have been preparing all your things for an open sale by auction? Would you believe it? he had three razors laid out on his table--


A man must shave,--even at Basle.


But not with three razors at once; and three hair-brushes, and half a dozen toothbrushes, and a small collection of combs, and four or five little glass bottles, looking as though they contained poison,--all with silver tops. I can only suppose you desired to startle the weak mind of the chambermaid. I have put them all up; but remember this, if they are taken out again you are responsible. And I will not put up your boots, George. What can you have wanted with three pairs of boots at Basle?


When you have completed the list of my wardrobe we'll go out upon the bridge. That is, if Alice likes it.


Oh, yes; I shall like it.


Come along then,


Do you know, I have a very great mind to run away.


Where do you want to run to?


Well;--that wouldn't much signify. Perhaps I'd go to the little inn at Handek. It's a lonely place, where nobody would hear of me,--and I should have the waterfall. I'm afraid they'd want to have their bill paid. That would be the worst of it.


But why run away just now?


I won't, because you wouldn't like going home with George alone,--and I suppose he'd be bound to look after me, as he's doing now. I wonder what he thinks of having to walk over the bridge after us girls. I suppose he'd be in that place down there drinking beer, if we weren't here.


If he wanted to go, I dare say he would, in spite of us.


That's ungrateful of you, for I'm sure we've never been kept in a moment by his failing us. But as I was saying, I do dread going home. You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I'm going--to Aunt Greenow. It's your own choice. No, it's not. I haven't any choice in the matter. Of course I might refuse to speak to Aunt Greenow, and nobody could make me;--but practically I haven't any choice in the matter. Fancy a month at Yarmouth with no companion but such a woman as that!


I shouldn't mind it. Aunt Greenow always seems to me to be a very good sort of woman.


She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she's of a bad sort. You've never heard her talk about her husband?


No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to Queen Anne Street, but that wasn't unnatural.


He was thirty years older than herself.


But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are assumed, what of that? What's a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five, and was very rich. According to all accounts she made him a very good wife, and now that she's got all his money, you wouldn't have her go about laughing within three months of his death.


No; I wouldn't have her laugh; but neither would I have her cry. And she's quite right to wear weeds; but she needn't be so very outrageous in the depth of her hems, or so very careful that her caps are becoming. Her eyes will be worn out by their double service. They are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready every minute with a full battery of execution for any man that she sees.


Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?


Just because she's got forty thousand pounds. If Mr. Greenow had left her with a bare maintenance I don't suppose I should ever have held out my hand to her.


Then you're as bad as she is.


Quite as bad;--and that's what makes me want to run away. But it isn't my own fault altogether. It's the fault of the world at large. Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When she proposed to take me to Yarmouth, wasn't it natural that the squire should ask me to go? When I told George, wasn't it natural that he should say, 'Oh, go by all means. She's got forty thousand pounds!' One can't pretend to be wiser or better than one's relatives. And after all what can I expect from her money?


Nothing, I should say.


Not a halfpenny. I'm nearly thirty and she's only forty, and of course she'll marry again. I will say of myself, too, that no person living cares less for money.


I should think no one.


Yet one sticks to one's rich relatives. It's the way of the world. But shall I tell you, Alice, why I do stick to her? Perhaps you'll think the object as mean as though I wanted her money myself.


Why is it?


Because it is on the cards that she may help George in his career. I do not want money, but he may. And for such purposes as his, I think it fair that all the family should contribute. I feel sure that he would make a name for himself in Parliament; and if I had my way I would spend every shilling of Vavasor money in putting him there. When I told the squire so I thought he would have eaten me. I really did think he would have turned me out of the house.


And serve you right too after what had happened.


I didn't care. Let him turn me out. I was determined he should know what I thought. He swore at me; and then he was so unhappy at what he had done that he came and kissed me that night in my bedroom, and gave me a ten-pound note. What do you think I did with it? I sent it as a contribution to the next election and George has it now locked up in a box. Don't you tell him that I told you. Come here, George. Wouldn't you like to be swimming down there as those boys were doing when we went out into the balcony? The water looks so enticing.


I can't say I should;--unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming into the next world.


I should so like to feel myself going with the stream,


I can't fancy anything else,


It would be so pleasant to feel the water gliding along one's limbs, and to be carried away headlong,--knowing that you were on the direct road to Rotterdam.


And so arrive there without your clothes,


They would be brought after in a boat. Didn't you see that those boys had a boat with them? But if I lived here, I'd never do it except by moonlight. The water looks so clear and bright now, and the rushing sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won't be anything like that I suppose.


You are cold. No indeed.


If you are let us go in. I thought you shivered with the night air.


It wasn't that. I was thinking of something. Don't you ever think of things that make you shiver?


Indeed I do, very often;--so often that I have to do my shiverings inwardly. Otherwise people would think I had the palsy.


I don't mean things of moment,


It's not because you have committed any murder then.


No; but it's my conscience all the same, I suppose.


Ah! I'm not so good as you. I doubt it's not my conscience at all. When I think of a chance I've let go by, as I have thousands, then it is that I shiver. But, as I tell you, I shiver inwardly. I've been in one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I let go by. Come, we'll go in. We've to be up at five o'clock, and now it's eleven. I'll do the rest of my shivering in bed.


Are you tired of being out?


Not tired of being out, but George reminds me that we have to be up at five.


I wish George would hold his tongue. We can't come to the bridge at Basle every night in our lives. If one found oneself at the top of Sinai I'm afraid the first feeling would be one of fear lest one wouldn't be down in time to dress for dinner. Are you aware, George, that the king of rivers is running beneath your feet, and that the moon is shining with a brilliance you never see at home?


I'll stay here all night if you'll put off going to-morrow,


Our money wouldn't hold out,


Don't talk about Sinai any more after that, but let's go in to bed. My shivering fit has to come yet,


If you'll take my advice, you'll ask her in plain words to give you another chance. Do it to-morrow at Strasbourg; you'll never have a better opportunity.


And bid her throw John Grey over!


Don't say anything about John Grey; leave her to settle that matter with herself. Believe me that she has quite courage enough to dispose of John Grey, if she has courage enough to accept your offer.


Kate, you women never understand each other. If I were to do that, all her most powerful feelings would be arrayed in arms against me. I must leave her to find out first that she wishes to be rid of her engagement.


She has found that out long ago. Do you think I don't know what she wishes? But if you can't bring yourself to speak to her, she'll marry him in spite of her wishes.


Bring myself! I've never been very slow in bringing myself to speak to any one when there was need. It isn't very pleasant sometimes, but I do it, if I find occasion.


But surely it must be pleasant with her. You must be glad to find that she still loves you. You still love her, I suppose?


Upon my word I don't know.


Don't provoke me, George. I'm moving heaven and earth to bring you two together; but if I didn't think you loved her, I'd go to her at once and bid her never see you again.


Upon my word, Kate, I sometimes think it would be better if you'd leave heaven and earth alone.


Then I will. But of all human beings, surely you're the most ungrateful.


Why shouldn't she marry John Grey if she likes him?


But she doesn't like him. And I hate him. I hate the sound of his voice, and the turn of his eye, and that slow, steady movement of his,--as though he was always bethinking himself that he wouldn't wear out his clothes.


I don't see that your hating him ought to have anything to do with it.


If you're going to preach morals, I'll leave you. It's the darling wish of my heart that she should be your wife. If you ever loved anybody,--and I sometimes doubt whether you ever did,--but if you did, you loved her.


Did and do are different things.


Very well, George; then I have done. It has been the same in every twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me.


Upon my word, Kate, I think you'd better go to bed.


But not till I've told her everything. I won't leave her to be deceived and ill-used again.


Who is ill-using her now? Is it not the worst of ill-usage, trying to separate her from that man?


No;--if I thought so, I would have no hand in doing it. She would be miserable with him, and make him miserable as well. She does not really love him. He loves her, but I've nothing to do with that. It's nothing to me if he breaks his heart.


I shall break mine if you don't let me go to bed.


Why, you lazy creature. I declare you haven't touched a thing.


You said we'd do it together.


But he has kept me. Oh, what a man he is! If he ever does get married, what will his wife do with him?


I don't think he ever will,


Don't you? I dare say you understand him better than I do. Sometimes I think that the only thing wanting to make him thoroughly good, is a wife. But it isn't every woman that would do for him. And the woman who marries him should have high courage. There are moments with him when he is very wild; but he never is cruel and never hard. Is Mr. Grey ever hard?


Never; nor yet wild.


Oh, certainly not that. I'm quite sure he's never wild.


When you say that, Kate, I know that you mean to abuse him.


No; upon my word. What's the good of abusing him to you? I like a man to be wild,--wild in my sense. You knew that before.


I wonder whether you'd like a wild man for yourself?


Ah! that's a question I've never asked myself. I've been often curious to consider what sort of husband would suit you, but I've had very few thoughts about a husband for myself. The truth is, I'm married to George. Ever since--


Ever since what?


Since you and he were parted, I've had nothing to do in life but to stick to him. And I shall do so to the end,--unless one thing should happen.


And what's that?


Unless you should become his wife after all. He will never marry anybody else.


Kate, you shouldn't allude to such a thing now. You know that it's impossible.


Well, perhaps so. As far as I'm concerned, it is all the better for me. If George ever married, I should have nothing to do in the world;--literally nothing--nothing--nothing--nothing!


Kate, don't talk in that way,


Go away. Go, Alice; you and I must part. I cannot bear it any longer. You must know it all. When you are married to John Grey, our friendship must be over. If you became George's wife I should become nobody. I've nothing else in the world. You and he would be so all-sufficient for each other, that I should drop away from you like an old garment. But I'd give up all, everything, every hope I have, to see you become George's wife. I know myself not to be good. I know myself to be very bad, and yet I care nothing for myself. Don't Alice, don't; I don't want your caresses. Caress him, and I'll kneel at your feet and cover them with kisses.


Kate, you shouldn't speak in that way.


Of course I shouldn't,--but I do.


You, who know everything, must know that I cannot marry your brother,--even if he wished it.


He does wish it.


Not though I were under no other engagement.


And why not? What is there to separate you from George now, but that unfortunate affair, that will end in the misery of you all. Do you think I can't see? Don't I know which of the two men you like best?


You are making me sorry, Kate, that I have ventured to come here in your brother's company. It is not only unkind of you to talk to me in this way, but worse than that--it is indelicate.


Oh, indelicate! How I do hate that word. If any word in the language reminds me of a whited sepulchre it is that;--all clean and polished outside with filth and rottenness within. Are your thoughts delicate? that's the thing. You are engaged to marry John Grey. That may be delicate enough if you love him truly, and feel yourself fitted to be his wife; but it's about the most indelicate thing you can do, if you love any one better than him. Delicacy with many women is like their cleanliness. Nothing can be nicer than the whole outside get-up, but you wouldn't wish to answer for anything beneath.


If you think ill of me like that--


No; I don't think ill of you. How can I think ill of you when I know that all your difficulties have come from him? It hasn't been your fault; it has been his throughout. It is he who has driven you to sacrifice yourself on this altar. If we can, both of us, manage to lay aside all delicacy and pretence, and dare to speak the truth, we shall acknowledge that it is so. Had Mr. Grey come to you while things were smooth between you and George, would you have thought it possible that he could be George's rival in your estimation? It is Hyperion to Satyr.


And which is the Satyr?


I'll leave your heart to tell you. You know what is the darling wish of my heart. But, Alice, if I thought that Mr. Grey was to you Hyperion,--if I thought that you could marry him with that sort of worshipping, idolatrous love which makes a girl proud as well as happy in her marriage, I wouldn't raise a little finger to prevent it.


If you are tired, dear, we'll put it off,


Not for worlds,


For half a word we'll do it. I'll slip out to George and tell him, and there's nothing he'd like so much.


Don't speak to me. I shall only yawn in your face.


I'm my aunt's, body and soul, for the next six weeks. And she is exigeant in a manner I can't at all explain to you. You mustn't be surprised if I don't even write a line. I've escaped by stealth now. She went up-stairs to try on some new weeds for the seaside, and then I bolted.


Why not go to Yarmouth with her for a month? Of course it will be a bore. But an aunt with forty thousand pounds has a right to claim attention.


Your aunt Arabella has shown herself to be a very sensible woman, much more sensible than anybody thought her before her marriage. Of course you should go with her if she asks you.


Omnibus;--no, indeed. Jeannette, get me a fly.


The large house in Montpelier Parade,


They is all large, ma'am,


The largest,


They're much of a muchness,


Then Mrs. Jones's,


I know Mrs. Jones's well,


Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man! she didn't see why people should be stuffy when they went to the seaside;--not if they had means to make themselves comfortable. Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!


I wish I had. I was unfortunately away when he went to Vavasor Hall.


Ah, yes; but it was at home, in the domestic circle, that Greenow should have been seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman, Kate, while that lasted.


Dinner, ma'am,


Jeannette, I told you always to say that dinner was served.


Dinner's served then,


Come, Kate. I've but little appetite myself, but there's no reason you shouldn't eat your dinner. I specially wrote to Mrs. Jones to have some sweetbread. I do hope she's got a decent cook. It's very little I eat myself, but I do like to see things nice.


Peace be to his manes!


He is left her uncommon well off, I suppose,


You may say that, ma'am. It's more nor a hundred thousand of pounds!


No!


Pounds of sterling, ma'am! Indeed it is;--to my knowledge.


Why don't she have a carriage?


So she do;--but a lady can't bring her carriage down to the sea when she's only just buried her husband as one may say. What'd folks say if they saw her in her own carriage? But it ain't because she can't afford it, Mrs. Jones. And now we're talking of it you must order a fly for church to-morrow, that'll look private, you know. She said I was to get a man that had a livery coat and gloves.


I need hardly say that in my present condition I care nothing for these things. Of course I would sooner be alone. But, my dear Kate, I know what I owe to you. My dear, in this matter you must let me do what I know to be right. I should consider myself to be very selfish if I allowed my grief to interfere with your amusements.


But, aunt, I don't care for such amusements.


That's nonsense, my dear. You ought to care for them. How are you to settle yourself in life if you don't care for them?


My dear aunt, I am settled.


Settled! But that's nonsense. Of course you're not settled; and how are you to be, if I allow you to shut yourself up in such a place as this,--just where a girl has a chance? No, my dear; I know very well what I owe to you, and I shall do my duty. As I said before, society can have no charms now for such a one as I am. All that social intercourse could ever do for me lies buried in my darling's grave. My heart is desolate, and must remain so. But I'm not going to immolate you on the altars of my grief. I shall force myself to go out for your sake, Kate.


But, dear aunt, the world will think it so odd, just at present.


I don't care twopence for the world. What can the world do to me? I'm not dependent on the world,--thanks to the care of that sainted lamb. I can hold my own; and as long as I can do that the world won't hurt me. No, Kate, if I think a thing's right I shall do it. I mean to make the place pleasant for you if I can, and the world may object if it likes.


Upon my word then she is really handsome. My dear aunt, how you did snub that Captain Bellfield!


Captain Bellfield, indeed! I don't believe he's a captain at all. At any rate he has sold out, and the tradesmen have had a scramble for the money. He was only a lieutenant when the 97th were in Manchester, and I'm sure he's never had a shilling to purchase since that.


But everybody here seems to know him.


Perhaps they do not know so much of him as I do. The idea of his having the impudence to tell me I was looking very well! Nothing can be so mean as men who go about in that way when they haven't money enough in their pockets to pay their washerwomen.


But how do you know, aunt, that Captain Bellfield hasn't paid his washerwoman?


I know more than you think, my dear. It's my business. How could I tell whose attentions you should receive and whose you shouldn't, if I didn't inquire into these things?


I declare, Kate, I don't understand you. I like the morning for contemplation. When a woman has gone through all that I have suffered she has a great deal to think of.


And it is so much more comfortable to be a-thinking when one's in bed,


Child, hold your tongue,


Yes, ma'am,


What don't you understand, aunt?


You only danced twice last night, and once you stood up with Captain Bellfield.


On purpose to ask after that poor woman who washes his clothes without getting paid for it.


Nonsense, Kate; you didn't ask him anything of the kind, I'm sure. It's very provoking. It is indeed.


But what harm can Captain Bellfield do me?


What good can he do you? That's the question. You see, my dear, years will go by. I don't mean to say you ain't quite as young as ever you were, and nothing can be nicer and fresher than you are;--especially since you took to bathing.


Oh, aunt, don't!


My dear, the truth must be spoken. I declare I don't think I ever saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to think about getting married if you don't do it now?


I shall never begin to think about it, till I buy my wedding clothes.


That's nonsense,--sheer nonsense. How are you to get wedding clothes if you have never thought about getting a husband? Didn't I see Mr. Cheesacre ask you for a dance last night?


Yes, he did; while you were talking to Captain Bellfield yourself, aunt.


Captain Bellfield can't hurt me, my dear. And why didn't you dance with Mr. Cheesacre?


He's a fat Norfolk farmer, with not an idea beyond the virtues of stall-feeding.


My dear, every acre of it is his own land,--every acre! And he bought another farm for thirteen thousand pounds only last autumn. They're better than the squires,--some of those gentlemen farmers; they are indeed. And of all men in the world they're the easiest managed.


That's a recommendation, no doubt.


Of course it is;--a great recommendation. He's to take us to the picnic to-morrow, and I do hope you'll manage to let him sit beside you. It'll be the place of honour, because he gives all the wine. He's picked up with that man Bellfield, and he's to be there; but if you allow your name to be once mixed up with his, it will be all over with you as far as Yarmouth is concerned.


I don't at all want to be mixed up with Captain Bellfield, as you call it,


Dance on the sand,


and yet no footing seen.


I had Grimsby with me the other day,--the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwick, you know. Blessed if he didn't stake my bay mare. But what matters? I mounted him again the next day just the same.


It wouldn't do for me, to be putting myself forward, as if I were giving a party myself, or anything of that sort;--would it now?


Well, perhaps not. But you might come with us.


So I will, Mr. Cheesacre, for that dear girl's sake. I should never forgive myself if I debarred her from all the pleasures of youth, because of my sorrows. I need hardly say that at such a time as this nothing of that sort can give me any pleasure.


I suppose not,


Quite out of the question. For though as regards age I might dance on the sands as merrily as the best of them--


That I'm sure you could, Mrs. Greenow.


How's a woman to enjoy herself if her heart lies buried?


But it won't be so always, Mrs. Greenow.


But as I was saying, --if you and I do it between us won't that be the surest way of having it come off nicely? Exactly so;--I'll do the meat and pastry and fruit, and you shall do the boats and the wine.


And the music, and the expenses at the place.


I'll go halves in all that if you like. And, Mr. Cheesacre. I did mean to send the music; I did, indeed.


I couldn't hear of it, Mrs. Greenow.


But I mention it now, because I was thinking of getting Blowehard to come. That other man, Flutey, wouldn't do at all out in the open air.


It shall be Blowehard,


I say, Guss, you are a swell,


I don't know much about that, my fellow sent me this toggery, and said that it was the sort of thing. I'll change with you if you like it.


Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, if you haven't caught me before I've half done! Captain Bellfield, I hope you think my apron becoming.


Everything that you wear, Mrs. Greenow, is always becoming.


Don't talk in that way when you know--; but never mind--we will think of nothing sad to-day if we can help it. Will we, Mr. Cheesacre?


Oh dear no; I should think not;--unless it should come on to rain.


It won't rain--we won't think of such a thing. But, by the by, Captain Bellfield, I and my niece do mean to send out a few things, just in a bag you know, so that we may tidy ourselves up a little after the sea. I don't want it mentioned, because if it gets about among the other ladies, they'd think we wanted to make a dressing of it;--and there wouldn't be room for them all; would there?


No; there wouldn't,


That's just it. But there won't be any harm, will there, Mr. Cheesacre, in Jeanette's going out with our things? She'll ride in the cart, you know, with the eatables. I know Jeannette's a friend of yours.


We shall be delighted to have Jeanette,


Thank ye, sir,


Jeannette, don't you let Mr. Cheesacre turn your head; and mind you behave yourself and be useful. Well; let me see;--what else is there? Mrs. Jones, you might as well give me that ham now. Captain Bellfield, hand it over. Don't you put it into the basket, because you'd turn it the wrong side down. There now, if you haven't nearly made me upset the apricot pie. What do you think, Mr. Cheesacre. Kate wouldn't come down because she didn't choose that you should see her with an apron on over her frock!


I'm sure I don't know why Miss Vavasor should care about my seeing her.


Nor I either. That's just what I said. Do step up into the drawing-room; you'll find her there, and you can make her answer for herself.


She wouldn't come down for me,


Your dear aunt! I don't think I ever came across a woman with such genuine milk of human kindness!


Nor with so much true wit,


I know your husband would like it, and I hope I may live to tell him that I made you go.


We told Joe to come to the house, because we thought he might be useful in carrying down the cloaks.


I'll take your arm, Mr. Joe, and the girls shall come with us.


How absurd Bellfield looks in that jacket, doesn't he?


Do you think so? I thought it was so very pretty and becoming for the occasion.


It may be becoming, but don't you think it's awfully extravagant?


As to that I can't tell. You see I don't at all know what is the price of a jacket covered all over with little brass buttons.


And the waistcoat, Miss Vavasor!


The waistcoat I should think must have been expensive.


Oh, dreadful! and he's got nothing, Miss Vavasor; literally nothing. Do you know. I lent him twenty pounds the day before yesterday; I did indeed. You won't mention it again, of course. I tell you, because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands.


She does very well pour passer le temps,


I don't want it to be mentioned again, Miss Vavasor,


Such things should not be mentioned at all,


No, they shouldn't; and therefore I know that I'm quite safe with you, Miss Vavasor. He's a very pleasant fellow, very; and has seen the world,--uncommon; but he's better for eating and drinking with than he is for buying and selling with, as we say in Norfolk. Do you like Norfolk, Miss Vavasor?


I never was in it before, and now I've only seen Yarmouth.


A nice place, Yarmouth, very; but you should come up and see our lands. I suppose you don't know that we feed one-third of England during the winter months.


Dear me!


We do, though; nobody knows what a county Norfolk is. Taking it altogether, including the game you know, and Lord Nelson, and its watering-places and the rest of it, I don't think there's a county in England to beat it. Fancy feeding one-third of all England and Wales!


With bread and cheese, do you mean, and those sort of things?


Beef! Beef! Yes indeed; but if you were to tell them that in London they wouldn't believe you. Ah! you should certainly come down and see our lands. The 7.45 A.M. train would take you through Norwich to my door, as one may say, and you would be back by the 6.22 P.M.


Take an oar, Captain,


Not to-day, Jack. I'll content myself with being bo'san this morning.


The best thing as the bo'san does is to pipe all hands to grog,


I won't be behind in that either,


What a fine generous fellow your friend, Mr. Cheesacre, is!


Yes, he is; he's a capital fellow in his way. Some of these Norfolk farmers are no end of good fellows.


And I suppose he's something more than a common farmer. He's visited by the people about where he lives, isn't he?


Oh, yes, in a sort of a way. The county people, you know, keep themselves very much to themselves.


That's of course. But his house;--he has a good sort of place, hasn't he?


Yes, yes;--a very good house;--a little too near to the horse-pond for my taste. But when a man gets his money out of the till, he mustn't be ashamed of the counter;--must he, Mrs. Greenow?


But he could live like a gentleman if he let his own land, couldn't he?


That depends upon how a gentleman wishes to live.


I really think, Mr. Cheesacre, that you'd better give it up. The water off the nasty cord has got all over Maria's dress, already.


it did not signify in the least;


There are people who like to take everything and never like to give anything,


You can't suppose that any girl will like to be drenched with sea-water when she has taken so much trouble with her starch,


Then she shouldn't come fishing. I hate such airs.


We're to dine at four, and now it's half-past three,


And to begin to dance at six,


Maria, hold your tongue,


Yes, we'll dine at four. And as for the music, I've ordered it to be here punctual at half-past five. We're to have three horns, cymbals, triangle, and a drum.


How very nice; isn't it, Mrs. Greenow?


And now suppose we begin to unpack. Half the fun is in arranging the things.


Oh, dear, yes; more than half,


Bellfield, don't mind about the hampers. Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there's my man there to manage it.


It's odd if I don't know more about wine than the boots from the hotel,


I'll tell you what. Bellfield and I will take the two ends of the table, and Mrs. Greenow shall sit at my right hand.


I don't think that will do. Mrs. Greenow gives the dinner, and Cheesacre gives the wine. We must have them at the two ends of the table. I am sure Mrs. Greenow won't refuse to allow me to hand her to the place which belongs to her. I will sit at her right hand and be her minister.


One would think that he had given it himself; wouldn't you?


Given what?


Why, the music and the wine and all the rest of it. There are some people full of that kind of impudence. How they manage to carry it on without ever paying a shilling, I never could tell. I know I have to pay my way, and something over and beyond generally.


Yes, indeed. Ophelia, my dear, you are dreadfully in the draught; there's a seat up here, just opposite, where you'll be more comfortable.


There's no draught here, mamma,


Is anything the matter?


Matter!


I never saw a man so nearly broken-hearted,


Eleven, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one,


Ladies and gentlemen, if I may be permitted to get upon my legs for two minutes, I am going to propose a toast to you.


If you please, Captain Bellfield. I'll propose the toast.


Nothing on earth could be better, my dear fellow, and I'm sure I should be the last man in the world to take the job out of the hands of one who would do it so much better than I can; but as it's your health that we're going to drink, I really don't see how you are to do it.


I hate all this kind of thing. It's so fulsome.


After-dinner speeches never mean anything,


I'm very much obliged to this company, and to my friend Bellfield, who really is,--but perhaps that doesn't signify now. I've had the greatest pleasure in getting up this little thing, and I'd made up my mind to propose Mrs. Greenow's health; but, h'm, ha, no doubt it has been in better hands. Perhaps, considering all things, Bellfield might have waited.


With such a subject on my hands, I couldn't wait a moment.


I didn't interrupt you, Captain Bellfield, and perhaps you'll let me go on without interrupting me. We've all drunk Mrs. Greenow's health, and I'm sure she's very much obliged. So am I for the honour you've done me. I have taken some trouble in getting up this little thing, and I hope you like it. I think somebody said something about liberality. I beg to assure you that I don't think of that for a moment. Somebody must pay for these sort of things, and I'm always very glad to take my turn. I dare say Bellfield will give us the next picnic, and if he'll appoint a day before the end of the month, I shall be happy to be one of the party.


Nothing on earth would give me so much pleasure,


No, my friend, no. Kate will be delighted I am sure to join you,--but as for me, you must excuse me.


I'm not quite sure that I'll dance myself,


By George! there's flesh and blood,


Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, you should join them, they'll not half enjoy themselves without you. Kate will think that you mean to neglect her.


I shan't dance, Mrs. Greenow, unless you like to stand up for a set.


No, my friend, no; I shall not do that. I fear you forget how recent has been my bereavement. Your asking me is the bitterest reproach to me for having ventured to join your festive board.


Upon my honour I didn't mean it, Mrs. Greenow. I didn't mean it, indeed.


I do not suspect you. It would have been unmanly.


And nobody can say that of me. There isn't a man or woman in Norfolk that wouldn't say I was manly.


I'm quite sure of that.


I have my faults, I'm aware.


And what are your faults, Mr. Cheesacre?


Well; perhaps I'm extravagant. But it's only in these kind of things you know, when I spend a little money for the sake of making my friends happy. When I'm about, on the lands at home, I ain't extravagant, I can tell you.


Extravagance is a great vice.


Oh, I ain't extravagant in that sense;--not a bit in the world. But when a man's enamoured, and perhaps looking out for a wife, he does like to be a little free, you know.


And are you looking out for a wife, Mr. Cheesacre?


If I told you I suppose you'd only laugh at me.


No; indeed I would not. I am not given to joking when any one that I regard speaks to me seriously.


Ain't you though? I'm so glad of that. When one has really got a serious thing to say, one doesn't like to have fun poked at one.


And, besides, how could I laugh at marriages, seeing how happy I have been in that condition?--so--very--happy,


Never, Mr. Cheesacre; never. Is that the way you talk of serious things without joking? Anything like love--love of that sort--is over for me. It lies buried under the sod with my poor dear departed saint. But, Mrs. Greenow, care killed a cat, you know.


And sometimes I think that care will kill me.


No, by George; not if I can prevent it.


You're very kind, Mr. Cheesacre; but there's no preventing such care as mine.


Isn't there though? I'll tell you what, Mrs. Greenow; I'm in earnest, I am indeed. If you'll inquire, you'll find there isn't a fellow in Norfolk pays his way better than I do, or is better able to do it. I don't pay a sixpence of rent, and I sit upon seven hundred acres of as good land as there is in the county. There's not an acre that won't do me a bullock and a half. Just put that and that together, and see what it comes to. And, mind you, some of these fellows that farm their own land are worse off than if they'd rent to pay. They've borrowed so much to carry on with, that the interest is more than rent. I don't owe a sixpence to ere a man or ere a company in the world. I can walk into every bank in Norwich without seeing my master. There ain't any of my paper flying about, Mrs. Greenow. I'm Samuel Cheesacre of Oileymead, and it's all my own. It's all my own, Mrs. Greenow, and the half of it shall be yours if you'll please to take it;


If you'd known Greenow, Mr. Cheesacre--


I've no doubt he was a very good sort of man.


If you'd known him, you would not have addressed me in this way.


What difference would that make? My idea is that care killed a cat, as I said before. I never knew what was the good of being unhappy. If I find early mangels don't do on a bit of land, then I sow late turnips; and never cry after spilt milk. Greenow was the early mangels; I'll be the late turnips. Come then, say the word. There ain't a bedroom in my house,--not one of the front ones,--that isn't mahogany furnished!


What's furniture to me?


Mr. Cheesacre and I are talking about farming,


Oh; farming!


Mr. Cheesacre thinks that turnips are better than early mangels,


Yes, I do,


I prefer the early mangels. I don't think nature ever intended those late crops. What do you say, Mrs. Walker?


I daresay Mr. Cheesacre understands what he's about when he's at home,


I know what a bit of land can do as well as any man in Norfolk,


It may be very well in Norfolk, but the practice isn't thought much of in the other counties with which I am better acquainted.


I'd just come in to say that I thought we might be getting to the boats. My Ophelia is so delicate.


I hope they're sober,


Sober as judges,


Because. I know that they play all manner of tricks when they're--in liquor. They'd think nothing of taking us out to sea, Mrs. Greenow.


Oh, I do wish they would,


Ophelia, mind you come in the boat with me,


Mamma will be so angry, and it was all your fault. I did mean to go into the other boat. Don't, Mr. Fairstairs.


I think we'd better go back as we came,


Oh, certainly. Why should there be any change? Cheesacre, old fellow, mind you look after Mrs. Walker. Come along, my hearty.


If you're going to steer, Captain Bellfield, I beg that you'll be careful.


Careful,--and with you on board! Don't you know that I would sooner perish beneath the waves than that a drop of water should touch you roughly?


But you see, we might perish beneath the waves together.


Together! What a sweet word that is;--perish together! If it were not that there might be something better even than that, I would wish to perish in such company.


But I should not wish anything of the kind, Captain Bellfield, and therefore pray be careful.


There. I have brought you to no harm, at any rate as yet.


And, as I hope, will not do so hereafter.


May the heavens forbid it, Mrs. Greenow! Whatever may be our lots hereafter,--yours I mean and mine,--I trust that yours may be free from all disaster. Oh, that I might venture to hope that, at some future day, the privilege might be mine of protecting you from all danger!


I can protect myself very well, I can assure you. Good night, Captain Bellfield. We won't take you and Mr. Cheesacre out of your way;--will we, Kate? We have had a most pleasant day. Mr. Joe Fairstairs must pass the house, and he will see us home. Mr. Cheesacre, good night. Indeed you shall not;--not a step. Well, Kate, what do you think of the day?


I never think much about such days, aunt. It was all very well, but I fear I have not the temperament fitted for enjoying the fun. I envied Ophelia Walker because she made herself thoroughly happy.


I do like to see girls enjoy themselves. I do, indeed;--and young men too. It seems so natural; why shouldn't young people flirt?


Or old people either for the matter of that?


Or old people either,--if they don't do any harm to anybody. I'll tell you what it is, Kate; people have become so very virtuous, that they're driven into all manner of abominable resources for amusement and occupation. If I had sons and daughters I should think a little flirting the very best thing for them as a safety valve. When people get to be old, there's a difficulty. They want to flirt with the young people and the young people don't want them. If the old people would be content to flirt together, I don't see why they should ever give it up;--till they're obliged to give up every thing, and go away.


Dearest John,-- I don't like Strasbourg. A steeple, after all, is not everything, and putting the steeple aside, I don't think the style is good. But the hotel was uncomfortable, which goes for so much;--and then we were saturated with beauty of a better kind. I got your letter directly I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice. Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you will ask me why, as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. If it be so, I can only ask your pardon for the injury I am doing you. Marriage is a great change in life,--much greater to me than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will change in nothing,--except in this, that you will have a companion who probably may not be all that you expect. But I must change everything. It will be to me as though I were passing through a grave to a new world. I shall see nothing that I have been accustomed to see, and must abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted. Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I truly loved you, I would risk the change;--that I would risk it for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might add something to your happiness, and that I might secure my own. Dear John, do not suppose that I despair that it may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should wake some morning after six months living with you, and tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad? You must not ask me again till the winter shall have passed away. If in the meantime I shall find that I have been wrong, I will humbly confess that I have wronged you, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit this. If the delay which I now purpose is so contrary to your own plans as to make your marriage, under such circumstances, not that which you had expected, I know that you are free to tell me so, and to say that our engagement shall be over. I am well aware that I can have no right to bind you to a marriage at one period which you had only contemplated as to take place at another period. I think I may promise that I will obey any wish you may express in anything,--except in that one thing which you urged in your last letter.


Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you unhappy.


Dearest Alice. I have resolved to go to London at once. I will be with you in the evening at eight, the day after to-morrow. Yours, J. G.


And now. I must dare to tell him the whole truth.


I don't care for the Roman Senate. I don't care much for the Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, night after night, when we shall be alone together?


My dearest,


Though I am very glad to see you. I am sorry that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey.


Trouble! Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. I have not enough to do down at Nethercoats to make the running up to you at any time an unpleasant excitement. So your Swiss journey went off pleasantly?


Yes; it went off very pleasantly.


And Kate has now left you?


Yes; she is with her aunt, at the seaside.


So I understand;--and your cousin George?


I never know much of George's movements. He may be in Town, but I have not seen him since I came back.


Ah! that is the way with friends living in London. Unless circumstances bring them together, they are in fact further apart than if they lived fifty miles asunder in the country. And he managed to get through all the trouble without losing your luggage for you very often?


If you were to say that we did not lose his, that would be nearer the mark. But, John, you have come up to London in this sudden way to speak to me about my letter to you. Is it not so?


Certainly it is so. Certainly I have.


I have thought much, since, of what I then wrote, very much,--very much, indeed; and I have learned to feel sure that we had better--


Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I tell you what I learned from your letter?


Yes; tell me, if you think it better that you should do so.


Perhaps it may be better. I learned, love, that something had been said or done during your journey,--or perhaps only something thought, that had made you melancholy, and filled your mind for a while with those unsubstantial and indefinable regrets for the past which we are all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and self-destruction. I used to know well what it was before I knew you; but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have banished it utterly. In that I think I have been stronger than you. Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought whether you, too, cannot banish it.


I have tried, and it will not be banished.


Try again, Alice. It is a damned spirit, and belongs neither to heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be spoken. If you do not--


If I do not love you, I love no one upon earth.


I believe it. I believe it as I believe in my own love for you. I trust your love implicitly, Alice. I know that you love me. I think I can read your mind. Tell me that I may return to Cambridgeshire, and again plead my cause for an early marriage from thence. I will not take such speech from you to mean more than it says! Tell me, that I may see you again to-morrow morning in our usual quiet, loving way, and that I may return home to-morrow evening. Pronounce a yea to that speech from me, and I will ask for nothing further.


No; I cannot do so,


Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you? You have not struggled with it. You know, as I do, that it is a bad fiend and a wicked one,--a fiend that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice! Alice! Alice! Try to think of all this as though some other person were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?


I would bid her tell the man who had loved her,--that is, if he were noble, good, and great,--that she found herself to be unfit to be his wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees.


But what if he granted no such pardon, Alice? I will grant none such. You are my wife, my own, my dearest, my chosen one. You are all that I value in the world, my treasure and my comfort, my earthly happiness and my gleam of something better that is to come hereafter. Do you think that I shall let you go from me in that way? No, love. If you are ill I will wait till your illness is gone by; and, if you will let me, I will be your nurse.


I am not ill.


Not ill with any defined sickness. You do not shake with ague, nor does your head rack you with aching; but yet you may be ill. Think of what has passed between us. Must you not be ill when you seek to put an end to all that without any cause assigned.


You will not hear my reasons,


I will hear them if you will tell me that they refer to any supposed faults of my own.


No, no, no!


Then I will not hear them. It is for me to find out your faults, and when I have found out any that require complaint, I will come and make it. Dear Alice, I wish you knew how I long for you.


Mr. Grey--


If you will call me so, I shall think it only a part of your malady.


Mr. Grey. I can only hope that you will take me at my word.


Oh, but I will not; certainly I will not, if that would be adverse to my own interests.


I am thinking of your interests; I am, indeed;--at any rate as much as of my own. I feel quite sure that I should not make you happy as your wife,--quite sure; and feeling that, I think that I am right, even after all that has passed, to ask your forgiveness, and to beg that our engagement may be over.


No, Alice, no; never with my consent. I cannot tell you with what contentment I would marry you to-morrow,--to-morrow, or next month, or the month after. But if it cannot be so, then I will wait. Nothing but your marriage with some one else would convince me.


I cannot convince you in that way,


You will convince me in no other. You have not spoken to your father of this as yet?


Not as yet.


Do not do so, at any rate for the present. You will own that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what you had said.


No; it is not possible.


Give yourself and me the chance. It can do no harm. And, Alice, I ask you now for no reasons. I will not ask your reasons, or even listen to them, because I do not believe that they will long have effect even on yourself. Do you still think of going to Cheltenham?


I have decided nothing as yet.


If I were you, I would go. I think a change of air would be good for you.


Yes; you treat me as though I were partly silly, and partly insane; but it is not so. The change you speak of should be in my nature, and in yours.


Perhaps. I had better not come to-morrow.


No, no; it is better not.


I advise you not to tell your father of this, and doubtless you will think of it before you do so. But if you do tell him, let me know that you have done so.


Why that?


Because in such case I also must see him. God bless you, Alice! God bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!


What, Alice, are you not in bed yet?


Not yet, papa.


And so John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall. I should know it among a thousand.


Yes; he has been here.


Is anything the matter, Alice?


No, papa, nothing is the matter.


He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?


Not in the least. He never does anything wrong. He may defy man or woman to find fault with him.


So that is it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have always thought that myself. But it's a fault on the right side.


It's no fault, Papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But I am yawning and tired, and I will go to bed.


Is he to be here to-morrow?


No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good night, papa.


I don't know how she'll ever put up with him, he is so terribly conceited. I shall never forget how he went on about Charles Kemble, and what a fool he made of himself.


If I did it at all, it would be more with the object of cutting him out than with any other.


But you must understand, that all that I said to him went with him for nothing. I had determined to make him know that everything between us must be over, but I failed. I found that I had no words at command, but that he was able to talk to me as though I were a child. He told me that I was sick and full of phantasies, and bade me change the air. As he spoke in this way, I could not help feeling how right he was to use me so; but I felt also that he, in his mighty superiority, could never be a fitting husband for a creature so inferior to him as I am. Though I altogether failed to make him understand that it was so, every moment that we were together made me more fixed in my resolution.


She'll never marry him, at any rate, and she is right. He'd make an upper servant of her; very respectable, no doubt, but still only an upper servant. Now with me;--well, I hardly know what I should make of her. I cannot think of myself as a man married.


A gentleman! Does the gentleman look like a public-house keeper? Then show him up,


Well Mr. Grimes, how are you this morning? Sit down, Mr. Grimes. If every man were as punctual as you are, the world would go like clock-work; wouldn't it?


Business is business, Mr. Vavasor. That's my maxim. If I didn't stick to that, nothing wouldn't ever stick to me; and nothing doesn't much as it is. Times is very bad, Mr. Vavasor.


Of course they are. They're always bad. What was the Devil made for, except that they should be bad? But I should have thought you publicans were the last men who ought to complain.


Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor; why, I suppose of all the men as is put upon, we're put upon the worst. What's the good of drawing of beer, if the more you draw the more you don't make. Yesterday as ever was was Saturday, and we drawed three pound ten and nine. What'll that come to, Mr. Vavasor, when you reckons it up with the brewer? Why, it's a next to nothing. You knows that well enough.


Upon my word I don't. But I know you don't sell a pint of beer without getting a profit out of it.


Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor. If I hadn't nothink to look to but beer I couldn't keep a house over my head; no I couldn't. That house of mine belongs to Meux's people; and very good people they are too;--have made a sight of money; haven't they, Mr. Vavasor? I has to get my beer from them in course. Why not, when it's their house? But if I sells their stuff as I gets it, there ain't a halfpenny coming to me out of a gallon. Look at that, now.


But then you don't sell it as you get it. You stretch it.


That's in course. I'm not going to tell you a lie, Mr. Vavasor. You know what's what as well as I do, and a sight better, I expect. There's a dozen different ways of handling beer, Mr. Vavasor. But what's the use of that, when they can take four or five pounds a day over the counter for their rot-gut stuff at the 'Cadogan Arms,' and I can't do no better nor yet perhaps so well, for a real honest glass of beer. Stretch it! It's my belief the more you poison their liquor, the more the people likes it!


There's Scruby, and now we can go to business.


Business is business, isn't it now, Mr. Scruby?


And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time for business,


It's quiet, you know. But it warn't me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr. Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain't it, Mr. Scruby?


We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last,


Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get,--just tell me that? Why, Travers's name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it.


Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Grimes,


And nobody can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain't another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr. Scruby else. Mr. Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain't like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don't it Mr. Scruby?


It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes,


Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr. Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this;--business is business, and money is money.


Money is money, certainly. There's no doubt in the world about that, Grimes;--and a deal of it you had out of the last election.


No, I hadn't; begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby, for making so free. What I had to my own cheek wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid for my time; that's what I wasn't. You look how a publican's business gets cut up at them elections;--and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?


It doesn't seem to make much difference how you put it down. The total is what I look at.


Just so, Mr. Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain't a got it yet; have I, Mr. Vavasor?


Well; if you ask me I should say you had. I know I paid Mr. Scruby three hundred pounds on your account.


And I got every shilling of it, Mr. Vavasor. I'm not a going to deny the money, Mr. Vavasor. You'll never find me doing that. I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow,--I am. Mr. Scruby knows me; don't you, Mr. Scruby?


Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes.


No you don't, Mr. Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don't know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr. Scruby, because you're a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?


I thought that was all settled, Mr. Scruby,


Why you see, Mr. Vavasor, it's very hard to settle these things. If you ask me whether Mr. Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell you very plainly that he can't. We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr. Grimes' receipt for three hundred pounds. Of course you did, Mr. Scruby.


In full of all demands. If you were to go into a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon.


A court of law? Who's a going to law with the governor, I should like to know? not I; not if he didn't pay me them ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence for the next five years.


Five years or fifteen would make no difference. You couldn't do it.


And I ain't a going to try. That's not the ticket I've come here about, Mr. Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed! But Mr. Scruby, I've got a family.


Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope,


They is at the 'Handsome Man' in the Brompton Road, Mr. Vavasor; and I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don't work for his family, what do he work for?


Come, come, Grimes. What is it you're at? Out with it, and don't keep us here all day.


What is it I'm at, Mr. Scruby? As if you didn't know very well what I'm at. There's my house;--in all them Chelsea districts it's the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of election purposes. That's given up to it.


And what next?


The next is, I myself. There isn't one of the lot of 'em can work them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr. Scruby knows that. Why I've been a getting of them up with a view to this very job ever since;--why ever since they was a talking of the Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county on the religious dodge, he couldn't have worked them fellows anyhow, only for me. Mr. Scruby knows that.


Let's take it all for granted, Mr. Grimes. What comes next?


Well;--them Bunratty people; it is they as has come next. They know which side their bread is likely to be buttered; they do. They're a bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already; they are.


And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!


Who said anything of my letting my house to the Tory party, Mr. Scruby? I'm as round as your hat, Mr. Scruby, and as square as your elbow; I am. But suppose as all the liberal gents as employs you, Mr. Scruby, was to turn again you and not pay you your little bills, wouldn't you have your eyes open for customers of another kind? Come now, Mr. Scruby? Perhaps not; perhaps not. There's a risk in all these things; isn't there, Mr. Vavasor? I should like to see you a Parliament gent; I should indeed. You'd be a credit to the districts; I really think you would.


I'm much obliged by your good opinion, Mr. Grimes,


When I sees a gent coming forward I knows whether he's fit for Parliament, or whether he ain't. I says you are fit. But Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor; it's a thing a gentleman always has to pay for.


That's true enough; a deal more than it's worth, generally.


A thing's worth what it fetches. I'm worth what I'll fetch; that's the long and the short of it. I want to have my balance, that's the truth. It's the odd money in a man's bill as always carries the profit. You ask Mr. Scruby else;--only with a lawyer it's all profit I believe.


That's what you know about it,


If you cut off a man's odd money, you break his heart. He'd almost sooner have that and leave the other standing. He'd call the hundreds capital, and if he lost them at last, why he'd put it down as being in the way of trade. But the odd money;--he looks at that, Mr. Vavasor, as in a manner the very sweat of his brow, the work of his own hand; that's what goes to his family, and keeps the pot a boiling down-stairs. Never stop a man's odd money, Mr. Vavasor; that is, unless he comes it very strong indeed.


And what is it you want now?


I wants ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence, Mr. Scruby, and then we'll go to work for the new fight with contented hearts. If we're to begin at all, it's quite time; it is indeed, Mr. Vavasor.