Volume 4 — THE SPENDTHRIFT'S DAUGHTER. IN SIX CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

"Frugality is a virtue which will contribute continually and most essentially to your comfort. Without it, it is impossible that you should do well; and we know not how much, or how soon, it may be needed."

So writes Southey to his son, Cuthbert, just then starting at Oxford.

The proposition might have been expanded from the particular to the universal. Southey might have said, that in no condition of life, from that of her who sitteth upon the throne, to that of the handmaiden who grindeth behind the mill, can frugality—in other words, system and self-denial as regards the expenditure of money—be dispensed with. Self-denial and diligent attention in the management of this great talent are necessary in all.

No one of the gifts of Providence appears to the casual observer to be bestowed with less regard to individual merit than wealth. It would almost seem, as an old divine has written, as if God would mark his contempt of mere material riches by the hands into which he suffers them to fall. Although, fall where they will, and on whom they will, one thing is certain;—that they will prove but a delusive snare to those who know not how to order them;—when to husband, and when to spare; when to spend, or when to bestow.

These reflections arose from a story with which, not long ago, I became acquainted. A common tale enough—one among a thousand illustrations of what Butler affirms to be the indispensable condition upon which it has pleased our Creator that we should hold our being:—that of controlling our own actions; either by prudence to pass our days in ease and quiet; or, by rashness, ungoverned passion, wilfulness, or negligence, to make ourselves miserable.

He is sitting on the bottom stone of a magnificent flight of steps, which lead up to a handsome door, situated in the centre of a large many-windowed house, which, fronted with handsome iron rails round the area, is built of fine brick, and ornamented with abundance of stone-work, in cornices and architraves. This house stands in one of the best streets in the neighborhood of Grosvenor Square.

He is clothed in garments that once were fashionable; but now are discolored with much wear and long exposure to wind and weather; so much so, that, in several places, they are falling into tatters. His face—the features of which are very finely cut, and still bear the traces of a once very remarkable beauty—is wan, attenuated, and begrimed with dust, dirt, and neglect. His eyes are haggard; his hair dusty and dishevelled—his beard ragged and untrimmed.

He is the picture of physical decay, and of the lowest depths of moral degradation. He sits there upon the stone, sometimes watching the street-sweeper—a little tattered boy cheerily whistling over his work—now and then casting up his eyes at the closed windows of the handsome house, upon which the beams of the rising sun are beginning to shine; but to shine in vain at present; for it is only about six o'clock in the morning, and life has not yet begun to stir within the mansion.

His cheek rests upon his thin, withered, and unwashed hand, as he casts his eyes first upwards, then downwards, then slowly, and with a sort of gloomy indifference, around.

He looks upward. Is it towards the sky; where the great lord of earthly light—type of that more Glorious Sun which should arise "with healing on its wings"—is diffusing the cheering effulgence of the dawn, calling forth the fresh and wholesome airs of the morning, and literally chasing away the noisome spirits of the night? Is he looking there?

No; he is no seeker of the light; he feels not its blessed influence; he heeds not the sweet fresh rising of the morning as it breathes over the polluted city, and pours, for a few short moments, its fresh, crisp, cheering airs into the closest and most noisome of her quarters. He cares not for that delicious brightness which gives to the vast town a pure and peculiar clearness for a few half hours, whilst all the world are asleep, and the streets are yet guiltless of sin and sea-coal.

What has light; the pure breath of the morning; the white rays of the early sun; and the soft, quiet, and refreshing stillness of the hour, to do with him? He only lifts up his eyes to examine a house: he only casts them around to observe what goes on in the streets; he is of the earth, earthy,—the sacred odor exists not for him.

Yet, in the deep melancholy, the expression of harrowing regret with which he did look up at that house—even in the very depths of his moral degradation and suffering—the seeds of better things might be germinating. Who shall say? He has sounded the very base-string of misery: he touches ground at last—that may be something.

The sparrows chirped in the rays of the sun, and the little sweeper whistled away. Different figures began sparingly to appear, and one by one crept out; objects of strange aspect who seem to come, one knows not whence;—the old clothes-man, with his low and sullen croak; country carts; milk-men, rattling their cans against area rails; butcher-boys swinging their trays. Presently were heard, immediately below where the man was sitting, the sounds of awakening life;—unlocking of doors, opening of windows, the pert voices of the women servants, and the surly responses of the men; shutters above began to be unfolded, and the eyes of the large house gradually to open. The man watched them—his head resting still upon his hand, and his face turned upwards—until, at length, the hall-door opened, displaying a handsome vestibule, and a staircase gay with painting and guilding. A housemaid issued forth to shake the door-mat.

Then he arose and slowly moved away; every now and then casting a wistful glance backwards at the house, until he turned the corner, and it was lost to his sight.

Thus he left a place which once had been his own.

With his head bent downwards, he walked slowly on; not properly pursuing his way—for he had no way nor object to pursue—but continuing his way, as if he had, like a ball once set in motion, no motive to stand still. He looked neither to the right nor to the left; yet seemed mechanically to direct his footsteps towards the north. At length, he slowly entered one of the larger streets in the neighborhood of Portland Place. His attention was excited by a bustle at the door of one of the houses, and he looked up. There was a funeral at a house which stood in this street a little detached from the others. The plumes were white. It was the funeral of an unmarried person. Why did his heart quiver? Why did he make a sudden pause? Had he never seen a funeral with white plumes before in his life?

Was it by some mysterious sympathy of nature that this reckless, careless, fallen man—who had looked at the effigies of death, and at death itself, hundreds and hundreds of times, with negligent unconcern—shuddered and turned pale, as if smitten to the heart by some unanticipated horror?

I cannot tell. All I know is, that, struck with a sudden invincible terror, impelled by a strange but dreadful curiosity, he staggered, rather than walked forward; supporting himself as he went against the iron rails, and thus reached the steps of the house just as the coffin was being carried down.

Among the many many gifts once possessed, and all misused, was one of the longest, clearest, and quickest sights that I ever remember to have heard of. His forlorn eye glanced upon the coffin; it read:

"Ella Winstanley, Died June 29, 18.. Aged Twenty-three."

And he staggered. The rails could no longer support him. He sank down upon the flagstones.

The men engaged about the funeral lifted the poor ragged creature up. A mere common beggar, they thought; and they were about to call a policeman, and bid him take charge of him; when a lady, who was standing at the dining-room window of the house, opened it, and asked what was the matter?

"I don't know, Ma'am," said the undertaker's man; "but this here gent has fallen down, as I take it, in a fit, or something of the sort. Policeman, hadn't you best get a stretcher, and carry him to the workhouse or to the hospital?"

"No," said the lady, "better bring him in here. Mr. Pearson is in the house, and can bleed him, or do what is necessary."

Upon which the insensible man was carefully lifted and carried by two or three of the men up the steps. At the door of the hall they were met by the lady who had appeared at the window. She was evidently a gentlewoman by her dress and manners. She was arrayed very simply. Her gray hair was folded smoothly under her bonnet-cap; her black silk cloak still hung upon her shoulders; her bonnet rested upon a pole screen in the dining-room. It seemed by this that she was not a regular inhabitant of the house in which she exercised authority. Nothing could be more gentle and kind than the expression of her calm, but firm countenance; but upon it the lines of sorrow, or of years, were deeply traced. She was, evidently, one who had not passed through the world without her own portion of suffering; but she seemed to have suffered herself, only the more intimately to commiserate the suffering of others.

They laid the stranger upon the sofa in the dining-room; and, at the lady's desire, sent for Mr. Pearson, who was the house apothecary. Whilst waiting for him, she stood with her eyes fixed upon the face of the stranger; and, as she did so, curiosity, wonder, doubt, conviction, and astonishment were painted in succession upon her face.

Very soon Mr. Pearson appeared, and advised the usual remedy of bleeding. The lady walked to the window, and stood there, watching the proceedings of those without, until the arrangements of a very simple funeral were terminated, and the little procession, which attended the young Ella Winstanley to her untimely grave, gradually moved on, and disappeared at the turning of the street.

The countenance of the lady, as she returned to the sofa, showed that she had been very much moved by the sight.

Having been bled, the stranger opened his eyes; which now, as he lay there, extended upon the sofa, displayed a gloomy but remarkable beauty—a beauty, however, arising rather from their form and color, than from their expression, which was more painful than interesting. Again the lady fixed her eyes upon his face, and again she shuddered, and half turned away. Pity, disgust, and regret, were mingled in her gesture.

The stranger's eyes followed her, with a dreamy and unsettled look. He seemed to be as mazed with wonder as she was.

She turned again, as if to satisfy her doubts. His eyes met hers; and, as they did so, recollection seemed to be restored.

"Where am I, and what is it?" he muttered.

"You are where you will be taken good care of until you are able to be removed," said the lady. "Is there any one you would wish to have sent for?"

The man did not speak.

"Any one you would wish to be sent for?" she repeated.

"No," he answered.

"Any thing more you would wish to have done?"

"Nothing."

He lay silent for some time, with his eyes still fixed upon her.

At last he said, "Tell me where I am?"

"Where you are welcome to be until you can gather strength enough to proceed to the place to which you were going when this attack seized you. And that was—?"

"Nowhere. But what house is this?"

"A house only destined for the reception of ladies," she answered.

"Ladies! what ladies?"

"The sick who have no other home."

"A house of charity, then?"

"Partly."

"And that one—that one—that young creature, whose funeral—Do you know her? any thing about her—?"

"Yes," answered the lady, with gravity, approaching to severity, "I do know much about her."

"Why—why did she come here?"

"Because she was friendless and deserted; poor, sick, and miserable. She had given up what little money she had to supply the wants—perhaps—who knows?—the vices of another. Happily there were found those who would befriend her."

"And she accepted the charity; she received the alms?"

"She had learned to submit herself to the will of God."

He shut his teeth together with a something between bitterness and contempt at these last words, and turned his head away.

"You are her father?" said the lady.

"I am—"

"Then you are a very wretched man," she added.

"Yes," he replied, "I am most miserable."

"You are one who have reaped from seeds, which might have produced a rich harvest of happiness, nothing but black and blighted misery."

She spoke with unusual severity, for her soul recoiled at his aspect: she saw nothing in it to soften her feelings of indignation.

"I have lived," he answered.

"How?"

"How! as others of my temper have lived. It was not my fault that I was born with an invincible passion for enjoyment. I did not make myself. If pleasure be but the forerunner of satiety—if life be but a cheat—if delight be but the precursor of misery—a delusion of flattering lies,—I did not arrange the system. Why was virtue made so hard, and self-indulgence so enticing? I did not contrive the scheme."

"Such excuses," the lady replied, "the honest consciousness within us rejects; such as your own inner conscience at the very moment you utter them disclaims. She who is gone—a broken-hearted victim of another's errors—hoped better things when she exhausted almost her last breath in prayers for you."

"Prayers!" in a tone that spoke volumes.

"Yes, prayers."

"What is become of my other daughter?—I want to go to her."

"She died, I believe, about twelve months ago."

"Then I am alone in the world?"

"You have no children now."

"Are you going to turn me out into the street?" he suddenly asked, after a short silence.

"The rules of this house—which is dedicated to the assistance of sick and helpless women—will not admit of your remaining."

"I am going. You will hear of me next as one past recovery; picked up out of some kennel by the police. You would have done better not to have restored me. I should have died quietly."

"But without repentance."

"Repentance!" he said fiercely. "Repent while my whole soul is writhing with agony? Ella! Ella! if I could only have kept my Ella, she would have tended me—she would have soothed me—she would have worked for me."

"Yes," said the lady, "she would have done this, and much more—but God has taken her; has rescued her from your heartless selfishness." To herself she added—for her heart was glowing with indignation—"Even in this supreme moment, he thinks of nothing but of himself."

"She would have been more gentle with me than you are," he said, with a half-reproachful sigh.

"Yes, yes—she would have felt only for you—I happen to feel for her."

"Which I never did."

"Never—"

"You say true," said he, musing.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

"Julian Winstanley——"

"He who won the steeple-chase yesterday? Who, in the name of goodness, is Julian Winstanley? A name of some pretension; yet nobody seems to know where he came from."

"Oh dear, that is quite a mistake. I beg your pardon—everybody knows where he came from. This bird of gay plumage was hatched in a dusky hole and corner of the city; where his grandfather made a fabulous fortune by gambling in the funds."

"He is as handsome a young fellow as ever was hatched from a muckworm."

"He is a careless, dashing prodigal, whatever else; and I never look at him without thinking of Hogarth's picture of the 'Miser's Heir.' What say you to him, Blake, with your considering face? Come, out with your wisdom! You can make a sermon out of a stone, you know."

"May be so. A stone might furnish matter for discourse, as well as other things; but I am not in the humor for preaching to-day. I can't help being sorry for the scapegrace."

"So like you, Contradiction! Sorry for him! And, pray, what for?—because he is the handsomest, most aristocratical-looking person one almost ever met with—because he is really clever, and can do whatever he pleases in no time (might have taken a double-first at Oxford easily, Penrose says, if he would)—or because he has got countless heaps of gold at his banker's; and nobody to ask him a why or a wherefore; may do, in all things, just what he likes—or because he can drink like a fish, dance like Vestris, ride like Chiffney; be up all night and about all day, and never tire, be never out of spirits, never dull? Harry Blake! Who'll come and hear Harry Blake? He is going to give his reasons, why a man who has every good thing of the world is most especially to be pitied."

"I am going to do no such thing. The reasons are too obvious. I deal not in truisms."

"Well, all I know is, that he won the steeple-chase yesterday, and to-day he beat Pincent, the champion, at billiards. To-morrow he goes to the ball at Bicester; and see if he does not beat us all at dancing there, and bear away the belle, whoever the belle may be—though the blood of a stockbroker does run in his veins."

"His blood may be as good as another's, for aught I know," said the philosopher; "but I doubt whether the rearing be."

"It is the blood, depend upon it. Blake, you are quite right," said a pale, affected young man, who stood by, and was grandson to an earl; "the blood—these upstarts are vulgar, irremediably, do what they will."

"That not quite," said Harry Blake. "I have seen as great cubs as ever walked behind a plough-tail who would call cousins with the Conqueror, Warndale. But a something there is of difference after all; and, in my opinion, it lies in the tradition. Wealth and distinction are like old wine, the better for keeping. Time adds a value, mellows, gives a certain body—an inappreciable something. Newly-acquired wealth and distinction is like new wine—trashy. I rather pity the man who possesses them, therefore."

"And I do not"—"And I do not,"—and "A fig for your philosophy!" resounded from all sides of the table.

The philosopher looked on with his quiet smile, and added:

"I do not mean to say that I should pity any of those here present in such a case, for we all know, by experience, that new wine, in any quantity, has no effect upon them; never renders their heads unsteady—was never known to do so. But you must allow me to pity Julian Winstanley; for I think his wits are somewhat straying, and I fear that he has already mounted upon that high horse which gallops down the road to ruin."

And so away they all went to the ball at Bicester that night. Most of them were somewhat more elaborately dressed than the occasion required. Julian Winstanley was, undoubtedly. It had been his mother's injunction, never to spare expense in any thing that regarded his toilette; and dutifully he obeyed it.

I am not going to give you a description of his dress. Fancy every thing most expensive; fancy, as far as a natural good taste would allow, every habiliment chosen with reference to its costliness; and behold him waltzing with a very pretty girl, who is, upon her side, exquisitely dressed also. She wears the fairest of white tulles, and the richest of white satins, and has a bouquet of the flowers from the choicest of French artists in her bosom, and another negligently thrown across her robe. Hair of remarkable beauty, arranged in a way to display its profusion, and the very expensive ornaments with which it is adorned.

Although the young lady—who is the daughter of a very fashionable and extravagant man, celebrated in the hunting and racing world—is well known to be portionless, yet she is the object of general attraction;—a thing to be noted as not what usually happens to young ladies without sixpences, in these expensive times. But it is the caprice of fashion, and fashion is all-powerful. So Julian, who is only starting in the career of extravagance, and in its golden age of restless profusion, and far removed, as yet, from that iron age which usually succeeds it—namely, that of selfish covetousness—is quite prepared to cast himself at her feet—which with a little good management of her and her mother's, he soon actually did. Having, as yet, more money in his pocket than he knew how to get through, he was exceedingly pleased with what he had done, and not a little proud in due time to incarcerate this fair creature in solitary grandeur within his carriage, whilst he and his boon companions rejoiced outside.

The connections formed by his marriage occasioned additional incentives to expense. Introduced into a more elevated circle than he had as yet moved in, and impelled by the evil ambition of outshining every one with whom he associated, Winstanley soon found innumerable new opportunities for spending money. He became a prey to imaginary necessities. His carriages, his horses, his villas and their furniture, his dinners, his wines, his yachts;—her fêtes in the morning and her balls in the evening, her gardens (which were for ever changing), her delicate health, which required the constant excitement of continental travel, and yachting excursions;—the dress of both; the wild extravagance of every thing,—I leave you to picture to yourselves.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

What is five thousand a year, when a man spends six? Make it ten, and he will spend twelve. There is an old story I have heard my mother tell:—

A man had a legacy left him, so large, that upon the strength of it he was enabled to change his plan of life. He sat down and calculated the style in which it would henceforward become him to live. His arrangement of income and expenditure would have been perfect, only that the income fell short a certain, not very large, sum. This was a sad business. A few hundreds more, and he would have been quite at ease—he had them not—he began to feel rather poor. A letter arrives from his man of business. There has been a mistake; the legacy is of twice the amount it had been at first stated at. How will it become him to live now? That is easily settled—he has only to double all his expenses. Alas! And he remains twice as poor as he was before.

There is no limit to extravagance—it is a bottomless chasm which is not to be filled.

The income does not exactly suffice—and no man ought to exceed his income. True, but there are unexpected expenses—things that perhaps may never recur. The prudent man economizes something else; the imprudent man goes to his capital. He unlocks that sacred door of which he holds the enchanted key in his hand—and ruin rushes out upon him as a flood.

Julian soon began to touch upon his capital. It was but in small sums at first, and yet it is astonishing how rich and easy (for the time) it made him feel. A thousand or two thus added to a man's income makes all mighty smooth, and the consequent diminution of his future revenue is a trifle, not felt, and not worth thinking of. Desires increase with the means to gratify them. He who takes a thousand or two from his capital, soon finds it necessary to take more. Income diminishes as desires gain strength; the habit of indulgence grows as the means to gratify it decline.

What with borrowing, and giving bills, and drawing larger bills to pay the former bills when they became due, Julian and his wife had, by the nineteenth year of their marriage, eaten out the whole core and marrow of their fortunes. The edifice now stood, to all appearance, as splendid as ever—but it had become a house of cards over a bottomless pit.

And yet they had children; they had not wanted those best incentives to a better course. Their possessions in this way were not very numerous; people of this description have seldom overflowing nurseries; the mother is usually too fine a lady to look after her children herself. She is contented with hiring some head nurse, taking her on trust from some other young woman as heedless and negligent of her duties as herself; and to her tender mercies she leaves her babies.

Such a nurse had lorded it in Mrs. Winstanley's family; an ill-governed family in every respect, where each servant, from the highest to the lowest, measured his or her consequence by the money which was spent or wasted. Under this nurse's care two lovely boys had died in their infancy. One little girl had tumbled somewhere or in some way—or had been made to stand too long in the corner when she was naughty, or to walk too far when she was tired, or what. I know not. All I know, is, there was some internal injury, the cause of which no medical man who was consulted could detect. The other, and only remaining child, was a fine, handsome, spirited girl, of whom Mrs. Nurse thought proper to be excessively proud and fond. And how were these little children educated? Educated is an inappropriate word. There was no capacity for education on the part of Nurse; but Mr. and Mrs. Winstanley, though their dinners were just as numerous and profuse as ever, saw not the slightest necessity, whilst the little girls were young, for the additional expense of any better governess; and Mrs. Nurse was left to give all the elementary instruction that was thought needful—a task which she undertook with alacrity; having become somewhat apprehensive, now the two little boys were dead and the two young ladies getting bigger, that she might be superseded.

Her teaching consisted, first in shaking and scolding Miss Clementina, and keeping her, with her poor aching hip, prisoner in her chair till she had learned, a lesson—which, for want of comprehending the absurdly long words of which it seemed purposely composed, it was almost impossible she should learn; and secondly, in laughing at Miss Ella's odd blunders as she read, and telling her every word as it occurred, before she had time to pronounce it.

As for religion, morality, or knowledge of right and wrong, Mrs. Nurse thought too little about such things herself to impart them to others. I suppose she taught the children to say their prayers; but I am sure I know no more than the mother did, whether it was so or no. Sometimes the children were taken to stare about them in church; but not often, for Mrs. Winstanley was in the habit of fulfilling the commandment very literally, and making Sunday a day of rest. Commonly she spent the forenoon in bed; only getting up in time to dress for a dinner party which Mr. Winstanley made an especial point of having on that day. He, as yet, paid this trifling respect to it; he abstained from going on Sunday evening to a certain club which he frequented, to play cards, or roulette, for unknown sums.

The elder of these children grew up, suffering, and spiritless; the younger was proud, insolent, overbearing, and tyrannical—as much so as such a little creature could be. They were fast growing up into all this, and would have been confirmed in it, had not an accident arrested the fearful progress.

Spoiled, flattered, allowed to indulge every evil temper with impunity, Ella's faults were numberless; more especially to her helpless sister, whose languid health and feeble spirits excited little sympathy, and whose complaints seemed to irritate her.

"I declare you are the most tiresome, tormenting thing, sitting there looking as miserable as ever you can, and with that whining voice of yours, enough to drive one mad. Why can't you brighten up a little, and come and play? You really shall come and play, I want to play! Nurse! O! she's not there! Do make Clementina come and play."

"Don't, Ella! don't tease me so; pray don't! My hip hurts me; I can't. Do let me alone, pray."

"Nonsense. You make such a fuss about your hip! I don't believe any thing's the matter with it; only you're so ill-natured, you never will do any thing I ask. Nurse, I say," as the door opened, "do make her.—O, it's only Matty! Matty, where's Nurse?"

"She's just stepped out, Miss, and told me to come, and stay in the day-room with you till she was back."

And Matty, the new maid, hired but a day or two before, came in with her sewing in her hand, and sat down quietly to her work at the window.

"Matty!" cried Ella, imperiously, "don't sit there, looking so stupid; but come and make this tiresome girl play with me. There she sits, mooning over the fire. If Nurse were here, she'd soon have her up."

"Don't, pray, Matty," as Matty was rising from her chair. "Pray, don't. I'll go and play; but indeed, indeed, it hurts me very much to move to-day."

"Nonsense! Make her get up, Matty, You must mind me, Matty; you came here to mind me; so do as you are bid, you ugly thing."

Matty indeed merited the title of ugly. She was rather tall, but of a most ungainly figure, with long bony limbs, ill put together. It was difficult to say what the features of her face might have been: they were so crumpled, and scarred, and seamed. Not a feature had been left uninjured, except her eyes: and they were remarkable both for intelligence and softness.

She put down her work and went up to Clementina, saying, "What ails you, Miss? I hope it isn't true that you feign sickness not to play with your sister?"

The poor girl looked up, and her eyes were filled with tears. "Feign! I wish I did!"

"Then your hip does hurt you?"

"To be sure it does. So badly! At night, sometimes, when I'm in bed—so, so badly."

"And do you know that, Miss Ella?"

"Know it! Why, who does not know it? She's always talking of it; but, for my part, I don't believe it's half so bad as she pretends."

"I don't pretend, Ella; you are always saying that. How cruel you are to set Nurse against me, by always saying I pretend."

Thus it went on for a minute or two, whilst Matty stood silently by, her eyes wandering from one sister to the other.

At last she sighed, and said, "If it had pleased God to spare me my sister, I wouldn't have served her so."

Ella turned at this, and lifting up her eyes, measured Matty from head to foot with indignant contempt. It would seem as if she thought it almost too great a presumption in one so humble to have more care for a sister than she had.

"Who cares how such as you serve their sisters?"

"There is One who cares!" said Matty.

Clementina looked at Matty with puzzled wonder as she spoke. Ella haughtily turned away, saying, "I should like, for my part, to hear who this important one is, that you mention with such a strange emphasis. Some mighty fine personage, no doubt."

"Miss Clementina! Miss Clementina! only hear how shocking your sister talks. Do stop her!"

"Stop me! I should like to see her, or any one, attempting to stop me. And why, pray—and what, pray, am I saying so mighty bad, Mrs. Matty? You? A charity girl? I heard Nurse say, but yesterday, that she wondered her mistress would put up with such rubbish, and that she loathed the very look of you, for you put her in mind of the Blue Coat."

"I thank God," returned Matty, mildly, "that he raised up that great charity for me, and many perishing like me, and saved us from wickedness, and taught us to know His holy name. For He looks alike on rich and poor, and will judge both you and me, young lady."

Both girls were a little awe-stricken at this speech.

But Ella soon recovered herself, and said, "she hated to hear people talk like Methodists."

"What are you talking about, Matty?" asked Clementina, gently; "I don't quite understand."

"Not understand!—why, sure—heart alive!—it can't be as you are ignorant of who made and keeps you and all of us! Sure! Sure!" Matty kept repeating in a tone of much distress, "I can't believe my own ears."

"I suppose we know about all that," said Ella, haughtily.

She to teach her!—the child of charity to presume to insinuate a want in her! The idea was intolerable.

She went and sat down at a table at some little distance, and pretended to be busy playing with her bird, whose golden cage stood upon it; but, as she did so, she listened in spite of herself to the following conversation, passing between Clementina and Matty.

"I am so uncomfortable," the young girl was saying, rather fretfully; "I don't know what to do with myself. I try this thing and try that thing, and nothing gives me any ease or amusement; and I think it very hard—I can't help thinking it hard—that I should have to suffer every thing, and Ella, there, nothing; and then, Nurse makes such a favorite of her, and nobody in the wide world cares for me. Oh, I am so miserable, sometimes!"

"I used to be like you, once, Miss," said Matty.

At which Ella gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

But Matty did not regard it; and she went on and said, "Look at my face, Miss Clementina; it's very horrid and ugly, I know, and I don't wonder as Nurse calls me rubbish, and hates to see me in her nice nursery. Many can't help feeling like that. Do you know how this was done?"

"No. I suppose small-pox; but it's not like that, for your face is all cut to pieces. I don't know how it was done."

"It was done by the dreadful agony of fire. When I was but a little creature, living, O Miss! in such a place—five families of there were in one low, dark, nasty room, and, O Miss! it was like the bad place, indeed it was—such swearing and blasphemy when the men come home drunk, and worse, worse, when the women did so too! Such quarrelling, and fighting, and cursing, and abusing—and the poor children, knocked about at such times anyhow. But my mother never got drunk. She was a poor feeble creature, and mostly sat at home all day crooning, as they call it, by the fire—for they kept a good big fire in winter in the room. And then, when father come home he was generally very bad in liquor, and seeking a quarrel with anything—for something he must have to quarrel with. Well! One evening—O! I shall never forget it—a cold, sleety, winter day it was, and the wind rushing up our court, and the snow falling thick, and the blackened drops, and great lumps of snow coming splashing down, and the foul water oozing in under the doorsill, and all such a mess; and the poor, tired, or half-drunk creatures coming in splashed and dripping, and quarrelling for the nighest places to the fire, and swearing all the time to make one's hair stand on end; and father coming in, all wet and bedabbled, and his hat stuck at the top of his head, and his cheeks red, and his eyes staring, though he was chattering with the cold. Mother was at her place by the fire, and he comes up in a rage, like, to turn her out; and she sitting sulky and wouldn't move; and then there was a quarrel; and he begun to beat her, and she begun to shriek out and cry, and the women to scream and screech. O Miss! in the scuffle—I was but a little thing—somebody knocks me right into the fire, and my frock was all in a blaze. It was but a moment, but it seemed to me such a time!—all in a blaze of fire! And I remember nothing more of it, hardly, but a great noise, and pouring water over me, and running this way and that. When I come to myself, where was I?"

Ella turned from her bird, and her attention seemed riveted upon the story. She forgot her pride and her insolence in the pleasure of listening. Clementina seemed hardly to breathe.

"It was very bad being burned," she said, at last.

"Horrible, Miss!"

"Go on," cried Ella, impatiently; "what became of you?"

"When I got out of my daze—for I believe it was some time before I came to myself—I was lying on father's knee, and he had made a cradle for me, like, of his great strong arms: and his head was bent down, and he was a looking at me, and great big hot scalding tears were dropping fast upon my poor face.

"'My poor—poor little woman,' I heard him say."

"Then—for my eyes had escaped—I was aware that there was a beautiful young lady—at least, I thought her more beautiful than the angels of heaven—standing on the other side of me, right opposite my father, and doing something to my poor arms."

"The lady was very young—seemed scarcely more than a child herself, though she was a young married lady. She was beautiful dressed, all in snow-white muslin, with white satin sash, and bows to her sleeves, and a white rose in her hair. She had thrown a large bonnet over it—but now it was tossed off, and lay with her shawl upon the floor. Bad as I was—O! in such horrid pain—the sight of that beautiful dear angel was like a charm to me; it seemed to chase away the pain. And then she touched me so delicately, and spoke so soft and kind! It was music; heaven's own music was her voice."

"Who was she? who could she be?" cried Ella.

"Why, Miss, who should she be, but Mr. Stringer, the apothecary's young bride, as he had just brought home, and all ready dressed to go out to her first dinner."

Ella turned away contemptuously, with a gesture that expressed "was that all?"

Clementina said,—

"How nice of her to come to a poor little burnt child like you! and into such a dreadful place too! But I wonder she came in her best gown!"

"As I heard afterwards, it happened that Mr. Stringer had been sent for out, and was not come back; and when they ran screeching and screaming to the shop, crying a child was burnt in the court hard by, and Mr. Stringer was wanted, as there was no one to go but a little mite of a shop-boy—for Mr. Stringer had but just begun business—what does she do, but catches up a bottle of stuff for burns, claps her bonnet over her pretty white rose, throws her shawl on, and, dressed in her beautiful new wedding-gown, comes to this horrid den of dirt and wickedness. She did me up as best she could, and then seeing my poor father crying too, and all the people standing round, and yet not a word to comfort him, she said, very gently and kindly, to him,—

"'Pray don't grieve so: she will be better by-and-by, poor dear. Don't groan so badly, poor child! You are very sorry for her, poor man—but don't take on so.'

"But the more she spoke in this kind way, all the more he cried, till at last he seemed as if he could contain himself no longer, and he groaned, and almost roared out.

"'Are you the father?' said the young lady. 'Where is the mother?'

"'Oh! here—here—here—my precious child, my sweet baby!' cried my poor mother—and then went on, 'It was all of you—you big brute—you—you pushed your own baby into the red-hot flames, as you were atrying to get at me!—yes, my baby—my poor—'

"'Don't speak so loud, good woman,' said the young lady, gently. 'Lay the child upon the bed,' turning round—'Bless me!—why, there is not a bed!'

"'We are very poor people, ma'am,' a woman began; 'not a penny to bless ourselves with. If you'd please to—'

"I remember my father's voice to this day—

"'Silence!' he called out, in such a passion, 'would you beg money from the lady to spend in more gin? Give 'em nothing, ma'am—give none of us nothing—only tell me what's to be done to save the poor little thing's life.'

"She hesitated, turned, and looked round the miserable apartment. Too true, there was not an apology for a bed; there was not even clean straw.

"'Take her up in your arms,' said she to my father, 'and follow me.' And she stooped and picked up her bonnet, and gathered her great shawl around her, and stepped out into the rainy, sleety, windy night; and my father—for some poor creature had lent an old shawl to throw over me—took me and carried me after her: and a turn of the alley which led into the court, brought us out into the street, where the apothecary's shop stood. I was carried through, and up two pair of stairs, and into a little mite of a room—but all so clean and nice—and laid, oh! in such a delicious bed—and oh! it felt so comfortable—it soothed me, like—and I fell fast asleep."

The two girls were silent for some time. Ella spoke first.

"What a good woman!" was the remark she made; "but was she only an apothecary's wife," she went on; "and was her name Stringer? What a horrid ugly name! Are you sure it was Stringer?"

"Yes, Miss—Stringer and Bullem—that was the name over the shop-door."

"What! did they keep a shop?"

"To be sure they did."

"How long did you stay there?"

"I never went away no more, Miss. When I got better, the lady began to talk to me. I was a little mite of a thing, but I was quick enough. She found what bad ways I was bringing up in; that I had never once heard of Our Saviour—not even of my Maker—far from ever hearing of the Bible—or having it read, or being taught to pray, or—"

The two young girls looked at each other, but said nothing. Matty, in broken and interrupted sentences, went on:

"So she kept me; for she could not bear to send me back to that pit of iniquity in which she had found me. And as I lay in my bed, one day, and they thought I was asleep, I heard her arguing the point with her young husband—

"'Why, child, you cannot pretend to adopt all the poor neglected children in this bad town?' he said.

"'Oh no! I know one can do little—little enough: it is but one drop of water in the vast ocean—only one little, little drop; but the oyster took it into its shell, and it became a pearl. Let me keep this poor little one. I don't mean to be foolish—indeed I don't—I will only clothe her, and feed her, and send her to the charity school: indeed, they will half clothe her there. Do—do, dear John—she is such a miserable object! What is she to do? Let her be taught her duty—let her not be a poor ruined wretch, body and soul at once.'"

"The young lady would have moved a stone with her talking. Her husband was not very persuadable; he was not like her. He was rather a cold-hearted, selfish young man, but he couldn't refuse her; and so, when I got better, I was sent to one of the great charity schools in the city, where I learned a deal; but my sweet Mrs. Stringer took a pleasure in teaching me herself, and so I learned a deal more."

Enough of Matty's tale.

Mrs. Stringer, when she devoted such means as she could command to the rescue of one poor child from the misery in which she was living, and raised her from deplorable ignorance, as regarded all higher things, to a knowledge of the supreme and only real good, little thought how extensive her good deed would prove; and that in providing for the religious and moral education of this wretched child, she was preparing the means of a religious education—imperfect, yet still in some sort a sound religious education—for two children of wealth and luxury, as to such things, most entirely destitute. But so it proved—and this was the only religious education they either of them could be said ever to receive; so utterly, so entirely, were all relations of this nature forgotten and neglected in this house of profusion, where not one single thing, but the one thing needful could be said to be wanting.

The story first beguiled the attention, and then awakened the deep interest of the two girls. From this day, a sort of acquaintance arose with Matty, which ripened into true affection; for Matty was, in fact, a woman of no common order.

She gradually awakened their sympathies with regard to subjects to her the most deeply interesting. She led them, not unwilling, in those paths which are indeed paths of pleasantness and peace. She read the Bible with them, and to them, and she taught them the vital principle of effectual religion—the need and the faith to pray.

I want space to follow the course of these influences upon the soul. Imperfect they were. Such a teacher could not lead them very far; but she brought them on Our Saviour's way. And though much remained of wrong, inexperienced and unconverted—the change was as from darkness to light.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

And now several years have elapsed, and these two girls are grown up to be two beautiful young women. They had been taken out of the nursery when it was time to be thinking seriously of accomplishments; and the reign of Mrs. Nurse had closed. She was superseded by a regular governess—a foreigner. A French lady was chosen to undertake the task of forming two English girls to become English wives and mothers. The French lady did well all that she was required to do; for neither Mr. nor Mrs. Winstanley desired that their beautiful daughters should receive any thing approaching to what is usually called a solid education.

Mrs. Winstanley had not ten ideas beyond the arrangement of a party, and the keeping of good society. As for Julian Winstanley himself, he detested reflection, abhorred every thing approaching to seriousness, only desired to get through life as brilliantly and as thoughtlessly as he could.

He was not much at home; but when at home he required to be constantly amused, or he found home intolerable. It was not long before his daughters discovered this.

Till they were what is called introduced, these fair girls passed their time secluded in the school-room, and saw very little of their parents; but when they were once brought out, and when Mademoiselle was dismissed and they lived in the drawing-room, they were soon initiated.

The plan of life was one not unusual among married people of a certain class. A large and splendidly furnished house, in a fashionable square in London, was home—at which about six months of every year were passed; the remaining six being spent either in travelling, or at watering-places, or at some hired house in the country. They lived as a privileged order, severed, as by a gulf impassable, from the lowest orders around them, and in little communication with the highest. The last condition was not of much importance, but the other was fatal.

What can grow out of such a life, that is really wholesome and good? Many, many residents in London, escape this mischief. They have broken down the wall of separation which used to hide the very existence of want and misery and sin from the happier and the better; and the obscure dwellings of the London poor have their visiting angels, as well as those in the country. But a great many families still neglect this weighty duty, and live without thought of such things.

Mrs. Winstanley had led the regular party-going London life for the last sixteen or seventeen years. She was beginning to get rather tired of it, when the new excitement arose of having to "bring out" her daughters.

This bringing out of her daughters became an excuse for all kinds of amusing changes and improvements. Her receiving-rooms had to be newly furnished, a new open carriage to be bought, the Queen's drawing-rooms to be attended with more assiduity than ever.

The girls were two lovely creatures; they seemed to excuse, if any thing could, the expenses thus incurred on their behalf. So said the mother, and so thought the father. The love he felt for his daughters was perhaps the only tender feeling he had ever experienced in his life; for, in general, he might be said to love nothing, not even himself.

It might have been the dawn of a better life, this well-spring of pure affections, could he have worthily indulged them. But neither his own nor his wife's habits admitted of that.

Mrs. Winstanley would have thought it a disgrace if she had been one single evening disengaged whilst they were in London. Even in the dead winter she managed to keep up the ball; what with little parties and concerts, the opera, the French plays, and so forth, she contrived to escape the horror of a domestic evening. As for Mr. Winstanley, he seldom or never dined at home; except when there was a dinner-party. He spent his evenings at his clubs, engaged—he too well knew how.

The two girls presented a striking contrast to each other. Clementina was fair and delicate, with soft hair, and those tender blue eyes, which to me are the most charming of all eyes. Ella was a noble creature; a figure and form the most perfect that I ever beheld—features of matchless symmetry—eyes dark, large, and lustrous—hair in floods of rich brown waves—a hand that was a model, from which statuaries contested to be allowed to copy—and a spirit, energy, and feeling in her gestures and countenance, that won your heart before you were aware.

It was upon her that Julian Winstanley doted. The other girl he thought, and called, a sweet girl, but his Ella was his darling. Nothing was too good for Ella; nothing was to be spared that could please or adorn Ella. To ride with her in the Park; to visit the box where she sat at the opera; sometimes in a party to hear her sing; seemed to give him a new pleasure.

Yet there was nothing in all this, unhappily, to rouse him to a better life; to break the chain of evil habits in which he was involved. Ella was a child of this world; an impetuous, proud, haughty beauty; a contemptuous disregarder of the weak, the wanting, and, above all, the low, or the ugly;—living for the day, as her father lived for the day—she for the day of vanity and pleasure; he for the day of vanity and sin. There was that difference, indeed, and it was a vast one; but he did not feel it.

There was no pure and holy influence of a higher and nobler life, diffused from the beautiful being. She was no angel of light. She was merely, to all appearance, a very fine, fashionable girl.

And Clementina, in her gentleness and softness, was little more. The good seed which Matty had sown, had fructified at first, but the briars and thorns were gathering fast around it. The pleasures of life were choking it up. It was in danger of being altogether lost.

Matty had long been gone. She had married a respectable tradesman, and was in a flourishing, though small, way of business. She would have been altogether forgotten long ago, only that she would not suffer this. She found herself still welcomed when she did come; for both the girls loved her, and she perfectly adored them. So she came, bringing her little offerings, from time to time—little matters such as she dealt in, in her shop—humble, but, for her sake, welcome. These two girls had both hearts. Where they got them I don't know.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

"Oh, Ella! Ella!—what's the use of your turning your head from me?—Why, I can see you are coloring crimson—as if I had no eyes! Oh! he is charming, is not he?"

"How tiresome you can be, Clementina! I am sure I don't care. No, not.... Besides, he's your flirt, not mine."

"Is he? I wish he were! But I know better. He loves you, Ella; and what's more, you love him. And if you don't know it—which perhaps you don't—I do, and he does."

"He does!—I like that!—he does!—Upon my word! I like him, and he knows it! I do no such thing."

"Take care what you say. Walls have ears."

"Pooh!—nonsense! And if they have, I tell you I don't care."

"You don't?—you are sure you don't? Oh, very well! If that be really so, then I had better keep my message to myself."

"Message!—what message?"

"You know a man does not like to be refused; and so, if you really do not care for him, why, I had better hold my peace. He is young, and he is volatile enough.... And, indeed, I have wondered, Ella, sometimes, how you ever came to take a fancy to him; but I am forgetting. It was my mistake. You never have taken a fancy to him."

"How you do run on!" she said, taking the last rose out of her hair; for she was standing before the glass, undoing her braids; the sisters, having dismissed their attendant, that they might have a comfortable chat together. And then the hair came all tumbling over her shoulders, and upon her white muslin dressing-gown, and she looked most beautiful—half pleasant, half angry—as she turned round; and, trying to frown with her eyes, whilst her lips smiled, said—

"Cle., you are the most intolerable girl in the world."

Cle. smiled, looked down, and said nothing.

"You may as well tell me, though."

"No, I won't, unless you will be a true girl—own what you ought to own—say what you ought to say—that you do not quite hate him. You really may say that—and then we will see about it."

"Hate him! Did I say I hated him?"

"Or, pretended you did. Or, that he was indifferent to you."

"Well, well; I don't hate him, then."

"Then come here, and sit down by me, and I will tell you that Lionel loves you, and adores you—and all that. Very easily said. But far more than that—and with great difficulty said—he wishes to make you his wife!"

"Ah me!"—and again the color flashed into her face, and such an expression was visible in her eyes!

Suddenly she threw her arms around her sister, and embraced her tenderly.

"You dear, dear girl," she whispered—"Oh, I am so—so happy! But tell me—tell me—all, from the beginning. Lionel!—is it possible?"

"You thought we were very busy talking together to-night, at Mrs. White's ball, didn't you?—You were a little jealous, were you not, you silly thing? Ah, my Ella! My proud—proud Ella! To have made such a tumble into love!"

"Nonsense!—how you talk! But tell me all he said. Every single word of it!"

"He said he loved you more than his life, and all that sort of thing; and that I must tell you so to-night; and, if you would give him the least atom of encouragement, I was to take no notice, and he would speak to papa and mamma immediately; but, if you hated him as much as I said I was sure you did...."

"How could you say such a stupid thing?"

"I thought that was what I ought to say."

"How foolish you are, Cle.! Well?"

"Well, in that case, I was to write. Shall I write?"

She did not write.

And from this time the existence of Ella was changed.

She loved, with all the fervor and energy of her nature; and life took at once a new color. True love is of the infinite. None can have deeply loved—when or how in other respects it may have been—but they have entered into the unseen world; have breathed a new breath of life; have tasted of the true existence.

What is often called love, may do nothing of all this—but I am speaking of true love.

Lionel seemed at that time scarcely worthy of the passion he had inspired. Yet he had many excellent qualities. He was warm-hearted, generous to excess, had good parts, a brilliant way of talking, and was a favorite with all the world.

He had not the splendid gifts which nature had bestowed upon Julian Winstanley. By the side of her father, even in the eyes of Ella, the bright halo which surrounded her lover would seem somewhat to pale. The young man even appeared to feel this, in some degree, himself. He always, yet with a certain grace, took the second place, when in her father's presence. Ella loved her father, and seemed to like that it should be so.

"Oh, my sister! oh, my friend! what—what shall we do? Oh, misery! misery! what is to become of us all?"

Clementina's eyes were swimming with tears; but she would not give way. In passive endurance she excelled her sister.

She held her arms clapped closely round her; whilst Ella poured a torrent of tears upon her bosom.

"My father! my beautiful, clever, indulgent father, that I was so proud of—that I loved so—who spared nothing upon either of us—alas! alas! how little, little did I guess whence the money came!"

Clementina trembled and shivered as her sister poured forth these passionate lamentations; but she neither wept nor spoke for some time. At last she said:

"Ella, I have been uneasy about things for some time. We are young, and we have not much experience in the ways of the world; but since our poor mother died, and I have had in some degree to manage the house, I have been every day becoming more uncomfortable."

"You have?" said Ella, lifting up her head: "and you never told me!"

"Why should I have told you? why should I have disturbed your dream of happiness, my dear Ella? Besides, I hoped that it concerned me alone—that things might hold on a little while longer—at least, till you were provided for, and safe."

"Safe! and what was to become of you?"

"I did not much think of that. I had a firm friend, I knew, in you, Ella; and then, lately, since mamma's death; since you have been engaged to dear Lionel, and I have been much alone, I have thought of old things—old things that good Matty used to talk about. I have been endeavoring to look beyond myself, and this world; and it has strengthened me."

"You are an excellent creature, Cle.!"

She shook her head.

"But, my father! what is to be done? Can any thing be done?"

"No, my love. I fear nothing can be done."

"He loves me!" said Ella, raising up her head again, her eyes beaming with a new hope. "I will try—I will venture. It is perhaps great presumption in a child; but my father loves me, and I love him...."

Again Clementina shook her head.

"You are so faint-hearted—you are so discouraging. You give up every thing without an attempt to save yourself or others. That is your way!" cried Ella, with her own impetuosity, and some of her old injustice. Then, seeing sorrow and pain working upon her sister's face as she spoke thus, she stopped herself, and cried—"Oh! I am a brute—worse than a brute—to say this. Dear Cle., forgive me; but don't, pray don't discourage me, when I want all my courage. I will go—I will go this moment, and speak to my father...."

Clementina pressed her sister's hand as she started up to go. She feared the effort would be vain,—vain as those she had herself made; yet there was no knowing. Ella was so beautiful, so correct, so eloquent, so prevailing!

She followed her with her eyes, to the door, with feelings of mingled hope and apprehension.

Down the splendid stairs, with their gilded balustrades, and carpets of the richest hue and texture, rushed the impetuous Ella. Through the hall—all marbles and guilding—and her hand was upon the lock of the library door. She was about to turn it, without reflection: but a sudden fear of intruding came over her—she paused and knocked.

"Who is there?" exclaimed an irritated voice from within; "go away—I can see no one just now."

"It is I, papa—Ella; pray let me come in."

And she opened the door.

He was standing in the middle of the lofty and magnificent apartment, which was adorned on every side with pictures in gorgeous frames; with busts, vases, and highly ornamented bookcases fitted with splendidly bound books—seldom, if ever, opened. His pale, wan, haggard face and degraded figure, formed a fearful contrast to the splendid scene around him, showing like a mockery of his misery. A small table, richly inlaid, stood beside him; in one hand he held a delicate cup of fine china; in the other, a small chemist's phial.

He started as she entered, and turned to her an angry and confused countenance, now rapidly suffused with a deep crimson flush; but, as if electrified by a sudden and horrid suspicion, she rushed forward, and impetuously seized his shaking arm.

The cup fell to the floor, and was broken to atoms; but he clenched the phial still faster in his trembling hand, as he angrily uttered the words:

"How dare you come in here?"

"Oh! papa—papa!"—she had lost all other terror before that of horrible suspicion which had seized her—"what are you about? what is that?" stretching out her arms passionately, and endeavouring to wrench the phial from his fingers.

"What are you about? what do you mean?" he cried, endeavouring to extricate his hand. "Let me alone—leave me alone! what are you about? Be quiet, I say, or by...." And with the disengaged hand he tore her fingers from his, and thrust her violently away.

She staggered, and fell, but caught herself upon her knees, and flinging her arms round his, lifted up her earnest imploring face, crying, "Father—father! papa-papa! for my sake—for your sake—for all our sakes; oh, give it me! give it to me!"

"Give you what? what do you mean? what are you thinking about?" endeavouring to escape from her clasping arms. "Have done, and let me alone. Will you have done? will you let me alone?" fiercely, angrily endeavoring again to push her away.

"No! never—never—never! till you give me—"

"What?"

"That!"

"That!" he cried. Then as if recollecting himself, he endeavored, as it seemed, to master his agitation, and said more calmly, "Let me be, Ella! and if it will be any satisfaction to you, I will thrust the bottle into the fire. But, you foolish girl, what do you gain by closing one exit, when there are open ten thousand as good?"

Disengaging himself from her relaxing arms, he walked up to the fire-place, and thrust the phial between the bars. It broke as he did so, and there was a strong smell of bitter almonds. She had risen from her knees. She followed him, and again laid that hand upon his arm—that soft, fair hand, of whose beauty he was wont to be so proud. It trembled violently now; but as if impelled with unwonted courage, and an energy inspired by the occasion, she ventured upon that which it was long since anyone ever had presumed to offer to Julian Winstanley—upon a plain-spoken remonstrance.

"Papa," she said, "promise me that you will never—never—never again——"

"Do what?"

"Make an attempt upon your life—if I must speak out," she said, with a spirit that astonished him.

"Attempt my life? What should I attempt my life for?" said he, and he glanced round the scene of luxury which surrounded him. He was continuing, in a tone of irony—but it would not do. He sank upon a sofa, and covering his face with his hands, groaned—"Yes—yes, Ella! all you say is true. I am a wretch who is unworthy to—and more—who will not live." He burst forth at last with a loud voice; and his hands falling from his face, displayed a countenance dark with a sort of resolute despair. "No—no—no!—death, death!—annihilation—and forgetfulness! Why did you come in to interrupt me, girl?" he added, roughly seizing her by the arm.

"Because—I know not—something—Oh! it was the good God, surely, who impelled me," she cried, bursting into tears. "Oh, papa! papa! Do not! do not! Think of us all—your girls—Cle. and I. You used to love us, papa——"

"Do you know what has happened?"

"Yes—no. I believe you have lost a great deal of money at cards."

"Cards—was it? Let it be. It may as well be cards. Yes, child, I have lost a large sum of money at cards—and more," he added, setting his teeth, and speaking in a sort of hissing whisper—"more than I can exactly pay."

"Oh, papa! don't say so. Consider—only look round you. Surely you have the means to pay! We can sell—we can make any sacrifice—any sacrifice on earth to pay. Only think, there are all these things. There is all the plate—my mother's diamonds—there is——"

He let her run on a little while; then, in a cool, almost mocking tone, he said—

"I have given a bill of sale for all that, long ago."

"A bill of sale! What is a bill of sale?"

"Well! It's a thing which passes one man's property into the hands of another man, to make what he can of it. And the poor dupe who took my bill of sale, took it for twice as much as the things would really bring; but the rascal thought he had no alternative. I was a fool to give it to him, for the dice were loaded. If it were the last word I had to speak, I would say it—the dice were loaded——"

"But—but——"

"What! you want to hear all about it, do you? Well it's a bad business. I thought I had a right to a run of luck—after all my ill fortune. I calculated the chances; they were overwhelmingly in my favor. I staked my zero against another man's thousands—never mind how many—and I lost, and have only my zero to offer in payment. That is to say, my note of hand; and how much do you think that is worth, my girl? I would rather—I would rather," he added, passionately, changing his tone of levity for one of the bitterest despair—"I would rather be dead—dead, dead—than——"

"Oh, papa! papa! say it not! say it not! It is real. Such things are not mere words. They are real, father, father!—Die! You must not die."

"I have little cause to wish to die," he said, relapsing again into a sort of gloomy carelessness; "so that I could see any other way out of it. To be sure, one might run—one might play the part of a cowardly, dishonorable rascal, and run for it, Ella, if you like that better. Between suicide and the escapade of a defaulter, there is not much to choose; but I will do as you like."

"I would not willingly choose your dishonor," said she, shuddering; "but between the dishonor of the one course or the other, there seems little to choose. Only—only—if you lived, in time you might be able to pay. Men have lived, and labored, until they have paid all."

"Live and labor—very like me! Live, and labor, until I have paid all—extremely like me! Lower a mountain by spadefuls."

"Even spadefuls," she said; her understanding and her heart seemed both suddenly ripened in this fearful extremity—"even spadefuls at a time have done something—have lowered mountains, where there was determination and perseverance.

"But suppose there was neither. Suppose there was neither courage, nor goodness, nor determination, nor perseverance. Suppose the man had lived a life of indolent self-indulgence, until, squeeze him as you would, there was not one drop of virtue left in him. Crush him, as fate is crushing me at this moment; and I tell you, you will get nothing out of him. Nothing—nothing. He is more worthless than the most degraded beast. Better to die as a beast, and go where the beasts go."

She turned ghastly pale at this terrible speech—but, "No," she faltered out—"no—no!"

"You will not have me die, then?" he said, pursuing the same heartless tone; but it was forced, if that were any excuse for him. "Then you prefer the other scheme? I thought, he went on, "to have supped with Pluto to-night; but you prefer that it should be on board an American steamer."

"I do," she gasped, rather than uttered.

"You do—you are sure you do?" said he, suddenly assuming a tone of greater seriousness. "You wish, Ella, to preserve this worthless life? Have you considered at what expense?"

"Expense! How! Who could think of that?" she answered.

"Oh! not the expense of money, child—at the expense of the little thing called 'honor.' Listen to me, Ella,"—and again he took her arm, and turned her poor distracted face, to his. "You see I am ready to die—at least, was ready to die—but I have no wish to die. Worthless as this wretched life of mine it, it has its excitements, and its enjoyments, to me. When I made up my mind to end it, I assure you, child, I did the one only generous thing I ever was guilty of in my life; for I did it for you girls' sakes, as much or more than for my own. Suicide, some think a wicked thing—I don't. How I got my life, I don't know; the power of getting rid of it is mine, and I hold myself at liberty to make use of it or not, at my own good pleasure. As for my ever living to pay my debt, it's folly to talk of it. I have not, and never shall acquire, the means. I have neither the virtue nor the industry. I tell you, I am utterly good for nothing. I am a rascal—a scoundrel, and a despicable knave. I played for a large sum—meaning to take it if I won it—and not being able to pay, I lost it—and that, I have still sense of honor enough left to call a rascally proceeding. Now there is one way, and one way only, of cancelling all this in the eye of the world. When a man destroys himself, the world is sorry for him—half inclined to forgive him—to say the least of it, absolves his family. But—if he turn tail—and sneak away to America, and has so little sense"—he went on, passionately and earnestly—"of all that is noble, and faithful, and honorable, that he can bear to drag on a disgraced, contemptible existence, like a mean, pitiful, cowardly, selfish wretch, as he is—why, then—then—he is utterly blasted, and blackened over with infamy! Nobody feels for him, nobody pities him—the world speaks out, and curses the rascal as heartily as he deserves—and all his family perish with him. Now, Ella, choose which you will."

"I choose America," she said with firmness.

"And how am I to got to America? and how am I to live there when I am there? To be sure, there are your mother's diamonds," he added.

"Those are included in the bill of sale. Did you not say so?" she asked.

"Well, perhaps I did. But if a man is to live, he must have something to live upon. If he is to take flight, he must have wings to fly with."

"I will provide both."

"You will?"

"I am of age. What I have—which was not your gift—is at least my own. Lionel has been generous; I have the means to pay your passage."

"Aye, aye—Lionel! But afterwards, how am I to live? He will not like—no man would like—to have to maintain a wife's father, and that man a defaulter too. You should think of that, Ella."

"I do! I will never ask him."

"Then who is to maintain me? I tell you, I shall never manage to do it myself."

"I will."

"My poor child!" he cried—one short touch of nature had reached him at last—"what are you talking of?"

"I hope, and believe, that I shall be able to do it."

"I stood with my household gods shattered around me," is the energetic expression of that erring man, who had brought the fell catastrophe upon himself.

And so stood Ella now—in the centre of her own sitting-room, like some noble figure of ruin and despair; yet with a light, the light divine, kindling in an eye cast upward.

Yes! all her household gods—all the idols she had too dearly loved and cherished, were shattered around her, and she felt that she stood alone, to confront the dreadful fate which had involved all she loved.

What a spectacle presented itself to her imagination, as drearily she looked round! On one side, defaced and disfigured, soiled, degraded, was the once beautiful and animated figure of her father,—the man so brilliant, and to her so splendid a specimen of what human nature, in the full affluence of nature's finest gifts, might be. Upon another side her lover!—her husband! who was to have been her heart's best treasure! who never was to be hers now. No! upon that her high spirit had at once resolved; never. Impoverished and degraded, as she felt herself to be, never would she be Lionel's wife. The name which would, in a few hours' time, be blackened by irremediable dishonor, should never be linked to his. One swell of tender feeling, and it was over! All that is wrong, and all that is right, in woman's pride, had risen in arms at once against this.

The last figure that presented itself, was that of her delicate and gentle sister. But here there was comfort. Clementina was of a most frail and susceptible temperament, and eminently formed to suffer severely from adverse external circumstances; but she had a true and faithful heart; and if to Ella she would be obliged to cling for support, she would give consolation in return.

Ella looked upward—she looked up to God!

That holy name was not a stranger to her lips. It had been once, until the child of charity had taught the rich man's daughter some little knowledge of it. But such ideas had never been thoroughly realized by her mind; and now, when in the extremity of her destitution, she looked up—when, "out of the depths she cried unto Him,"—alas! He seemed so far, far off, and her distresses were so terribly near!

Yet even then, imperfect as all was, a beginning was made. The thick darkness of her soul seemed a little broken,—communion with the better and higher world was at least begun. There was a light—dim and shadowy—but still a light. There was a strength, vacillating and uncertain, but still a strength, coming over her soul.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

And now that wretched man, broken with disease and misery, sat there, with the lady, who, patient and pitying even to the worst of her fellow-creatures, had been moved by the sincerity of his distress. The extremity of his misery had raised so much compassion in her heart, as to overcome the resentment and indignation which she had at first felt, on recognizing him.

He had entreated her to tell him every thing she knew of the fate of one whom he had that morning followed to the grave. For wretched as was his attire, defiled with dirt, and worn with travel, he had left the house, and had followed, a tearless, but heartbroken mourner, the simple procession which attended the once lovely and glorious creature whom he had called daughter to her resting-place.

He had stood by, at her funeral, whilst ill-taught children stared and scoffed, until the busy mercenaries had pushed and elbowed him aside. He had seen his best and loveliest one consigned, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; he had waited quietly until all had dispersed, and every one was gone home. He had no home—and he yet stood by, and watched the sexton completing his work and cheerfully whistling as he proceeded with it.

For it was now a gleaming bright day, and the sun had burst forth, and beamed upon the lofty tower of the church-steeple. It gilded the church-vane and weathercock; it sparkled from the windows of the houses around the graveyard; it glistened on the lowly graves.

Cheerfulness was around him, for the bright sun of heaven cheers and ennobles every thing upon which his beams fall. And there was a soft wind, too, which stirred among the leaves of a few poplars, that stood hard by, whispering sweet secrets of nature, even in that dismal spot.

He stood there, motionless and tearless, until the sexton had finished his task, had shouldered his spade, and, still whistling, had walked away. Then he sat down upon the little mound, and hid his face in his hands. He sat there for some time—for a long, long time—and then slowly arose, and with feeble and uncertain steps retraced the way he had come, and found himself at the door of the handsome house, whence he had followed the funeral in the morning.

He made his way to the lady, who happened to be still there, and who now (as I have said), indignation having yielded to compassion, was prepared to satisfy the yearning anxiety he had expressed to hear all she could tell him of his once proud and beautiful child.

"You know where you are, and what I am, and what I and the other ladies whom you have seen with me employ ourselves upon when we come here."

"No," he said, looking round. "It never struck me to inquire, or even to reflect upon what I saw."

"This house is a kind of hospital."

He started—and a faint flush passed over his face.

"Yes," he said, "it was natural—as things had gone on—a consequence inevitable. Then she died at last in the hospital?"

"Not exactly that—as you would interpret the word. This house is, indeed, a species of hospital; it is intended as a refuge for the sick and dying, who have nowhere else to go; but it does not exactly resemble an ordinary hospital. In the first place, the services performed are not altogether gratuitous; in the second, every patient has a room to herself. We are only women, except the medical attendants: and we admit none but women—and those women of a higher class, of gentle breeding, and refined habits, who have fallen into poverty, and yet who have not been hardened in their sensations by habits, so as that the edge of privation is blunted; or what, perhaps, is still more difficult to bear, that painful sense of publicity unfelt, which renders shelter in an ordinary hospital a source of suffering to them—which—God be thanked!—it does not necessarily prove to those for whom such places of refuge were intended. This house would have been more justly called an asylum than a hospital, for it is intended as a shelter for the sick and destitute; but yet those who are received into it are expected to contribute to their own support."

He made no answer to this explanation. After all, it, interested him little now to know that his Ella had not been a mere object of the charity which is extended to paupers. His pride had died within him, for his nature had been much changed; but, only as such natures change. His faults had withered away, but no good qualities seemed as yet to burst forth to flourish in their stead. The soul had been so utterly ruined and devastated, the portion of living waters had been so completely dried up, that he seemed merely to have lost the inclination to do wrong—that was all.

"We are a small party of friends," the lady went on; "some of us in the heyday of prosperity, but who, amid all the triumphs of youth, wealth, and beauty, have not quite forgotten the poor, the sick, and the miserable: others, who, like myself, are fallen into the yellow leaf of life—whose years cannot of necessity be many—may be very few—and who would fain do something in the great vineyard before they are called away. It is our practice for some of us to visit this place every day, to see our patients, attend to their wants and comforts, and, where it is desired, administer by our conversation such helps and solace as we can. I come here pretty often, for I am not one who is very much occupied upon this earth; and, as I love to sit with the sufferers, and am more aged than the majority of them, they seem to lean upon me a good deal. They love to have me with them; and many of the younger ones have treated me with a confidence, which has excited, I can scarcely say whether more satisfaction or pain."

He still spoke not, but listened with deep attention.

"A few months ago," she continued, "the matron of the establishment came to me one morning, and said that a young lady had been received here some days ago, whom she wished me very much to visit. I had but the day before returned from an excursion into the country, and had been absent from my post about a fortnight. I asked, at whose recommendation the patient had been received. She said—that of Lady R., but that Lady R. knew nothing about her. It was at the earnest solicitation of the wife of the baker who supplied her family with bread, that Lady R. had given the order; the woman, who was a very plain sort of person, but highly respectable in her way, having assured her that it was a case of the most urgent necessity: that the young lady was utterly penniless and destitute, and in an almost hopeless state of health. She had brought on a decline by over-exertion to maintain a sick sister, and pay some debts of that sister's, which she thought herself bound in honor to discharge—'and other expenses,' she added, somewhat mysteriously,—promising that she would advance the required guinea a week; for, as for the young lady, she did not believe that she had five shillings left in the world."

He struck his hand flat at the top of his head, and held it there, leaning his elbow upon the table, so that his arm covered in part his face, which was painfully contracted; but he neither spoke, nor groaned, nor even sighed.

"I went up to the young lady's room immediately. Our rooms are each provided with a single bed, a sofa, an easy chair, a table, and such other requisites as make a chamber at once a bedroom and a sitting-room.

"The matron knocked gently at the door; but no one answered it; she therefore gently turned the handle of the lock, and we went in.

"The window was open. Hers looked upon those green trees you see at the back of the house, and the fresh air came pleasantly in: but it seemed unheeded by the sufferer. She was clothed in a long white sleeping-gown. One arm was thrown above her head; her hair had gotten from her comb, and fell in waves and curls of the utmost beauty and luxuriance almost to her feet. She lay with her face upward, resting upon the back of her head, almost as motionless as a corpse: her features were fixed; her eyes rested upon the top of the bed. She seemed lost in thought. Never in my life have I seen any thing so supremely beautiful."

"Ella—Ella!" he just muttered.

"When we approached the side of the bed, she first perceived us, gave a little start, glanced at the matron, and then, with a look of rather displeased surprise at me—

"'I beg your pardon if I intrude upon you,' I said. 'Mrs. Penrose asked me to pay you a visit. I am but just returned from the country. I spend a good deal of my time when in town with the sick ladies here, and they seem to like to have me; but if you do not I will go away directly.'

"She made an impatient and half-contemptuous motion of the head as I used the words 'sick ladies;' but she fixed her large, lustrous eyes upon me as I went on speaking—saying nothing, however, when I concluded, but keeping those large dark eyes fixed upon my face.

"'Shall I go?' I said, after a little time thus spent.

"She made a gesture as if to stop me—but without moving those large mournful eyes, in which I could see that tears were slowly gathering.

"Mrs. Penrose had already left the room. I said no more; but took a chair, sat down by the bedside, and laid mine upon her thin, fevered, but most exquisitely-formed hand.

"I gave a gentle, gentle pressure; it was faintly, very faintly returned; and then the tears, which had so slowly gathered into her eyes, fell in a few large drops over her faded cheeks.

"'This is lonely, desolate work, do what we will,' I said, as a sort of answer to these few large tears, falling so quietly and still, and without convulsion of features—the tears of a strong but softened mind. 'To be sick, and without familiar faces—to be sick and among strangers—is a sorrowful, sorrowful thing—but we do our best.'

"'O, you are good—very good,' she said.

"'There is nothing I feel so much myself as this destitution of the heart; solitude in sickness is to me almost more than I can bear; and, therefore, it is, perhaps, that I am almost troublesome in offering my society to those here who have not many friends and visitors—especially to the young. I can bear solitude myself better now, badly as I do bear it, than when I was young. Society seems, to the young, like the vital air upon which they exist.'

"'Yes, perhaps so,' she said, after musing a little—'yes. So long as there was one near me whom I loved, I could get on—better or worse—but I could get on. But she is gone. Others whom I have loved are far—far away. The solitude of the heart! yes, that kills one at last.'

"'Then will you try to make a friend of me? A new friend can never be like an old friend. Yet, when the old wine is drawn down to the dregs, we accept the new, although we still say the old is better.'

"'How very kindly you speak to me! You have none of the pride of compassion,' she said, fixing her lovely eyes, filled with an earnest, intelligent expression, full upon mine. 'You will not humble me, whilst you serve me.'

"'Humble you! My dear young lady! That, I hope, indeed, would be far from me—from every one of us.'

"'I dare say so—as you say it. I have seen none of the ladies, only the matron, Mrs. Penrose, and a friend of mine, to whom I owe much; but they are both so inferior to myself in habits and education, that I don't think they could humble me if they tried. The insolence of my inferiors, I can defy—the condescensions of my superiors, are what I dread.'

"I saw in this little speech something that opened to me, as I thought, one side of her character. All the notice of it, however, which I took, was to say, 'We must not exact too much from each other. A person may have a very single-hearted and sincere desire to serve us, and yet be somewhat awkward in conferring benefits. We must not be unreasonable. Where people do their best to be kind, we must accept the will for the deed, and besides....'

"'You mean to say that benefits may be accepted ungraciously,'—and she laid her hand upon mine, and pressed it with some fervor. Yes, that is true. We may, in the pride of our unsubdued and unregulated hearts, be captious, exacting and unjust. We may be very, very ungrateful.'

"Do I tire you with relating these things?" said the lady, breaking off, and addressing the fallen man. "Shall I pass on to others? Yet there are few events to relate. The history of this life of a few months is comprised in conversations. I thought you would probably like to hear them.

"I do like to hear them. I adjure you, solemnly, to omit nothing that you can remember of them. She was a noble creature." And he burst forth with a bitter cry.

"She was a noble creature!

"I sat with her some time that day, and learned some little of her history; but she was very reserved as to details and explanations. She told me that she had once lived in great affluence; but that a sudden reverse of fortune had ruined her father, who had been obliged to quit the country; and that she and her sister had found it necessary immediately to set about getting their own livelihood. Only one course was open to either of them—that of becoming governesses in private families, or teachers at schools. They had wished to adopt the latter course, which would have enabled them to keep together, but had not been able to provide themselves with situations; so they had been compelled to separate.

"'My sister,' she said, 'took a situation in London; I was obliged to accept one that offered in a distant county, so that we were entirely parted; but in such cases one cannot choose. My dear Clementina's accomplishments were such as the family in London wanted; mine suited those who offered me the place in the country, or I would have exchanged with her. But it was not to be. Things in this miserable world are strangely ordered.'

"'For the best,' I said, 'when the issues are known.'

"'Who shall assure us of that? and when are their issues known?' she asked, with some bitterness. 'It would need great faith when one receives a heavy injury, to believe it was fraught with good, and well intended.'

"'It would, indeed! Yet, we must have that faith. We ought to have that faith in Him, the All-wise, Merciful, and Good. We should have it,—should we not?—whatever appearances might be, in an earthly friend of this description.'

"'Ah! but we see and know such a friend.'

"'We ought to know, though we cannot see, that other friend.'

"'Ah! well—it is so, I dare say. But, oh, there are moments in life when the cruel blow is so real, and the consolation so illusory!'

"'Seems so real—seems so illusory! Ah! my dear young lady, have you drank so deep of the cup of sorrow? And have you not found the great, the only true reality, at the bottom?'

"She had loosed her hold of my hand, and turned her head coldly away, as I uttered the last speech.

"I asked her why she did so.

"'Because you talk like all the rest. At ease yourselves, religious faith is an easy matter to you. It is easy to give these every-day religious consolations, when we have nothing else to give. But they are things of a peculiar character. If the soul does not put them within itself, none upon earth can bestow them. They are only given of God; and it has not pleased Him to give them to me. No,' she went on, with much emotion. 'If there be light in darkness, it shines not for me. If out of the depths they call, and He listens, He has not listened to me. My prayers have been vain, and I have wearied myself with offering them. There was no help in them.'

"I was grieved and shocked to hear her speak thus. I, however, ventured to urge my point a little further.

"'But you did find help, somewhere?'

"'Not such as I wanted; not health and strength to my poor darkened spirit.'

"'And why? Because they sought it not in faith ...'

"'Ah! faith! but who can command this faith?'

"'Everybody.'

"'Everybody! If it has pleased God to darken our understandings so that we do not know him at all, it may be as you say. But if we know him—not to trust in him—that worst of faith must be our own fault.'

"She was silent, and seemed to sink into a reverie, which I would not disturb. At last she shook it off, and turning suddenly to me, said, 'Clementina had got nearer this truth than I had, or have. Yes, that it was—that it must have been—which supported her in circumstances far worse than mine. She was patient, composed, resigned, and, in spite of her natural feebleness, showed a strength which I ever wanted. She endured better than I do, when she lay low as I do now, and suffered worse, far worse. How was it?'

"'My strength is made perfect in weakness'—'Is not that said?'

"Again she fixed her eyes with a searching, earnest expression upon mine.

"'But, tell me,' I continued, 'how it fared with you? I fear badly.'

"'Perhaps you are not aware, Madam, how much strength, both of body and spirit, it requires to make a governess.'

"'I think I am aware of it, in good measure.'

"'There seems nothing very onerous in the task of teaching children during a certain number of hours every day, and living with them during the rest. But those who have tried it alone know how irksome, how exhausting is the wearisome routine of ungrateful labor. My situation was tiresome enough. They were a family of high-spirited children, as wild as the hills in which they had been bred, and whose greatest pleasure was to torment their young governess; though I was rather excited than depressed by our frequent struggles for mastery. Then the mother, when she did interfere, was sensible and just; and she supported me when she thought me right, through every thing. If she disapproved, too, I could be hot and unreasonable in my turn, and she gently told me of my fault in private, so as to never impair my authority. She was a wise and excellent woman. A good mother, and a true friend, even to her governess. But it was different with Clementina. Shut up in London, with a family of cold-hearted, proud children, already spoiled by the world, and never finding it possible to satisfy an exacting mother, do what she would, the task was soon too hard for her. The more languid her health and spirits became, the feebler her voice, the paler her cheek, the greater was the dissatisfaction of the lady whom she served. When the family doctor was at last called in, he pronounced her to be in so critical a state of health, that rest and change of air were indispensable. So she left, with fifteen pounds—a half-year's salary.