Hearts of Gold

Front matter

Crown 8vo., cloth extra, for the Library, 3s. 6d. each. THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. popular bv tljc best author-.. Ey HENRY KINGSLEY. Number Seventeen. | Oakshott Castle. Bv justin McCarthy. Waterdale Neigh- A Fair Saxon. bours . Dear Lady Disdain. My Enemy's Daugh- Miss Misanthrope. ter. Donna Quixote. Linley Rochford. Comot of a Season. By MRS. MACDONELL Quaker Cousins. By KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. Lost Rose. I The Evil Eye. By FLORENCE MARRYAT. Open ! Sesame I I Written in Fire. By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. Touch and Go. By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. A Life's Atonement. | Joseph's Coat. Coals of Fire. By MRS. OLIPHANT. Whiteladies. By JAMES PAYN. Lost Sir Massingberd Less Black than TheBestosHusbands we're Painted. FaUen Fortunes. High Spirits. Halves. A Confidential Agent Walter's Word. Canyon's Year. What He Cost Her.

From Exile. By Proxy. AGrapefroma Thorn Under One Roof. For Cash Only. By CHARLES READE. It is Never Too Late The Course of True to Mend. Love. Hard Cash. The Autobiography Peg Woffington. of a Thief, etc. Christie Johnstons. Put Yourself in His Griffith Gaunt. Place. The Double Marriage Terrible Temptation Love Me Little, Love The Wandering Heir. Me Long. A Simpleton. Foul Play. A Woman-Hater. Cloister and Hearth. Readiana. Bv MRS. J. H. RIDDELL. Hor Mother's Darling. The Prince of Wales's Garden Party. By JOHN SAUNDERS. Bound to the Wheel. Guy Waterman. One Against the Tho Lion in the Path. World. The Two Dreamers. By BERTHA THOMAS. The Violin-player. I Proud Maisie. Cressida. By ANTHONY TROLT.OPE. Way We Live Now. | American Senator. Frau Frohmann. By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Diamond Cut Diamond.

By SARAH TYTLER. What She Came Through. | The Bride's Pass By T- S. WINTER. Cavalry Life. By MRS. ALEXANDER. Maid, Wife, or Widow? By WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. Ready-Money Mor- By CeUa's Arbour. tiboy. Monks of Thelema. My Little Girl. 'Twas in Trafalgar's The Case of Mr. Lu- Bay. craft. The Seamy Side. This Son of Vulcan. Ten Years' Tenant. With Harp 85 Crown. The Chaplain of the TheGoldenButterfly. Fleet. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. A Child of Nature. | God and the Man. By MRS. H. L. CAMERON. Deceivers Ever. | Juliet's Guardian. By WILKIE COLLINS. Antonina. Miss or Mrs. ? Basil. The New Magdalen. Hide and Seek. The Frozen Deep. The Dead Secret. The Law and the The Queen of Hearts. Lady. My Miscellanies. The Two Destinies. The Woman in White The Haunted Hotel. The Moonstone. The Fallen Leaves. Man and Wife.

Chapter I. The Ellsworth Family

THE wits among their acquaintance were pleased to say that Mrs. Ellsworth was Mr. Ellsworth's husband, and that he was that lady's wife. It was a wicked way of publishing that she, and not he, was the head of the family and real ruler of the household. These satirists were in no hurry to add, as they should have done, that however improper this confusion of posi tions might be, the family concerned did not seem at all to suffer from it. Mrs. Ellsworth made a very good father, and her weaker partner was exemplary in his more limited sphere, and everything went on as well at Broom House as at other dwellings where there were male lords. But we will go more into detail. Mr. David Ellsworth, on his own immediate pro genitor's death, which occurred directly after David's marriage with Miss Harriet Maybury, succeeded to a rather large mercantile business in the City.

Busi- B ness capacity, however, is not transmittible, and upon the arrival of the first subsequent anniversary, it was an easy calculation for Mr. Ellsworth's clear-headed lady to reckon how many years it would take to bring the whole concern to bankruptcy, by proceed ing at the same rate of loss as during the previous twelve months. The result was, she insisted on David advertising the business for sale, and at once removing into one of the suburban districts, there to avoid com merce and remain content with the fortune already accumulated by his more practical predecessor. As was to be expected, perhaps, the delinquent resisted a little. He was, of course, utterly unable to under stand where the lost money had gone, and he avowed a solemn belief that it was all a delusion of appear ances, and that at the end of twenty or thirty years it would all come right, as it had done in his father's case before him.

His " husband" did not argue further, but published the business as for sale, became the tenant of Broom House, called in an auctioneer to sell off part of their previous furniture, and sent the gig to convey Mr. Ellsworth to his new home. The vehicle being actually at the door, his not going by it would have disappointed at least his wife, who had ordered it round ; the circumstance might also have perplexed the groom, who had got it ready and was then mounted on the seat ;— perhaps the horse, too, might have been hurt in its mind : and David Ellsworth would have been decided by even the latter consideration alone, when brought face to face with it. He smiled, said it was a sudden change, got into the carriage, and was driven to the quiet villa in the northern outskirts, THE ELLSWORTH FAMILY. 3 where they had since lived during the three and twenty years which had succeeded.

In the interval, someway betwixt them (the confusion of relations we have hinted at making this a delicate point), they had borne four children, equally divided -into sons and daughters. So far the family circle is completed, but there are still a few particulars we may as well pick up from the gossips as in any other way. Any friend of the Ellsworths would tell you that Stephen, the eldest son, was studying medicine at one of the hospitals, but that he never was ready to pass his examinations. Very much more would be hinted about this un promising young gentleman in nods, winks, and shrugs, and the conversation would suffer a restraint. Harold, the younger brother, would be talked about freely enough, and if upon inquiry it was discovered that not one of the eulogists could positively say they had seen him half a dozen times since he was a mere lad, that fact, perhaps, the more redounded to his credit, as showing how strong was the favourable impression a very few opportunities in his case sufficed to produce.

Though now not more than twenty, he had lived for the last dozen years with an eccentric uncle, Joseph Maybuiy, Esq., brother, as will be gathered, of Harold's mother, who had made a fortune in the East (not the Indies, but Turkey and Persia), and had set up a strange, solitary dwelling of his own on the Yorkshire sea-coast. We shall know Harold Ellsworth better by-and-by. If the talk with the gossips were followed up, it is likely a stranger, if the next name missed him, would think the speaker was further pursuing the panegyric of the second son, emphasizing it as ' they proceeded ; but, in time, he would find out it was of the eldest daughter, Clara Ellsworth, they were then talking, of whom everybody said she was -Harold born over again, with a more proper regard to the sexes. Of Barbara, the other daughter, and youngest child, no reliable opinion could be formed from hearsay ; no one quite knew what to say of her.

It was not that they disliked her, but it seemed as if they did not know how to approve ; so, when speaking of her, people smiled and frowned at the same time, and the only thing quite to be made out was that Miss Barbara puzzled everybody. This thirteen-year-old riddle had perhaps better be left to solve herself as the story progresses. It may be advisable, after all, to say another pre liminary word or two about the parents. All the gossips spoke of Mrs. Ellsworth, the head of the family, gravely and with high dignity. It was always agreed she was good and kind; the only question ever raised was whether she might not be a trifle too unre lentingly good, and just a thought too severely kind. There was no difficulty of that particular nature about Mr. Ellsworth. Whenever he was named a smile sprung at once on the lip, and funny anecdotes came in crowds.

If the reader has formed a notion that Mr. David Ellsworth was a cipher at Broom House, we have led him into an error. He was not a mere round O, so much as an unreliable number, having no fixed value, now being one and the next minute eleven. THE ELLSWORTH FAMILY. 5 Gay in his temper, indefatigable in his movements, he was perpetually surprising those about him by all kinds of wonderful resources. He had but one draw back — he was an embodied Jack-o'-Lanthorn, flashing only to lead astray. His ideas would have been excellent, if they had not always been impracticable. In another existence, where gravitation was unknown, and the rules of arithmetic not so despotic, and ques tions of profit and loss are not discussed, Mr. Ellsworth would have made a grand figure ; but in this present arbitrary sphere, in which ha'pence are looked for in change to be returned, he was a human butterfly, always unhappily fluttering with his head against hard stone walls.

The fact was that all the harum scarum ideas and wild fancies which knocked at other people's brains between sleeping and waking, and were either decisively refused admittance, or else afterwards hurriedly ejected, found the readiest of refuges in Mr. David Ellsworth's skull, who in this way was for ever entertaining the most disreputable mental company in the world. Experience, however, by making failure the consistent result of any and every plan he attempted, had induced a slight suspicion even in his own mind that he in some way differed from the bulk, and therefore might not quite understand mundane affairs. He often struggled, as we need scarcely say, against this disheartening feeling ; but, by a happy remnant of common sense, he gene rally resigned his own matters to the guidance of Mrs. Ellsworth, who fully comprehended that this was not a world of sunbeams, but a sphere in which two and two are never more than four, and oftener_ than otherwise only three and a half.

So much by way of anticipatory description of the Ellsworth family, among whom (and their friends) we still predict we shall find some hearts as pure as gold.

Chapter II

A FRIEND IS INTRODUCED, " Still perplexing your wits as to whether news papers ought to be folded in four pages or eight ? " demanded Mrs. Ellsworth, entering the sitting-room at Broom House. " I yet think the reasons are slightly in favour of four," observed the Rev. Mr. Barham, a grey-headed, estimable-looking person, of more than middle age, then leaning against the mantelpiece. " And, with due reverence, I incline to eight," gaily answered Mr. Ellsworth, who was symmetrically sup porting the marble shelf at the other end. " The paper becomes easier to manage in the hand, and you " You arguing for eight, David ! Why, you said four." " No, I am in favour of four," smilingly observed Mr. Barham. " You are not compelled to wade through the whole paper to find anything of interest ; the eye may roam over the broad sheet, and be at tracted to " " But when I left the room, Mr. Barham, you were pleading for your own paper, which I believe is folded in eight ?

" interrupted the lady. " Well, so it is," was the half-puzzled reply. " Now, tell me how many pages ours has ? " she next demanded, turning to her husband. " Four," replied Mr. David, with a look of slight surprise. " Yes, you have managed to change sides again, as usual ! " And, with a shrug of the rather broad shoulders, the victorious matron turned away towards a window, for the purpose of opening a letter the postman had just brought, so leaving the two contro versialists staring at each other a little perplexed. "Mebbe it is not worth pursuing the subject further ? " remarked the reverend gentleman, with a light stammer. " No, I think not ; perhaps the arguments are about equal," lightly responded Mr. Ellsworth. In that happy way was the debate ended. The Rev. Samuel Barham, whom we now beg to introduce to the reader, was the parson of the very small church (the living was in strict proportion) which had been built as a chapel of ease for that suburb, and he was Mr. Ellsworth's particular crony.

There were few poor people within his territory to visit, and being himself a childless widower, he spent a great deal of his time at Broom House. On these frequent visits, Mr. Barham and his host were per petually getting entangled in arguments, which, like the one just quoted, were generally most trivial in themselves, and not worth alluding to, excepting for the one peculiarity already hinted at. The debaters A FRIEND IS INTRODUCED. 9 were certain, in the end, to change sides, and, without at all knowing it, to be at last defending each other's precise and original propositions. Mr. Barham was a man of some attainments, bub so little self-confident, and, at the same time, so subtle of brain, that he was sure very shortly to find more in his opponent's arguments than in his own ; and, on the other hand, Mr. Ellsworth was so anxious to avoid giving pain or offence to any one actually confronting him, that he was just as certain to begin hunting for reasons to justify his rival.

In this manner, if the discussion were prolonged more than a minute or two, gradually and insensibly the disputants passed over entirely to the contrary side, and never failed to be astonished if a bystander finally pointed out the inconsistency. Just now it was evident, however, that the two friends had some secret between them other than that of the newspaper debate. Crossing from the respective ends of the mantelpiece, they met on the middle of the hearth, and there putting heads together, whispered mysteriously, glancing occasionally towards the lady, as though not wishful to attract her attention. Eventually, they were both noiselessly quitting the room, very much like big schoolboys stealing out of doors, when suddenly Mrs. Ellsworth turned about from the window, and they as instantly paused where they stood.

"Why, Harold is coming to us!" she exclaimed, advancing with the opened letter in her hands. " How is that ? " inquired Mr. Ellsworth, as if surprised to hear of a son coming home. " It appears to be a sudden whim of brother Joseph's, though Harold does not say much about his uncle. He writes curiously, and I cannot understand all ; but there is the letter," and she handed it to him. " Read it at the dinner-table, David ; the food will be getting cold. I wonder how long Harold will stay with us this time ? Come, Mr. Barham." At that request, the reverend gentleman politely darted to her side, and Mr. Ellsworth followed, reading the letter. Perhaps, as we have given a hint or two as to the personal appearance of one of the trio, Mr. Barham, something may be expected in that way relative to the other two.

The lady would have been a stately personage, only for a little too much breadth of shoulder and, very deferentially be it spoken, rotundity of figure ; but she possessed a bright, handsome face, the gray eyes very keen, though the brown hair was beginning to show traces of the coming snow. A feature not to be overlooked in Mrs. Ellsworth was her voice ; it was sharp and incisive, as if from the habit of command, and now and again the tone was not very pleasant to the ear. But, taking all the circumstances into account, the lady was not nearly so much of a gentleman as might have been looked for. Mr. Ellsworth may be sketched in a single sen tence. He was a very fair-complexioned man, of rather slight build, his eyes unusually blue, and his flaxen locks, just tinged with red, standing out all ways.

Chapter III. Dinner Ends In

A MYSTERY. "YOU will be greatly pleased, Clara, to hear that Harold is coming home ! " remarked Mr. Barham, approaching a tall and beautiful young lady, warming herself at the fire in the sitting-room. " You don't wait for my answer to that, but make the question reply for me," and Miss Ellsworth smiled sweetly. " The only drawback is, when one hears of Harold's coming, you begin at once to think of his going. I sometimes say, he should not come at all if he can't stay longer than he does. But, then, that only occurs to one the day after he goes away, not before he comes." " Now, that is fine talking again ! " put in a sharp *juvenile voice, and Miss Barbara joined them on the hearth. " Harold is not going away to-day, but is coming to-morrow, and yet you think of it. Mr. Barham, why don't you preach a sermon, showing the wicked stories people tell when they talk smooth and grand, as Clara so often does ?

I think ministers should check it." After sticking this verbal pin into the Rev. Mr. Barham, the girl, a little pale, quickmoving creature, flitted to the table. " Of course I am glad Harold is coming," she called back over her shoulder, " but I simply say so, and have done." " Barbara does not make a proper distinction be tween the allowable courtesies of the imagination and an impossible, stiff accuracy of language," mildly whispered Mr. Barham. " People tell more falsehoods by trying to speak the exact truth, Miss Clara, than in any other way. There is some force, I admit, in what she said," he added, as it was to be expected he would do ; " but you know her too well to be hurt." " And I am glad to think so do you," pleasantly retorted the young lady. " Barbara is not in her most amiable temper to-day.

Her health, like poor Harold's, is not the best, and that is a great deal, is it not ? " " Yes, and people should always be judged at their best. There is an old woman in the street behind the church, who they say is very ill-tempered. But in visiting her I have found out that for an hour and more in the middle of the day she is quite lively. That exhausts her temper, I suppose ; but folks should not set her down as ill-conditioned. It is unjust." "Ah, you mean that as a plea for Barbara. I* think it is quite right. She is excellent-tempered one-third of her time, and that Mr. Barham is — not in the middle of the day, but of the night, when she is asleep ; " and Clara laughed as she advanced her lips towards his ear. They were now moving to take their places at the table, Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth having just re-entered from giving orders for preparing Harold's chamber.

DINNER ENDS IN A MYSTERY. 13 Mr. Barham was manœuvring to get the chair beside Clara, <and had nearly succeeded when Barbara spoke — " I have set your plate here, Mr. Barham ; the servant had quite crowded that side in arranging the table. Here is your chair ; I shifted that, too." "Thank you," quietly said Mr. Barham, shuffling round to the side of his tormentor. Clara was the old man's favourite, as she was of everybody. Her soft beauty, no doubt, had a good deal to do with it. If her moral disposition had been much less satisfactory, people still would have for given many peccadilloes for the charm of her gray eyes. In very many glances, indeed, the straight nose and red lips would have stood her in stead of correct principles ; while her shining light hair was utterly inconsistent with anything not perfectly pure and noble, and the sight of a tress or two would have been enough to acquit her of even serious crimes.

" Harriet," said Mr. Ellsworth, addressing his wife from the other end of the dinner-table, " you know Hulse's cottage? " " Yes," answered the lady in clear, decisive tones, which made the monosyllable equal to an affidavit by most people. " I looked in this morning, and you could not see the window for smoke. There is an apparatus here for preventing it, which I think I shall recommend them to get. It seems to be quite perfect ; " and the speaker started a kind of pamphlet on its wandering down the table. It promised to be some time in reaching the other end, since it had a complicated diagram, which those who passed it on must first glance at. ".What is Hulse's cottage worth, should you say, to old woman Parkins, who owns it ? " coldly inquired Mrs. Ellsworth. " The rent is three — or is it five ? — pounds a year.

I don't know which, but I think Or is it six ? I never can remember figures ; " and her husband smiled, as if it was quite a delightful perplexity. " It is one shilling and fourpence a week," an swered the lady in another affidavit ; " and I see that this invention here would cost just seventeen pounds, not to mention that the cottage would not at present be big enough to hold the apparatus. They would have first to build a kitchen to introduce it into ! " " Oh ! " vaguely murmured Mr. Ellsworth, putting down his knife and fork in momentary surprise at this calculation. " One and fourpence a week ; " and he went off into a reckoning of how much that was a year, apparently oblivious the moment after of its practical bearing upon his proposal for expending seventeen pounds on the chimney. " If the house smokes, why don't they open the window?" tartly put in Barbara.

" Perhaps the smoke does not hurt their health so much as the draughts would," said Clara. " It is no wonder the Hulses are so often ailing." " Well, I don't think people should come here for jams and wine for their sick children, if they won't have the chimney mended," persisted Barbara, who was certainly in one of her very worst moods. " But what is done with the leavings of the sacramental DINNER ENDS IN A MYSTERY. 15 wine, Mr. Barham ? I have often thought of that. Could not you " " Barbara ! " exclaimed her mother, very posi tively ; and that young lady, understanding the signal, stopped. The conversation turned back to Harold, and all expressed delight that he was coming. But the dinner altogether did not last long, for the gentlemen were not in the habit of staying at the table for their wine ; they usually retired to Mr. Ellsworth's own room, where they had something in glasses as an accompaniment to tobacco and pipes.

Besides, on this particular occasion, Mr. Ellsworth was suddenly missed from his place before the meal had well con cluded. " I did not see father go," remarked Clara. " Nor I," said her mother. " But we won't detain you, Mr. Barham, from your tobacco ; " and she quitted the table. " But / saw father go," observed Barbara, finding her tongue again the moment the rev. gentleman had left the room. "And he took a plate of meat and vegetables with him. I saw him all the time, slyly filling it beside his own as he carved." " Nonsense, child ! " said the mother. " May I ring for Jackson ? " Barbara replied, flying to the bell-rope. " Yes." "Jackson," Barbara demanded as soon as the ser vant had entered, " did not you, when you returned into the room the last time, meet papa at the door, with a heaped-up plate in his hand ?

" " He had a plate, I believe, miss," hesitatingly replied the servant. " There ! " was Barbara's triumphant answer. " It would be, then, for some experiment," calmly remarked Mrs. Ellsworth ; " seeding animals, or some thing of that kind." " I am quite ready to believe it is for some nasty mess. Pa had a squirrel in his room not long ago," replied Barbara. Then waiting till Jackson's back was turned, she added, " If I was a servant I would not clean after them." "You are unusually ill-conditioned to-day, Bar bara," commented her mother, in rebuking tones, as they all left the room together.

Chapter IV

what the secret was. It has already been hinted that Mr. Ellsworth's brain was an asylum for all the lame and rejected ideas turned away from other people's craniums. The mysterious conversation between him and Mr. Barham, interrupted by Mrs. Ellsworth, and the subsequent secret disappearance of himself and a plate of food from the dinner-table, had to do with one of these instances. " Let us wait till he has finished eating," remarked Mr. Barham. " It is a good sign that the knife and fork embarrass him ; see, he has recourse again to his fingers." " But he need not choke himself; — chew the flesh meat before you gulp it. As for the potatoes, they are overboiled and not dangerous," said Mr. Ellsworth. The scene was the latter gentleman's own room — partly a library and partly a store-room, parcels of garden-seeds, etc., being stuck here and there on the shelves in gaps between the books — and the dialogue had reference to a picturesquely ragged and dirty-looking youth, then seated at the table in the centre, with the secreted plate of food before him, c and from which he was hastily helping himself by handfuls.

It had happened that, in one of their gentle arguments, Mr. Barham had hinted at a Platonian theory for proving the independent existence of the soul by testing some utterly uneducated human creature with some of the rudimentary truths of geometry and mathematics, the result of which was expected to prove that reason was anterior and superior to experience. Had they such an example then available, the reverend speaker had chanced to say, the appeal would at once have decided their vexed point. Mr. Barham had not the slightest intention of carrying it into practice — it was one of those vagrant inspirations which ordinary men reject as soon as they discover what wild characters they are ; but Mr. Ellsworth had instantly afforded it lodging in his brain, and that morning, happening to meet with the wretched boy then feeding strolling on the high-road, he ascertained that he was about as rude in his speech as a creature in the shape of a human being could be, and further looking upon his dirt and rags as supplementary hopeful signs, he had stealthily conveyed him as a treasure to his own room.

Experience, however, even in such a promising case as this, had led him to beware of sharing his pet plans with Mrs. Ellsworth : hence the secrecy. "Why do you lick your hands?" inquired Mr. Ellsworth, as the tramp, having cleared the plate, next, by way of a light dessert, stroked his greasy fingers over his protruded tongue. "Haven't you go*t a handkerchief?" and overlooking the incongruous possibility of the creature not having even' a pocket, Mr. Ellsworth pulled a valuable silk kerchief out of his own coat-tail, and was presenting it to the sur prised youth ; but Mr. Barham waved it back. "The pocket-handkerchief," solemnly remarked that gentleman, " is, so *to speak, the flag and ensign of civilization. When any race has advanced so far as to touch the tips of their noses with silk, it has reached a high stage of moral and mental culture.

It is to be hoped this person has never approached to the use of one ? " " You haven't, I suppose ? " eagerly demanded Mr. Ellsworth, a little excited in fear the experiment should break down at this first stage. " You have no handkerchief ? " and he fluttered his own to show clearly what was meant. " Neow," grunted the tramp, using his jacket-cuff freely as a substitute. " That is right," put in the delighted Mr. Barham, observing the act. " But perhaps it would be as well' for you now to — to wipe the cuff upon — upon — say, your jacket skirt." This having been done, while the two experimentalists, with a lingering weakness of civilization, averted their heads, the speaker proceeded : " We must first ascertain, David, how far his mind approaches to a perfect blank." " I should say that would be the way to com mence," replied the other, gleefully anticipating un mitigated ignorance.

" He does not know a letter of the written alphabet, and when I made some numeral figures on a piece of paper, he said he had seen some like them in the fields'." " How ! If he understands arithmetic, that will upset everything." " No, no ; he said they were worms ! Ha, ha ! He thought they were meant to represent earth-worms twisting about ! " " Excellent," answered Mr. Barham, smiling. " Well, where shall we begin ? If he can't read, and knows no more than that about figures, it is not likely he understands much of geometry ! Let us approach the subject gradually. — What, my man, is the greatest sight you ever saw? You know what I mean?" Mr. Barham added, by way of reassurance of himself, the puzzled stare of the tramp showing that he had not even a glimpse of the meaning. " When did you feel biggest ? on what occasion did your blood circulate fastest ? when did you feel most of a man ?."