Mrs. Grundy at Home. Being a companion picture to 'Holy Wedlock.'

Chapter I

" It is a great privilege for her," said Mrs. Melton Meggs, aud, saying it, she glanced round the few faces assembled one spring afternoon in her old-fashioned drawing-room. Those few faces comprised the female birth, iutellect, and virtue of that delightful village, Drizzlington-in-the-Marshes. " I've no doubt you'll have to keep her in her place, dear," added Mrs. Perkington, ad dressing, as her widowed mother-in-law, Mrs. Melton Meggs, had done, Marcia Telbin, the Archdeacon's daughter. "Yes, I shall endeavour to do so," returned Miss Telbin, in a tone expressing "and shan't I just enjoy the task, that's all ! " " Lawless," said Mrs. Bull, with a simper, " is a dreadful name, isn't it ? Sounds so suggestively shocking." " I don't see that there's anything in a name," remarked Mrs. Perkington, who hated Mrs. Bull with an exceeding bitter hate.

The reason Mrs. Perkington hated her was this most legible one. Mrs. Bull was five-and-twenty and good-looking, while Mrs. Perkington had been five-and-twenty and good-looking fifteen years ago, and had now degenerated into a meagre, sharp-featured ghost of it. Miss Sleep, the Vicar's daughter (who was taking her two shilling tea aud the adulterations thereof in a distant corner below a print, gold framed, of Abraham in the proud sacrificial moment of his life, knife in hand), here chimed in, addressing Miss Telbin : "I think, perhaps, you'll find Mabel Lawless instructive ; I hear she's awfully well educated." . This contained a suspicion of hinting Miss Telbin wasn't awfully well educated, and it was meant it should. Why did Miss Telbin's father hold the proud position of Archdeacon of the neighbouring and important town of Slumberton, aud Miss Sleep's father stick fast as a mere Vicar of Drizzlington ?

In that bitter question, and in another detail of the past, lay the cause of the friendship-veiled dislike existing between the two girls of six and-twenty. " I don't know, I'm sure, about her education, Miss Sleep," replied the Archdeacon's daughter with asperity. "I know that having a poor relation quartered upon one because she is poor, and an orphan, and eighteen, isu't an entirely delightful prospect." " Ob, I don't know," returned Miss Sleep, prepared for battle. " I don't suppose you do, never having tried it," responded the offspring of the Venerable. Mrs. Perkington took the occasion of a short passage of arms, hereupon following, to irritate Mrs. Bull by the question whether "poor Mr. b Bull wasn't becoming very feeble ? " and thus draw pleasing attention and remembrance to the dis parity of age between the honest old landowning farmer and his youths id second wife ; a mode of attack which Mrs. Bull repelled with vigour in the kindly inquiry whether Mrs. Perkington had tried the hair-mixture she had recommended for maintaining the natural colour of that natural ornament and finish to the human head yet ?

This sort of thing went on for an hour or so, more or less, at the different houses in Drizzlington every afternoon of every week in every year; and was what Mrs. Melton Meggs (Melton always religiously insisted upon because derived from the Meltons of Hampshire, you know) euphoniously described as, and solemnly believed to be, Society. Society, with a very large capital S indeed. And society it was, as society goes. People whom Mrs. Melton Meggs stamped with the hall-mark "eligible" were admitted into these delightful joys; people whom Mrs. Melton Meggs refused so to stamp, were excluded from them, and consigned to oblivion and obloquy as " not being in our set." Suddenly a silence fell upon the tea-drinkers; for a carriage and pair stopped at the garden gate in the low wall bounding the Priory, and a particularly gaunt lady of middle age was seen to be descending aud coming in.

" Here," said Mrs. Melton Meggs, breaking the awed silence, "is Lady Doze coming to call ! " Sir Frederick Doze, Baronet, Squire of the parish, owner of a thousand acres, sixty-five years, and the gout, was a power before whom even Mrs. Melton Meggs bowed down — not to say worshipped — and Lady Doze, as his wife, was fraught with a mysterious and rather alarming interest. On this occasion, Lady Doze, who was dressed in plain and sober black from head to foot, and carried her ivory card-case in her hand, prepared to scatter heirlooms, in the shape of visiting cards, upon those who happened to be from home when she called, came into Mrs. Melton Meggs' drawing-room austerely upright, shook hands with that lady, aud honom -ed the remaining guests with a collective bow. " And how," inquired Mrs. Melton Meggs, with her usual rigorous manner softened from frigid December to balmy June iu the sunshine of the Baronetage, " and how is Sir Frederick ?

" Lady Doze took a cup of tea handed her along with the question, and stirring the former, replied to the latter : " Still, I regret to say, gouty. His enemy has returned, I am afraid, in consequence of annoyance in connexion with the letter-box at the park gates." " Dear me ! " said Mrs. Melton Meggs, burning with sympathetic curiosity in a moment. "The letter-box ? " "Yes. When Sir Frederick comes in conflict with any Public Body," replied her ladyship with solemnity, " not only does the Public Body usually experience grave discomfort, but also, it is sadly true, Sir Frederick suffers what I may term Recoil in the shape of gout. It is a painful fact." Lady Doze added this with a sigh as one candidly admitting : "The world is vain, empty, aud but darkly governed, I cannot deny it." MES. GRUNDY AT HOME. 7 " What ?

" enquired Mrs. Perkington, who couldn't contain her skittishness very long, and always talked as though those fifteen years hadn't passed, and she were five-and-twenty and good looking still ; " what is the dreadful Post Office trying to do ? " " They have had the inconsiderate audacity," replied her ladyship, balancing a roll of tissue bread-and-butter in her saucer, " to send a man, without Sir Frederick's consent, and paint the letter-box put in the park wall, at the park gates, a brilliant red ! As Sir Frederick says, the colour is revolutionary and objectionable. Besides, the box having been placed there chiefly at Sir Frederick's request, and for his convenience, it seems ridiculous he can't have it of the hue he prefers — a sober black. He is not arbitrary. He has even gone so far as to _propose a compromise in the colour — say a good, deep, Tory blue.

He cannot in reason be expected to go farther than that ! " There was a commiserative and general agree ment that the limit of the wildest concession had been reached, Mrs. Melton Meggs saying she often really didn't know what things were coming to! "I fear I know," remarked her ladyship, with melancholy conviction. "Coming to — or rather going to — what I shouldn't care to name." Quite a chorus broke out, instinct with the belief that things were going to — what that Society wouldn't care to name. After breaking up of the ice by mention of so warm a subject, the conversation grew almost general for ten minutes longer, and then Lady Doze, commiserated to the last, and regrettiug all round the sadness of things coming to such a pass, took herself out to her carriage, was assisted into it with tender solicitude by all the guests, and was driven of. by a ducal retainer, whose nose typified excelsior to all the world.

When Lady Doze thought it time to go, others should, being Society and fashionable, think the same. They did. Five minutes later, Mrs. Melton Meggs was left alone in her drawing-room with empty teacups, remnants of tissue bread-and butter, and an intense self-satisfaction. Society had gone its several ways to dine, and the east wind had everything to itself for the time. The respected clerk of the weather only gave Drizzling ton two sorts of that commodity : piercingly cold east wind or steadily persistent rain. The sole occasions upon which Drizzlington had anything different was when it had both together.

Chapter II

The following advertisement graces the educational columns of the daily papers : SCHOLASTIC— The Venerable Archdeacon of S desires to earnestly recommend a School for Young Ladies which his own daughter has attended with marked advantage. Excellent living and home comforts ; large house; bath-room; sea air; sea view; sanitation superb. Terms exceedingly moderate. Miss Binkie, Minerva House, Worthing, Sussex. Miss Binkie is an antique lady with no know ledge of the world whatever, and a strong tendency towards religion and indigestion. The advertisement is her chief pride. If there is one thing in the world upon which she looks with a swelling breast, then that advertisement is the one thins. It appears every day, and she reads it every day as regularly as she reads prayers to the young ladies ; and every day she so reads it she likes it better than on the preceding occasion.

As this process has been current for a good many years, it is evident that at the present moment she likes it very much indeed. If there is one portion more than another in that advertisement which delights her in a special and peculiar manner, "sanitation superb" answers for it. There is a delicious alliteration in the " sanitation superb," which, Miss Binkie feels sure, must in the long run conquer. Upon "the Venerable Archdeacon of S " she prides her self in a measure; but that line isn't exactly of her own invention ; besides, did she not take the Arch deacon's daughter at half the usual terms upon the express condition that heading should henceforward grace and hallow her advertisement ? Surely yes; and what one buys never ranks in the warm corner of one's heart with what one invents and is intellectual parent to, say what you will.

Of course the Venerable Archdeacon of S is none other than the Archdeacon of Slumberton, whose daughter, Miss Telbin, was but recently drinking tea in the drawing-room of Mrs. Melton Meggs. If she had really and truly derived " marked advantage " from her course with Miss- Binkie, it was, to say the least of it, exceedingly fortunate she went there ; for what sort of a dreary human misfit she would have been, devoid of even the slightest " advantage " she now possessed, it is painfully impossible to imagine. Minerva House, Worthing, didn't face the sea, but stared with its red-brick countenance and black eyes of windows, straight up to the downs at the back of the town ; yet from one attic in the roof (if you got some one to hold your garments while you risked an inquest by leaning half out of the window) you might get a yard-wide glimpse of heaving blue between two neighbouring chimney-stacks ; and hence Miss Binkie, when closely questioned by letter from a distance upon the point, always replied, with a strict observance of truth, "a view of the Deep can be obtained from one portion of the house," and kept " sea view " in her advertisement.

On the whole, however, Minerva House didn't seem exactly consonant with its character as given in the daily press ; being, indeed, a sadly poverty-stricken little abode, whose " bath-room " was a mere curtained-off recess on a landing ; said curtain, string-suspended, having a most awkward habit of coming down with a sudden flop at those times when it was most needed to remain up — thereby causing a vast deal of confusion, screaming, and general fluttering of the dove-cote. When Archdeacon Telbin came into charge of the orphan Mabel Lawless (in capacity of sole guardian and reliable bank whereunto the eight hundred and seventy-five pounds, her sole dower, might be safely confided), he instantly placed his ward with Miss Binkie : being evidently of opinion ■that her establishment was a convenient heap where such rubbish might be shot.

Shot there accordingly, forthwith, it didn't take Mabel very long to discover that Miss Binkie couldn't teach anything, for the simple reason she didn't know anything. Two governesses — one English and ■one French — did the work, whilst Miss Binkie undertook the moral and religious department. For it is a firmly established and unshakeable principle and belief here iu England that a person who is ignorant in every relation of life is equal to the best — if not superior to the best — as instructor upon moral and religious matters. The English governess was popular, but the French governess was feared. She was always impressed upon new and innocent comers by tbe other girls as a " Refugee," which, Mademoiselle being — unlike the majority of the pretty daughters of La belle France — of a somewhat sallow and remarkable appearance, the innocent new-comers interpreted as something between superhumanity and the baboon species, and feared accordingly.

Five years of death-in-life to Mabel Lawless. That was the sentence passed upon her by her guardian for the misfortune of being left to his care. Miss Binkie was supported chiefly by clergy men, because her own father had worn the cloth in remote ages, The young ladies of her school, whom you might see going iu double file to church twice on a Sunday, and scattering over the beach or standing, with petticoats drawn very tightly backwards by both hands, on slippery boulders, water-surrounded and screaming, during the week, were nearly all daughters of clergymen ; daughters of very poor clergymen, be it understood, who tried to convince themselves that any penurious lack of comfort at Minerva House was more than compensated by a superfluity of religious teaching on Miss Binkie's part. It is from this scholastic centre and jail of ignorance that Mabel Lawless, time expired, is departing to-day for tbat almost equally delightful spot, Drizzlington-in-the-Marsbes.

Seven-and-twenty pairs of girlish eyes — to say nothing of those of the English governess and Mademoiselle — are a mere dewy bed of violets as tbe owners weep over tbeir departing companion in misfortune ; and Mabel's own eyes are full of tears as she says good-bye iu seven-and-twenty little hurried kisses, while the town omnibus waits at the door, and its driver tries tbe strength of its roof by hurling Mabel's two boxes upon it with all his force. Miss Binkie has reserved herself for a little farewell oration, which she delivers hurriedly in the passage on Mabel's way out : " Good-bye, my dear ! I trust what I have endeavoured to instil has not been lost upon you. The whole duty of life is the cultivation of humility and the abasement of self. Crush the carnal heart. Live not for this world, but for the next.

This life is but a time of humiliation and selfsuppression. Accept this small offering in remembrance of me. I give it to each of the girls as they go from me. A Bible. The best book in the world, sold under cost price. I cannot, alas ! afford a more expensive edition. I sincerely hope I have fully equipped you, morally, for all the trials and temptations of a sinful world. Again good-bye ! " Miss Binkie kissed the curving outline of the girl's soft, warm cheek glowing with a dusky crimson in the emotion of the moment, pressed the Bible sold under cost price upon her in its brown paper wrapping, and with a wave of her hand passed Mabel Lawless from the sheltering win_s of the stage of life to play her part upon it. Seven-and-twenty girlish hands waved seven and-twenty kisses from the upper windows of Minerva House ; oue tearful girl waved one col lective answering sigual from the door of the omnibus ; and then that conveyance rumbled heavily away to the railway station.

Mabel leaned forward at the last turn of tbe road wherefrom she could catch final sight of the house, caught it, and relapsed into her corner sorrowfully. " I wish," she thought, staring at the toes of her neat little boots as they peeped from under her ulster ; " I wish Clara Biggs hadn't been caught winking at the young man from the drapery stores, in church yesterday, then she wouldn't have been locked in her room at this moment, writing out five psalms as a punishment, but would have been able to come and say good-bye to me." Clara Biggs was the naughty girl of the school ; an orphan like Mabel ; and what made it worse was that she was the eldest girl, too — more than twenty years old. If anything went wrong, Clara Biggs was always at the bottom of it, or, if she c weren't, she ought to have been.

From the first moment of her arrival at Minerva House, Miss Binkie suspected her, because she was the daughter of a deceased Vicar who had been hauled before his Bishop for heretical broadness of teaching, and ultimately deprived. The Vicar's wealthy maiden aunt, placing the girl with Miss Binkie, did it with a sigh that spoke tomes of condemnation of ber deceased nephew ; and when Miss Binkie found Clara in secret possession of a French novel, sbe nearly fainted on the spot. Thenceforward Clara was at once charged and punished on every outbreak of disorder; and Miss Binkie, sighing in her turn, put it down to hereditary heresy in the blood. Meanwhile, the wealthy maiden aunt, hearing Clara's character from Miss Binkie each term, didn't feel inclined to remove the girl sooner than was absolutely necessary.

Mabel was to travel third-class to London by Archidiaconal edict ; and first-class eastward from London to Drizzlington-in-the-Marshes. Thus the Archdeacon studied economy and appearances at the same time. The train came in, and Mabel (who had got her luggage labelled by a gallant porter, who refused point-blank, and much to her astonishment, to take reward for his services in the matter) was com fortably settled in a corner of a carriage ; the train was on the point of starting, when, out of breath, and flushed with running, an eager face came panting to the window. " Why, Clara ! what have you done — escaped ? " Mabel asked, iu blank astonishment. " Couldn't let you go without saying good bye, old girl ! First-floor window — tough creeper — fall on a flower-bed doesn't hurt much — get back the same way — oh ! how hot I am !

If you don't mind kissing me, though I'm awfully sticky — Good-bye, dear old girl — and you must take this — here it is " And then, before Mabel was aware of it, the train was gliding them apart, and a carmine face with ruffled red hair was blowing kisses after her : standing on the very last inch of platform to do it. Clara's parting gift, judged by the cold standard of a world dealing solely in intrinsic values, was of c no great importance: being merely a little silver pig, with an unnatural growth upon its back, such as no living and grunting pig ever possessed, through which a small ring passed for purposes of attachment to a bangle. But to Mabel's warm heart it was more — oh ! very much more — than a mere silver pig, and, being alone in the compartment, save for the presence of a boy of ten, fervently kissed that silver pig, and then placed it carefully within the keeping of a little doeskin purse : whereupon the boy of ten, all eyes in his distant corner, thought what a very dirty young lady she was to suck a sweetmeat and then save it for a future occasion ; and, from the instant, " gurls " sank to a lower level than ever in his contemptuous young heart.

It was a stopping train, and as the journey advanced, Mabel couldn't help noticing that at every station nearly every man pilgrim walking past her compartment straightway stopped dead at it, stared at her, and finally' came in. After they had so come in, they generally kept on staring at her till she felt quite uncomfortable and longed for a tunnel. But nobody spoke to her, bar one enterprising young man of the commercial traveller species, who endeavoured to open the trenches with a question relative to the carriage window, and who abandoned his attempt in confusion when sbe hadn't the least preference for any position of the sash. Presently, a stout old woman, with a gray shawl and a basket, got in, and after making a hearty luncheon upon cold bacon sandwiches, during which she surveyed Mabel with deep interest, seemed disposed to grow conversational.

" Going, my dear, to London ? " asked the stout old woman, in the process of a comfortable digestion. "Yes." Tbe stout old woman thoughtfully picked her teeth with a hairpin for five minutes in digestive contemplation. " London," said the stout old woman, at the expiration of tbat time, "is a dang'rus place for a pretty gal." Tbe male passengers had filtered out of the compartment by this time, and the two were alone together. "I think I shall be safe," Mabel replied, smiling. "I'm only going through London; I don't stay there." " Don't 'ee, now ? " remarked the stout old woman, much consoled. The train stood suspended above the river at Grosvenor Road, and the stout old woman took her bundle, unto herself. "I gits out 'ere," she intimated. "They'll take yer ticket d'rec'ly. I'm goin' to see my gal Susan through with 'er fust.

I wish yer good day, my dear." " Good day, and thank you," Mabel said, much puzzled as to Susan's ordeal. The stout old woman stumped away. But, almost instantly she was back at the carriage window agaiu. "My dear," said the stout old woman, "the next station is yer destiny." "Thank you," replied Mabel, smiling in spite of herself. " Thank you, very much.r She had the smile still on her face when the collector took her ticket. She was thinking : "My destiny! What a droll mistake! My destiny! Of course, she meant 'destination.' Poor people will try to use such big words, and they always choke them I " And then, all tickets being collected, the train rolled into Victoria, and bore Mabel Lawless straight to her — destiny.

Chapter III

Cyril Eade, five-and-thirty; tall, and rather slight; Charles the First face, with curly flaxen hair and beard ; the face possessing purpose as well as melancholy in its expression. Cyril Eade, fictionist ; sayer of sharp things; known to half London ; a digger in many fields, and a finder of restful comfort in none; about tired of every thing. Time was, with Cyril Eade, when contest for name and fame occupied and diverted him. There was a pleasure in fighting the critics ; there was greater pleasure in seeing the critics fight over him, as they love to fight over dawning talent. Half the reviewers welcomed him as a new light ; the other half regarded him as a poor damp match that would never ignite on the box of popularity. Suddenly he did ignite on that box, quite un expectedly to himself and everybody else ; where upon the one moiety of reviewers was exalted, and the other moiety came round like a weather cock, and cordially agreed that he was a new light after all.

The main result of the matter being, that Cyril Eade struck another amusement out of his list of enjoyments, and found fame didn't supply its place. For fame is but a flatulent diet at its best. It was perhaps in the usual routine of worldly events that Cyril Eade, weaving the ideal per petually, should have rugged experience of the real in-bis own home in the shape of a wis e who, conscious of mental inequality, endeavoured to elevate her intellect to his by means of constant recourse to ether as a mind-stimulant. When his wife confined her drinking to three or four brief intoxications in the course of the day, Cyril Eade bore with her; but when the habit nothing could check, developed into a mere daily procession of instantaneous ether-intoxications, he pronounced marriage a failure, and arranged tbe terms of a separation.

Attendant upon fame, and too late to serve any useful purpose-^-for the past was irrevocably over — bad come the soft voices and the soft smiles of society's wives and daughters : mere spring tides when the vessel's back was broken on the rocks, or first aid to the wounded when that wounded was stark in death. But, in the novelty and first glow of the new wine, he had drunk deep and long, the result being that which always receipts a drinking bout — a headache and a violent distaste for the intoxicating liquor. It was Cyril Eade, idle spectator of the play Life, daily acted for his amusement, who, -wishing a programme of the drama, strolled to the book stall at Victoria to purchase it in the appropriate shape of The Globe. He bought it, turned idly away from the stall, and watching the melodrama and not the paper, began suddenly saying to himself : "It amounts to a disease with you, this fiction weaving !

You dreamer of dreams, why do you fly to the conclusion she's an orphan and alone in the world ? Probably going home to her father the butterman, and a midday dinner of beef and cabbage! Yes; that's it. Underdone cabbage, most likely, with the stems ' cruncby.' Leave tbe girl alone, and come away ! " Cyril Eade took a half turn away, obedient to his own command, and then took a half turn back again : which brought him into his former position. "A tall, olive-complexioned girl, who will be a big woman at five-and-twenty. Grandmother probably Spanish. Fine, deep glow of colour, not in her face, but below the skin, like some red flower when it's folded up for tbe night. Evidently in a difficulty with her luggage. Must speak to her, if it's only to see if her teeth are good ! Awkward if she recognises me in an instant.

But I'll chance that." Thereupon, Eade strolled leisurely up to where Mabel stood in tbe midst of a hopeless confusion of luggage, trying to discover her own, and said with the quietly possessed manner tbat always inspired confidence in the most nervous hearer- " Can an old fogey be of any use to you with your luggage?" Mabel started ; the " red flower folded up for the night in her cheeks " knew morning, and opened its fullest, deepest glory as she answered shortly : " I don't think you can, thanks very much. It will turn up presently." He appeared to take no notice of her repellent words, but stood, quite self-possessed, beside her, saying nothing. A quiet smile was on his face, and he thought : "Talk couldn't be better. No butter man's daughter, by her voice. It's really almost interesting."

Then he spoke again : " I'm sure you'll lose it if you don't let me look for it. What is it labelled ? " Poor Mabel, in all the unusual confusion of a great station, and alone for the first time in her recollection, stammered out : " Worthing to Drizzlington, via Victoria and Fenchurch Street. I don't like to trouble you, really. M. L. Two boxes." Everything disentangled itself in a magic instant, and the two boxes were on the top of a four wheeler, the porter was departing with a deferential hat-touch, aud the good-looking man was saying: "What train from Fenchurch Street do you want to catch, and I'll tell the driver accordingly." "Thank you so much ! The three five." " I'll tell him. Strange coincidence. We shall see each other again, for I'm going down by that identical train." Then the cab drove off, with Mabel in a state of confusion within it, and Cyril Eade in a state of considerable amusement at the adventure and him self, upon tbe pavement, looking after it.

" Don't follow it up, you dreamer of dreams ! " he told himself, aud then, next instant : " Let chance decide it." He took a coin out of his pocket, and standing there, in a particularly public place, with The Globe under his arm, carried out the lottery. " Heads I go ; tails I don't go. First toss to settle." He flung the coin a little way in the air and caught it as it fell. " Heads, by all the powers ! Hansom ! Now then, Great Eastern, Fenchurch Street, and look alive." Then he got into the cab and was driven off. He smoked cigarettes on the way, and thought of the turn he proposed to give the story he was then writing. That led him, by easy transition, to varieties of character, and so to the consideration of his own character. " How much fickleness has been my fault, and how much has been the fault of my surroundings ?

What sort of a man might I have been otherwise environed ? If various phases of what we call 'character' are merely dependent upon the excessive nourishment and action of a certain set of nerves and brain cells, what becomes of the old hard-and-fast notions of right and wrong: ? " It was quite a relief, at this point of meta physical entanglement, tbat the horse in the cab slipped on tbe City asphalte, while the pole of an inquiring omnibus tapped at the back of the hansom as though anxious to know if any one were at home, and thus caused a diversion of thought. There were ten minutes to spare at Fenchurch Street, and the dreamer of dreams, dreaming harder than ever, booked first-class to the station beyond Drizzlington. Tbat would meet all eventualities, he thought. There was no sign of Mabel on the platform, and, the train being in waiting, the surmise that she was already in it was, on the whole, a natural one.