Chapter VII…

Chapter VII

A few days after his departure I was surprised by a visit from Sir William Abdy, with whom I was but very slightly acquainted. I thought it strange his paying any visits so immediately after the elopement of his wife, who was a natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley by a Frenchwoman, who, as I am told, once used to walk in the Palais Royal at Paris, but afterwards became Marchioness of Wellesley.

"I have called upon you, Miss Harriette," said Sir William, almost in tears, "in the first place, because you are considered exactly like my wife,"--my likeness to Lady Abdy had often been thought very striking--"and, in the second, because I know you are a woman of feeling!"

I opened my eyes in astonishment.

"Women," he continued, "have feeling, and that's more than men have."

I could not conceive what he would be at.

"You know, Miss Harriette, all about what has happened, and my crim. con. business, don't you, miss?"

"Yes."

"Could you have thought it?"

"Oh yes!"

"And yet, I am sure, Charles Bentinck is worse than I am."

"In what way, pray?"

"Why, a worse head," said Sir William, touching his forehead, "and I don't pretend to be clever myself."

"Is that all? But I would not be so very demonstrative as to touch my forehead, if I were you."

"That Charles Bentinck," said he, half angry, "is the greatest fool in the world; and in Paris we always used to laugh at him."

"But," said I, "why did you suffer his lordship to be eternally at your house?"

"Why, dear me!" answered Abdy, peevishly, "I told him in a letter I did not like it and I thought it wrong, and he told me it was no such thing."

"And therefore," I remarked, "you suffered him to continue his visits as usual?"

"Why, good gracious, what could I do! Charles Bentinck told me, upon his honour, he meant nothing wrong."

"This man is really too good!" thought I, and then I affected the deepest commiseration of his mishap.

"Why did she run away from you?" said I. "Why not, at least, have carried on the thing quietly?"

"That's what I say," said Abdy.

"Because," I continued, "had she remained with you sir, you would have always looked forward with hope to that period when age and ugliness should destroy all her power of making conquests."

"Oh," said Abdy, clasping his hands, "if any real friend like you had heartened me up in this way at the time, I could have induced her to have returned to me! But then, Miss Wilson, they all said I should be laughed at and frightened me to death. It was very silly to be sure of me to mind them; for it is much better to be laughed at, than to be so dull and miserable as I am now."

"Shall I make you a cup of tea, Sir William?"

"Oh! Miss, you are so good! tea is very refreshing when one is in trouble."

I hastened to my bell, to conceal the strong inclination I felt to laugh in his face, and ordered tea.

"Green tea is the best, is it not, Miss?" said Sir William.

"Oh, yes," answered I, "as green as a willow leaf: and in extreme cases like yours I am apt to recommend a little gunpowder."

"Just as you please, Miss."

I asked him, after he had swallowed three cups of tea, whether he did not feel himself a little revived.

"Yes, Miss, I should soon get better here; but you know my house is such a very dull house and in such a very dull street too! Hill-street is, I think, the dullest street in all London, do you know, Miss Wilson."

"True, Sir William! would not you like to go to Margate?"

"Why I was thinking of travelling, for you know in Hill Street, there is her sofa just as she left."

"Very nervous indeed," said I, interrupting him. "I would burn the sofa at all events."

"And then there is her pianoforte."

"Lady Abdy was musical then?"

"Oh, very. She was always at it! I used to be tired to death of her music and often wished she would leave off: but now she is gone Miss Wilson, I would give the world to hear her play Foote's minuet!"

"Or, 'Off she goes,'" added I.

"What is that, pray, Miss?"

"A very lively dance," I answered.

"True, Miss, I recollect my wife used to play it."

"Dear me, Sir William, how could she be so foolish as to run away? I dare say you never interfered with her, or entered her room without knocking."

"Never, upon my honour."

"Well, I always heard you were a very kind, obliging, good-natured husband."

"Yes, and sometimes, when I used to knock latterly, Lady Abdy would not open the door!"

"That was wrong," said I, shaking my head, "very wrong."

"And how could that nasty, stupid fellow seduce her I cannot think!"

"There was good blood in her veins, you know, by the mother's side. Besides, to tell you the truth, I don't think Charles Bentinck did seduce Lady Abdy from you."

"Oh! dear, Miss Wilson, what do you mean?"

"Shall I speak frankly?"

"Oh, Lord a mercy! pray do! I am quite in a fright!"

"I think Fred Lamb was one of her seducers; but how many more may have had a finger in the pie, I really cannot take upon myself to say."

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Miss Wilson!" said Sir William, grasping my arm with both his hands, "you do not say so? What makes you think so?"

"I have seen Fred Lamb daily and constantly riding past her door. I know him to be a young man of strong passions, much fonder of enjoyment than pursuit; and further, my sister Fanny, one of the most charitable of all human beings, told me she had seen Fred Lamb in a private box at Drury Lane with your wife, and her hand was clasped in his, which he held on his knee!"

"Oh, la, Miss!"

"Come, do not take on so," said I, in imitation of Brummell's nonsense, and striving to conceal a laugh, "leave your dull house in Hill Street, and set off to-morrow morning, on some pleasant excursion. Be assured that you will find fifty pretty girls, who will be so delighted with you as soon to make you forget Lady Abdy."

"But then," said Sir William, "I cannot think how she came to be in the family-way: for I am sure, Miss Wilson, that during all the years we have lived together, I always----"

"Never mind," interrupted I, "go home now, and prepare for your journey, and be sure to write to me, and tell me if your mind is easier."

"Thank you, Miss Wilson! you are all goodness. I'll be sure to write, and I mean to set off to-morrow morning, and I'll never come back to that nasty, dull, large house of mine again."

"Get the sofa removed," said I, "at all events."

"Yes, Miss, I will, thank you; and the pianoforte. So good-bye, Miss;" and then returning, quite in a whisper, "perhaps, Miss Wilson, when you and I become better acquainted, you'll give me a kiss!"

I only laughed, and bade him take care of himself, and so we parted.

All this nonsense was however very poor amusement to me, now that I had lost Lord Ponsonby. I considered that, although I was by my hard fate denied the pleasure of consoling his affliction, I might yet go into the country and lead the same retired sort of life which he did; and there endeavour by study to make myself rather more worthy of him. "I am a very ignorant little fool," thought I, "but it does not, therefore, follow, that I should remain a fool all my life, like Sir William Abdy." My plan was settled and arranged in less than an hour, and my small trunk packed, my carriage filled with books, and I and my femme de chambre on our road to Salt Hill.

I told the landlady of the Castle Inn, that I was come to take up my residence with her for a fortnight, and that I should require a quiet comfortable room to study in. The word study sounded very well, I thought, as I pronounced it, and, after arranging my books in due order, in the pretty rural room allotted to me by my civil landlady, I sat down to consider which of them I should begin with, in order to become clever and learned at the shortest notice, as that good lady provided people with hot dinners.

"Ponsonby, being forty already," thought I, "will be downright out, while I continue to bloom: therefore, when this idea makes him more timid and humble, I should like to improve my powers of consoling him and charming away all his cares. Let me see! What knowledge will be likely to make me most agreeable to him? Oh! politics. What a pity that he does not like something less dry and more lively! But, no matter!" and I turned over the leaves of my History of England, for George the Second and George the Third, and I began reading the Debates in Parliament. "Let me consider!" continued I, pausing. "I am determined to stick firm to the Opposition side, all my life; because Ponsonby must know best: and yet it goes against the grain of all my late aristocratical prejudices, which, by-the-bye, only furnish a proof how wrong-headed young girls often are."

I began to read a long speech of Lord Ponsonby's late intimate friend, Charles James Fox. "This man," thought I, when I had finished his speech, "appears to have much reason on his side; but then all great orators seem right, till they are contradicted by better reasoners; so, if I read Pitt's answer to this speech, I shall become as aristocratical as ever. I must begin with Pitt, and finish with Fox's answer and objections to Pitt's plan." I tried this method of making a little Whig of myself, pour les beaux yeux de milord Ponsonby. "After all," said I, pausing, "it will be no use, and very mean of me, to think one way and profess to think another; and it still strikes me the better reason and the sounder judgment is with Pitt, who seems to go further and embrace a vaster and more solid plan than Fox. The latter finding all that wit and brilliant exercise of humour necessary, makes his appear to me the worse course; then there is too much method in these Whigs, and their abuse of administration becomes pointless; because it seems as though perpetually ready cut and dried; and so vulgar! and opposition is such a losing game! and then I have a sneaking kindness for my king."

"Quelle dommage! I cannot be a Whig, for the life of me!" said I, throwing away the book, and quietly reclined my head on my hand, in deep thought as to what next I should study, having determined at once, out of respect to Lord Ponsonby to stand neuter in regard to politics, since I could not make a Whig of myself.

My landlady came in to know what I would have for dinner.

"Oh, ma'am," I exclaimed, pushing aside my book, and walking towards the window, "it is impossible for persons to study if they are to be interrupted by such absurd questions."

The woman begged my pardon.

"Listen to me, madam," said I, with the utmost concentration of dignity; "I have come into this retirement for the purpose of hard reading; therefore, instead of asking me what I want for dinner every day, or disturbing my books or papers, I shall thank you to bring up a tray with a fowl, or anything you like, exactly at five, and, placing it upon that little table, you must, if you please, go out of the room again without saying a single word, and when I am hungry I will eat."

Mine hostess looked at me as if she would have laughed if she had dared, and I felt somewhat of a sort of inclination to join her; however, I contrived to preserve my consequence, and asked, while attempting to assume a severe frown, how old she would guess me to be.

"About sixteen or seventeen, Miss."

"I am almost nineteen, madam," said I, elevating my head, with much pride. "You must not laugh!" I added, seeing that her risible muscles again exhibited symptoms of incipient activity, and well they might; for I was the most tom-boy, childish-looking creature who ever sat down by herself in a large room to study the merits of Pitt and Fox; and, what was worse, one of the most perfectly uneducated young women of my age that ever went to school; but then my school was only a French convent, where there really was nothing which excited in me the slightest curiosity after knowledge, and I never learned a single lesson by heart in my life, nor I believe ever could. The abbess was in despair about me. The confessor said, with Fred Bentinck, that I should come to no good; and I played the old nuns so many tricks that they were all frightened to death of me.

Being once more left to myself, I snatched up a volume of Shakespeare, pour me désennuyer un moment, and opened it at this passage, in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue), O'erpicturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature: on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did.

"How beautiful!" said I, throwing down the book, "Can anything be imagined more glowing or more animated than this description! However I came here to study--and Shakespeare is too amusing to be considered study. True I have heard people remark that many passages of Shakespeare's writings are obscure; yet it seems to me that all the beauties are clear and plain, and the little obscurities not worth puzzling about:--therefore I'll study history; one must know something of that. I'll begin with ancient Greece, never mind English history, we can all get credit for that."

The Greeks employed me for two whole days, and the Romans six more: I took down notes of what I thought most striking. I then read Charles the Twelfth, by Voltaire, and liked it less than most people do; and then Rousseau's Confessions; then Racine's Tragedies, and afterwards, Boswell's Life of Johnson. I allowed myself only ten minutes for my dinner. In short, what might I not have read, had not I been barbarously interrupted by the whole family of the Pitchers, who, having once taken a fancy to my society, I had no chance but returning to town as fast as possible after a three weeks' residence at Salt Hill, during which time I had constantly heard from Lord Ponsonby, who was in Ireland; but hoped shortly to join me in town.

I was soon visited by my dear mother. She wished to consult me about what was best to be done to put my young sister out of the way of that most profligate nobleman, Lord Deerhurst, who was, she said, continually watching her in the Park and streets whenever she went out. I could hardly believe that anything wrong could be meant towards a child scarcely thirteen years of age; but my mother assured me that he had been clandestinely writing to her and sending her little paltry presents of gilt chains, such as are sold by Jews in the streets; these said trumpery articles being presented to my sister Sophia, in old jewel-boxes of Love and Wirgman, in order to make it appear to the poor child that they were valuable.

"I see no remedy," said my dear mother, "but sending Sophia to some school at a distance; and I hope to obtain her father's consent for that purpose as soon as possible. No time is to be lost, Sophia being so sly about receiving these things that I only found it out by the greatest accident. The last were delivered to her by a young friend of hers, quite a child, to whom Lord Deerhurst addressed himself, not having been able to meet with Sophia lately."

I was very much disgusted with this account, and quite agreed with my mother that it would be the safest plan to send the child away.

Before she took her leave, she assured me that, if possible, Sophia should depart immediately.

The next day I went to visit Fanny. Colonel Armstrong was with her. I allude to the Duke of York's aide-de-camp. The Earl of Bective was also there.

I inquired how Amy went on.

Sydenham was beginning to consider her evening parties rather a bore. Julia, they said, was growing more gracious towards George Brummell than Colonel Cotton liked.

Armstrong happening to be disengaged, which was seldom the case, proposed our taking Amy, who was a great favourite of his, by surprise, in the absence of Sydenham, who was at Brighton assisting Lord Wellesley to take care of Moll Raffles.

"Do you propose dining with her?" said I.

"Why not?" inquired Colonel Armstrong.

"I hope she will treat you better than she does her own sisters when we try her pot-luck."

"I am not at all particular," said Armstrong.

"I never saw but one man," retorted I, "among all Amy's train of admirers, whom she did not contrive to cure of their temerity in intruding themselves to dinner. The Baron Tuille's ardent love was, for six months, proof against Amy's bill of fare. Amy used to sit and sit till hunger would not permit her to fast any longer, and at last she would say, 'Baron! I am going down to dinner: but I have nothing to offer you but a black pudding!' 'Note!' the Dutchman always answered, 'Note! noting I like so vel!'"

"What," said Armstrong, "does she never have anything but black pudding?"

"Oh! yes," I replied, "sometimes toad-in-a-hole, or hard dumplings; but black pudding takes the lead."

Fanny, with all her good nature, began to laugh as she related the following little anecdote, which had occurred while I was at Salt Hill, apropos to Amy's penchant for a black pudding. My little sister Sophia had been permitted to go and dine with Amy one day, having been particularly invited a week before. Nevertheless, when she arrived Amy appeared to start as though surprised and said, "Oh! by-the-bye, I forgot to order my dinner, and my maid and man are both out, with letters and cards of invitations. However I can soon manage to get a black pudding broiled. You will not mind running to South Audley-street for a pound of black pudding? Shall you, my dear?"

"Oh, no!" replied Sophia, reddening up to the eyes at the vile proposal, having lately become a coquette, from being told that she was an angel, and being really a very ladylike girl at all times; and just now she wore her smartest dress. However, she always said yes to whatever people asked her, wanting courage or character to beg leave to differ from anybody's opinion.

The said black pudding, then, was put into her hand by the vulgar, unfeeling pork-butcher, enveloped only by a small bit of the dirty Times newspaper, just sufficiently large for her to take hold of it by in the middle.

Sophia, being a remarkably shy, proud girl, felt herself ready to sink, as she walked down South Audley-street at that very fashionable hour of the day, with such a substitute for a reticule flourishing quite bare in her hand, as a greasy black pudding! She tried hanging down her arm: but rose it again in alarm, lest she should spoil her gay new frock. Then a ray of good sense, which shot across her brain, her head I mean, induced her with an effort of desperation to hold the thing naturally, without attempting to conceal it; but, Oh, luckless fate! at the very moment poor Sophia had obtained this victory over her feelings, whom should she bolt against, all on a sudden in turning down South-street, but the first flatterer and ardent admirer of her young graces, Viscount Deerhurst!

The black pudding was now huddled up into the folds of her new frock: then she rued the day when pocket-holes went out of fashion. Deerhurst now, holding out his hand to her, her last desperate resource was to throw down the vile black pudding as softly as possible behind her, and she then shook hands with his lordship.

"Miss! Miss!" bawled out, at this instant, a comical-looking, middle-aged Irish labourer, who happened to be close behind her, and had picked up the delicate morsel, at the instant of its fall.

Thrusting forward the spectral lump, "Miss! Miss! how comed you then dear, to let go o' this and never miss it? Be to laying hold of it at this end, honey! It's quite clean, dear, and sure and you need not be afear'd to handle it at that same end," added Pat, giving it a wipe, with the sleeve of his dirty ragged jacket.

Deerhurst, who it must be allowed possesses a great deal of natural humour, could stand this scene between Pat and Sophia no longer, and burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while poor Sophia, almost black in the face with shame and rage, assured the man she had dropped nothing of the sort, and did not know what he meant--and then she ran away so fast that Deerhurst could not overtake her, and she got safe home to her mother's, leaving Amy to watch at her window the arrival of her favourite black pudding.

Colonel Armstrong was absolutely delighted with this account; but said he should decline her pot-luck, as it is vulgarly called. He nevertheless wished us, of all things, to accompany him to her house, and which we agreed to.

We found Amy in the act of turning over the leaves of Mr. Nugent's music book, and Mr. Nugent singing an Italian air to his own accompaniment, ogling Amy to triple time.

The man commonly called King Allen, now Lord Allen, appeared to be only waiting for a pause of harmony in order to take his leave.

"Ha! How do you do?" said Amy, and Nugent arose to welcome us with his everlasting laugh.

"Well, Harriette," said Amy, "you are come back, are you! I have heard that you went into the country with your whole library in your carriage, like Dominie Sampson; and, let me see, who was it told me you were gone mad?"

"Your new and interesting admirer, his Grace of Grafton, perhaps; for I have heard that he is matter-of-fact enough for anything."

"It is a pity, my dear Harriette, that you continue to have such coarse ideas!" retorted Amy, en faisant la petite bouche, with her usual look of purity, just as if she had not been lately receiving the sly hackney coach visits of the old beau.

Armstrong changed the conversation by telling Amy that he had some idea of intruding upon her to dinner the next day.

"Oh, I really shall give you a very bad dinner, I am afraid," said Amy, having recovered from her growing anger towards me, in real alarm.

"My dear Mrs. Sydenham," replied Colonel Armstrong, earnestly, "I hate apologies, and indeed, am a little surprised that you should pay yourself so poor a compliment as to imagine for a moment any man cared for dinner; for vile, odious, vulgar dinner in your society. Now for my part, I request that I may find nothing on your table to-morrow, but fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, pastry, fruit and good wine. If you get anything more, I will never forgive you."

Amy's large, round eyes opened wider and wider, and so did her mouth, as Armstrong proceeded; and, before he had got to the wine, she became absolutely speechless with dismay. Armstrong, however, appeared quite satisfied, remarking carelessly that he knew her hour and would not keep her waiting.

"Is anybody here who can lend me two shillings to pay my hackney-coach?" said Allen.

"No change," was the general answer; for everybody knew King Allen!

The beaux having left us, Amy opened her heart, and said we might partake of her toad-in-a-hole, if we liked; but that she must leave us the instant after dinner.

"What for?" Fanny inquired.

"Nothing wrong," answered Amy, of course.

"Very little good, I presume," said I, "if we may judge from his appearance; however," taking up my bonnet, "I do not want to run foul of the Duke of Grafton, since he votes me mad:" and I took my leave.

The next morning I received a letter from Lord Ponsonby to acquaint me that I might expect him in town by eight o'clock on the following evening. It is not, however, my intention to enter into many more minute details relative to my former unfortunate passion for Lord Ponsonby. This is not a complete confession, like Jean Jacques Rousseau's, but merely a few anecdotes of my life, and some light sketches of the characters of others, with little regard to dates or regularity, written at odd times, in very ill health. The only thing I have particularly attended to in this little work has been, not to put down one single line at all calculated to prejudice any individual, in the opinion of the world, which is not strictly correct; and though I have, in writing of people as I have found them, only done as I would be done by, and as I request my friends will do by me, who never wished yet to pass for better than what I really am: yet my gratitude has not permitted me to publish even the most trifling faults of the few who have acted kindly towards me.

With regard to my sisters, I never had but one, and she has ceased to exist, who evinced the least regard for me. I am naturally affectionate, and my heart was disposed to love them all, till years of total neglect have at last compelled me to consider them as strangers. Some of them are my enemies. My sister Amy ever made it her particular study to wound my feelings, and do me all the injury in her power; and having occasion, in a moment of the deepest distress, to apply to Lady Berwick for a little assistance, she refused me a single guinea, notwithstanding, in promoting her marriage with Lord Berwick, and on various other occasions, I certainly did my best, and had done many acts of friendship towards her previous to that period. Neither does this want of feeling for me proceed from any ill opinion they have formed of my heart or character: for, during our dear mother's last illness, Lady Berwick remained at her country house, in spite of all I could say to her in my daily communications, as to the immediate danger of that dear parent, and her excuse, which she has often expressed, for this heartless conduct was that, since Harriette remained with her mother, she felt sure that no care or attention would be wanting, that anybody could afford her. However, it is necessary for the sake of justice to relate the good with the bad: thus then, be it known, that if Lady Berwick would not come up to town to attend the dreary couch of a most tender parent; she wrote to me every day notes of inquiry, nay more, she sent fine apples and baskets of grapes from her garden up to the hour of my lamented mother's death.

These sketches, or memoirs, or whatever my publisher and editor may think proper to designate them,--for my own part I think it quite tiresome enough to write a book as fast as I can scribble it, without composing either a preface or a name for it--were begun several years ago, merely to amuse myself. I am now only alluding to a few pages of it, for I soon grew tired of my occupation. However, the little I had done pleased my own acquaintances so much that they all advised me to continue.

The Hon. George Lamb, having been good enough to read a comedy which I attempted, was so polite as to say, and I have his letter now before me, that although it was too long, and deficient in stage-tact, there was no lack of wit and native humour about it, and further, he thought my talents well calculated for writing a light work in the form of either novel or sketch-book. He also advised me to put my former name of Harriette Wilson to the work, which he doubted not would the better ensure its sale.

Thus, being almost flattered into something like a good opinion of myself, I ventured one morning to wrap myself up in my large cloak, and put my little unfinished manuscript into my reticule, for I determined not to write another page till I had ascertained whether it was worth publishing. Thus equipped, I ventured in much fear and trembling to wait upon the great Mr. Murray, as Lord Byron always satirically called him. "He," thought I, "being the friend and publisher of Lord Byron (as Dr. Johnson has it, who slays fat oxen, must himself be fat), should be wiser than George Lamb or anybody else, except Lord Byron alone: therefore I will stand by his decree."

I told Murray that I had so little confidence in myself, that I really could not be induced to go on with my work till I had obtained his verdict on the few pages I ventured to offer for his inspection.

Murray looked on me with as much contempt as though Ass had been written in my countenance. Now I know this is not the case. He said, with much rudeness, that I might put the manuscript on his table and he would look at it, certainly, if I desired it.

I asked when I should send for it.

"Whenever you please," was his answer; as though he had already recorded his decision against me and made his mind up not to look at it.

I promised to send for it the next evening. I did so, and the manuscript was returned without an observation. "No doubt," thought I, "it is all nonsense. I only wish I was quite sure that he had read it! because else it were really cruel thus to damp a beginner who might have done something perhaps, with due encouragement. I am almost certain that it is trash; but I will be still more assured, lest the mania of scribbling should in some moment of poverty attack me again." However, beginning now to feel as much contempt for my manuscript as the Vicar of Wakefield did for his horse, or as I have since felt for the famed Bibliopolist of Albemarle Street, notwithstanding his carriage was numbered with those which followed in the funeral procession of the lamented Byron, I could not present my lucubrations to another publisher as my own: my nerves would not permit it, and I therefore offered it to Messrs. Allman, of Princes Street, Hanover Square, as the first attempt of a young friend of mine. I was received by one of those gentlemen with much politeness, and was requested to allow them four days to send their answer. They fixed their time, and I promised to send for my little manuscript on the day they appointed. It was sealed up, and directed ready for my servant when he called for it. The envelope enclosed a few lines from Messrs. Allman, stating their readiness to publish the work, which they did not consider libellous--sharing the expenses and the profits with me.

On the receipt of this note, which I have now in my possession, I got into a rage with old purblind Murray. "I wish," thought I, "I wish I could make rhymes! I would send him a copy of verses to thank him." The worst of it was I had never made a single rhyme in my life, and, when I had tried to make two lines jingle together, everybody said they had the merit of being infinitely below par; but even that I considered very much better than vile mediocrity in poetry. In short there was no rhyme about them and very little reason. However, I thought that anything would do for Murray, who had been so rude to me; therefore, in a few minutes, I managed to compose and seal up the following state of the case,--which said composition my reader cannot say I have encouraged him to lose time in perusing.

THE MAIDEN EFFORT OF A VIRGIN MUSE.

I never thought of turning poet, And all my friends about me know it, Till t'other day. I'll tell you why. Alas! the story makes me sigh! I tried, in prose, a few light sketches, Of characters--pats, players, and such wretches, Which my own folks said were pretty: In fact, I thought them downright witty; And, for the good of future ages, I sallied forth, with these few pages, To a publisher's, in such a hurry, As to arrive too soon for that beau-thing, Murray, Who coolly kept the lady waiting. An old beau must have time for prating. At last he came. Oh, mercy! Oh, my stars! What an appalling beau-costume he wears! A powdered bob, spectacles, and black coat! I wish to heaven I had never wrote! Or ta'en my book, so not here, anywhere, Sure this won't do! The man's a bore or bear! My charms to him were nought: nor my oration: But what care I for Murray's admiration! If I had penned some Quarterly cupidity, He would have gladly borne with its stupidity. "At length, Sir," cried I, in a fuming rage, "Pray, just peruse, at least, a single page." With a most supercilious kind of glance, "Hum," drawled out Murray, "you've not the slightest chance." "Pray, Sir, must one come here in a bob-wig?" Cried I, in my turn, striving to look big; And then went home to mourn my waste of paper, Pens, ink, time, and e'en my last wax taper. Prosers, methought, require an education; But poets gain, by birth, their own vocation.

I merely pin it into my manuscript because it is ready written, and helps to fill up the book, which, I have undertaken for several reasons: first, because I hope to get some money by it; secondly, because a certain duke and his son, all! all! honourable men, and with very honourable titles and ancient names, have taken such an unfair advantage of my generous treatment of them, that I think they ought to be exposed----

Else they will deceive more men.

But this is not all. My former errors are well known, and, since they have told their story I must in justice to myself relate mine. To proceed with it in form, I perhaps ought to relate at large all the raptures of my meeting with Lord Ponsonby when he returned from Ireland, how struck I was with the pale cast of thought, which enfeebled the brightness of that sweet countenance, only to increase the interest he previously inspired; how infinitely his deep mourning became him; how he had loved me for the very thing cross Amy had laughed at me, and called me Dominie Sampson for; how he sent me Voltaire's tragedy of Zaire, and how delighted he was to find that I felt and understood all its beauties; how he one day called me his angelic Harriette! and further declared that, had he known me sooner he would never have married any other woman! How I used to fancy I could feel his entrance into his wife's private box at the opera, without seeing him, as though the air suddenly should become purer; how I have astonished Fanny by guessing the very instant of his approach, without looking towards his side of the house: how he would watch and follow me in my walks; how he declared that he had never in his whole life felt such tenderness of affection for any woman on earth, combining all a father ought to feel, with the wildest passion his first youth had been capable of, with many other matters which it would be tedious to write now: but all this love is gone by and, for the crime of attaching myself to a married man, I have deeply suffered: and all my affections are now fixed on another, to whom I am bound for life: and, being just about to keep a pig and a few chickens, I really cannot mount up the ladder again: and, why should I dwell too long on the wild romantic follies of my very youthful days?

During the three short years our intercourse lasted, our passion continued undiminished--increase it could not. I do in truth believe, though it was a wicked thing, no two people on earth ever loved each other better, and the restraint and difficulties we laboured under kept our passion alive as it began. Often, after passing the early part of the evening together, finding it so difficult to separate, we drove down in a hackney-coach to the House of Lords, and in that coach have I waited half the night merely for one more kiss and the pleasure of driving with Ponsonby to his own door.

These three happy years of my life produced very few anecdotes, which I can recollect, worth relating; for I had neither eyes nor ears nor thoughts but for Ponsonby. The old Scotch beggar woman in the park, who had been the cause of my appearing advantageously to his lordship, was my constant visitor, and I contributed to her comforts as far as I could. She had once been in very easy circumstances, and was then in the habit of receiving every possible attention from her kind country-woman Lady Cottrell.

The old woman used to come to dine with me in a rich brocade silk gown, which stood absolutely alone, and once caused my equally stiff, old, powdered footman to laugh; but as it was I believe for the first time in his life I forgave him.

Apropos of that same Mr. Will Halliday, who though always in print never expected the honour of being published, everybody wished to know why I kept such a clock-work, stiff, powdered, methodistical looking servant, with a pig-tail; whom one might have taken for Wilberforce himself instead of Will Halliday, and yet that piece of mechanism, with his hair to match, used to steal my wine, as though he had forgotten all about his commandments; and when I reproached him with it, he declared that it was impossible; because, to use his own words, "I am the most particlerst man as is"; and, because I preferred losing my wine to being talked to, I submitted.

"Mr. Will," I used to say, "yes and no are all I want to hear from any footman; if they will say more to me than this I shall wait upon myself."

Will would console himself on these occasions with a young companion of mine, while she remained with me, whenever he could find her disengaged or she had the misfortune to be in the parlour while he was laying the cloth.

"Miss Hawkes," he would begin, to her great annoyance, "Miss Hawkes, now you see my missis don't like a sarvant to say nothing but yes and no. Now sometimes, as I says, Miss Hawkes, yes or no won't do for everything. Missis was very angry about my speaking yesterday; but, if I haddunt a told her I was the most particlerst man as is she might a thort I drinkt her wine, because I keeps the key of the cellar: and then again, Miss Hawkes, respecting o' my great coat: I wants to tell missis, as how it's a mile too wide in the back; for you see Miss, Missis don't observe them ere things. Will you be so good, Miss, as to mention that I wants to show her how my great coat sets behind?"

"I will go and tell her directly," said Miss Hawkes, delighted with an excuse to get away.

"Well then," said I, in answer to what Miss Hawkes told me, "I will look at the man's coat after dinner, only I am sure I shall laugh if he is to walk about the room, sporting his beautiful shape."

Having thus, for once, given Will liberty of speech, I was in dread of its consequences at dinner-time. As soon as he had withdrawn the cloth and placed the dessert upon the table, he began to cough and place himself in an attitude of preparation. "Now it is coming!" thought I, and I saw Miss Hawkes striving to restrain her inclination to laugh out loud, with all her might.

Will began sheepishly, with his eyes and his fingers fidgeting on the back of a chair; but he grew in height, and in consequence, as he went on. "I was a saying to Miss Hawkes, madam, that, respecting o' your commands, that yes and no wont do for everything. Now ma'am respecting o' my great coat----"

"You had better put it on, William," said I, holding down my head that I might not look at Miss Hawkes.

"Yes, ma'am; sartanly ma'am," said Will, bustling out of the room, and returning in an instant equipped in a drab great coat, so very large behind, that it made him look deformed; but did not, in the least, alter his usual way of strutting about the room, like a player,

Whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich, To hear the wooden dialogue and sound, 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.

So, between my horror of making free with John Bull, and my wish to laugh at my footman, I was in perfect misery.

"Take it off, William," said I, faintly, and without venturing to raise my head, feeling that another glance at Will, eyeing his person all over, with his sharp little, ferret-eyes, would have finished me. "Take it off, and carry it to the tailor's."

But Will, having once received a carte blanche for more than his usual yes and no, was not so easily quieted.

"Thank you, ma'am, you are very good ma'am. I'll step down to-night, with it; for the other evening, ma'am, when you sent me to carry back that ere pheasant, my Lord Lowther's servant brought you I says, says I, to Sally, 'as it is such a wet night Sally, I wont put on my laced hat,' so I claps on an old plain one; and, when I comed to St. James's Street, there was a bit of a row with some of they there nasty women at the corner, and, you see, ma'am, this ere coat, sticking out, in this ere kind of a way behind, and with that large cane of mine, there was a man, says he, to me, 'Here, watchman! why dont you do your duty?'"

It was now all over with our dignities. Will, in finishing his pathetic speech, appeared almost on the point of shedding tears. We both, in the same instant, burst into an immoderate fit of loud laughter, when Will had the good sense to leave us.

The next day Fanny, Miss Hawkes, and myself drove into Hyde Park. We there met Sophia, with her eldest sister, looking very pretty, and above all very modest. My carriage was soon surrounded by trotting beaux, whom I could not listen to, because that adored, sly, beautiful face of Ponsonby's was fixed on me, à la distance. With all my rudeness and inattention I could not get rid of Lord Frederick Beauclerc. The rest went round to Fanny's side. This was better than going over to the enemy. Ponsonby knew me and himself too well to be jealous; but, not daring to speak to me or hear what I said, he looked unhappy, as I guessed, at his friend, Fred Beauclerc's persevering attention; and I proposed to Fanny that we should take a drive down Pall Mall.

"Is that Mr. Frederick Lamb's ghost?" said Fanny.

"Where do you mean?" I inquired, and turning my head round, indeed saw Fred Lamb, who had, I believe, just returned from abroad. He blushed a little, and ordering my coachman to stop, told me that I looked remarkably well and that he knew all about me.

"So you have cut poor Argyle, and are in love again with a man of my acquaintance?" he continued.

"You are mistaken," said I, reddening.

"It may be so," rejoined Fred, "but I rather think I am right."

I shook hands with him, and hoped we were parting good friends.

* * * * *

"I say, Miss Hawkes," said Will Halliday, in the course of the evening, after we got home, for he generally contrived to dédommager himself, for the silence I imposed on him, by forcing a few words on Miss Hawkes' attention--"If we had a gone a little furder down Pall Mall to-day, we should a seen that ere Prince Coburg."

"Really!"

"Yes, Miss: but, laws! Miss, do you know he was nothing in his own country, and had nothing but a small principality."

About ten o'clock in the evening, when Miss Hawkes had retired to rest, and I was sitting alone with my book, Fred Lamb was announced to me. I desired William to say that it was rather too late, and that I was shortly going to bed.

He returned to inform me that Mr. Lamb knew I never went to bed before midnight, and therefore begged I would permit him to chat with me for half an hour, so, feeling puzzled how to excuse myself, he was desired to walk upstairs.

He talked to me for more than an hour, of Argyle, Lord Ponsonby, and his own former affection for me. He then became a little more practical than I liked, first taking hold of my hand, and next kissing me by force. I resisted all his attempts with mild firmness. At last he grew desperate, and proceeded to very rough, I may say, brutal violence, against my fixed determination. I was never very strong; but love gave me almost supernatural powers to repel him; and I contrived to pull his hair with such violence, that some of it was really dragged out by the roots.

Fred Lamb was not of a mild or patient temper. In a moment of disappointment and fury at the pain I must have inflicted on him, though it was certainly done only in self-defence, he placed his hand on my throat, saying, while he nearly stopped my breath, and occasioned me almost the pangs of suffocation, that I should not hurt him another instant. He spoke this in a smothered voice, and I did in truth believe that my last moments had arrived. Another instant would have decided the business; but he, thank God, relinquished his grasp at my throat. He is however mistaken if he believes I have ever forgotten the agony of that moment. He arose from the sofa. His rage, I fancy, being converted into shame and fear of what I might tell the world, or, perhaps, he was really shocked at the violence which he had been guilty of. It may easily be imagined that once free from so frightful a grasper of throats, I was not long in obtaining my room upstairs and double-locking my door. Fred Lamb did not attempt to speak to, much less detain me, and in a very few minutes afterwards I heard him leave the house.

"Thank God!" I ejaculated, from the very bottom of my heart; and I began to breathe more freely although I was some time before I recovered my fright.

Fred Lamb was a man of the world, and the next day he no doubt said to himself "this is a bad story, both for my vanity and my character: for I have been very brutal. The best way now will be for me to tell it first to all her friends"; and he accordingly went about making light of the story, as though he had not any reason to be ashamed.

"Do you know," said he, to several of my acquaintances, who afterwards repeated it, "do you know that Harriette is so in love with John Ponsonby, that she was cruel even to me last night! I tried force too; but she resisted me like a little tiger, and pulled my hair!"

"Be it so," thought I, and I never told the story, till now. In fact, I was a good deal afraid of Fred Lamb at that time, and could not but feel provoked at the idea of a young man going about the world, always laughing, and showing off the character of a fine, good-tempered, open-hearted, easy, generous, sailor-like fellow, and who yet could take me from a rich man, to leave me starving at Somers-town as he had done, without once making me the offer of a single shilling, and then return to me, as though all this selfishness had secured him a right over my person, to persecute me with brutal force and lay hold of my throat, so as to put me in fear of my life, because I was not his humble slave any day in any week he happened to return from the Continent: and I am sure Mr. Frederick Lamb cannot assert that, on the day I believed he meant to have been my last, he had ever given me one single guinea or the value of a guinea.

He is now an ambassador, and just as well off as ambassadors usually are; yet, in my present poverty, I have vainly attempted to get a hundred pounds out of him. He has occasionally indeed sent me ten or five pounds; but not without much pressing, and he has not yet paid my expenses to Hull and back.

So much for the high-spirited Fred Lamb! With his brother George I have only a very slight acquaintance; but am much indebted for the very polite, friendly and condescending interest that gentleman has been pleased to take in my welfare.

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Chapter VIII

About this time, I received a letter from Sir William Abdy, beginning thus:

"DEAR, PRETTY MISS WILSON,

"You told me to be sure and write.

"I am a good deal better for the journey, though I have not seen anybody so pretty as you, since I left you...."

The rest of this eloquent epistle may be dispensed with.

Lord Ponsonby often rated me about Lord F. Beauclerc, his relation, whom he always called Fred Diamond Eye; and Fred Beauclerc was continually teasing me about Ponsonby. I assured him that it was all nonsense.

"I know better," Fred Beauclerc would answer, "and yet I am fool enough to love a woman who is going mad for another man. However, if I get well over this folly, I will for the rest of my life reign lord paramount or nothing."

His lordship really loved me, and above all he loved my foot. I was never in his opinion assez bien chaussée; therefore, he used to go about town with one of my shoes in his pocket, as a pattern to guide him in his constant search after pretty shoes for me.

Fred Beauclerc is a sly, shy, odd man, not very communicative, unless one talks about cricket. I remember when the Marquis of Wellesley did me the honour to call on me and tell me what a great man he was, and how much he had been talked of in the world--how often carried on men's shoulders without nags, with other reminiscences of equal interest, Fred Beauclerc, the Diamond Eye, cut me for Moll Raffles. I accused him of it, laughing, and he laughingly acknowledged the intrigue.

"I could not endure the idea of your receiving that vain old fool, Lord Wellesley," said Beauclerc.

"No harm, believe me!" I replied. "Mere curiosity induced me to have the man up, to see if he was like his brother; but you are very welcome to Mrs. Raffles; she'll make an excellent wife to a divine. Not that I know or care anything about the lady!"

"And what think you of Wellesley?" said the little parson.

"Why, I suppose I must either say he is clever and brilliant or be called a fool myself; so, instead of answering your question, I'll tell you what he says to me to-morrow, after I shall have acquainted him with your intrigue with his belle amie Raffles."

"You are not serious?" said the good clergyman, in a great fright.

"Yes, I am quite serious I assure you."

"What! You spoilsport! You make mischief! I would not have believed this of you."

"You only do me justice--but I will tell notwithstanding: and if I either spoil your intrigue, or do mischief to anybody except the noble marquess, never forgive me."

"I never will," said Beauclerc seriously, and so we parted.

In the evening a remarkably fine-looking man requested to speak to me, from the Marquis of Wellesley. He wore a large brilliant on the third finger of his very white hand and was peculiarly elegant in his dress. I offered him a chair with much politeness, feeling really something like respect for Lord Wellesley's good taste in sending me such an amiable substitute for a little grey-headed, foolish old man. The gentleman bowed low and refused to sit. He told me that he came from the Marquis of Wellesley merely to say, that, if I were disengaged, he would have the pleasure of calling on me in less than an hour.

"C'est son valet, sans doute"--thought I: and sent my compliments to Lord Wellesley.

Wellesley's carriage drove up to my door in less than an hour after his gentleman had left me. His lordship appeared the very essence of everything most recherché, in superfine elegance. He was in fact all essence! Such cambric, white as driven snow! Such embroidery! Such diamonds! Such a brilliant snuff-box! Such seals and chain! And then, the pretty contrast between the broad, new, blue ribbon across his breast, and his delicate white waistcoat!

It was too much, too overpowering for a poor, honest unaffected Suissess like me:--and I almost wished myself safe in my Canton de Berne; for never before stood I in such presence, nor breathed I in such essence! What a pretty little thing too it would be, methought, if it were but once deposited unhurt in one's bonnet-box, and one could shut him down whenever the essence became too strong for one's nerves. It was a graceful thing too in miniature, and its countenance was good and its speech was all honey, until I very quietly and very unceremoniously mentioned the worthy clergyman having passed the whole of the night preceding with Moll Raffles, consoling her, en prêtre, for his lordship's absence.

His lordship now asked me, in a voice trembling more with agitation than age, or rage, what I meant?

"Simply, what I have stated."

"Merciful powers! what do you say? what do you mean? what do you hint at? what do you think? what are you doing?" If his lordship's want of breath had not given a momentary check to his volubility and proved a kind of turnpike in his rapid course, and if I had not caught the critical opportunity to say--

"Nothing--your fair friend must do for us both"--I have little doubt that the little marquis must and would have fallen a victim to exhaustion: but thus, having happily had a moment to recover himself, he proceeded,

"Nay, nay, nay," and laying his white hand, rings and all, on my shoulder, in much tribulation and hurry of speech and manner, "Nay--think of what you are saying--think how you may be injuring that lovely sweet being--that sweetest unsophisticated! lovely! sweet!"

"Oh, what a bed or sweets, yours must be!" interrupted I.

"I know well enough," continued Wellesley, pacing up and down the room with a feverish rapidity. "I know she went to Vauxhall with Beauclerc; but then she told me there was nothing in all this."

"Poor Beauclerc!" ejaculated I; "and what can his lordship do better than attend so sweet a creature? Come, come," I continued, "my lord! Mrs. Raffles is rich, and can do without you, kindly assisted as she is by the little parson!--Don't fret for her, nor for yourself; but, if you still love her, receive her from the hands of the good clergyman."

"Impossible!" Wellesley exclaimed. "I must reproach her with her faults, and then--she will throw the plates and dishes in my face!"

"No! Would she be so vulgar?"

"It is not vulgarity in her," said Wellesley.

"What then?"

"Nature," was his reply.

"Well then, since it is natural to break your head, which fact I do not in the least dispute, may it not be as natural to adorn it occasionally? and may it not be her nature to intrigue with Fred Beauclerc? Do not think about it my lord. Make yourself happy and comfortable, and----"

Wellesley took up his hat and ran downstairs. I followed him, laughing loudly till he got into his carriage.

Beauclerc was in due time tired of his bonne fortune, and this gave Wellesley the delicious opportunity of pressing his charmer to his faithful and doting heart with renovated rapture.

La Belle Nature!

About this time, or else some other time, a Mr. Something-doff was presented to me, hot from Russia. I forgot the beginning of his name. I recollect that he brought, at the ends of his fingers, a very odd waltz, which seemed to have been composed on purpose to warm them. I asked him, since he was on the Emperor's staff, if he had met with the General Beckendorff.

"Oh, yes!" answered he, laughing, "Beckendorff is my particular friend. He wanted to come to England with me; but he assured me he had made such a fool of himself about a woman here, Amy, I think, he called her, that he was ashamed to show his face within a thousand miles of herself or her friends."

And now my gentle readers: by-the-by, I have no idea why they are so denominated; or why authors, and good ones too, even Lady Morgan at the beginning, she is too great a swell now--I only make use of that elegant expression in humble imitation of Lord Clanricarde--once prosed a great deal about her gratitude for the kind encouragement and indulgence of the public; why in the name of common sense will authors be so very palpably false in what they profess?

Does not Lady Morgan know as well as I do, that the public never yet read one line out of charity towards her or any author breathing since the world began, nor does the kind public ever prize anything which bores them: so that, if the kind public were to cry up my book from morning till night, and suffer me to make my fortune by it, I should feel no more obliged to them than if my volumes kept their station on the shelves of Mr. Stockdale's spacious library, as regularly in a row as the apothecary s gallipots in the Honey Moon; but just the contrary. If I have the knack to amuse the public, I shall expect the public to be extremely grateful to me, and I desire that they sing my praise in prose and also in better rhymes than mine, to the end of their natural life! True, Doctor Johnson and many other good men, declare that merit is due to such authors as do their best, even when they fail; but what is the use of its being due since nobody pays! What is an author, or anybody else the better for having a parcel of bad debts on his ledger? The good Doctor seems really to be giving Lady Morgan, as well as poor Harriette, a rap on the knuckles, when he says, "No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation, than that which boasts of negligence and hurry." For who can bear with patience, the writer who claims such superiority to the rest of his species as to imagine mankind are at leisure for attention to his extemporary sallies. Now, for my part, I do not expect any persons to exercise their patience in bearing with me, being as morally certain as I am of my existence, that these, my temporary sallies, like other people's studied stupidity, will be equally unentertaining, without more regard or respect for the one than the other. In short, whatever contempt my vanity may incur in writing these few sketches thus without tormenting myself with quotations and deep cogitations, I shall beg to lay all the blame entirely on Stockdale, especially as he has just handed me a quotation from Cumberland, as he styles it, though I am not without suspicion that he had a hand in it himself.

As for our readers, on whom we never fail to bestow the terms of "candid," "gentle," "courteous," and others of the like soothing cast, they certainly deserve all the fair words we can give them; for it is not to be denied, but that we make occasionally very great demands upon their candour, gentleness, and courtesy, exercising them frequently and fully with such trials as require those several endowments in no small proportion.

But are there not also fastidious, angry, querulential readers? Readers with full stomachs, who complain of being surfeited and overloaded with the story-telling trash of our circulating libraries? It cannot be altogether denied: but still they are readers; if the load is so heavy upon them as they pretend it is, I will put them in the way of getting rid of it by reviving the law of the ancient Cecerteans, who obliged their artists to hawk about their several wares, carrying them on their backs till they found purchasers to ease them of the burden. Was this law put in force against authors few of us, I doubt, would be found able to stand under the weight of our own unpurchased works.

Now, gentle readers, after this long digression, you shall hear of the shocking seduction of the present Viscountess Berwick by Viscount Deerhurst!

* * * * *

"She is off! Sophia is off! run away nobody knows where," was the cry of all my sisters one fine morning.

"When, how, where?" said I.

"Last night," answered Fanny, "she was missing. Her father has been to call on Lord Deerhurst: answer, 'nobody in town.' My mother is coming to consult with you."

I waited for no more; but sat down to address Lord Deerhurst, begging him to consider the risk he ran in detaining such a child. I asserted the determination of my father to put in force the utmost rigour of the law; and I implored him, if he was not really dead to shame and all the best feelings of a man, to repair his fault, by bringing Sophia back to me immediately.

That prince of hypocrites, having forcibly obtained all he wished, and in hopes that this would be the cheapest way of getting rid of the business, made a great merit of bringing her back to my house, being, as he said, touched even to tears by my letter, and the monster began to blubber and declared that nothing wrong had occurred, he having passed the night with Sophia in mere conversation.

The poor child looked dreadfully frightened. It is indeed my firm belief that she went away with Lord Deerhurst, being innocent as an infant as to the nature of seduction and its consequence. All she was blameable for was her obstinate boldness in persisting, while so very young, and with that very innocent face of hers, in keeping up a sly intercourse with a man like Lord Deerhurst, and throwing herself under his protection, at an age when girls less shy-looking had been afraid to have listened or spoken to any man, unsanctioned by the presence of their mother or sister.

Sophia was a child, and not a very clever one; but she went away willingly and immediately after both her mother and myself had represented the profligacy and disgusting meanness of Lord Deerhurst, in passing off trumpery chains and rings for valuable jewellery. The child who could forsake her parents for such a man as Deerhurst, in spite of every caution, must have been either very vicious or the greatest simpleton on earth.

The poor foolish girl was now kept out of every one's sight, and applications were made to Deerhurst for a provision for her, with a threat of law proceedings in case of refusal.

It seems that the only legal plea for obtaining a provision for a girl thus unfortunately situated is that of the parents having lost her domestic services. Deerhurst after some months at the last said that, if Sophia remained with him, he would settle three hundred pounds a-year on her, as long as no proof of inconstancy to him should be established against her; but, on such an event taking place, the annuity was to be reduced to an allowance of one hundred a-year.

I saw that Sophia was growing idle, and much more likely to get into worse scrapes than to reform: therefore, having tried the generosity and honour of men myself, I advised her to secure the annuity at any rate. Deerhurst employed a ---- of a lawyer to draw up a settlement, according to the above plan, and in about ten months after his lordship first seduced Sophia, he hired a very miserable lodging for her, consisting of two small dark parlours near Grosvenor-place; but then, to make her amends, he sent her in six bottles of red currant-wine, declaring to her that such wine was much more conducive to health than any foreign wine could possibly be. Here we must leave her for a short time, while I return to my own house to learn of Will Halliday who had called on me in my absence. These were a gentleman who would not leave his name and a tradesman of the name of Smith:--both were to return in the evening.

"Very well," I said, "let Smith come upstairs; but be sure to send away the man who is ashamed of his name."

After dinner Will told me that the strange gentleman begged to be allowed to speak to my femme-de-chambre, Mrs. Kennedy.

I desired Kennedy to attend him.

She returned to say that the gentleman sent me word, in confidence, that he was Lord Scarborough, who had been so long and so very desirous to make my acquaintance--and regretted the impossibility of getting presented, since he was not a single man.

"Go, and tell him," I answered, "that the thing is quite impossible, more men being regularly introduced to me by others, and of the first respectability, than I liked."

He entreated Kennedy to come up to me again. She declared that she could not take such a liberty with me. Lord Scarborough having, as she afterwards confessed, softened her heart by a five-pound note, induced her to carry me up his watch with his arms on the seal, that I might be certain who he was.

I was in a great passion with Kennedy, and down she went declaring she had lost her place.

I rang the bell, it having just struck me, that the man ought to pay for putting me in a passion, and giving us all this trouble; therefore, "Tell him," I said, when Kennedy returned, "that a fifty-pound note will do as a regular introduction and, if he leaves it to-night, I will receive him to-morrow at ten."

He hesitated--wished he could only just speak to me, and give me the draft himself.

"Do as you like," Kennedy replied. "Miss Wilson is not at all anxious for you or your fifty pounds; but she has company and will not be disturbed to-night."

"Well," said my lord, "I think you look like an honest, good sort of woman, who will not deceive me."

"Never," said Kennedy, with earnestness, and he wrote a draft for me for fifty pounds, begging she would herself be at hand to let him in when he should arrive, the next night. "I will be very punctual," continued his lordship.

"So will I too," repeated Kennedy; "I will wait for you in the passage;" and with this they took leave; and I immediately rang my bell for Will Halliday.

"William," said I, "that gentleman will be here at ten to-morrow, and he will probably again ask for Kennedy. Can you look quite serious and declare to him you never heard of such a person?"

"As grave as I do now, ma'am."

"Very well, that is quite enough; but he will no doubt proceed to ask for me by my name. Can you still be serious, while declaring that you have no mistress, and that your master is you know well acquainted both with his lordship and his lady wife?"

"Most certainly, ma'am," said Will, as seriously as though he had been at vespers, "I will just clap your directions down in my pocket-book, so you need not be afraid of me, ma'am; because you see, as I told you before, I'm the most particlerst man as is."

"But suppose he insists, William?"

"Oh, ma'am! I'll tell him I've got my knives to clean, and shut the door very gently in his face."

"Thank you, William, I shall feel obliged to you."

Smith, the haberdasher of Oxford-street, was the next person announced to me, and he followed William into the drawing-room. He is a short, thick-built man, with little twinkling eyes, expressive of eager curiosity, and a bald head. This man had known me when I was quite an infant, having served my mother I believe before I was born, and often talked and played with us all while children. As I grew up, his extreme vulgarity, and the amorous twinkle of his little eyes, furnished me with so much real sport and amusement, that, in gratitude for his being so very ridiculous, I had by degrees lost sight of all my usual reserve towards these sort of people: and once, when I was about eleven years of age, this man caught me in the very act of mimicking his amorous leers at our maidservant. I was close behind him and he saw me in the looking-glass.

"Oh you rogue!" said Smith, and from that day good-bye all serious reserve between Smith and me. I would have cut him, only nobody sold such good gloves and ribbons. I often took people to his shop to amuse them, while I encouraged Smith to be as ridiculous as possible, by affecting to be rather flattered by his beautiful leering and his soft speeches.

Smith was as deaf as a post, and never spoke without popping his ear against one's mouth, to catch the answer, and saying, "Hay! Hay!" long before one's lips could move to address him.

I guessed at the motive for his visiting me on this occasion, for I knew that two of my promissory notes of hand for fifty pounds each had been returned to him on that morning, as they had also been three months before, when I made him renew them. Not that I was in any sort of difficulty during the whole period I remained with Lord Ponsonby, who always took care of me and for me; but Smith's scolding furnished me with so much entertainment, that I purposely neglected his bills, knowing his high charges and how well he could afford to give long credit. He came into the room, with a firmer step than usual and his bow was more stately.

"Your sarvant, Miss."

"Smith," said I, "those bills were paid to-day, I hope?"

Smith shook his head. "Too bad, too bad, Miss, upon my word!"

I laughed.

"You are a pretty creature!" said Smith, drawing in his breath, his amorous feelings for an instant driving the bills out of his head, and then added hastily, with an altered expression of countenance, "But you really must pay your bills!"

"You don't say so?"

"If," continued Smith earnestly; "if you had but ha' let me ha knode, you see; but, in this way, you hurt my credit in the City."

"What signifies having credit, in such a vulgar place as that?"

"You talk like a child," exclaimed Smith impatiently.

"Come," said I to Smith, "hand out your stamps."

"And Miss, do you expect me to find you in stamps too?"

I laughed.

"But," continued Smith, growing enthusiastic all at once, "you look so beautiful and charming in your little blue satin dress. You bought that satin of me I think? Ah, yes, I remember--you do look so pretty, and so tempting, and so, so--oh Lord."

"Mr. Smith, I really will speak to Mrs. Smith, if you will go into these sort of raptures."

"Beg you pardon, beg your pardon! Have got a curious little article here to show you" (pulling something from his breeches pocket, which proved to be some embroidered, covered buttons). "Beg your pardon, but, bless you! You are so well made you see, about here"--touching his own breast. "There is never a one of your sisters like you, about here. I always said it. Hay? hay? I was a saying so, you see, to my young man yesterday when you came into the shop. Now, there's Miss Sophy, pretty creature too! very, but, Oh, Lord! you beat them all, just about here."

"Mr. Smith, I really must send a note to your wife to-morrow."

"Oh, no! I am sure you wont. You would not be so hard-hearted." He then proceeded, in a whisper, "The fact is, there's never a man in England as don't have a bit of frolic; only they doesn't know it you see. Pretty hair!----"

"Mr. Smith, if you meddle with my hair, I shall seriously be angry, and ring for my servant."

"Beg pardon.--Thousands of pardons--It's the worst of me, I'm so imperdent, you see!--can't help it--been so from child--never could keep my hands off a fine woman! and Mrs. Smith is confined, you see: that's one thing! Hay? Hay? but it shan't happen again. Now about those here bills? If I draw you up two more, now, will you really give me your word they shall be paid?"

"No," answered I.

"You wont?"

"No!"

"Then I'll tell you what, Miss! I can't say as you treat me exactly like a lady, and--now don't laugh--oh, you sly, pretty rogue!--Hay? Hay? Beg pardon--it's my own fault, you see. So very imperdent! Come, I'll draw up these here bills."

He began writing, and I laughed at him again. He shook his head at me. "Sad doings, Miss, these here bills being returned."

"It's the worst of me," said I, mimicking his manner. "It's the worst of me, that I never do pay my bills. Have been so from a child!"

Lord Ponsonby's well-known rap at the door occasioned Smith to be bundled into the street, bills and all, without the slightest ceremony.

I have, I believe, already said that I would not dwell much on that period of my life, which I passed so happily with Lord Ponsonby and which lasted, I think, three years. Lord Rivers used to say to me, "Your little light feet seem scarcely to touch the earth, as though you could almost fly!"

Happiness is a stupid subject to write upon, therefore I will revert to that of the present Lady Berwick, whom I often visited after she took possession of the poor humble lodging which Deerhurst's parsimony had provided for her. First, however, the respect I feel for the memory of a most tender parent, makes me anxious that she should be acquitted from every shadow of blame which might, by some perhaps, be imputed to her, in consequence of her daughters' errors and the life they fell into.

My mother was a natural daughter of a country gentleman, of great respectability and good estate, Mr. Cheney. His only son, General Cheney, was an old guardsman, and died some few years ago. The late Lady Frederick Campbell, aunt of his grace the Duke of Argyle, was so struck with the beauty of my mother as to adopt her and bring her up as her own child. After her marriage, her ladyship still continued her friendship and, indeed, almost up to the time of the very lamented death of that amiable lady.

I remember the ceremony of our being all dressed up in our best frocks to go out of town and pass the day with her ladyship, who was kind enough to stand godmother to my eldest sister. My mother was the most beautiful woman, and possessed the finest and most benevolent countenance, I have ever seen in my whole life. Her education had been carefully attended to by Lady Frederick, and she possessed a most excellent understanding; but, marrying so very young a man more than twenty years her senior, and being remarkably meek and gentle, she acquired such a habit of blind submission to his will, that at home she was more like our sister than our parent. She was powerless to contribute either to our good or our comfort in any one thing which did not suit my father's humour. Having no fortune to bestow on us, she gave us the best education in her power; and, what ought to have done us still more good, she ever set us the very best example; for she was not only virtuous, but patient, industrious, and invariably amiable in her temper. She was the mother of fifteen children, when she died lamented and respected by every one who knew her.

Our home was truly uncomfortable; but my dearest mother ever made it the study of her life to contribute to the ease and welfare of her family.

This, as I have said before, is not a complete confession; but nothing is stated of consequence to any individual which is not strictly true.

When I called on Sophia I generally found two or three beaux talking nonsense to her. Among them, Henry De Roos was the most favoured. Sophia appeared to dislike Lord Deerhurst of all things, and complained that he was unusually sparing of soap and water at his toilette.

"He dresses completely," said Sophia, "before he touches water; and, being equipped, he wets a very dirty hair-brush and draws it over his head; and this is what he calls washing it--and then, having thus washed his hands and face, he says that he feels fresh and comfortable."

One day Deerhurst insisted on my accompanying him and Sophia in his curricle, to go out of town somewhere to dinner.

"Three in a curricle?" said Sophia.

"Oh, it is no matter at this time of the year;" Deerhurst replied.

I inquired where we should dine.

Deerhurst named some small place about eight miles from town, but I have forgotten what he called it. He took us to a common village pot-house, where nothing could be put on the table besides fried eggs and bacon.

"Most excellent!" exclaimed Deerhurst, "an exquisite dish--and so very rural!"

Our rural dinner was soon despatched; and, as I could not endure the strong smell of tobacco, which issued in copious fumes from the tap-room, I proposed returning to town as fast as possible.

Sophia, who always agreed with everybody, was asked first by Deerhurst if eggs and bacon were not a delightful dish.

She answered, "Very much so indeed."

I then asked her if it were not enough to make us sick on such a hot day.

To which her reply was "I am quite sick already."

In coming home, Deerhurst put his horses all at once into a full gallop as we drew near the turnpike, bent on the noble triumph of cheating--I will not use the technical word--the man of twopence! The lord of the gate, in a fury ran after Deerhurst and with some difficulty contrived to catch hold of his whip.

"Let go my whip!" vociferated Deerhurst.

"You sneaking b---kg---d!" said the man, still holding fast by one end of the whip, "this is not the first time you have attempted to cheat me."

"Let go my whip, and be d----d to you!" bawled Deerhurst.

The man however refused and in the struggle it was broken.

"Now d--n your soul," said Deerhurst, darting from the curricle without the least regard to our fears, and leaving us to manage two spirited horses how we could. In an instant he had stripped off his coat and was hard at it with the fat, dirty turnpike-man.

"Oh!" ejaculated I, in despair, "that ever I should have ventured out in such disgusting society!"

"Very disgusting indeed," echoed Sophia.

Once Deerhurst was down; but we soon discovered that the fat turnpike-man was undermost, and, "Go it, my lord! you a lord? a rum lord!" burst from a Babel-like confused world of voices.

The Honourable Arthur Upton happened to be passing at this moment. I called out to him by his name, and he came up to the curricle. I told him that we were frightened almost to death at the scene which presented itself, and our peculiar situation, having no proper dresses nor shoes for walking, and requested that he would make somebody stand at the heads of the horses.

He did so, and afterwards obligingly made his way to Lord Deerhurst. He begged his lordship would excuse the liberty he took, adding, "We know each other personally Lord Deerhurst, and I cannot help feeling hurt and grieved to see you so engaged, particularly with two young ladies under your immediate protection. I feel myself bound, seeing so many blackguards against you, to stand by you, as long as you choose to keep me in this very disgraceful situation."

"What," cried out the many-mouthed mob, "you are another lord, I suppose? Here's rum lords for you! cheating a poor man out of twopence, and then stopping to fight in the road. My sarvices to you, my lord! Who would not be a lord!"

"Out of respect for you, Mr. Upton," said Deerhurst, "I will pay this fellow;" and thus, after knocking the poor man about till he was black and blue, his lordship being possessed of all such skill as his friends Crib and Jackson had taught him, he paid him the twopence which was originally his due, and was hissed and hooted till he drove out of sight.

When he rejoined us, his nose and fingers were covered with blood.

"Did you ever see such an impudent rascal, my dear Sophia?" said Deerhurst to her.

"Never in my life," prettily repeated Sophia in her own cuckoo-strain.

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Chapter IX

By this time, my most gentle readers are growing, tant soi peu, tired of--what they presume to call---my consummate nonsense! and an indulgent public is, I must however say, somewhat prematurely thinking about throwing aside my very charming narrative of facts in high life as they actually took place; though I do not specify in what year or years, being anxious to forget all such critical matters as dates.

To such of the kind public as may have a perverted taste for the serious, I beg leave to state that I am now making my début in a tragic part; but venture humbly to express the hope that my tragical adventures will furnish more interest to my readers than they supplied amusement to me.

I have twice before stated that Lord Ponsonby's attachment to me continued, or appeared to continue, unabated for the space of nearly three years: et, savez-vous, mes belles dames, que cela est beaucoup? Towards the end of that period, he one evening appeared to me unusually melancholy. I had frequently reproached him with making a mystery to me of something which must have happened to him; but he not only assured me that I was mistaken, but began to affect more than his accustomed gaiety; and he acted his part so well that I was doubtful whether I had not been altogether deceived.

"Then perhaps you are only out of health," said I, "instead of out of spirits? for I am sure that your hands are feverish."

"Now you have discovered it," said Ponsonby, laughing; "I am going to die!--Would you regret me?" said he: and then, in a tone of much feeling, added, as he put back my thick hair with his two hands, to kiss my forehead and examine the expression of my countenance, intensely, as though he were taking a last farewell of it--"I will not ask you; for I am sure you would."

He now took up some paper and began to write, holding his hand before the paper to prevent my seeing a single line.

"What are you writing?" I asked.

"Private business," was Ponsonby's answer.

On this I sat down to my pianoforte, that I might not interrupt him. Yet it struck me that it must be something for me, or that he would not have written it at my house.

Lord Ponsonby had often hinted that he wished to make a provision for me, during my life, of two hundred pounds a year. I imagined that this might be something of a promise to that effect:--but, as I knew Ponsonby at that time to be very poor and much in debt, my resolution was taken at once. "He will divide his purse with me," thought I, "while he lives and loves me--and I will never look forward, nor provide for one hour after Ponsonby shall be lost to me."

As soon as he had sealed up a letter, which he put into his pocket, he looked at his watch and, starting upon his feet, said, in a voice of real distress, "I must go!--Who would have imagined that it could be so late!"

"Must you go home, already?" I asked.

"Not home, but to the House of Lords," Ponsonby replied. "But, my dear Harriette, I cannot lose you at this moment! Perhaps you were right, and my spirits may have been rather lower than usual to-night! Will you come down with me in a hackney coach as far as the House?"

I acquiesced willingly; and when we arrived there I begged to be allowed to wait for him. "I do not care if it should be all night," said I; "for you'll come at last, and we can drive towards your house together."

Ponsonby answered that I was very good; but in the greatest despondency.

In half an hour he came to the coach-door, to say that the House would sit late and he could not bear the idea of my waiting.

"All these things, my dearest Ponsonby," said I, "are mere matters of taste. I am very happy in waiting for you--very!" He did not again return to me for more than three hours. It was daylight. He seemed to be dreadfully unwell and fatigued. I had never seen him thus since the death of his father. He gave me, I think, almost a hundred kisses, without uttering a single word.

"You are much fatigued, dear Ponsonby," said I; "I only wish to heaven I might stay with you and take care of you for ever."

"I have a letter for you," said Ponsonby, drawing the one which he had written at my house from his pocket, as we drove towards his own home.

"You must excuse my taking it," said I; "because, I will tell you frankly, I rather guess that it is to secure me the provision which you have so often talked about."

He was peremptory.

"I am no liar, Ponsonby," said I, "and, when I most solemnly declare to you that I will never accept of any annuity from you, unless you were to become so rich as to make one without the slightest inconvenience to yourself or your family--I hope you will believe me." I then tore the letter into many pieces and threw it out of the coach-window.

Ponsonby seemed almost ashamed of having had so little as two hundred pounds a year to offer; but even that was not without difficulty, for he was most magnificent in his ideas of gentlemanly expenditure.

Poor fellow! He had so little of it to spend: and from delicacy he was afraid to say more on the subject of what he considered a trifle wholly unworthy of me.

As he drew near his door, Ponsonby pressed me close to his heart. "My dear Harriette," said he, "it is indeed as you say, very hard upon us that we may not pass the whole of our lives together; but then be assured of this truth; and I hope that it may afford you consolation, happen what will, my affection for you, to whom I certainly owe some of the happiest hours I have ever known."

The kiss which followed this declaration was as long and as ardent as our first! Yet alas! how different the parting kiss of unfathomable anguish, given in the fervour of gaunt despair, to the first soul-thrilling embrace of wild, ardent ecstasy, which comprehends no limits and which, like the last, could never be forgotten by me.

Ponsonby had affected me with his more than usual melancholy, and, when I was about to take my leave, I felt that I could not speak; but I kissed his hand eagerly and fervently, as he was hurrying out of the coach....

I have never seen him from that hour.

On the following evening, while I was expecting Ponsonby, I received a letter from him, the purport of which was to inform me that we had parted for ever.

* * * * *

I remember little of the style or nature of the letter. Something I read about a discovery made by Lady Ponsonby, and a solemn engagement or promise extorted from him, to see me only once more, in which interview he had intended to have explained and arranged everything; but could not. The perusal of this letter occasioned a mist to come over my eyes, my heart seemed to swell so as almost to produce suffocation: and yet I did not believe it to be possible that we could have parted for the last time, or surely my anguish had burst forth in one wild cry and then all had been still for ever!

But hope was not yet extinct. I felt stunned, more by the sudden shock of such an idea being presented to my imagination as possible, than from conviction of its probability. "Dreadful!" thought I, and shuddered, while I felt a cold dew as from the charnel-house overspread my whole frame, "shall Ponsonby refuse to speak to me, and even look upon me as a stranger, after all our communion of feeling, after all that deep interest which he evinced towards me so late as this very morning? Nonsense! palpable, gross absurdity! How I have been frightening myself! As if it were in human nature to be so cruel even to one's greatest enemy! And Ponsonby's nature is so kind!" and then a violent hysterical affection steeped my senses in forgetfulness and relieved for an instant the bitter anguish of my heart. Then I suddenly recollected his parting kiss. Gracious God! could he have left me? My brain seemed absolutely on fire. I flew to the window, where for years I had been in the habit of watching his approach. "It is not high enough," thought I, "and would but half destroy me. I will go to him first," and my trembling hands essayed in vain to fasten the ribbons of my bonnet under my chin: "but no, no, I will not risk her happiness. I am not really wicked, not so very wicked as to deserve this dreadful calamity. We are sent into the world to endure the evils of it patiently, and not thus to fly into the face of our God. If he is our father, and I kneel down to him with patience, this anguish will be calmed."

I locked my door, and then prostrated myself with my face on the floor and prayed fervently for near an hour that, if I was to see Ponsonby no more, God would take me in mercy out of a world of such bitter suffering before the morning. I arose somewhat comforted: but stiff, and so cold that my whole frame trembled violently. I swallowed some lavender-drops and tried to write: blotted twenty sheets of paper with unintelligible nonsense and wetted them with my tears.

The book Ponsonby last read to me now caught my eye. No sense of religion could calm me or save me from the actions of despair, while these objects were before me, and, hastily wrapping my cloak about me, I hurried into the streets. I walked on with incredible swiftness till my strength failed me all at once, and, panting for breath, I sat down on the step of a door in Half Moon-street. The night was dark and rainy. "I have a strong mind," thought I, "and I will exert it to consider where I shall look for help and consolation if Ponsonby has left me." As this thought struck me, the slow tear fell unregarded down my cheek. "Death," was the answer my despair made me, "only death can relieve me!" But then what is death? how soon the vital spark of life is destroyed in insects. The poor moth, when writhing in torture of its own seeking, how often and how easily I have put at rest! Ponsonby's neglect, Ponsonby's late passion, his smile, and his last long kiss, cannot torture me after this little palpitation has ceased, and I held my fingers to my throat to ascertain the strength of what seemed all of life about me. Yet I will suffer first, and suffer long, that I may pray for God's forgiveness, only be it my consolation that this will terminate all.

Alas! vain was my reasoning. There was no consolation for me. I was bent on writing to Ponsonby. "I will return home," thought I, "and shut myself up in the small room he has never entered." My trembling knees could no longer support me. I tried to rise; but could not. My lips were parched, my cheeks burned, and I was very sick. "God is about to grant the prayer I have made to him," thought I,--ever sanguine in what I wished--"I shall die by his own will."

I grew worse, and very faint. Sickness was new to me at that time, and now a slight touch of fear came over me. "Alas!" methought, "I am going out of the world very young and very miserably, and before I have written to Ponsonby. He would have returned to me. He loved me, and while there was life there was hope. I might have been so exquisitely happy as to have been pressed to his heart again! though but once more, it would have compensated an age of misery. It is but in losing him I can appreciate my late wonderful happiness. I would have been his servant or his slave, and lived on one of his smiles for a week, as a reward for the hardest labour. What am I? what was I, that Ponsonby should devote his precious life to me? No matter what I was!" As I grew still fainter, I prayed for Ponsonby's eternal happiness, as though I had felt he required my prayers.

"Vy do you set there?" inquired a man, who was passing, in the accent of a Jew, and, receiving no answer, after examining me attentively, he added, "Poor ting! poor girl you are ill! don't be afraid of a poor old Jew. Tell me vat I sal do for you." My heart was so deeply oppressed that my strongest effort to subdue my feelings proved unsuccessful; and, at the sound of these few words uttered in a tone of unaffected benevolence, I sobbed aloud.

"Poor ting! poor young ting! Got bless my soul," taking my hand, "you are very ill, you have much fever, vat shall pe done!"

"I am really ill," said I, struggling to speak calmly, "and you will oblige me greatly if you will have the kindness to see me to a hackney coach."

The Jew hastened to comply with my request, and with real delicacy assisted me into the carriage he procured for me, without making a single inquiry.

Arrived at home, my housekeeper was so alarmed and struck at my altered appearance that she, after putting me to bed, sent for Dr. Bain, who assured me that I was in a high fever, and that my recovery depended entirely on my keeping myself very quiet.

I confessed to my physician that there was something on my mind which agitated me so violently that I could find no rest till I was allowed to write a long letter. He seemed to take a strong interest in my fate; and, after vainly imploring me not to attempt it, suffered my maid to place my writing-desk before me; but, alas! I could not write.

My memory began to fail me, and my head was dreadfully confused, I remarked this to Dr. Bain as I laid down my pen.

"My dear child," said the doctor, taking my burning hand with much kindness, "your pulse is so high at this moment, that nothing but the most perfect stillness can ever restore you. Only obey my instructions for three days, and I firmly hope that your fever will have left you, and you will be able to write without difficulty on any subject you please."

The idea of dying without having addressed Ponsonby, caused me such extreme anguish, that I submitted like an infant to follow the advice I received.

"Only assure me, sir," said I, "that I shall be able to write to a particular friend, a very long, collected letter before I die--and my mind will become comparatively calm."

The doctor gave me all the comfort in his power, and promised to see me early in the morning.

I passed a very agitated night, I could not refrain from puzzling my poor, confused brain as to what I should write to Ponsonby. My letter was to decide my fate on earth, therefore must not be hurried, nor begun till I had collected all the energies of my mind. I prayed that such eloquence might be granted me as might persuade and lead Ponsonby, at least to show some symptoms of humanity towards me.

It was six o'clock in the morning before the strong opiate which Dr. Bain had prescribed for me produced any effect. At that hour, quite exhausted in mind and body, I fell into a heavy sleep, which lasted more than eight hours.

On opening my eyes, I saw at my bedside my dear sister Fanny and Dr. Bain: the latter was feeling my pulse. I felt very much agitated at seeing Fanny.

Dr. Bain told her that my disorder proceeded alone from the agitation of my mind; but it, nevertheless, had produced such violent effects as to make it advisable for me immediately to lose some blood.

I submitted to whatever was required of me; but I begged Fanny not to tease or question me as to what had caused all this, assuring her that I could not talk on the subject without disturbing my senses, and I was earnestly desirous of obtaining a little calm reason, if only for one hour more, that I might compose a letter before I died.

Dr. Bain, as well as my sister, said and did everything the most tender friendship could dictate. To be brief, their kind attention and my own excellent constitution triumphed over the fever, which had been very severe during five days. In a little more than a fortnight I left my bed; and, though reduced to a mere shadow of what I had been, I found myself sufficiently collected to address the following letter to Lord Ponsonby:

"Scarcely a month has elapsed since I possessed, or believed I possessed, with health, reputed beauty, and such natural spirits, 'as were wont to set the table in a roar,' all my highest flights of imagination had ever conceived or dreamed of perfect happiness on earth--I had almost said, in heaven! Alas! I had not considered how unreal and fleeting must ever be the glories of this life, and I was, as a child, unprepared for the heavy affliction which has fallen on my heart like a thunder-bolt, withering all healthful verdure and crushing its hopes for ever.

"In encouraging so deep an attachment for a married man I have indeed been very hardened; but, till now, I can call my God to witness, I have never in my life reflected seriously on any subject. Maturity of thought, it should seem, is acquired earlier by certain characters than others; for I could affirm on my death-bed that, hitherto, I dreamed not of injuring any one of my fellow creatures. In short, while I loved all the world and would fain have done them all good, I most respected Lady Ponsonby. This assertion may seem scarcely credible to young females, differently educated or of less wild and childish dispositions; but, just arisen from a sick bed, I write not to deceive.

"Three weeks of bitter anguish of mind and body have changed, or rather matured my nature so completely, that even the expression of my features bears another character.

"My eyes are now open and I feel that, as the mistress of a married man, possessing an innocent, amiable young wife, I could no longer be esteemed or respected by the only being whose respect was dear to me. As lovers then, Ponsonby, we have met for the last time on earth!" [Here I laid down my pen; because this idea affected me.]

"I have delayed writing to you, till I could address you with reasonable firmness, not with the mere ravings of passion. Think you so meanly of me, dear Ponsonby, as to fancy that I could be gratified at becoming a mere instrument of pleasure to you, after my cool judgment has told me that I should thus forfeit all right to your respect or esteem? You are a man of the world, and as such may confound what is termed a lovefit, with the deep affection you have for three years taken pains to inspire in my heart.

"'Love never kills,' says the unfeeling world: yet, unfeeling as it may be, such a sudden desertion of your wife would have called forth towards her its deepest commiseration. Alas! the ceremony of marriage, read over to me by a thousand priests, could not have added one jot to my despair, while I in vain cast my cheerless eyes around the wide world for a single ray of pity, which is ever denied me.

"Yet the faults of my careless youth have been sanctioned and encouraged and shared by you, who knew well, from experience, the future anguish you were preparing for me! You elated my pride beyond all the bounds of humility; you blessed me with more than human happiness, but to destroy my peace for ever! I was not naturally vain; but, when you have shut yourself up whole days alone, to think on our meeting and our love, till we should meet again,--when, in movements of the wildest passion, you, with all your talent and your glorious beauty, have called me your own angelic Harriette, think you I could divest myself of delicious pride in the object of my passion? And if I did not believe or fancy myself an angel, perhaps my attributes as a woman were but the more appreciated by me, as you preferred them.

"Enough of a subject I had determined not to touch upon. I bow with humility to the fate which compels me to resign such happiness as few, among wiser and better people, have been permitted to enjoy; and, 'come what may, I have been blessed.'

"Had it pleased heaven to have bestowed on me the husband of my choice, there is nothing great or good or virtuous that I had not aspired to: as it is, I am a poor fallen wretch, who ask of your compassion one line or one word of consolation to save me from despair.

"Oh! I have known such moments of deep anguish as I could never describe to you. Ponsonby, my dear Ponsonby! I throw myself on my knees before you, I raise the eyes you have so often professed to love and admire, now disfigured, and half closed by constant weeping, towards heaven, and I ask of God to soften your heart, that you may not torture me beyond my strength. Recall then those dreadful words,--'we must part now, Harriette, and for ever!' I too am a woman! and Lady Ponsonby desires not my death.

"Trust me, the errors and little weaknesses which humanity dictates shall be found more acceptable in the eyes of God, than such stoical virtue as results from hardness of heart.

"If I survive the punishment you have declared I must submit to, it will be by the strength of my constitution, which shall be proof against an age of anguish! My heart was ever warm and unusually affectionate. I ask but to live yet for you, not with you. I would but obtain your approbation as a reward for my earnest endeavours to do right, and obtain for myself an existence, by my own industry, if ever my former health and strength should be restored to me.

"When you come and speak to me of what is right and virtuous shall I not love virtue for your sake? Have I ever wished to disobey you? I do not ask you to visit me alone. Call on me with Lord Jersey. Come soon, and give but the assurance that still and for ever you will be all to me that honour and virtue permits; that once in every year, while I act virtuously, you will visit me, and encourage me with your friendship and approbation.

"I am overpowered with faintness and fatigue, else I had many, many more arguments to urge. Hope, almost life, hangs on your answer; therefore, dear Ponsonby be merciful, and so may God bless you.

"HARRIETTE."

My mind was very much relieved, after I had despatched my letter; for I considered that I should certainly hear from Lord Ponsonby, if he possessed one spark of feeling toward me; and, if he did not, of course my respect and affection must naturally abate.

I watched for the appearance of the postman, who usually brought my letters, from morning till night, with indescribable emotion; nor did I cease to hope for a whole week. At last however I was convinced that the epistle which had cost me so much labour of thought, was indeed entirely disregarded by the person on whom I expected it would have made a deep impression.

Somewhat of an indignant feeling began to take the place of affection. All my woman's pride was roused, and yet methought, this man, so cruelly unfeeling to me now, has watched my slumbers in breathless silence, and still he smiles with the same brilliant expression on others, and all about him are impressed with that dignified air of true nobility, that reserve so delightfully and condescendingly thrown aside, in favour of the few who please him.

A slow intermitting fever began to prey on my constitution. I felt a violent oppression of the chest, which increased so rapidly, in spite of all my kind friend, Dr. Bain, could do for me, that in less than a month after I had addressed my last letter to Ponsonby, I could never find breath sufficient to enable me to ascend the stairs to my bed-chamber, without sitting down to rest more than once. I began to hate society; above all I avoided anything like gaiety.

It was now that I believed in all I had heard as to the wretchedness of this life, and I wanted to reconcile myself to my God. "I will pass my heavy hours in doing the little good to my fellow creatures, in my power," said I one day, as I recollected my former slight acquaintance with a woman whom I knew to have been lately taken to Newgate for rather a heavy debt. She was Lord Craven's housekeeper, during the time I had lived with him at Brighton.

I ordered my carriage to the debtors' door of Newgate. My mind was so deeply absorbed with one object, that the misery I saw there did not much affect me. The poor woman, Mrs. Butler, was surprised and delighted to see me.

"I wish I could pay your debt," said I, panting for breath as usual, and speaking with pain and difficulty.

"My dear, dear young lady," said Mrs. Butler, looking at me with much compassion, "what has happened to that sweet, merry, blooming face of yours?"

It only required a single word, uttered in a tone of sympathy, to bring the ready tears into my eyes. Mine now fell, disregarded by me, down my pale cheek. "You," returned I, "are not the only person in affliction; but, never mind, talk to me, my good woman, of anything except my unhappiness. I cannot pay your debt, with common justice to my own creditors; but this trifle I can spare, and you are very welcome to it." I then placed in her hand all I at that moment possessed in the world, except a single one pound note.

Mrs. Butler really was what she appeared, very grateful. I sat an hour with her, and promised constantly to visit her and provide for all her little wants, as long as she continued in prison. When I was taking my leave, just as the last bell was about to ring, which was to exclude all strangers for the night, I observed an interesting young girl of about fourteen years of age, in one corner of the room, weeping bitterly; near her sat an elderly lady apparently in much affliction. A working man was in the act of making up a large bundle, out of I knew not what.

"Those poor people are in great affliction," said Mrs. Butler, observing what had fixed my attention. "The mother has seen better days; they have hitherto contrived to pay 3_s._ 6_d._ a week for the hire of their bed, which that man is now taking away, because their means are exhausted." I was instantly about to desire the man to put down the bed, when prudence whispered in my ear that I had just given all I possessed but a single pound note. "No matter," thought I, taking out my purse, "poverty cannot add to such affliction of the mind as mine is." Again I paused. This lady has seen better days and must be treated with more delicacy. I hastened towards her and, taking hold of her hand to place my bank note in it, I whispered in her ear, my request, that she would do me the favour to make use of the trifle, and without waiting her answer I hurried on after the man, who was now disappearing with the poor woman's mattress and bed-clothes, and desired him to return with them.

The next morning I was surprised by a visit from the Duke of Wellington, who had unexpectedly arrived from the continent the night before.

"How do you do? what have you been about?" asked His Grace: then, fixing his eyes on my pale, thin, care-worn face, he absolutely started, as though he had seen the ghost of some man he had killed, honestly of course!

"What the devil is the matter?" inquired Wellington.

"Something has affected me deeply," answered I, my eyes again filling with tears, "and I have been ill for more than two months."

"Poor girl!" said Wellington, as though he really would have pitied me, had he but known how, and then added, "I always dreaded your getting into some scrape. Do you recollect I told you so? How much money do you want?" said this man of sentiment, drawing near the table and taking up my pen to write a draft.

"I have no money," I replied, "not a single shilling; but this is not the cause of my sufferings."

"Nonsense, nonsense," rejoined Wellington, writing me a cheque. "Where the devil is Argyle? Why do not you make him pay your debts? I will give you what I can afford now, and you must write to me, as usual, at Thomas's Hotel, if this is not sufficient. Good God! how thin you are grown! Were you sorry I left you? I remember you shed tears when I told you I was off for Spain. I am a cold sort of fellow. I dare say you think so, and yet, I have not forgotten that either: because there is no humbug about you; and, when you cry, you are sorry I believe. I have thought of you very often in Spain; particularly one night, I remember, I dreamed you came out on my staff."

Wellington consoled me as well as he could, and sat with me nearly three hours. His visit made no impression on me, except that I was grateful for his kindness in leaving me the money I wanted.

The oppression on my chest increased daily, and I became so reduced as to excite the commiseration of a kind opposite neighbour, who sent over her footman to know if the poor young creature she saw from her window, and who appeared so very ill, had proper advice, and friends in town to take care of her?

My grief seemed now to settle in deep despondency. I considered my late intimacy with Ponsonby as unreal mockery, a bright vision of the fancy. I believed that were he suddenly to appear again before me, I should instantly expire. Dr. Bain, I know, believed that my symptoms bordered on a decline and he wished me to try Italy.

In about a week I paid a second visit to Mrs. Butler, although my trembling limbs could scarcely support me up the stairs of the prison; and, when I entered, I was absolutely speechless with the effort for nearly a quarter of an hour. Mrs. Butler was all gratitude; while expressing the concern I believe she felt, lest I should injure myself by venturing out in such a miserable state of health.

Observing in the room several women, who appeared to examine me with perfect curiosity, I asked Mrs. Butler if she knew what it meant.

"Why," said Mrs. Butler, "that woman, whose bed they were taking away from her when you noticed her last week, knows you, and has been malicious enough to tell all the room that you are a mere kept mistress with whom she should be ashamed to converse."

I threw on the stranger to whom I had given my very last pound a hasty and indignant glance, but, neither the expression nor the colour of anger would dwell on a cheek bloodless as mine, and I might apply to myself, what Sterne said of his poor old monk, that nature had done with its resentments.

"I never injured any of those women," reflected I, with meek resignation: "but God will be kinder to me and to my errors than they are!"

I offered all the little comforts in my power to Mrs. Butler, and then my health obliged me to take my leave. As I passed close to the woman into whose hands I had placed my pound-note, she smiled and curtsied affectedly. I fixed my sunk eyes, for an instant on her face, and then withdrew them, more in sorrow than in anger.

I lingered thus for about two months, without any visible change in my health or spirits, except that I grew weaker and thinner every day. All the kindness which could be administered to a mind diseased I received from my mother and sister Fanny.

About this time the Duke of Argyle arrived from Scotland. He was, no doubt, greatly shocked to see me so ill, although the cause of my melancholy state of mind being known to him, did not either flatter or interest him; more particularly as he had often himself remarked to me, that he wondered any woman alive could resist Lord Ponsonby.

I had always liked Argyle, and was glad to see him, and should have indeed found much consolation in his society, but that he loved to trifle with my distress, as it regarded Lord Ponsonby.

"I have just dined with Ponsonby," said Argyle to me one night, "and I never saw him look better. He showed me a letter, containing an invitation from that nasty sister of yours, Amy, who wanted to have me last year."

That way madness lies: I could not listen to another word. I was rushing past Argyle, when he detained me, frightened at the wildness of my looks.

"It is all a joke you credulous little fool," said he, running after me.

"I cannot run," said I, turning round, and panting for breath. "Pray, pray, leave me now. You torture me by staying. Come this evening, and I shall thank you for your visit." It was long before I could induce him to leave me.

The moment I was alone, I despatched the following note to Lord Ponsonby.

"I thank you that you renounced my prayers; for you thus cured me of half my esteem. It was my fixed determination never to intrude myself again on your attention; but the Duke of Argyle has mentioned to me this morning my sister Amy having written to you. Once more then, Ponsonby, I implore you, as you would save me from self-destruction, satisfy my wretched mind in what cannot injure Lady Ponsonby. Declare to me--nobody has or shall.... Ponsonby, I am addressing you for the last time. Have mercy on the dreadful agitation of my mind and answer me directly. You are quite happy, Argyle says; and I in the very flower of my age am dying. One line can relieve me perhaps from madness! Your watch, chain and ring are sealed up. I could not look on them. I never shall again. My poor eyes have looked their last on them and you; and I shall never write to you again; therefore, God bless you. When age shall overtake you, in some moment of affliction, perhaps you will remember me and what I could have been to you. Adieu."

I despatched my letter almost without hope. "If he could resist the other," thought I, "this is more stupid, and less likely to affect him."

The agitation Argyle's stay had occasioned produced an increase of fever. Towards night I began to think seriously of dying, and not without reason, being reduced to a mere skeleton, and having now been afflicted with cough and extreme difficulty of respiration for almost five months. There is a restlessness in all disorders of the mind, which the sufferer imagines can be best relieved by exercise. About nine o'clock, having read the New Testament for several hours, I felt a strange desire to behold the outside of Lord Ponsonby's house once again before I died. I had avoided passing within a mile of it since he had left me, and this night I fancied something good would turn up from going there, if I could but find strength to accomplish my design. To have mentioned it to my housekeeper would have been at once to put it out of the question. I really believe she would have locked me into my room, while she had sent for my sister and Dr. Bain; therefore, getting rid of her and of my footman, I gained a hackney-coach unobserved, and was set down in Park Lane, very near Lord Ponsonby's house. It was a fine mild evening, and the watchman was calling the hour of ten. I was terribly afraid of him, and my breath failed me when I tried to hasten out of his way. I wandered about till I could stand no longer, and, with difficulty, contrived to obtain a seat on the steps of a large portico-door.

The atmosphere now began to threaten rain, which soon fell in torrents. A poor shivering girl sought shelter by my side. She was coughing most dreadfully, and her breath was still more oppressed than my own. "That cough," thought I, "is not feigned, and perhaps this wretched creature is thus nightly exposed to the inclement weather, to obtain existence by the prostitution of her person to unfeeling and drunken strangers: and what am I, that I should turn my back on a sister in affliction?" I immediately inquired of her why she left her home with such a dreadful cough.

The poor creature turned her head towards me in much apparent surprise. She was not beautiful, nor was she rouged, and her dress was rather neat than tawdry. The set characters of death appeared to me to be stamped on features which once had been very lovely.

"I have no home," was the poor girl's answer. "I had half a bed, till last night," added she, "but you see what I suffer, and, therefore, being unable to obtain a single shilling, they have turned me into the streets."

"Dreadful! dreadful!" I ejaculated. "Good God! how could you ever degrade yourself thus? What labour would not have been preferable at the beginning!"

The poor creature interrupted me with loud sobs, which produced such a dreadful fit of coughing, I thought that she would have expired on the spot.

"Good heavens!" said I, "what is to be done? I am so very weak myself, that I cannot help you or seek for a coach to carry us home; but, when the watchman passes us, I will send him for one and take you with me, and have you put into a warm bed and see you taken care of. When I have done this, I do not think you will swear at me, or frighten me, or ill-use me, will you?" added I, taking hold of her hand. "I am sure you would not, you could not, nobody could if they knew but half how wretched I am."

The poor creature fell on her knees before me, and strove in vain to express her gratitude, with wild incoherency. I never saw any one thus affected.

"My poor young woman," said I, exerting my strength to raise her, "you must have met with very hard hearts to be thus surprised and overpowered by a little common humanity towards a poor fellow creature in distress. Pray be calm, that we may cure you and give you an opportunity of making amends for your past life, by becoming a useful and respected member of society."

Before I could contrive to get the poor creature placed in a hackney-coach, which the watchman procured, she had fainted, and was still insensible when, at past one in the morning, I arrived at my own house.

My footman was at that instance setting off for my sister and Dr. Bain: and my good housekeeper was in tears.

"Do not agitate me," said I, "with your questions and all this bustle; I am too ill to endure them; but this distressed object, whom I have met with by mere accident, is worse than I am and more in want of your care. Never mind who or what she is; but pray get her to bed, and see that she has all she requires. Tell her I wish that I could attend her myself; but I am not able."

My good old servant, knowing well how contradiction always irritated me, sent my housemaid to undress me, and hastened to obey my commands.

In about an hour she returned to acquaint me that the poor young girl had fallen asleep, completely worn out with fatigue. "Poor soul!" continued my housekeeper, "she is not long for this world, I fear; yet she is as gentle as a lamb, and nothing like a vulgar or a bad word comes out of her mouth."

My mind was a good deal relieved at this account of my protégée, and I tried to compose myself to rest. It was not however till eight o'clock in the morning that I could close my eyes; and at eleven I put on my dressing-gown, and went to visit the poor invalid. By the first glance on her emaciated countenance, I felt persuaded that nothing would save her, though the poor young woman herself appeared very sanguine.

"If it should please God, my dear lady, to spare me a little longer, you shall never, never have to regret your great goodness. I have not long led this dreadful life. It is scarcely two years ago, since I lived as nursery-maid in a respectable family, where I was a great favourite. There, madam, I became acquainted with a young tradesman, who professed a desire to make me his wife. We kept company for nearly a twelvemonth. He always told me he thought it would be prudent to delay our marriage from day to day, as he was in hourly expectation of the arrival of his father, whose consent he was sure of obtaining, although he should have to dread his displeasure, were he to marry me without it. At last, I discovered by the merest accident that this man had a wife, to whom he had been married four years, as well as three fine young children. I immediately left my place to avoid meeting him again. My mistress strongly recommended me to a friend of her own, as nurse to her infant daughter; but grief preyed so on my mind, that I could not give satisfaction in my situation.

"I was shortly afterwards afflicted with this terrible cough. To drown the anguish of my mind I got into bad company, and, having lost my character as well as my health, I have, for the last four months, been reduced to eat the bread of sin.

"I have been vainly trying to get into one of the hospitals, but there are no hopes of that," said the poor creature, her tears falling fast down her pale cheeks, "for they say that mine is an incurable disorder which they do not want to be troubled with."

"What unfeeling creatures," said I, "but do not fret, poor soul, or despair. While there is life there is hope. If I cannot get you into a hospital, where you shall have from me linen, tea, wine, and all you may require, you shall be at least as well off in my house, so keep yourself quiet. While I live and you do your duty you shall never want a friend; and if we both die shortly, as may happen, let us hope that God will be found an indulgent father, instead of a severe judge, and will receive us into a better world."

The poor creature absolutely seemed to forget her own severe sufferings, while endeavouring to think of what would best relieve mine.

In the course of the morning Dr. Bain prescribed for her, and promised to bring me a letter for her admittance into St. George's Hospital. On the next morning, when the poor creature was admitted into that Institution, she fainted from excess of joy and gratitude.

Soon after the departure of my protégée, my servant brought me a letter, by the twopenny post; the handwriting was Lord Ponsonby's. Gracious heavens, how my heart beat! I could not open it. I kissed it a thousand times, placed it next my heart--thought I should never have found courage to read it, and when I did at last in fear and trembling, for I had begun to doubt the probability of any good happening to me on earth, it was as follows--very short, and not particularly sweet.

"Why, dearest, will you consider these things so seriously! Upon my honour, upon my soul, I can say no, in reply to your question: and you may tell the Duke of Argyle that he is mistaken if he thinks me happy. Do you remember what I said to you at our last meeting, and will you do me the justice to believe I did not deceive you? Pray do.

"Adieu, "PONSONBY."

"Does this man love me!" thought I, half wild with the delightful idea, "and shall we not meet again? Impossible! As friends, at least, we must, shall meet, or I will die in the attempt."

The letter gave me new life, I imagined myself cured. Gay visions of departed happiness filled my imagination. I placed myself before the glass, to contemplate the havoc which sickness and anxiety had made on my features, and sighed heavily. "No matter!" vanity whispered, "I am more interesting, though not half so brilliant"; and then I hoped he would not love me less for the suffering his neglect had occasioned me. This world, said I, is a blank without him. I have endeavoured and prayed for tranquillity of mind in vain, during many long months, which yet have brought me no consolation. Too well I know I must renounce him as a lover; but for ever out of his sight I cannot exist, and longer I will not. I will take him by surprise. I will wait for hours, days, years at his door; but I will hear his voice once more. Shall I continue to suffer thus for what his footmen, tradesmen and valet, enjoy freely every day?

I, who would sign my own death-warrant but once again to kiss the dear hand which inscribed this beautiful little note! What have I done so very wicked, that I may not ever again behold him? I will wait at his door every night that I can ascertain he is from home, and, the first time he happens to return on foot, I cannot fail to see him; and one word he must say to me, if it is but to order me home. Something like the man, who boasted of having been addressed by the Emperor Bonaparte: "What did he say to you?" somebody asked. "Va t'en coquin," answered this true Christian.

Well, then, to conclude, since I am sure my readers are growing as tired of this dismal love-story as I am, I wandered nightly round Lord Ponsonby's house, which I believe I have said was now at the corner of Upper Brook Street, in Park Lane, for nearly a fortnight to no purpose. He returned not before daylight, when I dared not show myself, or he either came in his carriage, or had not left his house. The night air so increased my cough, that, God knows where I found strength for these wild nocturnal promenades; but love does wonders! I passed the whole day coughing in bed, to obtain strength at least to die at his door: for I had taken an oath to behold Ponsonby again or die in the attempt.

One night, dread of observation from the watchman, or insult from the passing strangers, made me parade slowly, on the opposite side of the street, before his house. The moon was shining beautifully, at near one in the morning. A magnificent, tall, elegant man, habited in black, turned hastily round the corner from Park Lane, and knocked loudly at Ponsonby's door. Could I be mistaken? I felt in every drop of my thrilling blood, and at the bottom of my heart, that it was Ponsonby, almost before I had caught a glimpse of him; and, darting across the street, with the light swiftness of former times, alas! ils étaient passés, ces jours de fêtes là. A bar of iron across my chest seemed to arrest my flight, and I was compelled to stand quite still for an instant. That instant decided my fate. I obtained Ponsonby's dwelling as the porter shut him out from my sight. The anguish of that moment I will not attempt to describe.

My mouth immediately filled with blood. Whether this was the effect of mental suffering, or whether I had done myself an internal injury by over-exertion, I know not: nor do I scarcely recollect how I happened to find myself in a hackney-coach. All I know for certain as to the adventures of that miserable night, is that I opened my eyes at five in the morning to behold Dr. Bain and a surgeon, who was binding up my arm to bleed me, my sister Fanny, in tears, and the Duke of Argyle, who stood at the foot of my bed, consulting with Dr. Bain. I know not why the kind, scarlet fever attacked me, in the midst of all my troubles; but that was the disorder under which I suffered.

I will not dwell on what I endured during a fortnight; indeed, as I was so frequently delirious, I knew little about it.

At the end of that time, however, my life was despaired of; but, in a few days, the disorder took a favourable turn and, after lingering six weeks, during which I had full time to reflect on all the follies I had indulged in, and having for more than a week been desired by Dr. Bain to prepare my mind for death, my late passion assumed the character of madness. I considered Ponsonby's conduct towards myself and his wife as equally heartless, and undeserved by all I had suffered for him. I earnestly prayed that he might hereafter make his lady amends for the former neglect I had occasioned her. I no longer desired to see him. "I have suffered too much," I often thought to myself, "and will not dwell on the occasion of it lest I lose sight of that charitable spirit towards all mankind in which I hope to die. Were he now in that room waiting to see me, I should desire him to return to his home and leave me to die in peace." I hoped that God would not be as deaf to his last prayers as he had been to mine. I sent his watch, chain and ring to Amy, to do exactly what she pleased with. I never mentioned Lord Ponsonby but once during my last illness; it was addressing Fanny,--"If ever you meet with him, after my death, tell him that I forgave him: and, for his wife's sake, as well as for his own, I prayed that God would mend his heart; but that I felt no desire to see him, or to take my final leave of him."

During this severe illness, the Duke of Argyle was very attentive to me. He was now the only man living for whom I felt the least interest. My sister Amy knew this, as well as all my late suffering; yet I was scarcely considered convalescent, when she made a desperate attack on Argyle's heart, which he complained of to me in terms of strong disgust. One night in particular before I had left my room, he came to me, after the opera.

"I have had a narrow escape," said Argyle.

"From what?" I asked.

"A rape!" was his reply.

"Who then, in this land of plenty," said I, "is so very hard up?"

"Your sister Amy," returned Argyle. "She asked me to see her to a coach; then insisted on setting me down,--drove me, bongré, malgré, to her house; and would make me walk upstairs and sup with her. I was as obstinate as a stoic. 'Why, where are you going?' inquired your sister Amy? 'To a sick relation of yours,' was my answer; at which Amy looked like a fury, as she wished me a good night."

"How you abuse her," said I. "Really you seem to have entirely forgotten our relationship."

"Why," added Argyle, "she sets me the example."

I fought Amy's battles as long and as earnestly as though she had really loved me, assuring Argyle that she was not bold and had been kind to but very few lovers.

Argyle, no doubt from all I said, began to think he had made a valuable conquest, and, rather than the poor thing should die, and appear at his bed-side afterwards, like unfortunate Miss Bailey, I suppose he determined to look at her again the next time he met her.

At that period, I believe he could have attached himself to me very sincerely; more so than formerly. His old friend, Lady W----, was in a very bad state of health, and was not expected to live. Argyle lamented the prospect of her loss, with real friendship, and would have found consolation in my society, but for my late desperate passion for another, which however I should soon have overcome, now that all was still and calm and quiet about the region of my heart. This calm was heaven to a poor wretch who had undergone so much mental suffering. I could not account for it; or rather, I could still less account for all my former misery.

As soon as I was able to converse, I inquired after my poor protégée, at St. George's Hospital. My housekeeper informed me, that she still lingered in a very hopeless state. The idea of dying without seeing me again appeared to affect her much. I desired my housekeeper to carry her everything she wanted, and to assure her that my very first visit should be to her, the moment Dr. Bain would permit me to leave the house. That very kind friend had so reasoned with me, about the sin and folly of trifling as I had done hitherto with the blessings of health, that I had passed my word to obey him in everything, on pain of incurring his lasting displeasure.

On the very first day I received permission to go out, while my carriage was waiting at the door, I was shocked by a most melancholy scene. The poor young creature from St. George's Hospital, having resisted the persuasions and threats of the matrons, declaring that she would see me before she died, drove up to my door in a hackney-coach literally in the agonies of death! My landlord, who had just called for his rent, hearing from my servants that a dying woman was come to me from the hospital, declared that she should not enter his house. What was to be done? We were all women and could not contend. My footman would have had her brought in by force; but force was the very thing in which the most particlerst man as is was most deficient. The poor creature held out her hands, entreating me for the love of God not to send her away from me in her last moments. The scene was indeed disgraceful to humanity and I was very much affected by it; but how could I help it? The landlord insisted she should not come in. There was no time to be lost, she must go to the workhouse.

"We will lose no time in contention with this unfeeling wretch," said I, "but I will go with you to the workhouse, and nurse you."

"God bless you! God bless you!" exclaimed the poor dying creature, faintly. "I am not afraid of dying, while you are with me."

I will not dwell on a scene, which even at this distant period I cannot remember without shuddering. In less than an hour after my poor protégée was placed on a miserable couch in Marylebone workhouse, she expired in my arms, earnestly and piously recommending her soul to God....

My health suffered much from this shock, and it was more than a week after the poor girl's death before I could again venture to leave the house. My sister Fanny at last prevailed on me to go and pass the day with her. There I met Julia, who had forgotten her constant swain, Colonel Cotton, though he still appeared to adore her. She had fallen madly in love with Sir Harry Mildmay, who, for a short time, seemed to return her passion and was really attentive to her, till somebody at Melton Mowbray asked him one day what the deuce he was doing with an old woman who might be his mother! All the love Mildmay ever felt for any daughter of Eve originated in vanity, and was fed and nourished by vanity, therefore, I need not add, that he cut Julia from that hour, and from that hour Julia's passion for him regularly increased; although it was unmixed or unpurified by the least atom of affection.

I inquired after Sophia, who had not been permitted to visit me because the scarlet fever was considered infectious. She was still living in the shabby, confined lodging Deerhurst had provided for her, and Deerhurst also continued to provide her with currant wine and raisin wine! He saw but little of her, and the less the better for the taste of Sophia, who declared that water was by no means an indispensable requisite at that nobleman's toilette. In short he was as much afraid of it as though he had been bitten by a mad dog.

I desire to know who consoled her for Deerhurst's dirtiness, and Deerhurst's neglect, and was told by Fanny that Colonel Berkeley tried hard to make himself agreeable, to which Julia added, "He is there from morning till night."

"And how does Sophia like him?"

"She dislikes him particularly. Henry De Roos is less disagreeable to her, I believe; but Sophia does not trouble her head for an instant about any man; only she really does wish that Deerhurst would wash himself a little more, and in particular his head."

Fanny went on to say that somebody told him what Sophia said on the subject, and Deerhurst, having accused her of circulating these stories out of school, asked her if he was not remarkably nice in his person.

"I think so," Sophia answered, "very nice indeed, I always said so."

Being still very weak I left them early in the evening, and, passing by Amy's door on my road home, I observed a carriage waiting, very like the Duke of Argyle's. I could not possibly be in love with Argyle that was very certain. I had of late given too many absurd proofs of love for another; and yet I had never ceased to admire and like him. He had lately been my sole friend, and his attention had promoted my recovery. In short, my nerves had undergone a shock, which to this day I have not recovered, nor ever have I enjoyed nor shall I, most probably, enjoy another hour's health.

At that time a mere nothing affected me. I hastily pulled the check-string and requested my servant to inquire of the coachman if that was really the equipage of His Grace. He was answered in the affirmative. I am ashamed to confess how much and how long this circumstance affected me. It was painful to my heart to acknowledge a sister so unnatural, and it caused another relapse. Amy heard the occasion of it and, sporting fine feelings, one fine morning after having by my kind recommendation lived with Argyle more than a month and become pregnant by him, she came suddenly into my room and, observing my deathlike aspect, began to blubber downright.

Hypocrisy was very disgusting to me. I had, in full, warm, sisterly confidence introduced her to the duke and praised her to him, till I changed his disgust into something like partiality: dressed her up in my own elegant clothes, because hers were always as shabby as they were showy, in the style of her black-pudding dinners and champagne suppers: and she intruded herself into my house, warm from the embraces of my lover, to show off tenderness! I experienced a sudden fit of rage almost amounting to madness.

"You disgusting, deceitful creature!" I exclaimed, locking her in my room and taking out the key, "since you have forced your company on me you shall repent it." I then looked round for some instrument to execute vengeance!

Readers, can you conceive anything half so monstrous, half so ruinous to black-pudding men, so destructive to the rising generation?

I was just thinking about killing her!

Amy opened the window, and called out to a boy in the street, that a wicked woman who was no better than she should be had locked her in.

"I shouldn't wonder," answered the boy, laughing and running away, "a pair of you, no doubt!"

I, by this time, was heartily ashamed of having been thus surprised into temporary madness, owing to the extreme irritability of my nerves.

"Go out of the house," said I, "for God's sake; there is something too indelicate and disgusting in your pity. You are very welcome to live with Argyle, if you can endure the idea. I certainly felt the loss of a friend, in my present low nervous state; but His Grace knows well that I have been in love with another for the last three years, one on whom your soft circular effusions made not the slightest impression, unless of disgust."

I hastened out of the room and locked myself in my bed-chamber. Amy's visit, I afterwards found, was in consequence of the anxiety Argyle had expressed concerning my health, and Amy guessed that she must show off sisterly affection, or Argyle would dislike her!

The next day Argyle visited me. He was very melancholy, and had scarcely shaved since Lady W----'s death, which had lately taken place. He reminded me that, when he dearly loved me, I never gênée'd myself or him; that he was now unhappy and could have devoted himself to me; but that he saw no hopes of a steady return.

"Yes! but then a sister!" said I; "the idea to me is so disgusting--but do not let us dwell on it, I forgive anything in your conduct which has caused me pain, and destroyed the possibility of our ever being more than friends for the rest of our lives:--and yet I trust we shall never be less. A very trifle affects me now; so do not be too vain, nor attribute to sentiment what is due to the scarlet fever. You believed me incapable of steady regard; because I did not fix my undivided affections on you, after I had learned, from your own letter, now in my possession, that you could not be wholly mine. Is that fair, or rather are not you a terrible coxcomb, master Argyle?

"Apropos, for here must end all sentiment between us, so, to talk of something else, Mr. Colman accuses you of having cut him dead in the Park yesterday when he bowed to you."

"What a vulgar fellow!" Argyle remarked.

"Why vulgar?"

"It is a vulgar idea, and one which certainly never occurred to me; not because I happen to be Duke of Argyle; for a private gentleman's rank in society is the same as mine; therefore what right have I to cut him? or what right would any duke have to cut a private gentleman? If a man does not return my bow I take it for granted he is absent, or not in the humour, or thinking of something else. Tell Mr. Colman he is an ass, my dear pretty----"

"Argyle!" interrupted I, "no more dear prettys, if you please. I have left off being pretty; but thank God I am heartwhole, and propose remaining so to the end of my natural life. Nevertheless, whatever the cause may be, I am truly sorry to see you so changed, and so melancholy."

"Thank you," returned Argyle, sighing. "Then oblige me, and don't tell anybody in the world that I am unhappy."

His Grace seemed to leave me with regret. I did not invite him to repeat his visit.

My health soon after this began to improve rapidly. My late fever seemed to have carried away all the oppression on my chest, except what was the mere effect of debility.

I took an early opportunity of paying Sophia a visit, and I had scarcely time to inquire after that young lady's petite société, before Colonel Berkeley was announced. It was in the evening, at about eight o'clock. He was very lively and agreeable, which I think was generally the case with him. The man bears an indifferent character and, perhaps, with some reason; but I have always seen him pleasant, and I never knew or heard of his breaking his word. His fancy for Sophia did not prevent his being polite and attentive to me, as often happens with ill-bred young men of the present day.

In less than half an hour after Colonel Berkeley's arrival in bounced Lord Deerhurst, in an agony of tears!

"Oh Sophy! Sophy!" exclaimed his lordship, blubbering and wiping his eyes with a very dirty, little, old, red pocket-handkerchief--"Oh Sophy, I never thought you would have used me in this way!"

Sophy declared herself innocent, which was indeed the fact as far as regarded Colonel Berkeley.

"I cannot bear it," continued Deerhurst, rushing out of the room, like the strolling representative of a tragic king in a barn, and, seating himself on the stairs, near the street-door, to sob and blubber more at his ease.

Colonel Berkeley looked at his lordship in utter astonishment, exclaiming, "My good fellow, what the devil is the matter?"

"Why! did you not--" he paused.

"Did he not what?" I asked.

"Oh, Lord! oh, dear!" roared out Deerhurst.

"Don't take on so, my lord," interposed Sophia's fat landlady, offering his lordship a glass of water.

Deerhurst accepted it with apparent gratitude, as though quite subdued.

"Could you have believed it, madam?" said he. "Did you believe that young creature was so depraved?"

"What do you mean by depraved?" I asked. "Why I can answer for it, Sophia has never given Colonel Berkeley the slightest encouragement, and beyond a mere yes or no she never opens her lips to him."

"Oh! don't tell me! don't tell me!" still blubbered his lordship, the big tears rolling down his cheeks.

"This is incredibly astonishing!" ejaculated Colonel Berkeley, in a very natural tone of surprise.

"What is incredibly astonishing?" I asked. "I am determined to understand this. In fact, I think I have guessed already. Lord Deerhurst, by the restoration of his annuity, will put two hundred pounds a year into his pocket on Sophia's first act of infidelity. You are his friend, and have done nothing but express your astonishment at his lordship's tears and apparent jealousy ever since he came blubbering into the room; therefore, since his arrival so quickly succeeded yours, I will lay my life you two desperate mauvais sujets came here together!"

"Nonsense!" replied Colonel Berkeley, laughing.

"I am now sure of it," added I.

Colonel Berkeley slily nodded assent to my remark.

Deerhurst was smelling a bottle of hartshorn, which Sophia's landlady held fast to the end of his nose. Berkeley addressed Sophia in a whisper. Deerhurst jumped up like a madman, and was leaving the room.

"My good fellow," said the colonel, taking Lord Deerhurst by the arm, for this excellent acting had really deceived even Berkeley himself, whom his lordship had brought to Sophia's door in his own carriage for the express purpose of taking her off his hands, "if you really are annoyed at my visit, if you have changed your mind--only say so, and I give you my word I will not call on Sophia again. Be a man! don't make this noise and bellowing; but tell me frankly what you wish. You and I are old friends."

Deerhurst said that his feelings were wounded and his heartstrings cracked; therefore he must go home and get them mended: and he darted out of the house.

"What the deuce can all this mean?" said Berkeley. "The man really is unhappy. I must go after him."

"Take me with you," I said, "just to gratify my curiosity."

"With all my heart," replied Berkeley, "if my carriage is at the door."

"Did not you drive here in it?"

"No," whispered he, "Deerhurst brought me with him, and I desired my coachman to follow, with my vis-à-vis."

We found it at the door, and were set down at Lord Deerhurst's house in Half Moon Street.

We were shown into the drawing-room, where, after waiting about five minutes, his lordship half-opened the door of his bedroom, which was the one adjoining, and showed us such a merry looking face, qu'il n'était plus réconnaissable.

"Glad to see you both," said his lordship, wiping his hands with a very dirty towel. "Will you come in? But you must excuse the disorder. You know it is a mere bachelor's room," continued he, lighting a long tallow-candle by a short piece, which was burning in a broken candlestick.

"Why don't you ride and tye regularly with your two muttons," said I, "when you want to be economical? and then no one would know they had not been allowed to burn on together with an equal flame like you and Sophia."

"Oh Lord!" said Deerhurst, laughing, "I can't cry any more at this moment, for I have just washed my face."

"But seriously," Colonel Berkeley observed, "I have followed you because, upon my soul, I do not understand you. I want to know whether my attentions to Sophia are really disagreeable; for I don't see how a man could command so many tears to flow at pleasure."

"Oh! there was a boy at Westminster could cry a great deal better than I can," said Deerhurst.

"I won't believe you," retorted Berkeley, laughing, "unless you'll sit down on that chair and favour me with another cry: and first ring for some proper candles, will you? How came those stinking butchers' candles in your room?"

"Bachelor, you know, bachelor!" said Deerhurst, grinning.

"What the devil has that to do with it?" exclaimed Berkeley.

Deerhurst excused himself, declaring that tears, even sham ones, must be spontaneous: "And yet," said he, sinking into an arm-chair, and again taking out the selfsame dirty, little, red, calico pocket-handkerchief, "and yet, though I appear a wild, profligate, hardened young man, I never think of that sweet girl Sophia without its bringing tears into my eyes:" and he blubbered aloud, and again the big tears rolled down his cheeks.

"This would melt a heart of stone," I observed, putting on my cloak, "so I am off."

"What! won't you have any more?" said Deerhurst, jumping up and laughing.

"Capital!" exclaimed Berkeley, taking up his hat.

"Why, you are not going to trust yourself in that rake's carriage alone?" said Deerhurst to me.

"I am afraid there is no danger," answered I.

"Some of the most virtuous ladies in England have been attacked by the gay colonel until they have called out murder; and two of them lost their diamond brooches coming from the Opera, before they could get hold of the check-string----"

"Or cry out, stop thief!" added I. "For my part I have more reasons than one for believing the colonel to be very harmless in a carriage, or I should not have ventured. I, too, have heard of his gallant feats of prowess in chariots and vis-à-vis! but I will tell you a story:--There was a pretty, elegant Frenchwoman joined my party one night after the Opera, and explained to me the mere accident which threw her on my charity for a safe conveyance home. I had already Fanny, Julia, and little Fanny, as we called my young niece, to carry home, and only a chariot. What was to be done? The rain fell in torrents. It was on a Tuesday night, and there was nobody in the round room that anybody knew, as that fool of a Brummell used to say, except Colonel Berkeley, who joined us immediately. In spite of the most prolific account I had heard of the gay colonel, I considered my friend old enough to take care of herself: and, as to sending her three miles in such a costume, at such an hour, and in such weather, the thing was out of the question: so I told Berkeley that I must intrude on his politeness to set my friend down. 'To oblige you, with great pleasure,' was his prompt reply, before he had even looked in the face of the young Frenchwoman, to whom I presented him, when he assured her his coachman waited for her commands.

"The next morning I made it a point to call and inquire after madame's health. She thanked me for having procured her so polite an acquaintance. 'I hope he was polite,' said I, 'for, to tell you the truth, I very unwillingly placed you under his protection.' 'Why?' asked my friend. 'To be frank with you,' I replied, 'Colonel Berkeley is said to be such a terrible fellow that no woman can safely remain a single instant tête-à-tête with him, particularly in a carriage. I understand he attacks both old and young, virtuous and wicked, handsome and ugly, maid, wife and widow.'

"'And sal I be de only exception?' asked the Frenchwoman, in real dismay.

"'What then,' I inquired, in astonishment, 'are you sorry he was not impudent to you?' 'I do not conceive what you have told me, impudence,' continued the Frenchwoman, 'nous prenons cela autrement, en France. De only impudence vat I sal never forgive, is dat Colonel Berkeley have presumed to make me de exception and, if I ever meet him in de street, je lui cracherai au nez.'

"'Non pas! non pas!' rejoined I, 'you are too pretty to have been an exception. It is a mere false character they have given the colonel, or may be he set it about himself. For my part, I will take the first opportunity of getting into his carriage, in order to convince you of another exception, that you may hold up your head with the best of us.'" This night has already proved I was right.

"Oh, Lord, what a falling off is here!" said Deerhurst to Berkeley.

"I had no desire for your Frenchwoman," replied the colonel, "and, as for you, if you would not fall in love with me some time ago, when I was your very humble servant, what chance had I after you had seen me making love to Sophia? Besides my poor brother Augustus is going mad for you, Harriette, and, apropos of him, you really treat him very ill."

"I mean to have that young gentleman confined to a madhouse," said I, "if he conducts himself in such a strange way again as he did last Saturday; throwing himself on his knees in my box, and acting his Cheltenham-tragedies at the opera."

"He is very handsome," Deerhurst observed.

"A mere ruffian!" I retorted.

"Do not be so severe on poor Augustus," said Colonel Berkeley, who was always the most affectionate brother I ever met with in my life. "He is a sailor, you know, and upon my honour he is very fond of you. I want you and Sophia to favour me with your company to dine at Richmond on Monday, and, if you will trust yourself to my care, I will drive my barouche."

"Willingly," answered I.

"But this is not all," continued the Colonel. "I am commissioned to intercede for Augustus."

"I am off then," said I, "for your brother is much too rude for my present state of health, and would I know tease me into a fever."

"Upon my word," said Berkeley, "I can make him do just what I please, and I have only interceded for him after receiving his promise not to say or do anything that can possibly offend."

The engagement was concluded for Monday, and Deerhurst begged to be of our party.

"No more of your rural fighting parties for me," I hastily observed, "and I neither like eggs and bacon nor pot-houses to eat my dinner in."

"No!" said Berkeley, laughing heartily, "did he really give you eggs and bacon for dinner?"

"And in the dog-days too!" continued I.

We then took our leave, and Colonel Berkeley set me down at my own door in perfect safety.

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Chapter X

The next day I dined with Julia, Fanny was of the party. Julia was raving about Sir Henry Mildmay, by whom she professed to be pregnant. The shy Julia gloried in this faux pas.

"What mortal could have resisted such an angel!" exclaimed Julia.

"And Cotton?" added I.

"By your advice," replied Julia, "I have refused to receive him but as a friend."

"Certainly," said I; "I do think it wicked to put ourselves in the way of increasing a large family of children, only to starve them. You are the mother of six already, which is five more than your slender fortune can support."

"I shall have seven thousand a year at the death of my brother, who is in a decline," said Julia, whose eyes were very red as though she had been weeping.

To my inquiry, "What was the matter?" Fanny answered, "That the foolish creature had done nothing but shed tears from morning till night."

"If I could only once more have Mildmay in my arms," said Julia, "I should have lived long enough."

"And who is to protect Mildmay's child?" I asked.

"I would rather die than apply to him for money," answered Julia; "but my poor child will never see the light," and she burst into tears, "unless I see its beautiful father once more."

"Will once do?" I asked.

"I would be patient and resigned if I could kiss his heavenly eyes once more."

"Et puis?" said Fanny.

"Sans doute! ça va sans dire," added Julia.

"Pas toujours," I remarked however, giving my hand to Julia, "there is my hand on it, it shall be done, ma'am, and before this week is out, we pledge to you our royal word!"

Strange to say, this promise satisfied Julia, who immediately dried up her tears.

After dinner, a young member of Parliament, of immense fortune, brought his carriage for Fanny. He was a Hampshire gentleman, of the name of Napier, who had been lately very attentive to her; but Fanny did not like him. He was a long-backed youth, with very fine eyes, and that was all: a sort of home-bred young man, not ungentlemanlike but wanting tact and spirit.

Soon after his arrival Fanny took me out of the room and asked me how I liked him.

"Oh! not in the least," I answered.

"I wish," said Fanny, "he would attach himself to poor Julia: her children and her debts and her natural turn for extravagance will send her to a prison, unless a rich man like this would take her under his protection. Now, as I am determined not to have him myself I have left them together, that he may draw her into conversation, and find out the truth of her being one of the most elegant women in England."

"You are very good," said I, laughing.

"What else can be done?" Fanny asked. "If Julia goes to prison, she will immediately destroy herself; and how easily this Napier, who has more than twenty thousand a year, can assist her and pay off all her debts, seeing that he lives on three thousand, and possesses in hard cash at his banker's more than a hundred thousand pounds."

"Oh! the vile, stingy monster!" said I, "where did he spring from?"

"From Oxford College," answered Fanny; "but his estates are in Ireland."

When we returned to the drawing-room, Napier did seem to have fallen in love with Julia's manner, and to be delighted with her conversation. However, he soon placed himself by Fanny's side, to make as much love as usual. "This is very poor sort of amusement for me, ladies," said I, "so I shall wish you all a very good night."

Fanny declared that she would accompany me.

Napier called her a coquette, and a false deceiver, reminding her of her promise to allow him to see her home.

"Cannot help it," answered Fanny, kissing her hand to him, and hurrying downstairs.

Napier offered me his arm, to follow, and Julia held up her finger significantly to me, saying, "Remember."

"Oui, oui," was my reply; and, after Napier had handed us into our carriage, we requested him to return and chat with Julia. "A niece of Lord Carysfort," added I, "daughter to a maid of honour, the Honourable Mrs. Storer, and the most graceful creature breathing."

"Why," said Fanny, bursting out into a loud laugh, "Harriette, that madman with his placard and his challenge to all the world about Bayley's blacking, in Piccadilly, is a fool to you."

"Never mind," I answered, "so that we can but get her off, and save her from a prison."

Before the carriage drove from the door, we had the satisfaction of seeing Napier return to Julia--et puis--et puis--but I will tell what happened some other time.

On our way home Fanny told me how irregularly her allowance from the late Mr. Woodcock was paid, and that her boy George's schoolmaster had been dunning her for money due to him, which she could not pay.

"How good you are then," said I, "to make over your rich conquest to Julia."

"There is no goodness in that," answered Fanny, whose heart was so very warm, that she was always afraid of incurring ridicule from the extreme of a good thing; "for if Julia had never been born I am sure I could not have endured that long-backed, amorous-looking Napier; besides every one must pity poor Julia, deserted as she is!"

"But then this stupid Mildmay, whose character was so well known to her! what had she to expect from him, who has never in his life been suspected of constancy for a single week!"

"And yet," said Fanny, "I really, myself, believed he loved Julia. You have no idea how attentive he had been to her during your last illness, from which, thank God! you are happily recovering," added Fanny. "I have not seen you look so like yourself for the last twelve months."

"I am better," answered I, "and yet, life is dull without affection, and all my bright illusions are destroyed for ever; but I have most pleasure now when I can make myself a little useful; so you must let me take George off your hands. I am richer than you are, I will therefore pay his schoolmaster, and you must send him to me to-morrow. When his holidays are expired, I will myself take him back to school."

Fanny said I was very good, and I answered "fiddlestick!" as I set her down at her own house.

* * * * *

My mind was now a complete blank. My imagination was exhausted; my castle had fallen to the ground and I never expected to rebuild it; for even my cool judgment told me that Ponsonbys were not often to be met with.

I had no fancy for going down hill, so I bought a great many books and determined to make them my object. I lived very retired, and when I did go out or admit company it was more because I was teased into it than from any pleasure I found in society.

Little George Woodcock came to me the next morning, and before the week was out he had broken open my jewel-box, stolen my money, kissed my housemaid, and half-killed my footman. I looked forward with much anxiety to the period for taking him back to school. His schoolmaster was an old Frenchman who lived at Leytonstone. Julia's three sons and my nephew had boarded with him four years.

"Mastaire Johnstones know very vell," said the old Frenchman, when, at the beginning of the holidays, he had called on Fanny to make his compliments of her son and heir, "de young Mastaire Johnstones know very well, dat I always tell de boys dat dey must larne; but for Mastaire Woodcock, it is de boy of my school! Some time I lose him six, seven hours, and, at last, I find him at de top of von apple-tree! Den as for boxing, he is box! box! two, tree, six time in a day. I believe very soon, he will box me!"

Fanny promised to give him good advice, and the old French schoolmaster took his leave, after declaring that if young Woodcock continued to be de boy of his school for the next quarter, he must be under the necessity to turn him out of it.

Luttrell called on me the following day, and was greatly amused with the engagement which I told him I had entered into with Julia. He informed me that Fred Lamb was arrived from the court of somewhere, I think Sicily, and had expressed a very strong desire to be allowed to visit me.

"Tell him," said I, "that I am worn out, and tired of the world, and good for nothing."

Luttrell, being our father-confessor general, to whom we all related everything, I asked him if he knew how Napier's tête-à-tête with Julia went off.

"Oh, I have just left the enemy," answered Luttrell, alluding to Amy, "who told me that Napier had made a violent attack on the virtue of Lord Carysfort's niece, in consequence of my flourishing panegyric, which had only served to prove her adamant to all but Sir Henry Mildmay."

"Apropos of that gay baronet," said I, opening my writing desk, "such virtue as you describe in this fair daughter of a maid of honour must not go unrewarded;" and I wrote a polite note to Mildmay, desiring him to call upon me in the evening.

Soon after Luttrell had taken his leave, old Smith the haberdasher was announced, with more returned bills.

"Angels defend us!" said I, "what am I to say to him this time?" I looked in the glass, settled my headdress as becomingly as possible, and trusted to my charms and soft speeches for subduing his anger as usual.

As I entered I caught a full view of my friend Smith in the glass; he was pacing the room with sturdy firmness, as though preparing himself for a desperate attack. His brow was knit, and, in his hand he held the fatal black pocket-book which I had no doubt contained my bills, six or seven times returned on his hands. "Avec tout mon savoir faire, je craignais de ratter le procureur," as Laura says in Gil Blas; I therefore returned to my bedroom unseen, and desired my faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Kennedy, to declare that her mistress had been seized with a fit on her way downstairs, and that, during the last attack of this sort, with which she had been afflicted, she had actually bitten her nurse's thumb clean off.

"Will you like to step up and see her?" added Kennedy.

"No, no, I thank you," answered Smith, putting on a pair of his thickest beaver gloves as though to defend his thumbs. "Some other time if you please. My compliments:" and he was hurrying away.

"You will oblige me by stepping upstairs," said Kennedy, "as I really am frightened out of my wits; and Miss Wilson requires at least three persons to hold her when in these fits, and our William is just gone out with a letter to Sir Henry Mildmay's."

"Very sorry to hear it," replied Smith running downstairs. "I regret that I have such a particular engagement that I cannot stay another instant," and he immediately gained the street-door, which he took care to fasten safely, as soon as he was on what he now conceived the right side of it.

In the evening, Mildmay arrived at the hour I had appointed, believing no doubt, that the poor tender soul, Harriette Wilson, would not survive his neglect. He was proceeding in a very summary way to practical love-making----

"Attendez, un instant, mon ange!" said I. "I am Julia's friend; besides, I have no opinion of you."

"In what way?"

"In the way you wish to shine! I believe you to be cold, and I hate cold men."

"Try me," answered Mildmay.

"Je ne demande pas mieux. Give me the proof I am going to ask, of your real genuine ardour, and I shall hereafter look up to you as something superior to the rest of mankind."

"Explain!" said Sir Henry.

"Well then, there is Julia, of whom I know you are completely tired. Only enable her to praise you to me to-morrow evening, and I think I shall not be able to resist you."

"Will you promise?" Mildmay asked.

"What is the use of a promise to such a beautiful creature as you, who know yourself to be irresistible."

Mildmay looked pleased. I made him sing to me; and I must really have been very deficient in good taste if I had not expressed my admiration of the sweetness of his voice and expression. When I had completely flattered and praised him into excellent temper, I made him promise to visit Julia by two the next day.

"Shall I find you there?" Mildmay inquired, "and will you give me a kiss? otherwise, upon my honour, with the best possible intention to distinguish myself I am afraid."

"Perhaps," said I, "you may find me with her; but at all events recollect that you did like poor Julia, and that I never to the day of my death will forgive you or speak to you if you do not fulfil your promise to-morrow morning."

"You treat me very ill," said Mildmay, "and yet, I suppose, you must be obliged. Only mind you must promise me there shall not be a scene between Julia and me. I cannot stand scenes, remember!"

"I was in hopes there would be act the fourth," retorted I; "but, seriously, what do you understand by a scene?"

"Reproaches and hysterics, and all that sort of thing," answered Mildmay. "Do tell Julia it will be of no use, but to spoil the moment, there is a dear creature."

"Poor Julia!" I retorted. "Only recollect her situation, and pray, if you ever wish me to admire or like you do not be so very unfeeling."

"Yes, I have heard all, and a pretty piece of business it is altogether," said Mildmay, evidently much annoyed by it.

I refused to part with him till he had most faithfully promised punctually at two the next morning. As soon as he was gone I despatched the following note;

"DEAR JULIA,--"Sir H. Mildmay has this morning given me his word and honour, on pain of my everlasting displeasure, that he will attend your moderate commands to-morrow exactly at two o'clock, on condition that you do not give him a scene. Make my excuses to him for not joining you both. I dislike to be second fiddle of all things.

"God bless you."

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Chapter XI

The next day, the one fixed on by Colonel Berkeley for our trip to Richmond, Sophia and the Colonel called for me at twelve o'clock, accompanied by that young savage, Augustus Berkeley, who appeared to be perfectly well-behaved in the presence of his brother, quite mild and humbled.

Sophia said it was a charming day.

"The atmosphere," I observed, "is heavy, I think, and unhealthy."

"Oh, quite shocking," Sophia immediately replied, "I am absolutely ill with it already."

We drove down to Richmond as fast as four high bred horses could carry us, and Colonel Berkeley, having ordered a dinner as much too ostentatiously extravagant as Deerhurst's rural fête had been too scanty, proposed our rowing down the river for half an hour, while it was getting ready.

Augustus, at the word of command, took off his coat and waistcoat and began rowing, while Berkeley was all attention to us.

"How delicious this is," said the Colonel.

"I never saw anything so beautiful," echoed Sophia.

I remarked that I was a little giddy.

"So am I," said Sophia, "very giddy indeed."

In less than an hour, I mentioned that the air of the river had given me an appetite, and Sophia, of course, had never been so hungry in all her life!

Colonel Berkeley on landing astonished the two boatmen by throwing them a five-pound note! The innkeeper entertained us in his best and most magnificent style. We conversed a great deal, for Colonel Berkeley can talk, which is not always the case nor considered at all a necessary accomplishment in gentlemen of the present day. There are in fact various kinds of gentlemen. A man is a gentleman, according to Berkeley Craven's definition of the word, who has no visible means of gaining his livelihood; others have called Lord Deerhurst and Lord Barrymore and Lord Stair gentlemen, because they are Lords; and the system at White's Club, the members of which are all choice gentlemen of course, is and ever has been never to blackball any man who ties a good knot in his handkerchief, keeps his hands out of his breeches-pockets, and says nothing. For my part, I confess I like a man who can talk and contribute to the amusement of whatever society he may be placed in; and that is the reason I am always glad to find myself in the company of Lord Hertford, notwithstanding he is so often blackballed at White's.

Colonel Berkeley and I conversed on many subjects; but there was one which was a favourite with us both--plays. Berkeley was mad for acting Shakespeare's plays, I for reading them. We were both lost in wonder as to how the poet, or any one man breathing, could have acquired such a perfect knowledge of human nature, in every class of society, in every gradation from kings downwards. I however pointed out one exception, remarking that I did not conceive, from the little I had seen or heard of Jews, that Shylock was at all a natural character or accurately drawn. "I never in my life," I continued, "remember having heard of a Jew being hanged for murder! The Mosaic laws are less pure than ours; but they are more strictly followed. The most malicious Jew dares not shed blood, his strong fear of God prevents it; and that fear is religion. In short, such, I have heard, is the superstitious fear a Jew entertains of shedding blood, that even if he had made his mind up to take the life of a Christian, it would yet be accomplished without a drop of blood being spilt. I cannot with my very confined knowledge of these things venture to say that Jews have not been occasionally executed for murder; but I can almost venture to assert that blood-shedding is far from the characteristic vice of a Jew; and therefore is Shylock unnaturally drawn."

"Recollect," returned Colonel Berkeley, "that Shylock is a Venetian Jew."

I went on--"And shall we attribute to these poor wanderers the peculiar crimes of every nation which may happen to give them birth, adding these to all the characteristic vices of their tribe? If the mere climate made a Venetian of Shylock, why does Shakespeare point at him as an usurer? If climate and example have no effect to make the Hebrew waver in his faith, is it charitable to suppose them more potent in tending to deaden the fear and horror of bloodshed in the mind of a poor Jew?"

"Bravo!" said Colonel Berkeley, "very ingeniously argued. There's a cunning Israelite at the bottom of all this, who has won your heart."

Sophia, for once in her life, ventured to be of a different opinion from her company, remarking that she was sure her sister Harriette could not love any of those nasty men, with long dirty beards and dirty old clothes on their backs.

"I thank heaven," said I, "that I love no man; Jew, Christian, or Turk."

"Why defend those nasty fellows then?" asked Augustus.

"Did you ever know any good of one of them?" said the colonel.

"A Jew, named Town," answered I, "a painter, who keeps a shop in Bond-street, went down to Newcastle about five years ago, to sketch views in that country. One morning he observed a lad driving his cattle along a field whose countenance particularly struck him. His was a true Roman head. The boy was about twelve years of age. The Jew called to him and asked him if he would stand still while he took his picture. The youth consented with good-nature; but, after having stood stock still for a quarter of an hour, he declared that he could not bear it any longer. Mr. Town asked him many questions, and, being much surprised with the boy's sensible replies, inquired if he would like to go up to London with him. The lad hesitated.

"'You will not trust yourself with me then?' said the Jew. 'I would go anywhere with you, sir; but my poor father and mother are so old.' The Jew requested to be made known to them, and was conducted to a wretched hovel where the ancient pair resided. They immediately consented to place their child under the Jew-protector, and the next morning the Israelite and his young protégé were on their road to London. On their arrival the Jew clothed the boy handsomely and instructed him in the first rudiments of his art. Before the child had received a dozen lessons, Mr. Town foretold that he would excel as a painter: he therefore bound him apprentice for seven years to himself, and stipulated to allow him ten shillings a week pocket-money for the first two years, and then to go on doubling that sum every second year to the end of his apprenticeship. The progress the youth made astonished the Jew. The child excelled most particularly in landscape-painting. Bred in the country, he had attentively observed the effect of lightning on trees and cattle. His gratitude to his kind benefactor knew no bounds, and his industry was indefatigable. Mr. Town, fearing lest from inexperience the poor lad might be led astray or fall into bad company, instead of sending him to school engaged masters in the house, to instruct him in reading and writing. His progress in these was almost equal to that he had made in drawing. He became the delight and comfort of Mr. Town's aged father, on whom he was never tired of attending, he would read to him for hours together, and be grateful for the task.

"One day the Jew sent his protégé into the country to take a sketch of some willow trees, and was surprised to see him return in tears. 'What is the matter my poor fellow?' said the Jew. 'That brook, near which I have been sitting to sketch these trees, sir, reminded me so much of one near my poor mother's hut,' answered the lad. 'You shall go down to Newcastle, and pay a visit to your parents', said the benevolent Jew, 'and it shall not cost you one shilling, so prepare yourself to depart by the coach next week.' The boy shed tears of gratitude.

"On the day previous to his departure for Newcastle, he said he wished to ask a favour of his kind master's only sister; but feared it might be deemed impertinent. Being encouraged to proceed--'Why, sir,' said the lad, 'your great goodness has left me nothing to desire since the first instant I entered your house; therefore, out of the allowance of pocket-money you have made me I have saved up eleven pounds, which I hope your sister will condescend to lay out for me in blankets and various other articles of comfort, which I am desirous of carrying down to my poor old parents.' The Jew gladly promised to prevail on his sister to do whatever he wished, and moreover assured the affectionate lad that he should be allowed to make a yearly visit to his parents as long as they lived, and always at his expense. 'Tell your parents that, though a Jew myself, I have not presumed to interfere with your former mode of worship; but, on the contrary, have made you regularly attend the service of the Church of England, ever since you left them.'"

Sophia was very much pleased with the story of the Newcastle shepherd-boy, and declared that she would go and see him.

Augustus thought he would play Romeo delightfully; but the colonel said the part of Douglas would suit him best.

I, by this time, conceived I had talked quite enough for one evening. I therefore endeavoured with all my might to call Sophia out, and draw her into some kind of conversation.

Berkeley was beginning to think himself trifled with, and, being naturally a little abrupt in such cases, he told her flatly that if she meant to refuse him after all, she ought not to have admitted him so often.

Sophia continued to hint, with proper delicacy and due modest blushes, that her living with him or not must depend on what his intentions were: in other words, she gently intimated that as yet she was ignorant what settlement he meant to make on her. The gay handsome Colonel Berkeley's vanity being now so deeply wounded, he in his sudden rage entirely lost sight of what was due to the soft sex, at least to that part of it which had been so hard upon him.

"Do you fancy me then so humble and so void of taste as to buy with my money the reluctant embraces of any woman breathing? Do you think I cannot find friends who have proved their affection by the sacrifices they have made for me, that I should give my money to buy the cold-blooded being who calculates at fifteen years of age what the prostitution of her person ought to sell for?"

Sophia was frightened and shed tears.

"Colonel Berkeley," said I, "we are your visitors and wish to retire immediately from such unmanly insult as you have offered to us. Will you procure us some safe conveyance? No matter what."

Colonel Berkeley immediately begged pardon with much apparent humility, saying, "I am a passionate, ill-tempered, spoiled fellow, and must throw myself on your charity; or if you prefer it my carriage is at the service of you both, and neither I nor my brother shall intrude without your permission."

I shook hands with him, as did Sophia, and little more was said. We all returned home together, but in silence, and Colonel Berkeley never afterwards sought Sophia's society.

The next day I had the satisfaction of driving down to Leytonstone with my young torment of a nephew, and I left him under the protection of his schoolmaster, Mr. Codroie.

"Ah! ah!" said the Frenchman, "here is de boy of my school again."

I assured George in his presence that if I heard any complaints, or if he was turned out of his school, I would use my interest to get him immediately sent to sea: but promised to give him every possible encouragement if I received a good account of him.

I got home by about five o'clock, and found Fred Lamb in my little library looking over my books. I felt annoyed by this intrusion; but Frederick appeared to take so strong an interest in all I had been reading and doing since we last met, that my heart failed me, after I tried to quarrel with him.

"I never saw a girl, except yourself," said Frederick, "possessing unbounded liberty from the age of fourteen, without a single friend or anything better to guide her than her own romantic imagination, who yet contrives to grow wiser every year, to reflect, to read, and to improve her mind, in the midst of such flattery as you are surrounded by."

Fred Lamb did actually say all this: but I do not tell my reader that I was vain enough to believe above half of it; for, though I had bought my books to be ready, in case a fit of reading should happen to come over me, yet I must confess that, hitherto, I have not had a call, as Lord Headfort said.

"Apropos to what?"

"I'll tell you----

"At Brighton, I used to make a general postman of the good Marquis of Headfort, who had long been our family's friend, equally at hand to congratulate us on our marriages, our birth-days, or our expected deaths. 'Send all your letters to me at Brighton, under cover to Headfort,' I used to say to everybody who could not frank, or were so cut off from the blessings of this life, as not to have a member belonging to them. Headfort, having a packet of letters to bring up to me every morning from the Pavilion to Prospect-house, which was the dignified appellation my landlord bestowed on my humble cottage at Brighton, I requested he would rap twice only; according to the etiquette observed by other postmen.

"'How much?' one day asked my stupid new servant, for which I discharged her on the spot, for how could one live with an animal so little alive to the sublime and beautiful, as to have mistaken the Marquis of Headfort, wrapped up in an old great coat on a rainy day, for a common general postman! I was really very much shocked indeed.

"'Come upstairs, my dear Marquis,' said I, 'and see me discharge this fool directly.'

"Take off your great coat.

"'Ah! vous voila, Marquis, de haut en bas. Dites, donc, mon cher, en parlant du bas, who do you make love to now? for it cannot be supposed a gay deceiver like yourself can be satisfied with old Mrs. Massey all your life, although that crim. con. affair of yours did cost you so much money.'

"'Oh, my dear child,' answered poor Headfort, 'it is more than ten years since Mrs. Massey has cut me dead, as her lover.'

"'Why?' I asked.

"'Don't you know, my dear, that she has turned methodist, and thinks it wicked.'

"'But then,' said I, 'it is still lucky for you, that her conscience permits her to make use of your house, purse, equipage and private boxes!'

"'Yes,' said Headfort, 'she still does me that honour; for which I pay very dear, particularly on a Sunday, when she reads me Letters from the Dead to the Living, till I am almost tempted to wish her own signature at the bottom of them.'

"'With whom pray do you console yourself?'

"'I have not had a call, my dear, for the last five years!'

"'It will come on you when you shall be born again, by the assistance of Mrs. Massey's prayers,' I remarked."

I am, however, wandering from my subject.

No matter, it was a very bad one!

It was Fred Lamb who dined with me, read to me, talked of love to me, and looked all passion, just like the satyr of my vision.

'What vision, pray?' the reader asks; that is to say if ever I should be honoured with a reader, which is not at all certain. I am ready prepared and armed for abuse of every sort and kind: but not to be read! No matter! If this happens, it will be entirely Stockdale's fault, for not enlivening the work with pretty pictures as I have suggested to him, and certainly cannot, by the most remote possibility, be owing to any demerit of mine!

Above all, I wanted Wellington to be exhibited, dripping with wet, standing opposite my street-door at midnight, bawling up to Argyle, who should be representing my old Abigail, from my bed-room window. Good gracious! I quite forgot to tell this adventure! How could I be so ridiculous and negligent? Never mind, you shall have it now--But there is poor Fred Lamb waiting all this time, in my select library! I can't help it--There's no getting on with Fred Lamb. I never could use him to any purpose in all my life; and yet there's matter enough in him too! What matters that? Let it stand over, or let it pass. Fred Lamb can read Zimmerman, which he will find among my books. It will teach him to love solitude and to profit by it, while my readers amuse themselves with the interesting adventure which happened on the very night of Wellington's arrival from Spain, and which I beg a thousand pardons for not having made them acquainted with in due order and proper time.

"Good news! Glorious news! Who calls?" said Master Puff, the newsman.--Not that anybody called the least in the world; but Wellington was really said to have won a mighty battle and was hourly expected. Cannons were fired and much tallow consumed in illumination. His Grace of Argyle came to me earlier than usual on that memorable evening; but, being unwell and love-sick, he found me in my bed-chamber.

"Quelle bizarre idée vous passe par la tête?" said I. "Surely you have forgotten the amiable duchess, his bride, and all the fatigue His Grace encountered, enough to damp the ardour of any mighty hero or plenipotentiary, for one evening at any rate; therefore, trust me, Wellington will not disturb us to-night."

At this very moment a thundering rap at the door was heard.

"Vive l'amour! Vive la guerre," said Argyle--"Le voila!" And hastily throwing my dressing-gown over his shoulders, and putting on one of my old night-caps, haying previously desired "the most particlerst man as is" not to let anybody in, hastily put his head out of my bedroom window, which was on the second floor, and soon recognised the noble chieftain, Wellington! Endeavouring to imitate the voice of an old duenna, Argyle begged to know who was at the door.

"Come down I say," roared this modern Blue Beard, "and don't keep me here in the rain, you old blockhead."

"Sir," answered Argyle, in a shrill voice, "you must please to call your name, or I don't dare to come down, robberies are so frequent in London just at this season, and all the sojers, you see, coming home from Spain, that it's quite alarming to poor lone women."

Wellington took off his hat, and held up towards the lamp a visage, which late fatigue and present vexation had rendered no bad representation of that of the knight of the woeful figure. While the rain was trickling down his nose, his voice, trembling with rage and impatience, cried out, "You old idiot, do you know me now?"

"Lord, sir," answered Argyle, anxious to prolong this ridiculous scene, "I can't give no guess; and do you know sir, the thieves have stolen a new water-butt out of our airy, not a week since, and my missis is more timbersome than ever!"

"The devil!" vociferated Wellington, who could endure no more, and, muttering bitter imprecations between his closed teeth against all the duennas and old women that had ever existed, returned home to his neglected wife and family duties.

That's all!

But I am digressing from Fred Lamb! What is to be done? unless he turn freemason, and tie me to his apron-strings! I wish I had let him alone instead of handing him into my library; he is quite a weight on my mind! Perhaps the reader will allow me to cut the subject where it stands? But I should like to tell them about The Cock at Sutton, too.

Of course, you all know The Cock at Sutton? or, lest any lady or gentleman should be so deficient in tact, so behindhand in topographical knowledge, so unacquainted with public characters, suppose I just mention that the celebrated athletic Jackson, the gentleman bruiser and prize-fighter, once shouldered and insinuated himself into the good graces of the fair widow who kept The Cock at Sutton, which afterwards became his for several years by right of marriage and rights of a landlord; hence its celebrity.

However, the story I have to relate, has nothing to do with Jackson, else I could about it straight: but there is a fatality attending on Fred Lamb, and, though I am bored to death with him, I don't like to miss telling you the story of The Cock at Sutton! and so--here goes, to use mad Dr. Robertson's elegant expression.

I could only get Fred Lamb out of my library, by promising him that we certainly should meet once more, if only to sign and seal my forgiveness of his former violence.

"Well then," said Frederick at last, "I shall come up from Brocket Hall the day after to-morrow, and I will call on you on my way to town, and, if you do not desire and wish to see me, order your servant not to let me in; for I should be very sorry of forcing your inclinations a second time."

The next day, being of course deeply affected with Fred Lamb's absence, I went to call on Julia, pour me distraire.

"But where is your story of The Cock at Sutton?" the reader inquires.

I am coming to that by-and-by.

Julia's spirits appeared much improved since my last visit to her. "I see very well by your altered look," said I, "that Sir H. Mildmay has been paying you a visit."

"True," answered Julia with a deep sigh, which almost resembled a groan; "but I see very plainly that he is tired of me."

"My poor forlorn woman," I replied, "for God's sake, recollect you are a mother! Whoever forgets that is less than human. Think of your poor, dear, beautiful children. It is wrong perhaps to intrigue under any circumstances, yet somebody who was wise, or who passed for wise, has said that there are exceptions to every rule. Mr. Napier is rich and free. I think that it depends on you to provide for your children. Consider, my dear Julia," I continued, taking her hand; and I saw a tear glisten in her eye.

"When do you expect Mr. Napier?" I asked.

"The long-backed odious creature will call here to-morrow," answered Julia.

"I wish something else could be done," said I hastily, sympathising in her disgust. "Shall I write to your uncle, Lord Carysfort?"

"Do not mention that unfeeling wretch!" exclaimed Julia. "A legacy has been left me, which I cannot help thinking has been unfairly appropriated."

"Have you applied to his lordship on that subject?" I inquired.

"I have written to him twice," answered Julia, "and my second letter was answered by his lordship in these words, 'The person from whom you expected a legacy showed a becoming horror and disgust at your vile profligate conduct by withdrawing your name from his will.'"

"Rely on it," said I, "that honourable uncle of yours has taken due care of your property. But what can be expected from one thus destitute of every manly feeling of compassion towards a poor, fallen, defenceless relative!"

Julia absolutely sobbed aloud. I never saw her thus affected; for she was not given to the melting mood. To change the conversation, I asked her what had become of another noble relative.

"He has paid nearly a thousand pounds for me, and declares he can do no more," replied Julia.

"No matter," said I, "Napier is your man."

"But Napier's vanity makes me sick," retorted Julia impatiently. "The possession of my person would not satisfy him. He wants me to declare and prove that I love him; and the thing is physically impossible."

I thought of Fred Lamb and was silent.

"What has become of Amy and Argyle?" I asked, after a pause.

"Amy," said Julia, "is very proud of Argyle and also of her pregnancy, and lives in hopes that her unborn babe by the Scottish laws may yet be Duke of Argyle."

"She has bespoken a boy then?"

"Of that too she lives in hopes," repeated Julia.

"And the Duke," inquired I, with something like a sickness of the heart, "is he as tender and as loving as ever?"

"I have heard nothing to the contrary," answered Julia.

I was not jealous, but disgusted. I had always wished to love my sisters dearly. It was very hard on me that they would not let me!

"If," said Julia, "I were to consent to Napier's wishes, and he did not provide for my children, I should go into the Serpentine River the very next instant."

"Here is a fuss about trifles," said I. "Why cannot we take these things as the Frenchwomen do? Ça lui fait tant de plaisir! pendant que ça me coûte si peu! That is the way they argue, and very philosophically too. Your sin has been bringing all these children into the world; and now, coûte qu'il coûte, you must provide for them, to the extent of your power." I concluded here my very moral advice, and took my leave, promising to join her in our Opera-box on the morrow evening.

The next morning Mildmay called on me. He reproached me with having deceived and made a fool of him; but all he could say or do could not effect any change of my sentiments in his favour.

He had also professed to love Julia once, and how had he requited her? "Heaven defend me from the like humiliation," thought I, "which I should richly deserve, were I to encourage this cold-hearted, profligate, beautiful Sir Henry."

As soon as I contrived to get rid of him and had dined, I went to join Julia at the Opera House. The first man who came into my box was Fred Lamb; he appeared delighted to see me.

"When did you come to town?" I asked.

"This morning," Fred answered, "and I called on you; but you were either out or denied to me."

"I passed the morning in my little library," answered I.

"You have made me very wretched," whispered Fred Lamb, pressing my hand with much passionate agitation. He looked remarkably well.

"Indeed, Fred," said I, "I did not mean it."

"Remember your promise then," added Fred Lamb, "and do pray, dearest Harry, tell me, when you will throw away two whole days on me in the country."

"What shall we do there?"

"Get married," interposed Julia.

"Married!" exclaimed Fred Lamb. "From my heart and soul, I shall pity the man who ever hopes to attach you, Harriette, to himself. You have the knack of torturing those who love you, beyond the possibility of endurance! Why not have told me at once that you did not mean to receive me?"

"I meant well," answered I, sighing; for it never gave me any pleasure to be loved by those whose love I could not return.

"Had you been my wife, by heavens, I should have murdered you long ago," said Fred Lamb, half seriously.

"Why, yes," I replied, "I think, as yet, you had better not venture on me; but really, Fred, on the day I turn fifty I propose being steady, and then, perhaps----"

"No," said Fred Lamb, "not a bit of it. You would only then, as now, be one day grateful for attentions and the next confess that you were sorry, advise one not to fret for a woman of fifty; but declare you had changed your mind."

"If this is really my character, and you imagine I should act thus for ever towards every man, how can you be so very weak as to like me?"

Lord Molyneux came into my box at this instant. I always made it a point to make violent love to Lord Molyneux, for the same reason that I used to say soft things to Luttrell: because they neither of them professed the least love to me.

"I wish all the young men would dress as you do," said I to his lordship. "That dear, little, gentleman-like bow, on the little, vielle cour, three-cornered hat! How quiet and interesting compared to the vile, gold-laced, dragoon-looking flat thing Lord Uxbridge carries under his arm!"

"What you say is most highly flattering," said Lord Molyneux, with good-natured composure.

"And then, white silk stockings always win my heart, no matter who wears them. In short, your lordship is better dressed, and better adapted altogether to set off a woman's opera-box than Brummell, Lord Jersey, or any man I know; and, if I could only have ensured to myself the honour of a visit from you every night, I should not have put myself to the expense of ten pounds for these new red curtains."

Lord Molyneux said that he was sure I ought to give him credit for the gentleness of his disposition and the unheard-of patience with which he stood there to be quizzed and laughed at; and yet, added Molyneux, "Though this is invariably what happens to me, your box altogether has attractions one cannot resist."

"All nonsense," said I. "I am no longer to be put off in this manner, I, who am stark staring mad for you!"

"I am off," said Fred Lamb.

Julia, who greatly admired him, as well as the character I had given her of him, entreated him to remain.

"You have not settled your rural excursion with Harriette yet," Julia told him.

"Oh, true! where is it to be?" I was obliged to ask; because Fred looked in such a passion with me.

"Would you like Richmond?" Fred inquired.

"Oh, no!" I answered. "Sophia and I dined there a short time ago, and--variety, you know, my dear Fred Lamb, is everything, even at fifty years of age!"

"Go to The Cock at Sutton," said Berkely Craven, who had joined us. "It is a delightful, pretty, rural place for a man to read rhymes, and be romantic in; just fit for you, Fred."

"Are you ever taken with either a fit of reading, or a fit of romance, Berkely?"

"Ask my young nephew here, who can tell you how I used to sit, and sigh, and drink brandy and water with Mrs. Patten after the play," answered Berkely.

"So much for your romance!" said I.

"And, as to reading," continued Berkely, "I will be bound to say, that, among men who have received no regular education, not one has read more plays and farces than I have; and I always read the newspaper from beginning to end, except the debates."

The Duc de Berri next came in; and we all stood up till he was seated, as bound by etiquette; and then followed my young, new acquaintance, the Duke of Leinster, who stood up by himself, like a noun substantive, for want of a chair.

Now the said Duke of Leinster being a very stingy, stupid blockhead, whom nobody knows, I will describe him. His person was pretty good; strait, stout, and middle-sized, with a good, fair, Irish allowance of leg. It was a good leg, however, mais en gros; and I never saw anything more decided in the shape of curls than those which adorned and distinguished Leinster's crop from all such heads of hair as are in the habit of resisting the curling tongs, when they do not happen to be red hot: c'était, enfin, une belle tête.

I do not see how a man could be well handsomer, without a mind. His Grace was at that time in the constant habit of assenting to whatever anybody said, good or bad. He was all smiles and sweet good-humour. He would, in fact, have made an excellent husband for Sophia; yet, strange to say, he felt not the slightest inclination towards her; but Leinster is not the first fool I have met with who required wit and talent in a mistress.

"How did your Grace's party on the river go off this morning?" I asked.

"Oh, it was charming," answered the duke; with more of the brogue than was necessary, for a lad who had been bred at Eton. "But, upon my honour," added Leinster, "the English are too stiff and abominable, for just as I had stripped and began to row they hallooed out, 'Wait for His Grace! where's His Grace? where's the Duke of Leinster?'"--as if His Grace, who happens to be a mere wild Irish boy of nineteen, was not allowed to amuse himself in the same way that other lads do. "I question if they did not expect to see me in a bag-wig," added Leinster.

Lord Molyneux waited to catch my eye and kiss his hand as he made his exit.

"You are driving away the vielle cour by expressing those vulgar ideas."

"I cannot help it," replied Leinster. "God Almighty has not cut me out for a fine gentleman."

"One word," said Fred Lamb, "and I am off, to make room for better men."

"I really will," I interrupted him in a whisper, not knowing how else to get rid of him, "I really will drive down to The Cock at Sutton to-morrow morning at about twelve, and inquire for you."

Fred Lamb's eyes brightened. "Swear it upon your honour and soul," said he, seizing my hand.

"I do swear," I rejoined.

He pressed his lips on the hand he held, in fervent gratitude, as he took his leave.

"I knew I should find my noble cousin the big duke here," said the young handsome Harry De Roos, peeping his Narcissus-like head into my box.

"Come in, you pretty Harry," said I.

"Oh! I am very melancholy," observed De Roos, blushing, as he took his seat.

"Upon my honour," said Leinster, "Henry is fretting for nothing at all. Wait now, while I tell you all about it."

"Indeed, and we are waiting," I answered.

"Why," Leinster went on, "his mother, my Lady De Roos, is going to send him down to a private tutor to-morrow, and I have frightened him with my description of the Smiths, that's all."

"Who are the Smiths?" I asked.

"Mr. Smith is the name of the big duke's tutor, whom he has just left," answered De Roos, "after enduring such wretchedness, for more than two years, as would have about finished me, I am sure."

"Nothing at all like wretchedness, upon my honour," retorted Leinster. "It is all Harry's spoiled way."

"Tell us, you big duke, how you used to pass your valuable time at this said bugbear of a tutor, Mr. Smith's," said I.

"Listen while I tell you then," replied Leinster. "Myself and two other lads were under his care. We rose at six and cleaned our own boots and shoes."

De Roos looked on his peculiarly delicate white hand and fingers and sighed heavily.

"And then," proceeded Leinster, "we took our breakfast, which consisted of thick slices of bread with a little salt butter. After that we had three large books placed before us, in which we were desired to read for five hours, taking down notes of whatever struck us most forcibly. At dinner, which consisted one day of a roast joint, the next of the same, hashed; the third, ditto, minced; our society was enlivened by the three Miss Smiths!"

"What sort of animals were they?" inquired Julia, laughing.

"The eldest, Miss Jemima, wore a sort of a false rump, sticking out so," and Leinster put himself into a most ludicrous attitude.

To my question, whether she was pretty, he answered, that her face was a little too much like a dead horse for a perfect beauty.

"Gorgons, all three of them, and the youngest turned of thirty," said De Roos, with a heavy groan.

"But then," interrupted Julia, "Mr. De Roos is not going to live with Mr. Smith."

"True," continued De Roos, "and, surely, there cannot be another such a vile place in the world take it all together, cleaning boots, and the Miss Smiths, and all?"

"No," I answered, "you must hope the best, and recollect that merely being minus the Miss Smiths is something."

"Thank God, I have done with private tutors!" said Leinster.

"How do you like Oxford?" asked Julia.

"Delighted with it," replied the Duke. "Apropos of Christ Church. Do you know that Brummell is cut amongst us, and who do you think sets the fashions there now?"

"Yourself, perhaps?"

"No, nothing is asked, but whether Harriette Wilson approves of this or that? Harriette likes white waistcoats--Harriette commends silk stockings, &c. I asked my friend, the young Marquis of Worcester, why he did not curl his straight locks. 'Harriette considers straight hair most gentleman-like.'

"On my asking him if he knew Harriette, the marquis owned that he had never seen her, adding, 'I ran up three times to the Opera, on purpose; but she did not make her appearance. Will you present me to her? I shall be much indebted to you.'

"'Not I, indeed, upon my honour,' was my answer, and I am the only young man at Oxford acquainted with you."

Young Lambton, the little curly-headed Opposition man, second son of Lady Ann Wyndham, now interrupted us. The Duc de Berri, who had been all attention to Julia, arose to depart, and we all stood up to bow him out, with the selfsame ceremony with which we bowed him in. As to Berkely Craven he had found his way out unobserved by us long before.

Lambton had been, for the last three weeks, trying to muster courage to express his passion, and Leinster, observing his anxiety to say soft things in my ear, took his hat to depart, first declaring that he should hold himself in readiness in the round room to see me safe to my carriage. Harry De Roos, as he followed his cousin, begged us to pity him, and convey his tender regards to Sophia.

Next came Napier, who, with his usual ill-breeding, began to whisper in Julia's ear. However, I would have put up with more than that to have been of use to her.

Lord Kinnaird paid me a sort of flying visit; but, seeing Napier so deeply engaged on one side and Lambton so tender on the other, he had the impudence to whisper in my ear, "Mademoiselle Harriette, il ne faut pas le corrompre," and then left us.

His lordship was overheard by Lambton, who began to fidget about and redden, and appear very uneasy.

"What is the matter, Mr. Lambton?" asked Julia.

"I am not much of a Frenchman," muttered Lambton; "but I perfectly understood what Lord Kinnaird said, and I think it was extremely impertinent."

Lambton's particular friend, the Honourable Thomas Dundas, now joined us. I immediately related this mighty affair to him.

Lambton declared that, whatever his appearance might be, he had no idea of being treated like a child by any man, seeing that he was of age.

"Yes," interrupted I, "of age to be wiser than to take offence where, very evidently, no offence was meant. Lord Kinnaird only knows you by sight."

"The less reason for his taking such a liberty," answered the little man, with much impatient dignity.

While Dundas was endeavouring to calm his irritated friend, the curtain dropped, and the Duke of Leinster hurried upstairs to be in time to conduct me into the round room. Dundas and Lambton followed us, the latter still grumbling and very sulky.

Lord Kinnaird passed us again, and nodded good-naturedly as he chaperoned some ladies to their carriage. Lambton spoke loudly at him as he passed, saying he did not consider himself a subject for ridicule, or in danger of being corrupted, or young enough to endure the accusation.

Lord Kinnaird heard nothing as applied to himself, never having dreamed of such a thing as insulting or picking a quarrel with young Lambton. This both I and Mr. Dundas took pains to impress on his mind; but the peevish, fretful creature refused to hear reason.

Again his lordship passed us, and again Lambton growled at him, with his eyes fixed on his own well-blacked shoes.

It was now my turn to lose my patience.

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "is this what you Opposition gentlemen call spirit, growling at a man between your teeth for an imagined insult? Why growl or be sulky if nobody has offered you any insult? And if they have, why do you not address them with firm, manly civility, to request an explanation or apology?"

Having thus brought my little spitfire gentleman to a point, he soon contrived to pocket his supposed wrongs, since challenging had been hinted at by me as his alternative, and went home without touching on the subject to Lord Kinnaird.

I do not exactly know what these young Lambtons are good for except sulkiness. I remember hearing the officers of the old 10th Dragoons, to which regiment the eldest Lambton had formerly belonged, declare that he had contrived so to prejudice the whole regiment against him, that there was no rest for himself or his brother officers till he left it. I do not mean absolutely to assert by this that there really is no good about either of the Lambtons, being in the first place an incompetent judge of their merits, from having only a slight acquaintance with the youngest, and, in the second, it being my intention to draw my characters with truth and nature, I should be very sorry to caricature them. I will tell you why--but this is a secret,--I do not like them well enough to tell you a single untruth, to their prejudice, and thereby to shake your faith in such facts as else would tell against them. In common justice to my own heart I must add that I yet like even my enemies, and those who have used me worst, too well to desire that you should believe them worse than they really are.

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