The Semi-Detached House.

"I knew it," said Blanche triumphantly. "I felt certain their name would be either Tomkinson or Hopkinson–I was not sure which–but I thought the chances were in favour of Hop rather than Tom."

Aunt Sarah did not smile, but drew the mesh out of her netting and began a fresh row.

"Go on, Aunt Sarah," said Blanche demurely.

"I am going on, thank you, my dear, very nicely; I expect to finish this net this week."

Blanche looked at her aunt to ascertain if she looked angry, or piqued, or affronted; but Aunt Sarah's countenance was totally incapable of any expression but that of imperturbable stolid sense and good-humour. She did not care for Blanche's little vivacities.

"Do you know the Hopkinsons, Aunt Sarah?"

"No, my dear."

"Nor their history, nor their number, nor their habits? Recollect, Aunt Sarah, they will be under the same roof with your own pet Blanche."

"I have several pets, my dear–Tray, and Poll, and your sister, and–"

"Well, but she will be there, too, for I suppose the Lees will let Aileen come to me, now that I am to be deserted by Arthur," and Blanche's voice quivered, but she determined to brave it through. "Did you see any of the Hopkinsons when you went to look at the house?"

"Yes, they went in at their door just as I went in at yours. The mother, as I suppose, and two daughters, and a little boy."

"Oh dear me! a little boy, who will always be throwing stones at the palings and making me jump; daughters who will always be playing Partant pour la Syrie; and the mother–"

"Well, what will she do to offend your Highness?"

"She will be immensely fat, wear mittens–thick, heavy mittens–and contrive to know what I have for dinner every day."

There was a silence, another row of netting and a turn of the mesh, and then Aunt Sarah said in her most composed tone:

"I often think, my dear, that it is a great pity you are so imaginative, and a still greater pity that you are so fastidious. You would be happier if you were as dull and as matter-of-fact as I am."

"Dear Aunt Sarah, don't say you are dull. There is nobody I like so much to talk to. You bring out such original remarks, such convincing truths, and in a quiet way, so that they do not make the black bruises which les vérités dures generally produce. But am I fastidious and imaginative?"

"Yes, my dear, very painfully so. Now, just consider, Blanche; you began this week by throwing yourself into a fever because Arthur was to leave you, on a mission that may be of great future advantage to him. He is to be away only three months, and is as much grieved as you are at the separation it involves. You immediately assert that he is going for a year at least, that he is to forget you instantly, and fall in love with any and every other woman he sees."

"No, only with that woman with the unpronounceable name that he used to dance with; a very dangerous woman, Aunt Sarah."

"That he is to be smashed in the railroad to Folkestone, drowned off Antwerp, and finally die of a fever at Berlin; and that in the meanwhile you are to have a dead child immediately, twins soon after, a very bad confinement, besides dying of consumption, and various other maladies," pursued Aunt Sarah in her steadiest tone. "Now, if those things are not vain imaginings, Blanche, I do not know what are."

"They sound plausible, though; and, I assure you, Aunt, I did not imagine them; they suggested themselves, and they look very like the ordinary facts of life. However, I grant it is a bad habit to look forward to evils that may not occur; but then, you know, I am ill. I never had these grey thoughts when I was strong, and Arthur's going away has turned them all black. And now as to my fastidiousness."

"You always were fastidious, my child, easily jarred by the slightest want of tact and refinement, and I am not much surprised," added Aunt Sarah, as she looked fondly at her niece. There was something startling in the mobility of Blanche's beautiful features; every thought that passed through her mind might be read in her kindling eyes and expressive lips; she looked too ethereal for contact with the vulgar ills of life.

"I will allow you have some right to be fastidious, darling; and it is only because it interferes with your comfort that I object to it. But you say you cannot go and stay with Lord Chesterton, because he calls you 'Blanket,' and thinks it a good joke; nor with your sister-in-law, Lady Elinor, because Sir William is fond of money, and you foresee he will say that you cost him at least seventeen shillings and four-pence a day; nor with your Aunt Carey, because the doctor who would attend you wears creaking boots, and calls you my Lady; and now you object to a house that all your friends and your doctor recommend, because it is possible that your next-door neighbour may play on the piano-forte and wear black mittens. Dear Blanche, this is what I call over-fastidiousness; and now I have finished my ten rows, and said all the disagreeable things I could think of, so I will go, and leave you to think how officious and particular old Aunt Sarah is."

"You know I shall think no such thing," said Blanche, half crying and half laughing, "but you must own, Aunt Sarah, that when you string all my fancies together, they are rather amusing–wrong, if you please, but amusing. However, I will try to reform, and if Arthur likes Pleasance, which he is gone to see, and if Dr. Ayscough persists in driving me out of London, I will establish myself in my semi-detached villa, and try to get into the Hopkinson set."

It may be inferred from the above conversation that Blanche was slightly spoiled, but she was charming, nevertheless–sweet-tempered and playful, and with high spirits, now subdued by the approaching separation from her husband, to whom she had been married only six months. They were as foolishly in love as all young couples are or ought to be, and Lord Chester would willingly have declined the offer to join a special mission to Berlin, which had been made to him. Blanche could not conceive it possible that he should leave her in her very interesting state of health. Dr. Ayscough treated the notion of her being able to accompany her husband with the politest and most magnificent contempt; and it seemed likely that the great national interests of Great Britain and Prussia would actually lose all the light which Arthur might throw upon them in the capacity of Secretary to a special mission. But old fathers see these matters in a different point of view from young sons. Lord Chesterton came fussing up to town full of admiration for her Majesty's Government in general, and for the Foreign Office in particular; he must own he thought Clarendon very judicious in his diplomatic appointments, he might say very discriminative. And he was so profuse in his felicitations to Arthur on his appointment, and in his compliments to dear little Blanche, on her wisdom of letting her husband go without her–that neither of them had courage to say that they meant to decline the offer. And so it came to pass that Arthur was to go to Berlin, and Blanche to Pleasance. Dr. Ayscough wished her to leave London, but still to be within reach of his surveillance; and Blanche, who had been under his care from the day of her birth, and who was delicate at all times, never supposed for a moment that his advice was not to be followed implicitly.

He went down with Arthur to look at Pleasance, they both approved of it, and when, soon after Aunt Sarah's departure, Arthur bounded upstairs, and declared that he had actually taken the prettiest villa in the world for his little Blanche, she warmed up to the idea. She made one faint inquiry as to whether he had seen her next-door neighbours. At first he denied their existence, but finally owned that there was a small house at the back of hers. "But that does not signify; yours is a good large house, and such drawing-rooms, and such a conservatory, and a splendid lawn down to the river; and there is a wall and a laurel hedge, and all sorts of conundrums to shut out these neighbours who seem to alarm you."

"Their name is Hopkinson, Arthur."

"And a very good name, too. Hopkinson was the name of the Captain of the 'Alert,' who took me out to the Cape, and an excellent fellow he was; perhaps you would have thought him vulgar, but he helped me through a bad fever, which made rare havoc on board; and Florence Nightingale herself could not have made a better nurse. I like the name of Hopkinson."

"Oh, well!" said Blanche, "then it will all do very well, and I must write to Aunt Sarah, and tell her we have taken her Semi-Detached House. It is quite within reach of her daily drive."

CHAPTER II

"HERE is poor Willis coming to see us," said Mrs. Hopkinson, from her commanding position in the window, to her two girls who were drawing and reading at the secluded end of the room. The girls looked at each other with a slight expression of dismay. Willis was not a favourite; he had married their step-sister, and it was thought a great thing for the Hopkinsons, when Mr. Willis of Columbia House, which boasted of a lodge and an entrance drive, a shrubbery and a paddock, and a two-stalled stable, and every sort of suburban magnificence, married pretty Mary Smith, who lived merely at No. 2, without a shilling of her own, and dependent on her step-father for a home. So when she became Mrs. Willis of Columbia House, and of Fenchurch Street, where Mr. Willis duly transacted some mysterious business that appeared to produce a large return of profit, the Hopkinsons thought her a very fortunate young woman, and so she thought herself, till she found out that she had married a man who was by profession a grumbler. He had a passion for being a victim; when he was single, he grumbled for a wife, and when he had found a wife, he grumbled for the comforts of a bachelor. He grumbled for an heir to Columbia Lodge, and when the heir was born he grumbled because the child was frail and sickly. In short, he fairly grumbled poor gentle Mrs. Willis out of the world, and then grumbled at her for dying. But still her death was a gain to him. He took up the high bereaved line, was at all hours and in all societies the disconsolate mourner, wore a permanent crape round his hat, a rusty black coat in the city, and a shining one when he dined out. He professed himself "serious," and proved it by snubbing his friends when they were prosperous, and steadily declining to take the slightest interest in their adversities.

"What were their trials compared to his? A lonely man–ah! poor Mary! don't talk to him of losses indeed!" Certainly, though he might be the very good man he said he was, he was not an agreeable companion. His sisters-in-law were strong in that opinion. Mrs. Hopkinson took him at his own valuation, always called him "poor Willis" from respect to Mary's memory, and relieved him of the care of his sick child, which enabled him to sigh over the sacrifice he had made of his lost angel's legacy to her bereaved mother.

"I wonder what poor Willis will say, girls, when he hears that Pleasance is let?"

"Something very unpleasant, mamma," answered Janet.

"Oh, my dears, you are hard upon poor Willis! I am sure when I think of my dear Mary (what a wife she was to be sure!) I quite respect her dear husband's melancholy face and heavy sighs."

"But, mamma, don't you remember just after Mary had accepted him, and he came to ask for your consent, you said that he looked so gloomy, and sighed so deeply, that it was more like consenting to a funeral than a wedding?"

"Did I?" said Mrs. Hopkinson, trying not to laugh. "Well, he never was much in the cheerful line; but don't talk of it, for here he is. Well, Willis, Charlie is a little better to-day; and only think, Pleasance is let!"

"Of course it is," answered a sepulchral voice.

"Well, it is a sweet place! one can't wonder at anybody taking it; but it has stood empty a long time."

"That I don't care about, that is Randall's loss; but as I liked to smoke my cigar there in peace, and to take my lonely stroll by the river side, and as it suited my child to play in the garden–in short, as it was a sort of consolation to me –of course somebody else went and took it, that's all!"

Janet and Rose tried to catch their mother's eye, but she was looking compassionately at Willis, the exile of Pleasance.

"It is a Lord Something who has taken it. Mercy me, what a head I have, I remember nothing! What was his name? It was one of our great towns, Lord Leeds, Lord York, Lord Birmingham–could it be either of those?"

"As there are no such people I should think not. I do wish, Mrs. H., I could persuade you to read the 'Peerage' a little more, these blunders annoy me."

"Law, Willis, you'll be a conjuror if you persuade me to read it at all. You might as well ask me to read a list of Red Morocco Chiefs," (Mrs. Hopkinson somehow fancied that the Morocco population was bright scarlet). "I am just as likely to see them as all those peers you are always studying."

"My studies are of a far more serious class," he said tartly; "the 'Peerage' is not of much use to a broken heart. But I see nothing to be proud of in ignorance on any subject!"

Mrs. Hopkinson was in a reverie. "Chester!" she said at last, with a start that immediately threw Mr. Willis into an attitude indicative of a nervous headache, "Lord Chester, that was the name!"

"Viscount Chester, son of the Earl of Chesterton, married last year to Blanche, daughter of the Honourable W. Grenville. I met them this spring at the Lord Mayor's dinner. More frivolous specimens of fashion you could hardly see, all jewels, and laughter, and levity. Oh vanity of vanities!"

"Oh fun of fun!" exclaimed Rose. "A nice gay young couple. How glad I am! I dare say they will give parties and breakfasts, and there will be carriages continually down the lane, perhaps a band sometimes on the lawn. It will put you quite in spirits, Charles," she added, with a demure look.

He leant his head on his hands with a look of acute suffering.

"Got the headache, Charles?"

"One ache more or less makes little difference to me. I ought to have the headache. Have none of you found out who owns that dreadful macaw? It has been screaming all day."

Now it is a remarkable fact in natural history that in all the suburbs of London, consisting of detached houses, called by auctioneers 'small and elegant,' or on Terraces described as first-rate dwellings, there always is an invisible macaw, whose screaming keeps the hamlet or terrace in a constant state of irritation. Nobody at Dulham owned to having one, and detection was impossible, for there, as at all the suburban villages, the inhabitants lived by, and for, and with London. The men went daily to their offices or counting-houses, and the women depended for society on long morning visits from London friends and relations; and they did not, as they observed with much pride, "visit at Dulham." So the Macaw screeched on, and as his noise seemed to come from fifty houses at once, everybody suspected everybody of keeping this plumed atrocity. No. 3 sent to No. 5 to beg that the bird might be shut up for a few days, as No. 3's baby did nothing but start, and would not wean. No. 3's messenger met No. 5's maid-of-all-work, coming with a bold request that the macaw might be sent away, as "Missus's mother-in-law was subject to bad headaches, and was driv half mad." As neither of the parties owned even a linnet, in the way of bird, the nuisance was not abated by this negotiation.

At one time there seemed to be a hope that the mystery was discovered. A singular-looking old lady walked into church with a bunch of parrot's feathers in her bonnet. There was a general nudging of elbows through the church and a low murmur of "macaw." The lady was looked upon with such abhorrence that nobody would offer her a seat, and as for a hymn book or a hassock, money would not have procured them for her. The poor old thing might have fainted away in the aisle if the pew-opener had not sacrificed to her her own three-legged stool. It turned out afterwards that she was quite a stranger in the place, and had mistaken the very humdrum Mr. Bosville for the popular preacher of that name, who officiated at a church five miles off. As she was stone deaf, she went away charmed with the sermon. And the macaw screamed on anonymously.

He was a treasure to Mr. Willis; it was a daily and hourly grievance, and he made the most of it. This morning, after several splendid sighs, he withdrew with a cursory look at his child and a hoarse ejaculation, "Poor little sufferer!" but in the afternoon, when the girls were out walking, Mrs. Hopkinson was surprised to see him return, his black coat buttoned up to the very top button, not a streak of white visible. This always portended a stern visit and much good advice.

"Look, ma'am, look there!" and he presented her with a weekly paper of a disreputable character.

"Law, my dear, the Weekly Lyre! Thank you, I never read any of those abominable papers. Do carry it away for fear the girls should see it."

"For the sake of the girls, ma'am, you must read the paragraph I have marked."

Mrs. Hopkinson was half inclined to put on her gloves before she touched what she looked upon as poison. She had a pair of hideous dark green gauntlets that seemed made to encounter the Weekly Lyre. A broad black border, the work of Willis, encircled the following paragraph:–

"FRACAS IN HIGH LIFE.–It is our melancholy duty to report the separation of a young and noble couple, whose appearance at the alter of Hymen we detailed some months ago. Whether the levity of the lady or the temper of the gentleman has brought about this dénouement we are unable to say. Rumours of all sorts are rife–a foreign court and a villa not one hundred miles from London are the scenes of several piquant anecdotes. Whether the last is tenanted by his Lordship's wife, or his chère amie, we forbear to say."

"Well, ma'am, what do you say to that?" asked Willis, folding his arms, and looking as like John Kemble as was feasible.

"Well, my dear, it is not much worse than paragraphs I have read in the most decent papers–I have seen things like that in the Illustrated. It is odd that the nobility will have 'Fracaws, and chère amies, and picking anecdotes,' but I suppose in our class of life we have the same things, only with English names. Not that John and I ever had a fracaw, thank goodness; but I am much obliged to you, Willis, for the loan of the paper, and perhaps you had better put it in your pocket, for fear the girls should come home."

"But don't you see, ma'am, what it means? Was not Lord Chester's marriage announced in this very paper six months ago? Isn't he going to a foreign court? and hasn't he taken a villa not one hundred miles from London–and is not a lady whose name is unknown coming to live in it? A nice neighbour for you, Mrs. Hopkinson."

"Oh, gracious goodness, Willis, you don't mean to say that Lord Chester is going to establish his mistress next door, and our back staircase looking on the lawn–in Dulham too! Such a quiet, proper place! Let me have another look at that dreadful paper! It must be so. What shall I do?"

"Bear the misfortune, ma'am–cheerfully as I do. Luckily my house is half a mile off."

"And we are under the very roof of Pleasance. I'll have the shutters of that staircase window shut and barred at once; the house will be as dark as pitch, but that can't be helped. Good-bye, Willis, I must be off to take my precautions. This is a business!"

Willis carried off his paper with something that would have been a smile if he had not been Willis, and Mrs. Hopkinson set to work to throw up her fortifications against the vices of the nobility.

In justice to the Weekly Lyre, it may be added that the paragraph in question had no reference whatever to Lord and Lady Chester, nor to any other Lord and Lady in Her Majesty's dominions; it was a stock paragraph inserted occasionally, and with variations, when the editor was distressed for news.

CHAPTER III

ARTHUR was gone. He brought his wife to Pleasance, and passed one day there with her, in order that he might fancy her way of life while he was absent; and then departed, having promised positively not to dance with Madame von Moerkerke.

"I will not as you make a point of it; but I cannot think why you are jealous of that yea and nay woman, who has but the one merit of being well dressed."

"Oh, Arthur dear, remember that ball at L— House, where you devoted yourself to her, and never spoke to me at all."

"Of course I did not, for remember the morning of that day, when you let that fellow Hilton ride by your side for two hours, and talked to him all through dinner. I made a vow never to speak to you again, and, by the help of the angelic Moerkerke, kept it for a whole evening. The next day, you know, I was obliged to break it, in order to tell you I could not live without you."

Blanche felt the glow these words gave her, even when Arthur had left her, but still he was gone. She cried herself to sleep, and cried when she woke, and cried when Aileen arrived; and then Dr. Ayscough drove down, and gave her a regular scolding, and assured her she would destroy her health and her hopes if she behaved so foolishly, and that he could see nothing to cry about. Mrs. Ayscough had been in Wales with her mother all the summer, and he did not go about sobbing to all his patients; and he told Aileen to have a sofa placed out on the lawn, and make her sister pass the afternoon in the open air. Then Arthur's fond letter came, and after that matters mended considerably. There was the house to show to Aileen, and the garden to investigate, and all sorts of red and gold barges came careering up the river, with well-dressed people, looking slightly idiotical as they danced furiously in the hot sun. Aunt Sarah and one or two intimate friends drove down, and envied Blanche her shady trees and cool river, and even insinuated that Arthur was very lucky to have obtained such a good appointment. But there Blanche drew her line, she steadily refused that comfort. She had several visitors the first week, and Dulham Lane was, as Janet and Rose had hoped, much enlivened thereby.

But Mrs. Hopkinson sat with her broad back to the window, pertinaciously declining to look at all the wickedness on wheels that was rolling by her door. She had found that the plan of shutting her shutters would probably end in a fall down her narrow staircase, so she had told her girls not to look out of the window, that poor Willis had reason to believe that the people next door were not at all creditable; and as Janet and Rose were singularly innocent in the ways of the world, and were always desirous to thwart Willis, and as they were particularly anxious to know whether flounces or double skirts were the prevailing fashion, they resented this exclusion from their only point of observation. Charlie missed his airings in the garden, and altogether the advent of Lady Chester had thrown a gloom over the Hopkinson circle.

When Sunday arrived, a fresh grievance occurred. The Hopkinsons had been allowed to make use of the pew belonging to Pleasance, and that was now occupied by Lady Chester and her sister. The slight bustle occasioned by the attempt to find a seat for Mrs. Hopkinson, who was of large dimensions, caused Blanche to look up, and with natural good breeding she opened her pew door, and beckoned to that lady to come in. She did so, and what with the heat of the day, and the thought of what Willis would say when he saw her sitting next to a lady of doubtful character, who had made a "fracaw in high life," she could hardly breathe. She inclosed herself in a palisade of hymn books and prayer books, sat close to the pew door, ready to burst through it at the slightest appearance of levity on the part of her companions, and it was only by dint of much fanning that she was enabled to sit through the service. She disappeared at the close of it before the sisters had finished their devotions.

"That poor woman seemed to feel the heat of the weather dreadfully," said Aileen.

"Yes, and I felt the heat of the poor woman, did not you? It was like having a stove put into the pew; but I am glad we were able to give her a seat, she looked troubled in mind. What a good sermon it was! I think we ought to make acquaintance with the clergyman, but I do not know how to set about it."

"I mean to go to the school," said Aileen, "and I suppose he takes charge of that," and so the sisters sauntered home. Mrs. Hopkinson had in the meantime hurried to rejoin her daughters and Willis, who had found places in the gallery. She could hardly wait till they were out of the church before she began. " Oh, dear me! I wished I had toiled up to the gallery with you, girls. Willis, where do you think I got a seat?"

"On one of the tombs, ma'am?" he gloomily asked.

"No, my dear, in the Pleasance pew, actually in the same pew with one of those shocking women who made the fracaw. I never was so uncomfortable, and they are so pretty, and what is odd, they were so attentive to the service, never took their eyes off their prayer books, and they look so young to be so wicked."

"I forgot to tell you that my paper must have made a mistake," said Mr. Willis in his slowest and most complacent tone. "I saw the real Lady Chester and her sister drive by last Thursday and turn into the gate; fine horses she drives."

"And you have known it was the wife ever since Thursday?" said Mrs. Hopkinson, stopping short in her toilsome walk, and facing her son-in-law, "and never told me; and there was I, actually in church, fancying all sorts of shocking things about those pretty young creatures, and all because of you and your Weekly Lyre. If you bring that vile paper into the house, I will put it into the fire, I will, depend upon it," and she looked as if it were just possible that she might wrap Willis up in the paper before the conflagration commenced. He was almost frightened, his mother-in-law so seldom turned upon him.

"I did not know you cared about it; indeed it rather surprises me, who can no longer take any interest in life, to see you so excited, and all for a woman who has separated herself from her husband."

"But we do not know that she has, it is only your paper that says so; and, indeed, if she has, it is probably Lord Chester's fault. I have always observed that when man and wife part, the husband is a brute. And to think how I behaved, puffing and blowing, and going off at last without even saying thank you, and all on account of the Weekly Lyre." The warm-hearted woman was really vexed, the more so, that she did not see how any amende was to be made. However, chance befriended her.

Lady Chester was quite knocked up by the morning's exertion, so Aileen went alone to the afternoon service, and found her fat friend of the morning coming out of the adjoining house, accompanied by her slim daughters. They arrived at the church door together, and then Aileen said, " If you are not provided with a seat, my sister is not coming to church, and there will be room in our pew for all your party." She was surprised to see the difference in Mrs. Hopkinson's appearance since the morning. Her good-humoured face had its usual benevolent look; she was actually cool, though the thermometer was some degrees higher than it had been, and her thanks were so cordial that Aileen felt pleased to find her little civility so much valued.

"Who do you think that lady was who sat with us this morning? " Aileen said, as she rejoined Blanche on the lawn.

"How can I possibly guess, dear? Somebody evidently perturbed in mind, and very uncomfortable in body; but I have not an idea who she is."

"Neighbour Hopkinson," said Aileen quietly.

"You don't say so! now do write a line to Aunt Sarah forthwith, and beg her to come and see my Semi-detachment, and judge for herself if I am imaginative. I said Mrs. Hopkinson would be immensely fat, and so she is; you did not happen to see if she wore mittens, did you, Aileen?"

"I did not observe what she wore this evening; but I have a faint idea of a mitten holding a fan in the morning."

"No, have you?" said Blanche joyfully. "Tell Aunt Sarah to come early, and for the whole day at least! there are two of my imaginings verified, and perhaps the girls will begin practising Partant pour la Syrie to-morrow."

"They are nice-looking girls," said Aileen, "and I do not think you would have thought the mother so fat this afternoon; and she looked so placid, I cannot think why she was so fussy in the morning; however, it is no business of ours, and now, Blanche, come in, the dew is falling."

Aunt Sarah arrived, and, admitting the facts of size and mittens, suggested that they could in no way affect Blanche's daily comfort. While she was sitting by the river side with her nieces, a boat drew to the landing place, and Edwin Grenville's joyous voice hailed his sisters–"Can you give us some luncheon, Blanche? we are starving and tired."

"Then pray come and eat; but who are we? "

"Harcourt, and Grey, and Hilton."

"Hilton," whispered Blanche. "Oh, Aunt Sarah, I wish Edwin would not bring him here, Arthur will be so angry."

"I cannot see why," said Aileen, hastily, and colouring up to the eyes.

"You are both much too young to receive morning visits from Edwin's brother officers," said Aunt Sarah, "and so I shall tell him; and I can safely undertake to make myself so unpleasant to his friends that they will be glad to go away again."

But there Aunt Sarah was signally mistaken. All her pithy remarks and sensible snubs were received by the young men as excellent jokes, and when they finally went away, Harcourt observed to Grey that "My Aunt was a jolly old fellow," and that he hoped she would be there next time they went. However, Blanche took the opportunity, when Aileen was walking by the river side with three of the gentlemen, to tell her brother that though it had been a very pleasant party, and though she was always glad to see him, yet, perhaps, he had better not bring his friends again. Arthur might not like it, he had rather a prejudice against Colonel Hilton.

"Oh, nonsense, Blanche! you must cure Arthur of prejudice; and the best of it is that it was Hilton who proposed our landing here."

"Ah! that's just it," said Blanche.

"Just what?" said Edwin, "Why, Blanche, I thought the great good of your being married was that you became a staid, sober chaperone for Aileen."

"Well, I am very staid, and quite sober and steady, as you would say of your groom; but you know I am only eighteen, Edwin, and Arthur is away, and all circumstances considered, you had better come alone."

"Well! I never heard such nonsense; did you, Aunt Sarah?"

"No, my dear, I think it is excellent sense, quite refreshing. I could have said nothing better myself, and as the tide has turned, you may as well go. Good-bye, Edwin, you have been lucky in your tides to-day; generally they seem to me to run the wrong way. Aileen, bid your friends good-bye, for we are going in, Blanche is tired."

And so they all dispersed, and Blanche said to her sister, "I am glad Aunt Sarah was here. I shall tell Arthur how it was, and that I had nothing to do with Colonel Hilton's coming here. The next thing will be that we shall hear of Arthur's waltzing with that horrid Madame von Moerkerke."

Aileen smiled, but made no answer, though she was in such excellent spirits the rest of the day that it was obvious that she had no fear of Arthur or a rival.

CHAPTER IV

IT was on this same day that the mournful event took place of the annual dinner given by Mr. Willis to his mother and sisters-in-law. Janet and Rose sighed and groaned about it considerably before it took place, because, as they justly observed, as nothing gave Charles any pleasure, and as it gave them none to see his melancholy face twice in the day instead of once, it was hard to have the trouble of dressing and to lose their comfortable evening at home.

"Poor Mary has been dead now for three years; I really think he might ask one or two people to meet us; it is so absurd we four sitting in that gloomy dining-room, with nothing to say to each other. I feel always as if I should lose the use of my limbs before the first course is over, and I get the cramp in my feet, and a very peculiar headache. 'Charles's own headache' I believe it is called in the medical books."

"Yes," said Rose, and then Mamma always says, 'I wish you would not look so glum when we dine at Columbia Lodge, a little cheerful society is so good for poor Charles.' Now what connection there is between Charles and cheerfulness, except that they both begin with Ch, I do not know."

"Well, we must do our best to-day. I have a great mind to tell him of all those young men landing at Pleasance, and that lovely lilac gown of Lady Chester's, and the old lady in grey, and the grand carriage with the Duke's coronet that came afterwards; but somehow when I have collected a few little topics of a light kind, Charles looks so like a mute at a funeral that I cannot bring them out. However, one comfort is that our old grey gowns will do, and we want to wear them out."

But when they arrived at Columbia, the grey gowns proved to have been below the requirements of the day. A very showy coach drove up to the door, from which issued an equally showy lady, in a very bright pink gown, and two important looking gentlemen, father and son, all three with such very high noses, and such jet black hair, and so obviously of Jewish descent, that it seemed impossible that they should not be announced as Baron and Baroness Sampson and Baron Moses Sampson. Consequently they were; and to the surprise of the girls, and much to their satisfaction, Mr. Greydon, the curate, immediately followed.

"Too much for me," whispered Willis to Mrs. Hopkinson with an agonised look, "but the Sampsons invited themselves, and as you know my respect for the church, I asked Greydon for, in fact, I wanted an eighth to make up my party."

It was altogether quite a lively, affair. Baroness Sampson was full of facetious little affectations, absolutely affable to the Hopkinsons, and she did the honours of Willis's gravity with much pleasantry, and infinite want of tact, once arriving at calling him "you funny man," which threw Rose into an irrepressible fit of giggles.

It was obvious that Willis and Baron Sampson were leagued in some important speculation, which had brought about a degree of intimacy that might have been friendship, if either of them had been susceptible of that sentiment, and they would have liked to talk shares, and capital, and investments, if they had met with any encouragement. But Baron Moses was by way of being a fast young man about town, and bent on astonishing the Hopkinsons by anecdotes of the clubs, and the opera, and Prince Albert; and the sémillante Baroness shook her black ringlets, and also her ear-rings, and chains, and bracelets to that extent, that they formed quite a musical accompaniment to her assertion that business was not to be attended to. She came for fresh air and fresh conversation.

"Do tell me something about Dulham, Mrs. Hopkinson. I want the Baron to take a villa. I adore flowers and green lawns; London kills me. It is such a stuffy, sad place, and so wicked!" This last moral observation was addressed to Mr. Greydon in compliment to his clerical functions.

"Should I like Dulham, Willis? Is there anybody here one knows?"

"I should think not. But I am a sad recluse, I know nobody!"

"Ah, now, I won't have you talk in that way! If I have a villa here, I shall insist on your knowing everybody. Is there any house that would suit us? I must have it on the banks of the river. That dear river–I really worship your Thames!"

"Pleasance might have suited you, but Lord Chester has just taken it," said Mrs. Hopkinson.

"Lord Chester! Dear me! The man with the pretty wife, you mean. They are both quite the rage in our set."

"Do you know them, Baroness?"

"Well, no, not exactly; but still, living in the same set, and seeing them so constantly with my friend, Baroness Rothschild, I somehow feel as if I did." The Sampsons had been asked once to a large party at Gunnersbury. "And so they live here?"

"She does, poor young thing! Ah, it's a sad story!"

"She does not seem very sad," said Mr. Greydon, quietly.

"Why, do you know them, Mr. Greydon?" asked Janet, with some surprise.

"I had a note from Lady Chester this morning, asking me to call upon her. Her sister wished to know if she could be of any use in the school or village, and Lady Chester is anxious to do all she can, in her invalid state, for our little charities."

"Does Lady Chester look very ill?

"Very delicate, I should say; but she seems to have high spirits. I enjoyed my visit, the two sisters were so unaffected and amiable, and extremely pretty."

Janet coloured. All the young ladies of Dulham, and many of the old ones, were more or less in love with Mr. Greydon, Janet rather more than less. None of them had well-grounded hopes of any return to their attachment. Mr. Greydon was an excellent young curate, a thorough gentleman, and lived on very good terms with his parishioners; but any idea of marrying on £300 a year (the amount of his income) had never crossed his mind, and it was impossible for any one of his victims to boast of a word or a look of preference. Still Janet, in moments of extreme confidence, used to impart to Rose that if anybody gave Mr. Greydon a good living, or say, a bishopric (he would make such a bishop!), or if a large fortune were suddenly left him, she somehow felt sure that he would marry, and that it would appear he had distinguished her all the time.

Though Rose was, of course, very much attached to him herself, yet, as she could conceive the possibility of being happy with somebody else, and as Janet was the eldest, and ought to have the first choice, Rose gave in to these flattering hopes, and always read what the papers said of the illness of a bishop, or the death of a dean, with great interest on Janet's account.

Admiration of Lady Chester Janet could have borne, but she did not quite approve of his thinking both sisters so pretty.

"There was such a grand carriage down our lane today, Willis; Charlie clapped his hands and was quite in glee, poor little man! four horses, and postilions, and outriders, quite a pretty sight, and such a grand-looking lady in it."

"The Duchess of St. Maur," said Mr. Greydon. "She came in while I was there."

"Dear me, one of the Queen's Ladies. She went out of waiting last week, didn't she, girls?"

Mrs. Hopkinson always read the Court Circular and the Police Reports. The rest of the paper was beyond her powers.

"Ah, the Duchess of St. Maur. Quite one of your tip-tops," said the Baroness; "the sort of fine lady I carefully avoid. I suppose you were glad to get away, Mr. Greydon." She rather grudged to a curate the chance of becoming acquainted with a Duchess.

"I was going away just as she arrived, but Lady Chester made me stay. The Duchess takes a great interest in our Convalescent Hospital; and I was not sorry to have an opportunity of interesting one of the Ladies' Committee in our improvements."

"And did she talk of the Queen and the Princess Royal?" asked Mrs. Hopkinson, who lived in a state of enthusiastic and loyal curiosity about the Court.

"No," he said, with a smile; "we did not soar beyond Susan Hopkins's asthma, and Keziah Brown's rheumatism. The Duchess seemed well acquainted with all the old ladies."

"Well, I suppose the aristocracy are not so bad as we are told, " said Mrs. Hopkinson, beaming with benevolence. "They seem to do a kind thing now and then."

"Now and then you may well say," murmured Willis. "What can they know of suffering? Ah! let them once feel what real grief is, and there would be an end of their balls and réunions, and their postilions and outriders," he added, after an emphatic pause.

"But, I suppose," suggested Mrs. Hopkinson, doubtingly, "they do lose their friends and children like other people, and perhaps care about them."

Willis shook his head, and Mrs. Hopkinson again reverted to her favourite topic. "And did you hear nothing at all about the Queen, Mr. Greydon?"

"Nothing. Oh yes! there was some arrangement made about a concert at the Palace. The Duchess was to take Miss Grenville, as Lady Chester was not going."

"Ah! not asked; so like our good Queen. She would not invite anybody in Lady Chester's position, and yet is kind to her sister. There never was such a sovereign. Are you going to this concert, Baroness?"

"No; it seems odd, but we are not asked this time," said the Baroness with an air of modest pride. "I suspect we are out of favour at Court, but a Drawing-Room is my aversion, and I have been sadly remiss this year; absolutely neglected the birthday, which was very naughty of me, and so I am left out of this party."

As that had been invariably her fate with regard to all parties at the Palace, the resignation she evinced had probably become a matter of habit; but she hinted an intention of bringing the Queen to her senses by staying away from the next Drawing-Room too. She, however, enlivened the evening to the Hopkinsons by accounts of various splendid festivities, at which she said she had assisted; and when the party dispersed, leaving Willis leaning against the chimney-piece with his head in his hands, the Hopkinsons walked home declaring the Baroness was very entertaining, and that the dinner had been really pleasant.

"And I am rather glad we wore our grey gowns," said Rose. "Do you know that when Janet was sitting by the Baroness, I thought she looked much the nicest of the two, more like a lady, without all those flowers and trinkets."

"I wonder Mr. Greydon did not offer to see us safe home," said Janet. "I suppose that Miss Grenville is very pretty."

CHAPTER V

THERE was no doubt, as Mr. Greydon had said, that Blanche was very delicate, and she was one of those exciteable people whose health fades when their spirits are depressed, and who expand into strength when their minds are at ease. She caught a slight cold by lingering near the river on a damp evening, and when Aunt Sarah paid her weekly visit to Pleasance, she found Blanche stretched on the sofa, pale and shrunk, with red eyes and hot hands, a feeble attempt at a cap at the very back of her head, and much Mechlin lace, and soft muslin and pink ribbon, professing to be an invalid's dressing-gown.

"My dear child! what is the matter?"

"All sorts of things, Aunt Sarah. In the first place, I am very ill–Aileen has sent for Dr. Ayscough. Now, just hear my cough."

"A failure, I think," said Aunt Sarah, "an attempt at a cough rather than the thing itself."

"Then my throat is so sore. Do you think it will turn to that sore throat with the difficult name? It kills people so rapidly, Aunt Sarah, that there will be no use in telegraphing for Arthur; he could not arrive in time."

"Very well, my dear, then I will not send for him; besides, I am not absolutely convinced that you have diphtheria."

"Then, after all I said to Edwin, he brought Colonel Hilton here again yesterday; he said he could not help it, that Colonel Hilton would join him in his ride, and I have written to tell Arthur, and I know he will think I am flirting, and then he will begin to flirt himself. I assure you, Aunt Sarah, he did once before, just because Colonel Hilton rode with me. He owned it; so it is not one of my fancies."

"Just lend me your scissors, Blanche; this netting-silk knots so, I must cut it. I think it most likely, my dear, that Arthur–there! another knot–what was I saying? Oh, that though Arthur might be jealous, as a lover, of every man you spoke to, it is not very likely that with his good sense and warm feelings, and with the dependence he must have in your affection, he will suspect you of encouraging any attentions of Colonel Hilton. However, I am glad you write and tell him everything."

"Of course I do, and as you say, dear Aunt, it is very different now we are married. Arthur must know that I could not care now for anybody's admiration but his," and Blanche sat up on her sofa, and slipped off her little cap, and began to revive.

"But then I have not told you my worst misfortunes. I have had no letter for three days, and those dreadful Miss Hopkinsons began to play on their pianoforte this morning, and actually played the Dead March in Saul, and it gave me all sorts of shocking presentiments. I thought Arthur must be ill because he did not write–and in short, Aunt Sarah, I have made up my mind to go to Berlin, and have sent for Dr. Ayscough to tell him I am going."

There was a pause. "Aileen goes with me, Aunt Sarah, and if Edwin can get leave, he will go part of the way with us." Another pause. "Why don't you speak, Aunt Sarah?"

"My dear, I have nothing to say, your plan seems so complete, I can suggest no improvement; but I think you had better not begin to pack up till your doctor comes–and here he is. Lady Chester seems nervous to-day, Dr. Ayscough, and will be the better for a talk with you," and Aunt Sarah withdrew.

"Well, what is it? You must tell me quickly, as I have not five minutes to spare. Why ain't you dressed and out in the garden? It would be a fine day for a row on the river."

"I have got a bad cold and a sore throat, but that is of no consequence," said Blanche, trying to look dignified. "What I wanted to tell you is that I am very uneasy about Lord Chester, and I am going to join him at Berlin."

"To join him at Berlin, eh?" said Dr. Ayscough, feeling her pulse in an absent manner, as if he had not the remotest idea that Blanche had a wrist, or that he had got hold of it. "And Lord Chester is ill, is he?"

"How can I know? I have not had a letter from him these three days–not a line!"

"Oh!" said Dr. Ayscough, and it was a satisfied oh; expressing that he was now completely master of the case, and that the red eyes and fluttering pulse were precisely the symptoms he should expect to find.

"You are like my patient, Mrs. Armistead–her husband went with yours, I think–hers is a case of inflamed eyes; and when I told her not to use them, she said 'she was not the least called upon to do so, as luckily she had not heard from Mr. Armistead for some days, so she was not obliged to write to him'."

"What a horrid woman! but still it is a comfort to know she has had no letters either. But I want to consult you about my journey."

"When do you start?"

"This afternoon, if you think I am equal to it," said Blanche, who began to want, at least, a show of opposition.

"You would not go, I presume, if you did not feel quite equal to it," said Dr. Ayscough coolly. "But there is only one more train to Folkestone this afternoon–you must make haste. Do you go by Ostend?"

"I suppose so; but Edwin will settle all that–I expect him soon. To say the truth, I do not well know my way to Berlin. It is a long journey, isn't it, Dr. Ayscough?"

"That depends upon who undertakes it. Miss Grenville goes with you?"

"Yes."

"And that little flighty French maid, who always calls calomel le calmant, and has about as much idea of being useful as that Dresden figure. Well, I wish you well through it; I have left a prescription for your cold in case you do not get off to-day. Of course you have your passports ready?" He felt certain she had not.

"Passports!" said Blanche eagerly, "no, that I haven't. I never thought about them. Must I have a passport?"

"It is generally considered necessary for travellers on the continent."

"Well then, I can't go to-day."

"I never supposed you could," said Dr. Ayscough, laughing. "I will come and see how the cold goes on to-morrow, and perhaps this evening's post may bring a letter; and then you will not start for Berlin till the afternoon. Good morning."

He was waylaid in the hall by Aunt Sarah, who had somehow taken a diphtheria alarm, and by Aileen, who was frightened out of her senses at this sudden journey and her responsibility for her sister's safety.

"What do you think of her throat?"

"Ah, by the bye, her throat. I have not thought about it–there is nothing the matter with it."

"And this dreadful journey," Aileen said, "of course you have stopped that?"

"No, I have rather encouraged it."

"Oh dear, have you? what shall I do if she is taken ill on the road? and nothing but that silly Justine to help us, and I felt so sure you would stop it."

"There is nothing to stop, my dear Miss Grenville. Your sister has got into one of her nervous moods because she has not heard from Lord Chester. She knows as well as I do that she cannot undertake the journey; if she had been opposed, she would have worked herself up to the attempt. Give her the composing draught I have ordered; she will probably hear from from Lord Chester by this evening's post, and to-morrow we can have a good laugh at her"; and he hurried off.

Blanche was, in truth, rather disappointed that he had made so light of her ailments and her heroism, but continued reading her Bradshaw and coughing till post time; then there came two letters from Arthur: one that had taken its natural course, and another that had gone a round by some Dulham in Yorkshire.

"Now is not that so like the Post Office?" she said. "Letters that are of no consequence are always delivered directly, but when Arthur writes to me, they send his letters all over England. Arthur is quite well, and thinks that he shall get away before the three months are over, and Madame von Moerkerke is grown quite plain. Poor woman, after all she was a good-natured little thing; and Arthur says just what you said, Aunt Sarah, about Colonel Hilton. I declare my throat is better, and if you will ring for Justine, Aileen, I will dress. What a horrid smell of smoke there is."

There certainly was. Justine came up quite éperdue, and in a high state of affected suffocation; leaving the doors open to let all the smoke in, and shutting the windows to prevent it from going out. She had always heard it was right to shut the windows when the house was on fire; and her eyes watered so, she really could not see to fasten mylady's hooks and eyes, and mylady's gown was all awry at last.

"But is the house on fire?" said Blanche, half laughing, "because, if it is, we may as well make our escape."

"No," said Aileen, who had just run up stairs, "it is not on fire, but something has gone radically wrong with the kitchen flue; the smoke keeps pouring into the house, instead of going up the chimney, like well-behaved smoke; even the drawing-rooms are quite untenable."

"And my room gets worse every moment. We must take refuge in the summer-house, Aileen."

"But it is raining, and your cold?"

"Oh, that is not much, and anything is better than this. Give me heaps of shawls, Justine, and then we will rush into the drawing-room, and save our beloved Aunt Sarah, and carry her off to our wretched little asylum in the garden. Where are my letters? we will take them with us; and now, Aileen, I am ready."

They found all the servants in a state of dismay, ill-temper, and soot, and it really became necessary to leave the house, much to Aunt Sarah's dismay, who thought it a dangerous experiment. However, they settled Blanche on a hard bench, about as comfortable as a gridiron, and in a summer-house, half-trellis, half-earwigs, and Aileen glided backwards and forwards under an umbrella, bringing cushions, and cloaks, and clogs, and finally Aunt Sarah's netting; and the important butler came to announce that he had sent into the village for a person who understood the chimney and its strange ways; he really could not undertake it, and the smoke, as he phrased it, gained upon him every minute. So, as Blanche said, they seemed likely to pass their afternoon in a mitigated shower bath; but just then a portly figure was seen coming up the gravel walk, and Mrs. Hopkinson, in very short petticoats, displaying a pair of feet that left large impressions on the soaked gravel, a shawl tied over her cap, and with a black mittened hand, holding a cotton umbrella, presented herself.

She began the set speech which she had been composing ever since she took her resolution of offering shelter to the Pleasance ladies. "I heard accidently through my cook" (Blanche pinched Aunt Sarah) "that your kitchen was on fire, and I came to ask if your Ladyship would not take shelter in my parlour. But, good gracious me!" she exclaimed, in her natural manner, as she furled her umbrella and entered the arbour, "what a place for you ladies to be in! Why, it's all of a slop, and dripping so. There! there's a great drop gone down my collar. Why, you'll catch your deaths. Do, for goodness' sake, come into my house. Now, ma'am, take my arm–of course you've got your clogs on, and do wrap your shawl well round you."

"You are very kind," said Blanche, "but–"

"Very kind, indeed," interposed Aunt Sarah. "Perhaps you will give Lady Chester your arm, and Miss Grenville and I will follow. I am sure we are extremely obliged to you. Aileen, just pick up my netting mesh; it is in that puddle. Now, Blanche."

And before Blanche could make any objections, she found herself under the blue umbrella, her hand under Mrs. Hopkinson's fat arm, and both of them wading through the little rivulet that usually passed for the gravel walk. "There," said Mrs. Hopkinson, as they reached her door, "now my girls will take care of you; and as I am wet through, and can't well get wetter, I'll just step back and tell your maid to send you some dry things, and as I know that kitchen of old, I daresay I can give your servants a useful hint about the smoke."

The Miss Hopkinsons were as hospitable as their mother. A fire was lighted in the best parlour, a sofa wheeled round for Blanche, who was looking pale and blue, slippers and dressing-gowns produced, hot wine and water administered, and when Justine arrived with dry cloaks they quietly withdrew, and left the ladies to their own devices.

CHAPTER VI

"WELL, Aunt," said Blanche, "if you will candidly own that Mrs. Hopkinson is fat, and does wear mittens, and does know what passes in my kitchen, I will handsomely concede that she is a most hospitable neighbour, and that her dry room is very comfortable after our wet arbour."

"And you may add, my dear, that a semi-detached house has its merits; if one half catches fire, you can take refuge in the other. And now, Blanche, you had better keep quiet where you are, and Aileen and I will go to our friends below and thank them. Just bring my netting, Aileen."

"But I should like to thank them, too, for it was very kind of the old lady to come swimming out to the rescue, and as I see 'hot tea' expressed in every line of her benevolent countenance, I feel confident she will propose to bring me some; so, if she does, will you encourage the idea?"

Blanche was right. The tea-urn was on the table, brown bread and butter prepared, and a curious foreign china tea-service laid out, which excited the envy of Aileen, and the admiration of Aunt Sarah, who was learned in porcelain.

"Well, I believe it is reckoned curious; my husband brought it me when he came back from his third trip to China–no, it was his fourth, and he set so much store by it, that, of course, I could not say I thought it ugly; but I like the old willow-pattern best, and we only use this on great occasions. And now I should like to take Lady Chester a nice cup of hot tea, but perhaps I should disturb her."

"Oh no," said Aileen; "my sister was wishing for some tea, and if you do not mind the trouble, I am sure she would be very glad to see you, and thank you for your very great kindness."

"Kindness!–bless you, Miss Grenville!–why, where's the kindness in taking you three ladies out of the smoke and rain, I should like to know? If you have not all caught cold, it's next to a miracle"; and Mrs. Hopkinson walked off with her tea and bread and butter. She was inclined–thanks to the Weekly Lyre–to be rather more formal with Lady Chester than she had been with the aunt and sister–she wished to show her strong disapprobation of a young wife separating herself voluntarily from her husband. She almost grudged her the Japan tea-cup and saucer, and thought the willow-pattern would have done, but somehow she could not keep up her sternness. Blanche received her so courteously, was so earnest in her gratitude for the hospitality she had met with, and looked so fragile and pretty, that Mrs. Hopkinson subsided with a sigh into her usual motherly manner, and her conviction that it was all Lord Chester's fault.

"Well, you do not look much fit for any troubles in this world, and I hope you will have none worse than to-day's."

"Oh! it has been a very happy day really," said Blanche, smiling. "I had been very uneasy about some letters that had been mis-sent, and they came just before we were driven out of the house, so I did not mind that at all. Indeed, I think it was very good fun, now it is over, and it has given me the pleasure of making your acquaintance."

"You are very good," said Mrs. Hopkinson, "and I hope your letters were satisfactory."

"Oh, that they always are when they come! Arthur writes such excellent letters! but the post office has been very ill-managed lately–in fact, ever since he went abroad–and I foolishly fancied he must be ill, and I was on the point of setting off for Berlin."

"Law! my dear lady, the idea of your going off to Berlin, and in your situation, too! Why, I believe it is thousands of miles off, and the sea to cross and all! And Arthur is?"–

"Lord Chester, of course," said Blanche, laughing. "I ought to have called him so, I suppose. You see, Mrs. Hopkinson, he was sent off quite suddenly on that tiresome mission to Berlin, and we had never been parted for an hour, and I thought I should die while he was away, or that he would die while I was away. In short, my aunt says I am full of fancies; but you don't know how dreadfully lonely I feel without Arthur!"

"Don't I, my dear?" said Mrs. Hopkinson, quite warming up to the subject, and forgetting what she called her company manners, "why, John has been away the best part of every year since we married. I am sure I might have been a widow twenty times over for all the good I have of his company! I have got used to it now; but the first time that he went, just after I was confined of Janet, I thought he would be lost at sea every time the wind blew, and the wind did nothing but blow that year, though when John came back he said it was all my fancy, and that he had made a remarkably smooth passage."

"And John is?" asked Blanche.

"My husband, Captain Hopkinson."

"Captain Hopkinson!" exclaimed Blanche, jumping up from the sofa, "and did he ever command the Alert? "

"To be sure he did, and a regular tub she was!"

"Well, this is curious!" and Blanche seized Mrs. Hopkinson's fat hands, and pressed them warmly, mittens and all. "Captain Hopkinson saved Arthur's life, by his care and kindness when Arthur caught that bad fever on his passage to the Cape."

"Not Lord Chester surely! I always make John tell me the history of all his passengers. I don't half like those ladies from India, who are always coming home to their children, or going back to their husbands; all I can say is, they don't fret on the voyage. I can trust John, but I always like to know who is on board, and I am sure I should have remembered Lord Chester's name!"

"But his elder brother was alive then–he was only Captain Templeton."

"Captain Templeton!" exclaimed Mrs. Hopkinson, jumping up in her turn. "You don't mean to say, Lady Chester, that your husband is that Captain Templeton who was the life and soul of the Alert till he caught that bad fever which carried off so many of John's best hands? Goodness me! why, John talked of nothing else when he came home from that voyage! I thought I should have dropped off my chair sometimes with laughing at some of Captain Templeton's jokes; and he came to see John when we were at Southsea–found him out though John was at home only for three weeks–and was so friendly, and shook hands with me, and said John was a capital fellow, which to be sure he is. And to think that he should be Lord Chester–and that you should be Lady Chester, and sitting in that wet arbour! That is a curious coincidence!"

Mrs. Hopkinson's ideas on the subject of coincidences were rather vague and ungrammatical, but Blanche was not disposed to be critical; and when Aileen came up to say that Baxter had announced that the kitchen chimney had come to its senses, and that my Lady might come home–she found the two ladies both talking at once about the voyage of the Alert, and Blanche half sorry to go till she had heard more particulars of Arthur's cabin and his illness.

CHAPTER VII

"WELL, those are three as nice ladies as ever I wish to see," said Mrs. Hopkinson, when her guests had departed; "and as for that Lady Chester, I'm quite in love with her. She thinks so much of your father, and spoke in such a way of him. I wish John had heard her!"

"Miss Grenville was very nice, too, mamma, and took great notice of dear little Charlie, and played at cat's cradle with him," said Rose.

"I did not think quite so much of her as of the old lady," said Janet. "Did you make out what her name was, mamma?"

"Lady Sarah Mortimer, my dear. She is aunt to the two sisters, who are twins, and she seems to have had charge of Lady Chester. Miss Grenville lived with the other guardian."

"I cannot think how she comes to know so much about schools," said Janet, who had hitherto considered herself quite unequalled in that line. "She seems to go to our school every day, and says Mr. Greydon thinks this, and Mr. Greydon wishes me to do that; and it appears he called at Pleasance again to-day. Very odd, he hardly ever speaks when I am at the school, and as for calling, he has only called twice since he came to Dulham. However," she added humbly, "it is not very surprising he should like to go to Pleasance. He is so very superior himself that he naturally likes other superior people; and, to be sure, Lady Chester and her sister are very different from any of us. Rose, don't you wish that mamma, and you, and I, were regular fine ladies?"

"Oh, my dear," interrupted Mrs. Hopkinson, "don't talk so. You and Rose may try to be like those two pretty creatures if you please, and a nice job you will make of it; but as for turning me into a fine lady, thank you for nothing. I should like to see John's face if I met him dressed in a grey moire antique and a lace mantle, and twiddling a little bit of netting silk over an ivory stick. No, my dears, you must let me be as I am, I'm too old to improve."

"You don't want a bit of improvement, dear old mother," said both her girls, giving her a good hug. "I was only joking," added Janet.

"And only a very leetle bit jealous of Miss Grenville," whispered Rose.

Blanche and Aileen went the next day to call on Mrs. Hopkinson, to repeat their thanks for her hospitalities, and to see the silver inkstand which Arthur had presented to the Captain.

"Such a sweet inscription," Mrs. Hopkinson said. "'To Captain John Hopkinson, from his obliged and faithful friend, Arthur Templeton.' I don't suppose John would take one thousand pounds for that inkstand. Would your Ladyship allow me to show you a picture of John?"

"I should like to see it of all things," said Blanche.

"The only fault of it is that it is not the least like him. John had it done at Macao, by a Chinaman, Chiang Foo, who was supposed to be a good artist: and it was very kind of John to think of it. But considering that he is a stout, florid man with blue eyes and a round face, I don't think Chiang Foo has hit him off quite cleverly"; and Mrs. Hopkinson proceeded to justify this assertion by producing the picture of a sallow figure with half-shut black eyes and high cheek bones, standing apparently on nothing, and neither receiving nor casting the slightest shadow. Blanche could not help laughing; but Mrs. Hopkinson looked at it rather sentimentally, and said, "At all events, it was done from John, and the buttons on his coat are all right, and look very natural."

"But I am sure it does not do him justice."

"No, indeed"; and altogether Mrs. Hopkinson felt gratified and interested in her new acquaintances. Willis had called in the morning, and had heard the history of the preceding day, on which he made the obvious comment, that he did not think much of a little smoke and rain. If it had been in Columbia Lodge, he had no doubt that the house would have been burnt down, but he was used to trials, and should quietly have submitted to that.

"I came to tell, Mrs. Hopkinson, that you will probably have a visit from the Baroness to-day. She wrote me word she was coming to make a search for this villa she wants, and she wished me to accompany her; but if there is a thing in the world that depresses my spirits, it is rambling over a set of empty houses, smelling of damp and desolation. So I have left a note to say you would go with her, and I shall take myself off to town. The girls can just step to Randall's and get a list of the houses he has on hand. Where's Charlie?"

"He's asleep just now."

"Oh! when he wakes, you can give him this toy. I brought it for him; I saw it in the Strand, and it took my fancy."

It was a nice little model of a tomb, and when a spring was touched at the side, a skeleton jumped out, made a bow, and jumped in again. Willis looked at it with a grim satisfaction, which was not at all diminished by the positive refusal of his mother- and sisters-in-law to allow Charlie even to hear of it, much less to see it. Willis really was fond of his child, and did not press his pet skeleton on their acceptance when he found they thought it might frighten Charlie. In fact, he was rather glad to take it home again, for his own diversion.

Lady Chester and Aileen had hardly sat down in Mrs. Hopkinson's parlour, when the showy carriage appeared, and the Baroness and her son were announced.

"Do not say anything about us," whispered Blanche; "we shall amuse ourselves with Charlie"; and Mrs. Hopkinson took the hint, and turned her attention to the Baroness, who was overflowing with affability and grandeur.

"That naughty Willis has run off to London, and has referred me to you, Mrs.–Mrs.–"

"Dear Mrs Hopkinson," said Aileen promptly, in her soft voice, "are you sure this is not your chair I have appropriated?"

"To you, Mrs. Hopkinson," continued the Baroness, ignoring the audacious Aileen; "He says you and your girls–where are they, by the bye?–will help me in this difficult matter of a villa. I am afraid I am very particular, I am so spoiled. Now you, with this dear, tidy little cottage, can't guess what my troubles are, what with housekeeper's room, and the Baron's billiards, and Moses' smoking, and my own suite of apartments–a cottage, though I am sure I envy you, would not suit us."

"Here is a list my girls have brought from the house agent's; there are not many houses vacant just now; Acacia Place is one of the best, Baroness."

"It sounds citizenish," said that lady, who had passed all her early life in the very heart of that city; "but to be sure," she added, with an air of deep thought, "I can change the name."

"I always admire Ivy Cottage as I pass it," said Blanche, trying to be civil to Mrs. Hopkinson's overpowering friend, "and I see a board up there."

"A cottage is out of the question for me," said the Baroness loftily, wishing to repress these intrusive young people. "So, Mrs. Hopkinson, we will go on with our business; Bellevue–that sounds as though it might do."

"The house is tolerable, but unfortunately it is at the back of High Street, and you can see neither the river nor the common. Marble Hall, next to Columbia, is the one I should recommend."

"And a precious cheerful neighbourhood we should be in," said Baron Moses, confidentially, to the two sisters, whose beauty had made a great impression on him. "As the belle-mère, the mother-in-law," he translated condescendingly, "is occupied with my blessed mamma, and can' t hear, I think I may venture to say that Mr. Willis is about the slowest coach I ever attempted to drive."

"Mr. Willis is my papa, and does not keep a coach," said Charlie, who was sitting on Aileen's knee, "so it could not go slow."

"Capital! capital!" said Moses, with an affected laugh. "Very true, my little man, enfant terrible! It was the Miss Hopkinsons that I met at dinner at Columbia, not you ladies, I think?"

"No," said Blanche, demurely, "we have never had the honour of dining with Mr. Willis."

"Honour you may well call it, not pleasure; but my mother, who is entichée du beau Willis, quite taken with him, means to humanise him, and make him give constant dinners. I presume I am speaking to residents of Dulham, and I hope we may have the pleasure of meeting at the festive board of the égayant Willis."

"I rather doubt whether Mr. Willis will ever ask us," said Aileen, trying to look pensive.

"Oh! but he shall. I hate exclusiveness, it's bad enough in London; but in the country, where amusements are scarce, it is insufferable!"

"I am sorry to interrupt you, Moses," said the Baroness, "but the Baron will be frantic if I keep the greys standing; I wish your father would not give such enormous prices for my horses. I am sure, Mrs. Hopkinson, your friends will excuse you if I take you away, but I am a perfect child in household matters, and your advice will be invaluable. Gunnersbury is my beau idéal of a villa, but that, of course, I cannot expect to find here; so we will just look at Marble Hall. I wish I could have had Pleasance."

Blanche and Aileen immediately rose to depart.

"Yes, Pleasance is a stylish-looking concern," said Baron Moses, "though I only know it from the river. A charming spot for picnics."

"Ah," said the Baroness, "what suits the Chesters, would, of course, have suited me; but, I fear, there is no chance of their giving it up. My friend Madame Steinbaum writes from Berlin–"

"Aileen," said Blanche, coluring and looking annoyed, "we really must go, we are detaining Mrs. Hopkinson; and I have not made my petition. My sister goes to town to-morrow for a concert. Will you let little Charlie come and pay me a visit?"

"Me will come," said Charlie, "me like you very much–me not like that black man," he added in a whisper, and with a look at Baron Moses.

"Well, then, that is settled. Good-bye, Mrs. Hopkinson," she said cordially to that lady, who followed her to the door, her face the colour of the coquelicot ribbon in her cap, and herself distracted by the grandeur and impertinence of the Baroness, which imposed upon her and shocked her. With a slight haughty bow to the Sampsons, Blanche departed.

"Then we will be off," said the Baroness. "I hope I did not affront your friends, Mrs. Hopkinson, whoever they may be; but they seemed inclined to put themselves forward, and I feared it might lead to their claiming acquaintance if I settle here, which would embarrass me. I am afraid I was tant soit peu farouche," (Mrs. Hopkinson wondered what that was, but settled that it was French for disagreeable,) "but it is a point with me to keep young people in their proper places."

"Of course," said Mrs. Hopkinson, who was quite bewildered, "improper places are shocking things."

"Brava! brava!" said the Baron, clapping his hands, and then seeing that his hostess was beginning to look discomposed, he added graciously, "An excellent joke, but upon my soul, Mrs. Hopkinson, your friend are belles à croquer, that is to say, monstrous pretty creatures. Did not you think so, madre adorata? "

"Prettyish-looking girls, I believe, but they want style. Who are these damsels whom the Baron chooses to patronise?"

"I thought you knew Lady Chester and her sister at least by sight," said Mrs. Hopkinson, as sharply as her intense good-humour would allow.

"Lady Chester and her sister!" screamed the Baroness, falling back into her chair, and turning as pale as was possible under the amount of rouge she wore. "Good heavens! Mrs. Hopkinson, why did you not name them? why did you not present them to me? I should have been too happy to show them every attention for the sake of our mutual friends the Rothschilds; in fact, I really wished to make Lady Chester's acquaintance, and I was scarcely civil, I am afraid."

"That I can answer for," said Baron Moses, who was in ecstasies with his mother's discomfiture, "civility was not your forte just at the moment. I," he added consequently, "who can afford to follow my very vivid perceptions of what pleases mon goût, happily paid them every attention. I saw at once that they were intensely comme il faut." He sunk the fact of having offered to procure them an invitation to Willis's festive board.

"It is most distressing," said the Baroness faintly. "They must think me–me of all people in the world–entirely without usage du monde. Why upon earth did you not introduce us, Mrs. Hopkinson?"

"Lady Chester requested I would not," quietly replied Mrs. Hopkinson.

The Baroness received a vague and unpleasant impression that the request signified a disinclination on the part of Lady Chester to make her acquaintance, and with her mania for fashion and fashionable people this annoyed her extremely. Quite subdued, she set forth on her travels in search of a house, almost disposed to put up with the want of a billiard-table, and inclined to believe that Ivy Cottage would suit her better than Marble Hall. But a bright red flock paper in the dining-room of the latter mansion, with several vulgar chandeliers and over-gilt console tables, were too much for her: she thought the room would "light up sweetly." And having made Mrs. Hopkinson fag herself all over the house, to examine the attics, and the kitchen, and the cupboards, and the pumps, and do all the heavy work of the business, she dismissed her with the blandest apologies for requesting her to find her way home on foot, but "the Baron was very particular about his grey horses."

"Well," said Mrs. Hopkinson to the girls, as she was enjoying her tea after the fatigues of the day, "I'm regularly tired. That Baroness does not suit me nor my ways, and the airs she gave herself are not to be told. And there were those nice young ladies, real ladies to my mind, looking so simple and so quiet, and playing so prettily with Charlie, while that great storm of a woman swept over them. Don't tell Willis, my dears, but I can't help thinking she is very vulgar: and I see why the Queen don't ask her to her concerts."

CHAPTER VIII

"WHAT a woman!" was all the comment Blanche made on the Baroness, "but I should like to know what she has heard from Berlin–should not you, Aileen? It must have been something about Arthur, because she implied that our stay at Pleasance would be prolonged. What could it be?"

"I daresay," said Aileen, laughing, "my imagination will not go so far as yours has gone–she probably meant to intimate to us, simple rustics, that she was in all the political secrets of the Berlin negotiation. I should not wonder if the Baron were a stock-jobber, whatever that may be; but those sort of people always know, or pretend to know, the politics of the continent half an hour before the rest of the world. A hitch in the treaty may be worth money to the Sampsons."

"That would be bad enough," said Blanche. "It would keep Arthur longer abroad, Of course she could not mean that Arthur had got into any entanglement."

"Of course not. Oh, Blanche! Blanche! we want Aunt Sarah to keep you in order. And so you are going to have Charlie for your playfellow to-morrow whilst I am away?"

"Yes, I have taken quite a fancy to that poor little child. He looks so frail and suffering, and he told me he used to come every day to this garden to see the boats, till we took the house. I wish, Aileen, when you go out, you would go to Merton's and buy me a large Noah's ark, some picture books, and any toys of a laughable description; that child wants to be amused. I wonder Dr. Ayscough has not been here to-day?"

But he did not appear. When he came the following day, he found Blanche and little Charlie seated on the bank with a long procession of small elephants, and gigantic lady-birds, all tending to an ark that did not seem adequate to house them, still less to admit eight yellow and red extinguishers, which were intended to represent Noah and his family.

"What now?" said the Doctor. "Why are you playing at Noah's arks? I thought you were at least half way to Berlin."

"No, you did not," said Blanche, "you thought no such thing, you were only, as usual, humouring me and laughing at me–I saw that all the time. It is a great pity that I have known you all my life, I see through you so well."

"Not half so clearly as I see through you, and it a great advantage to you to have a steady old friend like myself, who withstands all your impetuosities. You were an impetuous baby when you were an hour old, and you are not tamed yet."

"But I am improving rapidly: I might have fretted over an obscure hint about Berlin that I had to-day, and that I could easily have magnified into a bête noire. Instead of which I have been sedulously at play with Charlie this last hour."

"And who is Charlie?" said the kind-hearted physician, taking the child's little wasted hand in his, and looking at him attentively. He could not see a sick child without trying to help it.

"He is the grandchild of my next door neighbour," and Blanche detailed the adventures of the preceding day, ending with an animated description of the magnificent Baroness.

"I know her," he said; "she is always sending for me, because she has nothing the matter with her, and I have not yet succeeded in curing her of her good health. And now, I have a valuable document for you, which I have persuaded Mrs. Armistead to give me." It was a extract from a letter of Mr. Armistead's in which he said that their Prussian negotiation was nearly at an end, that he might come home any day, "but I think of taking a look at Dresden and Vienna, and may perhaps push on to Prague. I want Chester to go with me, but he is spooney about his wife, and in a fidget to get home."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," said Blanche. "Now, is not it a blessing to have a spooney husband? What does spooney mean? However, I do not much care, it evidently means that Arthur is soon coming home. Poor Mrs. Armistead, I suppose she is very much distressed."

"Not a bit. She said she was very glad, that she wanted to go to the sea, and that Armistead was always so bored at the sea-side, he was a worry to her, and now she could go in comfort."

Blanche shrugged her shoulders, and shuddered slightly at this painful picture of married life, and declined to believe that the Armisteads were a happy couple after their own fashion; and while she sat in a happy state of spooney meditation, Dr. Ayscough took her place with the Noah's ark. He settled Charlie on his knee and bowwowed, and growled, and mewed, and made Shem knock down Japheth, and Mrs. Shem catch the grasshopper; and then, putting the child down, he took Blanche aside, and said, "What are they doing with your little friend? He won't live unless he has proper medical treatment. He's a nice little fellow; make them bring him to my house to-morrow, and I will see him here again in a few days. Good-bye, my little man."

"Don't go," said the child, "stay and bark a little more."

"No, no, I have no time for more barking to-day; but you come and see me to-morrow and bring Noah's dog with you; and do you," he said to Blanche, "go and frighten the grandmother. That is your duty for the day."

Blanche did as she was bid. She took little Charlie home, and when he had displayed his toys and was sent up stairs, she repeated to Mrs. Hopkinson the substance of her conversation with the physician.

The tears rolled down the old lady's cheeks as she thanked Lady Chester. "But, you see, we must consult his father, and poor Willis is rather a down-hearted man, and never believes that anything can do good to anybody, or that anybody can do good to anything. But he is coming up the walk, and, perhaps, if your Ladyship told him all this in your cheerful way it might convince him. Ah, poor Willis, he has never recovered the loss of his wife!"

That was a state of affairs to interest Blanche, and she received Willis with a degree of commiseration that flattered him extemely, and satisfied his highest expectations in the way of pity.

"Of course, I should wish my unfortunate child to have every alleviation of which his unhappy state admits. It will do no good; he is doomed, doomed, as every one connected with me must be."

"Oh, don't say so, Charles," cried Janet. "Think of your sisters-in-law."

"But," he continued, with an added share of gloom, "it may be a satisfaction hereafter to think that I had the advice of such an eminent physician, however useless it may be."

"You must not be so desponding," said Blanche, with tears in her eyes; she was actually a believer in Willis. "It is not surprising that, tried as you have been, you should tremble at the idea of a fresh bereavement; but I assure you Dr. Ayscough is very sanguine about dear little Charlie."

"Sanguine!" said Willis, throwing up his eyes, "ah, he little knows! But I will not obtrude my sorrows on your Ladyship." In fact, he was in such a state of self-complacency at being recognised as a victim that he was in imminent danger of being betrayed into cheerfulness. "I shall, of course, follow your advice. How is the poor little sufferer to go, ma'am?" he added, turning to Mrs. Hopkinson.

"Oh, there is no difficulty about that," said Blanche. "I am going to send the carriage to-morrow morning for my sister, and if Mrs. Hopkinson and Charlie will go in it, they can all come back together." She rose to go as she spoke, Willis opened the door with a degree of civility he seldom practiced, and Mrs. Hopkinson followed her into the passage, and ended by giving Lady Chester a warm kiss and sobbing out, "Well, I beg your pardon, but I could not have helped it if you had paid me for it. Nobody knows what that poor child has gone through, and he such a little dear, too! Only three years old! and I only hope he will live to thank you himself; for if ever there was a kind-hearted young creature it's yourself! and now just take care how you go down those steps, and God bless you!"

As Blanche sat by herself in the evening, she felt pleased with the recollection of the pleasure she had given, and planned another neighbourly act. She would try and see more of that interesting Mr. Willis, "and if I can persuade him," she thought, "to be a little more hopeful and resigned, it will add much to the comfort of that good-natured family. Indeed, I am not quite sure he is right to be so very miserable, and as everybody has their mission, they say, my present mission is to try and make Mr. Willis more resigned. I wonder whether he ever laughed in his life? If so, he might be brought to laugh again."

The expedition to London was successful, and Mrs. Hopkinson had a great deal of interesting intelligence to impart to her daughters on her return. The carriage was so smooth, and Lady Chester had had quite a little bed of cushions made up for Charlie, "and as for that Doctor, my dears, I should almost like a short illness if he would attend me. He has put Charlie quite on a new plan, and he has written down all that is to be done; but I suppose he saw, easily enough, that I was as stupid as an old post, and he will come and see him the first time he goes to Pleasance. What a number of good people there are in this world! Then we went to call for Miss Grenville in Grosvenor Square, and she was so interested in Charlie and said that if anybody could do him good Dr. Ayscough would; and I am sure that is true. She had been at the Queen's concert, and seeing I was curious, she told me all about it; only, unluckily, she had not remarked the Queen's dress; but she said the Princess Royal wore a double skirt of white tarlatan looped up with roses, which is a good thing to know, and she said the Princess looked very happy, and thought that Charlie would have to go to the sea in time."

"Why, mamma, what can the Princess know of Charlie?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Hopkinson, laughing, "of course I meant Miss Grenville said that, but I have so much to tell, I mix it all somehow. Madame Grisi sang beautifully. There were at least twenty people waiting in the outer room–I mean at the Doctor's–but directly he saw little Charlie he called us in, and pretended to be so glad to see the wooden dog. I have quite enjoyed my drive, and Miss Grenville's talk, and the only disappointment is that the Prince of Prussia was not there–at the Palace, I mean."

When Aileen arrived at her own door, she asked if there were any one with her sister, and seemed disappointed when she heard that Lord Chesterton was in the garden with my Lady–"No one else?"

"No, ma'am, Colonel Hilton has been here, but he went away directly my Lord came."

Aileen brightened a little, but instead of attempting to join her sister, she went musingly into the drawing-room, and threw herself into an armchair, apparently for the enjoyment of her own thoughts; and her absent manner so excited the curiosity of Baxter that he thought himself obliged to follow, and to ask if she would like to take any refreshment after her drive. And as she did not seem clearly to comprehend what refreshment meant, and declined it with an absent "No, thank you," he went down stairs to inform the housekeeper's room that "there was a screw loose somewhere," which announcement produced a considerable degree of excitement in those regions.

Aileen was not left long to herself and her absorption. Lord Chesterton and Blanche came in from the garden, Blanche with two bright red spots on her cheeks, and looking flurried, and Lord Chesterton, most elaborately polite, and slightly irritable. He was generally a model father-in-law, and Blanche was sincerely attached to him, and anxious to please him; but there is no concealing the melancholy fact that he was by nature what may be called prim, and primness under high pressure is a very alarming quality. On his arrival at Pleasance, he had found a good-looking moustached young gentleman sitting alone with Blanche in the most earnest conversation; they both looked confused on seeing him, and the young officer withdrew in such haste, and in such manifest emotion, that Lord Chesterton's propriety took instant alarm and produced a degree of formal civility that almost came up to the courteousness of the last century. Blanche was no longer Bianca, or little Blanket, no paternal arm was passed round her waist, and no sportive admiration of her charms expressed. She became Lady Chester on the spot. Lord Chesterton almost bowed as he inquired after her health, and the frigidity with which he asked if she ever heard of Lord Chester froze her recollection of Arthur's animated letters, and they seemed to fade into thin sheets of blank paper.

To own the truth, Colonel Hilton's visit had annoyed her quite as much as it had discomposed Lord Chesterton. His manner was odd and excited, he expressed, with needless repetition, his delight at finding her for once alone; and Blanche tried in vain to believe that he had not attempted to take hold of her hand, as he began some disjointed sentences about past anxieties and present happiness. And it was at this crisis that Lord Chesterton arrived. No wonder he looked astonished, and that she felt almost guilty; and the sound of Aileen's carriage was a relief to them both; there would have been a scene if their tête-à-tête had lasted much longer; so Blanche hurried her father-in-law into the house, and, by the help of Aileen and her London topics, conversation was carried on for a few more minutes: and then Lord Chesterton departed, or rather seemed to Blanche to vanish in a black cloud which would dissolve eventually into a letter to Arthur, warning him of the folly of his wife.

"Oh, dear Aileen, what shall I do? he is so angry!"

"What is the matter, darling? I saw Lord Chesterton was not pleased, but don't cry about it–there must be some mistake. What has happened?"

"Why, it is all that dreadful Colonel Hilton. He came here this morning, actually came in at the garden gate, without asking if I were at home, and he began to talk in such a strange way. I am sure I never gave him the slightest encouragement to talk to me of his feelings, and his happiness–I do not care if he is happy, or miserable; and then Lord Chesterton came, and he looked astonished, as well he might, and then, to make matters worse, that odious Colonel Hilton rushed off like a madman leaving my beau-père to suppose that he had disturbed an interesting tête-à-tête, and I know he will write to Berlin. Oh, Aileen! what shall I say to Arthur?"

"I will tell you," said Aileen, clasping her sister fondly in her arms: "tell Arthur that Colonel Hilton is going to be your brother-in-law, and he came to ask you to write to my uncle for us. Blanche, he proposed to me last night at the concert, and I thought I should have been at home two hours ago, and should have told you my story before he came. Dearest, I am so happy."

"Oh, Aileen! my own darling, and so am I. Well, if ever there was a surprise thoroughly and entirely delightful it is this! And so all these visits were for you? Now I see how it was and what a ridiculous goose I have been"; and Blanche laughed like a child, till Aileen caught the infection, and laughed too, till she suddenly asked her sister what they were laughing at.

"Why, at me, child; was there ever anybody so absurd as I have been? How Aunt Sarah will triumph over me! but it was Arthur's fault, originally–he put it into my head that he was jealous of Colonel Hilton; so every time the poor man came here, I thought it was for love of me, or at all events that Arthur would think so; and to-day I really believed he was going to make a declaration in form, and was doubting whether it were not my duty as a wife at least to jump into the river to avoid hearing it. I really do think, as Aunt Sarah says, that my imaginativeness is increasing, and in the wrong direction. Why did not I imagine he was in love with you? nothing could be more natural, so I suppose that was the reason why I did not see it. But why did you not tell me, Aileen?"

"Because I was not sure of it myself. Last year I saw a great deal of him at the Duchess of St. Maur's, and she always implied that her brother liked me; but then, you know, there was that Chancery suit going on about his fortune."

"No, I did not know it; I never read Chancery suits: but I will for the future–I shall look upon them now as connections. But go on Aileen, this is too interesting."

"Well, Uncle Leigh reads Chancery suits, for, if you recollect, he hurried me out of town last year, soon after you came to Aunt Sarah's."

"I know he did, and I have hated him ever since; go on."

"He spoke to me about Colonel Hilton, and said he would have no encouragement given to a man who might be a pauper any day; that the suit would probably go against him; and as I would not promise to avoid him, he carried me to Leigh Hall."

"So like him."

"Well, Alfred–" said Aileen, with a little hesitation.

"And so his name is Alfred–one of my favourite names; but go on."

"Alfred tried, after I was gone, to make a friend of you; but after he had seen you twice, your marriage was declared, so that plan of carrying on our story failed, and as I heard nothing of him, and saw in the papers that he had gone abroad, I began to think he never had cared about me, but somehow that did not cure me of caring about him, and I was so unhappy, Blanche."

"My darling, I don't wonder, and you never told me a word about all this!"

"I thought I had been so silly; and when the lawsuit was decided in Alfred's favour, and he came into that immense fortune, Uncle Leigh began to suspect that he had been silly too, for he asked me if he should invite Colonel Hilton to Leigh Hall. Think of the degradation; of course, I said no, decidedly; but I believe Uncle Leigh thought there might be a chance of my meeting him at your house, or he would not so readily have let me come when you wanted me."

"And when you did come, there was I scowling away the very individual you wished to see," said Blanche, again relapsing into one of her laughing fits. "But, however, all's well that ends well; only I wish I knew what had become of the unfortunate Alfred; between me and my beau-père, he must have a low opinion of the manners of the Chestertons. Do you suppose he went back to town?"

"I feel sure somehow that we shall see him in the course of the day," said Aileen, with a placid satisfied smile. "But you must not call Alfred odious any more," she whispered.

"I never did–I said that the Colonel Hilton of my imagination was odious; but I like Alfred, who is to make my Aileen the happiest wife in the world, except her sister; and I shall soon begin to love him. But now I must write to Lord Chesterton."

"Oh! it is to be a secret, Blanche, for a few days."

"Yes, I know, dear–all marriages are secrets, till everybody has been told of them; but Lord Chesterton must be enlightened for the good of my character; and like all men embarked in great affairs, he loves a small confidence." So Blanche sat down and wrote:

"MY DEAR LORD CHESTERTON,–Your visit to-day was so unsatisfactory both to you and myself that you must come and see me again to-morrow or the next day at latest, and wish me joy of my darling Aileen's marriage to that Colonel Hilton who was sitting with me when you arrived to-day. I had never heard a word of their attachment, which it appears has been of many months' standing, and was brought to a happy conclusion at the concert last night. He came to be received as a brother, and found that Aileen had not returned, and that I was utterly ignorant of what had occurred. His unexpected visit and his confused manner distressed me, and when I saw how much you were annoyed, I felt that 'appearances were against me,' and I could not explain to you what was inexplicable to myself. Aileen's first few words made everything clear, and now you must come and be again the kind father you have always been to your poor little Blanket, who was a very wet blanket this morning. I could not help crying after you left me so coldly, but I am very happy now, and you have been always so kind to my sister that I know you will sympathise with her happiness, and I have extorted from her the permission to tell you what is to be a secret to the rest of the world for a few days.

"Your affectionate daughter.
"B. C."

Now there was nothing in the world pleased Lord Chesterton so much as a small confidence. He liked to feel that he had in his possession an actual secret: something that was made clear in black and white to him, and remained a blank to the rest of the world. He carried these confidential letters about in his waistcoat pocket, occasionally alluding to them mysteriously, and perhaps allowing to a very intimate friend the sight of one corner of the envelope, or of half the postage stamp.

Moreover, being very precise and reserved himself, the ease and frankness of his daughter-in-law were, to him, a constant source of surprise and amazement. He always recommended a very little more prudence in her conversation, and perhaps a shade less of rashness in her opinions, but he would have been extremely sorry had she attended to his recommendations. He liked her, as she was frank and open, and a perfect contrast to himself. He was touched by her note, by her sensitiveness to his blame or praise, and by her perception of the dignified manner in which he had shown his disapprobation of the slightest levity, and he arrived at Pleasance the following morning in a high state of paternal affection and affability. He shook hands warmly with Colonel Hilton, embraced Aileen, though not without some misgivings as to the propriety of the act, and presented her with a magnificent bracelet; whereupon she returned his embrace and thereby relieved him of his scruples.

The rest of his visit was passed in petting and admiring his daughter, and, having placed in her hand a gorgeous-looking porte-monnaie, he ventured to say, "that though it was hardly decorous he should allude to certain circumstances, yet he was aware that his good little Blanche must be making preparations for an expected happy event, and that he had brought his contribution to what he believed was called a layette." But this last word was too much for his delicacy, and he departed covered with confusion. The benevolent old villain was conscious that he had written to Arthur a mistaken statement of Blanche's conduct, and though the counter statement had followed immediately on the receipt of her note he looked upon his offering partly as an atonement

"It is a shame that Lord Chesterton should have given me this magnificent bracelet, and only that 'trifle from Paris' to you," said Aileen.

But when a cheque for five hundred pounds presented itself, the chorus of approbation was loud and unanimous, and Blanche's mind, wrapped in a christening robe, was lost in a sea of Valenciennes and embroidery.

CHAPTER IX

"MAMMA," said Janet, a few days after this, "are you going to return Lady Chester's visit?"

"No, my dear, certainly not. It was very proper of her to call, as she thought herself obliged to us for shelter from that rain, and as for her kindness to little Charlie, it passes all belief, except that everybody loves that child, but she don't want me as a visitor, and a nice figure I should be in her drawing-room. Why there's been as many as eight or ten carriages there the last two afternoons, with such fine people in them. That Duchess's carriage is always there. I should be more out of place there than the Baroness was here."

"That awful Baroness!" said Rose; "Charles says she is to arrive at Marble Hall to-morrow for good–did not you, Charles?"

"I said she was coming to stay–good I never anticipate, and in this case I anticipate considerable evil. She is too prosperous to enter into my feelings. Look! what she sent me to-day." And he brought from an envelope black bordered to the extent of half an inch four tickets of the brightest blue, ornamented with Cupids performing most dangerous antics on diminutive rosebuds. "Tickets for a picnic, the Lord Mayor's barge, and a band, and probably dancing; in fact everything most repugnant to my tastes and habits–the Baroness should have a little more tact"; and he almost groaned as he detailed this pointed affront to his reputation for complete broken-heartedness.

"To be sure, my dear, it was rather thoughtless; but you see, she meant well, for the tickets are marked at a guinea each. It was a handsome idea; though why she should spend four guineas to make you do what you don't like, I cannot see."

"Is it possible?" slowly murmured Willis, "can any one be so blind to the sordid side of human nature and picnics? Ma'am, I am to pay her for them–that is, if I had kept them, I should have paid. She is a patroness, and has so many tickets she must dispose of, and she wished to pass four of them off on me, that's all"; and he replaced them in the black envelope which contained a note in still deeper mourning, which note conveyed to the Baroness a stern intimation that "Mr. Willis never (two dashes under never) joined any (one dash) party of Pleasure, and was quite (two more dashes) unequal to the gaieties of a picnic." He looked at his note with a satisfied air of finished despondency.

"Miss Janet," said Charlie's nurse, presenting herself, "Lady Chester's compliments and she'd be much obliged if you would step in for a few minutes, if not ill-convenient."

"Nothing the matter with Charlie, is there?" said Janet jumping up. The two young aunts doted on that child.

"Bless your heart, no, Miss! except that he's in a fair way to be utterly spoiled. Missus telled me to keep him out of the way, as my Lady was so kind about the garden; but Law! first one and then another comes, and the tall gentleman with the moustache who is there for everlasting wanted to put him cot and all into a boat and give him a row; but I thought he might be drownded like, and I knowed I should be sea sick, so I said, no; and now, Miss, will you come?"

"Must I go, Mamma? That poor Mrs. Thomson is dismissed from the hospital to-day, and she has not a friend nor a relation in the world, and I promised to go and see her, and consult with the matron as to what could be done for her."

"Is she a widow?" asked Willis.

"Yes, her husband was drowned, and she met with some dreadful accident, and has been in the hospital for three months."

"Well, in consequence of her bereavement, I will give you the price of one of these tickets," said Willis, who was in high good humour at the notice taken of his child, and with himself for the dignified rebuke he had given the Baroness. "Yet money is no consolation."

"Oh, is not it?" interrupted Janet; "you would not say so, if you saw some of those poor creatures crying when they leave the hospital because they have no home to go to. I am sure I am very much obliged to you, Charles, your guinea will be such an assistance to that poor woman. Mamma, if I have not returned from Pleasance in a quarter of an hour, will you take it to her?" and so saying she departed.

She was shown into Blanche's boudoir, who apologised for having sent for her, but "We," she said, pointing to a tall distinguished-looking woman, very simply dressed, who was sitting by her, "are much interested about two or three poor women in the hospital here, and Mr. Greydon says that you know them all, and can give us more information about them than he can."

Janet's heart beat with delight. Mr. Greydon's praises were as unexpected as they were delightful, and she keenly felt, too, the possibility of benefiting some of her favourite protégées. Mrs. Thomson's case was considered and relieved, an ayslum procured for a young crippled orphan, and "Clara," as the dignified friend was called by Lady Chester, said she had heard much from the poor patients of Miss Hopkinson's assiduity in visiting and reading to them, and how they enjoyed hearing her and her sister sing.

"Oh, do you sing?" exclaimed Blanche, "I have not heard a song for ages; you must give me one."

"You would not call mine singing, Lady Chester," said Janet, smiling, "my sister and I have had very little instruction, and have scarcely ever heard any real music; but we have taught ourselves a few chants and hymns, and some old-fashioned ballads, which please our poor sick friends, but I doubt if they would please anybody else. We moved our pianoforte into the back room when you came here, for fear our noise should disturb you."

The Dead March in Saul struck its melancholy old chords on Blanche's conscience, but she remembered that it was played with great expression, and again she begged Janet to sing, and opened the pianoforte; but Janet said that an accompaniment was not necessary for the little she could do, and that little was not worth asking for twice. So without the slightest shyness she began Old Robin Grey, in a rich sweet voice that astonished her hearers. She seemed to be reciting the story, rather than singing the song, with a degree of pathos that overpowered them; and just as the heroine's heart was 'like to break,' a sob from Lady Chester put an end to her griefs, and to Robin's hopes, and Janet's ballad.

"What is the matter, Lady Chester?" she exclaimed.

"Why, your singing, child; it's worse than the 'mither that did not speak,' for breaking hearts. It is the most touching thing I ever heard. Now is it not, Clara?"

But Clara was wiping her eyes and did not answer.

"Dear Miss Hopkinson, what a gift that voice of yours is; it would be so kind if you would let us come sometimes and hear you and your sister practise. Is her singing equal to yours?"

"Rose sings much better than I do," said Janet simply, "and if you really think it would amuse you, and are not saying these kind things merely to please me, I am sure we should both be delighted to come and sing to you whenever you like. We are expecting dear papa home next month," she added, her eyes sparkling with delight, "and he is so fond of all these old ballads that we are very musical just now. If you have nothing more to ask about the hospital, Lady Chester, I should like to go there now, to tell Mrs. Thomson and Ellen Smith what will make them so happy; and I will just run first into the garden, and send little Charlie home: I cannot tell you how much mamma feels your kindness to our poor little darling."

"He is a darling," said Blanche.

"And a great pet of mine," added Clara. "My carriage is at the door, Miss Hopkinson, and I will put you down at the hospital; while you send your little nephew home, I will put on my bonnet, and we will meet you in the hall."

"Oh, thank you," said Janet, "then I am sure of being in time for Mrs. Thomson," and she ran hastily down stairs.

"Now that is what I call a pleasing girl," said the Duchess, "not shy nor awkward, and yet not forward; and she is evidently spending her quiet little life in doing all the good that comes within her means. Then her singing! My dear, I am ashamed of myself. I began to fancy that the Duke was old Robin Grey, and that I must have jilted some Jamie for him. You and Aileen, Blanche, have escaped being fast –"

"Thanks to Aunt Sarah," said Blanche.

"And thanks to your own good sense and taste; but if you could see some of the young girls who have hardly been out a year! their forward manners, the way in which they talk upon subjects which even now I should be ashamed to allude to–their careless manners to their mothers, and their extraordinary self-sufficiency–you would be shocked. That unaffected quiet girl is quite refreshing. I think I shall cultivate the Hopkinsons, Blanche."

In the hall, the Duchess found Janet, who, at the sight of the carriage, became aware of her companion's rank, and rather regretted the bold measure she had taken, in accepting a drive with an unknown friend. She did not know precisely how to address her; had visionary ideas of saying your Grace, which she rejected as plebeian; and then wondered at herself for having sung to a person whose concerts were constantly mentioned as the finest in London. However, as she told Rose afterwards, "the Duchess was not half so grand as Baroness Sampson, and quite unlike her; and when I have said that, it shows why I found myself talking to her about you, and mamma, and the poor people; just as I should to any of our own friends; and when we reached the hospital, I could not help begging her to come in, that she might tell those poor women herself what arrangements she had made for them. It was so nice to hear her talk to them, and then she is able to do so much for them. How pleasant it must be to be very rich. And then Mr. Greydon came in," added Janet, blushing, "and do you know she told him of my singing, and he said he had never had the good fortune of hearing the Miss Hopkinsons sing, except at church, and she said he had then a great pleasure to come. She wanted to bring me home. Again I thought of the Baroness and her rudeness to dear mamma; but of course I preferred walking. Mr. Greydon walked part of the way with me." And then there followed a pause: the fact was too important to be mixed up with meaner subjects; and Mr. Greydon's remarks on the promising crops, and the prevalence of whooping cough in the school, and the slight improvement of little Charlie, were put up for private rumination. They were too sacred to be imparted even to Rose.

CHAPTER X

"I HAD a funny note this morning from your friend the Baroness, Willis," said Mrs. Hopkinson. "It appears she has got into some dispute with Randall, and she, rather coolly, asks me to come and look over the inventory with him, as she cannot trust her servants, and is not accustomed to that sort of drudgery herself. Now I am sure I like to be neighbourly, but I do not see why I am to drudge for Baroness Sampson, and I don't want to get into a quarrel with Randall."

"Of course not, ma'am. You are quite right. It is an object with me to keep well with the Sampsons, and I suppose she thought, naturally enough, that my family would be civil to her. She is disappointed. That is not of the slightest consequence. Poor woman! She has only just discovered the macaw. She says she never would have taken Marble Hall if she had been aware of that nuisance, and she thinks Randall ought to have told her, and wants him to get rid of it; but he not only says he does not know where it is, but that he thought it sounded very cheerful. Ah well! it's all of a piece with the rest of life, as I tell her. Incivility your only help, and a macaw's scream your only harmony. Life! life!"

"Law! my dear, don't talk in that way. I did not mean to be uncivil."

"So I told her, ma'am, when she said how much your note had surprised and distressed her. I assured her you did not mean any incivility, and that indeed I felt certain, from the melancholy tie which binds you and me, that you could not have intended to annoy any friend of mine, and Miss Monteneros agreed with me. I had meant to have dined at Marble Hall–it will be a convenience to me in that sort of way–but it is in such confusion that I must go back to my solitary home."

Mrs. Hopkinson looked consternated at the view presented to her of her conduct, and professed her willingness to go instantly to Marble Hall and make herself of use, a concession that Willis accepted simply with a sigh–the true Willis sigh, to be had only of the inventor. The girls, who did not at all approve of his selfish management of their mother, said that as she had already refused, she could not go now unless a new request were made for her services.

"It has been made through me. I told Miss Monteneros I should go and fetch her."

"And who, upon earth, is Miss Monteneros?" said Rose.

"Baron Sampson's niece, a very rich heiress and a charming girl."

This was said severely, and intended to make his sisters-in-law feel that they were not to be ranked in that category.

"Well, then, she might assist her aunt."

Willis shook his head, murmured, "How little you understand her," and then asked Mrs. Hopkinson if she were ready. He led his victim away in mournful triumph, leaving the girls in a high state of indignation, and with a slight hope that Miss Monteneros might eventually turn out his consoler. "And I trust she has a domineering temper," said Janet.

"And very high spirits," added Rose.

The Baroness received poor Mrs. Hopkinson very coldly. If that excellent woman had persisted in her refusal, the Baroness would probably have called on her the following day, and would have treated her with politeness as an equal. Now she saw an opening for transforming her into a slave, and a tame slave would be a useful addition to her establishment. Marble Hall was certainly in a great state of confusion–the butler and housekeeper at open war with each other, but united in their abuse of Randall; one charwoman in a vociferous state of inebriation, another suffering under a sleepy form of the same disease, a housemaid in hysterics, and two ladies' maids drinking tea, and calmly surveying a long row of unopened imperials and cap boxes. The Baroness was scolding them all in terms of such vulgar energy that a faint thought crossed Mrs. Hopkinson's mind that she must, at an early period of her life, have been personally acquainted with the habits and languages of the offices. At all events, her manner of treating her servants was not calculated to excite either their attachment or respect. At the sight of Mrs. Hopkinson she immediately relapsed into the helpless fine lady: "Oh! you are come–I am so much obliged to Willis." Again Mrs. Hopkinson thought that a little gratitude to herself would have been an agreeable variety. "Just step into the drawing-room, and I will tell you all my difficulties, and I know, you good soul, that you will undertake them for me. You see my butler (I took him from the Marquis Guadagni) is a very fine gentleman, and he says he cannot undertake hired glass. He has been used to the best cut of his own, and he will have nothing to do with the inventory, and that put it into my housekeeper's head to say the same of the china; and my maid and Miss Monteneros' will not unpack our things because they are not satisfied with the wardrobes; and then Randall will not furnish Psyche glasses, and the women that came to help are both drunk. This is really too much for even my spirits," said the Baroness, sinking into an armchair. "How Countess Montalbano would laugh if she saw me called upon to arrange all this embarras –poor me! and so now do take it all in hand, you kind creature, and see if you can make some order out of this chaos."

"I don't see much that I can do," said Mrs. Hopkinson bluntly, "I can ask Randall to send in another looking-glass or two–perhaps he will oblige me as an old neighbour–and I can recommend one or two steady charwomen in place of those you have; but you must get rid of the others first."

"Ah, yes!" said the Baroness, sinking deeper into her languor, "those creatures must go. Would you kindly send them away? and then if you would just run over the inventory with Randall, it would help my butler and housekeeper out of the dilemma in which they have placed themselves."

This was too much even for the goodnature of Mrs. Hopkinson, who was as nearly being angry as ever she was in her life; and at all events, it swept away all concern for Willis's feelings towards the Sampsons.

"Well, they must remain where they have placed themselves, if it depends on me to help them out of it. I am happy to say I know nothing about fine servants and their ways. Mine do what I tell them, and there is an end of it; and I would advise you, Baroness, to tell yours that if everything is not arranged in the course of the afternoon you will send them all away in the evening. If they obey, there is an end of your troubles; if not, there is an end of your servants, and a good thing too."

"And about the inventory?" said the Baroness, making a last attempt to treat Mrs. Hopkinson as a dependent.

"I have no doubt it is all right. If not, that young lady perhaps could see to it."

"Me!" said Miss Monteneros, opening her very large eyes, and dropping the glass with which she had been surveying her aunt and Mrs. Hopkinson.

"Rachel taking an inventory!" said the Baroness, with a scornful laugh, "that is not very likely."

"No, indeed," said Willis, "I am sure she is not equal to these household cares."

Again Rachel surveyed them through her glass, and then, turning away, murmured

"Ye household cares, vex not my mind
with your inglorious strife,
Nor seek in sordid chains to bind
My free aesthetic life."

"Oh dear, that poetry!" said the Baroness, who was thoroughly out of sorts, "am I never to hear anything else?"

"You never heard that before, Aunt. I composed those lines while you and your friend were transacting business. What would become of us," she said in a sort of caressing manner to Mrs. Hopkinson, "without that meaning word aesthetic? Does not it express all and everything?"

"It may, my dear," said Mrs. Hopkinson, who could not help laughing at Rachel's drawling manner; "but I never heard it before, and do not know what it means now. If you had said asthmatic, I should have understood you at once; and now I must wish you all good morning; my girls will be expecting me."

The Baroness coldly said good-bye: the young lady seemed dreamingly disposed, and Willis, who was half-ashamed of his friends, condescended to escort his mother-in-law, and withdrew rather statelily.

"Now there!" said the Baroness, "I do believe that woman is affronted. She really gives herself airs–not that I care, provided she does not influence the precious Willis, the morose son-in-law."

"A little more than kin and less than kind," interposed Rachel.

"Now do give up that nonsensical habit–it has lasted a week and I am sick of it, and what is more, it does not take with Willis, and I tell you once more that it is of immense importance to the Baron to . . . . to . . . . " she was puzzled with the Baron's schemes, and perhaps ashamed to put them into words. "In short, Rachel, Mr. Willis must be–"

"Taken in, Aunt Rebecca?" She looked fixedly at her Aunt, and saw her shrink, but the Baroness rallied, and said:

"He must be civilly treated and made to feel that we are his real friends, and I must insist on your making our house agreeable to him."

"I cannot possibly combine the two very distinct ideas of Mr. Willis and agreeableness; and if you object to my poetical vein, I am lost. You told me he was sentimental, and I had collected a splendid set of quotations, adapted to that state of mind, and now 'my tongue must be a stringless instrument.' What next, Aunt?"

"There is no use in attempting to make you hear reason," said the Baroness, who was in a towering passion, to the great delight of Rachel; "your uncle will be extremely angry, and now, as that tiresome woman will not help me, I must go and settle the house somehow. The Baron wants to give a great fête next week, and then there is that water-party, and half the tickets are still on my hands, and none of the arrangements made; and you –what are you as a help? lying on a sofa reading poetry–more of an encumbrance than a help."

"Thank you, Aunt. At all events it is a blessing to be something, if it be only an encumbrance; and as you are going up stairs, will you ask the maids, if they have not drunk all the tea, to bring me a cup?"

There was a slight approximation to a bang in the manner in which the Baroness shut the door; but when it was closed, Rachel's whole expression and manner altered, her half insolent, half sleepy looks vanished, and the repressed air of drollery which characterised her countenance changed to a look of anxiety, as, resting her head on her clasped hands, she seemed to give herself up to deep and painful thoughts. She was trying to realise her position: days of childhood came before her–a home, a mother, young affections, strong and cherished; and then a blank–both her parents swept away, and she the ward of Baron Sampson. Not a burden, for she inherited the wealth, that to one so young was valueless; but no longer the child of Home, not uncared for, but unloved. Her school days had not been unhappy; she found warm friends in some of her companions, and an able guide in her instructress, and by her own desire she remained at school till she was nineteen. Then the Baroness claimed her with an unaccountable eagerness. She was courted, flattered, petted; but the instincts of youth are even clearer than the experience of age. She felt the falseness of the atmosphere in which she lived: all was false, the Baron's courtesy, the Baroness's caresses, the attentions of Cousin Moses. "We are all actors and actresses," she used to say, "and none of us quite up to our parts, though we act all day long."

This went on for two years. A month ago she came of age, and on her birthday her uncle presented her with a splendid parure of opals and diamonds, ("false, of course," she thought to herself) and, at the same time, requested her to sign some dreary looking parchments, which he called "releases–mere forms; but they relieve me from all responsibility with regard to your fortune, and they make you a very independent young lady." From that day the tone of the family had visibly changed, she felt she was treated with neglect, more as the poor relation than the wealthy ward, and there was less disguise practised as to the Baron's speculations and money matters.

The manner in which she had been almost ordered to decoy Willis into the house had awakened suspicions which her Aunt's change of countenance, when jestingly taxed with deceiving him, had confirmed; and she was now bringing herself to the conviction that the Baron's wealth was another falsity, and that her fortune had been, by some artifice connected with those parchments, placed in his power. "And I have not a relation nor a friend at hand whose aid I can demand, I live in a prison disguised as a palace, and take my share in the foolery that is to deceive the bystanders. But I will not lure others into the ruin that may have overtaken me. If that man's eyes cannot be opened, his mother shall be warned. How that woman's honesty warmed me! I could have hugged her. I think I like my Aunt better since she has become openly uncivil–there is truth in that, and I suppose I shall have enough of it to satisfy me."

But there she was mistaken. The Baron arrived from the city and was for some time closeted with his wife, and when they all met at a very uncomfortable dinner, the old caressing manners were resumed. Rachel was, "dear child," and "lady fair," and "sweet thing," at every moment, and when the ladies withdrew, the Baroness was in fits of laughter at herself. "Those horrid servants had so annoyed her, that she supposed she must almost have lost her temper, and certainly must have lost her senses when she spoke as she had done to her little Rachel; such a dear, and so amusing with her funny little quotations–the Baroness delighted in them, and would not miss one for the world."

"'The world is a huge thing, a large price for a small vice.' That is from Othello, Aunt."

"You clever creature, what talents you have! The Baron always says you are the shrewdest woman he ever saw–it would be impossible to deceive you."

"Then some deceit is intended," was the shrewd woman's thought, and she made up her mind to watch.

CHAPTER XI

WILLIS and Mrs. Hopkinson walked for some time in silence, and then she suddenly said,

"I don't like those people, Charles. I do not mind their rudeness to me; I suppose I look like a respectable housekeeper, and she thinks I am one–that does not matter; but I do not quite make out what they are. What do you know of them, my dear?"

"He is one of the wealthiest men in the city," said Willis apologetically, for he was rather nettled that his mother-in-law should have been treated cavalierly, "and she is a very fine lady."

"Very fine, my dear, but not a lady, take my word for it; I don't mind her not being ladylike in manner, nor, indeed, in look, which to my thinking she is not, but I hate her pretences."

"Pretensions, ma'am, you mean."

"No, I don't, Charles, I know what pretensions are, we all have them; I mean pretences. Her helplessness, her ignorance, her nerves are all pretence, and before you have any dealings with that family in money matters–speculations I think you call them–I would advise you to know a little more of their history."

Willis was rather appalled at this. He had a great opinion of Mrs. Hopkinson's sterling sense, and he had an instinctive idea that her advice was good; but it came too late. He had already, to some extent, embroiled himself in the Baron's schemes, and was on the point of embarking on a larger joint speculation. That he might avoid, and he determined to take his mother-in law's counsel, though, of course, with a murmur at her for offering it.

On their arrival at home, they found that Janet and Rose were at Pleasance. Mrs. Hopkinson read a note from Lady Chester, which they had left on the table, and showing it to Willis said, "Now I call that the note of a lady. She wants to hear them sing together, and wishes Lady Sarah to have that pleasure, too; but she hopes they will not think of coming if they have any engagement whatever, but name some other time, and she invites me to come too."