"And what may that be?" said Wertley, pruning a twig from the raspberries.

"A service he did my poor mother, which I can never forget to him; a very handsome act." Here he stopped, and allowed Mr. Wertley's imagination to select at large and fill-up the blank with golden opinions.

Perhaps there was some hidden sting in these words of Mr. David Chantrey which has escaped us; but we confess to a sense of disappointment. They illustrate merely an eccentric generosity, a small-beer sentiment, a plentiful lack of spirit, in one whom we have hitherto ventured to depict as a man of action and hot blood. Now had he spoken as follows, adopting the same temperate tone which distinguished the Major's observations, we should have felt a secret glow of satisfaction, and offered him our applause:

"Aw, Mr. Wertley, I have every reason to believe that the Major is a very amiable person; indeed, I may add very generous in matters relating to his purse; but let me tell you in confidence he is a disgraced man,-cut by society, however unjustly,-and branded a coward by the service."

This had been a very pretty thrust home, and had marked one for Mr. David Chantrey. As it was, his tribute to his enemy was really weak, Quixotic, and I doubt but half sincere. "A handsome act toward my poor mother." Comical and equivocal also!

"Upon my word I'm very glad to hear it," said old Wertley; "very handsome; quite what I should expect."

What form of obligation Mr. Wertley's imagination had shaped out, is impossible to conjecture; but it was evident that the impression left upon his mind was highly favourable to Major De Lindesey. Soon after, the two parties met at the end of the hedge, and Emmie came forward to fondle poor Lizzy. The look on that languid little face went to the young lady's heart like an electric spark. She took the little figure from David's arms, and insisted upon carrying it in herself. She left the gentlemen together in the drawing-room, and, bringing the child to her own room, took off her wrappings, and showed her the canaries in the window and her reflection in the looking-glass. She showed her pictures, and tried to explain them; but in this she was not so successful as the clumsy big brother. When the child began naming the ladies in the Book of Fashion after the Apostles, and had harped with random earnestness upon the doings of a certain sower who went forth to sow, Emmie rather lost her presence of mind, and cast about for the child's meaning and the mode in which she should entertain her.

Though unsuccessful in her efforts, and conscious of a certain estrangement, which touched neither her pity nor the womanly fondness for any thing helpless or weak, Emmie nevertheless had achieved a certain good result; for the child woke up, and took a good deal of friendly notice of her companion, whilst seated by her side during tea.

The sun was setting when David proposed to take Lizzy home. At

this period of the evening the child was fast asleep, her head pillowed on Emmie's lap, and Emmie's fingers wandering through her hair.

"It would be cruei to disturb her," said Miss Wertley; "leave her with us to-night, Mr. Chantrey; we will take great care of her, and we can send her home to-morrow in the pony-phaeton."

David spoke of the trouble it would be to Miss Wertley; and as this was the only ground he took in objection, Emmie overbore it with decision.

"We shall send the servant immediately," she continued, "to put your father's mind at ease."

"Never mind that," said David quietly; and with the Major took his

leave.

"Well, Chantrey, you are a clumsy fellow-I've got that to say. I did my best to play into your hands."

"Why, you sat upon me!" cried David, laughing aloud. "Heaven bless you, you sat upon me the whole day!"

The Major felt the hopelessness of reasoning with a man in such an excitable and eccentric mood, and he let him alone for the present.

The next day found the Major in the same rough quarters. He spoke of going in an hour or so, but in a lazy speculative sort of way, which indicated an unwillingness to go. David's sense of hospitality was kept continually on the alert by the indecision of his guest. He was under a reaction of feeling towards him, and self-reproachful for his roughness on the preceding night, and was casting about for civil and soothing speeches.

In these soft moments, the Major, springing to his feet, assailed him with a proposition so wildly improbable in its nature, and so inconsistent with the due and proper conventions of the story-books, that, were my readers to lay down the book and speculate with Hindoo abstraction for a whole moon, they would be as far from an exposition as at this moment. Should, however, any one of my readers, more daring than the rest, be so bold in the cause of psychology as to attain to the Major's precise state of mind, by first incurring some social disgrace, and, as a consequence, begin to sicken of society, to feel squeamish at all associations therewith, and unexpectedly should open up a refuge in a new and healthy sphere, where consequence is regained, where comparison flatters, where contact braces, then he might even take the same whim as the Major.

"Chantrey," said the Major, starting to his feet, "I like this place; I've lived delicately these many years; now, by George! I long for water and brown bread. Let me chum with you."

David was scared. He hesitated, he endeavoured to come at a refusal in some complimentary form; but the Major charged home on his wavering front.

"Let's try it for a week, and see how we like one another. We'll share expenses, and I'll have my camp-bed brought over and rigged up

in any corner. You've lots of work to do, and so have I; and we'll pull together. Come, it's a bargain for a week."

We repeat that the attack was made when David's heart was soft, and it was made in such a way that it did not cut off hopes of ultimate retreat.

"He will tire of the place in a week," thought he, and let it be.

For the rest of that day he had no peace. The Major's energy was up. He had a luggage-van to the door containing what he needed. Shopmen assailed the bell with parcels for delivery; the Major's valet, a meek and gentlemanly man, was in and out all that day and all the next, enduring the Major's imprecations, and indeed permitted to do nothing every thing he attempted being condemned by the Major. His solicitous services, so to speak, kicked aside whilst the Major showed him how to do it.

The Major had over his violoncello, and sat booming away in the midst of the confusion, till David grew distracted. Booming and growling and croaking the livelong day, like some inveterate gnome come to haunt the chambers and sit upon their master.

The Major was a violent advocate for fresh air; he had all the windows open; so that poor David, who had hereditary delicacy of chest, took an influenza, and was compelled to remonstrate.

"I can bear cold as well as any man; but I can't live in a draught,” said he resolutely, putting down all the windows.

66

'By Jove!" laughed the Major; "afraid of a draught that wouldn't float a f-f-feather." He blushed at the word.

All this time De Lindesey was under a vague and complacent impression that he was conferring an obligation upon Chantrey, reducing his rent to half-stall-feeding him, by George, sir;-and, indeed, in the matter of diet there was an improvement. The table accustomed to expose such coarse sundries as a neck steak, a brace of fat chops, in the rare event of the master dining at home, now displayed curries and pies from the neighbouring confectioner's, ducks and green peas, game, French entrées. The Major seemed to delight in such little incongruities, by which he supposed he held David's mind in a continual feeble dismay. Now the fact of the matter was, that David, though a voracious youth, had much rather have eaten his coarse fare in peace, and only partook of the Major's delicacies out of a gracious misgiving lest he should hurt his sensitive guest.

The Major, we repeat, seemed to delight in little incongruities whilst he took up his abode in the Inn; the chief of these, by far, was the frequent presence of that gentlemanly-dressed person doing menial offices in the chambers of his humble friend. Observe how startling and effective was the dramatic position. Here was the Major in his gray shooting-jacket and worsted slippers,-the Major whom society had cut,―a disgraced gentleman, in a position to blaspheme at, abuse, nay kick down stairs, a most gentlemanly-looking personage. If this

man made the slightest mistake in his many commissions,-if, when waiting at table, he was caught gazing vacantly for an instant at the wall, the Major swore at him imperially. This kept the poor fellow's nerves on the strain, and caused him, by excess of anxiety, to blunder all the more.

“You d―n scoundrel, look at the mud on my trousers! You didn't see? How dare you answer me! Silence, you fool! I'll kick you down stairs."

Can it be believed that the Major's vanity was so pitiful as to inspire him with this petty tyranny-that he could possibly have had regard to the impressive effect such a display of power might have upon his companion's weak mind? Never; it could not be. Surely this wrath and exaction arose from the obvious cause,-irritable nerves, remorse, and so forth. Yet we are bound to state briefly the fact that the Major was growing fat and recovering his spirits. He was sometimes, however, so gracious as to jest with his slave upon his romantic name.

“I say, Mr. Vincent Aubrey, what lady's novel was your mother reading the day before you were born?—I say, Chantrey," he might add sotto voce, “don't look aggrieved, old fellow, a lady's novel may be a good thing too; a good thing sometimes comes out of Galilee.-Come, Vincent Aubrey, give me a glass of stout."

From some motive,-probably an unconscious one,-David treated this man with a respect and kindness which could not have been resented by a bishop or a duke. The Major simply ascribed it to the awe that awakes in the breast of poor proud men in the presence of my lord's valet. This might have given some zest perhaps to the Major's exhibitions of discipline; but it was a fact that the man's thin mouth, so prim and straight under insult, quivered at David's kindness.

So passed a week. The Major did not seem to tire of his whim, and Chantrey bore with him day by day, conversing with him goodhumouredly in his leisure moments on whatever topic turned up, save one; upon that he was silent, even to rudeness. The Major ceased at last either to rally or encourage him upon his feelings towards Miss Wertley.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE HEART IN WHICH THE ARROW LODGED.

DAVID was not easy about the young one. Some of that old motherly fidget of the departed "blue" was in his blood. He had an instinct that children are delicate ware; their sighs and their hot little hands, and the serious broodings among their neglected toys, are signs. He had misgivings, and he got up, after a restless night, at seven o'clock to walk out and see after the young one, just as if he had been summoned to do so by his mother at his pillow; and it's my notion that her hand was on his shoulder that dull morning, rousing him to go. This morning was her birthday-never forgotten by him;

sacredly kept; so it is likely she should be stirring to-day. He entered a druggist's near Euston Square on his way, whose shutters were just down, and asked for-by the immortal Gamp! he asked for James's powders with as familiar a grace as if he were the father of a dozen. It's my private belief, I repeat, and I challenge ridicule, that the spirit of the little "blue" did rouse him at his pillow, crying to him in a ghostly whisper: "Davy, Davy, go and see my little one!" and that she sped with him through the damp gray morning, wistful and eager like living mothers. Ay, and as he passed the apothecary's, with a contempt for the poetical such as a legendary ghost dare not entertain, but with genuine motherly nature, she led him up to the counter, a lamb under her guidance, and asked through him for James's powders. What did he know of such infantine pharmacy?

"Davy," said the ghost, "buy three James's powders;" and he bought them and went on his way.

When he got home, upstairs she went at his side, and in to her poor little Lizzy, this anxious mother-bird, as surely as if you could hear the humming of her wings,-and there in fact and verity lay the child bright-eyed and feverish, in her little cot; and there stood the unmotherly little servant scolding and grumbling at her charge for her wild talk and silly chatter. No one to light a night-lamp all the night past, which might lay all those ugly shapes that prance about in the darkness, riveting the eyes of small ailing folk. Above all, no cheerful smile and gentle hand to soothe the young one's mind in its little tempests of alarm all the night past, and to tell her those sullen far voices were only the town-clocks.

"Jenny, Jenny, Jenny! was that a cock-crow?" cried the young one from hour to hour through the night.

66

Hush, you! more like a naughty young cat."

Then would come an hour's silence, perhaps. Jenny would snooze off, and lift up an idiotic snore so awful that Lizzy dared not question it; for those shapes in the darkness danced to its music.

"Jenny, Jenny!" at length would come the timid cry again. "Oh, dear, will ee let a body sleep?" Jenny would squeak, sharp and shrill. "What ails ye?"

"Was that a cock-crow? Listen to the cock-crow!" "Oh, drat your cock! Go to sleep."

"Poor Simon Peter is crying-crying; and the cock crew thrice, Jenny," sobbed Lizzy. "Listen!....

was that the cock-crow?"

"I'll get up this moment and tell the master of ye, ye silly; he'll treat ye to a crow as 'ill make ye behave. Be quiet now."

"I want drink!"

Jenny lifted up her snore in contemptuous retort.

"I want drink-drink!"

But still Jenny snored away with a lofty idiotic note, and did not wake till morning.