Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

CHAPTER XV. SWEET USES OF ADVERSITY.

One furnace many times the good and bad will hold; But what consumes the chaff will only cleanse the gold. R. C. TRENCH.

During the succeeding days, James had little will or power to consider his affairs; and Isabel, while attending on him, had time to think over her plans. Happily, they had not a debt. Mrs. Frost had so entirely impressed her grandson's mind with her own invariable rule of paying her way, that it had been one of his grounds for pride that he had never owed anything to any man.

They were thus free to choose their own course, but Lord Ormersfield urged their remaining at Northwold for the present. He saw Mr. Calcott, who had been exceedingly concerned at the turn affairs had taken, and very far from wishing to depose James, though thinking that he needed an exhortation to take heed to his ways. It had been an improper reprimand, improperly received; but the Earl and the Squire agreed that nothing but morbid fancy could conjure up disgrace, such as need prevent James Frost from remaining in his own house until he could obtain employment, provided he and his wife had the resolution to contract their style of living under the eye of their neighbours.

This gave neither of them a moment's uneasiness. It was not the direction of their pride; and even before James's aching head was troubled with deliberation, Isabel had discussed her plan with the Miss Faithfulls. She would imagine herself in a colony, and be troubled with no more scruples about the conventional tasks of a lady than if she were in the back-woods.

They would shut up some of the rooms, take one servant of all-work, and Isabel would be nursery-maid herself. 'We may do quite as well as the carpenter's wife,' she said; 'she has more children and less income, and yet always seems to me the richest person whom I know.'

James groaned, and turned his face away. He could not forbid it, for even Isabel's exertion must be permitted rather than the dishonour of living beyond their means; and he consoled himself with thinking that when the deadening inertness of his illness should leave him, he should see some means of finding employment for himself, which would save her from toil and exertion, and, in the meantime, with all his keen self-reproach, it was a blessed thing to have been brought back to his enthusiastic admiration for her, all discontents and drawbacks utterly forgotten in her assiduous affection and gallant cheerfulness.

Lord Ormersfield had readily acceded to his son's wish to bring the party to spend Christmas at Ormersfield, as soon as James could be moved. During their visit the changes were to be made, and before setting out Isabel had to speak to the servants. Charlotte's alacrity and usefulness had made her doubly esteemed during her master's illness; and when he heard how she was to be disposed of, he seemed much vexed. He said that she was a legacy from his grandmother, and too innocent and pretty to be cast about among strange servants in all the places where the Conways visited; and that he would not have consented to the transfer, but that, under their present circumstances, it was impossible to keep her. If any evil came to her, it would be another miserable effect of his own temper.

Isabel thought he exaggerated the dangers, and she spoke brightly to Charlotte about fixing the day of her going to Estminster, so as to be put into the ways of the place before her predecessor departed. The tears at once came into Charlotte's eyes, and she answered, 'If you please, ma'am, I should be very sorry to leave, unless I did not give satisfaction.'

'That is far from being the reason, Charlotte; but we cannot keep so good a servant-Mr. Frost has given up-'

'I have been put out of the school,' said James, from his sofa, in his stern sense of truth. 'We must live on as little as possible, and therefore must part with you, Charlotte, though from no fault of yours. You must look on us as your friends, and in any difficulty apply to us; for, as Mrs. Frost says, we look on you as a charge from my grandmother.'

Charlotte escaped to hide her tears; and when, a few minutes after, the Ormersfield carriage arrived, and nurses and babies were packed in, and her master walked feebly and languidly down stairs, and her mistress turned round to say, kindly, 'You will let me know, Charlotte?' she just articulated, 'Thank you, ma'am, I will write.'

Mr. Frost's words had not been news to Charlotte. His affairs had been already pretty well understood and discussed, and the hard, rude, grasping comments of the vulgar cook-nay, even of the genteel nurse-had been so many wounds to the little maiden, bred up by Jane in the simplicity of feudal reverence and affection for all that bore the name of Frost Dynevor.

Her mistress left to the tender mercies of some servant such as these, some one who might only care for her own ease and profit, and not once think of who and what she had been! The little children knocked about by some careless girl! Never, never! All the doubts and scruples about putting her own weak head and vain heart in the way of being made faithless to Tom revived, reinforced by her strong and generous affection. A romantic purpose suddenly occurred to her, flushing her cheek and brightening her eye. In that one impulse, scrubbing, washing dishes, short lilac sleeves were either forgotten, or acquired a positive glory, and while the cook was issuing her invitations for a jollification and gossip at the expense of Mr. and Mrs. Frost, Charlotte sat in her attic, amid Jane's verbenas, which she had cherished there ever since their expulsion from the kitchen, and wrote and cried, and left off, to read over, and feel satisfied at, the felicity of her phrases, and the sentiment of her project.

'Dear and Honoured Madam,-Pardon the liberty I am taking but I am sure that you and my reverend and redoubted master would not willingly have inflicted so much pain as yesterday on a poor young female which was brought up from an orphan child by my dear late lamented mistress and owes everything to her and would never realize the touching lines of the sublime poet

Deserted in his utmost need By those his former bounty fed.

As to higher wages and a situation offering superior advantages such as might prove attractive to other minds it has none to me. My turn is for fidelity in obscurity and dear and honoured lady I am a poor unprotected girl which has read in many volumes of the dangers of going forth into the snares of a wealthy and powerful family and begs you not to deprive her of the shelter of the peaceful roof which has been her haven and has been the seen of the joys and sorrows of her career. Dear lady pardon the liberty that I have taken but it would brake my heart to leave you and master and the dear children espeshilly in the present winter of adversity which I have hands to help in to the best of my poor abilities. Dear and honoured lady I have often been idle but I will be so no more I love the dear little ladies with all my heart and I can cook and act in any capacity and wages is no object I will not take none nor beer neither-and the parlour tea-leaves will be sufficient. Dear and honoured master and mistress forgive the liberty a poor girl has taken and lend a favourable ear to my request for if you persist in parting with me I know I shall not survive it.

'Your humble and faithful Servant, 'CHARLOTTE ARNOLD.'

Isabel received this letter while she was at breakfast with Lord Ormersfield and Louis, and it was, of course, impossible to keep it to herself. 'Talking of uo wages!' said the Earl. 'Send her off at once.'

'You will despise me,' said Isabel, with tears in her eyes; 'but there is something very touching in it, in spite of the affectation. I believe she really means it.'

'Affectation is only matter of taste,' said Louis. 'Half the simplicity of our day is only fashion; and Charlotte's letter, with a few stops, and signed Chloe, would have figured handsomely in Mrs. Radcliffe's time.'

'It does not depend on me,' said Isabel; 'James could not bear her going before, and I am sure he will not now.'

'I think he ought not,' said Louis. 'Poor girl! I do believe the snares of wealthy families and fidelity in obscurity, really mean with her the pomps and vanities versus duty and affection.'

'I am sure I would not drive her back to them,' said Isabel; 'but I am only afraid the work will be too much for her strength.'

'The willing heart goes all the way,' said Louis; 'and maybe it will be more wholesome than London, and sitting up.'

Isabel coloured and sighed; but added, that it would be infinite relief on the children's account to keep some one so gentle-handed, and so entirely to be trusted.

James's decision was immediate. He called the letter a farrago, but his laugh was mixed with tears at the faithful affection it displayed. 'It was mere folly,' he said, 'to think of keeping her without wages; but, if she would accept such as could be afforded after taking a rough village girl for her food to do the hard work, the experiment should be made, in the hope that the present straits would only endure for a short time.

This little event seemed to have done him much good, and put him more at peace with the world. He was grateful for Lord Ormersfield's kindness and forbearance, and the enforced rest from work was refreshing him; while Isabel had never been so cheerful and lively in her life as now, when braced manfully for her work, full of energy, and feeling that she must show herself happy and courageous to support his depressed spirits. She was making a beginning-she was practising herself in her nursery duties, and, to her surprise, finding them quite charming; and little Kitty so delighted with all she did for her, that all the hitherto unsounded depths of the motherly heart were stirred up, and she could not think why she had never found out her true happiness. She looked so bright and so beautiful, that even Lord Ormersfield remarked it, pitying her for trials which he thought she little realized; but Louis augured better, believing that it was not ignorance but resolution which gave animation and brilliancy to her dark eye and cheerfulness to her smile.

Fitzjocelyn took her to Dynevor Terrace in the afternoon to settle the matter with Charlotte; and, on the way, he took the opportunity of telling her that he had been reading Sir Hubert, and admired him very much, discussing him and Adeline with the same vivid interest as her own sisters showed in them as persons, not mere personages. Isabel said they already seemed to her to belong to a world much farther back than the last fortnight.

'There is some puzzle in the middle,' said Louis. 'I can't make out the hero whose addresses were so inconvenient to Adeline, and who ran away from the pirates. He began as a crabbed old troubadour, who made bad verses; and then he went on as a fantastic young Viscount, skipping and talking nonsense.'

'Oh!' cried Isabel, much discomposed. 'Did I leave that piece there? I took it to Estminster by mistake, and they told me of it. I should have taken it out.'

'That would have been a pity,' said Louis, 'for the Viscount is a much more living man than the old troubadour. When he had so many plans of poems for the golden violet that he made none at all, I was quite taken with him. I began to think I was going to have a lesson.'

Isabel blushed and tried to laugh, but it was so unsuccessful that Louis exclaimed in high glee-'There! I do believe I was the fantastic Viscount! Oh! Isabel, it was too bad! I can fairly acquit myself of skipping ever since I had the honour of your acquaintance.'

'Or of running away from the pirates,' said Isabel. 'No, it was a great deal too bad, and very wrong indeed. It was when you did not run away that I was so much ashamed, that I thought I had torn out every atom. I never told any one-not even Virginia!'

Louis had a very hearty laugh, and, when Isabel gaw him so excessively amused, she ventured to laugh too at her ancient prejudice, and the strange chance which had made the fantastic Viscount, Sir Roland's critic.

'You must restore him,' said Louis, returning to business. 'That old troubadour is the one inconsistency in the story, evidently not fitting into the original plot. I shall be delighted to sit for the portrait.'

'I don't think you could now,' said Isabel. 'I think the motley must have been in the spectacles with which I looked at you.'

'Ah! it is a true poem,' said Louis, 'it must have been a great relief to your feelings! Shall I give it back to you?

'Oh! I can't touch it now!' cried Isabel. 'You may give it to me, and if ever I have time to think again of it, I may touch it up, but certainly not now.'

'And when you do, pray don't omit the Viscount. I can't lose my chance of going down to posterity.'

He went his way, while Isabel repaired to the Terrace, and found Charlotte awaiting her answer in much trepidation.

The low wages, instead of none at all, were a great disappointment, doing away with all the honour and sentiment, and merely degrading her in the eyes of her companions; but her attachment conquered this objection, and face to face with her mistress, the affectation departed, and left remaining such honest and sincere faithfulness and affection, that Isabel felt as if a valuable and noble-hearted friend had suddenly been made known to her. It was a silly little fanciful heart, but it was sound to the core; and when Isabel said, 'There will be very hard work, Charlotte, but we will try to do our best for Mr. Frost and the children, and we will help each other,' Charlotte felt as if no task could be too hard if it were to be met with such a look and smile.

'Is it settled?' asked Lord Fitzjocelyn, as Charlotte opened the door for him.

'Oh, yes, thank you, my Lord-'

'But, Charlotte, one thing is decided. Mrs. Frost can afford no more eau de Cologne. The first hysterics and you go!'

He passed upstairs, and found Isabel beginning to dismantle the drawing-room-'Which you arranged for us!' she said.

A long, deep sigh was the answer, and Louis mused for some moments ere he said-'It is hard work to say good-bye to trifles with which departed happiness seems connected.'

'Oh, no!' cried Isabel, eagerly. 'With such a home, the happiness cannot be departed.'

'No, not with such a home!' said Louis, with a melancholy smile; 'but I was selfish enough to be thinking who hung that picture-'

'I don't think you were the selfish person,' said Isabel.

'Patience and work!' said Louis, rousing himself. 'Some sort of good time _must_ come,'-and he quickly put his hand to assist in putting the Dresden shepherd and shepherdess into retirement, observing that they seemed the genii of the place, and he set his mind on their restoration.

'I do not think,' said Isabel, as she afterwards narrated this scene to her husband, 'that I ever realized his being so much attached to Mary Ponsonby; I thought it was a convenient suitable thing in which he followed his father's wishes, and I imagined he had quite recovered it.'

'He did not look interesting enough? Yes! he was slow in knowing his own mind; but his heart once given there is no recalling it, whatever his father may wish.'

'Or my mother,' said Isabel, smiling.

'Ah! I have never asked you what your party say of him in the London world.'

'They say he quite provokes them by being such a diligent member, and that people debate as to whether he will distinguish himself. Some say he does not care enough, and others, that he has too many crotchets.'

'Just so! Public men are not made of that soft, scrupulous stuff, which only hardens and toughens when principle is clear before him. Well, as to society-'

'Virginia says he is hardly ever to be had; he is either at the House, or he has something to do for his father; he slips out of parties, and they never catch him unless they are in great want of a gentleman to take them somewhere, and then no one is so useful. Mamma has been setting innumerable little traps for him, but he marches straight through them all, and only a little tone of irony betrays that he sees through them. Every one likes him, and the only complaint is, that he is so seldom to be seen, keeping almost entirely to his father's set, always with his father-'

'Ay! I can bear to watch his submission better than formerly. His attentions are in such perfect good taste that they are quite beautiful; and his lordship has quite ceased snubbing, and begins to have a glimmering that when Louis says something never dreamt of in his philosophy, the defect may be in his understanding, and not in Fitzjocelyn's.'

'I could excuse him for not always understanding Fitzjocelyn! But there never were two kinder people in the world; and I could not have imagined that I should ever like Lord Ormersfield half so much.'

'He is improved. Louis's exclusive devotion has not been lost on him. Holdsworth has been sitting with me, and talking of the great change in the parish. He told me that at his first arrival here, seven years ago, when he was very young, he found himself quite disheartened and disgusted by the respectability of the place. Every one was cold, distant, correct, and self-esteeming; so perfectly contented with themselves and the routine, that he felt all his ardour thrown away, and it seemed to him that he was pastor to a steam-engine-a mere item in the proprieties of Ormersfield. He was almost ready to exchange, out of weariness and impatience, when Fitzjocelyn came home, and awoke fresh life and interest by his absurdities, his wonderful philanthropies, and extraordinary schemes. His sympathy and earnestness were the first refreshment and encouragement; and Holdsworth declares that no one can guess the benefit that he was to him even when he was most ridiculous. Since that, he says, the change has been striking, though so gradual. Louis has all the same freshness and energy, but without the fluctuation and impetuosity. And his example of humility and sincerity has worked, not only in reclaiming the wild outlying people, but even awakening the comfortable dependents from their self-satisfaction. Even Frampton is far from the impenetrable person he used to be.'

'And I suppose they have done infinite good to the wild Marksedge people!'

'Some are better, some are worse. I believe that people always are worse when they reject good. I am glad to find, too, that the improvements answer in a pecuniary point of view. His Lordship is amazed at his son's sagacity, and they have never been so much at ease in money matters.'

'Indeed! Well, I must own that I have always been struck with the very small scale on which things are done here. Just the mere margin of what is required by their station, barely an indulgence!'

'I fancy you must look into subscriptions for Fitzjocelyn's means,' said James; 'and for the rest, they have no heart for new furniture till he marries.'

'Well! I wonder if Mary is worth so much heart! It might be the best thing for him if she would find some worthy merchant. He is very young still, and looks younger. I should like him to begin the world again.'

'Ha! Isabel, you want to cook up a romance of your own for him.'

James was recovering cheerfulness. He thought he was bracing himself to bear bravely with an unmerited wrong. The injustice of his sentence hid from him the degree of justice; and with regard to his own temper, he knew better what he restrained than what he expressed, and habitually gave himself credit for what he did not say or do. There was much that was really good in his present spirit, and it was on the way to be better; but his was not the character to be materially altered by the first brunt of a sudden shock. It was a step that he had brought himself to forgive the trustees. He did not yet see that he had any need to be forgiven.

At the end of three weeks James and Isabel returned to their home, and to their new way of life; and Fitzjocelyn had only time to see that they were beginning their struggle with good courage, before the meeting of Parliament summoned him to London.

Isabel fully justified Miss Faithfull's prediction. She was too truly high-minded to think any task beneath her; and with her heart in, not out of her immediate work, she could not fail to be a happier woman. Success gave as much pleasure in a household duty as in an accomplishment-nay, far more when it was a victory over herself, and an increase to the comfort of her husband. Her strength was much tried, and the children often fatigued and harassed her; but there was unspeakable compensation in their fondness and dependence on her, and even in the actual services themselves. The only wonder began to be how she could have ever trusted them in any hands but her own. Her husband's affection and consideration were sources of joy ever renewed; and though natural irritability and pressing anxieties might now and then betray him into a hasty word, his penitence so far surpassed the momentary pain it might have cost her, that she was obliged to do her utmost to comfort him. She sometimes found herself awkward or ignorant, and sometimes flagged from over-exertion; yet throughout, James's approval, and her own sense that she was striving to do her best, kept her mind at rest. Above all, the secret of her happiness was, that the shock of adversity had awakened her from her previous deadness and sluggishness of soul, and made her alive to a feeling of trust and support, a frame of mind ever repenting, ever striving onwards. Thus she went bravely through the very class of trials that she would once have thought merely lowering, inglorious, and devoid of poetry. What would have been in itself sordid, gained a sweetness from the light of love and duty, and never in all her dreamy ease had she been as cheerful and lighthearted as in the midst of hardship and rigid economy. Her equable temper and calm composure came to her aid; and where a more nervous and excitable woman would have preyed upon herself, and sunk under imaginary troubles, she was always ready to soothe and sustain the anxious and sensitive nature of her husband. After all, hers was the lightest share of the trial. To her, the call was to act, and to undergo misfortunes occasioned by no fault of hers; to him, the call was the one most galling to an active and eager man-namely, to endure, and worse, to see endured, the penalty of his own errors. In vain did he seek for employment. A curacy, without a fair emolument, would have been greater poverty than their present condition, as long as the house was unlet; and, though he answered advertisements and made applications, the only eligible situations failed; and he knew, among so many candidates, the last to be chosen would be a person of violent temper, unable to bear rebuke. Disappointment came upon disappointment, and the literary work, with which, through Louis's exertions, he had been supplied, was not likely to bring in any speedy return.

All that he could do was to take more than his part in domestic trifles, such as most men would have scorned, and to relieve his wife as far as possible of the children, often at the cost of his writing. He bore the brunt of many a trial of which she was scarcely aware- slights from the harsh vulgar, and compassion from the kind vulgar; and the proud self-assertion was gone which had hardened him to all such stings. To his lot fell the misery of weighing and balancing what comforts could best be cut off without positive injury to his wife and little ones. To consider whether an empty house should be repaired for a doubtful tenant, to make the venture, and have it rejected, was a severe vexation, when the expense trenched on absolute necessaries, and hardly less trying was it to be forced to accept the rent of the House Beautiful, knowing how ill it could be spared; and yet, that without it he must lapse into the hopeless abyss of debt. Moreover, there was

The terrible heart thrill To have no power of giving

to some of the poor who had learnt to look to the Terrace in his grandmother's time, and meals were curtailed, that those in greater need might not be left quite unaided.

Nor was this the only cause for which James underwent actual stern privation. The reign of bad cookery was over. Charlotte, if unmethodical, was delicately neat; and though she kept them waiting for their dinner, always served it up with the precision of past prosperity. Cheap cookery and cottage economy were the study, and the results were pronounced admirable; but the master was the dispenser; and when a modicum of meat was to make nourishing a mountain of rice, or an ocean of broth, it would occur to him, as he helped Isabel, that the piece de resistance would hardly hold out for the kitchen devourers. He would take the recipe at its word, and dine on the surrounding structure; and in spite of the cottage economy, he was nearly as hungry after dinner as before it, and people began to say that he had never recovered his looks since his illness. These daily petty acts of self-denial and self-restraint had begun to tame his spirit and open his eyes in a manner that neither precept nor example had yet effected.

Charlotte had imbibed to the full the spirit of patient exertion which pervaded the house. Mrs. Martha had told her she was a foolish girl, and would be tired of the place in a fortnight; but when she did not see her tired, she would often rush in after her two mistresses were shut up for the evening, scold Charlotte for her want of method, and finish all that was left undone, while Charlotte went up to the nursery to release her mistress. As to novels and sentiment, they had gone after Sir Hubert; and though Charlotte was what Martha expressively called 'fairly run off her feet,' she had never looked better nor happier. Her mistress treated her like a friend; she doted on the children, and the cook was out of the kitchen; Delaford was off her mind, and neither stairs nor even knife-cleaning could hurt her feelings. To be sure, her subordinate, a raw girl from Marksgedge, devoured all that was set before her, and what was not eatable, she broke; but as she had been sent from home with no injunctions but to 'look sharp and get stout,' so she was only fulfilling her vocation, and on some question of beer, her mother came and raved at Charlotte, and would have raved at Mrs. Frost, if her dignified presence had not overawed her. So she only took the girl away in offence, and Charlotte was much happier with an occasional charwoman to share her labours.

There was much happiness in No. 5, notwithstanding that the spring and summer of 1851 were very hard times; and perhaps felt the more, because the sunny presence of Louis Fitzjocelyn did not shine there as usual.

He was detained in London all the Easter recess by his father's illness. Lord Ormersfield was bound hand and foot by a severe attack of rheumatism, caught almost immediately after his going to London. It seemed to have taken a strong hold of his constitution, and lingered on for weeks, so that he could barely move from his armchair by the fire, and began to give himself up as henceforth to be a crippled old man-a view out of which Louis and Sir Miles Oakstead tried by turns to laugh him; indeed, Sir Miles accused him of wanting to continue his monopoly of his son-and of that doubly-devoted attention by which Louis enlivened his convalescence.

Society had very little chance with Fitzjocelyn now, unless he was fairly hunted out by the Earl, who was always haunted by ungrounded alarms for his health and spirits, and never allowed him to fail in the morning rides, which were in fact his great refreshment, as much from the quiet and the change of scene, as from the mere air and exercise.

'Father,' said he, coming in one day a little after Easter, 'you are a very wise man!'

'Eh!' said the Earl, looking up in wonder and expectation excited by this prelude, hoping for the fulfilment of some political prediction.

'He is a wise man,' proceeded Louis, 'who does not put faith in treasures, especially butlers; also, who does not bring a schoolboy to London with nothing to do!'

'What now?' said the Earl. 'Is young Conway in a scrape?'

'I am,' said Fitzjocelyn; 'I have made a discovery, and I don't exactly see what to do with it. You see I have been taking the boy out riding with me, as the only thing I could well do for him these holidays. You must know he is very good and patronizing; I believe he thinks he could put me up to a few things in time. Well, to-day, as we passed a questionable-looking individual, Walter bowed, as if highly elated by the honour of his acquaintance, and explained to me that he was the celebrated-I forget who, but that's owing to my defective education. The fact is, that this Delaford, to whom my aunt implicitly trusts, has been introducing this unlucky boy to a practical course of Bell's Life-things that I went through Eton, and never even heard of.' And he detailed some of them.

'No more than she might have expected,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'And what is to be done?'

'I should say, never interfere between people and their servants, still less between them and their sons. You will do no good.'

'I cannot see this go on!' cried Louis. 'The boy told me all, by way of showing me his superiority. I believe he wants to introduce me to some of his distinguished friends. They flatter him, and make him a great man; and as to any scruples about his mother, Delaford has disposed of her objections as delicate weaknesses. When I began to look grave, the poor boy set it down to my neglected training, always spending my holidays in the country, and not knowing what fast men are up to.'

'And so he goes to destruction-just the sort of boy that does,' said the Earl, with due acquiescence in the course of the world.

'He need not,' exclaimed Louis. 'He is a nice boy, a very nice boy, if only he cared for his mother, or knew right from wrong.'

Lord Ormersfield smiled at these slight exceptions.

'He is heartily fond of Isabel,' said Louis. 'If I thought Jem could do any good, I would send for him; but he has made my auut so much afraid of unworldliness just now, that I only wonder she lets Miss King stay on.'

'You had better leave it alone,' said the Earl, 'unless you can do anything with the boy. I am glad that I am not his guardian!'

'I wish I was,' sighed Louis.

'I suppose you will grow older some day,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'However, I see you will not be contented without going your own way to work.'

'When the Earl saw his son the next day, Louis looked radiant at having taken one step. He had seen his aunt, and she had endured the revelation with more equanimity than he could have supposed possible. 'It was a house where they took things easily,' as he said; a house where nothing was more feared than a scene; and Lady Conway had thanked her nephew greatly for his communication; promised what he did not ask, that he should not be betrayed to Walter; assured him that the butler should be dismissed, without giving any reason, before the summer holidays; and for the few remaining days before Walter returned to Eton, she thought she might reckon on her dear Fitzjocelyn for keeping his eye upon him: no doubt all would be right when Delaford was once gone.

It was the old want of a high standard-the love of ease rather than the love of right. The Earl laughed at her short-sighted policy, and resented her saddling Louis with the care of her son; while Louis philosophized upon good-nature, and its use and abuse.

Whether Mr. Delaford learnt that Sir Walter had betrayed him to Lord Fitzjocelyn, or whether he took alarm from the young gentleman being kept under surveillance, he scented danger; and took the initiative, by announcing to my Lady that he intended to retire from his situation into private life at the month's end.

Lady Conway rejoiced in being spared the fabrication by which she had intended to dismiss her paragon without hurting his feelings, thanked Fitzjocelyn more than ever, and was sure that dear Walter would do very well.

But no sooner had Delaford departed than a series of discoveries began to be made. Lady Conway's bills reached back to dates far beyond those of the cheques which she had put into Delaford's hands to pay them, and a tissue of peculation began to reveal itself, so alarming and bewildering to her, that she implored her nephew to investigate it for her.

Louis, rather against the will of his father, who was jealous of any additional tasks thrown on him, entered into the matter with the head of an accountant, and the zeal of a pursuer of justice; and stirred up a frightful mass of petty and unblushing fraud, long practised as a mere matter of course upon the mistress, who had set the example of easy-going, insincere self-seeking. It involved the whole household so completely, that there was no alternative but a clearance of every servant, whether innocent or guilty, and a fresh beginning. Indeed, so great had been the debts which had accumulated, that there was no doubt that the treacherous butler must have been gambling to a great extent with his mistress's money; and the loss was so heavy that Lady Conway found she should be obliged to retrench, 'just when she should have been so glad to have helped poor dear Isabel!' She must even give up a season in London, but dear Virginia was far too good and sensible to repine.

Lord Ormersfield, who had become much interested in the investigation, and assisted much by his advice, wanted her to go to Thornton Conway; and Louis urged the step warmly as the best hope for Walter. But she could not live there, she said, without far too heavy an expenditure; and she would make visits for the present, and find some cheap place abroad, where the girls could have masters.

And so her establishment was broken up, and Louis wrote warm congratulations to James that poor little Charlotte had not been tempted into the robber's den. Isabel could not help reading the whole history to Charlotte, who turned white at the notion of such wickedness, and could hardly utter a word; though afterwards, as she sat rocking little Mercy to sleep, she bestowed a great deal of good advice on her, 'never to mind what nobody said to her, above all, when they talked like a book, for there were a great many snakes and vipers in the grass, and 'twas best to know good friends when one had them.' And coupled with her moralizing, there was no small degree of humble thankfulness for the impulse that had directed her away from the evil. How could she ever have met Tom again if she had shared in the stigma on the dishonest household? Simple-hearted loyalty had been a guard against more perils than she had even imagined!