The church of Long Beckley (a large agricultural village in one of the midland counties of England), although a building in no way remarkable either for its size, its architecture, or its antiquity, possesses, nevertheless, one advantage which mercantile London has barbarously denied to the noble cathedral church of St. Paul. It has plenty of room to stand in, and it can consequently be seen with perfect convenience from every point of view, all around the compass.

The large open space around the church can be approached in three different directions. There is a road from the village, leading straight to the principal door. There is a broad gravel walk, which begins at the vicarage gates, crosses the church-yard, and stops, as in duty bound, at the vestry entrance. There is a footpath over the fields, by which the lord of the manor, and the gentry in general who live in his august neighborhood, can reach the side door of the building, whenever their natural humility may incline them to encourage Sabbath observance in the stables by going to church, like the lower sort of worshipers, on their own legs.

At half-past seven o'clock, on a certain fine summer morning, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, if any observant stranger had happened to be standing in some unnoticed corner of the church-yard, and to be looking about him with sharp eyes, he would probably have been the witness of proceedings which might have led him to believe that there was a conspiracy going on in Long Beckley, of which the church was the rallying-point, and some of the most respectable inhabitants the principal leaders. Supposing him to have been looking toward the vicarage as the clock chimed the half-hour, he would have seen the vicar of Long Beckley, the Reverend Doctor Chennery, leaving his house suspiciously, by the back way, glancing behind him guiltily as he approached the gravel walk that led to the vestry, stopping mysteriously just outside the door, and gazing anxiously down the road that led from the village.

Assuming that our observant stranger would, upon this, keep out of sight, and look down the road, like the vicar, he would next have seen the clerk of the church—an austere, yellow-faced man—a Protestant Loyola in appearance, and a working shoemaker by trade—approaching with a look of unutterable mystery in his face, and a bunch of big keys in his hands. He would have seen the vicar nod in an abstracted manner to the clerk, and say, "Fine morning, Thomas. Have you had your breakfast yet?" He would have heard Thomas reply, with a suspicious regard for minute particulars: "I have had a cup of tea and a crust, Sir." And he would then have seen these two local conspirators, after looking up with one accord at the church clock, draw off together to the side door which commanded a view of the footpath across the fields.

Following them—as our inquisitive stranger could not fail to do—he would have detected three more conspirators advancing along the footpath. The leader of this treasonable party was an elderly gentleman, with a weather-beaten face and a bluff, hearty manner. His two followers were a young gentleman and a young lady, walking arm-in-arm, and talking together in whispers. They were dressed in the plainest morning costume. The faces of both were rather pale, and the manner of the lady was a little flurried. Otherwise there was nothing remarkable to observe in them, until they came to the wicket-gate leading into the church-yard; and there the conduct of the young gentleman seemed, at first sight, rather inexplicable. Instead of holding the gate open for the lady to pass through, he hung back, allowed her to open it for herself, waited till she had got to the church-yard side, and then, stretching out his hand over the gate, allowed her to lead him through the entrance, as if he had suddenly changed from a grown man to a helpless little child.

Noting this, and remarking also that, when the party from the fields had arrived within greeting distance of the vicar, and when the clerk had used his bunch of keys to open the church-door, the young lady's companion was led into the building (this time by Doctor Chennery's hand), as he had been previously led through the wicket-gate, our observant stranger must have arrived at one inevitable conclusion—that the person requiring such assistance as this was suffering under the affliction of blindness. Startled a little by that discovery, he would have been still further amazed, if he had looked into the church, by seeing the blind man and the young lady standing together before the altar rails, with the elderly gentleman in parental attendance. Any suspicions he might now entertain that the bond which united the conspirators at that early hour of the morning was of the hymeneal sort, and that the object of their plot was to celebrate a wedding with the strictest secrecy, would have been confirmed in five minutes by the appearance of Doctor Chennery from the vestry in full canonicals, and by the reading of the marriage service in the reverend gentleman's most harmonious officiating tones. The ceremony concluded, the attendant stranger must have been more perplexed than ever by observing that the persons concerned in it all separated, the moment the signing, the kissing, and congratulating duties proper to the occasion had been performed, and quickly retired in the various directions by which they had approached the church.

Leaving the clerk to return by the village road, the bride, bridegroom, and elderly gentleman to turn back by the footpath over the fields, and the visionary stranger of these pages to vanish out of them in any direction that he pleases—let us follow Doctor Chennery to the vicarage breakfast-table, and hear what he has to say about his professional exertions of the morning in the familiar atmosphere of his own family circle.

The persons assembled at the breakfast were, first, Mr. Phippen, a guest; secondly, Miss Sturch, a governess; thirdly, fourthly, and fifthly, Miss Louisa Chennery (aged eleven years), Miss Amelia Chennery (aged nine years), and Master Robert Chennery (aged eight years). There was no mother's face present, to make the household picture complete. Doctor Chennery had been a widower since the birth of his youngest child.

The guest was an old college acquaintance of the vicar's, and he was supposed to be now staying at Long Beckley for the benefit of his health. Most men of any character at all contrive to get a reputation of some sort which individualizes them in the social circle amid which they move. Mr. Phippen was a man of some little character, and he lived with great distinction in the estimation of his friends on the reputation of being A Martyr to Dyspepsia.

Wherever Mr. Phippen went, the woes of Mr. Phippen's stomach went with him. He dieted himself publicly, and physicked himself publicly. He was so intensely occupied with himself and his maladies, that he would let a chance acquaintance into the secret of the condition of his tongue at five minutes' notice; being just as perpetually ready to discuss the state of his digestion as people in general are to discuss the state of the weather. On this favorite subject, as on all others, he spoke with a wheedling gentleness of manner, sometimes in softly mournful, sometimes in languidly sentimental tones. His politeness was of the oppressively affectionate sort, and he used the word "dear" continually in addressing himself to others. Personally, he could not be called a handsome man. His eyes were watery, large, and light gray; they were always rolling from side to side in a state of moist admiration of something or somebody. His nose was long, drooping, profoundly melancholy—if such an expression may be permitted, in reference to that particular feature. For the rest, his lips had a lachrymose twist; his stature was small; his head large, bald, and loosely set on his shoulders; his manner of dressing himself eccentric, on the side of smartness; his age about five-and-forty; his condition that of a single man. Such was Mr. Phippen, the Martyr to Dyspepsia, and the guest of the vicar of Long Beckley.

Miss Sturch, the governess, may be briefly and accurately described as a young lady who had never been troubled with an idea or a sensation since the day when she was born. She was a little, plump, quiet, white-skinned, smiling, neatly dressed girl, wound up accurately to the performance of certain duties at certain times; and possessed of an inexhaustible vocabulary of commonplace talk, which dribbled placidly out of her lips whenever it was called for, always in the same quantity, and always of the same quality, at every hour in the day, and through every change in the seasons. Miss Sturch never laughed, and never cried, but took the safe middle course of smiling perpetually. She smiled when she came down on a morning in January, and said it was very cold. She smiled when she came down on a morning in July, and said it was very hot. She smiled when the bishop came once a year to see the vicar; she smiled when the butcher's boy came every morning for orders. Let what might happen at the vicarage, nothing ever jerked Miss Sturch out of the one smooth groove in which she ran perpetually, always at the same pace. If she had lived in a royalist family, during the civil wars in England, she would have rung for the cook, to order dinner, on the morning of the execution of Charles the First. If Shakspeare had come back to life again, and had called at the vicarage at six o'clock on Saturday evening, to explain to Miss Sturch exactly what his views were in composing the tragedy of Hamlet, she would have smiled and said it was extremely interesting, until the striking of seven o'clock; at which time she would have left him in the middle of a sentence, to superintend the housemaid in the verification of the washing-book. A very estimable young person, Miss Sturch (as the ladies of Long Beckley were accustomed to say); so judicious with the children, and so attached to her household duties; such a well-regulated mind, and such a crisp touch on the piano; just nice-looking enough, just well-dressed enough, just talkative enough; not quite old enough, perhaps, and a little too much inclined to be embraceably plump about the region of the waist—but, on the whole, a most estimable young person—very much so, indeed.

On the characteristic peculiarities of Miss Sturch's pupils, it is not necessary to dwell at very great length. Miss Louisa's habitual weakness was an inveterate tendency to catch cold. Miss Amelia's principal defect was a disposition to gratify her palate by eating supplementary dinners and breakfasts at unauthorized times and seasons. Master Robert's most noticeable failings were caused by alacrity in tearing his clothes, and obtuseness in learning the Multiplication Table. The virtues of all three were of much the same nature—they were well grown, they were genuine children, and they were boisterously fond of Miss Sturch.

To complete the gallery of family portraits, an outline, at the least, must be attempted of the vicar himself. Doctor Chennery was, in a physical point of view, a credit to the Establishment to which he was attached. He stood six feet two in his shooting-shoes; he weighed fifteen stone; he was the best bowler in the Long Beckley cricket-club; he was a strictly orthodox man in the matter of wine and mutton; he never started disagreeable theories about people's future destinies in the pulpit, never quarreled with any body out of the pulpit, never buttoned up his pockets when the necessities of his poor brethren (Dissenters included) pleaded with him to open them. His course through the world was a steady march along the high and dry middle of a safe turnpike-road. The serpentine side-paths of controversy might open as alluringly as they pleased on his right hand and on his left, but he kept on his way sturdily, and never regarded them. Innovating young recruits in the Church army might entrappingly open the Thirty-nine Articles under his very nose, but the veteran's wary eye never looked a hair's-breadth further than his own signature at the bottom of them. He knew as little as possible of theology, he had never given the Privy Council a minute's trouble in the whole course of his life, he was innocent of all meddling with the reading or writing of pamphlets, and he was quite incapable of finding his way to the platform of Exeter Hall. In short, he was the most unclerical of clergymen—but, for all that, he had such a figure for a surplice as is seldom seen. Fifteen stone weight of upright muscular flesh, without an angry spot or sore place in any part of it, has the merit of suggesting stability, at any rate—an excellent virtue in pillars of all kinds, but an especially precious quality, at the present time, in a pillar of the Church.

As soon as the vicar entered the breakfast-parlor, the children assailed him with a chorus of shouts. He was a severe disciplinarian in the observance of punctuality at meal-times; and he now stood convicted by the clock of being too late for breakfast by a quarter of an hour.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Sturch," said the vicar; "but I have a good excuse for being late this morning."

"Pray don't mention it, Sir," said Miss Sturch, blandly rubbing her plump little hands one over the other. "A beautiful morning. I fear we shall have another warm day.—Robert, my love, your elbow is on the table.—A beautiful morning, indeed!"

"Stomach still out of order—eh, Phippen?" asked the vicar, beginning to carve the ham.

Mr. Phippen shook his large head dolefully, placed his yellow forefinger, ornamented with a large turquoise ring, on the centre check of his light-green summer waistcoat—looked piteously at Doctor Chennery, and sighed—removed the finger, and produced from the breast pocket of his wrapper a little mahogany case—took out of it a neat pair of apothecary's scales, with the accompanying weights, a morsel of ginger, and a highly polished silver nutmeg-grater. "Dear Miss Sturch will pardon an invalid?" said Mr. Phippen, beginning to grate the ginger feebly into the nearest tea-cup.

"Guess what has made me a quarter of an hour late this morning," said the vicar, looking mysteriously all round the table.

"Lying in bed, papa," cried the three children, clapping their hands in triumph.

"What do you say, Miss Sturch?" asked Doctor Chennery.

Miss Sturch smiled as usual, rubbed her hands as usual, cleared her throat softly as usual, looked at the tea-urn, and begged, with the most graceful politeness, to be excused if she said nothing.

"Your turn now, Phippen," said the vicar. "Come, guess what has kept me late this morning."

"My dear friend," said Mr. Phippen, giving the Doctor a brotherly squeeze of the hand, "don't ask me to guess—I know! I saw what you eat at dinner yesterday—I saw what you drank after dinner. No digestion could stand it—not even yours. Guess what has made you late this morning? Pooh! pooh! I know. You dear, good soul, you have been taking physic!"

"Hav'n't touched a drop, thank God, for the last ten years!" said Doctor Chennery, with a look of devout gratitude. "No, no; you're all wrong. The fact is, I have been to church; and what do you think I have been doing there? Listen, Miss Sturch—listen, girls, with all your ears. Poor blind young Frankland is a happy man at last—I have married him to our dear Rosamond Treverton this very morning!"

"Without telling us, papa!" cried the two girls together in their shrillest tones of vexation and surprise. "Without telling us, when you know how we should have liked to see it!"

"That was the very reason why I did not tell you, my dears," answered the vicar. "Young Frankland has not got so used to his affliction yet, poor fellow, as to bear being publicly pitied and stared at in the character of a blind bridegroom. He had such a nervous horror of being an object of curiosity on his wedding-day, and Rosamond, like a kind-hearted girl as she is, was so anxious that his slightest caprices should be humored, that we settled to have the wedding at an hour in the morning when no idlers were likely to be lounging about the neighborhood of the church. I was bound over to the strictest secrecy about the day, and so was my clerk Thomas. Excepting us two, and the bride and bridegroom, and the bride's father, Captain Treverton, nobody knew—"

"Treverton!" exclaimed Mr. Phippen, holding his tea-cup, with the grated ginger in the bottom of it, to be filled by Miss Sturch. "Treverton! (No more tea, dear Miss Sturch.) How very remarkable! I know the name. (Fill up with water, if you please.) Tell me, my dear doctor (many, many thanks; no sugar—it turns acid on the stomach), is this Miss Treverton whom you have been marrying (many thanks again; no milk, either) one of the Cornish Trevertons?"

"To be sure she is!" rejoined the vicar. "Her father, Captain Treverton, is the head of the family. Not that there's much family to speak of now. The Captain, and Rosamond, and that whimsical old brute of an uncle of hers, Andrew Treverton, are the last left now of the old stock—a rich family, and a fine family, in former times—good friends to Church and State, you know, and all that—"

"Do you approve, Sir, of Amelia having a second helping of bread and marmalade?" asked Miss Sturch, appealing to Doctor Chennery, with the most perfect unconsciousness of interrupting him. Having no spare room in her mind for putting things away in until the appropriate time came for bringing them out, Miss Sturch always asked questions and made remarks the moment they occurred to her, without waiting for the beginning, middle, or end of any conversations that might be proceeding in her presence. She invariably looked the part of a listener to perfection, but she never acted it except in the case of talk that was aimed point-blank at her own ears.

"Oh, give her a second helping, by all means!" said the vicar, carelessly; "if she must over-eat herself, she may as well do it on bread and marmalade as on any thing else."

"My dear, good soul," exclaimed Mr. Phippen, "look what a wreck I am, and don't talk in that shockingly thoughtless way of letting our sweet Amelia over-eat herself. Load the stomach in youth, and what becomes of the digestion in age? The thing which vulgar people call the inside—I appeal to Miss Sturch's interest in her charming pupil as an excuse for going into physiological particulars—is, in point of fact, an Apparatus. Digestively considered, Miss Sturch, even the fairest and youngest of us is an Apparatus. Oil our wheels, if you like; but clog them at your peril. Farinaceous puddings and mutton-chops; mutton-chops and farinaceous puddings—those should be the parents' watch-words, if I had my way, from one end of England to the other. Look here, my sweet child—look at me. There is no fun, dear, about these little scales, but dreadful earnest. See! I put in the balance on one side dry bread (stale, dry bread, Amelia!), and on the other some ounce weights. 'Mr. Phippen, eat by weight. Mr. Phippen! eat the same quantity, day by day, to a hair's-breadth. Mr. Phippen! exceed your allowance (though it is only stale, dry bread) if you dare!' Amelia, love, this is not fun—this is what the doctors tell me—the doctors, my child, who have been searching my Apparatus through and through for thirty years past with little pills, and have not found out where my wheels are clogged yet. Think of that, Amelia—think of Mr. Phippen's clogged Apparatus—and say 'No, thank you,' next time. Miss Sturch, I beg a thousand pardons for intruding on your province; but my interest in that sweet child—Chennery, you dear, good soul, what were we talking about? Ah! the bride—the interesting bride! And so she is one of the Cornish Trevertons? I knew something of Andrew years ago. He was a bachelor, like myself, Miss Sturch. His Apparatus was out of order, like mine, dear Amelia. Not at all like his brother, the Captain, I should suppose? And so she is married? A charming girl, I have no doubt. A charming girl!"

"No better, truer, prettier girl in the world," said the vicar.

"A very lively, energetic person," remarked Miss Sturch.

"How I shall miss her!" cried Miss Louisa. "Nobody else amused me as Rosamond did, when I was laid up with that last bad cold of mine."

"She used to give us such nice little early supper-parties," said Miss Amelia.

"She was the only girl I ever saw who was fit to play with boys," said Master Robert. "She could catch a ball, Mr. Phippen, Sir, with one hand, and go down a slide with both her legs together."

"Bless me!" said Mr. Phippen. "What an extraordinary wife for a blind man! You said he was blind from his birth, my dear doctor, did you not? Let me see, what was his name? You will not bear too hardly on my loss of memory, Miss Sturch? When indigestion has done with the body, it begins to prey on the mind. Mr. Frank Something, was it not?"

"No, no—Frankland," answered the vicar, "Leonard Frankland. And not blind from his birth by any means. It is not much more than a year ago since he could see almost as well as any of us."

"An accident, I suppose!" said Mr. Phippen. "You will excuse me if I take the arm-chair?—a partially reclining posture is of great assistance to me after meals. So an accident happened to his eyes? Ah, what a delightfully easy chair to sit in!"

"Scarcely an accident," said Doctor Chennery. "Leonard Frankland was a difficult child to bring up: great constitutional weakness, you know, at first. He seemed to get over that with time, and grew into a quiet, sedate, orderly sort of boy—as unlike my son there as possible—very amiable, and what you call easy to deal with. Well, he had a turn for mechanics (I am telling you all this to make you understand about his blindness), and, after veering from one occupation of that sort to another, he took at last to watch-making. Curious amusement for a boy; but any thing that required delicacy of touch, and plenty of patience and perseverance, was just the thing to amuse and occupy Leonard. I always said to his father and mother, 'Get him off that stool, break his magnifying-glasses, send him to me, and I'll give him a back at leap-frog, and teach him the use of a bat.' But it was no use. His parents knew best, I suppose, and they said he must be humored. Well, things went on smoothly enough for some time, till he got another long illness—as I believe, from not taking exercise enough. As soon as he began to get round, back he went to his old watch-making occupations again. But the bad end of it all was coming. About the last work he did, poor fellow, was the repairing of my watch—here it is; goes as regular as a steam-engine. I hadn't got it back into my fob very long before I heard that he was getting a bad pain at the back of his head, and that he saw all sorts of moving spots before his eyes. 'String him up with lots of port wine, and give him three hours a day on the back of a quiet pony'—that was my advice. Instead of taking it, they sent for doctors from London, and blistered him behind the ears and between the shoulders, and drenched the lad with mercury, and moped him up in a dark room. No use. The sight got worse and worse, flickered and flickered, and went out at last like the flame of a candle. His mother died—luckily for her, poor soul—before that happened. His father was half out of his mind: took him to oculists in London and oculists in Paris. All they did was to call the blindness by a long Latin name, and to say that it was hopeless and useless to try an operation. Some of them said it was the result of the long weaknesses from which he had twice suffered after illness. Some said it was an apoplectic effusion in his brain. All of them shook their heads when they heard of the watch-making. So they brought him back home, blind; blind he is now; and blind he will remain, poor dear fellow, for the rest of his life."

"You shock me; my dear Chennery, you shock me dreadfully," said Mr. Phippen. "Especially when you state that theory about long weakness after illness. Good Heavens! Why, I have had long weaknesses—I have got them now. Spots did he see before his eyes? I see spots, black spots, dancing black spots, dancing black bilious spots. Upon my word of honor, Chennery, this comes home to me—my sympathies are painfully acute—I feel this blind story in every nerve of my body; I do, indeed!"

"You would hardly know that Leonard was blind, to look at him," said Miss Louisa, striking into the conversation with a view to restoring Mr. Phippen's equanimity. "Except that his eyes look quieter than other people's, there seems no difference in them now. Who was that famous character you told us about, Miss Sturch, who was blind, and didn't show it any more than Leonard Frankland?"

"Milton, my love. I begged you to remember that he was the most famous of British epic poets," answered Miss Sturch with suavity. "He poetically describes his blindness as being caused by 'so thick a drop serene.' You shall read about it, Louisa. After we have had a little French, we will have a little Milton, this morning. Hush, love, your papa is speaking."

"Poor young Frankland!" said the vicar, warmly. "That good, tender, noble creature I married him to this morning seems sent as a consolation to him in his affliction. If any human being can make him happy for the rest of his life, Rosamond Treverton is the girl to do it."

"She has made a sacrifice," said Mr. Phippen; "but I like her for that, having made a sacrifice myself in remaining single. It seems indispensable, indeed, on the score of humanity, that I should do so. How could I conscientiously inflict such a digestion as mine on a member of the fairer portion of creation? No; I am a sacrifice in my own proper person, and I have a fellow-feeling for others who are like me. Did she cry much, Chennery, when you were marrying her?"

"Cry!" exclaimed the vicar, contemptuously. "Rosamond Treverton is not one of the puling, sentimental sort, I can tell you. A fine, buxom, warm-hearted, quick-tempered girl, who looks what she means when she tells a man she is going to marry him. And, mind you, she has been tried. If she hadn't loved him with all her heart and soul, she might have been free months ago to marry any body she pleased. They were engaged long before this cruel affliction befell young Frankland—the fathers, on both sides, having lived as near neighbors in these parts for years. Well, when the blindness came, Leonard at once offered to release Rosamond from her engagement. You should have read the letter she wrote to him, Phippen, upon that. I don't mind confessing that I blubbered like a baby over it when they showed it to me. I should have married them at once the instant I read it, but old Frankland was a fidgety, punctilious kind of man, and he insisted on a six months' probation, so that she might be certain of knowing her own mind. He died before the term was out, and that caused the marriage to be put off again. But no delays could alter Rosamond—six years, instead of six months, would not have changed her. There she was this morning as fond of that poor, patient blind fellow as she was the first day they were engaged. 'You shall never know a sad moment, Lenny, if I can help it, as long as you live'—these were the first words she said to him when we all came out of church. 'I hear you, Rosamond,' said I. 'And you shall judge me, too, Doctor,' says she, quick as lightning. 'We will come back to Long Beckley, and you shall ask Lenny if I have not kept my word.' With that she gave me a kiss that you might have heard down here at the vicarage, bless her heart! We'll drink her health after dinner, Miss Sturch—we'll drink both their healths, Phippen, in a bottle of the best wine I have in my cellar."

"In a glass of toast-and-water, so far as I am concerned, if you will allow me," said Mr. Phippen, mournfully. "But, my dear Chennery, when you were talking of the fathers of these two interesting young people, you spoke of their living as near neighbors here, at Long Beckley. My memory is impaired, as I am painfully aware; but I thought Captain Treverton was the eldest of the two brothers, and that he always lived, when he was on shore, at the family place in Cornwall?"

"So he did," returned the vicar, "in his wife's lifetime. But since her death, which happened as long ago as the year 'twenty-nine—let me see, we are now in the year 'forty-four—and that makes—"

The vicar stopped for an instant to calculate, and looked at Miss Sturch.

"Fifteen years ago, Sir," said Miss Sturch, offering the accommodation of a little simple subtraction to the vicar, with her blandest smile.

"Of course," continued Doctor Chennery. "Well, since Mrs. Treverton died, fifteen years ago, Captain Treverton has never been near Porthgenna Tower. And, what is more, Phippen, at the first opportunity he could get, he sold the place—sold it, out and out, mine, fisheries, and all—for forty thousand pounds."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Phippen. "Did he find the air unhealthy? I should think the local produce, in the way of food, must be coarse now, in those barbarous regions? Who bought the place?"

"Leonard Frankland's father," said the vicar. "It is rather a long story, that sale of Porthgenna Tower, with some curious circumstances involved in it. Suppose we take a turn in the garden, Phippen? I'll tell you all about it over my morning cigar. Miss Sturch, if you want me, I shall be on the lawn somewhere. Girls! mind you know your lessons. Bob! remember that I've got a cane in the hall, and a birch-rod in my dressing-room. Come, Phippen, rouse up out of that arm-chair. You won't say No to a turn in the garden?"

"My dear fellow, I will say Yes—if you will kindly lend me an umbrella, and allow me to carry my camp-stool in my hand," said Mr. Phippen. "I am too weak to encounter the sun, and I can't go far without sitting down.—The moment I feel fatigued, Miss Sturch, I open my camp-stool, and sit down any where, without the slightest regard for appearances.—I am ready, Chennery, whenever you are—equally ready, my good friend, for the garden and the story about the sale of Porthgenna Tower. You said it was a curious story, did you not?"

"I said there was some curious circumstances connected with it," replied the vicar. "And when you hear about them, I think you will say so too. Come along! you will find your camp-stool, and a choice of all the umbrellas in the house, in the hall."

With those words, Doctor Chennery opened his cigar-case, and led the way out of the breakfast-parlor.

CHAPTER II.
THE SALE OF PORTHGENNA TOWER.

"How charming! how pastoral! how exquisitely soothing!" said Mr. Phippen, sentimentally surveying the lawn at the back of the vicarage-house, under the shadow of the lightest umbrella he could pick out of the hall. "Three years have passed, Chennery, since I last stood on this lawn. There is the window of your old study, where I had my attack of heart-burn last time—in the strawberry season; don't you remember? Ah! and there is the school-room! Shall I ever forget dear Miss Sturch coming to me out of that room—a ministering angel with soda and ginger—so comforting, so sweetly anxious about stirring it up, so unaffectedly grieved that there was no sal-volatile in the house! I do so enjoy these pleasant recollections, Chennery; they are as great a luxury to me as your cigar is to you. Could you walk on the other side, my dear fellow? I like the smell, but the smoke is a little too much for me. Thank you. And now about the story? What was the name of the old place—I am so interested in it—it began with a P, surely?"

"Porthgenna Tower," said the vicar.

"Exactly," rejoined Mr. Phippen, shifting the umbrella tenderly from one shoulder to the other. "And what in the world made Captain Treverton sell Porthgenna Tower?"

"I believe the reason was that he could not endure the place after the death of his wife," answered Doctor Chennery. "The estate, you know, has never been entailed; so the Captain had no difficulty in parting with it, except, of course, the difficulty of finding a purchaser."

"Why not his brother?" asked Mr. Phippen. "Why not our eccentric friend, Andrew Treverton?"

"Don't call him my friend," said the vicar. "A mean, groveling, cynical, selfish old wretch! It's no use shaking your head, Phippen, and trying to look shocked. I know Andrew Treverton's early history as well as you do. I know that he was treated with the basest ingratitude by a college friend, who took all he had to give, and swindled him at last in the grossest manner. I know all about that. But one instance of ingratitude does not justify a man in shutting himself up from society, and railing against all mankind as a disgrace to the earth they walk on. I myself have heard the old brute say that the greatest benefactor to our generation would be a second Herod, who could prevent another generation from succeeding it. Ought a man who can talk in that way to be the friend of any human being with the slightest respect for his species or himself?"

"My friend!" said Mr. Phippen, catching the vicar by the arm, and mysteriously lowering his voice—"My dear and reverend friend! I admire your honest indignation against the utterer of that exceedingly misanthropical sentiment; but—I confide this to you, Chennery, in the strictest secrecy—there are moments—morning moments generally—when my digestion is in such a state that I have actually agreed with that annihilating person, Andrew Treverton! I have woke up with my tongue like a cinder—I have crawled to the glass and looked at it—and I have said to myself, 'Let there be an end of the human race rather than a continuance of this!'"

"Pooh! pooh!" cried the vicar, receiving Mr. Phippen's confession with a burst of irreverent laughter. "Take a glass of cool small beer next time your tongue is in that state, and you will pray for a continuance of the brewing part of the human race, at any rate. But let us go back to Porthgenna Tower, or I shall never get on with my story. When Captain Treverton had once made up his mind to sell the place, I have no doubt that, under ordinary circumstances, he would have thought of offering it to his brother, with a view, of course, to keeping the estate in the family. Andrew was rich enough to have bought it; for, though he got nothing at his father's death but the old gentleman's rare collection of books, he inherited his mother's fortune, as the second son. However, as things were at that time (and are still, I am sorry to say), the Captain could make no personal offers of any kind to Andrew; for the two were not then, and are not now, on speaking, or even on writing terms. It is a shocking thing to say, but the worst quarrel of the kind I ever heard of is the quarrel between those two brothers."

"Pardon me, my dear friend," said Mr. Phippen, opening his camp-stool, which had hitherto dangled by its silken tassel from the hooked handle of the umbrella. "May I sit down before you go any further? I am getting a little excited about this part of the story, and I dare not fatigue myself. Pray go on. I don't think the legs of my camp-stool will make holes in the lawn. I am so light—a mere skeleton, in fact. Do go on!"

"You must have heard," pursued the vicar, "that Captain Treverton, when he was advanced in life, married an actress—rather a violent temper, I believe; but a person of spotless character, and as fond of her husband as a woman could be; therefore, according to my view of it, a very good wife for him to marry. However, the Captain's friends, of course, made the usual senseless outcry, and the Captain's brother, as the only near relation, took it on himself to attempt breaking off the marriage in the most offensively indelicate way. Failing in that, and hating the poor woman like poison, he left his brother's house, saying, among many other savage speeches, one infamous thing about the bride, which—which, upon my honor, Phippen, I am ashamed to repeat. Whatever the words were, they were unluckily carried to Mrs. Treverton's ears, and they were of the kind that no woman—let alone a quick-tempered woman like the Captain's wife—ever forgives. An interview followed between the two brothers—and it led, as you may easily imagine, to very unhappy results. They parted in the most deplorable manner. The Captain declared, in the heat of his passion, that Andrew had never had one generous impulse in his heart since he was born, and that he would die without one kind feeling toward any living soul in the world. Andrew replied that, if he had no heart, he had a memory, and that he should remember those farewell words as long as he lived. So they separated. Twice afterward the Captain made overtures of reconciliation. The first time when his daughter Rosamond was born; the second time when Mrs. Treverton died. On each occasion the elder brother wrote to say that, if the younger would retract the atrocious words he had spoken against his sister-in-law, every atonement should be offered to him for the harsh language which the Captain had used, in the hastiness of anger, when they last met. No answer was received from Andrew to either letter; and the estrangement between the two brothers has continued to the present time. You understand now why Captain Treverton could not privately consult Andrew's inclinations before he publicly announced his intention of parting with Porthgenna Tower."

Although Mr. Phippen declared, in answer to this appeal, that he understood perfectly, and although he begged with the utmost politeness that the vicar would go on, his attention seemed, for the moment, to be entirely absorbed in inspecting the legs of his camp-stool, and in ascertaining what impression they made on the vicarage lawn. Doctor Chennery's own interest, however, in the circumstances that he was relating, seemed sufficiently strong to make up for any transient lapse of attention on the part of his guest. After a few vigorous puffs at his cigar (which had been several times in imminent danger of going out while he was speaking), he went on with his narrative in these words:

"Well, the house, the estate, the mine, and the fisheries of Porthgenna were all publicly put up for sale a few months after Mrs. Treverton's death; but no offers were made for the property which it was possible to accept. The ruinous state of the house, the bad cultivation of the land, legal difficulties in connection with the mine, and quarter-day difficulties in the collection of the rents, all contributed to make Porthgenna what the auctioneers would call a bad lot to dispose of. Failing to sell the place, Captain Treverton could not be prevailed on to change his mind and live there again. The death of his wife almost broke his heart—for he was, by all accounts, just as fond of her as she had been of him—and the very sight of the place that was associated with the greatest affliction of his life became hateful to him. He removed, with his little girl and a relative of Mrs. Treverton, who was her governess, to our neighborhood, and rented a pretty little cottage across the church fields. The house nearest to it was inhabited at that time by Leonard Frankland's father and mother. The new neighbors soon became intimate; and thus it happened that the couple whom I have been marrying this morning were brought up together as children, and fell in love with each other almost before they were out of their pinafores."

"Chennery, my dear fellow, I don't look as if I was sitting all on one side, do I?" cried Mr. Phippen, suddenly breaking into the vicar's narrative, with a look of alarm. "I am shocked to interrupt you; but surely your grass is amazingly soft in this part of the country. One of my camp-stool legs is getting shorter and shorter every moment. I'm drilling a hole! I'm toppling over! Gracious Heavens! I feel myself going—I shall be down, Chennery; upon my life, I shall be down!"

"Stuff!" cried the vicar, pulling up first Mr. Phippen, and then Mr. Phippen's camp-stool, which had rooted itself in the grass, all on one side. "Here, come on to the gravel walk; you can't drill holes in that. What's the matter now?"

"Palpitations," said Mr. Phippen, dropping his umbrella, and placing his hand over his heart, "and bile. I see those black spots again—those infernal, lively black spots dancing before my eyes. Chennery, suppose you consult some agricultural friend about the quality of your grass. Take my word for it, your lawn is softer than it ought to be.—Lawn!" repeated Mr. Phippen to himself, contemptuously, as he turned round to pick up his umbrella. "It isn't a lawn—it is a bog!"

"There, sit down," said the vicar, "and don't pay the palpitations and the black spots the compliment of bestowing the smallest attention on them. Do you want any thing to drink? Shall it be physic, or beer, or what?"

"No, no! I am so unwilling to give trouble," answered Mr. Phippen. "I would rather suffer—rather, a great deal. I think if you would go on with your story, Chennery, it would compose me. I have not the faintest idea of what led to it, but I think you were saying something interesting on the subject of pinafores!"

"Nonsense!" said Doctor Chennery. "I was only telling you of the fondness between the two children who have now grown up to be man and wife. And I was going on to tell you that Captain Treverton, shortly after he settled in our neighborhood, took to the active practice of his profession again. Nothing else seemed to fill up the gap that the loss of Mrs. Treverton had made in his life. Having good interest with the Admiralty, he can always get a ship when he applies for one; and up to the present time, with intervals on shore, he has resolutely stuck to the sea—though he is getting, as his daughter and his friends think, rather too old for it now. Don't look puzzled, Phippen; I am not going so wide of the mark as you think. These are some of the necessary particulars that must be stated first. And now they are comfortably disposed of, I can get round at last to the main part of my story—the sale of Porthgenna Tower.—What is it now? Do you want to get up again?"

Yes, Mr. Phippen did want to get up again, for the purpose of composing the palpitations and dispersing the black spots, by trying the experiment of a little gentle exercise. He was most unwilling to occasion any trouble, but would his worthy friend Chennery give him an arm, and carry the camp-stool, and walk slowly in the direction of the school-room window, so as to keep Miss Sturch within easy hailing distance, in case it became necessary to try the last resource of taking a composing draught? The vicar, whose inexhaustible good nature was proof against every trial that Mr. Phippen's dyspeptic infirmities could inflict on it, complied with all these requests, and went on with his story, unconsciously adopting the tone and manner of a good-humored parent who was doing his best to soothe the temper of a fretful child.

"I told you," he said, "that the elder Mr. Frankland and Captain Treverton were near neighbors here. They had not been long acquainted before the one found out from the other that Porthgenna Tower was for sale. On first hearing this, old Frankland asked a few questions about the place, but said not a word on the subject of purchasing it. Soon after that the Captain got a ship and went to sea. During his absence old Frankland privately set off for Cornwall to look at the estate, and to find out all he could about its advantages and defects from the persons left in charge of the house and lands. He said nothing when he came back, until Captain Treverton returned from his first cruise; and then the old gentleman spoke out one morning, in his quiet, decided way.

"'Treverton,' said he, 'if you will sell Porthgenna Tower at the price at which you bought it in, when you tried to dispose of it by auction, write to your lawyer, and tell him to take the title-deeds to mine, and ask for the purchase-money.'

"Captain Treverton was naturally a little astonished at the readiness of this offer; but people like myself, who knew old Frankland's history, were not so surprised. His fortune had been made by trade, and he was foolish enough to be always a little ashamed of acknowledging that one simple and creditable fact. The truth was, that his ancestors had been landed gentry of importance before the time of the Civil War, and the old gentleman's great ambition was to sink the merchant in the landed grandee, and to leave his son to succeed him in the character of a squire of large estate and great county influence. He was willing to devote half his fortune to accomplish this scheme; but half his fortune would not buy him such an estate as he wanted, in an important agricultural county like ours. Rents are high, and land is made the most of with us. An estate as extensive as the estate at Porthgenna would fetch more than double the money which Captain Treverton could venture to ask for it, if it was situated in these parts. Old Frankland was well aware of that fact, and attached all possible importance to it. Besides, there was something in the feudal look of Porthgenna Tower, and in the right over the mine and fisheries, which the purchase of the estate included, that flattered his notions of restoring the family greatness. Here he and his son after him could lord it, as he thought, on a large scale, and direct at their sovereign will and pleasure the industry of hundreds of poor people, scattered along the coast, or huddled together in the little villages inland. This was a tempting prospect, and it could be secured for forty thousand pounds—which was just ten thousand pounds less than he had made up his mind to give, when he first determined to metamorphose himself from a plain merchant into a magnificent landed gentleman. People who knew these facts were, as I have said, not much surprised at Mr. Frankland's readiness to purchase Porthgenna Tower; and Captain Treverton, it is hardly necessary to say, was not long in clinching the bargain on his side. The estate changed hands; and away went old Frankland, with a tail of wiseacres from London at his heels, to work the mine and the fisheries on new scientific principles, and to beautify the old house from top to bottom with bran-new mediÆval decorations under the direction of a gentleman who was said to be an architect, but who looked, to my mind, the very image of a Popish priest in disguise. Wonderful plans and projects were they not? And how do you think they succeeded?"

"Do tell me, my dear fellow!" was the answer that fell from Mr. Phippen's lips.—"I wonder whether Miss Sturch keeps a bottle of camphor julep in the family medicine-chest?" was the thought that passed through Mr. Phippen's mind.

"Tell you!" exclaimed the vicar. "Why, of course, every one of his plans turned out a complete failure. His Cornish tenantry received him as an interloper. The antiquity of his family made no impression upon them. It might be an old family, but it was not a Cornish family, and, therefore, it was of no importance in their eyes. They would have gone to the world's end for the Trevertons; but not a man would move a step out of his way for the Franklands. As for the mine, it seemed to be inspired with the same mutinous spirit that possessed the tenantry. The wiseacres from London blasted in all directions on the profoundest scientific principles, and brought about sixpennyworth of ore to the surface for every five pounds spent in getting it up. The fisheries turned out little better. A new plan for curing pilchards, which was a marvel of economy in theory, proved to be a perfect phenomenon of extravagance in practice. The only item of luck in old Frankland's large sum of misfortunes was produced by his quarreling in good time with the mediÆval architect, who was like a Popish priest in disguise. This fortunate event saved the new owner of Porthgenna all the money he might otherwise have spent in restoring and redecorating the whole suite of rooms on the north side of the house, which had been left to go to rack and ruin for more than fifty years past, and which remain in their old neglected condition to this day. To make a long story short, after uselessly spending more thousands of pounds at Porthgenna than I should like to reckon up, old Frankland gave in at last, left the place in disgust to the care of his steward, who was charged never to lay out another farthing on it, and returned to this neighborhood. Being in high dudgeon, and happening to catch Captain Treverton on shore when he got back, the first thing he did was to abuse Porthgenna and all the people about it a little too vehemently in the Captain's presence. This led to a coolness between the two neighbors, which might have ended in the breaking off of all intercourse, but for the children on either side, who would see each other just as often as ever, and who ended, by dint of willful persistency, in putting an end to the estrangement between the fathers by making it look simply ridiculous. Here, in my opinion, lies the most curious part of the story. Important family interests depended on those two young people falling in love with each other; and, wonderful to relate, that (as you know, after my confession at breakfast-time) was exactly what they did. Here is a case of the most romantic love-match, which is also the marriage, of all others, that the parents on both sides had the strongest worldly interest in promoting. Shakspeare may say what he pleases, the course of true love does run smooth sometimes. Never was the marriage service performed to better purpose than when I read it this morning. The estate being entailed on Leonard, Captain Treverton's daughter now goes back, in the capacity of mistress, to the house and lands which her father sold. Rosamond being an only child, the purchase-money of Porthgenna, which old Frankland once lamented as money thrown away, will now, when the Captain dies, be the marriage-portion of young Frankland's wife. I don't know what you think of the beginning and middle of my story, Phippen, but the end ought to satisfy you, at any rate. Did you ever hear of a bride and bridegroom who started with fairer prospects in life than our bride and bridegroom of to-day?"

Before Mr. Phippen could make any reply, Miss Sturch put her head out of the school-room window; and seeing the two gentlemen approaching, beamed on them with her invariable smile. Then addressing the vicar, said in her softest tones:

"I regret extremely to trouble you, Sir, but I find Robert very intractable this morning with his Multiplication Table."

"Where does he stick now?" asked Doctor Chennery.

"At seven times eight, Sir," replied Miss Sturch.

"Bob!" shouted the vicar through the window. "Seven times eight?"

"Forty-three," answered the whimpering voice of the invisible Bob.

"You shall have one more chance before I get my cane," said Doctor Chennery. "Now, then, look out! Seven times—"

"My dear, good friend," interposed Mr. Phippen, "if you cane that very unhappy boy he will scream. My nerves have been tried once this morning by the camp-stool. I shall be totally shattered if I hear screams. Give me time to get out of the way, and allow me also to spare dear Miss Sturch the sad spectacle of correction (so shocking to sensibilities like hers) by asking her for a little camphor julep, and so giving her an excuse for getting out of the way like me. I think I could have done without the camphor julep under any other circumstances; but I ask for it unhesitatingly now, as much for Miss Sturch's sake as for the sake of my own poor nerves.—Have you got camphor julep, Miss Sturch? Say yes, I beg and entreat, and give me an opportunity of escorting you out of the way of the screams."

While Miss Sturch—whose well-trained sensibilities were proof against the longest paternal caning and the loudest filial acknowledgment of it in the way of screams—tripped up stairs to fetch the camphor julep, as smiling and self-possessed as ever, Master Bob, finding himself left alone with his sisters in the school-room, sidled up to the youngest of the two, produced from the pocket of his trowsers three frowsy acidulated drops looking very much the worse for wear, and, attacking Miss Amelia on the weak, or greedy side of her character, artfully offered the drops in exchange for information on the subject of seven times eight. "You like 'em?" whispered Bob. "Oh, don't I!" answered Amelia. "Seven times eight?" asked Bob. "Fifty-six," answered Amelia. "Sure?" said Bob. "Certain," said Amelia. The drops changed hands, and the catastrophe of the domestic drama changed with them. Just as Miss Sturch appeared with the camphor julep at the garden door, in the character of medical Hebe to Mr. Phippen, her intractable pupil showed himself to his father at the school-room window, in the character, arithmetically speaking, of a reformed son. The cane reposed for the day; and Mr. Phippen drank his glass of camphor julep with a mind at ease on the twin subjects of Miss Sturch's sensibilities and Master Bob's screams.

"Most gratifying in every way," said the Martyr to Dyspepsia, smacking his lips with great relish, as he drained the last drops out of the glass. "My nerves are spared, Miss Sturch's feelings are spared, and the dear boy's back is spared. You have no idea how relieved I feel, Chennery. Whereabouts were we in that delightful story of yours when this little domestic interruption occurred?"

"At the end of it, to be sure," said the vicar. "The bride and bridegroom are some miles on their way by this time to spend the honey-moon at St. Swithin's-on-Sea. Captain Treverton is only left behind for a day. He received his sailing orders on Monday, and he will be off to Portsmouth to-morrow morning to take command of his ship. Though he won't admit it in plain words, I happen to know that Rosamond has persuaded him to make this his last cruise. She has a plan for getting him back to Porthgenna, to live there with her husband, which I hope and believe will succeed. The west rooms at the old house, in one of which Mrs. Treverton died, are not to be used at all by the young married couple. They have engaged a builder—a sensible, practical man, this time—to survey the neglected north rooms, with a view to their redecoration and thorough repair in every way. This part of the house can not possibly be associated with any melancholy recollections in Captain Treverton's mind, for neither he nor any one else ever entered it during the period of his residence at Porthgenna. Considering the change in the look of the place which this project of repairing the north rooms is sure to produce, and taking into account also the softening effect of time on all painful recollections, I should say there was a fair prospect of Captain Treverton's returning to pass the end of his days among his old tenantry. It will be a great chance for Leonard Frankland if he does, for he would be sure to dispose the people at Porthgenna kindly toward their new master. Introduced among his Cornish tenants under Captain Treverton's wing, Leonard is sure to get on well with them, provided he abstains from showing too much of the family pride which he has inherited from his father. He is a little given to overrate the advantages of birth and the importance of rank—but that is really the only noticeable defect in his character. In all other respects I can honestly say of him that he deserves what he has got—the best wife in the world. What a life of happiness, Phippen, seems to be awaiting these lucky young people! It is a bold thing to say of any mortal creatures, but, look as far as I may, not a cloud can I see any where on their future prospects."

"You excellent creature!" exclaimed Mr. Phippen, affectionately squeezing the vicar's hand. "How I enjoy hearing you! how I luxuriate in your bright view of life!"

"And is it not the true view—especially in the case of young Frankland and his wife?" inquired the vicar.

"If you ask me," said Mr. Phippen, with a mournful smile, and a philosophic calmness of manner, "I can only answer that the direction of a man's speculative views depends—not to mince the matter—on the state of his secretions. Your biliary secretions, dear friend, are all right, and you take bright views. My biliary secretions are all wrong, and I take dark views. You look at the future prospects of this young married couple, and say there is no cloud over them. I don't dispute the assertion, not having the pleasure of knowing either bride or bridegroom. But I look up at the sky over our heads—I remember that there was not a cloud on it when we first entered the garden—I now see, just over those two trees growing so close together, a cloud that has appeared unexpectedly from nobody knows where—and I draw my own conclusions. Such," said Mr. Phippen, ascending the garden steps on his way into the house, "is my philosophy. It may be tinged with bile, but it is philosophy for all that."

"All the philosophy in the world," said the vicar, following his guest up the steps, "will not shake my conviction that Leonard Frankland and his wife have a happy future before them."

Mr. Phippen laughed, and, waiting on the steps till his host joined him, took Doctor Chennery's arm in the friendliest manner.

"You have told a charming story, Chennery," he said, "and you have ended it with a charming sentiment. But, my dear friend, though your healthy mind (influenced by an enviably easy digestion) despises my bilious philosophy, don't quite forget the cloud over the two trees. Look up at it now—it is getting darker and bigger already."

Under the roof of a widowed mother, Miss Mowlem lived humbly at St. Swithin's-on-Sea. In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, the heart of Miss Mowlem's widowed mother was gladdened by a small legacy. Turning over in her mind the various uses to which the money might be put, the discreet old lady finally decided on investing it in furniture, on fitting up the first floor and the second floor of her house in the best taste, and on hanging a card in the parlor window to inform the public that she had furnished apartments to let. By the summer the apartments were ready, and the card was put up. It had hardly been exhibited a week before a dignified personage in black applied to look at the rooms, expressed himself as satisfied with their appearance, and engaged them for a month certain, for a newly married lady and gentleman, who might be expected to take possession in a few days. The dignified personage in black was Captain Treverton's servant, and the lady and gentleman, who arrived in due time to take possession, were Mr. and Mrs. Frankland.

The natural interest which Mrs. Mowlem felt in her youthful first lodgers was necessarily vivid in its nature; but it was apathy itself compared to the sentimental interest which her daughter took in observing the manners and customs of the lady and gentleman in their capacity of bride and bridegroom. From the moment when Mr. and Mrs. Frankland entered the house, Miss Mowlem began to study them with all the ardor of an industrious scholar who attacks a new branch of knowledge. At every spare moment of the day, this industrious young lady occupied herself in stealing up stairs to collect observations, and in running down stairs to communicate them to her mother. By the time the married couple had been in the house a week, Miss Mowlem had made such good use of her eyes, ears, and opportunities that she could have written a seven days' diary of the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland with the truth and minuteness of Mr. Samuel Pepys himself.

But, learn as much as we may, the longer we live the more information there is to acquire. Seven days' patient accumulation of facts in connection with the honey-moon had not placed Miss Mowlem beyond the reach of further discoveries. On the morning of the eighth day, after bringing down the breakfast tray, this observant spinster stole up stairs again, according to custom, to drink at the spring of knowledge through the key-hole channel of the drawing-room door. After an absence of five minutes she descended to the kitchen, breathless with excitement, to announce a fresh discovery in connection with Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to her venerable mother.

"Whatever do you think she's doing now?" cried Miss Mowlem, with widely opened eyes and highly elevated hands.

"Nothing that's useful," answered Mrs. Mowlem, with sarcastic readiness.

"She's actually sitting on his knee! Mother, did you ever sit on father's knee when you were married?"

"Certainly not, my dear. When me and your poor father married, we were neither of us flighty young people, and we knew better."

"She's got her head on his shoulder," proceeded Miss Mowlem, more and more agitatedly, "and her arms round his neck—both her arms, mother, as tight as can be."

"I won't believe it," exclaimed Mrs. Mowlem, indignantly. "A lady like her, with riches, and accomplishments, and all that, demean herself like a housemaid with a sweetheart. Don't tell me, I won't believe it!"

It was true though, for all that. There were plenty of chairs in Mrs. Mowlem's drawing-room; there were three beautifully bound books on Mrs. Mowlem's Pembroke table (the Antiquities of St. Swithin's, Smallridge's Sermons, and Klopstock's Messiah in English prose)—Mrs. Frankland might have sat on purple morocco leather, stuffed with the best horse-hair, might have informed and soothed her mind with archÆological diversions, with orthodox native theology, and with devotional poetry of foreign origin—and yet, so frivolous is the nature of woman, she was perverse enough to prefer doing nothing, and perching herself uncomfortably on her husband's knee!

She sat for some time in the undignified position which Miss Mowlem had described with such graphic correctness to her mother—then drew back a little, raised her head, and looked earnestly into the quiet, meditative face of the blind man.

"Lenny, you are very silent this morning," she said. "What are you thinking about? If you will tell me all your thoughts, I will tell you all mine."

"Would you really care to hear all my thoughts?" asked Leonard.

"Yes; all. I shall be jealous of any thoughts that you keep to yourself. Tell me what you were thinking of just now! Me?"

"Not exactly of you."

"More shame for you. Are you tired of me in eight days? I have not thought of any body but you ever since we have been here. Ah! you laugh. Oh, Lenny, I do love you so; how can I think of any body but you? No! I sha'n't kiss you. I want to know what you were thinking about first."

"Of a dream, Rosamond, that I had last night. Ever since the first days of my blindness—Why, I thought you were not going to kiss me again till I had told you what I was thinking about!"

"I can't help kissing you, Lenny, when you talk of the loss of your sight. Tell me, my poor love, do I help to make up for that loss? Are you happier than you used to be? and have I some share in making that happiness, though it is ever so little?"

She turned her head away as she spoke, but Leonard was too quick for her. His inquiring fingers touched her cheek. "Rosamond, you are crying," he said.

"I crying!" she answered, with a sudden assumption of gayety. "No," she continued, after a moment's pause. "I will never deceive you, love, even in the veriest trifle. My eyes serve for both of us now, don't they? you depend on me for all that your touch fails to tell you, and I must never be unworthy of my trust—must I? I did cry, Lenny—but only a very little. I don't know how it was, but I never, in all my life, seemed to pity you and feel for you as I did just at that moment. Never mind, I've done now. Go on—do go on with what you were going to say."

"I was going to say, Rosamond, that I have observed one curious thing about myself since I lost my sight. I dream a great deal, but I never dream of myself as a blind man. I often visit in my dreams places that I saw and people whom I knew when I had my sight, and though I feel as much myself, at those visionary times, as I am now when I am wide-awake, I never by any chance feel blind. I wander about all sorts of old walks in my sleep, and never grope my way. I talk to all sorts of old friends in my sleep, and see the expression in their faces which, waking, I shall never see again. I have lost my sight more than a year now, and yet it was like the shock of a new discovery to me to wake up last night from my dream, and remember suddenly that I was blind."

"What dream was it, Lenny?"

"Only a dream of the place where I first met you when we were both children. I saw the glen, as it was years ago, with the great twisted roots of the trees, and the blackberry bushes twining about them in a still shadowed light that came through thick leaves from the rainy sky. I saw the mud on the walk in the middle of the glen, with the marks of the cows' hoofs in some places, and the sharp circles in others where some countrywomen had been lately trudging by on pattens. I saw the muddy water running down on either side of the path after the shower; and I saw you, Rosamond, a naughty girl, all covered with clay and wet—just as you were in the reality—soiling your bright blue pelisse and your pretty little chubby hands by making a dam to stop the running water, and laughing at the indignation of your nurse-maid when she tried to pull you away and take you home. I saw all that exactly as it really was in the by-gone time; but, strangely enough, I did not see myself as the boy I then was. You were a little girl, and the glen was in its old neglected state, and yet, though I was all in the past so far, I was in the present as regarded myself. Throughout the whole dream I was uneasily conscious of being a grown man—of being, in short, exactly what I am now, excepting always that I was not blind."

"What a memory you must have, love, to be able to recall all those little circumstances after the years that have passed since that wet day in the glen! How well you recollect what I was as a child! Do you remember in the same vivid way what I looked like a year ago when you saw me—Oh, Lenny, it almost breaks my heart to think of it!—when you saw me for the last time?"

"Do I remember, Rosamond! My last look at your face has painted your portrait in my memory in colors that can never change. I have many pictures in my mind, but your picture is the clearest and brightest of all."

"And it is the picture of me at my best—painted in my youth, dear, when my face was always confessing how I loved you, though my lips said nothing. There is some consolation in that thought. When years have passed over us both, Lenny, and when time begins to set his mark on me, you will not say to yourself, 'My Rosamond is beginning to fade; she grows less and less like what she was when I married her.' I shall never grow old, love, for you! The bright young picture in your mind will still be my picture when my cheeks are wrinkled and my hair is gray."

"Still your picture—always the same, grow as old as I may."

"But are you sure it is clear in every part? Are there no doubtful lines, no unfinished corners any where? I have not altered yet since you saw me—I am just what I was a year ago. Suppose I ask you what I am like now, could you tell me without making a mistake?"

"Try me."

"May I? You shall be put through a complete catechism! I don't tire you sitting on your knee, do I? Well, in the first place, how tall am I when we both stand up side by side?"

"You just reach to my ear."

"Quite right, to begin with. Now for the next question. What does my hair look like in your portrait?"

"It is dark brown—there is a great deal of it—and it grows rather too low on your forehead for the taste of some people—"

"Never mind about 'some people;' does it grow too low for your taste?"

"Certainly not. I like it to grow low; I like all those little natural waves that it makes against your forehead; I like it taken back, as you wear it, in plain bands, which leave your ears and your cheeks visible; and above all things, I like that big glossy knot that it makes where it is all gathered up together at the back of your head."

"Oh, Lenny, how well you remember me, so far! Now go a little lower."

"A little lower is down to your eyebrows. They are very nicely shaped eyebrows in my picture—"

"Yes, but they have a fault. Come! tell me what the fault is."

"They are not quite so strongly marked as they might be."

"Right again! And my eyes?"

"Brown eyes, large eyes, wakeful eyes, that are always looking about them. Eyes that can be very soft at one time, and very bright at another. Eyes tender and clear, just at the present moment, but capable, on very slight provocation, of opening rather too widely, and looking rather too brilliantly resolute."

"Mind you don't make them look so now! What is there below the eyes?"

"A nose that is not quite big enough to be in proper proportion with them. A nose that has a slight tendency to be—"

"Don't say the horrid English word! Spare my feelings by putting it in French. Say retroussÉ, and skip over my nose as fast as possible."

"I must stop at the mouth, then, and own that it is as near perfection as possible. The lips are lovely in shape, fresh in color, and irresistible in expression. They smile in my portrait, and I am sure they are smiling at me now."

"How could they do otherwise when they are getting so much praise? My vanity whispers to me that I had better stop the catechism here. If I talk about my complexion, I shall only hear that it is of the dusky sort; and that there is never red enough in it except when I am walking, or confused, or angry. If I ask a question about my figure, I shall receive the dreadful answer, 'You are dangerously inclined to be fat.' If I say, How do I dress? I shall be told, Not soberly enough; you are as fond as a child of gay colors—No! I will venture no more questions. But, vanity apart, Lenny, I am so glad, so proud, so happy to find that you can keep the image of me clearly in your mind. I shall do my best now to look and dress like your last remembrance of me. My love of loves! I will do you credit—I will try if I can't make you envied for your wife. You deserve a hundred thousand kisses for saying your catechism so well—and there they are!"

While Mrs. Frankland was conferring the reward of merit on her husband, the sound of a faint, small, courteously significant cough made itself timidly audible in a corner of the room. Turning round instantly, with the quickness that characterized all her actions, Mrs. Frankland, to her horror and indignation, confronted Miss Mowlem standing just inside the door, with a letter in her hand and a blush of sentimental agitation on her simpering face.

"You wretch! how dare you come in without knocking at the door?" cried Rosamond, starting to her feet with a stamp, and passing in an instant from the height of fondness to the height of indignation.

Miss Mowlem shook guiltily before the bright, angry eyes that looked through and through her, turned very pale, held out the letter apologetically, and said in her meekest tones that she was very sorry.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Rosamond, getting even more irritated by the apology than she had been by the intrusion, and showing it by another stamp of the foot; "who cares whether you are sorry? I don't want your sorrow—I won't have it. I never was so insulted in my life—never, you mean, prying, inquisitive creature!"

"Rosamond! Rosamond! pray don't forget yourself!" interposed the quiet voice of Mr. Frankland.

"Lenny, dear, I can't help it! That creature would drive a saint mad. She has been prying after us ever since we have been here—you have, you ill-bred, indelicate woman!—I suspected it before—I am certain of it now! Must we lock our doors to keep you out?—we won't lock our doors! Fetch the bill! We give you warning. Mr. Frankland gives you warning—don't you, Lenny? I'll pack up all your things, dear: she sha'n't touch one of them. Go down stairs and make out your bill, and give your mother warning. Mr. Frankland says he won't have his rooms burst into, and his doors listened at by inquisitive women—and I say so too. Put that letter down on the table—unless you want to open it and read it—put it down, you audacious woman, and fetch the bill, and tell your mother we are going to leave the house directly!"

At this dreadful threat, Miss Mowlem, who was soft and timid, as well as curious, by nature, wrung her hands in despair, and overflowed meekly in a shower of tears.

"Oh! good gracious Heavens above!" cried Miss Mowlem, addressing herself distractedly to the ceiling, "what will mother say! whatever will become of me now! Oh, ma'am! I thought I knocked—I did, indeed! Oh, ma'am! I humbly beg pardon, and I'll never intrude again. Oh, ma'am! mother's a widow, and this is the first time we have let the lodgings, and the furniture's swallowed up all our money, and oh, ma'am! ma'am! how I shall catch it if you go!" Here words failed Miss Mowlem, and hysterical sobs pathetically supplied their place.

"Rosamond!" said Mr. Frankland. There was an accent of sorrow in his voice this time, as well as an accent of remonstrance. Rosamond's quick ear caught the alteration in his tone. As she looked round at him her color changed, her head drooped a little, and her whole expression altered on the instant. She stole gently to her husband's side with softened, saddened eyes, and put her lips caressingly close to his ear.

"Lenny," she whispered, "have I made you angry with me?"

"I can't be angry with you, Rosamond," was the quiet answer. "I only wish, love, that you could have controlled yourself a little sooner."

"I am so sorry—so very, very sorry!" The fresh, soft lips came closer still to his ear as they whispered these penitent words; and the cunning little hand crept up tremblingly round his neck and began to play with his hair. "So sorry, and so ashamed of myself! But it was enough to make almost any body angry, just at first—wasn't it, dear? And you will forgive me—won't you, Lenny?—if I promise never to behave so badly again? Never mind that wretched whimpering fool at the door," said Rosamond, undergoing a slight relapse as she looked round at Miss Mowlem, standing immovably repentant against the wall, with her face buried in a dingy-white pocket-handkerchief. "I'll make it up with her; I'll stop her crying; I'll take her out of the room; I'll do any thing in the world that's kind to her, if you will only forgive me."

"A polite word or two is all that is wanted—nothing more than a polite word or two," said Mr. Frankland, rather coldly and constrainedly.

"Don't cry any more, for goodness sake!" said Rosamond, walking straight up to Miss Mowlem, and pulling the dingy-white pocket-handkerchief away from her face without the least ceremony. "There! leave off, will you? I am very sorry I was in a passion—though you had no business to come in without knocking—I never meant to distress you, and I'll never say a hard word to you again, if you will only knock at the door for the future, and leave off crying now. Do leave off crying, you tiresome creature! We are not going away. We don't want your mother, or the bill, or any thing. Here! here's a present for you, if you'll leave off crying. Here's my neck-ribbon—I saw you trying it on yesterday afternoon, when I was lying down on the bedroom sofa, and you thought I was asleep. Never mind; I'm not angry about that. Take the ribbon—take it as a peace-offering, if you won't as a present. You shall take it!—No, I don't mean that—I mean, please take it! There, I've pinned it on. And now, shake hands and be friends, and go up stairs and see how it looks in the glass." With these words, Mrs. Frankland opened the door, administered, under the pretense of a pat on the shoulder, a good-humored shove to the amazed and embarrassed Miss Mowlem, closed the door again, and resumed her place in a moment on her husband's knee.

"I've made it up with her, dear. I've sent her away with my bright green ribbon, and it makes her look as yellow as a guinea, and as ugly as—" Rosamond stopped, and looked anxiously into Mr. Frankland's face. "Lenny!" she said, sadly, putting her cheek against his, "are you angry with me still?"

"My love, I was never angry with you. I never can be."

"I will always keep my temper down for the future, Lenny!"

"I am sure you will, Rosamond. But never mind that. I am not thinking of your temper now."

"Of what, then?"

"Of the apology you made to Miss Mowlem."

"Did I not say enough? I'll call her back if you like—I'll make another penitent speech—I'll do any thing but kiss her. I really can't do that—I can't kiss any body now but you."

"My dear, dear love, how very much like a child you are still in some of your ways! You said more than enough to Miss Mowlem—far more. And if you will pardon me for making the remark, I think in your generosity and good-nature you a little forgot yourself with the young woman. I don't so much allude to your giving her the ribbon—though, perhaps, that might have been done a little less familiarly—but, from what I heard you say, I infer that you actually went the length of shaking hands with her."

"Was that wrong? I thought it was the kindest way of making it up."

"My dear, it is an excellent way of making it up between equals. But consider the difference between your station in society and Miss Mowlem's."

"I will try and consider it, if you wish me, love. But I think I take after my father, who never troubles his head (dear old man!) about differences of station. I can't help liking people who are kind to me, without thinking whether they are above my rank or below it; and when I got cool, I must confess I felt just as vexed with myself for frightening and distressing that unlucky Miss Mowlem as if her station had been equal to mine. I will try to think as you do, Lenny; but I am very much afraid that I have got, without knowing exactly how, to be what the newspapers call a Radical."

"My dear Rosamond! don't talk of yourself in that way, even in joke. You ought to be the last person in the world to confuse those distinctions in rank on which the whole well-being of society depends."

"Does it really? And yet, dear, we don't seem to have been created with such very wide distinctions between us. We have all got the same number of arms and legs; we are all hungry and thirsty, and hot in the summer and cold in the winter; we all laugh when we are pleased, and cry when we are distressed; and, surely, we have all got very much the same feelings, whether we are high or whether we are low. I could not have loved you better, Lenny, than I do now if I had been a duchess, or less than I do now if I had been a servant-girl."

"My love, you are not a servant-girl. And, as to what you say about being a duchess, let me remind you that you are not so much below a duchess as you seem to think. Many a lady of high title can not look back on such a line of ancestors as yours. Your father's family, Rosamond, is one of the oldest in England: even my father's family hardly dates back so far; and we were landed gentry when many a name in the peerage was not heard of. It is really almost laughably absurd to hear you talking of yourself as a Radical."

"I won't talk of myself so again, Lenny—only don't look so serious. I will be a Tory, dear, if you will give me a kiss, and let me sit on your knee a little longer."

Mr. Frankland's gravity was not proof against his wife's change of political principles, and the conditions which she annexed to it. His face cleared up, and he laughed almost as gayly as Rosamond herself.

"By the bye," he said, after an interval of silence had given him time to collect his thoughts, "did I not hear you tell Miss Mowlem to put a letter down on the table? Is it a letter for you or for me?"

"Ah! I forgot all about the letter," said Rosamond, running to the table. "It is for you, Lenny—and, goodness me! here's the Porthgenna postmark on it."

"It must be from the builder whom I sent down to the old house about the repairs. Lend me your eyes, love, and let us hear what he says."

Rosamond opened the letter, drew a stool to her husband's feet, and, sitting down with her arms on his knees, read as follows:

"A very honest, straightforward letter," said Mr. Frankland.

"I wish he had sent the estimate with it," said Rosamond. "Why could not the provoking man tell us at once in round numbers what the repairs will really cost?"

"I suspect, my dear, he was afraid of shocking us, if he mentioned the amount in round numbers."

"That horrid money! It is always getting in one's way, and upsetting one's plans. If we haven't got enough, let us go and borrow of somebody who has. Do you mean to dispatch a friend to Porthgenna to go over the house with Mr. Horlock? If you do, I know who I wish you would send."

"Who?"

"Me, if you please—under your escort, of course. Don't laugh, Lenny; I would be very sharp with Mr. Horlock; I would object to every one of his charges, and beat him down without mercy. I once saw a surveyor go over a house, and I know exactly what to do. You stamp on the floor, and knock at the walls, and scrape at the brick-work, and look up all the chimneys, and out of all the windows—sometimes you make notes in a little book, sometimes you measure with a foot-rule, sometimes you sit down all of a sudden, and think profoundly—and the end of it is that you say the house will do very well indeed, if the tenant will pull out his purse, and put it in proper repair."

"Well done, Rosamond! You have one more accomplishment than I knew of; and I suppose I have no choice now but to give you an opportunity of displaying it. If you don't object, my dear, to being associated with a professional assistant in the important business of checking Mr. Horlock's estimate, I don't object to paying a short visit to Porthgenna whenever you please—especially now I know that the west rooms are still habitable."

"Oh, how kind of you! how pleased I shall be! how I shall enjoy seeing the old place again before it is altered! I was only five years old, Lenny, when we left Porthgenna, and I am so anxious to see what I can remember of it, after such a long, long absence as mine. Do you know, I never saw any thing of that ruinous north side of the house?—and I do so dote on old rooms! We will go all through them, Lenny. You shall have hold of my hand, and look with my eyes, and make as many discoveries as I do. I prophesy that we shall see ghosts, and find treasures, and hear mysterious noises—and, oh heavens! what clouds of dust we shall have to go through. Pouf! the very anticipation of them chokes me already."

"Now we are on the subject of Porthgenna, Rosamond, let us be serious for one moment. It is clear to me that these repairs of the north rooms will cost a large sum of money. Now, my love, I consider no sum of money misspent, however large it may be, if it procures you pleasure. I am with you heart and soul—"

He paused. His wife's caressing arms were twining round his neck again, and her cheek was laid gently against his. "Go on, Lenny," she said, with such an accent of tenderness in the utterance of those three simple words that his speech failed him for the moment, and all his sensations seemed absorbed in the one luxury of listening. "Rosamond," he whispered, "there is no music in the world that touches me as your voice touches me now! I feel it all through me, as I used sometimes to feel the sky at night, in the time when I could see." As he spoke, the caressing arms tightened round his neck, and the fervent lips softly took the place which the cheek had occupied. "Go on, Lenny," they repeated, happily as well as tenderly now, "you said you were with me, heart and soul. With me in what?"

"In your project, love, for inducing your father to retire from his profession after this last cruise, and in your hope of prevailing on him to pass the evening of his days happily with us at Porthgenna. If the money spent in restoring the north rooms, so that we may all live in them for the future, does indeed so alter the look of the place to his eyes as to dissipate his old sorrowful associations with it, and to make his living there again a pleasure instead of a pain to him, I shall regard it as money well laid out. But, Rosamond, are you sure of the success of your plan before we undertake it? Have you dropped any hint of the Porthgenna project to your father?"

"I told him, Lenny, that I should never be quite comfortable unless he left the sea and came to live with us—and he said that he would. I did not mention a word about Porthgenna—nor did he—but he knows that we shall live there when we are settled, and he made no conditions when he promised that our home should be his home."

"Is the loss of your mother the only sad association he has with the place?"

"Not quite. There is another association, which has never been mentioned, but which I may tell you, because there are no secrets between us. My mother had a favorite maid who lived with her from the time of her marriage, and who was, accidentally, the only person present in her room when she died. I remember hearing of this woman as being odd in her look and manner, and no great favorite with any body but her mistress. Well, on the morning of my mother's death, she disappeared from the house in the strangest way, leaving behind her a most singular and mysterious letter to my father, asserting that in my mother's dying moments a Secret had been confided to her which she was charged to divulge to her master when her mistress was no more; and adding that she was afraid to mention this secret, and that, to avoid being questioned about it, she had resolved on leaving the house forever. She had been gone some hours when the letter was opened—and she has never been seen or heard of since that time. This circumstance seemed to make almost as strong an impression on my father's mind as the shock of my mother's death. Our neighbors and servants all thought (as I think) that the woman was mad; but he never agreed with them, and I know that he has neither destroyed nor forgotten the letter from that time to this."

"A strange event, Rosamond—a very strange event. I don't wonder that it has made a lasting impression on him."

"Depend upon it, Lenny, the servants and the neighbors were right—the woman was mad. Any way, however, it was certainly a singular event in our family. All old houses have their romance—and that is the romance of our house. But years and years have passed since then; and, what with time, and what with the changes we are going to make, I have no fear that my dear, good father will spoil our plans. Give him a new north garden at Porthgenna, where he can walk the decks, as I call it—give him new north rooms to live in—and I will answer for the result. But all this is in the future; let us get back to the present time. When shall we pay our flying visit to Porthgenna, Lenny, and plunge into the important business of checking Mr. Horlock's estimate for the repairs?"

"We have three weeks more to stay here, Rosamond."

"Yes; and then we must go back to Long Beckley. I promised that best and biggest of men, the vicar, that we would pay our first visit to him. He is sure not to let us off under three weeks or a month."

"In that case, then, we had better say two months hence for the visit to Porthgenna. Is your writing-case in the room, Rosamond?"

"Yes; close by us, on the table."

"Write to Mr. Horlock then, love—and appoint a meeting in two months' time at the old house. Tell him also, as we must not trust ourselves on unsafe stairs—especially considering how dependent I am on banisters—to have the west staircase repaired immediately. And, while you have the pen in your hand, perhaps it may save trouble if you write a second note to the housekeeper at Porthgenna, to tell her when she may expect us."

Rosamond sat down gayly at the table, and dipped her pen in the ink with a little flourish of triumph.

"In two months," she exclaimed joyfully, "I shall see the dear old place again! In two months, Lenny, our profane feet will be raising the dust in the solitudes of the North Rooms."