Duke. You are welcome: take your place.
Are you acquainted with the difference
That holds this present question in the court?
Por. I am informed thoroughly of the cause,
Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew?
—Shakspere.

In the dreams of Harry Vivian the delicate form and sweet, smiling face of Flora Wilton had appeared to him, and not unfrequently. But then she seemed ever to be some queen of faËryland, seated on a throne of gems of dazzling brilliancy, in floral realms of more exquisite beauty than mortal eye had ever beheld on earth, or waking fancy in its most gorgeous development could conceive.

In his moments of romantic imaginings, when his mind was filled with her beauty, he certainly had sketched a few scenes comprising events in which both he and Flora figured. Still his ardent imagination had not carried him beyond the presentation of a flower, and the reward for the gift with which the soft grateful look from eyes, the loveliest in the world, would enrich him.

He had never foreshadowed a time—for true love is ever subdued in action by the most genuine modesty—when he should within his arms, press to his throbbing heart the form which had in his eyes no equal, or that the face so rare in its perfection, should recline upon his shoulder, close to his lips.

Yet so it chanced to be. Circumstances he could have never shaped had come to pass, and the bliss of entwining his arms about the small, delicate waist of Flora Wilton was bestowed upon him at a moment the most unexpected, when he was unprepared to welcome it and unable to enjoy it.

Nay, rather than bliss, the emotion he experienced might be said to have been one of terror; not without its gratification, it is true, for he would not have resigned her, senseless as she was, to another for worlds. Still the deathly hue with which her features were overspread, the compressed lips, the closed eye, from which a tear had struggled, and, disengaging itself, lodged yet upon her cheek, made him fear that the frightful visitation which had so suddenly fallen upon her was a calamity greater than her gentle nature was able to sustain. He grew himself cold and faint as the supposition crossed him that, unless some sudden and energetic measures were adopted, she would pass from her swoon into the unawakening sleep of death.

Unacquainted with anything pertaining to fainting fits, and under a strong impression that swooning and giving up the ghost were synonymous, his calls for water and for aid merged from the vehement into the frantic; he unheeded the representations made by Mr. Nutty that men in possession never quit the sight of goods placed in their charge until the amount they represent is satisfied; he threatened him most fiercely for not flying to execute his commands; but, at the close of a paroxysm of rage and agitation, he found Flora yet senseless in his arms, and Mr. Nutty dancing and declaiming, vowing that he would take the “lor” of “any willin as strove to hinterrupt him in his duty.”

In the midst of this harangue by Mr. Nutty upon the majesty of his professional avocation, the door of the apartment opened, and a young girl glided in.

She had met old Wilton on the stairs, in custody of the officers, and had seen him borne away. She had loitered outside of the door of the apartment—she heard the low, sobbing wail of the afflicted girl, whose tears were wrung from her by the terrifying conviction that her destruction was involved in the loss of her father. She heard, too, the calls of Vivian, together with the angry colloquy between him and Nutty, and then she decided on offering her assistance.

She was only a cap-front maker, working for a wholesale house in the city, producing the fronts worn inside women’s bonnets, for sevenpence halfpenny per dozen. She rose at six in the morning, and worked until twelve at night, in order to complete two dozen per diem. Out of the sum thus realized weekly she had to live, pay her lodging, and find herself in clothes.

So she had not much time on her hands, nor much money in her pocket, and was what the every-day world calls a person of no importance.

But she had a heart—a gentle, compassionate, loving heart.

She was a very pretty girl, though her complexion was something wan, and her eyelids were rather tinged with pink; but if these appearances detracted something from her prettiness, what did they not add to the interest and the sympathy raised in the beholder? They told of early rising and midnight toil, the rapid wearing out of young and beautiful human life, so that thousands of thoughtless beings of her own sex might set off to advantage their facial attractions—CHEAPLY.

Not to lengthen this digression—for we shall know much more of this young damsel by and by—Lotte Clinton, for that was her name, hearing the cry of young Vivian for water, entered the apartment, prepared to offer her services if they were likely to be required.

She saw Flora Wilton lying in the arms of Hal Vivian, whose handsome face she recognised in an instant, for she had often observed it from her garret window upturned to the house in which she dwelt, though his look reached not so high as where she sat peering behind her mignionette and nasturtiums.

Hal knew her not, but just now she made her appearance, to his conception, as an angel newly come from Paradise.

He turned his eager eyes upon her.

“Miss Wilton is in deep affliction,” he said, quickly, “she has fainted; will you be so good as to bring some water?”

“Place her in a chair,” said Lotte, softly, “she will be better there—she will have more air. I will run for water, and my smelling salts. Sometimes at night, I grow faint and dizzy, and cannot see my work, and they relieve me then wonderfully.”

She said this as she hurried out of the room.

Poor girl! She had but too often had occasion to use the stimulant for the purpose she named.

Vivian almost unconsciously felt a reluctance to resign his beautiful burden, but he could not help seeing that the course proposed by Lotte was the proper one to be adopted; therefore he placed the yet lifeless Flora, with the tenderest carefulness, upon a chair, and supported her drooping head upon his breast.

Lotte, swift of foot, had not been a minute obtaining the ammoniacal salts and a teacup with water in it. She did not possess a tumbler, for she could not afford herself beer, and the water she took at her dinner, or supper—when she could afford to indulge in the latter luxury—was as sweet to her out of a cup as a glass.

She set to work, as a woman almost instinctively proceeds in these matters. While she had all that tender sympathy and commiseration which the condition of Flora could elicit from any one imbued with a generous susceptibility, she was endowed also with that species of calm self-possession and firm collectedness, so valuable in emergencies where human life is at stake.

She set Vivian to work bathing with the cool water the white temples from which his trembling fingers had parted the long waving hair, while she herself applied the ammonia to the nostrils of Flora, and chafed her palms when the inhalation had done its work.

Thus assaulted, nature returned to its duty, and reasserted its claims over the motionless system of the young girl, who gradually opened her eyes. Gazing wildly about her, she abruptly rose up from her seat, as though she had awakened out of some painful dream.

The faces of Vivian and Lotte seemed to confuse her; but when her large, sad eyes fell upon the unattractive countenance of Mr. Nutty, turned upon her with an aspect in which the expression was undecided—as he was not certain whether the swoon was a sham or a fact—memory returned, and her bereavement, with the future and all the horrors of its uncertainty—save that the direst poverty must attend it—burst upon her.

She wrung her hands in the fulness of her misery, and then she murmured through her blinding tears—

“Almighty Father! support me now!”

Lotte stole her arm about Flora’s waist, and whispered in her ear—

“Cheer up, Miss Wilton! you have friends who will not desert you.”

“Where?” she asked, bitterly. “I know of no relative, save my father and my brother. My father is in prison, my brother is far, far away, and I am a homeless, helpless, hopeless outcast.”

“Not hopeless!” exclaimed Vivian; “do not say that, Miss Wilton! Remember that I have told you, Mark and I were friends before he went away. I know him so well that I believe if any near and dear relative of mine were, during my absence, to fall into trouble and affliction, he would be the first to come forward and help her, and, as his friend, what he would do that ought I to do. I make no boast; but, oh! Miss Wilton, do not fear but that I will do my best, and that at least you shall not be helpless nor homeless while I can command a shilling, and have strength to work for one.”

“And you are a dear fellow, and make me foolish enough to cry, and I wish you wouldn’t,” said Lotte, her eyes suffused with tears.

“And, likewise, you are young and green—pea-green,” thought Mr. Nutty, as he put down in his inventory, “1 large spewn, 1 chimblee ornymint, and 1 arthwrugg.”

Flora, with eyes beaming with gratitude, proffered her hand to Vivian, who took it and pressed it. It would have been a dear delight to him to have kissed it, but he felt that this was not a time for such a display of gallantry or feeling.

“I know not how to thank you, Mr. Vivian,” she said, in trembling accents, “but I fear I cannot, while I sincerely appreciate your generous offers of assistance to me, avail myself of them. Your friendship for my brother gives to me no claim upon your aid, neither does it entitle me to accept it; and, guided by the precepts and counsels my dear father has implanted in my mind, I seem clearly to comprehend that it would be—may I say—an indiscretion were I to act otherwise than in most grateful terms to decline what your disinterested generosity has prompted you to propose. I confess that I have been terribly shocked and shaken by what has occurred, but the nervous tremor I at this moment endure will pass away, and I shall look with fervent faith to a brighter time.”

“Young and green, too,” thought Mr. Nutty—“sap-green,” and placed in his inventory, “1 immidge—a figgur of Oap.”

Lotte interposed, as Hal, with rather a disconcerted aspect, was about to urge her acceptance of his renewed offer.

“Let us see, Mr. Vivian,” she said to him, “what tomorrow will bring forth. At present everything is in confusion; by to-morrow we shall know the worst; what can be done, and what there will remain to do. Then Miss Wilton will be better able to judge in what you can be of service to her, and I have no doubt she will feel less reluctance to accept the kindly aid you have offered in such a friendly and worthy manner now.”

“A sensible girl, that,” thought Mr. Nutty, “works for her livin’, an’ ’ard, too, I’ll be bound!” He put down at the same moment in his inventory, “a peece of clokk wurk wownd up and goen; 1 nutmy graytur; 1 coles scuddel.”

Hal, seeing that the advice tendered by Lotte Clinton was acceptable to Flora, resolved to follow it, and turning to the former, he said—

“You understand far better than I do the way to manage in such a matter as this. I am only anxious to be of service, and my intention is sincere. I may, by a want of tact, produce an effect entirely opposite to that which I most desire. You are intelligent and good natured——”

“Thank you!” said Lotte, with a laugh.

“You are,” he repeated, “and I fancy you interpret justly my sincerity.”

“I am sure I do,” she answered promptly.

“Then I place myself in your hands; you will not leave Miss Wilton for the present?” he added.

“Not for a minute,” she replied.

“You are all that I could hope you to be,” he rejoined, “and if I can help you, you will send for me, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will!” responded Lotte.

“Bravo!” he cried. “Farewell, Miss Wilton—keep up your spirits; ‘When matters are at their worst they mend,’ you know, and surely your affairs could hardly be in a more unhappy predicament than at this moment. Preserve your faith in the goodness of God, and do not despair of the future.”

Flora could not reply; she could only return the pressure of his hand, and then hide her face upon the neck of Lotte Clinton.

Hal then breathed a few words into the ear of Nutty to the effect that, though he was an officer of the law, engaged in one of its most unpleasant duties, it was quite possible for him to do his “spiriting gently,” but that if he should entertain a contrary opinion, and offer, or attempt to offer, to carry out in a spirit of hostility, arrogance, and coarseness, the part he had to perform, he might prepare himself for a reckoning, the settlement of which would not be in his favour.

Nutty was too old a hand at his craft not to know that it was best to be civil, when as he, in rather free terms, said—“There was summat hanging to it;” or to hesitate to be a brute when the utter poverty of the poor creatures whose goods were seized rendered even his possession money a question of doubt.

In the present case, he very sagaciously saw that if he acted in an apparently compassionate and considerate spirit to the daughter of old Wilton, and took care to let his behaviour come to the ears of young Vivian, his purse would be rendered all the heavier by it; but if he adopted an abrupt harshness of manner, terrified her, and permitted her to save no little trinket, upon which she set some priceless personal value, he might get a horse-whipping, inflicted with no light or unwilling hand. He took; therefore, the suggestion of Vivian in good part, winked his eyes significantly, jerked his thumb over his left shoulder, placed his thumb to his nose, fluttered his fingers, and otherwise bewildered the apprentice, who could only presume that these evolutions meant that his wishes should be complied with. He, therefore, thought it incumbent upon him, not only to seem to comprehend them, but to so far imitate them, by slapping his pocket, tapping the palm of his hand with one finger, and pointing to Nutty, so as to give that grubby individual to understand that if he behaved kindly, there would be something “hanging to it.”

Nutty smiled complacently, bent the most philanthropic and benevolent of glances upon Flora, nodded his head, and murmured, with a slight grin—

“I knows all about it.”

Thus assured, Harry Vivian waved his hand towards Flora.

“Keep up your spirits!” he cried; “all will go right yet.”

Then, with an effort, he quitted the room, ran lightly down the stairs, and was soon in his uncle’s private room, engaged with him in earnest conversation.

In the meantime, Lotte busied herself at the sacrifice of at least a dozen cap fronts, or rather half a dozen hours, to be replaced by six taken out of those devoted by her during the week to sleep, in conferring with Flora as to the course she would have to pursue when all the furniture was swept away, and she was left penniless and destitute.

“Have you no relations in London?” inquired Lotte; “because if you have only one or two, I will pop on my bonnet and mantle, and run to them very quickly. Let them be who they may, they would surely afford you some help.”

“I never heard my father speak even of one in London or elsewhere,” returned Flora. “We have lived very secluded while here. We have not always lived thus. I can remember dwelling in a large house, with beautiful furniture, mirrors, chandeliers, and gorgeous decorations; lovely gardens, with fountains and flowers. But that is long, long ago. I know not when, I know not why, we left it, or when or how we came here. It seems to me that I awakened from a dream of faËryland, to find myself in these poor apartments, and my poor father destroying his life by the deadly closeness of his application to his labour.”

“You know, then, of no relations you could ask to help you?” said Lotte.

“None,” replied Flora.

“Nor friends whose assistance you might ask?” Flora shook her head.

“Have you any money to go on with?”

“A little, which for safety is placed”——

“Where I want to know nothing about it,” interposed Mr. Nutty, abruptly. “See here—when I put down in my hin-vent-ory any harticle, you daren’t touch it arterwards; leastwise, you must give it up as I’ve put it down; but you know you can do as you like with anything as I don’t put down. Do you tumble?”

Mr. Nutty, having rather a mean opinion of the worldly experience of Flora, addressed his speech to Lotte, but that young lady, who had a shrewd guess at the intention sought to be conveyed in the first speech, did not comprehend quite clearly the last sentence, unless, as she conceived, the man had a notion that her professional avocation was dancing on horseback and leaping through hoops or over poles, held by colonels in the army of the Emperor of the Brazils. She, therefore, thanked him for the suggestion he offered, but at the same time mystified him by informing him that she had never been on horseback in her life.

In a few whispers she made Flora understand Nutty’s meaning, and suggested that if there happened to be any article to which she attached any particular value, now was the time to transfer it to a place of safety, beyond the jurisdiction of Mr. Nutty.

Flora hesitated to avail herself of the offer—not so Lotte.

“There is my room,” she said; “no one can enter it unless I please: I have the key. You can put anything you like within it; and I should like to see any one dare to come in and attempt to take it out.”

Still Flora hesitated.

“These people seem to have the power to take all,” she observed, “and if they are justly entitled to their claim, it would be an act of dishonesty to keep anything back from them.”

“Fiddle-de-dee, dear!” exclaimed Lotte. “You don’t know that they are justly entitled, and therefore you have the right to assume that they are not. They act, at all events, like hard-hearted brutes, and that is why I believe they have no more right to a single thing here than I have. So I should act just as if they had not. Now I will tell you what my advice is. You point out to me what you, in your heart, should like to save, and leave the rest to me.”

“That is a sensible gal,” muttered Nutty, as he entered in his inventory—“1 save-orl, a arm chare and 1 floured assik.”

At this moment there was a gentle knock at the room door, and Mr. Nutty opened it about two inches, and peered through.

“Wot d’ye want?” said he gruffly, to some one without.

“Miss Clinton—is she here?” asked a pleasant voice without.

“Don’t know her—don’t live here,” said Nutty, slamming the door to.

Lotte screamed.

“Open it—open the door!” she cried; “it is my brother Charley.”

In an instant she put Nutty aside, opened the door, and putting her head out, said, hastily—

“Come in, Charley; I am so glad you are here.”

Then followed a sound as of the chirruping of young sparrows. It was Charley and Lotte performing the usual act of grace on meeting each other, it being customary for the pair to kiss a dozen times in rapid succession—a quick fire, painful only to those who don’t participate.

Lotte led forward her brother, a rather smartly-dressed young man, and introduced him to Flora, with a manner which plainly said—“Isn’t he a nice fellow?”

Flora was, however, in no mood for introductions to strangers, she bowed, but did not speak.

“Charley is a lawyer,” said Lotte, triumphantly.

Flora slightly bowed again, without comprehending that the fact would be of any advantage to her, and Mr. Nutty snorted as if he instantly smelt hostile opposition to his supremacy.

The fact was, Charley was a lawyer’s clerk, on twenty-five shillings per week, but he had improved the opportunities he possessed by working very hard, reading up the best works on the study and practice of the law, making himself master of cases which were precedents, and, in fact, doing his best to fit himself either for the bar, if he could raise the necessary funds to be called to it, or to be a first-class solicitor.

His principal object, as at present entertained by him, was to place his sister above the reach of want, and the necessity for her present life-destroying labour. He little knew how hard the work, how small the earnings. Out of his narrow weekly salary he contrived occasionally to make her little presents, and certainly he visited no place or person more regularly or more frequently than he did the humble abode of his sister. Not that he went much anywhere, for he well knew that eminence in the path he had marked out to pursue could not be achieved unless by an incessant and persevering study, which has destroyed more men than it has ever made great.

Lotte knew of his devotion to his task—how he sat poring over dreadfully dry books, lighted in his task by the midnight oil, and supported in his trying work by the noble hope that he should be able some day to keep her like a lady.

How dearly she loved him for it, no one could know but herself; and, in addition, she thought him the cleverest lawyer in existence, much worthier in respect of merit to preside over the bench of judges than the Lord Chief Justice himself.

Therefore when she mentioned to Flora that he was a lawyer, she fully expected to see her leap with delight, and she felt disappointed that she did not.

In order to prove his incontestable superiority, she, in rapid terms, explained to him what had occurred, and begged him to display the legal knowledge which she was sure he possessed, by ordering Mr. Nutty to quit the premises instanter, and to consider himself fortunate if he did so without receiving that shaking to which she fully believed he was entitled.

Charley smiled and shook his head.

But such was the influence of Flora’s loveliness on him, that, after one careful perusal of her fair lineaments, he needed no urging from his sister to render assistance if he could. He did not ask himself whether his exertions would be made in a deserving cause; he knew they would be performed on behalf of one possessing rare personal attractions, and under his first impressions that sufficed.

He commenced action by questioning Mr. Nutty, who exhibited most restive indications under examination. Charley demanded to see the warrant under which Mr. Nutty held possession, which Mr. Nutty refused, but, under the bewildering, sharp, quick, and pertinent questions of the young lawyer, he let slip the fact that Mr. Jukes had gone away without lodging it with him.

“You are not certain that Mr. Jukes has it, I dare be sworn!” cried Charley, looking at him, fixedly.

“Oh yes, I am—I’ll swear that!”

“You will?”

“Take my oath on it. I seed it in his hand, when he made the seizure, and he ort to a gev’ it me afore he went away.”

“But he did not!”

“No; he was so okkepied with his prisoner that he took it with him.”

“Then you must go after him!”

“No, thank you.”

“Yes, you must! You have no warrant you know, therefore, you are not in possession. In point of fact and of law—you are guilty of an act of trespass. You had better go.”

“Shan’t budge a hinch.”

“Then I shall make you! If you resist, I will fling you over the banisters to the passage below!”

“Do not hurt him too much!” interposed Lotte, with a half-frightened look.

“Not if he goes quietly—but out he must go!”

“If you uses wiolence, I’ll have the lor on you!” cried Nutty, in evident terror.

“I shall only use the proper force to put you into the street, and, unless you at once disappear, I warn you you must take the consequences of the false position in which you know, as well as I do, your employer, through his negligence, has placed you.”

“Ain’t a’going!” cried Nutty, folding his arms, and placing his back against the wall.

“Very well,” said Charley, “that is a point we have to determine.”

He caught Mr. Nutty firmly by the wrist, and then giving his own hand an overturn, and Mr. Nutty’s an underturn, he, with his left hand seized him by his collar, and drew him at a rapid rate towards the door.

Mr. Nutty uttered a yell.

“Yah!” he cried, “le’go my arm, your’e dexlycatin’ on it.”

Charley, however, heeded him not, but put him outside the door on to the landing. The man in possession was thus no longer entitled to his cognomen.