You will kindly imagine, on commencing this chapter, that I have been three weeks at the bank. My progress during this time was not very remarkable; but I was beginning to understand a good deal that had threatened to remain for ever unintelligible to me. I could now add up a pretty long row of figures, without being thrown by the effort into great mental distress and confusion; I began to understand why Mr. Jones was allowed to overdraw his account, when Mr. Robinson’s cheques were dismissed with two terrible letters, or a mild “please refer to drawer.” I knew the object of pass-books, and the difference between current and deposit accounts. I could also comprehend the purport and import of bills, promissory notes, and such-like documents; and why Mr. Brown, the rich grazier, who didn’t particularly want money, was charged one per cent. above the Bank rate if he borrowed, and why Mr. Smith, who very particularly wanted money, was charged four, and even five per cent. above the Bank rate if he borrowed.

For all this increasing knowledge of mine, I was not a little indebted to Mr. Curling, whom to recompense for his very obliging disposition, I did my utmost to like. But whether it was owing to that unfortunate ring of his, or to his curly black hair, or to the cut of his clothes, or to a lurking suspicion that he was in love with Conny, I never could succeed in transforming my gratitude into a feeling of friendship. We had no sympathies in common. He once asked me to take a walk with him, and I went; but I passed a very stupid time. He could scarcely talk upon any other subject than business and bank rates, and stock lists and exchange prices. When by a very free discussion of my own affairs, I invited him to be equally candid, I found him excessively cautious. He listened to and encouraged me in my gossip about my father and my life at Longueville, but somehow contrived without positively seeming, to be absolutely silent on the subject of his own history. He had lodgings near the bank, and out of curiosity I accepted his invitation one day to spend an evening with him. I found that he didn’t smoke. He pretended to like the smell of my pipe, but I was so sure that he did not, that I put it aside, and he didn’t ask me to resume it. He had only one room. His bed was up in the corner; there were some books on the mantelpiece, and writing materials on a table near the window. He apologised for the meanness of his accommodation, and told me he had no other resources outside his salary, which was the only piece of personal information that, I think, I ever succeeded in getting from him. I had tried several times since I had known him to induce him to talk about Conny, in order to ascertain what his sentiments really were towards her; but he was never to be coaxed out of his shell. I rather hoped, now, that the whiskey-and-water would make him more candid; and, not without tact, turned the conversation upon my cousin. But he had one of those folding minds which, like the tubes of a telescope, slide deftly one within another, so that, without appearing to evade me, he yet succeeded in compressing himself entirely out of my reach. He asked me a week or two afterwards to spend another evening with him; but I declined under some pretence or other, and he never repeated his invitation.

Meanwhile, I was a constant visitor at Grove End. My aunt and uncle never varied in their kindness. Indeed, had not the former been old enough to be my mother, I might fairly have considered that she was head over ears in love with me. She was perpetually referring to me for my opinions; seemed indeed to regard me as the very glass of fashion and the mould of form, and to accept me as an unerring standard of breeding and taste. She was never more proud than when she had me by her side in the carriage, and returned the bows of her friends in the street.

I should have been fearfully dull, but for Grove End. A more dead-and-alive town than Updown I very much question if even Wales could produce. Not so much as a street organ found its way there. The only excitement that ever I heard of was a magic lantern, the property of the rector, who now and then lent it out, when the Charity School children stood in need of a little recreation. It is very true that the surrounding country was beautiful, and there was some fishing to be had in the river. But I am one of those people who soon get tired of natural scenery. Nothing is prettier to read about than cool glades, and sunny hay-fields, and the smell of violets, and the lazy lowing of cattle, and the metallic echo of the scythe being sharpened, and the songs of the rustics. A gentleman will sit down in the library of his club in Piccadilly, and declare himself, amid a glowing description of rural beauties, an ardent admirer of the country, which he never explores further than Richmond. I remember some verses written by Captain Morris, which my father, who had known the author, was very fond of quoting:

I say that I should have been sick of Updown and the natural scenery around it in less than a week, had it not been for Grove End. But there I found a human interest, powerful enough to inform the country for miles round with an extraordinary attraction.

Yes, Eugenio! before I had known my cousin three weeks I was in love with her. How could I look into her fathomless blue eyes, and not sink deep—deep—deep out of sight? How could I take her little snow-white hand and not wish to hold it for ever? My aunt encouraged me. It was her fault. I noticed that she was always fond of leaving Conny and me alone; that she contrived that Conny and I should sit side by side at the dinner-table; and that Conny should accompany us in our drives, which we used to take after the bank was closed, the carriage often calling for me at my lodgings.

I remember one fine evening at the latter end of June, that I left the drawing-room and strolled on to the lawn, and seated myself under a fine old oak tree. I wanted Conny to join me, and hoped she would take the hint, or that her mamma would send her with a cigar; for as I have said, Mrs. Hargrave took great pleasure in seeing us together. I made up my mind, if Conny came, to tell her that I loved her. I was suffering at that moment from an access. Everybody knows that love is an intermittent fever, and that the delirium is very powerful at times. I had sat next to her at table; I had said something soft to her, and lo! she had turned her eyes slowly up to mine. Heavens! what did I read there? A sensibility that transported me! Could I question that my unspoken love was recognised and shared? Oh, Eugenio! either hold thy tongue, or agree with me instantly, that the spirit hath a voice which makes itself audible to the spirit of the beloved, albeit no human language is uttered. Of course the eyes can talk. They are faculties given to women to convey thoughts which all the terms and all the definitions in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary put together, could never express. I had read a profound and inspiring truth in Conny’s eyes. Her tongue could no more have said it than my eyes could have looked it, beautiful and piercing as my poor fat Pauline used to consider them. That truth had sent me to the old oak tree, and now kept me pensively waiting for her to come forth.

But her mother came instead. The kind old lady stepped on to the lawn, and seeing me, approached and took a seat at my side.

“Why, how is it you are not smoking?” she asked.

“The fact is,” I answered, “I—I—to tell you the truth, I don’t know.”

“Isn’t this a beautiful evening?”

“Beautiful indeed.”

“Would you care to go back to Longueville?” she inquired, rather slyly, I thought.I looked her full in the face, and she laughed.

“I don’t think you would.”

“No, indeed. I am perfectly satisfied to remain where I am.”

“Thomas says you are getting on bravely at the bank. I know he is very anxious that you should learn: for he has some scheme for you, which he won’t tell me. You see, wives don’t always know their husbands’ affairs.”

“I know he has some scheme, and I am sure it is a generous one. I am getting on—thanks to Mr. Curling, I know a good deal now, though, when I first began, I thought I should never be able to learn the work.”

“What do you think of this Mr. Curling? Do you like him?”“I ought to: he deserves that I should.”

“Well,” said my aunt, “I don’t. I am sure he is a very sly person, and I dislike slyness in man or woman. When he visited this house he used to pay Conny a great deal of attention, but always in a sly way. In doing so, he took a very great liberty, considering his position in life, although my husband laughs at me, and declares that I troubled myself more than the occasion needed.”

“Mr. Curling is certainly no match for Conny,” said I.

“Match!” cried my aunt, warmly, “I should think not. Why, all that we know of him is, that he comes from London, from which place he answered an advertisement that Thomas put in the papers for a clerk. I have no wish to say anything harsh of the young man; but he obliges me to think of what he is when he pays my daughter attention.”

“I can’t make head or tail of him,” I answered. “I have frequently tried to get him to talk about Conny, but he always contrives to glide away from the subject.”

“Yes, yes! he is sly—I have always said he is sly.”

“But, after all, aunt, what matters it if Mr. Curling does admire Conny? People can only be prevented from touching—not from looking.”

“Oh, Mr. Curling is welcome to admire,” replied my aunt, with pleasant disdain. “All that I want to be assured of is, that Conny doesn’t care about him.”

“I don’t think she does; at least,” I added, with a twinge of jealousy, “she has never given me to understand by word or look that she cares a farthing for him. If I thought she did——”

“What?” asked my aunt anxiously, seeing that I paused.

“No matter,” I answered gloomily, folding my arms Lara-wise.

“I hope, Charlie, you have no reason to fear she does like that young man? If I really believed this to be the case, I should desire my husband to dismiss him at once. I wouldn’t have such a scandal—no! not to save my life.”

“My dear aunt, it is you who make me suspicious. I myself have heard and seen nothing. They don’t write to each other, I suppose?”“Write! I should think not!”

“And they never meet each other alone?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then I hardly see that there is anything to fear. If Conny were in love with Curling—the mere idea puts me in a passion!—I say, if Conny were silly enough to waste her priceless affection on a fellow of that kind, you would soon find it out. Something or other would happen. Either she’d meet him alone and be seen, or one of their letters would be intercepted.”

“Yes, the mere idea is enough to put one in a passion. As to her meeting him alone or writing to him, that is out of the question. She is my child, and I can answer for her conduct.”“Oh, she tells her own story. She is deliciously artless and womanly, and inexpressibly pretty.”

“She is as God made her,” said my aunt, meekly.

“My father would be charmed with her. After a course of sophistication, such as you meet with among French women, such English simplicity, such quiet artless sweetness as Conny’s is a pure luxury.”

“You and she get on very well together, don’t you?”

“I should be very miserable if I thought she didn’t like me.”

“You needn’t be,” answered my aunt, with a smiling nod, “for I know she does like you.”

“Really!” I cried, with a dramatic start.“Why shouldn’t she?” and here she paid me a compliment I need not repeat.

“Pray spare my lovely blushes,” I said, laughing. “But it doesn’t follow because you are so kind as to like me that Conny should. Mothers and daughters seldom agree in taste——”

Here, unfortunately, my uncle came out, followed by Conny, just as our conversation was growing thrillingly interesting. But for this interruption, I should have told my aunt that I was in love with her daughter, asked her consent, and inquired whether she thought a proposal for marriage would be agreeable to my uncle. As for her, I had eyes to see, and ears to hear, and therefore knew that she was decidedly in my favour, and needed no entreaty to become my warm ally. It was plain that Mr. Curling was a nightmare of hers, and had I been a trickster, nothing would have been easier for me than to have played upon her fears, and compassed my ends speedily through them. But I had too good an opinion of myself to condescend to stratagems of any kind. Conny should love me for myself—not through any compulsion on her mamma’s part. As yet, I was practically ignorant of her feelings towards me; a certain theory had indeed been inspired by her eyes; but talk as you will of the language of the soul, we are never heartily satisfied until we have listened to the language of the lips.

The opportunity for acquainting her with my sentiments was gone for that night, for my uncle stuck to me during the rest of the time we were out of doors, talking chiefly about banking business, to which I had to listen in order to gratify him by my replies; and when we returned to the house we all sat in the drawing-room, so that any confidential talk was out of the question.