Chapter XIII (1)

Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was sitting alone in her room, musing in bitterness of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s compliments to Lady Renshaw, and would her ladyship favour him with her company for a few minutes in his apartments?

She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph was shorn of half its glory. Archie Ridsdale might be a free man to-morrow, and it would matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned. Bella had made a fool of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant. What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life had still some compensations for her.

A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into the room. She gazed round; but there was no one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was a stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The latter rose and advanced with his thin, faint smile.

‘I was given to understand that I should find Sir William Ridsdale here,’ said her ladyship in a somewhat aggrieved tone.

‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at your service,’ was the quiet reply of the smiling, white-haired gentleman before her.

Probably in the whole course of her life Lady Renshaw had never been so much taken aback as she was at that moment. She literally gasped for words, but none came.

‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet; and with that he led her to a chair, and then he drew up another for himself a little distance away.

‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once appreciating the motives by which I was influenced in acting as I have acted. I came here incognito in order that I might be able to see and judge for myself respecting certain matters which might possibly very materially affect both my son’s future and my own. Archie was got out of the way for a day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must introduce your ladyship.’

‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was about you a sort of _je ne sais quoi_, an impalpable something, which caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses. Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very different from that of an amanuensis.”’

‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s acumen is something phenomenal.’

The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in making up your mind how to act.’

‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’

‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive. What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in the way I did!’

‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’

‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.

‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’

‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment; but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement. Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile: ‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result would be.’

‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is a proof of it.’

He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite side of the room, where was a window set in an alcove, which just at present was partially shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick movement of the hand, Sir William drew back the curtain, and revealed, to Lady Renshaw’s astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with a skein of silk on his uplifted hands in close proximity to Miss Loraine, who was in the act of winding the silk into a ball. The young people started to their feet in dismay as the curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty picture. ‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’ said Sir William smilingly; ‘I only wanted to give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’ With that he let fall the curtain and went back to his chair.

‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t mean to say, Sir William’—— Her ladyship choked and stopped.

‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss Loraine you behold my son’s future wife. He has chosen wisely and well; and that his married life will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In the assumed character of Mr Etheridge, I made the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am no stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition. If anything, she is just a leetle too good for Master Archie.’

Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving under her feet. In fact, at that moment an earthquake would hardly have astonished her. Most truly had Sir William been termed an eccentric man: he was more than eccentric—he was mad! She had only one shaft more left in her quiver, but that was tipped with venom.

‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be brother-in-law to a person whose husband was or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more as if communing sorrowfully with herself, than addressing Sir William. Her eyes were fixed on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and when she shook her head, which she did with an air of profound melancholy, she seemed to be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture. Sir William and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will you oblige me, Lady Renshaw?’

He led the way to the opposite end of the room, where anything they might say would be less likely to be overheard by the young people behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship very justly observes,’ said the baronet, ‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow is alive—to a man whom I verily believe to be one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant you, but one which, under the circumstances, can in nowise be helped.’

‘It will be one that the world will never tire of talking about.’

‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the bottom of my heart; and you yourself, as a woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do the same.’

Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was silent.

‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped through a father’s selfishness, when a girl just fresh from school, into marriage with such a villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what way could she possibly have helped herself? Alas! in such a case there is no help for a woman. When—years after he had robbed and deserted her, and had fallen into the clutches of the law—she received the news of his death, it was impossible that she should feel anything but thankfulness for her release. Time went on, and she had no reason to doubt the fact of her widowhood, when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband turned up—here! I have told you all this, Lady Renshaw, in order that you may know the truth of the case as it now stands, and not be led away by any distorted version of it. Ah, poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help herself?’

‘That is not a question I am called upon to answer—it is not one that the world will even condescend to ask. The fact still remains that she is a convict’s wife, and as such the world will judge her.’

‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty. But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it; to Colonel Woodruffe; and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted with the story of her married life. Such being the case, we three have only to keep our own counsel; we have only to determine that not one word of what we know respecting this most unhappy history shall ever pass our lips, and loyally and faithfully carry out that determination, and the world need never know more of the past life of Madame De Vigne than it knows at the present moment. As for the fellow himself, I shall know how to keep his tongue quiet. I am sure that you agree with me, dear Lady Renshaw.’

A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s eyes. The time had come for her to show her claws. Such a moment compensated for much that had preceded it.

She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really, Sir William, who would have thought there was so much latent romance in your composition? Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the champion of Beauty in distress? To be sure, if you persevere in your present arrangements, this Madame De Vigne will become a connection of your own, and regarded from that point of view, I can quite understand your anxiety to hush up the particulars of her very ugly story. Family scandals are things always to be avoided, are they not, Sir William?’

‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’

‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank heaven! will be no connection of mine either near or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see the necessity for such extreme reticence on my part. The world will get to know that I have been mixed up to a certain extent in this affair—somehow, it always does get to know such things—and I shall be questioned on every side. What am I to say? What reply am I to make to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth, and say that I know nothing—that I am in absolute ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a lady of the highest respectability and of unblemished antecedents—a person, in short, whom any family might be proud to count as one of themselves? You will admit, Sir William, that the position in which I shall be placed will be a most embarrassing one?’

‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost as much so, in fact, as if some one were to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s shop in Drury Lane the other day. The place looks precisely as it did forty years ago. Nothing is changed except the name over the door.” That might be rather embarrassing to you, might it not?’

All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she were about to faint. The rouge on her cheeks showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like pallor which had overspread the rest of her face. Her lips twitched convulsively. She sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a word.

‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most individual lives, there are certain secrets, certain private matters, which concern ourselves alone, and about which we would infinitely prefer that the world, and perhaps even our most intimate friends, should remain in happy ignorance. It could be no gratification to your ladyship, for instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were made aware that your grandfather started in life as a rag and bone merchant in the fashionable locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the name painted over his door—and that your ladyship first saw the light under the roof of that unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could be no gratification to you. Your father at that time was just beginning to lay the foundation of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated as a speculative builder. My father owned certain house property in the neighbourhood, and he employed your father to look after the repairs. Hence it was that, on two occasions when little more than a youth, I was sent with business messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those occasions that I first had the distinguished pleasure of meeting your ladyship. You were a mere child at the time, and your father used to call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He was holding you in his arms, and you struggled to get down; but he would not let you go. “She wants to be off with the other children,” he said to me; “and then she gets playing in the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.” Those were his exact words. Your ladyship will pardon me for saying that you struck me at the time as being a remarkably pretty child, although it is possible that your face might with advantage have been a little cleaner than it was.’

Never before in the whole course of her life had Lady Renshaw had the tables turned on her in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her lip hard and kept them back. At the moment, she felt as if she could willingly have stabbed Sir William to the heart.

She sat without uttering a word. What, indeed, could she find to say?

‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir William smilingly; ‘there is no occasion for you to be downhearted. The best thing that you and I can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a treaty of peace, to which Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms of the treaty shall be these: you on your part shall promise to keep locked up in your bosom as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to your dearest friend, that knowledge respecting the married life of Madame De Vigne which has come so strangely into your possession; while I on my part will promise faithfully to keep undivulged those particulars concerning your ladyship’s early career of which I have just made mention—which, and others too that I could mention, although you could in nowise help them, I feel sure that you would not care to have published on the housetops. Come, what say you, shall it be a compact between us?’

‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she rose from her chair, adding with a contemptuous shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De Vigne.’

‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady Renshaw.’

Was it possible that this man, whose tongue knew how to stab so keenly, could really be the same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken Mr Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could hardly say Bo to a goose!

Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment or two; then she said: ‘I will see you again to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.

‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever and wherever may suit you best.’

He crossed to the door, opened it, and made her one of his most stately bows as she walked slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared straight before her, but with rage and bitter mortification gnawing at her heartstrings.

‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to reckon with,’ said Sir William quietly to the colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN CHAPLAIN.

BANGALORE—THE ENGLISH CANTONMENT.

About a mile distant from the old fort and city of Bangalore are the English cantonment and modern native town. Conceive a field or parade-ground a mile and a half in length and a quarter of a mile in breadth, lined on each side by avenues of large beautiful trees, overshadowing the encircling footpath and carriage-drive. Along the southern boundary of this parade-ground are the houses and shops of the Europeans and Eurasians; whilst to the north are lines of barracks for both European and native troops, from the midst of which rises prominently the tower of St Andrew’s Church, which is, or was, the finest and highest building in Bangalore. Many are the beautiful roads stretching away from this parade-ground into the country, where are the picturesque dwelling-houses of civilians and officers, whose encircling gardens all the year round are in perpetual bloom—for Bangalore, though in a tropical region, has an Italian climate. The fortunate Europeans who are stationed there are not scorched up by the terrible heat under which their unlucky countrymen must swelter at Madras and in the southern plains; and Christmas comes to them at Bangalore, not wreathed with snowflakes and pendent with icicles, as it does to us, but beautiful with roses and variegated garlands of flowers.

It was rather a novel thing for my friends Dr Norman Macleod and Dr Watson to be taken on a New-year’s day, as I took them in 1868, to a magnificent show of flowers and fruits in the ‘Lall-baugh’ Gardens of Bangalore. In his usual happy style, the celebrated Norman thus relates his visit: ‘The European quarter is as different from the Pettah as Belgravia is from the east end of London. Here the houses are in their own compounds with shrubs and flower-gardens quite fresh and blooming. Open park-like spaces meet the eye everywhere, with broad roads as smooth and beautiful as the most finished in England. Equipages whirl along, and ladies and gentlemen ride by on horseback. One catches a glimpse of a church tower or steeple; and these things, together with the genial air, make one feel once more at home; at all events, in a bit of territory which seems cut out of home and settled in India. There are delightful drives, one to the Lall-baugh laid out in the last century by Hyder Ali. Our home feeling was greatly intensified by attending a flower-show. There was the usual military band; and crowds of carriages conveyed fashionable parties to the entrance. Military officers and civil servants of every grade were there, up to Mr Bowring, Chief Commissioner of Mysore. The most remarkable and interesting spectacles to me were the splendid vegetables of every kind, including potatoes which would have delighted an Irishman; leeks and onions to be remembered, like those of Egypt; cabbages, turnips, cauliflowers, peas, beans, such as England could hardly equal; splendid fruit, apples, peaches, oranges, figs, and pomegranates; the display culminating in a magnificent array of flowers, none of which pleased me more than the beautiful roses, so redolent of home. Such were the sights of a winter’s day at Bangalore.’

Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather to abide in India than come back to this country; and certainly, with scanty means, they are better off there in a warm and genial clime than they would be here, with our long and dreary cold and icy winters. And when those pensioners are sober and industrious, they have abundant opportunities in India to enable them to support themselves and their families in great comfort, and even to become what we Scotch people call ‘bein folk.’ I could give many pleasing instances from amongst them of ‘success in life.’ I knew three Scotch gentlemen who were highly respected bank agents, and who had gone to India as artillerymen in the Honourable East India Company’s service. But although it be thus a pleasant fact that many of our pensioned soldiers have done well and prospered in India, yet it is melancholy to relate that a goodly portion of them are sadly wanting in sobriety and industry, and consequently their continued stay in that country is not for good, but for evil. So impressed was I with this that, when asked by a high military official for my opinion as to whether the government ought to give greater encouragement to the time-served soldiers to settle permanently in India, I at once and decidedly said No; because, when freed from military discipline, their lives too frequently were such that they lowered the prestige of the English name, and helped to injure the salutary respect which the natives have hitherto had for their white-faced rulers.

In a pretty little village near Madras, called Poonamalee, as well as in Bangalore, there dwell very many of those pensioners with their families. I was wont to pay periodical visits to this place on professional duty; and certainly I found it at first not only strange but grotesque to see young men and maidens and numerous children, with faces as black as a minister’s coat, but yet bearing some good old Scottish name, and speaking the English with an accent as if they had been born and bred in the wilds of Lochaber. My beadle, as sable a youth as could be, was a M‘Cormick, and proudly claimed to be an Inverness-shire man. I remember, towards the close of the Mutiny, of driving with my wife, on a moonlight evening through a beautiful ‘tope’ of palm-trees, when suddenly our ears caught the distant strain of the bagpipes. There was no mistaking it; faint though it was, we could distinguish it floating and wailing through the silent night as _M‘Clymont’s Lament_. Gradually the music became louder, until we were able to discover whence it emanated. I got out of the carriage before an opening in the trees, and winding my way by a narrow path, I came at last to a small bungalow where a man was strutting up and down the veranda playing on a genuine pair of Scottish bagpipes. His garments were white, but his face was perfectly black. He was astonished at my appearance, and so was I at his; and my astonishment was not diminished when in answer to a question as to his name, he replied to me in a pleasant Argyllshire accent: ‘My name is Coll M‘Gregor, sir; and my father was a piper in the forty-second Highlanders, and I believe he came from a place they called Inveraray.’ Poor M‘Gregor! from that night I knew him well. Black though he was, he was a most worthy man; and one of the last sad duties I performed ere leaving India was to visit him when dying in the hospital, and to bury him when dead amongst the sleeping Scotchmen in St Andrew’s churchyard.

In the _Illustrated London News_ there is a picture entitled ‘Recruits’ which gives a very faithful representation of the composition of the British army. A smart recruiting sergeant is leading away captive a batch of young men—the thoughtless, reckless shopboy, the clownish rustic, the discontented artisan, and the downcast ‘young gentleman’ who has wasted his substance in riotous living. The picture rekindles in my memory several instances of the last-mentioned type. In the following stories, it will be seen, from obvious reasons, that where names are mentioned, these are fictitious.

There is a clump of trees in the immediate vicinity of Bangalore which is known as ‘the Dead-man’s Tope.’ In it there is a solitary grave, that of a young Scotchman. For many years the natives alleged that his ‘ghost’ was to be seen walking mournfully amongst the trees, for they said he could not rest until his appointed years had been fulfilled. He had been a corporal in a Scotch regiment stationed in Bangalore, beloved by all his comrades, but unfortunately hated by the sergeant of his company. At last, goaded by the unjust treatment he received from this sergeant, he struck him down in a moment of passion. In those days, discipline was stern; the young corporal was tried, and condemned to be hanged in the presence of the whole garrison. The execution took place; but so great was the feeling against the sergeant, that he had to be sent away from the regiment down to Madras, protected by a military escort. The general officer who told me this story was a witness of this sad scene, and was the interpreter to the native soldiers of the reason of the execution. That young corporal belonged to Glasgow, and was connected with many respectable families in the city.

Here is a happier tale. John Home, after many years’ service in the Honourable Company’s artillery, retired on a pension, and settled at Bangalore. He became editor of a small local paper, and so for a few years was a prominent member of the community. He married, and had an only son. This boy was but an infant when the father died, his death being hastened by intemperate living. On Home’s private writing-desk being opened, his relations found, to their amazement, a sheet of paper with the handwriting of the deceased telling his real name—for Home was a fictitious one he had assumed on his enlistment—and whence he came, and where his relatives were to be found. These disclosures were made, so the paper said, for the only reason that perhaps on some future day they might benefit his boy; and were it not for this hope, the secret would have gone down with him to the grave. Strange to say, not many months elapsed when an advertisement appeared in an Edinburgh paper signed by a legal firm, asking for information about this very man, giving his real name. Of course the Edinburgh gentlemen were at once communicated with; and after all the evidences were submitted, and no doubt well scrutinised, the claim of the widow and her child was acknowledged. The boy was brought home and educated; and I trust still is, what he was a few years ago, the proprietor of a ‘snug little estate.’ Such is some of the romance of the ‘rank and file’ of our army.

COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.

The spinster sisters held a council of war on the day following the events we have described. They were not disappointed at the failure of the marriage proposals to Miss Fraser; for that young lady was by no means the kind of guardian they would select for their brother as a bulwark against the troubles and vexations of this mortal life. The way was now more clear than ever for the success of their original plan. Septimus had learned their ideas and wishes, and had gradually become more amenable to reason. The beauty and talent of the handsome widow had been fully descanted upon. Nor were her monetary qualifications lost sight of by the practical Penelope. The question of suitability as to age had been delicately but firmly touched upon by both the sisters.

‘Mrs Fraser is only ten years your junior, Septimus, and that is the difference which should always exist between husband and wife. Indeed, I see no objection to even a greater disproportion, but that is the minimum necessary to conjugal happiness. I am certain that Mrs Fraser has a _tendresse_ for you, and that any proposal from you would meet with every encouragement.’

Septimus left the room considerably mollified, and immediately after he had done so, Penelope turned to her sister, and said: ‘I trust, Lavinia, you approve of all I have been saying to dear Septimus?’

‘Entirely, my dear sister; but’—— Lavinia paused.

‘You have always a “but,” Lavinia. Pray, speak out.’

‘Well, I have a suspicion that Mrs Fraser has a lurking sentiment for Mr Lockwood.’

‘Good gracious, Lavinia! you certainly conceive the most extraordinary notions.’

‘I do not say for a single moment that the sentiment is reciprocated,’ replied Lavinia.

‘Why, Frank Lockwood is young enough to be her son!’ indignantly exclaimed Penelope.

‘Hardly, Penelope, unless Mrs Fraser was marriageable at the age of six,’ Lavinia continued. ‘Then I cannot help thinking that Frank is in love with Blanche.’

Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is highly probable, and would account for her rejection of Septimus.’

Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it would be politic to prepare Mrs Fraser for the possible proposal of their brother.

We trust the reader will not contemptuously label the spinster sisters as ‘matchmakers;’ for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that marriages are made in heaven.

At this moment the widow chanced to enter the drawing-room where the sisters were sitting. Her features still showed traces of the disappointment she had recently experienced.

‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs Fraser.’

‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought the solitude of the Chine, my sole companion a book,’ replied the widow.

‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.

‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much as when surrounded by murmuring foliage, and my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’

‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment till _now_,’ said Penelope in marked tones.

This remark may seem ill calculated to put the widow in a good-tempered frame of mind. But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The more fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her own increasing years and fading charms, the more likely she was to listen to the suit of the elderly-looking Septimus.

For a moment the widow coloured, as if in anger. ‘That is not exactly a complimentary remark, my dear Miss Redgrave.—Now, don’t apologise, for I am not in the least offended. How can I be, when I have a daughter, not only marriageable, but actually engaged to be married!’

The sisters simultaneously left off their needlework, and gazing in astonishment at the speaker, sat as mute as the twin sisters carved in stone in the sandy Egyptian desert.

‘Yes; Mr Lockwood has asked my consent to his marriage with Blanche, and I have graciously accorded the same. Heigh-ho! it will be a great trial for me, when the hour of parting comes.’

‘I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear Mrs Fraser,’ exclaimed Penelope. ‘We have known Frank from a child. He is everything that a man should be, clever, accomplished, with good prospects, and of high moral principles.’

The widow sighed. ‘I shall be very lonely. I have not an affectionate sister as you have; and when a woman has once known the happiness of married life, and the comfort and protection of an affectionate husband, life is indeed a blank when she is left utterly alone.’

Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her chances of a successful attack. In love and war, the occasion is everything. She gently laid her spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow, and softly whispered: ‘Why should you be utterly alone, dear friend?’

Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in response at the speaker.

‘We know of one who would be only too happy to be your companion for life,’ pursued Penelope. ‘Of a suitable age, amiable, and rich.’

The countenance of the widow was suffused with a soft blush as she said: ‘Where shall I find this earthly treasure?’

‘In this house, Mrs Fraser. Our beloved brother, Septimus.’

Mrs Fraser had much ado to avoid making a wry face, as she mentally contrasted the white-haired ‘brother’ with his vacuous expression of countenance, and the black-haired Frank Lockwood, with his bright intelligent glance and fascinating smile. But it was now quite as probable that she would marry the Emperor of China as the solicitor of the Redgrave family; so she softly murmured; ‘I had no suspicion of anything of the kind.’

Rapidly the widow reviewed all the attendant circumstances of the case. Von Moltke himself would have envied her comprehensive glance at the pros and cons of an important conjuncture of events. Septimus was of good family, of suitable age, possessed of ample means, and last, but not least in the eyes of the widow, was not too clever; and therefore, in all probability easily manageable, that indispensable desideratum in a husband. We are not sure that Mrs Fraser was correct in her deduction on this point, for foolish people are frequently obstinate, under the false idea that they are thereby displaying firmness.

‘If I were to accept Mr Redgrave on the instant, in consequence of your recommendation, my dear Penelope, neither he nor his sisters would respect me. I have always found great pleasure in the society of your brother, and have a great respect for his character. More, I am sure, my dear Penelope, you would neither expect, nor wish me to say.’

Both the sisters cordially kissed the blushing widow, and expressed themselves as quite satisfied with the avowal, Penelope adding: ‘I have more than a presentiment that in a few weeks we shall be enabled to give you the kiss of a sister.’

No more was said on the present occasion.

The widow retired to her chamber, and as she contemplated her features in the glass, soliloquised: ‘No—at forty, one must not be too particular; and there are twenty thousand excellent reasons why I should change my name from Fraser to that of Redgrave.’

It is needless to say that the sisters did not allow the grass to grow under their feet with respect to the proposed alliance between the families of Redgrave and Fraser. Much stress was laid by them in their conversations with the widow as to the shyness of their brother, and the necessity of some encouragement being extended to him. At length Septimus screwed his courage to the sticking-place and resolved to learn his fate. By a singular coincidence, he found the widow seated on the identical bench occupied on a similar occasion by her youthful daughter. An involuntary sigh escaped him as he mentally instituted a comparison between the sylph-like figure of Blanche and the more portly form of her mother. As he sat down by her side in response to her invitation, he felt his courage oozing away. On the former occasion, he had been bold as a lion; but in the presence of the keen-witted woman of the world, he fully realised his mental inferiority. Some commonplaces ensued, and then Mrs Fraser, laying down the newspaper which she held in her hand, suddenly observed: ‘What is your opinion of thought-reading, Mr Redgrave? Do you believe in it?’

‘I scarcely know whether I do or not,’ responded Septimus. ‘Do you?’

‘Implicitly,’ replied the widow. ‘Shall I give you a specimen of my powers?’

‘I should be delighted. Can you read my thoughts?’ said Septimus.

‘I can. But you must promise two things: That you won’t be offended at my guess; and that you candidly admit whether I am correct in my guess.’

‘I promise.’

‘Give me your hand.’

Septimus placed his trembling fingers in the strong grasp of the widow. ‘You are at this moment contemplating matrimony.’

‘That is correct,’ said Septimus.

‘The lady is a widow.’

‘Wonderful!’ cried Septimus. ‘Can you tell me her name?’

‘My powers do not extend so far,’ returned Mrs Fraser.

‘Your successful guess, my dear Mrs Fraser, has helped me out of a great difficulty.’

‘How so?’

‘You have half-performed my task for me. Do you think a lady, handsome, rich, and well-bred, and still comparatively young, would consent to unite her fortunes with mine? I am some ten or a dozen years her senior. I have been a bachelor all my life, and may have thus acquired peculiar ways. But I would settle the whole of my cousin’s legacy upon her, if she would take pity on my solitary state. Dear Fanny, can you not guess, without thought-reading, the name of my enslaver?’

The widow looked down and managed to blush becomingly, and impart a slight tremor to the hand which still held that of Septimus.

‘I will not affect to misunderstand you, Mr Redgrave; you are making my unworthy self an offer of marriage.’

‘And you accept it?’

‘I do.’

Septimus sealed the contract by a chaste kiss on the cheek of the widow, and felt a sensation of inexpressible relief that the Rubicon, for good or evil, was passed.

‘I may now tell you, dear Septimus, that Blanche is also engaged.’

‘I know it.’

‘Impossible! I only knew it myself forty-eight hours ago!’

‘Do not ask me at present, dear Fanny. I learned the fact by an accident.’

The widow presently retired to her chamber, under the plea of nervous agitation, but in reality to inform her daughter of her engagement. But it was reserved for Septimus to perform that pleasant duty. Scarcely had Mrs Fraser retired, when Blanche appeared on the terrace. ‘Have you seen mamma, Mr Redgrave?’

‘Mrs Fraser has this moment left me.—Blanche, I have a favour to ask of you.’

‘Of me!’

‘That you will not breathe a syllable to your mamma that I proposed to you three days ago; at least, not for the present.’

‘Certainly, Mr Redgrave.’

‘You will at once see the necessity for my request, when I tell you that I have this day proposed to another lady and been accepted.’

Blanche indulged in a merry peal of laughter, which she found it impossible to repress. ‘Pray, forgive me, Mr Redgrave. I congratulate you that you have so speedily recovered from your late rejection.’

‘Yes, Blanche, as I could not be your husband, I have resolved on being your father.’

Blanche remained petrified with astonishment for a few seconds, then exclaiming: ‘I must go at once to dear mamma and congratulate her,’ prepared to enter the house.

But Septimus seized her hand and said: ‘Now, tell me the name of _your_ future partner. Though I shrewdly suspect, yet I think in my new position as your father I am entitled to know for certain?’

‘Mr Frank Lockwood,’ replied the blushing girl, as she broke away and ran into the house.

There was not a happier circle round a dinner-table in the island than that assembled in Oswald Villa that evening. The engaged couples were mutually satisfied with their matrimonial prospects, while the spinster sisters saw the wish of their hearts gratified in the engagement of their beloved brother with so suitable a person as Mrs Fraser. But at that moment a cloud was forming on the horizon which was destined to effect a great change in the fortunes of the betrothed couples.

A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.

Time was, long ago, when certain of us thought that Spain was the place where the then despised Marsala wine was made. Struggling to obtain the favour and recognition of the public, and held as a kind of humble cousin of sherry, cheaper to buy and meaner in all its conditions, Marsala had no honour in England some thirty years or so ago. Those who gave it gave it for need; and for the most part tried to pawn it off as its more aristocratic relation, thinking that no one would suspect the truth when that silver label, shaped like a vine-leaf with ‘Sherry’ cut out in Roman capitals in the centre, was hung round the neck of the heavy cut-glass bottle. And as sherry was certainly a Spanish wine, the false reasoning born of association of ideas made one think that Marsala also was a Spanish wine.

The way to Marsala from Palermo is exceedingly interesting. The country is beautiful with all the grand Sicilian beauty—broken foregrounds, noble mountain forms, the dark-blue sea, of which the splendour is enhanced by the gray green of the olives and the contrast of the golden hue given by the lemon-trees hanging thick with fruit. All the waysides along the railroad are rich in flowers, making the land look as if enamelled. Rugged capes and fertile plains, small smooth exquisite bays and inland mountains, orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of pale lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and rivers running down in song to the sea—there is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on this lovely way. And the sea, where the white sails of passing ships gleam in the sunlight like the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land, where here a ruined temple crowns a height, and there a modern mansion stands sheltered on the slopes. Among the beautiful things of the sea is the uninhabited rocky island called ‘The Island of Women’ (_L’isola delle femmine_). The legend is that in old times, when pirates abounded, the ‘Barbari’ used to seize such hapless Sicilian women as they found wandering by the shore, and lodge them on this island till they had finished their fighting on shore; when they would return and carry off their prey.

In time the beauty of the lovely road fades away, and the country becomes utterly uninteresting. Still, even when there is no more flowery charm and no more golden colour, there is always association, and the way up to Segesta and Solinunto, with the ruined temple visible on the crest of the mountain, brings before the mind the long train of glorious images by which the ancient history of Sicily is thronged. For we are skirting the base of Mount Eryx, now Monte Giuliano, whence Acestes the king came down to meet Æneas when he landed on his return from Carthage; and where Æneas—so they say—founded the town of Acesta, which afterwards became Egesta, and is now Segesta. And all the well-known story repeats itself. ‘Selinus rich in palms,’ and ‘the shallow waters of Lilybæum’ which were ‘left behind;’ the race, and the beauty of the contending youths; poor Dido’s sad story; the death and burial of Anchises, the father whom Æneas saved from burning Troy by carrying on his shoulders—it is all living and palpitating as in those youthful days when imagination touched the pages with light, and made the dead words breathe with love and sorrow and passion. It is worth coming here, if only to realise Virgil and his matchless poem! But we draw up at a station, and the present puts the past to flight—the real blots out the ideal born of imagination and poetry.

Armed _carabinieri_ are at every station. This is not usual either in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy, where soldiers keep order at the stations, but are not so numerous nor so heavily armed as these. The district about Trapani, however, in which we are, has not a good name; and the government knows what it is about when it takes extra measures of precaution for the safety of travellers. That it does take these extra measures insures the safety of the wayfarers. At Marsala itself, the whole train is taken possession of before it has well come to a stand, and long before the passengers have got out. The crowd swarms into all three classes indiscriminately; and there is much rough pushing and hustling, but no actual brutality. Still, it is sufficiently like the return of ’Arry from a Crystal Palace fête to be unpleasant; though for all that, the Italian ’Arry is a good-natured soul, with no malice in him. What he wants in malice, however, he makes up in garlic. There has been an Easter-week procession here—it is ‘Holy Thursday’—and all the neighbourhood has sent its young men, each township and village its quota, till they have come in their hundreds, and have to be taken back again the best way they can.

Near Marsala is one of the three promontories which give Sicily its name of Trinacria—Cape Lilybeo, the very Lilybæum whose ‘shallows blind,’ ‘dangerous through their hidden rocks,’ caused Æneas to land on the ‘unlucky shore’ of Drepanum. Here in calm weather you can see the remains of houses beneath the sea, as at Pozzuoli, near Naples. But the point of the whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the largest and most important of all the Marsala wine-factories. These stores seem to be interminable; and the perspective of arches, from each side of which branch out these huge above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange and picturesque. The _balio_ or inclosure wherein the whole concern stands—storehouses, workshops, dwelling-house, garden, fields, &c.—is really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the grounds’ is quite enough exercise for any moderate-minded pedestrian. The oldest two stores date from 1812, and are the parents of all that have come after. They are picturesque little places now, covered with glossy dark-green ivy and flame-coloured bougainvillia; but, like the fathers and mothers of prosperous families, they are set aside as comparatively useless in the presence of their stalwart children.

In going through the stores, one is struck not only with the number, but also with the enormous size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge proportions, not quite equalling the famous Tun of Heidelberg perhaps, but coming pretty close to it, and holding wine to the worth of an astounding figure. The value of one store alone comes up to a moderate fortune; and there are thirty in all. Once a boy went to sleep in one of those weird receptacles, and was not found till the next morning. The fumes had overpowered him, but he came out none the worse. Some of the wine given us to taste is fifty years old, and is delicious in proportion to its age and preciousness; and some of the finer sorts of younger date are unsurpassed in any wine-store extant. Then there is the huge vat of _vino cotto_ or _vino madre_; and there is the distilling apparatus, which is very beautiful and dainty. The Custom House is jealous and exact. It seals up all with a letter-lock, waxen seals and silken threads; so that no tampering is possible with the retorts or the receivers. The cool obscurity of the cellars, where these immense vats are ranged like so many transformed giants, gives one a sense of restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the sun, lying keen and bright on wall and pavement, casting shadows as sharply defined as if purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors and thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of passionate vitality peculiar to Sicily. Men in coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round their waists, add to the general picturesqueness of the scene; and the white wings of the pigeons shining like silver against the blue sky, complete a chord of colour to be seen only in the South—that fervid South where to live is sufficient enjoyment, and where artificial wants as we have them are neither known nor appreciated, being of the nature of encumbrances and superfluities. For what else is wanted than the sun and the sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and the glory of nature? Nevertheless, the material luxury of the North and West is invading the hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South; and France and England both, are being imitated even so far as Marsala, where once the house was held as merely a place of refuge where tired Christians might sleep at noon and at night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment worth the spending of thought or money to make beautiful.

From the vats full of their golden treasure to the casks in process of making, the transition is natural. Here, again, light and colour give a certain charm, making a novelty of that which is so well known at home. For cask-making in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making in England; and only the men, with very minor details in the method of manipulation, are different. It is the same drying of the wood, the same setting of the staves, the same hammering on of the hoops in regular succession of blows, and we fancy the same kind of white oak, of which the staves are made, shipped from America for England as well as for Marsala. Hans Christian Andersen might have written a sprightly sketch of the oak as it stood in its virgin forest, with grizzlies and panthers, pretty woodchunks and sweet wild birds all about, till it was cut down by the forester; packed into a raft and started down the Big River by the lumberman; brought over to Europe by the huge steamship; made into casks, and filled with the golden juice of grapes beneath the glorious sky of Sicily—the wine to be drunk at the marriage of the bride, the birth of the heir, the death of the master. The place where they clean the barrels, some in the old-fashioned way of hand-rocking, with chains inside; the sheds where they cut the hoops and make the bolts—the drill and the circular saw going through iron and wood like so much butter or cheese; those where they steam the barrels and those where they mark them—these, too, come into the day’s work of visiting and inspection; as well as the cooking-place and the dining-shed for the three hundred men employed.

These men are noticeably clean and smart in appearance; they are, too, as industrious as they look; for no loafers are allowed, and he who does not know how to work with a will soon receives his dismissal. The touch of English energy and English precision is plainly visible throughout—with one result, that, unlike Southern workmen, as generally found, these do not care to keep all the holidays which are so frequent in Roman Catholic countries. They work about ten and a half hours in the day; and each man is searched and numbered on coming in and going out.

The word Marsala recalls the time when the Saracens ruled the land, just as Mongibello for Etna, Gibbel Rossa at Palermo, and all Sicilian agricultural and irrigatory terms recall them. It is really _Marsh-Allah_, ‘the port of God.’ Round about our _balio_ are many interesting things, principally the caves where, not so long ago, a murderer hid in perfect safety, and where in lawless times brigands and outcasts took refuge and found security. They are interminable, and it is impossible to visit them all; but our guide takes us through some of the most practicable, where we have occasion for a little gymnastic exercise here and there among the broken rocks and steep sharp pitches. An army of brigands might hide away here undetected and unseen. Fortunately, at this time there are none to hide. No organised band of brigands exists anywhere in Sicily, and the stranger is absolutely safe.

Besides these caves, there is a strange folly in the shape of a ballroom and banqueting-room cut out of the living rock. There are tables and the place for the musicians, benches and divisions, all made in the rock underground. These odd rooms have been used, and it is to be supposed enjoyed. When we see them, the only guests are black beetles, a couple of dirty little lads as unkempt as wild Highland cattle, and a half-maniacal shock-headed Dugald kind of creature, with an atmosphere of garlic, which makes us rejoice when we turn out once more into the fresh air blowing over the breezy flower-clad upland, with the blue sea in front and the bright sun overhead.

CONCERNING FLORIDA.

A contributor, who is conversant with his subject, sends us the following important items, which we commend to young men who contemplate emigration.