Chapter VI: Mrs. Stothard

Mrs. Powler and Mrs. Jupp were by no means the only persons in Beachborough to whom Mrs. Stothard's position in the household at the Tower afforded subject-matter for gossip. It may be safely asserted that there never was a tea-drinking, followed--as was usually the case among the better classes in that hospitable neighbourhood--by a consumption of alcohol "hot with," at which Mrs. Stothard was not served up as a toothsome morsel, and forthwith torn into shreds, if not by the teeth, at least by the tongues of the assembled company. To those simple minds, all social standing was fixed and unalterable--one must either be mistress or servant; the lines of demarcation were strongly defined; they knew of no softening gradations; and they could not understand Mrs. Stothard. "She hev' her dinner by herself, and her own teapot allays brought to her own room--leastways, 'cept when she do fetch it herself, Miss Annette bein' sleepy or out of sorts, and not likin' to be disturbed by the servants." Such was the report which Nancy Wickstead, who had gone to live as nursemaid up at the Tower soon after the arrival of the family, brought down about this redoubtable woman. The villagers only knew her by report, by crumbs and fragments of rumours dropped by Nancy Wickstead when she came down among her old familiars for an "evening out," or by the tradesmen who called at the house, and who drew largely on their own imagination for the stories which they told. They had only caught fleeting glimpses of Mrs. Stothard as she passed along the corridor or crossed from room to room, but even those cursory glances entitled them to swagger before their fellow-villagers who had never seen her at all--never. Many of them tried to think they had, and after renewed descriptions of her firmly believed that they had; but it was all an exercitation of their imagination, for they never went to the Tower, and Mrs. Stothard never left it--never, under any pretence. In the two years during which the family had resided at the Tower, Mrs. Stothard had never passed through the entrance-gate. She took exercise sometimes in the grounds; even that but rarely; but she never left them. Young Dobbs, the grocer, a bright spirit, once took it into his head to chaff about her with the servants, to ask who was the "female hermit," and what duties she performed in the house; a flight of fancy not very humorous in itself, and unfortunate in its result. The next day Mrs. Derinzy called on Dobbs senior, asked him for his bill, paid it, and removed the family custom to Sandwith of Bedminster.

Once seen, a woman not easily to be forgotten, from her physical appearance. About eight-and-forty years of age, tall and very strongly built, with broad shoulders and big wrists, knuckles both of wrists and hands very prominent, great frontal development, but low forehead, a penthouse for deep-set gray eyes. Light hair, thin, dull, and colourless; thin and colourless cheeks; thin lips, closing tightly over rows of small, gleaming dog's-teeth; big, square, massive jaw; cold, taciturn, and watchful, with eyes and ears of wonderful quickness, wits always ready, hands always active and strong. She came to Mrs. Derinzy on Dr. Wainwright's recommendation as "exactly the person to suit her," and she fulfilled her mission most exactly. What that mission was we shall learn; what her previous career had been we will state.

She was the only daughter of one Robert Hall, a verger of Canterbury Cathedral, a clever, drunken dog, whose vergership was in constant peril, but who contrived to hoodwink the cathedral dignitaries as a general rule, and who on special occasions of outbreak invariably found some influential friend to plead his cause. He was a bookbinder as well as a verger, and in his trade showed not merely skilful manipulation, but rare taste, taste which was apparently inherited by his daughter Martha, who, at seventeen years of age, had produced some illuminated work which was pronounced by the _cognoscenti_ in such matters to be very superior indeed. The cathedral dignitaries patronised Martha Hall's illuminations, and displayed them in their drawing-rooms at those pleasant evening gatherings, so decorous and so dull, and where the bearers of the sword mingle with the wearers of the gown, yawn away a couple of hours in looking over photograph-albums and listening to sonatas, and after a sandwich and a glass of sherry, lounge away to begin the night with devilled biscuits, billiards, and brandy-and-soda-water. The military, to whom these illuminations were thus introduced, thought it would be the "correct thing" to buy some of them; they would look "deuced well" in their rooms; so that the front parlour of the verger's little house in the precincts was speedily re-echoing to clanking sabres and jingling spurs, the owners of which were none the less ready to come again because the originator and vendor of the wares was a "doosid nice girl, don't you know?--not exactly pretty, but something doosid nice about her!" Martha Hall's handiwork was seen everywhere in barracks, and "many a holy text around she strewed," and had them hung up in subalterns' rooms between portraits of Mdlle. Joliejambe and the Blisworth Bruiser.

The sabres clanked so often and the spurs jingled so much in the verger's front parlour, that the neighbours--instigated, perhaps, less by their friendly feelings and their virtue than their jealousy--thought it time to speak to Robert Hall about it, and to ask him if he knew what he was doing, and what seed he was sowing, to be reaped in shame and disgrace. Wybrow, the mourning jeweller--who made very tasty little designs of yews and willows out of dead people's hair--declared that his shop was never so full as his neighbour's; but then either the officers had no dead relations, or did not care for such melancholy _souvenirs_. Heelball, who had compiled a neat little handbook of the cathedral, and who furnished anyone who wanted them with "rubbings" of the crusaders' tombs, declared that the "milingtary" never patronised him; "perhaps," he added, "because I ain't young and pretty," therein decidedly speaking the truth, as he was sixty and deformed. Stothard, the tombstone sculptor, said nothing. He was supposed to be madly in love with Martha Hall, and it was noticed that when the young officers went clanking by his yard he took up his heaviest mallet and punished the stone under treatment fearfully. The hints and remonstrances had but little effect on Robert Hall. Not that he was careless about his daughter. "Happy-go-lucky" in other matters, he would have resented deeply any slight or insult offered to her. But he knew her better than anyone else, knew her passionless, calculating, ambitious nature, and had every confidence in it.

That confidence was not misplaced. Martha was polite to all who visited her as customers; talked and joked with them within bounds, displayed her handiwork, and sold it to the best advantage; taking care always to have ready money before she parted with it ("Can't think how she does it, 'pon my soul I can't!" was the cry in barracks. "Screwed two quid out of me for this d--d thing, down on the nail, by Jove! First thing I've had in the place that hasn't been chalked up, give you my word!") but never allowed any approach to undue familiarity. She was declared by her military customers to be "capital fun;" but it was perfectly understood amongst them that she "wouldn't stand any nonsense." So the shop was filled, and her trade throve, and her enemies and neighbours, however much they might hint and whisper in her detraction, had nothing tangible to narrate against her.

While Martha Hall's popularity was at its fullest height, there came to the depot of the hussar regiment--to which he had just been gazetted as cornet--a young gentleman of prepossessing appearance, pleasant manners, good position, and apparently plenty of money. He was well received by his brother officers, and after being introduced to the various delights which Canterbury affords, he was in due course taken to Martha Hall's shop, and presented to the young lady therein presiding. It was evident to his companions that the susceptibilities of their new comrade were very keenly aroused at the sight of Miss Hall; and it was no less palpable to Miss Hall herself. She laughingly told her father that night that she had made a fresh conquest; and her father grinned, advised her to set to work on some new texts, with which she could "stick" the new-comer, and repeated his never-failing assertion of thorough confidence in her.

The new-comer, whose name was Derinzy, quickly showed that he was not merely influenced by first impressions. He visited the shop constantly, he bought all the illuminations that Martha Hall could produce; and within a very short time he not merely fell violently in love with her, but told her so; and told her that if she would accept him, he would go to her father, and propose to marry her. To such a suggestion from any other of the score of officers in the habit of frequenting the shop, Martha Hall would have replied by a laugh, or, had it been pressed, by a declaration that she was flattered by the compliment, but that she knew the difference between their stations in life was an insuperable barrier, &c. But she said nothing of this kind to Alexis Derinzy. Why? Because she was in love with him. Perhaps her natural keenness of perception had enabled her to judge between the "spooniness" springing from a desire to bridge-over _ennui_, and to fill up the wearisome hours of a garrison life, which prompted the advances of her other admirers, and the unmistakable passion which this boy betrayed. Perhaps she admired his fair, picturesque face, and well-cut features, and slight form in contradistinction to the more robust and athletic proportions of the other youth then resident in barracks. Perhaps the rumours of the wealth of the Derinzys had reached those calm cloisters, and Martha might have thought that the fact that they were themselves in trade might induce them to overlook what to the scion of any noble house would be an undoubted _mésalliance_. No one knew, for Martha, reticent in everything, was scarcely likely to gossip of her love-affairs; but the fact remained the same, and she loved him. She told him as much, at the same moment that she suggested that the consideration of the marriage question should be deferred for a few months, until he was of age. Mr. Derinzy agreed to this, as he would have agreed to anything his heart's charmer proposed, but stipulated that Martha should consider herself as engaged to him, and that the flirtations with "the other fellows" should be at once discontinued. Martha consented, and acted up both to the spirit and the letter of the agreement; but flirtation with Martha Hall had become such a habit with the officers quartered at Canterbury that it could not be given up all of a sudden; no matter how little the maiden might respond, the gallant youths still frequented the shop, and still paid their court in their usual clumsy but unmistakably marked manner. Alexis Derinzy, worried at this, and also feeling it uncommonly hard that he should not be able to boast of having secured the heart and the proximate chance of the hand of the most sought-after girl in Canterbury, mentioned his engagement, in the strictest confidence, to three or four of his brother officers, who, under the same seal, mentioned it to three or four more. Thus it happened that in a few days the story came to the ears of the adjutant of the depôt, who was a great friend of the Derinzy family, and at whose instigation it was that Alexis had been placed in the army.

Captain Branscombe was still a young man, but he had had ripe experience of life, and he knew that it would be as truly useless, under the circumstances, to reason with the love-stricken cornet, as to make application anywhere but to the highest domestic authorities. To these, therefore, he represented the state of affairs--the result of his representation being that Mr. Paul Derinzy, the elder brother of the cornet, came down to Canterbury by the coach the next day, and straightway sought an interview with the Dean. Then Robert Hall was summoned to the diaconal presence, out of which he came swearing strange oaths, and looking very flushed and fierce. Later in the afternoon he was waited upon at his own house in the precincts by Mr. Paul Derinzy, who had a very stormy ten minutes with Martha, and then made his way to the barracks. Mr. Paul Derinzy remained in Canterbury for two days, during every hour of which, save those which he passed in bed, he was actively employed. The results of the mission did credit to his diplomatic talents. Alexis Derinzy sent in an application for sick leave, which being promptly granted, he quitted Canterbury without seeing Martha Hall, though he tried hard to do so; and did not rejoin until the regiment, safely arrived from India, was quartered at Hounslow. When Mr. Paul Derinzy was staying in Canterbury, it had been noticed by the neighbours that he had called once or twice on Stothard the stonemason, who has already been described as having been madly in love with Martha Hall; and Stothard had returned the visit at Paul's hotel. In the course of a few weeks after the "London gentleman's" departure, Stothard announced that he had inherited a legacy of a couple of hundred pounds from an old aunt. No one had ever heard any previous mention of this relative, nor did Stothard enter into any particulars whatever; he did not go to her funeral, and the only mourning he assumed was a crape band to his Sunday beaver. But there was no mistake about the two hundred pounds; that sum was paid in to his credit at the County Bank by their London agent, and he took the pass-book up with him when he went to Robert Hall's to propose for Martha. Folks said he was a fool for his pains; the kindest remarked that she would never stoop to him; the unkindest expressed their contempt for anybody as could take anybody else's leaving. But despite of both, Martha Hall accepted Stothard the stonemason, and they were married.

You must not think that all this little drama had been enacted without its due effect on one of the principal performers. You must not think that Martha Hall had lost Alexis Derinzy without fierce heartburning and deep regret, and intense hatred for those who robbed her of him. She knew that it was not the boy's own fault, she guessed what kind of pressure had been brought to bear upon him; but she thought he ought to have made a better fight of it. She had loved him, and if he had only been true to her and to their joint cause, they might have been triumphant. In a few months he would have been of age, and then he could have gone up and seen his mother--he was always her favourite--and she would have persuaded his father, and all would have been straight. He always said he hated his brother Paul--how, then, had he suffered himself to be persuaded by him? Ah, other influences must have been brought to bear by Paul Derinzy! Paul Derinzy--how she hated him! She would register that name in her heart; and if ever she came across his path, let him look to himself. When Stothard came with his proposal, she made her acceptance of him conditional on his leaving Canterbury. The money which he had inherited, and the little sum which she had saved, would enable them to commence business afresh somewhere else--say, in London; but she must leave Canterbury. She could not stand the neighbours' looks and remarks, or, what was worse, their pity, any longer. She must go, she said; she was sick of the place. Robert Hall indorsed his daughter's desire; he was becoming more and more confirmed in his selfishness, and wanted to be allowed to drink himself to death without any ridiculous remonstrances. Stothard agreed--he would have agreed to anything then--and they were married; and Stothard bought a business in a London suburb, and for a time--during which time a daughter was born to them--they flourished.

For a time only; then Stothard took to drinking, and late hours; his hand lost its cunning; his customers dropped off one by one; the garnered money had long since been spent, and things looked bad. Stothard drank harder than before, had delirium tremens, and died. His widow could not go back to her old home, for her father had carried out his intention, and drank himself to death very soon after her marriage; and she was too proud to made her appearance among her old acquaintances under her adverse circumstances. As luck would have it, the doctor who had attended her husband, and who had been much struck by the manner in which she had nursed him in his delirium, was physician to a great hospital. He proposed to Mrs. Stothard that she should become a professional nurse, offering her his patronage and recommendation. She agreed, and at once commenced practice in the hospital; but she soon became famous among the physicians and surgeons, and they were anxious to secure her for their private patients, where her services would be well paid. In a few years she had gotten together quite a large connection, and she was in constant demand. The money which she received she applied to giving her daughter a good education. They met but seldom, Mrs. Stothard being so much engaged; but she perceived in her daughter early signs of worldly wisdom, and a disposition to make use of her fellow-creatures, which gladdened her mother's soured spirit. She should be no weak fool, as her mother had been; she should not be made a puppet to be set up and knocked down at a rich man's caprice; she was sharp, she promised to be pretty, and she should be well-educated. Then, thoroughly warned as to what men were, she should be placed in some good commercial position, and left to see whether she could not contrive to make a rich and respectable marriage for herself.

One day when Mrs. Stothard was at St. Vitus's Hospital, where she was now regarded as a great personage, and where, when she paid an occasional visit, she was taken into the stewards' room, and regaled with the best port wine, Dr. Wainwright--who, though not attached to St. Vitus's, had a very great reputation in London, and was considered the leading man in his line--looked into the room. Seeing Mrs. Stothard, he entered, told her he had come expressly, learning she was there, and that he wanted to know if she would undertake a permanent situation. He entered into detail as to the case, mentioned the remuneration, which was very large, and stated that he knew no one who would be so satisfactory in the position; and added: "Indeed, 'if we do not get Mrs. Stothard, I don't know what we shall do,' were the last words I uttered to Mrs. Derinzy."

Mrs. Stothard, albeit a calm and composed woman in general, literally jumped. A quarter of a century rolled up like a mist, and she saw herself selling illuminated scrolls in the little shop in the precincts of Canterbury, and the slim, handsome little cornet leaning over the counter, and devouring her with his bright black eyes.

"What name did you say, sir?" she asked when she recovered herself.

"Derinzy. Odd name, isn't it? De-rin-zy. The lady's husband is a retired military man, and the family consists of themselves and the young lady I was speaking of just now," said the doctor.

"Is she their daughter?" asked Mrs. Stothard.

"Oh no; they have no daughter, only a son, who lives in London. This young lady is their niece, daughter of--why, God bless my soul! you must have heard of him--Mr. Paul Derinzy, the merchant, the millionaire, who died some time ago. Ah! I forgot, though; millionaires--real ones, I mean--are not much in your line," added Dr. Wainwright, with a laugh. "You see plenty who fancy that----"

"Oh, and so Mr. Paul Derinzy is dead," interrupted Mrs. Stothard; "and this young lady is his daughter? I think, Dr. Wainwright, I must decline the situation."

Decline the situation! Dr. Wainwright had never heard of such a thing, never in the whole course of his professional experience. Decline the situation! Had Mrs. Stothard understood him correctly about the terms? Yes! And she talked of declining the situation after that! And for a permanency, too. And he had thought it would have been exactly the thing to suit her. Well, if she would not accept, she must not decline--at once, that was to say. She must think over it; she must indeed.

She did; and accepted it. Partly out of a desire for revenge. She had a long, long pondering over the past; and all the bitterness of bygone years had revived in her heart. She thought that something--luck she called it (she was little given to ascribe things to Providence)--had placed her enemies in her hands, and that she might use her power over the man who had given her up, and over the daughter of the man who had compelled him to do so. Partly for money. The salary proposed was very large, and her daughter's education was expensive, and the girl would soon have to be apprenticed to a house of business where a heavy premium must be paid. So she accepted. There was no doubt about her getting the place. Dr. Wainwright's recommendation was all-sufficient, and Mrs. Derinzy was only too anxious to secure her services. Captain Derinzy had forgotten all about Stothard the stonemason, and the two hundred pounds which had been paid to him, even if he ever knew of the transaction. He did not recognise the name, and for the first few minutes after he saw her he did not recognise in the hard-featured, cold, impassive, middle-aged woman his bright boyish love of so many years before. When he did recognise her he started, and seemed as though he would have spoken; but she made him a slight sign, and he waited for an opportunity of their being alone. When that came, it was Mrs. Stothard who spoke. She told him there was no necessity for ever referring to the past, it was all forgotten by them both; they would never be brought in contact; she knew the position she held in his house, and she should fulfil it; it was better on all accounts that Mrs. Derinzy should be kept in ignorance of their former acquaintance--did he not think so? He did; and as he left her he grinned quietly.

"What the doose did she think?" he said to himself. "Gad! not likely that I should want to renew the acquaintance of an old horse-godmother like that. What a pretty gal she was, too! and how changed! by George, so that her own mother wouldn't know her! Wonder whether I'm as much changed as all that? Often look in the glass and wonder. Different in a man: he don't wear a cap, and that kind of thing; and my hair's lasted wonderful, considerin'. Martha Hall, eh? and those dam things--text things--that she used to paint in those colours--got some of 'em still, I think, somewhere in my old bullock-trunk; saw 'em the other day. Martha Hall!--Oh Lord!"

So Mrs. Stothard accepted office with the Derinzys, and was with them when, shortly afterwards, they gave up the house at Brompton where they had lived so long, and removed to Beachborough. The change affected Mrs. Stothard but very little; it mattered scarcely at all to her where she was, her time was very much employed in her duties, and what little leisure she found she passed in reading, or in writing to her daughter. She knew perfectly well that she was the subject of an immense amount of curiosity in Beachborough village, and of talk at the village tea-tables; but it did not trouble her one whit. She knew that she was said to be a poor relation of the Derinzy family, and she did not discourage the idea. Thinking over the past, and what might have been, she found a kind of grim humour in the combination which suited her thoroughly. They might say what they liked, she thought, so long as her money was regularly paid, and so long as she found herself able to carry out the one scheme of her life--that of making a good marriage for her daughter Fanny.

Fanny then, under the name of Miss Stafford, was apprenticed to Madame Clarisse, the great court milliner, in London, and lived, when she was at home--and that was not often, poor child! for she slaved like a horse--in one little room in a house in South Molton Street, a lodging-house kept by an old sister-nurse of Mrs. Stothard's at St. Vitus's, a most respectable motherly woman, who would look after Fanny, and would at once let her mother know if there was "anything wrong." Not that there was any chance of that. Fanny Stafford acted up too strictly to her mother's teaching, and remembered too well the doctrine which had been inculcated in her girlhood, ever to make that mistake. She had been told that to marry a man considerably above her in pecuniary and social position was her mission in life; to that end she might use all her charms, all her arts; but that end must be marriage--nothing less. This she understood, and daily experience made her more and more impressed with the wisdom of her mother's determination. She had not much heart, she thought; she did not think she had any passion; and she knew that she had keen discrimination and accurate perception of character; so she thought she ought to succeed. Mrs. Stothard was acquainted with the peculiarities of her daughter's character, and thought so too.

At the very time when Captain Derinzy was lying stretched out on the headland overlooking Beachborough Bay, and making those cynical remarks on the place and its population, Mrs. Stothard was preparing to read a letter from her daughter Fanny. It had arrived in the morning; but Mrs. Stothard had been very busy all day, and it was not until the evening that she found time to read it. Her occupation had confined her to the house, so that now, being for a few minutes free, she was glad to escape into the grounds. She chose that portion of the flower-garden which was farthest removed from the side of the house which she principally inhabited; and as she paced up and down the soft turf path between two rows of espaliers, she took the letter from her pocket and commenced to read it. It was written in a small delicate hand, and Mrs. Stothard had to hold it close to her eyes in the fading light. She read as follows:

"London, Sunday.

"MY DEAR MOTHER,--You will have been expecting to hear from me for some time, and, indeed, you ought to have had a letter, but the truth is I am so tired and sleepy when I get back here that I am glad to go straight to bed. We are just now in the height of the season, and are so busy that I scarcely ever have time to sit down. I told you, I think, that I was likely to be in the showroom this season. I was right. Madame asked me if I should like to be there, and when I said 'Yes,' she seemed pleased; and I have been there since April. I think I have made myself even more useful than she expected; for many of the customers know me now, and ask to see me in preference to Madame herself. I suppose she does not quite like that, but it is not my fault. I know I am neat and handy, and that there is no one in the house with so much education or so much manner, and these are both points which are noticed by customers. Nevertheless, I think I am winning my way into Madame's good graces; for when she goes out--and she is now out a great deal, at the French plays, at the Opera, and in private society; you have no notion what an immense amount of reception goes on amongst the French _coiffeurs_ and _modistes_ in London--she invariably leaves me to see the parcels sent off and the business of the day wound up. She has no forewoman, as I have told you, and I think I might aspire to that important post with reasonable hope of success if I wished it, but I don't.

"No, dear mother; it would give me no pleasure to have my name on as big a brass plate as Madame Clarisse's, on as handsome a door in as eligible a situation. I should derive no satisfaction even if I could combine her connection with Madame Augustine's, her great rival. (Augustine's _clientèle_ is richer than ours, I think, but we have by far the _best_ people.) I long sometimes, when I see a wretched old creature nodding under a wreath when she ought to be concealing her bald pate or her gray hairs under an honest mob-cap, or when I am helping a stout middle-aged matron to struggle into a gown of a style and pattern suitable for her youngest daughter, to throw all my chances of success in business to the winds, and tell the people then under my hands plainly and openly what I think of them. I cannot stand--or rather I could not, were it for a permanence; I can well enough for a time--this wretched ko-tooing existence, this perpetual grinning and curtsying and false-compliment paying, this utter abnegation of one's own opinion, one's own feelings, one's own self! You must not be surprised at these expressions, dear mother, recollecting how you have had me brought up, and how you yourself have always inculcated in me a strong desire to better my position, and by a good marriage to raise myself into a class superior to this.

"Mother, I think I'm going to do it. I think that I have a chance of freeing myself from this servitude, which is galling to me, and of winning a station in life such as you yourself would be proud to see me holding. You remember how you used to talk to me about this when I was much younger, and how I used then to laugh at your earnestness, and tell you your hopes and aspirations were but dreams? I declare now I think there is some chance of their being realised.

"Now you are all impatience, and dying to know all I have to tell! I can see you--I suppose you are not much changed since we last parted; I often wonder--I can see you skimming over the paper in your eager anxiety to get at the details. I will not keep you in suspense, dear mother--here they are! A month ago, I was returning to Mrs. Gillott's late at night. We had been hard at work until nearly twelve o'clock, getting out a large wedding order, and Madame thought it important enough to superintend the packing and sending out of the various things. I had remained till the last, and the church-clock opposite struck twelve as the door closed behind me. The streets were almost deserted; but I had not gone far before I perceived that a man was following me. I could not make out what kind of a man he was, as he persistently kept in the shade, walking at first on the opposite side of the way, then crossing behind me, but ever constantly following. I knew this from the sound of his footsteps, which echoed in the stillness of the night. When I crossed Bond Street he came abreast of me, and then I saw that he was a common man in his working dress. I was frightened then, I confess. You don't know what they are sometimes, mother, these working men. I would sooner meet any gentleman, however loose, any what they call 'gent,' than some of those! It isn't their conduct, it's what they say! They seem to delight in using the most awful language, the foulest terms, to unprotected girls; merely, apparently, for the sake of insulting them. This man was a bad specimen of his class. There was no one near, and he stepped up to my side after we had crossed Bond Street, and said to me things--I don't know what, for I hurried on without looking towards him. I knew well enough what he said next, he took care that there should be no mistake about that, for he prefaced his remark with a short laugh of scorn and defiance, and then--he made his speech. I was not surprised; no girl compelled to walk alone in London, and especially at night, could be surprised at anything that might be said to her; but I was disgusted and frightened, and tried to run. The man ran by my side--I saw then that he was drunk--and tried to catch hold of me. I was in a dreadful fright, and I suppose I looked so, for a gentleman who was coming out of the hotel at the corner of South Molton Street stepped hurriedly out, and said, 'I beg your pardon--is this person annoying you?' Before I could reply, the man said something--too horrible--about me and himself, and the next moment he was lying in the road; the gentleman had taken him by the collar and flung him there. He got up, and rushed at the gentleman; but by this time a policeman who had seen it all crossed the street, and made him go away. Then the gentleman took off his hat, and begged leave to see me to my door. I allowed him to do so--it was foolish, I know, mother, but I was all unnerved, and scarcely knew what I did; and when we arrived at Mrs. Gillott's I thanked him, and bade him Goodnight. He took off his hat again, and left me at once.

"He found out who I was--how, I don't know--for next day I had a polite note, hoping I had quite recovered from my alarm, expressed in the most gentlemanly manner, and signed 'Paul Douglas.' I have met him several times since, always in the street, and have walked and talked with him. He is always most polite and respectful, but of course professes himself to be madly in love. Yesterday, for the first time, I found out who he is. He has an appointment in a Government office, the 'Stannaries' they call it, and his family live somewhere in the West of England. They are evidently well off, and he, Paul, is what they call a 'swell.' Very good-looking, slight and dark, about five-and-twenty, and always beautifully dressed.

"You don't fear me, mother? You have sufficient reliance on me to know that I would never discredit your training. You will want to know whether I am in love with this young man. I think I am--so far. And you need not be afraid. He vows--everything, of course; but he is too much of a gentleman, in the first place, to offer to insult me, and in the second--well, to speak plainly, he knows it would be of no use. Is this the chance that you taught me to look for? I think it is. But we shall soon know. Meanwhile believe in the thorough discretion of your loving daughter FANNY."

Up and down the soft turf path paced Mrs. Stothard in the glorious summer evening, with the open letter in her hand, deep in cogitation. Her head was bent upon her breast, and occasionally raised as she referred to the paper. Suddenly a light gleamed in her face; she hurriedly re-perused the letter, folding it so as only to make herself thorough mistress of a certain portion of its contents, and then she smiled a hard grim smile, and said to herself in a hard bitter voice:

"Of course, of course! What an idiot I was not to see it at once! The mention of the Stannaries Office might have convinced me, if all my senses had not been blunted by my wretched work in this wretched place! Douglas, indeed! Paul Douglas is Paul Derinzy; slight, dark, handsome--none but he! Family in the West of England, too--no doubt of it! And in love with my Fan! Oh, my dear friends, I'll spoil your game yet! I'm so blind. Quiet and seclusion for dear Annette's health; no other reason, oh no! Not to keep her out of the way of fortune-hunters, and save her up for our son, oh dear no! That shall never be! Our son shall marry my Fan! What is it? 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children.' I never believed much in that sort of thing; but in this instance it really looks as though there were something in it."