Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 15.] SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

THE OLD LADY IN THREADNEEDLE STREET.

Perhaps there is no Old Lady who has attained to such great distinction in the world, as this highly respectable female. Even the Old Lady who lived on a hill, and who, if she’s not gone, lives there still; or that other Old Lady who lived in a shoe, and had so many children she didn’t know what to do—are unknown to fame, compared with the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. In all parts of the civilised earth the imaginations of men, women, and children figure this tremendous Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in some rich shape or other. Throughout the length and breadth of England, old ladies dote upon her; young ladies smile upon her; old gentlemen make much of her, young gentlemen woo her; everybody courts the smiles, and dreads the coldness, of the powerful Old Lady in Threadneedle Street. Even prelates have been said to be fond of her; and Ministers of State to have been unable to resist her attractions. She is next to omnipotent in the three great events of human life. In spite of the old saw, far fewer marriages are made in Heaven, than with an eye to Threadneedle Street. To be born in the good graces of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, is to be born to fortune: to die in her good books, is to leave a far better inheritance, as the world goes, than “the grinning honour that Sir Walter hath,” in Westminster Abbey. And there she is, for ever in Threadneedle Street, another name for wealth and thrift, threading her golden-eyed needle all the year round.

This Old Lady, when she first set up, carried on business in Grocers’ Hall, Poultry; but in 1732 she quarrelled with her landlords about a renewal of her lease, and built a mansion of her own in Threadneedle Street. She reared her new abode on the site of the house and garden of a former director of her affairs, Sir John Houblon. This was a modest structure, somewhat dignified by having a statue of William the Third placed before it; but not the more imposing from being at the end of an arched court, densely surrounded with habitations, and abutting on the churchyard of St. Christopher le Stocks.

But now, behold her, a prosperous gentlewoman in the hundred and fifty-seventh year of her age; “the oldest inhabitant” of Threadneedle Street! There never was such an insatiable Old Lady for business. She has gradually enlarged her premises, until she has spread them over four acres; confiscating to her own use not only the parish church of St. Christopher, but the greater part of the parish itself.

We count it among the great events of our young existence, that we had, some days since, the honour of visiting the Old Lady. It was not without an emotion of awe that we passed her Porter’s Lodge. The porter himself, blazoned in royal scarlet, and massively embellished with gold lace, is an adumbration of her dignity and wealth. His cocked hat advertises her stable antiquity as plainly as if she had written up, in imitation of some of her lesser neighbours, “established in 1694.” This foreshadowing became reality when we passed through the Hall—the tellers’ hall. A sensation of unbounded riches permeated every sense, except, alas! that of touch. The music of golden thousands clattered in the ear, as they jingled on counters until its last echoes were strangled in the puckers of tightened money-bags, or died under the clasps of purses. Wherever the eye turned, it rested on money; money of every possible variety; money in all shapes; money of all colours. There was yellow money, white money, brown money; gold money, silver money, copper money; paper money, pen and ink money. Money was wheeled about in trucks; money was carried about in bags; money was scavengered about with shovels. Thousands of sovereigns were jerked hither and thither from hand to hand—grave games of pitch and toss were played with staid solemnity; piles of bank notes—competent to buy whole German dukedoms and Italian principalities—hustled to and fro with as much indifference as if they were (as they had been) old rags.

This Hall of the Old Lady’s overpowered us with a sense of wealth; oppressed us with a golden dream of Riches. From this vision an instinctive appeal to our own pockets, and a few miserable shillings, awakened us to Reality. When thus aroused we were in one of the Old Lady’s snug, elegant, waiting-rooms, which is luxuriously Turkey-carpeted and adorned with two excellent portraits of two ancient cashiers; regarding one of whom the public were warned:—

“Sham Abraham you may,
I’ve often heard say:
But you mustn’t sham ‘Abraham Newland.’”

There are several conference-rooms for gentlemen who require a little private conversation with the Old Lady—perhaps on the subject of discounts.

It is no light thing to send in one’s card to the Foster-Mother of British commerce; the Soul of the State; “the Sun,” according to Sir Francis Baring, around which the agriculture, trade, and finance of this country revolves; the mighty heart of active capital, through whose arteries and veins flows the entire circulating medium of this great country. It was not, therefore, without agitation that we were ushered from the waiting-room, into that celebrated private apartment of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street—the Parlour—the Bank Parlour, the inmost mystery—the _cella_ of the great Temple of Riches.

The ordinary associations called up by the notion of an old lady’s comfortable parlour, were not fulfilled by this visit. There is no domestic snugness, no easy chair, no cat, no parrot, no japanned bellows, no portrait of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre; no kettle-holder, no worsted rug for the urn, no brass footman for the buttered toast, in the parlour in Threadneedle Street. On the contrary, the room is extensive—supported by pillars; is of grand and true proportions; and embellished with architectural ornaments in the best taste. It has a long table for the confidential managers of the Old Lady’s affairs (she calls these gentlemen her Directors) to sit at; and usually, a side table fittingly supplied with a ready-laid lunch.

The Old Lady’s “Drawing” Room is as unlike—but then she is such a peculiar Old Lady!—any ordinary Drawing-room as need be. It has hardly any furniture, but desks, stools, and books. It is of immense proportions, and has no carpet. The vast amount of visitors the Old Lady receives between nine and four every day, would make lattice-work in one forenoon of the stoutest carpet ever manufactured. Everybody who comes into the Old Lady’s Drawing-room delivers his credentials to her gentlemen-ushers, who are quick in examining the same, and exact in the observance of all points of form. So highly-prized, however, is a presentation (on any grand scale) to the Old Lady’s Drawing-room, notwithstanding its plainness, that there is no instance of a Drawing-room at Court being more sought after. Indeed, it has become a kind of proverb that the way to Court often lies through the Old Lady’s apartments, and some suppose that the Court Sticks are of gold and silver in compliment to her.

As to the individual appearance of the Old Lady herself, we are authorised to state that the portrait of a Lady (accompanied by eleven balls on a sprig, and a beehive) which appears in the upper left-hand corner of all the Bank of England Notes, is NOT the portrait of _the_ Lady. She invariably wears a cap of silver paper, with her yellow hair gathered carefully underneath. When she carries any defensive or offensive weapon, it is not a lance, but a pen; and her modesty would on no account permit her to appear in such loose drapery as is worn by the party in question—who we understand is depicted as a warning to the youthful merchants of this country to avoid the fate of George Barnwell.

In truth, like the Delphian mystery, SHE of Threadneedle Street is invisible, and delivers her oracles through her high priests: and, as Herodotus got his information from the priests in Egypt, so did we learn all we know about the Bank from the great officers of the Myth of Threadneedle Street. All of them are remarkable for great intelligence and good humour, particularly one MR. MATTHEW MARSHALL; for whom the Old Lady is supposed to have a sneaking kindness, as she is continually promising to pay him the most stupendous amounts of money. From what these gentlemen told us, we are prepared unhesitatingly to affirm in the teeth of the assertions of Plutarch, and Pliny, and Justin, that although Crœsus might have been well enough to do in the world in his day, he was but a pettifogger compared with the Great Lady of St. Christopher le Stocks. The Lydian king never employed nine hundred clerks, or accommodated eight hundred of them under one roof; and if he could have done either, he would have been utterly unable to muster one hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year to pay them. He never had bullion in his cellars, at any one time, to the value of sixteen millions and a half sterling, as our Old Lady has lately averaged; nor “other securities”—much more marketable than the precious stones Crœsus showed to Solon—to the amount of thirty millions. Besides, _all_ his capital was “dead weight;” that in Threadneedle Street is active, and is represented by an average paper currency of twenty millions per annum.

After this statement of facts, we trust that modern poets when they want a hyperbole for wealth will cease to cite Crœsus, and draw their future inspirations from the shrine and cellars of the Temple opposite the Auction Mart; or, as the late Mr. George Robins designated it when professionally occupied, “The Great House over the way.”

When we withdrew from the inmost fane of this Temple, we were ushered by the priest, who superintends the manufacture of the mysterious Deity’s oracles, into those recesses of her Temple in which these are made. Here we perceived, that, besides carrying on the ordinary operations of banking, the Old Lady is an extensive printer, engraver, bookbinder, and publisher. She maintains a steam-engine to drive letter-press and copper-plate printing machines, besides the other machinery which is employed in various operations, from making thousand pound notes to weighing single sovereigns. It is not until you see three steam-printing machines—such as we use for this publication—and hear that they are constantly revolving, to produce, at so many thousand sheets per hour, the printed forms necessary for the accurate account-keeping of this great Central Establishment and its twelve provincial branches, that you are fully impressed with the magnitude of the Old Lady’s transactions. In this one department no fewer than three hundred account-books are printed, ruled, bound, and used every week. During that short time they are filled with MS. by the eight hundred subordinates and their chiefs. By way of contrast we saw the single ledger which sufficed to post up the daily transactions of the Old Lady on her first establishment in business. It is no bigger than that of a small tradesman’s, and served to contain a record of the year’s accounts. Until within the last few years, visitors to the Bullion Office were shown the old box into which the books of the Bank were put every night for safety during the Old Lady’s early career. This receptacle is no bigger than a seaman’s chest. A spacious fire-proof room is now nightly filled with each day’s accounts, and they descend to it by means of a great hydraulic trap in the Drawing Office; the mountain of calculation when collected being too huge to be moved by human agency.

These works are, of course, only produced for private reference; but the Old Lady’s publishing business is as extensive as it is profitable and peculiar. Although her works are the reverse of heavy or erudite—being “flimsy” to a proverb—yet the eagerness with which they are sought by the public, surpasses that displayed for the productions of the greatest geniuses who ever enlightened the world: she is, therefore, called upon to print enormous numbers of each edition,—generally one hundred thousand copies; and reprints of equally large impressions are demanded, six or seven times a year. She is protected by a stringent copyright; in virtue of which, piracy is felony, and was, until 1831, punished with death. The very paper is copyright, and to imitate even that entails transportation. Indeed its merits entitle it to every protection, for it is a very superior article. It is so thin that each sheet, before it is sized, weighs only eighteen grains; and so strong, that, when sized and doubled, a single sheet is capable of suspending a weight of fifty-six pounds.

The literature of these popular prints is concise to terseness. A certain individual, duly accredited by the Old Lady, whose autograph appears in one corner, promises to pay to the before-mentioned Mr. Matthew Marshall, or bearer on demand, a certain sum, for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. There is a date and a number; for the Old Lady’s sheets are published in Numbers; but, unlike other periodicals, no two copies of hers are alike. Each has a set of numerals, shown on no other.—It must not be supposed from the utter absence of rhetoric in this Great Woman’s literature, that it is devoid of ornament. On the contrary, it is illustrated by eminent artists: the illustrations consisting of the waves of a watermark made in the paper; a large black blot, with the statement in white letters of the sum which is promised to be paid; and the portrait referred to in a former part of this account of the Wonderful Old Lady.

She makes it a practice to print thirty thousand copies of these works daily. Everything possible is done by machinery,—engraving, printing, numbering; but we refrain from entering into further details of this portion of the Old Lady’s Household here, as we are preparing a review of her valuable works, which shall shortly appear, in the form of a History of a Bank note. The publication department is so admirably conducted, that a record of each individual piece of paper launched on the ocean of public favour is kept, and its history traced till its return; for another peculiarity of the Old Lady’s establishment is, that every impression put forth comes back—with few exceptions—in process of time to her shelves; where it is kept for ten years, and then burnt. This great house is, therefore, a huge circulating library. The daily average number of notes brought back into the Old Lady’s lap—examined to detect forgeries; defaced; entered upon the record made when they were issued; and so stored away that they can be reproduced at any given half-hour for ten years to come,—is twenty-five thousands. On the day of our visit, there came in twenty-eight thousand and seventy-four of her picturesque pieces of paper, representing one million, one thousand, two hundred and seventy pounds sterling, to be dealt with as above, preparatory to their decennial slumber on her library shelves.

The apartment in which the notes are kept _previous_ to issue, is the Old Lady’s Store-room. There is no jam, there are no pickles, no preserves, no gallipots, no stoneware jars, no spices, no anything of that sort, in the Store-room of the Wonderful Old Lady. You might die of hunger in it. Your sweet tooth would decay and tumble out, before it could find the least gratification in the Old Lady’s Store-room. There was a mouse found there once, but it was dead, and nothing but skin and bone. It is a grim room, fitted up all round with great iron-safes. They look as if they might be the Old Lady’s ovens, never heated. But they are very warm in the City sense; for when the Old Lady’s two store-keepers have, each with his own key, unlocked his own one of the double locks attached to each, and opened the door, Mr. Matthew Marshall gives you to hold a little bundle of paper, value two millions sterling; and, clutching it with a strange tingling, you feel disposed to knock Mr. Matthew Marshall down, and, like a patriotic Frenchman, to descend into the streets.

No tyro need be told that these notes are representatives of weightier value, and were invented partly to supersede the necessity of carrying about ponderous parcels of precious metal. Hence—to treat of it soberly—four paper parcels taken out, and placed in our hands—consisting of four reams of Bank notes ready for issue, and not much more bulky than a thick octavo volume—though they represent gold of the weight of _two tons_, and of the value of two millions of pounds sterling, yet weigh not quite one pound avoirdupois each, or nearly four pounds together. The value in gold of what we could convey away in a couple of side pockets (if simply permitted by the dear Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, without proceeding to extremities upon the person of the Chief Cashier) would have required, but for her admirable publications, two of Barclay and Perkins’s strongest horses to draw.[1]

Footnote 1:

One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and five hundred and
twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one pound.

We have already made mention of the Old Lady’s Lodge, Hall, Parlour, Store-room, and Drawing-room. Her Cellars are not less curious. In these she keeps neither wine, nor beer, nor wood, nor coal. They are devoted solely to the reception of the precious metals. They are like the caves of Treasures in the Arabian Nights; the common Lamp that shows them becomes a Wonderful Lamp in Mr. Marshall’s hands, and Mr. Marshall becomes a Genie. Yet only by the power of association; for they are very respectable arched cellars that would make dry skittle-grounds, and have nothing rare about them but their glittering contents. One vault is full of what might be barrels of oysters—if it were not the Russian Loan. Another is rich here and there with piles of gold bars, set cross-wise, like sandwiches at supper, or rich biscuits in a confectioner’s shop. Another has a moonlight air from the presence of so much silver. Dusky avenues branch off, where gold and silver amicably bide their time in cool retreats, not looking at all mischievous here, or anxious to play the Devil with our souls. Oh for such cellars at home! “Look out for your young master half a dozen bars of the ten bin.” “Let me have a wedge of the old crusted.” “Another Million before we part—only one Million more, to finish with!” The Temperance Cause would make but slow way, as to such cellars, we have a shrewd suspicion!

Beauty of colour is here associated with worth. One of these brilliant bars of gold weighs sixteen pounds troy, and its value is eight hundred pounds sterling. A pile of these, lying in a dark corner—like neglected cheese, or bars of yellow soap—and which might be contained in an ordinary tea-chest, is worth two hundred and ten thousand pounds. Fortune herself transmuted into metal seems to repose at our feet. Yet this is only an _eightieth_ part of the wealth contained in the Old Lady’s cellars.

The future history of this metal is explained in three sentences; it is coined at the Mint, distributed to the public, worn by friction (or “sweated” by Jews) till it becomes light. What happens to it then we shall see.

By a seldom failing law of monetary attraction nearly every species of cash, “hard” or soft, metallic or paper, finds its way some time or other back to the extraordinary Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. All the sovereigns returned from the banking-houses are consigned to a secluded cellar; and, when you enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the premises of a clock-maker who works by steam. Your attention is speedily concentrated to a small brass box not larger than an eight-day pendule, the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing machine, which with unerring precision tells which sovereigns are of standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout—half a tube that has been split into two sections—of such a semi-circumference as holds sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient length to allow of two hundred of them to rest in that position one against another. This trough thus charged is fixed slopingly upon the machine over a little table as big as that of an ordinary sovereigns-balance. The coin nearest to the Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed forward by the weight of those behind. Its own weight presses the table down; but how far down? Upon that hangs the whole merit and discriminating power of the machine. At the back, and on each side of this small table, two little hammers move by steam backwards and forwards at different elevations. If the sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table too low for the higher hammer to hit it; but the lower one strikes the edge, and off the sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left. The table pops up again, receives, perhaps, a light sovereign, and the higher hammer having always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to the right, time enough to escape its colleague, which, when it comes forward, has nothing to hit, and returns to allow the table to be elevated again. In this way the reputation of thirty-three sovereigns is established or destroyed every minute. The light weights are taken to a clipping machine, slit at the rate of two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump, the balance of deficiency charged to the banker from whom they were received, and sent to the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have passed muster are re-issued to the public. The inventor of this beautiful little detector was Mr. Cotton, a former governor. The comparatively few sovereigns brought in by the general public are weighed in ordinary scales by the tellers. The average loss upon each light coin, on an average of thirty-five thousands taken in 1843, was twopence three farthings.

The business of the “Great House” is divided into two branches; the issue and the banking department. The latter has increased so rapidly of late years, that the last addition the Old Lady was constrained to make to her house was the immense Drawing-room aforesaid, for her customers and their payees to draw cash on checks and to make deposits. Under this noble apartment is the Strong Room, containing private property, supposed to be of enormous value. It is placed there for safety by the constituents of the Bank, and is concealed in tin boxes, on which the owners’ names are legibly painted. The descent into this stronghold—by means of the hydraulic trap we have spoken of—is so eminently theatrical, that we believe the Head of the Department, on going down with the books, is invariably required to strike an attitude, and to laugh in three sepulchral syllables; while the various clerks above express surprise and consternation.

Besides private customers, everybody knows that our Old Lady does all the banking business for the British Government. She pays the interest to each Stock-holder in the National Debt, receives certain portions of the revenue, &c. A separate set of offices is necessary, to keep all such accounts, and these Stock Offices contain the most varied and extensive collection of autographs extant. Those whom Fortune entitles to dividends, must, by themselves or by their agents, sign the Stock books. The last signature of Handel, the composer, and that upon which Henry Fauntleroy was condemned and executed, are among the foremost of these lions. Here, standing in a great long building of divers stories, looking dimly upward through iron gratings, and dimly downward through iron gratings, and into musty chambers diverging into the walls on either hand, you may muse upon the National Debt. All the sheep that ever came out of Northamptonshire, seem to have yielded up their skins to furnish the registers in which its accounts are kept. Sweating and wasting in this vast silent library, like manuscripts in a mouldy old convent, are the records of the Dividends that are, and have been, and of the Dividends unclaimed. Some men would sell their fathers into slavery, to have the rummaging of these old volumes. Some, who would let the Tree of Knowledge wither while they lay contemptuously at its feet, would bestir themselves to pluck at these leaves, like shipwrecked mariners. These are the books to profit by. This is the place for X. Y. Z. to hear of something to his advantage in. This is the land of Mr. Joseph Ady’s dreams. This is the dusty fountain whence those wondrous paragraphs occasionally flow into the papers, disclosing how a labouring thatcher has come into a hundred thousand pounds—a long, long way to come—and gone out of his wits—not half so far to go. Oh, wonderful Old Lady! threading the needle with the golden eye all through the labyrinth of the National Debt, and hiding it in such dry hay-stacks as are rotting here!

With all her wealth, and all her power, and all her business, and all her responsibilities, she is not a purse-proud Old Lady; but a dear, kind, liberal, benevolent Old Lady; so particularly considerate to her servants, that the meanest of them never speaks of her otherwise than with affection. Though her domestic rules are uncommonly strict; though she is very severe upon “mistakes,” be they ever so unintentional; though till lately she made her in-door servants keep good hours, and would not allow a lock to be turned or a bolt to be drawn after eleven at night, even to admit her dearly beloved Matthew Marshall himself—yet she exercises a truly tender and maternal care over her family of eight hundred strong. To benefit the junior branches, she has recently set aside a spacious room, and the sum of five hundred pounds, to form a library. With this handsome capital at starting, and eight shillings a year subscribed by the youngsters, an excellent collection of books will soon be formed. Here, from three till eight o’clock every lawful day, the subscribers can assemble for recreation or study; or, if they prefer it, they can take books to their homes. A member of the Committee of Management attends in turn during the specified hours—a self-imposed duty, in the highest degree creditable to, but no more than is to be expected from, the stewards of a Good Mistress; who, when any of her servants become superannuated, soothes declining age with a pension. The last published return states the number of pensioners at one hundred and ninety three; each of whom received on an average 161_l._, or an aggregate of upwards of 31,000_l._ per annum.

Her kindness is not unrequited. Whenever anything ails her, the assiduous attention of her people is only equalled by her own bounty to them. When dangerously ill of the Panic in 1825, and the outflow of her circulating medium was so violent that she was in danger of bleeding to death, some of her upper servants never left her for a fortnight. At the crisis of her disorder, on a memorable Saturday night (December the seventeenth) her Deputy-Governor—who even then had not seen his own children for a week—reached Downing Street “reeling with fatigue,” and was just able to call out to the King’s Ministers—then anxiously deliberating on the dear Old Lady’s case—that she was out of danger! Another of her managing men lost his life in his anxiety for her safety, during the burning of the Royal Exchange, in January, 1838. When the fire broke out, the cold was intense; and although he had but just recovered from an attack of the gout, he rushed to the rescue of his beloved Old Mistress, saw everything done that could be done for her safety, and died from his exertions. Although the Old Lady is now more hale and hearty than ever, two of the Senior Clerks sit up in turn every night, to watch over her; in which duty they are assisted by a company of Foot Guards.

The kind Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has, in short, managed to attach her dependants to her by the strongest of ties—that of love. So pleased are some with her service, that when even temporarily resting from it, they feel miserable. A late Chief Cashier never solicited but one holiday, and that for only a fortnight. In three days he returned expressing his extreme disgust with every sort of recreation but that afforded him by the Old Lady’s business. The last words of another old servant when on his death-bed, were, “Oh, that I could only die on the Bank steps!”

THE SERF OF POBEREZE.

The materials for the following tale were furnished to the writer while travelling last year near the spot on which the events it narrates took place. It is intended to convey a notion of some of the phases of Polish, or rather Russian serfdom (for, as truly explained by one of the characters in a succeeding page, it _is_ Russian), and of the catastrophes it has occasioned, not only in Catherine’s time, but occasionally at the present. The Polish nobles—themselves in slavery—earnestly desire the emancipation of their serfs, which Russian domination forbids.

The small town of Pobereze stands at the foot of a stony mountain, watered by numerous springs in the district of Podolia, in Poland. It consists of a mass of miserable cabins, with a Catholic chapel and two Greek churches in the midst, the latter distinguished by their gilded towers. On one side of the marketplace stands the only inn, and on the opposite side are several shops, from whose doors and windows look out several dirtily dressed Jews. At a little distance, on a hill covered with vines and fruit-trees, stands the Palace, which does not, perhaps, exactly merit such an appellation, but who would dare to call otherwise the dwelling of the lord of the domain?

On the morning when our tale opens, there had issued from this palace the common enough command to the superintendent of the estate, to furnish the master with a couple of strong boys, for service in the stables, and a young girl, to be employed in the wardrobe. Accordingly, a number of the best-looking young peasants of Olgogrod assembled in the broad avenue leading to the palace. Some were accompanied by their sorrowful and weeping parents, in all of whose hearts, however, rose the faint and whispered hope, “Perhaps it will not be _my_ child they will choose!”

Being brought into the court-yard of the palace, the Count Roszynski, with the several members of his family, had come out to pass in review his growing subjects. He was a small and insignificant-looking man, about fifty years of age, with deep-set eyes and overhanging brows. His wife, who was nearly of the same age, was immensely stout, with a vulgar face and a loud disagreeable voice. She made herself ridiculous in endeavouring to imitate the manners and bearing of the aristocracy, into whose sphere she and her husband were determined to force themselves, in spite of the humbleness of their origin. The father of the “Right Honourable” Count Roszynski was a valet, who, having been a great favourite with his master, amassed sufficient money to enable his son, who inherited it, to purchase the extensive estate of Olgogrod, and with it the sole proprietorship of 1600 human beings. Over them he had complete control; and, when maddened by oppression, if they dared resent, woe unto them! They could be thrust into a noisome dungeon, and chained by one hand from the light of day for years, until their very existence was forgotten by all except the jailer who brought daily their pitcher of water and morsel of dry bread.

Some of the old peasants say that Sava, father of the young peasant girl, who stands by the side of an old woman, at the head of her companions in the court-yard, is immured in one of these subterranean jails. Sava was always about the Count, who, it was said, had brought him from some distant land, with his little motherless child. Sava placed her under the care of an old man and woman, who had the charge of the bees in a forest near the palace, where he came occasionally to visit her. But once, six long months passed, and he did not come! In vain Anielka wept, in vain she cried, “Where is my father?”—No father appeared. At last it was said that Sava had been sent to a long distance with a large sum of money, and had been killed by robbers. In the ninth year of one’s life the most poignant grief is quickly effaced, and after six months Anielka ceased to grieve. The old people were very kind to her, and loved her as if she were their own child. That Anielka might be chosen to serve in the palace never entered their head, for who would be so barbarous as to take the child away from an old woman of seventy and her aged husband?

To-day was the first time in her life that she had been so far from home. She looked curiously on all she saw,—particularly on a young lady about her own age, beautifully dressed, and a youth of eighteen, who had apparently just returned from a ride on horseback, as he held a whip in his hand, whilst walking up and down examining the boys who were placed in a row before him. He chose two amongst them, and the boys were led away to the stables.

“And I choose this young girl,” said Constantia Roszynski, indicating Anielka; “she is the prettiest of them all. I do not like ugly faces about me.”

When Constantia returned to the drawing-room, she gave orders for Anielka to be taken to her apartments, and placed under the tutelage of Mademoiselle Dufour, a French maid, recently arrived from the first milliner’s shop in Odessa. Poor girl! when they separated her from her adopted mother, and began leading her towards the palace, she rushed, with a shriek of agony, from them, and grasped her old protectress tightly in her arms! They were torn violently asunder, and the Count Roszynski quietly asked, “Is it her daughter, or her grand-daughter?”

“Neither, my lord,—only an adopted child.”

“But who will lead the old woman home, as she is blind?”

“I will, my lord,” replied one of his servants, bowing to the ground; “I will let her walk by the side of my horse, and when she is in her cabin she will have her old husband,—they must take care of each other.”

So saying, he moved away with the rest of the peasants and domestics. But the poor old woman had to be dragged along by two men; for in the midst of her shrieks and tears she had fallen to the ground, almost without life.

And Anielka? They did not allow her to weep long. She had now to sit all day in the corner of a room to sew. She was expected to do everything well from the first; and if she did not, she was kept without food or cruelly punished. Morning and evening she had to help Mdlle. Dufour to dress and undress her mistress. But Constantia, although she looked with hauteur on everybody beneath her, and expected to be slavishly obeyed, was tolerably kind to the poor orphan. Her true torment began, when, on leaving her young lady’s room, she had to assist Mdlle. Dufour. Notwithstanding that she tried sincerely to do her best, she was never able to satisfy her, or to draw from her aught but harsh reproaches.

Thus two months passed.

One day Mdlle. Dufour went very early to confession, and Anielka was seized with an eager longing to gaze once more in peace and freedom on the beautiful blue sky and green trees, as she used to do when the first rays of the rising sun streamed in at the window of the little forest cabin. She ran into the garden. Enchanted by the sight of so many beautiful flowers, she went farther and farther along the smooth and winding walks, till she entered the forest. She who had been so long away from her beloved trees, roamed where they were thickest. Here she gazes boldly around. She sees no one! She is alone! A little farther on she meets with a rivulet which flows through the forest. Here she remembers that she has not yet prayed. She kneels down, and with hands clasped and eyes upturned she begins to sing in a sweet voice the Hymn to the Virgin.

As she went on she sang louder and with increased fervour. Her breast heaved with emotion, her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy; but when the hymn was finished she lowered her head, tears began to fall over her cheeks, until at last she sobbed aloud. She might have remained long in this condition, had not some one come behind her, saying, “Do not cry, my poor girl; it is better to sing than to weep.” The intruder raised her head, wiped her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed her on the forehead.

It was the Count’s son, Leon!

“You must not cry,” he continued; “be calm, and when the filipony (pedlars) come, buy yourself a pretty handkerchief.” He then gave her a rouble and walked away. Anielka, after concealing the coin in her corset, ran quickly back to the palace.

Fortunately, Mdlle. Dufour had not yet returned, and Anielka seated herself in her accustomed corner. She often took out the rouble to gaze fondly upon it, and set to work to make a little purse, which, having fastened to a ribbon, she hung round her neck. She did not dream of spending it, for it would have deeply grieved her to part with the gift of the only person in the whole house who had looked kindly on her.

From this time Anielka remained always in her young mistress’s room; she was better dressed, and Mdlle. Dufour ceased to persecute her. To what did she owe this sudden change? Perhaps to a remonstrance from Leon. Constantia ordered Anielka to sit beside her whilst taking her lessons from her music-masters, and on her going to the drawing-room, she was left in her apartments alone. Being thus more kindly treated, Anielka lost by degrees her timidity; and when her young mistress, whilst occupied over some embroidery, would tell her to sing, she did so boldly and with a steady voice. A greater favour awaited her. Constantia, when unoccupied, began teaching Anielka to read in Polish; and Mdlle. Dufour thought it politic to follow the example of her mistress, and began to teach her French.

Meanwhile, a new kind of torment commenced. Having easily learnt the two languages, Anielka acquired an irresistible passion for reading. Books had for her the charm of the forbidden fruit, for she could only read by stealth at night, or when her mistress went visiting in the neighbourhood. The kindness hitherto shown her, for a time, began to relax. Leon had set off on a tour, accompanied by his old tutor, and a bosom friend as young, as gay, and as thoughtless as himself.

So passed the two years of Leon’s absence. When he returned, Anielka was seventeen, and had become tall and handsome. No one who had not seen her during this time, would have recognised her. Of this number was Leon. In the midst of perpetual gaiety and change, it was not possible he could have remembered a poor peasant girl; but in Anielka’s memory he had remained as a superior being, as her benefactor, as the only one who had spoken kindly to her, when poor, neglected, forlorn! When in some French romance she met with a young man of twenty, of a noble character and handsome appearance, she bestowed on him the name of Leon. The recollection of the kiss he had given her ever brought a burning blush to her cheek, and made her sigh deeply.

One day Leon came to his sister’s room. Anielka was there, seated in a corner at work. Leon himself had considerably changed; from a boy he had grown into a man. “I suppose Constantia,” he said, “you have been told what a good boy I am, and with what docility I shall submit myself to the matrimonial yoke, which the Count and Countess have provided for me?” and he began whistling, and danced some steps of the Mazurka.

“Perhaps you will be refused,” said Constantia coldly.

“Refused! Oh, no. The old Prince has already given his consent, and as for his daughter, she is desperately in love with me. Look at these moustachios, could anything be more irresistible?” and he glanced in the glass and twirled them round his fingers; then continuing in a graver tone, he said, “To tell the sober truth, I cannot say that I reciprocate. My intended is not at all to my taste. She is nearly thirty, and so thin that whenever I look at her, I am reminded of my old tutor’s anatomical sketches. But, thanks to her Parisian dress-maker, she makes up a tolerably good figure, and looks well in a Cachemere. Of all things, you know, I wished for a wife with an imposing appearance, and I don’t care about love. I find it’s not fashionable, and only exists in the exalted imagination of poets.”

“Surely people are in love with one another sometimes,” said the sister.

“Sometimes,” repeated Anielka, inaudibly. The dialogue had painfully affected her, and she knew not why. Her heart beat quickly, and her face was flushed, and made her look more lovely than ever.

“Perhaps. Of course we profess to adore every pretty woman,” Leon added abruptly. “But, my dear sister, what a charming ladies’ maid you have!” He approached the corner where Anielka sat, and bent on her a coarse familiar smile. Anielka, although a serf, was displeased, and returned it with a glance full of dignity. But when her eyes rested on the youth’s handsome face, a feeling, which had been gradually and silently growing in her young and inexperienced heart, predominated over her pride and displeasure. She wished ardently to recal herself to Leon’s memory, and half unconsciously raised her hand to the little purse which always hung round her neck. She took from it the rouble he had given her.

“See!” shouted Leon, “what a droll girl; how proud she is of her riches! Why, girl, you are a woman of fortune, mistress of a whole rouble!”

“I hope she came by it honestly,” said the old Countess, who at this moment entered.

At this insinuation, shame and indignation kept Anielka, for a time, silent. She replaced the money quickly in its purse, with the bitter thought that the few happy moments which had been so indelibly stamped upon her memory, had been utterly forgotten by Leon. To clear herself, she at last stammered out, seeing they all looked at her enquiringly, “Do you not remember, M. Leon, that you gave me this coin two years ago in the garden?”

“How odd!” exclaimed Leon, laughing, “do you expect me to remember all the pretty girls to whom I have given money? But I suppose you are right, or you would not have treasured up this unfortunate rouble as if it were a holy relic. You should not be a miser, child; money is made to be spent.”

“Pray, put an end to these jokes,” said Constantia impatiently; “I like this girl, and I will not have her teased. She understands my ways better than any one, and often puts me in good humour with her beautiful voice.”

“Sing something for me, pretty damsel,” said Leon, “and I will give you another rouble, a new and shining one.”

“Sing instantly,” said Constantia imperiously.

At this command Anielka could no longer stifle her grief; she covered her face with her hands, and wept violently.

“Why do you cry?” asked her mistress impatiently; “I cannot bear it; I desire you to do as you are bid.”

It might have been from the constant habit of slavish obedience, or a strong feeling of pride, but Anielka instantly ceased weeping. There was a moment’s pause, during which the old Countess went grumbling out of the room. Anielka chose the Hymn to the Virgin she had warbled in the garden, and as she sung, she prayed fervently;—she prayed for peace, for deliverance from the acute emotions which had been aroused within her. Her earnestness gave an intensity of expression to the melody, which affected her listeners. They were silent for some moments after its conclusion. Leon walked up and down with his arms folded on his breast. Was it agitated with pity for the accomplished young slave? or by any other tender emotion? What followed will show.

“My dear Constantia,” he said, suddenly stopping before his sister and kissing her hand, “will you do me a favour?”

Constantia looked enquiringly in her brother’s face without speaking.

“Give me this girl.”

“Impossible!”

“I am quite in earnest,” continued Leon, “I wish to offer her to my future wife. In the Prince her father’s private chapel they are much in want of a solo soprano.”

“I shall not give her to you,” said Constantia.

“Not as a free gift, but in exchange. I will give you instead a charming young negro—so black. The women in St. Petersburg and in Paris raved about him: but I was inexorable; I half-refused him to my princess.”

“No, no,” replied Constantia; “I shall be lonely without this girl, I am so used to her.”

“Nonsense! you can get peasant girls by the dozen; but a black page, with teeth whiter than ivory, and purer than pearls; a perfect original in his way; you surely cannot withstand. You will kill half the province with envy. A negro servant is the most fashionable thing going, and yours will be the first imported into the province.”

This argument was irresistible. “Well,” replied Constantia, “when do you think of taking her?”

“Immediately; to-day at five o’clock,” said Leon; and he went merrily out of the room. This then was the result of his cogitation—of Anielka’s Hymn to the Virgin. Constantia ordered Anielka to prepare herself for the journey, with as little emotion as if she had exchanged away a lap-dog, or parted with a parrot.

She obeyed in silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again, for she could not bear to part with the treasure. She felt as if without it she would be still more an orphan. Weeping bitterly, she leaned against the tree which had once before witnessed her tears.

By degrees the stormy passion within her gave place to calm reflection. This day she was to go away; she was to dwell beneath another roof, to serve another mistress. Humiliation! always humiliation! But at least it would be some change in her life. As she thought of this, she returned hastily to the palace that she might not, on the last day of her servitude, incur the anger of her young mistress.

Scarcely was Anielka attired in her prettiest dress, when Constantia came to her with a little box, from which she took several gay-coloured ribbons, and decked her in them herself, that the serf might do her credit in the new family. And when Anielka, bending down to her feet, thanked her, Constantia, with marvellous condescension, kissed her on her forehead. Even Leon cast an admiring glance upon her. His servant soon after came to conduct her to the carriage, and showing her where to seat herself, they rolled off quickly towards Radapol.

For the first time in her life Anielka rode in a carriage. Her head turned quite giddy, she could not look at the trees and fields as they flew past her; but by degrees she became more accustomed to it, and the fresh air enlivening her spirits, she performed the rest of the journey in a tolerably happy state of mind. At last they arrived in the spacious court-yard before the Palace of Radapol, the dwelling of a once rich and powerful Polish family, now partly in ruin. It was evident, even to Anielka, that the marriage was one for money on the one side, and for rank on the other.

Among other renovations at the castle, occasioned by the approaching marriage, the owner of it, Prince Pelazia, had obtained singers for the chapel, and had engaged Signor Justiniani, an Italian, as chapel-master. Immediately on Leon’s arrival, Anielka was presented to him. He made her sing a scale, and pronounced her voice to be excellent.

Anielka found that, in Radapol, she was treated with a little more consideration than at Olgogrod, although she had often to submit to the caprices of her new mistress, and she found less time to read. But to console herself, she gave all her attention to singing, which she practised several hours a day. Her naturally great capacity, under the guidance of the Italian, began to develope itself steadily. Besides sacred, he taught her operatic music. On one occasion Anielka sung an aria in so impassioned and masterly a style, that the enraptured Justiniani clapped his hands for joy, skipped about the room, and not finding words enough to praise her, exclaimed several times, “Prima Donna! Prima Donna!”

But the lessons were interrupted. The Princess’s wedding-day was fixed upon, after which event she and Leon were to go to Florence, and Anielka was to accompany them. Alas! feelings which gave her poignant misery still clung to her. She despised herself for her weakness; but she loved Leon. The sentiment was too deeply implanted in her bosom to be eradicated; too strong to be resisted. It was the first love of a young and guileless heart, and had grown in silence and despair.

Anielka was most anxious to know something of her adopted parents. Once, after the old prince had heard her singing, he asked her with great kindness about her home. She replied, that she was an orphan, and had been taken by force from those who had so kindly supplied the place of parents. Her apparent attachment to the old bee-keeper and his wife so pleased the prince, that he said, “You are a good child, Anielka, and to-morrow I will send you to visit them. You shall take them some presents.”

Anielka, overpowered with gratitude, threw herself at the feet of the prince. She dreamed all night of the happiness that was in store for her, and the joy of the poor, forsaken, old people; and when the next morning she set off she could scarcely restrain her impatience. At last they approached the cabin; she saw the forest, with its tall trees, and the meadows covered with flowers. She leaped from the carriage, that she might be nearer these trees and flowers, every one of which she seemed to recognise. The weather was beautiful. She breathed with avidity the pure air which, in imagination, brought to her the kisses and caresses of her poor father! Her foster-father was, doubtless, occupied with his bees; but his wife?

Anielka opened the door of the cabin; all was silent and deserted. The arm-chair on which the poor old woman used to sit, was overturned in a corner. Anielka was chilled by a fearful presentiment. She went with a slow step towards the bee-hives; there she saw a little boy tending the bees, whilst the old man was stretched on the ground beside him. The rays of the sun, falling on his pale and sickly face, showed that he was very ill. Anielka stooped down over him, and said, “It is I, it is Anielka, your own Anielka, who always loves you.”

The old man raised his head, gazed upon her with a ghastly smile, and took off his cap.

“And my good old mother, where is she?” Anielka asked.

“She is dead!” answered the old man, and falling back he began laughing idiotically. Anielka wept. She gazed earnestly on the worn frame, the pale and wrinkled cheeks, in which scarcely a sign of life could be perceived; it seemed to her that he had suddenly fallen asleep, and not wishing to disturb him, she went to the carriage for the presents. When she returned, she took his hand. It was cold. The poor old bee-keeper had breathed his last!

Anielka was carried almost senseless back to the carriage, which quickly returned with her to the castle. There she revived a little; but the recollection that she was now quite alone in the world, almost drove her to despair.