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+The Project Gutenberg EBook My Novel, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Vol. 6
+#134 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: My Novel, Volume 6.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7707]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 29, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NOVEL, BY LYTTON, V6 ***
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIXTH.
+
+
+INITIAL CHAPTER.
+
+WHEREIN MR. CAXTON IS PROFOUNDLY METAPHYSICAL.
+
+"Life," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, "is a certain
+quantity in time, which may be regarded in two ways,--First, as life
+integral; Second, as life fractional.  Life integral is that complete
+whole expressive of a certain value, large or small, which each man
+possesses in himself.  Life fractional is that same whole seized upon and
+invaded by other people, and subdivided amongst them.  They who get a
+large slice of it say, 'A very valuable life this!'  Those who get but a
+small handful say, 'So, so; nothing very great!'  Those who get none of
+it in the scramble exclaim, 'Good for nothing!'"
+
+"I don't understand a word you are saying," growled Captain Roland.
+
+My father surveyed his brother with compassion: "I will make it all
+clear, even to your understanding.  When I sit down by myself in my
+study, having carefully locked the door on all of you, alone with my
+books and thoughts, I am in full possession of my integral life.  I am
+/totus, teres, atque rotundus/,--a whole human being, equivalent in
+value, we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed round sum,
+L100 for example.  But when I go forth into the common apartment, each of
+those to whom I am of any worth whatsoever puts his finger into the bag
+that contains me, and takes out of me what he wants.  Kitty requires me
+to pay a bill; Pisistratus to save him the time and trouble of looking
+into a score or two of books; the children to tell them stories, or play
+at hide-and-seek; and so on throughout the circle to which I have
+incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision.  The L100 which
+I represented in my study is now parcelled out; I am worth L40 or L50 to
+Kitty, L20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30s.  to the children.  This is
+life fractional.  And I cease to be an integral till once more returning
+to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but my own.
+Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that to those who, whether I am in the
+study or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing at all out
+of me, I am not worth a farthing.  It must be wholly indifferent to a
+native of Kamschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be not razed out of the
+great account-book of human beings.
+
+"Hence," continued my father,--"hence it follows that the more fractional
+a life be--that is, the greater the number of persons among whom it can
+be subdivided--why, the more there are to say, 'A very valuable life
+that!'  Thus the leader of a political party, a conqueror, a king, an
+author, who is amusing hundreds or thousands or millions, has a greater
+number of persons whom his worth interests and affects than a Saint
+Simeon Stylites could have when he perched himself at the top of a
+column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint Simeon, in his grand
+mortification of flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine
+Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se than
+Bonaparte or Voltaire."
+
+PISISTRATUS.--"Perfectly clear, sir; but I don't see what it has to do
+with 'My Novel.'"
+
+MR. CAXTON.--"Everything.  Your novel, if it is to be a full and
+comprehensive survey of the 'Quicquid agunt homines' (which it ought to
+be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee, from the slow
+development of your story, you meditate extending and expanding it), will
+embrace the two views of existence,--the integral and the fractional. You
+have shown us the former in Leonard, when he is sitting in his mother's
+cottage, or resting from his work by the little fount in Riccabocca's
+garden.  And in harmony with that view of his life, you have surrounded
+him with comparative integrals, only subdivided by the tender hands of
+their immediate families and neighbours,--your squires and parsons, your
+Italian exile and his Jemima.  With all these, life is, more or less, the
+life natural, and this is always, more or less, the life integral.  Then
+comes the life artificial, which is always, more or less, the life
+fractional.  In the life natural, wherein we are swayed but by our own
+native impulses and desires, subservient only to the great silent law of
+Virtue (which has pervaded the universe since it swung out of chaos), a
+man is of worth from what he is in himself,--Newton was as worthy before
+the apple fell from the tree as when all Europe applauded the discoverer
+of the Principle of Gravity.  But in the life artificial we are only of
+worth inasmuch as we affect others; and, relative to that life, Newton
+rose in value more than a million per cent when down fell the apple from
+which ultimately sprang up his discovery.  In order to keep civilization
+going and spread over the world the light of human intellect, we have
+certain desires within us, ever swelling beyond the ease and independence
+which belongs to us as integrals.  Cold man as Newton might be (he once
+took a lady's hand in his own, Kitty, and used her forefinger for his
+tobacco-stopper,--great philosopher!), cold as he might be, he was yet
+moved into giving his discoveries to the world, and that from motives
+very little differing in their quality from the motives that make Dr.
+Squills communicate articles to the 'Phrenological Journal' upon the
+skulls of Bushmen and wombats.  For it is the property of light to
+travel.  When a man has light in him, forth it must go.  But the first
+passage of genius from its integral state (in which it has been reposing
+on its own wealth) into the fractional is usually through a hard and
+vulgar pathway.  It leaves behind it the reveries of solitude,--that
+self-contemplating rest which may be called the Visionary,--and enters
+suddenly into the state that may be called the Positive and Actual.
+There it sees the operations of money on the outer life; sees all the
+ruder and commoner springs of action; sees ambition without nobleness,
+love without romance; is bustled about and ordered and trampled and
+cowed,--in short, it passes an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel,
+and does not detect what good and what grandeur, what addition even to
+the true poetry of the social universe, fractional existences like
+Richard Avenel's bestow; for the pillars that support society are like
+those of the Court of the Hebrew Tabernacle,--they are of brass, it is
+true, but they are filleted with silver.  From such intermediate state
+Genius is expelled and driven on its way, and would have been so in this
+case had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the representative of the homely
+natural affections, strongest ever in true genius,--for light is warm)
+never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss rose on her sisterly bosom.  Now, forth
+from this passage and defile of transition into the larger world, must
+Genius go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and forms the
+most artificial.  Passions that move and influence the world are at work
+around it.  Often lost sight of itself, its very absence is a silent
+contrast to the agencies present.  Merged and vanished for a while amidst
+the Practical World, yet we ourselves feel all the while that it is
+there; is at work amidst the workings around it.  This practical world
+that effaces it rose out of some genius that has gone before; and so each
+man of genius, though we never come across him, as his operations proceed
+in places remote from our thoroughfares, is yet influencing the practical
+world that ignores him, for ever and ever.  That is GENIUS!  We can't
+describe it in books; we can only hint and suggest it by the accessories
+which we artfully heap about it.  The entrance of a true Probationer into
+the terrible ordeal of Practical Life is like that into the miraculous
+cavern, by which, legend informs us, Saint Patrick converted Ireland."
+
+BLANCHE.--"What is that legend?  I never heard of it."
+
+MR. CAXTON.--"My dear, you will find it in a thin folio at the right on
+entering my study, written by Thomas Messingham, and called 'Florilegium
+Insulae Sanctorum,' etc.  The account therein is confirmed by the
+relation of an honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had actually entered
+the cavern.  In short, the truth of the legend is undeniable, unless you
+mean to say, which I can't for a moment suppose, that Louis Ennius was a
+liar.  Thus it runs: Saint Patrick, finding that the Irish pagans were
+incredulous as to his pathetic assurances of the pains and torments
+destined to those who did not expiate their sins in this world, prayed
+for a miracle to convince them.  His prayer was heard; and a certain
+cavern, so small that a man could not stand up therein at his ease, was
+suddenly converted into a Purgatory, comprehending tortures sufficient to
+convince the most incredulous.  One unacquainted with human nature might
+conjecture that few would be disposed to venture voluntarily into such a
+place; on the contrary, pilgrims came in crowds.  Now, all who entered
+from vain curiosity or with souls unprepared perished miserably; but
+those who entered with deep and earnest faith, conscious of their faults,
+and if bold, yet humble, not only came out safe and sound, but purified,
+as if from the waters of a second baptism.  See Savage and Johnson at
+night in Fleet Street,--and who shall doubt the truth of Saint Patrick's
+Purgatory!"  Therewith my father sighed; closed his Lucian, which had
+lain open on the table, and would read none  but "good books" for the
+rest of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them,
+Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay
+at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high
+road.  With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her
+steps, and soothed her excitement.  In fact, the poor woman's nerves
+were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her
+intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects.  As the
+shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous tinker was the prime
+agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam
+customer; for, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the
+Casino, the tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his
+interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was not aware that the
+boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps from
+spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of mischief by
+which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago, and which
+certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr. Sprott) had so
+impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanour of the uncle, and the
+refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a
+bitter and insupportable jealousy.  There was an intention to rob her of
+her boy!--he was to be made too fine for her.  His silence was now
+accounted for.  This sort of jealousy, always more or less a feminine
+quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it was the more
+strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was, the boy was
+all in all to her.  And though she was reconciled to the loss of his
+presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his affections
+should be weaned from her.  Moreover, there were in her mind certain
+impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better judge
+hereafter, as to the gratitude--more than ordinarily filial--which
+Leonard owed to her.  In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to
+be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for
+herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to that effect
+made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of mortifying the
+gentlemen by whom he had been so disrespectfully threatened with the
+treadmill.  The widow felt angry with Parson Dale and with the
+Riccaboccas: she thought they were in the plot against her; she
+communicated.  therefore, her intentions to none, and off she set,
+performing the journey partly on the top of the coach, partly on foot.
+No wonder that she was dusty, poor woman!
+
+"And, oh, boy!" said she, half sobbing, "when I got through the lodge-
+gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that power o' fine folk, I said to
+myself, says I--for I felt fritted--I'll just have a look at him and go
+back.  But ah, Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome, and when thee
+turned and cried 'Mother,' my heart was just ready to leap out o' my
+mouth, and so I could not help hugging thee, if I had died for it.  And
+thou wert so kind, that I forgot all Mr. Sprott had said about Dick's
+pride, or thought he had just told a fib about that, as he had wanted me
+to believe a fib about thee.  Then Dick came up--and I had not seen him
+for so many years--and we come o' the same father and mother; and so--and
+so--"  The widow's sobs here fairly choked her.  "Ah," she said, after
+giving vent to her passion, and throwing her arms round Leonard's neck,
+as they sat in the little sanded parlour of the public-house,--"ah, and
+I've brought thee to this.  Go back; go back, boy, and never mind me."
+
+With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her to
+retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted.  He then
+stepped forth into the road; musingly.  All the stars were out; and
+Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars.  Folding his
+arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured.
+
+From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a voice
+in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr.
+Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler.
+
+Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had repented, and sent in search
+of him.  But the butler seemed as much surprised at the rencontre as
+himself: that personage, indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was
+accompanying one of Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house (at which
+the latter had secured his lodging), having discovered an old friend in
+the waiter, and proposing to regale himself with a cheerful glass, and-
+THAT of course--abuse of his present sitivation.
+
+"Mr. Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked discreetly
+on.
+
+Leonard looked, and said nothing.  The butler began to think that some
+apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he might
+as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his master.
+
+"Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a showing Mr. Giles
+the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night.  I hope my
+master will not be offended.  If you are a going back, sir, would you
+kindly mention it?"
+
+"I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am
+leaving Mr. Avenel's house, to accompany my mother,--rather suddenly.  I
+should be very much obliged to you if you would bring some things of mine
+to me at the Blue Bells.  I will give you the list, if you will step with
+me to the inn."
+
+Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned towards the inn, and
+made his humble inventory: item, the clothes he had brought with him from
+the Casino; item, the knapsack that had contained them; item, a few
+books, ditto; item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch; item, sundry manuscripts, on
+which the young student now built all his hopes of fame and fortune.
+This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand.
+
+"Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his finger and thumb,
+"you're not a going for long, I hope?" and he looked on the face of the
+young man, who had always been "civil spoken to him," with as much
+curiosity and as much compassion as so apathetic and princely a personage
+could experience in matters affecting a family less aristocratic than he
+had hitherto condescended to serve.
+
+"Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; "and your master will no doubt
+excuse you for rendering me this service."  Mr. Jarvis postponed for the
+present his glass and chat with the waiter, and went back at once to Mr.
+Avenel.  That gentleman, still seated in his library, had not been aware
+of the butler's absence; and when Mr. Jarvis entered and told him that he
+had met Mr. Fairfield, and communicating the commission with which he was
+intrusted, asked leave to execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's
+inquisitive eye was on him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for a
+new humiliation to his pride.  It was awkward to give no explanation of
+his nephew's departure, still more awkward to explain.  After a short
+pause, Mr. Avenel said sullenly, "My nephew is going away on business for
+some time,--do what he tells you;" and then turned his back, and lighted
+his cigar.
+
+"That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either means this as an
+affront, or an overture: if an affront, he is, indeed, well got rid of;
+if an overture, he will soon make a more respectful and proper one.
+After all, I can't have too little of relations till I have fairly
+secured Mrs. M'Catchley.  An Honourable!  I wonder if that makes me an
+Honourable too?  This cursed Debrett contains no practical information on
+those points."
+
+The next morning the clothes and the watch with which Mr. Avenel
+presented Leonard were returned, with a note meant to express gratitude,
+but certainly written with very little knowledge of the world; and so
+full of that somewhat over-resentful pride which had in earlier life made
+Leonard fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology to Randal, that it is
+not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last remorseful feelings
+evaporated in ire.  "I hope he will starve!" said the uncle,
+vindictively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"Listen to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next morning, as, with
+knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked along
+the high road; "I do assure you from my heart that I do not regret the
+loss of favours which I see plainly would have crushed out of me the very
+sense of independence.  But do not fear for me; I have education and
+energy,--I shall do well for myself, trust me.--No, I cannot, it is true,
+go back to our cottage; I cannot be a gardener again.  Don't ask me,--I
+should be discontented, miserable.  But I will go up to London!  That's
+the place to make a fortune and a name: I will make both.  Oh, yes, trust
+me, I will.  You shall soon be proud of your Leonard; and then we will
+always live together,--always!  Don't cry," "But what can you do in
+Lunnon,--such a big place, Lenny?"
+
+"What!  Every year does not some lad leave our village, and go and seek
+his fortune, taking with him but health and strong hands?  I have these,
+and I have more: I have brains and thoughts and hopes, that--again I say,
+No, no; never fear for me!"
+
+The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in his
+young trust in the future.
+
+"Well.  But you will write to Mr. Dale or to me?  I will get Mr. Dale or
+the good mounseer (now I know they were not agin me) to read your
+letters."
+
+"I will, indeed!"
+
+"And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets.  We have paid Dick; these,
+at least, are my own, after paying the coach fare."  And she would thrust
+a sovereign and some shillings into Leonard's waistcoat pocket.
+
+After some resistance, he was forced to consent.
+
+"And there's a sixpence with a hole in it.  Don't part with that, Lenny;
+it will bring thee good luck."
+
+Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads met, and from
+which a coach went direct to the Casino.  And here, without entering the
+inn, they sat on the greensward by the hedgerow, waiting the arrival of
+the coach--Mrs.  Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and there was
+evidently on her mind something uneasy,--some struggle with her
+conscience.  She not only upbraided herself for her rash visit, but she
+kept talking of her dead Mark.  And what would he say of her, if he could
+see her in heaven?
+
+"It was so selfish in me, Lenny."
+
+"Pooh, pooh!  Has not a mother a right to her child?"
+
+"Ay, ay, ay!" cried Mrs. Fairfield.  "I do love you as a child,--my own
+child.  But if I was not your mother, after all, Lenny, and cost you all
+this--oh, what would you say of me then?"
+
+"Not my own mother!" said Leonard, laughing as he kissed her.  "Well, I
+don't know what I should say then differently from what I say now,--that
+you, who brought me up and nursed and cherished me, had a right to my
+home and my heart, wherever I was."
+
+"Bless thee!" cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him to her heart.
+"But it weighs here,--it weighs," she said, starting up.
+
+At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran forward to inquire if
+there was an outside place.  Then there was a short bustle while the
+horses were being changed; and Mrs. Fairfield was lifted up to the roof
+of the vehicle, so all further private conversation between her and
+Leonard ceased.  But as the coach whirled away, and she waved her hand to
+the boy, who stood on the road-side gazing after her, she still murmured,
+"It weighs here,--it weighs!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Leonard walked sturdily on in the high road to the Great City.  The day
+was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the
+distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow more
+firm, and his front more elate.  Oh, it is such joy in youth to be alone
+with one's daydreams!  And youth feels so glorious a vigour in the sense
+of its own strength, though the world be before and--against it!  Removed
+from that chilling counting-house, from the imperious will of a patron
+and master, all friendless, but all independent, the young adventurer
+felt a new being, felt his grand nature as Man.  And on the Man rushed
+the genius long interdicted and thrust aside,--rushing back, with the
+first breath of adversity, to console--no! the Man needed not
+consolation,--to kindle, to animate, to rejoice!  If there is a being in
+the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise philosophers of
+the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the careworn
+statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters, already crowned
+with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as for garlands; it
+is the young child of adventure and hope.  Ay, and the emptier his purse,
+ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider the domains which his
+fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to the Future.
+
+Not till towards the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace and
+think of rest and refreshment.  There, then, lay before him on either
+side the road those wide patches of uninclosed land which in England
+often denote the entrance to a village.  Presently one or two neat
+cottages came in sight; then a small farmhouse, with its yard and barns.
+And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swinging before an inn of some
+pretensions,--the sort of inn often found on a long stage between two
+great towns commonly called "The Halfway House."  But the inn stood back
+from the road, having its own separate sward in front, whereon was a
+great beech-tree (from which the sign extended) and a rustic arbour; so
+that to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there took a sweep from
+the main thoroughfare.  Between our pedestrian and the inn there stood,
+naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our ancestors never would
+have chosen that site for it;  therefore it was a modern church,--modern
+Gothic; handsome to an eye not versed in the attributes of ecclesiastical
+architecture, very barbarous to an eye that was.  Somehow or other the
+church looked cold and raw and uninviting.  It looked a church for show,
+--much too big for the scattered hamlet, and void of all the venerable
+associations which give their peculiar and unspeakable atmosphere of
+piety to the churches in which succeeding generations have knelt and
+worshipped.  Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned
+but poetical gaze; it dissatisfied him.  And he was yet pondering why,
+when a young girl passed slowly before him, her eyes fixed on the ground,
+opened the little gate that led into the churchyard, and vanished.  He
+did not see the child's face; but there was something in her movements so
+utterly listless, forlorn, and sad that his heart was touched.  What did
+she there?  He approached the low wall with a noiseless step, and looked
+over it wistfully.
+
+There by a grave, evidently quite recent, with no wooden tomb nor
+tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown herself, and she was
+sobbing loud and passionately.  Leonard opened the gate, and approached
+her with a soft step.  Mingled with her sobs, he heard broken sentences,
+wild and vain, as all human sorrowings over graves must be.
+
+"Father!  oh, Father, do you not really hear me?  I am so lone, so lone!
+Take me to you,--take me!"  And she buried her face in the deep grass.
+
+"Poor child!" said Leonard, in a half whisper,--"he is not there.  Look
+above!"
+
+The girl did not heed him; he put his arm round her waist gently; she
+made a gesture of impatience and anger, but she would not turn her face,
+and she clung to the grave with her hands.
+
+After clear, sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun
+set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze,--a dim mist rose around.
+The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the child to
+his breast.  Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed him aside
+with jealous arms.  He profaned the grave!  He understood her with his
+deep poet-heart, and rose.  There was a pause.  Leonard was the first to
+break it.
+
+"Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of him by the
+way."
+
+"Him!  Who are you?  You did not know him!" said the girl, still with
+anger.  "Go away!  Why do you disturb me?  I do no one harm.  Go! go!"
+
+"You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder!
+Come!"
+
+The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face softened
+and soothed her.
+
+"Go!" she said, very plaintively, and in subdued accents.  "I will but
+stay a minute more.  I--I have so much to say yet."
+
+Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time the
+child came forth, waived him aside as he approached her, and hurried
+away.  He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear within the
+inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"Hip-Hip-Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young traveller as
+he reached the inn door,--a sound joyous in itself, but sadly out of
+harmony with the feelings which the child sobbing on the tombless grave
+had left at his heart.  The sound came from within, and was followed by
+thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses.  A strong odour of tobacco
+was wafted to his olfactory sense.  He hesitated a moment at the
+threshold.
+
+Before him, on benches under the beech-tree and within the arbour, were
+grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes in the liberal air."
+
+The landlady, as she passed across the passage to the taproom, caught
+sight of his form at the doorway, and came forward.  Leonard still stood
+irresolute.  He would have gone on his way, but for the child: she had
+interested him strongly.
+
+"You seem full, ma'am," said he.  "Can I have accommodation for the
+night?"
+
+"Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a
+bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile.  The two parlours
+and the tap-room and the kitchen are all choke-full.  There has been a
+great cattle-fair in the neighbourhood, and I suppose we have as many as
+fifty farmers and drovers stopping here."
+
+"As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to give
+me; and if it does not cause you much trouble to let me have some tea
+there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure.  Do not put
+yourself out of the way for me."
+
+The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much habituated
+to receive from her bluff customers.  "You speak very handsome, sir, and
+we will do our best to serve you, if you will excuse all faults.  This
+way, sir."  Leonard lowered his knapsack, stepped into the passage, with
+some difficulty forced his way through a knot of sturdy giants in top-
+boots or leathern gaiters, who were swarining in and out the tap-room,
+and followed his hostess upstairs to a little bedroom at the top of the
+house.
+
+"It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess, apologetically.  "But
+there be four gentlemen farmers that have come a great distance, and all
+the first floor is engaged; you will be more out of the noise here."
+
+"Nothing can suit me better.  But, stay,--pardon me;" and Leonard,
+glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed she was not in mourning.
+"A little girl whom I saw in the churchyard yonder, weeping very
+bitterly--is she a relation of yours?  Poor child!  she seems to have
+deeper feelings than are common at her age."
+
+"Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her apron to her
+eyes, "it is a very sad story.  I don't know what to do.  Her father was
+taken ill on his way to Lunnon, and stopped here, and has been buried
+four days.  And the poor little girl seems to have no relations--and
+where is she to go?  Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone
+parish, where her father lived last; and what's to become of her then?
+My heart bleeds to think on it."
+
+Here there rose such an uproar from below, that it was evident some
+quarrel had broken out; and the hostess, recalled to her duties, hastened
+to carry thither her propitiatory influences.
+
+Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice.  Here was some
+one more alone in the world than he; and she, poor orphan, had no stout
+man's heart to grapple with fate, and no golden manuscripts that were to
+be as the "Open-Sesame" to the treasures of Aladdin.  By and by, the
+hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other refreshments, and
+Leonard resumed his inquiries.  "No relatives?" said he; "surely the
+child must have some kinsfolk in London?  Did her father leave no
+directions, or was he in possession of his faculties?"
+
+"Yes, sir; he was quite reasonable like to the last.  And I asked him if
+he had not anything on his mind, and he said, 'I have.'  And I said,
+'Your little girl, sir?'  And he answered me, 'Yes, ma'am;' and laying
+his head on his pillow, he wept very quietly.  I could not say more
+myself, for it set me off to see him cry so meekly; but my husband is
+harder nor I, and he said, 'Cheer up, Mr. Digby; had not you better write
+to your friends?'
+
+"'Friends!' said the gentleman, in such a voice!  'Friends I have but
+one, and I am going to Him!  I cannot take her there!'  Then he seemed
+suddenly to recollect himself, and called for his clothes, and rummaged
+in the pockets as if looking for some address, and could not find it.  He
+seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands were what I call
+helpless hands, sir!  And then he gasped out, 'Stop, stop!  I never had
+the address.  Write to Lord Les--', something like Lord Lester, but we
+could not make out the name.  Indeed he did not finish it, for there was
+a rush of blood to his lips; and though he seemed sensible when he
+recovered (and knew us and his little girl too, till he went off
+smiling), he never spoke word more."
+
+"Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes.  "But his little girl surely
+remembers the name that he did not finish?"
+
+"No.  She says he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in the
+Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord
+something; but she don't remember the name, for she never saw him before
+or since, and her father talked very little about any one lately, but
+thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown, and travelled
+down there with her from Lunnon.  But she supposes he was disappointed,
+for he went out, came back, and merely told her to put up the things, as
+they must go back to Lunnon.  And on his way there he--died.  Hush,
+what's that?  I hope she did not overhear us.  No, we were talking low.
+She has the next room to your'n, sir.  I thought I heard her sobbing.
+Hush!"
+
+"In the next room?  I hear nothing.  Well, with your leave, I will speak
+to her before I quit you.  And had her father no money with him?"
+
+"Yes, a few sovereigns, sir; they paid for his funeral, and there is a
+little left still,--enough to take her to town; for my husband said, says
+he, 'Hannah, the widow gave her mite, and we must not take the orphan's;'
+and my husband is a hard man, too, sir--bless him!"
+
+"Let me take your hand, ma'am.  God reward you both."  "La, sir! why,
+even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily though, 'Never mind my bill; but
+don't call me up at six o'clock in the morning again, without knowing a
+little more about people.'  And I never afore knew Dr. Dosewell go
+without his bill being paid.  He said it was a trick o' the other doctor
+to spite him."
+
+"What other doctor?"
+
+"Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. Digby when he was taken
+ill, and stayed till the next morning; and our doctor says his name is
+Morgan, and he lives in Lunnou, and is a homy--something."
+
+"Homicide," suggested Leonard, ignorantly.
+
+"Ah, homicide; something like that, only a deal longer and worse.  But he
+left some of the tiniest little balls you ever see, sir, to give the
+child; but, bless you, they did her no good,--how should they?"
+
+"Tiny balls, oh--homoeopathist--I understand.  And the doctor was kind to
+her; perhaps he may help her.  Have you written to him?"
+
+"But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir."
+
+"I am going to London and will find it out."
+
+"Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon (for what
+can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service), I wish she was
+going with you."
+
+"With me!" said Leonard, startled,--"with me!  Well, why not?"
+
+"I am sure she comes of good blood, sir.  You would have known her father
+was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir.  He went off so kind
+and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much trouble,--quite a
+gentleman, if ever there was one.  And so are you, sir, I'm sure," said
+the land lady, courtesying; "I know what gentlefolk be.  I've been a
+housekeeper in the first of families in this very shire, sir, though I
+can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as gentlefolks know each other,
+I 've no doubt you could find out her relations.  Dear, dear!  Coming,
+coming!"
+
+Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away.  The
+farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to be
+made out and paid.  Leonard saw his hostess no more that night.  The last
+Hip-hip-hurrah was heard,--some toast, perhaps to the health of the
+county members,--and the chamber of woe beside Leonard's rattled with the
+shout.  By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant
+sounds below.  The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on
+the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and
+low, humming voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed, with
+now and then a drunken hiccough or maudlin laugh, as some conquered
+votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his domicile.
+
+All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the church sounded
+the stroke of eleven.
+
+Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his manuscripts.  There was
+first a project for an improvement on the steam-engine,--a project that
+had long lain in his mind, begun with the first knowledge of mechanics
+that he had gleaned from his purchases of the tinker.  He put that aside
+now,--it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to
+re-examine.
+
+He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on various subjects,
+--some that he thought indifferent, some that he thought good.  He then
+lingered over a collection of verses written in his best hand with loving
+care,--verses first inspired by his perusal of Nora's melancholy
+memorials.  These verses were as a diary of his heart and his fancy,--
+those deep, unwitnessed struggles which the boyhood of all more
+thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet murky storm of the cloud
+and the lightning-flash, though but few boys pause to record the crisis
+from which slowly emerges Man.  And these first desultory grapplings with
+the fugitive airy images that flit through the dim chambers of the brain
+had become with each effort more sustained and vigorous, till the
+phantoms were spelled, the flying ones arrested, the Immaterial seized,
+and clothed with Form.  Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that
+there at length spoke forth the poet.  It was a work which though as yet
+but half completed, came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling on
+unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and imitation of some
+bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, but an original substance,--
+a life, a thing of the Creative Faculty,--breathing back already the
+breath it had received.  This work had paused during Leonard's residence
+with Mr. Avenel, or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night,
+received a rare touch.  Now, as with a fresh eye he reperused it, and
+with that strange, innocent admiration, not of self--for a man's work is
+not, alas!  himself,--it is the beautified and idealized essence,
+extracted he knows not how from his own human elements of clay;
+admiration known but to poets,--their purest delight, often their sole
+reward.  And then with a warmer and more earthly beat of his full heart,
+he rushed in fancy to the Great City, where all rivers of fame meet, but
+not to be merged and lost, sallying forth again, individualized and
+separate, to flow through that one vast Thought of God which we call
+THE WORLD.
+
+He put up his papers; and opened his window, as was his ordinary custom,
+before he retired to rest,--for he had many odd habits; and he loved to
+look out into the night when he prayed.  His soul seemed to escape from
+the body--to mount on the air, to gain more rapid access to the far
+Throne in the Infinite--when his breath went forth among the winds, and
+his eyes rested fixed on the stars of heaven.
+
+So the boy prayed silently; and after his prayer he was about,
+lingeringly, to close the lattice, when he heard distinctly sobs close at
+hand.  He paused, and held his breath, then looked gently out; the
+casement next his own was also open.  Someone was also at watch by that
+casement,--perhaps also praying.  He listened yet more intently, and
+caught, soft and low, the words, "Father, Father, do you hear me now?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining; for
+his first natural impulse had been to enter and console.  But when his
+touch was on the handle, he drew back.  Child though the mourner was, her
+sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex.
+Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him from
+the threshold.  To have crossed it then would have seemed to him
+profanation.  So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard the
+sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep.
+
+But the next morning, when he heard his neighbour astir, he knocked
+gently at her door: there was no answer.  He entered softly, and saw her
+seated very listlessly in the centre of the room,--as if it had no
+familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have, her hands drooping on
+her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor.  Then he approached
+and spoke to her.
+
+Helen was very subdued, and very silent.  Her tears seemed dried up;
+and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him.  At
+length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and the
+first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the
+overflow of her downcast eyes.
+
+By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she told
+him in broken whispers her simple story.  But what moved him the most
+was, that beyond her sense of loneliness she did not seem to feel her own
+unprotected state.  She mourned the object she had nursed and heeded and
+cherished, for she had been rather the protectress than the protected to
+the helpless dead.  He could not gain from her any more satisfactory
+information than the landlady had already imparted, as to her friends and
+prospects; but she permitted him passively to look among the effects her
+father had left, save only that, if his hand touched something that
+seemed to her associations especially holy, she waved him back, or drew
+it quickly away.  There were many bills receipted in the name of Captain
+Digby, old yellow faded music-scores for the flute, extracts of Parts
+from Prompt Books, gay parts of lively comedies, in which heroes have so
+noble a contempt for money,--fit heroes for a Sheridan and a Farquhar;
+close by these were several pawnbroker's tickets; and, not arrayed
+smoothly, but crumpled up, as if with an indignant nervous clutch of the
+helpless hands, some two or three letters.  He asked Helen's permission
+to glance at these, for they might afford a clew to friends.  Helen gave
+the permission by a silent bend of the head.  The letters, however, were
+but short and freezing answers from what appeared to be distant
+connections or former friends, or persons to whom the deceased had
+applied for some situation.  They were all very disheartening in their
+tone.  Leonard next endeavoured to refresh Helen's memory as to the name
+of the nobleman which had been last on her father's lips; but there he
+failed wholly.  For it may be remembered that Lord L'Estrange, when he
+pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently told that gentleman to
+address him at Mr. Egerton's, had, from a natural delicacy, sent the
+child on, that she might not witness the charity bestowed on the father;
+and Helen said truly that Mr. Digby had sunk latterly into an habitual
+silence on all his affairs.  She might have heard her father mention the
+name, but she had not treasured it up; all she could say was, that she
+should know the stranger again if she met him, and his dog too.  Seeing
+that the child had grown calm, Leonard was then going to leave the room,
+in order to confer with the hostess, when she rose suddenly, though
+noiselessly, and put her little hand in his, as if to detain him.  She
+did not say a word; the action said all,--said, "Do not desert me."  And
+Leonard's heart rushed to his lips, and he answered to the action, as he
+bent down, and kissed her cheek, "Orphan, will you go with me?  We have
+one Father yet to both of us, and He will guide us on earth.  I am
+fatherless like you."  She raised her eyes to his, looked at him long,
+and then leaned her head confidingly on his strong young shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+At noon that same day the young man and the child were on their road to
+London.  The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen to so
+young a companion; but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had talked so
+sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate protectors for the
+child; and in so grand a strain, though with all sincerity, had spoken of
+his own great prospects in the metropolis (he did not say what they
+were!) that had he been the craftiest impostor he could not more have
+taken in the rustic host.  And while the landlady still cherished the
+illusive fancy that all gentlefolks must know each other in London, as
+they did in a county, the landlord believed, at least, that a young man
+so respectably dressed, although but a foot-traveller, who talked in so
+confident a tone, and who was so willing to undertake what might be
+rather a burdensome charge, unless he saw how to rid himself of it, would
+be sure to have friends older and wiser than himself, who would judge
+what could best be done for the orphan.
+
+And what was the host to do with her?  Better this volunteered escort, at
+least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and leaving her
+friendless at last in the streets of London.  Helen, too, smiled for the
+first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her hand in
+Leonard's.  In short, so it was settled.
+
+The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most prized or needed.
+Leonard did not feel the additional load, as he slung it to his knapsack;
+the rest of the luggage was to be sent to London as soon as Leonard wrote
+(which he promised to do soon) and gave an address.
+
+Helen paid her last visit to the churchyard; and she joined her companion
+as he stood on the road, without the solemn precincts.  And now they had
+gone on some hours; and when he asked her if she were tired, she still
+answered "No."  But Leonard was merciful, and made their day's journey
+short; and it took them some days to reach London.  By the long lonely
+way they grew so intimate, at the end of the second day, they called each
+other brother and sister; and Leonard, to his delight, found that as her
+grief, with the bodily movement and the change of scene, subsided from
+its first intenseness and its insensibility to other impressions, she
+developed a quickness of comprehension far beyond her years.  Poor child!
+that had been forced upon her by Necessity.  And she understood him in
+his spiritual consolations, half poetical, half religious; and she
+listened to his own tale, and the story of his self-education and
+solitary struggles,--those, too, she understood.  But when he burst out
+with his enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, his confidence in the fate
+before them, then she would shake her head very quietly and very sadly.
+Did she comprehend them!  Alas!  perhaps too well.  She knew more as to
+real life than he did.  Leonard was at first their joint treasurer; but
+before the second day was over, Helen seemed to discover that he was too
+lavish; and she told him so, with a prudent grave look, putting her hand
+on his arm as he was about to enter an inn to dine; and the gravity would
+have been comic, but that the eyes through their moisture were so meek
+and grateful.  She felt he was about to incur that ruinous extravagance
+on her account.  Somehow or other, the purse found its way into her
+keeping, and then she looked proud and in her natural element.
+
+Ah! what happy meals under her care were provided; so much more enjoyable
+than in dull, sanded inn-parlours, swarming with flies, and reeking with
+stale tobacco.  She would leave him at the entrance of a village, bound
+forward, and cater, and return with a little basket and a pretty blue
+jug--which she had bought on the road,--the last filled with new milk;
+the first with new bread, and some special dainty in radishes or water-
+tresses.  And she had such a talent for finding out the prettiest spot
+whereon to halt and dine: sometimes in the heart of a wood,--so still,
+it was like a forest in fairy tales, the hare stealing through the
+alleys, or the squirrel peeping at them from the boughs; sometimes by a
+little brawling stream, with the fishes seen under the clear wave, and
+shooting round the crumbs thrown to them.  They made an Arcadia of the
+dull road up to their dread Thermopylae, the war against the million that
+waited them on the other side of their pass through Tempo.
+
+"Shall we be as happy when we are great?" said Leonard, in his grand
+simplicity.
+
+Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+At last they came within easy reach of London; but Leonard had resolved
+not to enter the metropolis fatigued and exhausted, as a wanderer needing
+refuge, but fresh and elate, as a conqueror coming in triumph to take
+possession of the capital.  Therefore they halted early in the evening of
+the day preceding this imperial entry, about six miles from the
+metropolis, in the neighbourhood of Ealing (for by that route lay their
+way).  They were not tired on arriving at their inn.  The weather was
+singularly lovely, with that combination of softness and brilliancy which
+is only known to the rare true summer days of England; all below so
+green, above so blue,--days of which we have about six in the year, and
+recall vaguely when we read of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, of Damsel and
+Knight in Spenser's golden Summer Song, or of Jacques, dropped under the
+oak-tree, watching the deer amidst the dells of Ardennes.  So, after a
+little pause at their inn, they strolled forth, not for travel but
+pleasure, towards the cool of sunset, passing by the grounds that once
+belonged to the Duke of Kent, and catching a glimpse of the shrubs and
+lawns of that beautiful domain through the lodge-gates; then they crossed
+into some fields, and came to a little rivulet called the Brent.  Helen
+had been more sad that day than on any during their journey,--perhaps
+because, on approaching London, the memory of her father became more
+vivid; perhaps from her precocious knowledge of life, and her foreboding
+of what was to befall them, children that they both were.  But Leonard
+was selfish that day; he could not be influenced by his companion's
+sorrow; he was so full of his own sense of being, and he already caught
+from the atmosphere the fever that belongs to anxious capitals.
+
+"Sit here, sister," said he, imperiously, throwing himself under the
+shade of a pollard-tree that overhung the winding brook, "sit here and
+talk."
+
+He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and sprinkled his brow
+from the stream that eddied round the roots of the tree that bulged out,
+bald and gnarled, from the bank and delved into the waves below.  Helen
+quietly obeyed him, and nestled close to his side.
+
+"And so this London is really very vast,--VERY?" he repeated
+inquisitively.
+
+"Very," answered Helen, as, abstractedly, she plucked the cowslips near
+her, and let them fall into the running waters.  "See how the flowers are
+carried down the stream!  They are lost now.  London is to us what the
+river is to the flowers, very vast, very strong;" and she added, after a
+pause, "very cruel!"
+
+"Cruel!  Ah, it has been so to you; but now--now I will take care of
+you!"  he smiled triumphantly; and his smile was beautiful both in its
+pride and its kindness.  It is astonishing how Leonard had altered since
+he had left his uncle's.  He was both younger and older; for the sense of
+genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and wiser as to
+the world it soars to, younger and blinder as to the world it springs
+from.
+
+"And it is not a very handsome city, either, you say?"
+
+"Very ugly indeed," said Helen, with some fervour; "at least all I have
+seen of it."
+
+"But there must be parts that are prettier than others?  You say there
+are parks: why should not we lodge near them and look upon the green
+trees?"
+
+"That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously; "but--" and here the
+head was shaken--"there are no lodgings for us except in courts and
+alleys."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up the purse.
+
+"Pooh! always that horrid purse; as if, too, we were not going to fill
+it!  Did not I tell you the story of Fortunio?  Well, at all events, we
+will go first to the neighbourhood where you last lived, and learn there
+all we can; and then the day after to-morrow I will see this Dr. Morgan,
+and find out the lord."
+
+The tears started to Helen's soft eyes.  "You want to get rid of me soon,
+brother."
+
+"I!  Ah, I feel so happy to have you with me it seems to me as if I had
+pined for you all my life, and you had come at last; for I never had
+brother nor sister nor any one to love, that was not older than myself,
+except--"
+
+"Except the young lady you told me of," said Helen, turning away her
+face; for children are very jealous.
+
+"Yes, I loved her, love her still.  But that was different," said
+Leonard.  "I could never have talked to her as to you: to you I open my
+whole heart; you are my little Muse, Helen: I confess to you my wild
+whims and fancies as frankly as if I were writing poetry."  As he said
+this, a step was heard, and a shadow fell over the stream.  A belated
+angler appeared on the margin, drawing his line impatiently across the
+water, as if to worry some dozing fish into a bite before it finally
+settled itself for the night.  Absorbed in his occupation, the angler did
+not observe the young persons on the sward under the tree, and he halted
+there, close upon them.
+
+"Curse that perch!" said he, aloud.
+
+"Take care, sir," cried Leonard; for the man, in stepping back, nearly
+trod upon Helen.
+
+The angler turned.  "What 's the matter?  Hist! you have frightened my
+perch.  Keep still, can't you?"
+
+Helen drew herself out of the way, and Leonard remained motionless.  He
+remembered Jackeymo, and felt a sympathy for the angler.
+
+"It is the most extraordinary perch, that!" muttered the stranger,
+soliloquizing.  "It has the devil's own luck.  It must have been born
+with a silver spoon in its mouth, that damned perch!  I shall never catch
+it,--never!  Ha! no, only a weed.  I give it up."  With this, he
+indignantly jerked his rod from the water and began to disjoint it.
+While leisurely engaged in this occupation, he turned to Leonard.
+
+"Humph! are you intimately acquainted with this stream, sir?"
+
+"No," answered Leonard.  "I never saw it before."
+
+ANGLER, (solemnly).--"Then, young man, take my advice, and do not give
+way to its fascinations.  Sir, I am a martyr to this stream; it has been
+the Delilah of my existence."
+
+LEONARD (interested, the last sentence seemed to him poetical).--"The
+Delilah!  sir, the Delilah!"
+
+ANGLER.--"The Delilah.  Young man, listen, and be warned by example.
+When I was about your age, I first came to this stream to fish.  Sir, on
+that fatal day, about three p.m., I hooked up a fish,--such a big one, it
+must have weighed a pound and a half.  Sir, it was that length; "and the
+angler put finger to wrist.  "And just when I had got it nearly ashore,
+by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving bank, young
+man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among those roots,
+and--cacodaemon that he was--ran off, hook and all.  Well, that fish
+haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish.  Minnows I had caught in
+the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and occasionally a dace.  But a
+fish like that--a PERCH, all his fins up, like the sails of a man-of-war
+--a monster perch,--a whale of a perch!  No, never till then had I known
+what leviathans lie hid within the deeps.  I could not sleep till I
+had returned; and again, sir,--I caught that perch.  And this time I
+pulled him fairly out of the water.  He escaped; and how did he escape?
+Sir, he left his eye behind him on the hook.  Years, long years, have
+passed since then; but never shall I forget the agony of that moment."
+
+LEONARD.--"To the perch, sir?"
+
+ANGLER.--"Perch! agony to him!  He enjoyed it.  Agony to me!  I gazed on
+that eye, and the eye looked as sly and as wicked as if it were laughing
+in my face.  Well, sir, I had heard that there is no better bait for a
+perch than a perch's eye.  I adjusted that eye on the hook, and dropped
+in the line gently.  The water was unusually clear; in two minutes
+I saw that perch return.  He approached the hook; he recognized his eye,
+frisked his tail, made a plunge, and, as I live, carried off the eye,
+safe and sound; and I saw him digesting it by the side of that water-
+lily.  The mocking fiend!  Seven times since that day, in the course of a
+varied and eventful life, have I caught that perch, and seven times has
+that perch escaped."
+
+LEONARD (astonished).--"It can't be the same perch; perches are very
+tender fish.  A hook inside of it, and an eye hooked out of it--no perch
+could withstand such havoc in its constitution."
+
+ANGLER (with an appearance of awe).--"It does seem supernatural.  But it
+is that perch; for hark ye, sir, there is ONLY ONE perch in the whole
+brook!  All the years I have fished here, I have never caught another
+perch; and this solitary inmate of the watery element I know by sight
+better than I knew my own lost father.  For each time that I have raised
+it out of the water, its profile has been turned to me, and I have seen
+with a shudder that it has had only--One Eye!  It is a most mysterious
+and a most diabolical phenomenon, that perch!  It has been the ruin of my
+prospects in life.  I was offered a situation in Jamaica: I could not go
+with that perch left here in triumph.  I might afterwards have had an
+appointinent in India, but I could not put the ocean between myself and
+that perch: thus have I frittered away my existence in the fatal
+metropolis of my native land.  And once a week from February to December
+I come hither.  Good heavens!  if I should catch the perch at last, the
+occupation of my existence will be gone."
+
+Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully
+concluded.  The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his costume.
+He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness
+too,--shabbiness in black.  There was humour in the corners of his lip;
+and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his occupation
+was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who had not known
+manual labour.  His face was pale and puffed, but the tip of the nose was
+red.  He did not seem as if the watery element was as familiar to himself
+as to his Delilah, the perch.
+
+"Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid
+his rod into its canvas case.  "If a man knew what it was to fish all
+one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch
+nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water,
+plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then "--here the angler looked
+over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why then, young sir, he would know
+what human life is to vain ambition.  Good-evening."
+
+Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups.  Helen's eyes
+followed him wistfully.
+
+"What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing.
+
+"I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up to
+Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that he
+was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick,
+oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on
+the sight?  It stole on them through one of its fairest and most gracious
+avenues of approach,--by the stately gardens of Kensington, along the
+side of Hyde Park, and so on towards Cumberland Gate.
+
+Leonard was not the least struck.  And yet with a very little money, and
+a very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London
+as grand and as imposing as that to Paris from the Champs Elysees.  As
+they came near the Edgware Road, Helen took her new brother by the hand
+and guided him; for she knew all that neighbourhood, and she was
+acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to that
+lodging itself she could not have gone for the world), where they might
+be housed cheaply.
+
+But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morning, seemed one
+mass of black cloud.  There suddenly came on a violent storm of rain.
+The boy and girl took refuge in a covered mews, in a street running out
+of the Edgware Road.  This shelter soon became crowded; the two young
+pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the rest, Leonard's arm
+round Helen's waist, sheltering her from the rain that the strong wind
+contending with it beat in through the passage.  Presently a young
+gentleman of better mien and dress than the other refugees entered, not
+hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step, as if, though he deigned
+to take shelter, he scorned to run to it.  He glanced somewhat haughtily
+at the assembled group, passed on through the midst of it, came near
+Leonard, took off his hat, and shook the rain from its brim.  His head
+thus uncovered, left all his features exposed; and the village youth
+recognized, at the first glance, his old victorious assailant on the
+green at Hazeldean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Yet Randal Leslie was altered.  His dark cheek was as thin as in boyhood,
+and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils; but the
+expression of his face was at once more refined and manly, and there was
+a steady concentrated light in his eye, like that of one who has been in
+the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one point.  He looked older
+than he was.  He was dressed simply in black, a colour which became him;
+and altogether his aspect and figure were, not showy indeed, but
+distinguished.  He looked to the common eye a gentleman; and to the more
+observant a scholar.
+
+Helter-skelter! pell-mell!  the group in the passage now pressed each on
+each, now scattered on all sides, making way, rushing down the mews,
+against the walls, as a fiery horse darted under shelter.  The rider, a
+young man with a very handsome face, and dressed with that peculiar care
+which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good-humouredly, "Don't be
+afraid; the horse sha'n't hurt any of you.  A thousand pardons--so ho!
+so ho!"  He patted the horse, and it stood as still as a statue, filling
+up the centre of the passage.  The groups resettled; Randal approached
+the rider.
+
+"Frank Hazeldean!"
+
+"Ah, is it indeed Randal Leslie?"
+
+Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was consigned to the
+care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a bundle.
+
+"My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you.  How lucky it was that I
+should turn in here.  Not like me either, for I don't much care for a
+ducking.  Staying in town, Randal?"
+
+"Yes; at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton.  I have left Oxford."
+
+"For good?"
+
+"For good."
+
+"But you have not taken your degree, I think?  We Etonians all considered
+you booked for a double-first.  Oh, we have been so proud of your fame,--
+you carried off all the prizes."
+
+"Not all; but some, certainly.  Mr. Egerton offered me my choice,--to
+stay for my degree, or to enter at once into the Foreign Office.  I
+preferred the end to the means.  For, after all, what good are academical
+honours but as the entrance to life?  To enter now is to save a step in a
+long way, Frank."
+
+"Ah, you were always ambitious, and you will make a great figure, I am
+sure."
+
+"Perhaps so--if I work for it.  Knowledge is power."  Leonard started.
+
+"And you!" resumed Randal, looking with some curious attention at his old
+schoolfellow.  "You never came to Oxford.  I did hear you were going into
+the army."
+
+"I am in the Guards," said Frank, trying hard not to look too conceited
+as he made that acknowledgment.  "The governor pished a little, and would
+rather I had come to live with him in the old Hall, and take to farming.
+Time enough for that, eh?  By Jove, Randal, how pleasant a thing is life
+in London!  Do you go to Almack's to-night?"
+
+"No; Wednesday is a holiday in the House.  There is a great parliamentary
+dinner at Mr. Egerton's.  He is in the Cabinet now, you know; but you
+don't see much of your uncle, I think."
+
+"Our sets are different," said the young gentleman, in a tone of voice
+worthy of Brummel.  "All those parliamentary fellows are devilish dull.
+The rain's over.  I don't know whether the governor would like me to call
+at Grosvenor Square; but pray come and see me.  Here's my card to remind
+you; you must dine at our mess.  Such capital fellows!  What day will you
+fix?"
+
+"I will call and let you know.  Don't you find it rather expensive in the
+Guards?  I remember that you thought the governor, as you call him, used
+to chafe a little when you wrote for more pocket-money; and the only time
+I ever saw you with tears in your eyes was when Mr. Hazeldean, in sending
+you L5, reminded you that his estates were not entailed,--were at his own
+disposal, and they should never go to an extravagant spendthrift.  It was
+not a pleasant threat that, Frank."
+
+"Oh!" cried the young man, colouring deeply.  "It was not the threat that
+pained me; it was that my father could think so meanly of me as to fancy
+that---Well, well, but those were schoolboy days.  And my father was
+always more generous than I deserved.  We must see a great deal of each
+other, Randal.  How good-natured you were at Eton, making my longs and
+shorts for me; I shall never forget it.  Do call soon."
+
+Frank swung himself into his saddle, and rewarded the slim youth with
+half-a-crown,--a largess four times more ample than his father would have
+deemed sufficient.  A jerk of the reins and a touch of the heel, off
+bounded the fiery horse and the gay young rider.  Randal mused, and as
+the rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter dispersed and went
+their way.  Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen remained behind.  Then, as
+Randal, still musing, lifted his eyes, they fell full upon Leonard's
+face.  He started, passed his hand quickly over his brow, looked again,
+hard and piercingly; and the change in his pale cheek to a shade still
+paler, a quick compression and nervous gnawing of his lip, showed that he
+too recognized an old foe.  Then his glance ran over Leonard's dress,
+which was somewhat dust-stained, but far above the class amongst which
+the peasant was born.  Randal raised his brows in surprise, and with a
+smile slightly supercilious--the smile stung Leonard--and with a slow
+step, Randal left the passage, and took his way towards Grosvenor Square.
+The Entrance of Ambition was clear to him.
+
+Then the little girl once more took Leonard by the hand, and led him
+through rows of humble, obscure, dreary streets.  It seemed almost like
+an allegory personified, as the sad, silent child led on the penniless
+and low-born adventurer of genius by the squalid shops and through the
+winding lanes, which grew meaner and meaner, till both their forms
+vanished from the view.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+"But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have
+just time, Harley.  You will meet the most eminent men of our party;
+surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be."
+
+Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been riding
+(after the toils of his office).  The two gentlemen were in Audley's
+library,--Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the
+erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease;"  Harley, as usual,
+thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in careless curls, his
+neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mundit is, indeed, his
+grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease
+everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled
+or awed the ease out of most people.
+
+"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me.  But your eminent men are all men of
+one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics!
+The storm in the saucer."
+
+"But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?"
+
+"Do you know, that's very well said, Audley?  I did not think you had so
+much liveliness of repartee.  Life! life! it is insipid,  it is shallow,
+--no launching Argosies in the saucer.  Audley, I have the oddest
+fancy--"
+
+"That of course," said Audley, dryly; "you never had any other.  What is
+the new one?"
+
+HARLEY (with great gravity).--"Do you believe in Mesmerism?"
+
+AUDLEY.--"Certainly not."
+
+HARLEY.--"If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me out
+of my own skin into somebody's else!  That's my fancy!  I am so tired of
+myself,--so tired!  I have run through all my ideas,--know every one of
+them by heart.  When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks itself up
+and says, 'Look at me,--I 'm a new acquaintance,' I just give it a nod,
+and say 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same
+old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.'  But if
+one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall
+porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really
+travel into a new world.'  Every man's brain must be a world in itself,
+eh?  If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours, Audley,--
+run over all your thoughts and sensations.  Upon my life, I 'll go and
+talk to that French mesmerizer about it."
+
+     [If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation
+     with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we
+     should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them
+     the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley.  In repeating it,
+     the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a
+     writer whose humour is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.]
+
+AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts and
+sensations rummaged, even by his friend, and even in fancy)--"Pooh, pooh,
+pooh!  Do talk like a man of sense."
+
+HARLEY.--"Man of sense!  Where shall I find a model?  I don't know a man
+of sense!--never met such a creature.  Don't believe it ever existed.  At
+one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense: a delusion; he
+would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from sunrise
+to sunset.  Is that like a man of sense?  Poor Audley!  how puzzled he
+looks!  Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige you.  And first" (here
+Harley raised himself on his elbow),--"first, is it true, as I have heard
+vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian
+traitor?"
+
+"Madame di Negra?  No: I am not paying court to her," answered Audley,
+with a cold smile.  "But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she is
+useful to me,--I need not say how or why; that belongs to my metier as a
+politician.  But I think, if you will take my advice, or get your friend
+to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through my influence with
+her, some liberal concessions to your exile.  She is very anxious to know
+where he is."
+
+"You have not told her?"
+
+"No; I promised you I would keep that secret."
+
+"Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she could
+desire such information.  Concessions! pooh!  This is no question of
+concessions, but of rights."
+
+"I think you should leave your friend to judge of that."
+
+"Well, I will write to him.  Meanwhile, beware of this woman.  I have
+heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for
+duplicity and--"
+
+"Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised
+adroitness.  "I am told that the count is one of the handsomest men in
+Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her
+age.  Tut, tut, Harley; fear not for me.  I am proof against all feminine
+attractions.  This heart is dead."
+
+"Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus,--leave that to me.  But even
+I will not say it.  The heart never dies.  And you; what have you lost?--
+a wife; true: an excellent, noble-hearted woman.  But was it love that
+you felt for her?  Enviable man, have you ever loved?"
+
+"Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre aspect and in dejected
+accents; "very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean by the word.
+But there are other passions than love that kill the heart, and reduce us
+to mechanism."
+
+While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved.  There
+was a short silence; Audley was the first to break it.
+
+"Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I have
+done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie."
+
+HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort).--"Is it true kindness to bid
+him exchange manly independence for the protection of an official
+patron?"
+
+AUDLEV.--"I did not bid him.  I gave him his choice.  At his age, I
+should have chosen as he has done."
+
+HARLEY.--"I trust not; I think better of you.  But answer me one question
+frankly, and then I will ask another.  Do you mean to make this young man
+your heir?"
+
+AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment).--"Heir, pooh!  I am young still.  I
+may live as long as he--time enough to think of that."
+
+HARLEY.--"Then now to my second question.  Have you told this youth
+plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?"
+
+AUDLEY (firmly).--"I think I have; but I shall repeat it more
+emphatically."
+
+HARLEY.--"Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his.
+For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit
+independence; and, depend on it, he has made his calculations, and would
+throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike in his
+favour.  You go by your experience in judging men; I by my instincts.
+Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals,--only we are too
+conceited, we bipeds, to heed her.  My instincts of soldier and gentleman
+recoil from that old young man.  He has the soul of the Jesuit.  I see it
+in his eye, I hear it in the tread of his foot; /volto sciolto/ he has
+not; /i pensieri stretti/ he has.  Hist!  I hear now his step in the
+hall.  I should know it from a thousand.  That's his very touch on the
+handle of the door."
+
+Randal Leslie entered.  Harley--who, despite his disregard for forms, and
+his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior
+in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed.  But his bright piercing eyes
+did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent
+fire in Randal's.  Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the
+mantelpiece, and leaned against it.
+
+RANDAL.--"I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton.  I went first
+to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley.  I gave him the check, but he said it
+was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will write the
+article as you suggested.  I then--"
+
+AUDLEY.--"Enough, Randal!  we will not fatigue Lord L'Estrange with these
+little details of a life that displeases him,--the life political."
+
+HARLEY.---"But these details do not displease me; they reconcile me to my
+own life.  Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie."
+
+Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton.
+He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord
+L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others
+can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a
+reconciler?"  Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and
+if there was a thing in the world be abhorred, it was flattery.
+
+"Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the /Suave mare/, etc., 'pleasant
+from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.'  Faith, I think
+that sight reconciles one to the cliff, though, before, one might have
+been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream of
+the sea-gulls.  But I leave you, Audley.  Strange that I have heard no
+more of my soldier!  Remember I have your promise when I come to claim
+it.  Good-by, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Burley's article will be worth the
+check."
+
+Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and rode
+through the Park.  But he was no longer now unknown by sight.  Bows and
+nods saluted him on every side.
+
+"Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself.  "That terrible Duchess
+of Knaresborough, too--I must fly my coun try."  He pushed his horse into
+a canter, and was soon out of the Park.  As he dismounted at his father's
+sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the same whimsical,
+fantastic, but deep and subtle humourist that delighted in perplexing the
+material Audley, for his expressive face was unutterably serious.  But
+the moment he came into the presence of his parents, the countenance was
+again lighted and cheerful.  It brightened the whole room like sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+"Mr. Leslie," said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, "you did
+not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected
+with politics in the presence of a third party."
+
+"I feel that already, sir; my excuse is, that I held Lord L'Estrange to
+be your most intimate friend."
+
+"A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country if he were not
+especially reserved towards his private friends--when they do not belong
+to his party."
+
+"But pardon me my ignorance.  Lord Lansmere is so well known to be one of
+your supporters, that I fancied his son must share his sentiments, and be
+in your confidence."
+
+Egerton's brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern expression to a
+countenance always firm and decided.  He however answered in a mild tone,
+
+"At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is nothing in
+which a young man of your talents should be more on his guard than
+thinking for himself; he will nearly always think wrong.  And I believe
+that is one reason why young men of talent disappoint their friends, and
+remain so long out of office."
+
+A haughty flush passed over Randal's brow, and faded away quickly; he
+bowed in silence.
+
+Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology,
+
+"Look at Lord L'Estrange himself.  What young man could come into life
+with brighter auspices?  Rank, wealth, high animal spirits (a great
+advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie), courage, self-possession,
+scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life is
+wasted!  Why?  He always thought fit to think for himself.  He could
+never be broken into harness, and never will be.  The state coach, Mr.
+Leslie, requires that all the horses should pull together."
+
+"With submission, sir," answered Randal, "I should think that there were
+other reasons why Lord L'Estrange, whatever be his talents--and of these
+you must be indeed an adequate judge--would never do anything in public
+life."
+
+"Ay, and what?" said Egerton, quickly.
+
+"First," said Randal, shrewdly, "private life has done too much for him.
+What could public life give to one who needs nothing?  Born at the top of
+the social ladder, why should he put himself voluntarily at the last
+step, for the sake of climbing up again?  And secondly, Lord L'Estrange
+seems to me a man in whose organization /sentiment/ usurps too large a
+share for practical existence."
+
+"You have a keen eye," said Audley, with some admiration,--"keen for one
+so young.  Poor Harley!"
+
+Mr. Egerton's last words were said to himself.  He resumed quickly,
+
+"There is something on my mind, my young friend.  Let us be frank with
+each other.  I placed before you fairly the advantages and disadvantages
+of the choice I gave you.  To take your degree with such honours as no
+doubt you would have won, to obtain your fellowship, to go to the Bar,
+with those credentials in favour of your talents,--this was one career.
+To come at once into public life, to profit by my experience, avail
+yourself of my interest, to take the chances of rise or fall with a
+party,--this was another.  You chose the last.  But in so doing, there
+was a consideration which might weigh with you, and on which, in stating
+your reasons for your option, you were silent."
+
+"What is that, sir?"
+
+"You might have counted on my fortune, should the chances of party fail
+you: speak, and without shame if so; it would be natural in a young man,
+who comes from the elder branch of the House whose heiress was my wife."
+
+"You wound me, Mr. Egerton," said Randal, turning away.
+
+Mr. Egerton's cold glance followed Randal's movements; the face was hid
+from the glance, and the statesman's eye rested on the figure, which is
+often as self-betraying as the countenance itself.  Randal baffled Mr.
+Egerton's penetration,--the young man's emotion might be honest pride and
+pained and generous feeling, or it might be something else.  Egerton
+continued slowly,
+
+"Once for all, then, distinctly and emphatically, I say, never count upon
+that; count upon all else that I can do for you, and forgive me when I
+advise harshly or censure coldly; ascribe this to my interest in your
+career.  Moreover, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish you to
+know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliating in the
+first subordinate steps of him who, without wealth or station, would rise
+in public life.  I will not consider your choice settled till the end of
+a year at least,--your name will be kept on the college books till then;
+if on experience you should prefer to return to Oxford, and pursue the
+slower but surer path to independence and distinction, you can.  And now
+give me your hand, Mr. Leslie, in sign that you forgive my bluntness: it
+is time to dress."
+
+Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand.  Mr. Egerton held
+it a moment, then dropping it, left the room.  Randal turned as the door
+closed; and there was in his dark face a power of sinister passion, that
+justified all Harley's warnings.  His lips moved, but not audibly; then
+as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton into the hall.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I forgot to say, that on returning from Maida Hill,
+I took shelter from the rain under a covered passage, and there I met
+unexpectedly with your nephew, Frank Hazeldean."
+
+"Ah!" said Egerton, indifferently, "a fine young man; in the Guards.
+It is a pity that my brother has such antiquated political notions;
+he should put his son into parliament, and under my guidance; I could
+push him.  Well, and what said Frank?"
+
+"He invited me to call on him.  I remember that you once rather cautioned
+me against too intimate an acquaintance with those who have not got their
+fortunes to make."
+
+"Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious.  Right,--better not
+to be too intimate with a young Guardsman."
+
+"Then you would not have me call on him, sir?  We were rather friends
+at Eton; and if I wholly reject his overtures, might he not think that
+you--"
+
+"I!" interrupted Egerton.  "Ah, true; my brother might think I bore him a
+grudge; absurd.  Call then, and ask the young man here.  Yet still, I do
+not advise intimacy."  Egerton turned into his dressing-room.  "Sir,"
+said his valet, who was in waiting, "Mr. Levy is here,--he says by
+appointment; and Mr. Grinders is also just come from the country."
+
+"Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first," said Egerton, seating himself.
+"You need not wait; I can dress without you.  Tell Mr. Levy I will see
+him in five minutes."
+
+Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton.
+
+Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camellia in his button-hole;
+drove, in his cabriolet, a high-stepping horse that had cost L200; was
+well known to young men of fashion, and considered by their fathers a
+very dangerous acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced
+Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted the
+distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in private.
+The presentation was made with that cordiality and that gracious respect,
+by which those who are in station command notice for those who have their
+station yet to win.
+
+"My dear lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife's" (in a
+whisper),--"the heir to the elder branch of her family.  Stanmore, this
+is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you.  You, who were so distinguished at
+Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he gained there.
+Duke, let me present to you Mr. Leslie.  The duchess is angry with me for
+deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace, by providing myself
+with a younger and livelier substitute.  Ah, Mr. Howard, here is a young
+gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will tell us all about the new sect
+springing up there.  He has not wasted his time on billiards and horses."
+
+Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the /To
+Kalon/ of an aristocracy.
+
+After dinner, conversation settled on politics.  Randal listened with
+attention, and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just enough,
+and no more,--just enough to make his intelligence evident, and without
+subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law.  Egerton knew how to
+draw out young men,--a difficult art.  It was one reason why he was so
+peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his party.
+
+The party broke up early.
+
+"We are in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing at the clock, "and
+I have a voucher for you; come."
+
+Randal followed his patron into the carriage.  By the way Egerton thus
+addressed him,
+
+"I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them and
+study them: I do not advise you to attempt to do more,--that is, to
+attempt to become the fashion.  It is a very expensive ambition: some men
+it helps, most men it ruins.  On the whole, you have better cards in your
+hands.  Dance or not as it pleases you; don't flirt.  If you flirt people
+will inquire into your fortune,--an inquiry that will do you little good;
+and flirting entangles a young man into marrying.  That would never do.
+Here we are."
+
+In two minutes more they were in the great ballroom, and Randal's eyes
+were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty.  Audley
+presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and then
+disappeared amidst the crowd.  Randal was not at a loss: he was without
+shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed it.  He
+answered the languid questions put to him with a certain spirit that kept
+up talk, and left a favourable impression of his agreeable qualities.
+But the lady with whom he got on the best was one who had no daughters
+out, a handsome and witty woman of the world,--Lady Frederick Coniers.
+
+It is your first ball at Almack's then, Mr. Leslie?"
+
+"My first."
+
+"And you have not secured a partner?  Shall I find you one?  What do you
+think of that pretty girl in pink?"
+
+"I see her--but I cannot think of her."
+
+"You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your
+first object is to know who is who."
+
+"I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day I should
+like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir."
+
+"Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room.  We shall
+see the different notabilites enter one by one, and observe without being
+observed.  This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr. Egerton's."
+
+"Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal,--as they threaded their way through the
+space without the rope that protected the dancers,--"Mr. Egerton has had
+the good fortune to win your esteem even for his friends, however
+obscure?"
+
+"Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend need
+long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise; for Mr.
+Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend nor a service."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Randal, surprised.
+
+"And therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he passes through life,
+friends gather round him.  He will rise even higher yet.  Gratitude, Mr.
+Leslie, is a very good policy."
+
+"Hem," muttered Mr. Leslie.
+
+They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the
+homely refreshments to the habitues of what at that day was the most
+exclusive assembly in London.  They ensconced themselves in a corner by a
+window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with lively
+ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who passed
+panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes good-
+natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing.
+
+By and by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty air
+and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table.
+
+"The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick; "very handsome, and not
+yet quite spoiled.  But he has got into a dangerous set."
+
+RANDAL.--"The young lady with him is handsome enough to be dangerous."
+
+LADY FREDERICK (laughing).--"No danger for him there,--as yet at least.
+Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her second
+year.  The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing under a
+baron.  It will be full four years before she comes down to a commoner.
+Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind.  He lives much with men who
+are not exactly /mauvais ton/, but certainly not of the best taste.  Yet
+he is very young; he may extricate himself,--leaving half his fortune
+behind him.  What, he nods to you!  You know him?"
+
+"Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton."
+
+"Indeed!  I did not know that.  Hazeldean is a new name in London.  I
+heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not
+that he was related to Mr. Egerton."
+
+"Half-brother."
+
+"Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts?  He has no sons
+himself."
+
+RANDAL.---"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my family,
+--from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean."  Lady Frederick turned sharply,
+looked at Randal's countenance with more attention than she had yet
+vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies.  Randal was very
+short there.
+
+An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the
+refreshment-room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him.  He was
+talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there entered
+a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed through the
+room as she appeared.
+
+She might be three or four and twenty.  She was dressed in black velvet,
+which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the clear
+paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she
+was profusely covered.  Her hair was of the deepest jet, and worn simply
+braided.  Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her features regular
+and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was not prepossessing
+to such as love modesty and softness in the looks of woman.  But when she
+spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity in the
+countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all which might
+before have marred the effect of her beauty strangely and suddenly
+disappeared.
+
+"Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal.  "An Italian,--
+a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians.
+
+"Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad: "she is a widow; her
+husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra,--a younger branch of
+it."
+
+Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian.  A few ladies
+of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy than
+ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame
+di Negra.  Ladies of rank less elevated seemed rather shy of her,--that
+might be from jealousy.  As Randal gazed at the marchesa with more
+admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in him, he heard a
+voice near him say,
+
+"Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an
+Englishman."
+
+"If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a female voice.
+
+"Well, she's trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for
+anything."
+
+The female voice replied, with a laugh, "Mr Egerton knows the world too
+well, and has resisted too many temptations to be--"
+
+"Hush!  there he is."
+
+Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien.
+Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the
+marchesa; but the minister passed her by with a bow.
+
+Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the
+marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that Randal
+and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before.
+
+"Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against
+counting on his fortune?" muttered Randal.  "Does he mean to marry
+again?"
+
+Unjust suspicion!--for, at that moment, these were the words that Audley
+Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze,
+
+"Nay, dear madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry
+than it merits.  Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me;
+your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of my
+life.  But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again."
+
+"You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you," said
+the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes.
+
+"I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard smile.  "But to
+return to the point.  You have more influence, at least, over this subtle
+ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me.  Ah,
+Madam, let us rest friends.  You see I have conquered the unjust
+prejudices against you; you are received and feted everywhere, as becomes
+your birth and your attractions.  Rely on me ever, as I on you.  But I
+shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain enough to
+think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the ill-natured.
+As the avowed friend, I can serve you; as the supposed lover, No--"
+Audley rose as he said this, and, standing by the chair, added
+carelessly, "--propos, the sum you do me the honour to borrow will
+be paid to your bankers to-morrow."
+
+"A thousand thanks! my brother will hasten to repay you."
+
+Audley bowed.  "Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not
+before.  When does he come?"
+
+"Oh, he has again postponed his visit to London; he is so much needed in
+Vienna.  But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if your friend,
+Lord L'Estrange, is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of
+mine?"
+
+"Still the same."
+
+"It is shameful!" cried the Italian, with warmth; "what has my brother
+ever done to him that he should actually intrigue against the count in
+his own court?"
+
+"Intrigue!  I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what he
+believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile."
+
+"And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still
+lives?"
+
+"My dear marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore I will not aid
+L'Estrange to injure you or yours.  But I call L'Estrange a friend also;
+and I cannot violate the trust that--"  Audley stopped short, and bit his
+lip.  "You understand me," he resumed, with a more genial smile than
+usual; and he took his leave.
+
+The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too rose,
+that eye encountered Randal's.
+
+"That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the marchesa to herself,
+as she passed by him into the ballroom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Leonard and Helen settled themselves in two little chambers in a small
+lane.  The neighbourhood was dull enough, the accommodation humble; but
+their landlady had a smile.  That was the reason, perhaps, why Helen
+chose the lodgings: a smile is not always found on the face of a landlady
+when the lodger is poor.  And out of their windows they caught sight of a
+green tree, an elm, that grew up fair and tall in a carpenter's yard at
+the rear.  That tree was like another smile to the place.  They saw the
+birds come and go to its shelter; and they even heard, when a breeze
+arose, the pleasant murmur of its boughs.
+
+Leonard went the same evening to Captain Digby's old lodgings, but he
+could learn there no intelligence of friends or protectors for Helen.
+The people were rude and surly, and said that the captain still owed them
+L1 17s.  The claim, however, seemed very disputable, and was stoutly
+denied by Helen.  The next morning Leonard set out in search of Dr.
+Morgan.  He thought his best plan was to inquire the address of the
+doctor at the nearest chemist's, and the chemist civilly looked into the
+"Court Guide," and referred him to a house in Bulstrode Street,
+Manchester Square.  To this street Leonard contrived to find his way,
+much marvelling at the meanness of London: Screwstown seemed to him the
+handsomer town of the two.
+
+A shabby man-servant opened the door, and Leonard remarked that the
+narrow passage was choked with boxes, trunks, and various articles of
+furniture.  He was shown into a small room containing a very large round
+table, whereon were sundry works on homoeopathy, Parry's "Cymbrian
+Plutarch," Davies's "Celtic Researches," and a Sunday news paper.  An
+engraved portrait of the illustrious Hahnemann occupied the place of
+honour over the chimneypiece.  In a few minutes the door to an inner room
+opened, and Dr. Morgan appeared, and said politely, "Come in, sir."
+
+The doctor seated himself at a desk, looked hastily at Leonard, and then
+at a great chronometer lying on the table.  "My time's short, sir,--going
+abroad: and now that I am going, patients flock to me.  Too late.  London
+will repent its apathy.  Let it!"
+
+The doctor paused majestically, and not remarking on Leonard's face the
+consternation he had anticipated, he repeated peevishly, "I am going
+abroad, sir, but I will make a synopsis of your case, and leave it to my
+successor.  Hum!
+
+"Hair chestnut; eyes--what colour?  Look this way,--blue, dark blue.
+Hem!  Constitution nervous.  What are the symptoms?"
+
+"Sir," began Leonard, "a little girl--"
+
+DR. MORGAN (impatiently).--"Little girl; never mind the history of your
+sufferings; stick to the symptoms,--stick to the symptoms."
+
+LEONARD.--"YOU mistake me, Doctor, I have nothing the matter with me.  A
+little girl--"
+
+DR. MORGAN.--"Girl again!  I understand!  it is she who is ill.  Shall I
+go to her?  She must describe her own symptoms,--I can't judge from your
+talk.  You'll be telling me she has consumption, or dyspepsia, or some
+such disease that don't exist: mere allopathic inventions,--symptoms,
+sir, symptoms."
+
+LEONARD (forcing his way).--"You attended her poor father, Captain Digby,
+when he was taken ill in the coach with you.  He is dead, and his child
+is an orphan."
+
+DR. MORGAN (fumbling in his medical pocket-book).--"Orphan!  nothing for
+orphans, especially if inconsolable, like aconite and chamomilla."
+
+     [It may be necessary to observe that bomoeopathy professes to deal
+     with our moral affections as well as with our physical maladies, and
+     has a globule for every sorrow.]
+
+With some difficulty Leonard succeeded in bringing Helen to the
+recollection of the homoeopathist, stating how he came in charge of her,
+and why he sought Dr. Morgan.
+
+The doctor was much moved.
+
+"But, really," said he, after a pause, "I don't see how I can help the
+poor child.  I know nothing of her relations.  This Lord Les--whatever
+his name is--I know of no lords in London.  I knew lords, and physicked
+them too, when I was a blundering allopathist.  There was the Earl of
+Lansmere,--has had many a blue pill from me, sinner that I was.  His son
+was wiser; never would take physic.  Very clever boy was Lord
+L'Estrange--"
+
+"Lord L'Estrange! that name begins with Les--"
+
+"Stuff!  He's always abroad,--shows his sense.  I'm going abroad too.
+No development for science in this horrid city,--full of prejudices,
+sir, and given up to the most barbarous allopathical and phlebotomical
+propensities.  I am going to the land of Hahnemann, sir,--sold my good-
+will, lease, and furniture, and have bought in on the Rhine.  Natural
+life there, sir,--homeeopathy needs nature: dine at one o'clock, get up
+at four, tea little known, and science appreciated.  But I forget.  Cott!
+what can I do for the orphan?"
+
+"Well, sir," said Leonard, rising, "Heaven will give me strength to
+support her."
+
+The doctor looked at the young man attentively.  "And yet," said he, in a
+gentler voice, "you, young man, are, by your account, a perfect stranger
+to her, or were so when you undertook to bring her to London.  You have a
+good heart, always keep it.  Very healthy thing, sir, a good heart,--that
+is, when not carried to excess.  But you have friends of your own in
+town?"
+
+LEONARD.--"Not yet, sir; I hope to make them."
+
+DOCTOR.--"Pless me, you do?  How?--I can't make any."
+
+Leonard coloured and hung his'head.  He longed to say, "Authors find
+friends in their readers,--I am going to be an author."  But he felt that
+the reply would savour of presumption, and held his tongue.
+
+The doctor continued to examine him, and with friendly interest.  "You
+say you walked up to London: was that from choice or economy?"
+
+LEONARD.--"Both, sir."
+
+DOCTOR.--"Sit down again, and let us talk.  I can give you a quarter of
+an hour, and I'll see if I can help either of you, provided you tell me
+all the symptoms,--I mean all the particulars."
+
+Then, with that peculiar adroitness which belongs to experience in the
+medical profession, Dr. Morgan, who was really an acute and able man,
+proceeded to put his questions, and soon extracted from Leonard the boy's
+history and hopes.  But when the doctor, in admiration at a simplicity
+which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally asked him his name
+and connections, and Leonard told them, the homoeopathist actually
+started.  "Leonard Fairfield, grandson of my old friend, John Avenel of
+Lansmere!  I must shake you by the hand.  Brought up by Mrs. Fairfield!--
+
+"Ah, now I look, strong family likeness,--very strong"
+
+The tears  stood  in the  doctor's  eyes.  "Poor Nora!" said he.
+
+"Nora!  Did you know my aunt?"
+
+"Your aunt!  Ah! ah! yes, yes!  Poor Nora!  she died almost in these
+arms,--so young, so beautiful.  I remember it as if yesterday."
+
+The doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swallowed a globule; and
+before the boy knew what he was about, had, in his benevolence, thrust
+another between Leonard's quivering lips.
+
+A knock was heard at the door.
+
+"Ha! that 's my great patient," cried the doctor, recovering his self-
+possession,--"must see him.  A chronic case, excellent patient,--tic,
+sir, tic.  Puzzling and interesting.  If I could take that tic with me, I
+should ask nothing more from Heaven.  Call again on Monday; I may have
+something to tell you then as to yourself.  The little girl can't stay
+with you,--wrong and nonsensical!  I will see after her.  Leave me
+your address,--write it here.  I think I know a lady who will
+take charge of her.  Good-by.  Monday next, ten o'clock."  With this, the
+doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in his grand patient, whom he was
+very anxious to take with him to the banks of the Rhine.
+
+Leonard had now only to discover the nobleman whose name had been so
+vaguely uttered by poor Captain Digby.  He had again recourse to the
+"Court Guide;" and finding the address of two or three lords the first
+syllable of whose titles seemed similar to that repeated to him, and all
+living pretty near to each other, in the regions of Mayfair, he
+ascertained his way to that quarter, and, exercising his mother-wit,
+inquired at the neighbouring shops as to the personal appearance of these
+noblemen.  Out of consideration for his rusticity, he got very civil and
+clear answers; but none of the lords in question corresponded with the
+description given by Helen.  One was old, another was exceedingly
+corpulent, a third was bedridden,--none of them was known to keep a great
+dog.  It is needless to say that the name of L'Estrange (no habitant of
+London) was not in the "Court Guide."  And Dr. Morgan's assertion that
+that person was always abroad unluckily dismissed from Leonard's mind the
+name the homoeopathist had so casually mentioned.  But Helen was not
+disappointed when her young protector returned late in the day, and told
+her of his ill-success.  Poor child!  she was so pleased in her heart not
+to be separated from her new brother; and Leonard was touched to see how
+she had contrived, in his absence, to give a certain comfort and cheerful
+grace to the bare room devoted to himself.  She had arranged his few
+books and papers so neatly, near the window, in sight of the one green
+elm.  She had coaxed the smiling landlady out of one or two extra
+articles of furniture, especially a walnut-tree bureau, and some odds and
+ends of ribbon, with which last she had looped up the curtains.  Even the
+old rush-bottom chairs had a strange air of elegance, from the mode in
+which they were placed.  The fairies had given sweet Helen the art that
+adorns a home, and brings out a smile from the dingiest corner of hut and
+attic.
+
+Leonard wondered and praised.  He kissed his blushing ministrant
+gratefully, and they sat down in joy to their abstemious meal; when
+suddenly his face was overclouded,--there shot through him the
+remembrance of Dr. Morgan's words, "The little girl can't stay with you,
+--wrong and nonsensical.  I think I know a lady who will take charge of
+her."
+
+"Ah," cried Leonard, sorrowfully, "how could I forget?" And he told Helen
+what grieved him.  Helen at first exclaimed that she would not go.
+Leonard, rejoiced, then began to talk as usual of his great prospects;
+and, hastily finishing his meal, as if there were no time to lose, sat
+down at once to his papers.  Then Helen contemplated him sadly, as he
+bent over his delightful work.  And when, lifting his radiant eyes from
+his manuscripts, he exclaimed, "No, no, you shall not go.  This must
+succeed,--and we shall live together in some pretty cottage, where we can
+see more than one tree,"--then Helen sighed, and did not answer this
+time, "No, I will not go."
+
+Shortly after she stole from the room, and into her own; and there,
+kneeling down, she prayed, and her prayer was somewhat this, "Guard me
+against my own selfish heart; may I never be a burden to him who has
+shielded me."
+
+Perhaps as the Creator looks down on this world, whose wondrous beauty
+beams on us more and more, in proportion as our science would take it
+from poetry into law,--perhaps He beholds nothing so beautiful as the
+pure heart of a simple loving child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Leonard went out the next day with his precious manuscripts.  He had read
+sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal London
+publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step, though a
+beating heart.
+
+That day he was out longer than the last; and when he returned, and came
+into the little room, Helen uttered a cry, for she scarcely recognized
+him,--there was on his face so deep, so silent, and so concentrated a
+despondency.  He sat down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time, as
+she stole towards him.  He felt so humbled.  He was a king deposed.
+
+He take charge of another life!  He!
+
+She coaxed him at last into communicating his day's chronicle.  The
+reader beforehand knows too well what it must be to need detailed
+repetition.  Most of the publishers had absolutely refused to look at his
+manuscripts; one or two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned them
+at once with a civil word or two of flat rejection.  One publisher alone
+--himself a man of letters, and who in youth had gone through the same
+bitter process of disillusion that now awaited the village genius--
+volunteered some kindly though stern explanation and counsel to the
+unhappy boy.  This gentleman read a portion of Leonard's principal poem
+with attention, and even with frank admiration.  He could appreciate the
+rare promise that it manifested.  He sympathized with the boy's history,
+and even with his hopes; and then he said, in bidding him farewell,
+
+"If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a
+considerable loser.  Did I publish all I admire, out of sympathy with the
+author, I should be a ruined man.  But suppose that, impressed as I
+really am with the evidence of no common poetic gifts in this manuscript,
+I publish it, not as a trader, but a lover of literature, I shall in
+reality, I fear, render you a great disservice, and perhaps unfit your
+whole life for the exertions on which you must rely for independence."
+
+"How, sir?" cried Leonard.  "Not that I would ask you to injure yourself
+for me," he added, with proud tears in his eyes.
+
+"How, my young friend?  I will explain.  There is enough talent in these
+verses to induce very flattering reviews in some of the literary
+journals.  You will read these, find yourself proclaimed a poet, will cry
+'I am on the road to fame.'  You will come to me, 'And my poem, how does
+it sell?'  I shall point to some groaning shelf, and say, 'Not twenty
+copies!  The journals may praise, but the public will not buy it.'
+'But you will have got a name,' you say.  Yes, a name as a poet just
+sufficiently known to make every man in practical business disinclined to
+give fair trial to your talents in a single department of positive life;
+none like to employ poets;--a name that will not put a penny in your
+purse,--worse still, that will operate as a barrier against every escape
+into the ways whereby men get to fortune.  But having once tasted praise,
+you will continue to sigh for it: you will perhaps never again get a
+publisher to bring forth a poem, but you will hanker round the purlieus
+of the Muses, scribble for periodicals, fall at last into a bookseller's
+drudge.  Profits will be so precarious and uncertain, that to avoid debt
+may be impossible; then, you who now seem so ingenuous and so proud, will
+sink deeper still into the literary mendicant, begging, borrowing--"
+
+"Never!  never!  never!" cried Leonard, veiling his face with his hands.
+
+"Such would have been my career," continued the publisher; "but I luckily
+had a rich relative, a trader, whose calling I despised as a boy, who
+kindly forgave my folly, bound me as an apprentice, and here I am; and
+now I can afford to write books as well as sell them.
+
+"Young man, you must have respectable relations,--go by their advice and
+counsel; cling fast to some positive calling.  Be anything in this city
+rather than poet by profession."
+
+"And how, sir, have there ever been poets?  Had they other callings?"
+
+"Read their biography, and then--envy them!"
+
+Leonard was silent a moment; but lifting his head, answered loud and
+quickly, "I have read their biography.  True, their lot was poverty,--
+perhaps hunger.  Sir, I--envy them!"
+
+"Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the bookseller, with a
+grave, kind smile.  "There are worse,--debt and degradation, and--
+despair."
+
+"No, sir, no, you exaggerate; these last are not the lot of all poets."
+
+"Right, for most of our greatest poets had some private means of their
+own.  And for others--why, all who have put into a lottery have not drawn
+blanks.  But who could advise another man to set his whole hope of
+fortune on the chance of a prize in a lottery?  And such a lottery!"
+groaned the publisher, glancing towards sheets and reams of dead authors,
+lying, like lead, upon his shelves.
+
+Leonard clutched his manuscripts to his heart, and hurried away.
+
+"Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him, and tried to console,--"yes,
+you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;" and
+his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom.
+
+The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr. Morgan.
+
+The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered her
+father; and the tears that for Leonard's sake she had been trying to
+suppress found way.
+
+The good doctor soon gained all the confidence of these two young hearts;
+and after listening to Leonard's story of his paradise lost in a day, he
+patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well, you will call on me on
+Monday, and we will see.  Meanwhile, borrow these of me!"--and he tried
+to slip three sovereigns into the boy's hand.  Leonard was indignant.
+The bookseller's warning flashed on him.  Mendicancy!  Oh, no, he had not
+yet come to that!  He was almost rude and savage in his rejection; and
+the doctor did not like him the less for it.
+
+"You are an obstinate mule," said the homoeopathist, reluctantly putting
+up his sovereigns.  "Will you work at something practical and prosy, and
+let the poetry rest a while?"
+
+"Yes," said Leonard, doggedly.  "I will work."
+
+"Very well, then.  I know an honest bookseller, and he shall give you
+some employment; and meanwhile, at all events, you will be among books,
+and that will be some comfort."
+
+Leonard's eyes brightened.  "A great comfort, sir."  He pressed the hand
+he had before put aside to his grateful heart.
+
+"But," resumed the doctor, seriously, "you really feel a strong
+predisposition to make verses?"
+
+"I did, sir."
+
+"Very bad symptom indeed, and must be stopped before a relapse!  Here,
+I have cured three prophets and ten poets with this novel specific."
+
+While thus speaking he had got out his book and a globule.  "Agaricus
+muscarius dissolved in a tumbler of distilled water,--teaspoonful
+whenever the fit comes on.  Sir, it would have cured Milton himself."
+
+"And now for you, my child," turning to Helen, "I have found a lady who
+will be very kind to you.  Not a menial situation.  She wants some one to
+read to her and tend on her; she is old and has no children.  She wants a
+companion, and prefers a girl of your age to one older.  Will this suit
+you?"
+
+Leonard walked away.
+
+Helen got close to the doctor's ear, and whispered, "No, I cannot leave
+him now,--he is so sad."
+
+"Cott!" grunted the doctor, "you two must have been reading 'Paul and
+Virginia.'  If I could but stay in England, I would try what ignatia
+would do in this case,--interesting experiment!  Listen to me, little
+girl, and go out of the room, you, sir."
+
+Leonard, averting his face, obeyed.  Helen made an involuntary step after
+him; the doctor detained and drew her on his knee.
+
+"What's your Christian name?--I forget."
+
+"Helen."
+
+"Helen, listen.  In a year or two you will be a young woman, and it would
+be very wrong then to live alone with that young man.  Meanwhile you have
+no right to cripple all his energies.  He must not have you leaning on
+his right arm,--you would weigh it down.  I am going away, and when I am
+gone there will be no one to help you, if you reject the friend I offer
+you.  Do as I tell you, for a little girl so peculiarly susceptible (a
+thorough pulsatilla constitution) cannot be obstinate and egotistical."
+
+"Let me see him cared for and happy, sir," said she, firmly, "and I will
+go where you wish."
+
+"He shall be so; and to-morrow, while he is out, I will come and fetch
+you.  Nothing so painful as leave-taking, shakes the nervous system, and
+is a mere waste of the animal economy."
+
+Helen sobbed aloud; then, writhing from the doctor, she exclaimed, "But
+he may know where I am?  We may see each other sometimes?  Ah, sir, it
+was at my father's grave that we first met, and I think Heaven sent him
+to me.  Do not part us forever."
+
+"I should have a heart of stone if I did," cried the doctor, vehemently;
+"and Miss Starke shall let him come and visit you once a week.  I'll give
+her something to make her.  She is naturally indifferent to others.  I
+will alter her whole constitution, and melt her into sympathy--with
+rhododendron and arsenic!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Before he went the doctor wrote a line to "Mr. Prickett, Bookseller,
+Holborn," and told Leonard to take it the next morning, as addressed.
+"I will call on Prickett myself tonight and prepare him for your visit.
+But I hope and trust you will only have to stay there a few days."
+
+He then turned the conversation, to communicate his plans for Helen.
+Miss Starke lived at Highgate,--a worthy woman, stiff and prim, as old
+maids sometimes are; but just the place for a little girl like Helen, and
+Leonard should certainly be allowed to call and see her.
+
+Leonard listened and made no opposition,--now that his day-dream was
+dispelled, he had no right to pretend to be Helen's protector.  He could
+have prayed her to share his wealth and his fame; his penury and his
+drudgery--no.
+
+It was a very sorrowful evening,--that between the adventurer and the
+child.  They sat up late, till their candle had burned down to the
+socket; neither did they talk much; but his hand clasped hers all the
+time, and her head pillowed it self on his shoulder.  I fear when they
+parted it was not for sleep.
+
+And when Leonard went forth the next morning, Helen stood at the street
+door watching him depart--slowly, slowly.  No doubt, in that humble lane
+there were many sad hearts; but no heart so heavy as that of the still,
+quiet child, when the form she had watched was to be seen no more, and,
+still standing on the desolate threshold, she gazed into space, and all
+was vacant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Mr. Prickett was a believer in homeeopathy, and declared, to the
+indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been cured
+of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan.  The good doctor had, as he
+promised, seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as a
+favour to find some light occupation for the boy, that would serve as an
+excuse for a modest weekly salary.  "It will not be for long," said the
+doctor: "his relations are respectable and well off.  I will write to his
+grandparents, and in a few days I hope to relieve you of the charge.  Of
+course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs meanwhile."
+
+Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him very graciously;
+and, after a few questions, said Leonard was just the person he wanted to
+assist him in cataloguing his books, and offered him most handsomely L1 a
+week for the task.
+
+Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had ever before won
+admission to, that old divine dream of knowledge, out of which poetry had
+sprung, returned to the village student at the very sight of the
+venerable volumes.  The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however, in
+reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary
+standard works, but several curious and rare ones.  And Leonard paused in
+making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents of
+each tome, as it passed through his hands.  The bookseller, who was an
+enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling (which his
+shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he talked about
+rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated Leonard into many of the
+mysteries of the bibliographist.
+
+Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop.  There was a booth
+outside, containing cheap books and odd volumes, round which there was
+always an attentive group; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day.
+
+But time passed quickly to Leonard.  He missed not the green fields, he
+forgot his disappointments, he ceased to remember even Helen.  O strange
+passion of knowledge! nothing like thee for strength and devotion!
+
+Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine with him on a cold
+shoulder of mutton.  During dinner the shop-boy kept the shop, and Mr.
+Prickett was really pleasant, as well as loquacious.  He took a liking to
+Leonard, and Leonard told him his adventures with the publishers, at
+which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed, as at a capital joke.
+"Oh, give up poetry, and stick to a shop," cried he; "and to cure you
+forever of the mad whim to be author, I'll just lend you the 'Life and
+Works of Chatterton.'  You may take it home with you and read before you
+go to bed.  You'll come back quite a new man to-morrow."
+
+Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his
+lodging.  And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by the
+silence, by the void.  Helen was gone!
+
+There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and by
+it a scrap of paper, on which was written,
+
+     DEAR, dear brother Leonard, God bless you.  I will let you know when
+     we can meet again.  Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't
+     forget poor
+
+     HELEN.
+
+Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that nearly
+effaced the word.
+
+Leonard leaned his face on his hands, and for the first time in his life
+he felt what solitude really is.  He could not stay long in the room.  He
+walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the streets.  He
+passed that stiller and humbler neighbourhood, he mixed with the throng
+that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares.  Hundreds and thousands
+passed him by, and still--still such solitude.
+
+He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the
+"Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him.  It was an old edition,
+in one thick volume.  It had evidently belonged to some contemporary of
+the poet's,--apparently an inhabitant of Bristol,--some one who had
+gathered up many anecdotes respecting Chatterton's habits, and who
+appeared even to have seen him, nay, been in his company; for the book
+was interleaved, and the leaves covered with notes and remarks, in a
+stiff clear hand,--all evincing personal knowledge of the mournful
+immortal dead.  At first, Leonard read with an effort; then the strange
+and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him,--seized with pain
+and gloom and terror,--this boy dying by his own hand, about the age
+Leonard had attained himself.  This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond all
+comparison the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished at
+the age of eighteen,--self-taught, self-struggling, self-immolated.
+Nothing in literature like that life and that death!
+
+With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant
+imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into the
+crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin to the
+literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence, and
+exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so amazing,
+--such patience, such forethought, such labour, such courage, such
+ingenuity,--the qualities that, well directed, make men great, not only
+in books, but action.  And, turning from the history of the imposture to
+the poems themselves, the young reader bent before their beauty,
+literally awed and breathless.  How this strange Bristol boy tamed and
+mastered his rude and motley materials into a music that comprehended
+every tune and key, from the simplest to the sublimest!  He turned back
+to the biography; be read on; he saw the proud, daring, mournful spirit
+alone in the Great City, like himself.  He followed its dismal career, he
+saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into the mire.  He turned
+again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks for bread,--the satires
+without moral grandeur, the politics without honest faith.  He shuddered
+and sickened as he read.  True, even here his poet mind appreciated (what
+perhaps only poets can) the divine fire that burned fitfully through that
+meaner and more sordid fuel,--he still traced in those crude, hasty,
+bitter offerings to dire Necessity the hand of the young giant who had
+built up the stately verse of Rowley.  But alas! how different from that
+"mighty line."  How all serenity and joy had fled from these later
+exercises of art degraded into journey-work!  Then rapidly came on the
+catastrophe,--the closed doors, the poison, the suicide, the manuscripts
+torn by the hands of despairing wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon
+the funereal floors.  It was terrible!  The spectre of the Titan boy (as
+described in the notes written on the margin), with his haughty brow, his
+cynic smile, his lustrous eyes, haunted all the night the baffled and
+solitary child of song.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+It will often happen that what ought to turn the human mind from some
+peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect.  One would think that the
+perusal in the newspaper of some crime and capital punishment would warn
+away all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the chance of
+detection.  Yet it is well known to us that many a criminal is made by
+pondering over the fate of some predecessor in guilt.  There is a
+fascination in the Dark and Forbidden, which, strange to say, is only
+lost in fiction.  No man is more inclined to murder his nephews, or
+stifle his wife, after reading "Richard the Third" or "Othello."  It is
+the reality that is necessary to constitute the danger of contagion.
+Now, it was this reality in the fate and life and crowning suicide of
+Chatterton that forced itself upon Leonard's thoughts, and sat there like
+a visible evil thing, gathering evil like cloud around it.  There was
+much in the dead poet's character, his trials, and his doom, that stood
+out to Leonard like a bold and colossal shadow of himself and his fate.
+Alas! the book seller, in one respect, had said truly.  Leonard came back
+to him the next day a new man; and it seemed even to himself as if he had
+lost a good angel in losing Helen.  "Oh, that she had been by my side!"
+thought he.  "Oh, that I could have felt the touch of her confiding hand;
+that, looking up from the scathed and dreary ruin of this life, that had
+sublimely lifted itself from the plain, and sought to tower aloft from a
+deluge, her mild look had spoken to me of innocent, humble, unaspiring
+childhood!  Ah!  If indeed I were still necessary to her,--still the sole
+guardian and protector,--then could I say to myself; 'Thou must not
+despair and die!  Thou hast her to live and to strive for.'  But no, no!
+Only this vast and terrible London,--the solitude of the dreary garret,
+and those lustrous eyes, glaring alike through the throng and through the
+solitude."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+On the following Monday Dr. Morgan's shabby man-servant opened the door
+to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former visitor.  A
+few days before, embrowned with healthful travel, serene light in his
+eye, simple trust on his careless lip, Leonard Fairfield had stood at
+that threshold.  Now again he stood there, pale and haggard, with a cheek
+already hollowed into those deep anxious lines that speak of working
+thoughts and sleepless nights; and a settled sullen gloom resting heavily
+on his whole aspect.
+
+"I call by appointment," said the boy, testily, as the servant stood
+irresolute.  The man gave way.  "Master is just gone out to a patient:
+please to wait, sir;" and he showed him into the little parlour.  In a
+few moments, two other patients were admitted.  These were women, and
+they began talking very loud.  They disturbed Leonard's unsocial
+thoughts.  He saw that the door into the doctor's receivingroom was half
+open, and, ignorant of the etiquette which holds such penetralia as
+sacred, he walked in to escape from the gossips.  He threw himself into
+the doctor's own wellworn chair, and muttered to himself, "Why did he
+tell me to come?  What new can he think of for me?  And if a favour,
+should I take it?  He has given me the means of bread by work: that is
+all I have a right to ask from him, from any man,--all I should accept."
+
+While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying open on the
+table.  He started.  He recognized the handwriting,--the same as that of
+the letter which had inclosed.  L50 to his mother,--the letter of his
+grandparents.  He saw his own name: he saw something more,--words that
+made his heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins.  As
+he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a voice, in an
+angry growl, muttered, "How dare you come into my room, and pe reading my
+letters?  Er-r-r!"
+
+Leonard placed his own hand on the doctor's firmly, and said, in a fierce
+tone, "This letter relates to me, belongs to me, crushes me.  I have seen
+enough to know that.  I demand to read all,--learn all."
+
+The doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the waiting-room still
+open, kicked it to with his foot, and then said, under his breath, "What
+have you read?  Tell me the truth."
+
+"Two lines only, and I am called--I am called--" Leonard's frame shook
+from head to foot, and the veins on his forehead swelled like cords.  He
+could not complete the sentence.  It seemed as if an ocean was rolling up
+through his brain, and roaring in his ears.  The doctor saw at a glance
+that there was physical danger in his state, and hastily and soothingly
+answered, "Sit down, sit down; calm yourself; you shall know all,--read
+all; drink this water;" and he poured into a tumbler of the pure liquid a
+drop or two from a tiny phial.
+
+Leonard obeyed mechanically, for he was no longer able to stand.  He
+closed his eyes, and for a minute or two life seemed to pass from him;
+then he recovered, and saw the good doctor's gaze fixed on him with great
+compassion.  He silently stretched forth his hand towards the letter.
+"Wait a few moments," said the physician, judiciously, "and hear me
+meanwhile.  It is very unfortunate you should have seen a letter never
+meant for your eye, and containing allusions to a secret you were never
+to have known.  But if I tell you more, will you promise me, on your word
+of honour, that you will hold the confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield,
+the Avenels,--from all?  I myself am pledged to conceal a secret, which I
+can only share with you on the same condition."
+
+"There is nothing," announced Leonard, indistinctly, and with a bitter
+smile on his lip,--" nothing, it seems, that I should be proud to boast
+of.  Yes, I promise; the letter, the letter!"
+
+The doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to the
+wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said to do
+when a victim is stretched on the rack.  "Pulse decreasing," he muttered;
+"wonderful thing, aconite!"  Meanwhile Leonard read as follows, faults in
+spelling and all:--
+
+     DR. MORGAN
+
+     SIR,--I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear that the pore
+     boy is safe and Well.  But he has been behaving ill, and ungrateful
+     to my good son Richard, who is a credit to the whole Famuly and has
+     made himself a Gentleman and Was very kind and good to the boy, not
+     knowing who and What he is--God forbid!  I don't want never to see
+     him again--the boy.  Pore John was ill and Restless for days
+     afterwards.  John is a pore cretur now, and has had paralyticks.
+     And he Talked of nothing but Nora--the boy's eyes were so like his
+     Mother's.  I cannot, cannot see the Child of Shame.  He can't cum
+     here--for our Lord's sake, sir, don't ask it--he can't, so
+     Respectable as we've always been!--and such disgrace!  Base
+     born! base born!  Keep him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay
+     anything for That.  You says, sir, he's clever, and quick at
+     learning; so did Parson Dale, and wanted him to go to Collidge and
+     make a Figur,--then all would cum out.  It would be my death, sir; I
+     could not sleep in my grave, sir.  Nora, that we were all so proud
+     of.  Sinful creturs that we are!  Nora's good name that we've saved,
+     now gone, gone.  And Richard, who is so grand, and who was so fond
+     of pore, pore Nora!  He would not hold up his Head again.  Don't let
+     him make a Figur in the world; let him be a tradesman, as we were
+     afore him,--any trade he takes to,--and not cross us no more while
+     he lives.  Then I shall pray for him, and wish him happy.  And have
+     not we had enuff of bringing up children to be above their birth?
+     Nora, that I used to say was like the first lady o' the land-oh, but
+     we were rightly punished!  So now, sir, I leave all to you, and will
+     Pay all you want for the boy.  And be sure that the secret's kept.
+     For we have never heard from the father, and, at leest, no one knows
+     that Nora has a, living son but I and my daughter Jane, and Parson
+     Dale and you--and you Two are good Gentlemen--and Jane will keep her
+     word, and I am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope it
+     won't be while pore John needs me.  What could he do without me?
+     And if that got wind, it would kill me straght, sir.  Pore John is a
+     helpless cretur, God bless him.  So no more from your servant in all
+     dooty,
+
+                              M. AVENEL.
+
+
+Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except by a slight
+heaving at his breast, and a deathlike whiteness of his lips, the
+emotions he felt were undetected.  And it is a proof how much exquisite
+goodness there was in his heart that the first words he spoke were,
+"Thank Heaven!"
+
+The doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was so startled that
+he exclaimed, "For what?"
+
+"I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew and honoured as a
+mother.  I am not her son--her-" He stopped short.
+
+"No: but don't be hard on your true mother,--poor Nora!"
+
+Leonard staggered, and then burst into a sudden paroxysm of tears.
+
+"Oh, my own mother!  my dead mother!  Thou for whom I felt so mysterious
+a love,--thou from whom I took this poet soul! pardon me, pardon me!
+Hard on thee!  Would that thou wert living yet, that I might comfort
+thee!  What thou must have suffered!"
+
+These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from the depth of his
+heart.  Then he caught up the letter again, and his thoughts were changed
+as his eyes fell upon the writer's shame and fear, as it were, of his
+very existence.  All his native haughtiness returned to him.  His crest
+rose, his tears dried.  "Tell her," he said, with astern, unfaltering
+voice, "tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed; that I will never seek her
+roof, never cross her path, never disgrace her wealthy son.  But tell
+her, also, that I will choose my own way in life,--that I will not take
+from her a bribe for concealment.  Tell her that I am nameless, and will
+yet make a name."
+
+A name!  Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of
+conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one lurid
+instant, and then fading into darkness?
+
+"I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing exceedingly
+Welsh in his excitement; "and perhaps you may find a father, who--"
+
+"Father! who is he, what is he?  He lives, then!  But he has deserted
+me,--he must have betrayed her!  I need him not.  The law gives me no
+father."
+
+The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish: then, in a
+calmer tone, he resumed, "But I should know who he is--as another one
+whose path I may not cross."
+
+Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliberation.  "Nay," said
+he, at length, "as you know so much, it is surely best that you should
+know all."
+
+The doctor then proceeded to detail, with some circumlocution, what we
+will here repeat from his account more succinctly.
+
+Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather the
+house of Lady Lansinere, by whom she had been educated and brought up, in
+order to accept the place of companion to a lady in London.  One evening
+she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and at the first
+sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible.  She was carried to
+bed.  Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of the town) was
+sent for.  That night Leonard came into the world, and his mother died.
+She never recovered her senses, never spoke intelligibly from the time
+she entered the house.  "And never, therefore, named your father," said
+Dr. Morgan.  "We knew not who he was."
+
+"And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander this
+dead mother?  How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of
+wedlock?"
+
+"There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger, never any rumour of her
+marriage; her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house; her
+emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a
+parent's home,--these are all the evidence against her.  But Mrs. Avenel
+deemed them strong, and so did I.  You have a right to think we judged
+too harshly,--perhaps we did."
+
+"And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard, mournfully, and after a
+long silence,--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the
+motherless child?"
+
+"Inquiries!  Mrs. Avenel would have died first.  Your grandmother's
+nature is very rigid.  Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader
+himself," said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the
+thought of dishonour.  Even over her dead child, the child she had loved
+the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and memory from
+suspicion.  There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark
+Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day on
+a visit.
+
+"Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant two or three months old; she
+took charge of you; Nora was buried and the secret kept.  None out of the
+family knew of it but myself and the curate of the town,--Mr. Dale.  The
+day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a
+village at some distance.  There her child died; and when she returned to
+Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed as the son she had
+lost.  Mark, I know, was as a father to you, for he had loved Nora: they
+had been children together."
+
+"And she came to London,--London is strong and cruel," muttered Leonard.
+"She was friendless and deceived.  I see all,--I desire to know no more.
+This father--he must in deed have been like those whom I have read of in
+books.  To love, to wrong her,--that I can conceive; but then to leave,
+to abandon; no visit to her grave, no remorse, no search for his own
+child.  Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right.  Let us think of him no more."
+
+The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head.  "Sir, the
+ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."
+
+"Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about him,
+"I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long.  I go now.  I will
+never mention to my moth--I mean to Mrs. Fairfield--what I have learned,
+nor to any one.  I will work my way somehow.  If Mr. Prickett will keep
+me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot take Mrs.
+Avenel's money and be bound apprentice.  Sir, you have been good and
+patient with me,--Heaven reward you."
+
+The doctor was too moved to answer.  He wrung Leonard's hand, and in
+another minute the door closed upon the nameless boy.  He stood alone in
+the streets of London; and the sun flashed on him, red and menacing, like
+the eye of a foe!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Leonard did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that day.  Needless it
+is to say where he wandered, what he suffered, what thought, what felt.
+All within was storm.  Late at night he returned to his solitary lodging.
+On his table, neglected since the morning, was Helen's rose-tree.  It
+looked parched and fading.  His heart smote him: he watered the poor
+plant,--perhaps with his tears.
+
+Meanwhile Dr. Morgan, after some debate with himself whether or not to
+apprise Mrs. Avenel of Leonard's discovery and message, resolved to spare
+her an uneasiness and alarm that might be dangerous to her health, and
+unnecessary in itself.  He replied shortly, that she need not fear
+Leonard's coming to her house; that he was disinclined to bind himself an
+apprentice, but that he was provided for at present; and in a few weeks,
+when Dr. Morgan heard more of him through the tradesman by whom he was
+employed, the doctor would write to her from Germany.  He then went to
+Mr. Prickett's, told the willing bookseller to keep the young man for the
+present,--to be kind to him, watch over his habits and conduct, and
+report to the doctor in his new home, on the Rhine, what avocation he
+thought Leonard would be best suited for, and most inclined to adopt.
+The charitable Welshman divided with the bookseller the salary given to
+Leonard, and left a quarter of his moiety in advance.  It is true that he
+knew he should be repaid on applying to Mrs. Avenel; but being a man of
+independent spirit himself, he so sympathized with Leonard's present
+feelings, that he felt as if he should degrade the boy did he maintain
+him, even secretly, out of Mrs. Avenel's money,--money intended not to
+raise, but keep him down in life.  At the worst, it was a sum the doctor
+could afford, and he had brought the boy into the world.  Having thus, as
+he thought, safely provided for his two young charges, Helen and Leonard,
+the doctor then gave himself up to his final preparations for departure.
+He left a short note for Leonard with Mr. Prickett, containing some brief
+advice, some kind cheering; a postscript to the effect that he had not
+communicated to Mrs. Avenel the information Leonard had acquired, and
+that it were best to leave her in that ignorance; and six small powders
+to be dissolved in water, and a teaspoonful every fourth hour,--
+"Sovereign against rage and sombre thoughts," wrote the doctor.
+
+By the evening of the next day Dr. Morgan, accompanied by his pet patient
+with the chronic tic, whom he had talked into exile, was on the steamboat
+on his way to Ostend.
+
+Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's; but the change in him did not
+escape the bookseller.  All his ingenuous simplicity had deserted him.
+He was very distant and very taciturn; he seemed to have grown much
+older.  I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change.  By
+the help of such words as Leonard may himself occasionally let fall, the
+reader will dive into the boy's heart, and see how there the change had
+worked, and is working still.  The happy, dreamy peasant-genius gazing on
+Glory with inebriate, undazzled eyes is no more.  It is a man, suddenly
+cut off from the old household holy ties,--conscious of great powers, and
+confronted on all sides by barriers of iron, alone with hard Reality and
+scornful London; and if he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, he
+sees, where he saw the Muse, a pale melancholy spirit veiling its face in
+shame,--the ghost of the mournful mother, whose child has no name, not
+even the humblest, among the family of men.
+
+On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, as Leonard was just
+about to leave the shop, a customer stepped in with a book in his hand,
+which he had snatched from the shop-boy, who was removing the volumes for
+the night from the booth without.
+
+"Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett!" said the customer, "I am ashamed of you.
+You presume to put upon this work, in two volumes, the sum of eight
+shillings."
+
+Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom of some recess, and
+cried, "What!  Mr. Burley, is that you?  But for your voice, I should not
+have known you."
+
+"Man is like a, book, Mr. Prickett; the commonalty only look to his
+binding.  I am better bound, it is very true."  Leonard glanced towards
+the speaker, who now stood under the gas-lamp, and thought he recognized
+his face.  He looked again.  Yes; it was the perch-fisher whom he had met
+on the banks of the Brent, and who had warned him of the lost fish and
+the broken line.
+
+MR. BURLEY (continuing).--"But the 'Art of Thinking'!--you charge eight
+shillings for the 'Art of Thinking.'"
+
+MR. PRICKETT.--"Cheap enough, Mr. Burley.  A very clean copy."
+
+MR. BURLEY.--"Usurer!  I sold it to you for three shillings.  It is more
+than one hundred and fifty per cent you propose to gain from my 'Art of
+Thinking.'"
+
+MR. PRICKETT (stuttering and taken aback).--"You sold it to me!  Ah, now
+I remember.  But it was more than three shillings I gave.  You forget,--
+two glasses of brandy-and-water."
+
+MR. BURLEY.--"Hospitality, sir, is not to be priced.  If you sell your
+hospitality, you are not worthy to possess my 'Art of Thinking.'  I
+resume it.  There are three shillings, and a shilling more for interest.
+No; on second thoughts, instead of that shilling, I will return your
+hospitality: and the first time you come my way you shall have two
+glasses of brandy-and-water."
+
+Mr. Prickett did not look pleased, but he made no objection; and Mr.
+Burley put the book into his pocket, and turned to examine the shelves.
+He bought an old jest-book, a stray volume of the Comedies of Destouches,
+paid for them, put them also into his pocket, and was sauntering out,
+when he perceived Leonard, who was now standing at the doorway.
+
+"Hem! who is that?" he asked, whispering Mr. Prickett.  "A young
+assistant of mine, and very clever."
+
+Mr. Burley scanned Leonard from top to toe.
+
+"We have met before, sir.  But you look as if you had returned to the
+Brent, and been fishing for my perch."
+
+"Possibly, sir," answered Leonard.  "But my line is tough, and is not yet
+broken, though the fish drags it amongst the weeds, and buries itself in
+the mud."
+
+He lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and walked on.
+
+"He is clever," said Mr. Burley to the bookseller: "he understands
+allegory."
+
+MR. PRICKETT.---"Poor youth!  He came to town with the idea of turning
+author: you know what that is, Mr. Burley."
+
+MR. BURLEY (with an air of superb dignity).--"Bibliopole, yes!  An author
+is a being between gods and men, who ought to be lodged in a palace, and
+entertained at the public charge upon ortolans and Tokay.  He should be
+kept lapped in down, and curtained with silken awnings from the cares of
+life, have nothing to do but to write books upon tables of cedar, and
+fish for perch from a gilded galley.  And that 's what will come to pass
+when the ages lose their barbarism and know their benefactors.
+Meanwhile, sir, I invite you to my rooms, and will regale you upon
+brandy-and-water as long as I can pay for it; and when I cannot--you
+shall regale me."
+
+Mr. Prickett muttered, "A very bad bargain indeed," as Mr. Burley, with
+his chin in the air, stepped into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded
+thoroughfares,--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits.  But the
+last two days, since the discovery of his birth, he had taken his way
+down the comparatively unpeopled path of the New Road.
+
+He had just gained that part of this outskirt in which the statuaries and
+tomb-makers exhibit their gloomy wares, furniture alike for gardens and
+for graves,--and, pausing, contemplated a column, on which was placed an
+urn, half covered with a funeral mantle, when his shoulder was lightly
+tapped, and, turning quickly, he saw Mr. Burley standing behind him.
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing; and since we find
+ourselves on the same road, I should like to be better acquainted with
+you.  I hear you once wished to be an author.  I am one."
+
+Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an author, and a
+mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed the perch-fisher.
+
+Mr. Burley was indeed very differently attired since the first interview
+by the brooklet.  He looked much less like an author,--but more perhaps
+like a perch-fisher.  He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his
+head, a new green overcoat, new gray trousers, and new boots.  In his
+hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle.  Nothing could be more
+vagrant, devil-me-Garish, and, to use a slang word, tigerish, than his
+whole air.  Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself seem
+vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless,--something out of the pale of
+convention.  His face looked more pale and more puffed than before, the
+tip of his nose redder; but the spark in his eye was of a livelier light,
+and there was self-enjoyment in the corners of his sensual, humorous lip.
+
+"You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard.  "Well; and what is your
+report of the calling?  Yonder column props an urn.  The column is tall,
+and the urn is graceful.  But it looks out of place by the roadside: what
+say you?"
+
+MR. BURLEY.--"It would look better in the churchyard."
+
+LEONARD.--"So I was thinking.  And you are an author!"
+
+MR. BURLEY.--"Ah, I said you had a quick sense of allegory.  And so you
+think an author looks better in a churchyard, when you see him but as a
+muffled urn under the moonshine, than standing beneath the gas-lamp in a
+white hat, and with a red tip to his nose.  Abstractedly, you are right.
+But, with your leave, the author would rather be where he is.  Let us
+walk on."  The two men felt an interest in each other, and they walked
+some yards in silence.
+
+"To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley,--"you think of fame and
+churchyards.  Natural enough, before illusion dies; but I think of the
+moment, of existence,--and I laugh at fame.  Fame, sir--not worth a glass
+of cold-without!  And as for a glass of warm, with sugar--and five
+shillings in one's pocket to spend as one pleases--what is there in
+Westminster Abbey to compare with it?"
+
+"Talk on, sir,--I should like to hear you talk.  Let me listen and hold
+my tongue."  Leonard pulled his hat over his brows, and gave up his
+moody, questioning, turbulent mind to his new acquaintance.
+
+And John Burley talked on.  A dangerous and fascinating talk it was,--
+the talk of a great intellect fallen; a serpent trailing its length on
+the ground, and showing bright, shifting, glorious hues, as it
+grovelled,--a serpent, yet without the serpent's guile.  If John Burley
+deceived and tempted, he meant it not,--he crawled and glittered alike
+honestly.  No dove could be more simple.
+
+Laughing at fame, he yet dwelt with an eloquent enthusiasm on the joy of
+composition.  "What do I care what men without are to say and think of
+the words that gush forth on my page?" cried he.  "If you think of the
+public, of urns, and laurels, while you write, you are no genius; you are
+not fit to be an author.  I write because it rejoices me, because it
+is my nature.  Written, I care no more what becomes of it than the lark
+for the effect that the song has on the peasant it wakes to the plough.
+The poet, like the lark, sings 'from his watch-tower in the skies.'  Is
+this true?"
+
+"Yes, very true!"
+
+"What can rob us of this joy?  The bookseller will not buy; the public
+will not read.  Let them sleep at the foot of the ladder of the angels,
+--we climb it all the same.  And then one settles down into such good-
+tempered Lucianic contempt for men.  One wants so little from them, when
+one knows what one's self is worth, and what they are.  They are just
+worth the coin one can extract from them, in order to live.
+
+"Our life--that is worth so much to us.  And then their joys, so vulgar
+to them, we can make them golden and kingly.  Do you suppose Burns
+drinking at the alehouse, with his boors around him, was drinking, like
+them, only beer and whiskey?  No, he was drinking nectar; he was imbibing
+his own ambrosial thoughts,--shaking with the laughter of the gods.  The
+coarse human liquid was just needed to unlock his spirit from the clay,--
+take it from jerkin and corduroys, and wrap it in the 'singing robes'
+that floated wide in the skies: the beer or the whiskey needed but for
+that, and then it changed at once into the drink of Hebe.  But come, you
+have not known this life,--you have not seen it.  Come, give me this
+night.  I have moneys about me,--I will fling them abroad as liberally as
+Alexander himself, when he left to his share but hope.  Come!"
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To my throne.  On that throne last sat Edmund Kean, mighty mime!  I am
+his successor.  We will see whether in truth these wild sons of genius,
+who are cited but 'to point a moral and adorn a tale,' were objects of
+compassion.  Sober-suited tits to lament over a Savage or a Morland, a
+Porson and a Burns!"
+
+"Or a Chatterton," said Leonard, gloomily.
+
+"Chatterton was an impostor in all things; he feigned excesses that he
+never knew.  He a bacchanalian, a royster!  HE!  No.  We will talk of
+him.  Come!"
+
+Leonard went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The Room!  And the smoke-reek, and the gas glare of it!  The whitewash of
+the walls, and the prints thereon of the actors in their mime-robes, and
+stage postures,--actors as far back as their own lost Augustan era, when
+the stage was a real living influence on the manners and the age!  There
+was Betterton, in wig and gown,--as Cato, moralizing on the soul's
+eternity, and halting between Plato and the dagger.  There was Woodward
+as "The Fine Gentleman," with the inimitable rake-hell in which the
+heroes of Wycherly and Congreve and Farquhar live again.  There was
+jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round buckler and "fair round belly."
+There was Colley Cibber in brocade, taking snuff as with "his Lord," the
+thumb and forefinger raised in air, and looking at you for applause.
+There was Macklin as Shylock, with knife in hand: and Kemble in the
+solemn weeds of the Dane; and Kean in the place of honour over the
+chimneypiece.
+
+When we are suddenly taken from practical life, with its real workday
+men, and presented to the portraits of those sole heroes of a world
+Fantastic and Phantasmal, in the garments wherein they did "strut and
+fret their hour upon the stage," verily there is something in the sight
+that moves an inner sense within ourselves,--for all of us have an inner
+sense of some existence, apart from the one that wears away our days: an
+existence that, afar from St. James's and St. Giles's, the Law Courts and
+Exchange, goes its way in terror or mirth, in smiles or in tears, through
+a vague magic-land of the poets.  There, see those actors--they are the
+men who lived it--to whom our world was the false one, to whom the
+Imaginary was the Actual!  And did Shakspeare himself, in his life, ever
+hearken to such applause as thundered round the personators of his airy
+images?  Vague children of the most transient of the arts, fleet shadows
+on running waters, though thrown down from the steadfast stars, were ye
+not happier than we who live in the Real?  How strange you must feel in
+the great circuit that ye now take through eternity!  No prompt-books,
+no lamps, no acting Congreve and Shakspeare there!  For what parts in the
+skies have your studies on the earth fitted you?  Your ultimate destinies
+are very puzzling.  Hail to your effigies, and pass we on!
+
+There, too, on the whitewashed walls, were admitted the portraits of
+ruder rivals in the arena of fame,--yet they, too, had known an applause
+warmer than his age gave to Shakspeare; the Champions of the Ring,--Cribb
+and Molyneux and Dutch Sam.  Interspersed with these was an old print of
+Newmarket in the early part of the last century, and sundry engravings
+from Hogarth.  But poets, oh, they were there too! poets who might be
+supposed to have been sufficiently good fellows to be at home with such
+companions,--Shakspeare, of course, with his placid forehead; Ben Jonson,
+with his heavy scowl; Burns and Byron cheek by jowl.  But the strangest
+of all these heterogeneous specimens of graphic art was a full-length
+print of William Pitt!---William Pitt, the austere and imperious.  What
+the deuce did he do there amongst prize-fighters and actors and poets?
+It seemed an insult to his grand memory.  Nevertheless there he was, very
+erect, and with a look of ineffable disgust in his upturned nostrils.
+The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the crambo in the minds
+of ordinary men,--very like the motley pictures of the FAMOUS hung up in
+your parlour, O my Public!  Actors and prize-fighters, poets and
+statesmen, all without congruity and fitness, all whom you have been to
+see or to hear for a moment, and whose names have stared out in your
+newspapers, O my public!
+
+And the company?  Indescribable!  Comedians, from small theatres, out of
+employ; pale, haggard-looking boys, probably the sons of worthy traders,
+trying their best to break their fathers' hearts; here and there the
+marked features of a Jew.  Now and then you might see the curious puzzled
+face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a Cantab; and men of grave
+age, and grayhaired, were there, and amongst them a wondrous proportion
+of carbuncled faces and bottle-noses.  And when John Burley entered,
+there was a shout that made William Pitt shake in his frame.  Such
+stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for "Burley John."  And the
+gentleman who had filled the great high leathern chair in his absence
+gave it up to John Burley; and Leonard, with his grave, observant eye,
+and lip half sad and half scornful, placed himself by the side of his
+introducer.  There was a nameless, expectant stir through the assembly,
+as there is in the pit of the opera when some great singer advances to
+the lamps, and begins, "Di tanti palpiti."  Time flies.  Look at the
+Dutch clock over the door.  Half-an-hour.  John Burley begins to warm.  A
+yet quicker light begins to break from his Eye; his voice has a mellow
+luscious roll in it.
+
+"He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man, who looked like a
+tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard.  Time flies,--an hour.  Look
+again at the Dutch clock.  John Burley is grand, he is in his zenith, at
+his culminating point.  What magnificent drollery! what luxuriant humour!
+How the Rabelais shakes in his easy-chair!  Under the rush and the roar
+of this fun (what word else shall describe it?) the man's intellect is as
+clear as gold sand under a river.  Such wit and such truth, and, at
+times, such a flood of quick eloquence!  All now are listeners,--silent,
+save in applause.
+
+And Leonard listened too.  Not, as he would some nights ago, in innocent
+unquestioning delight.  No; his mind has passed through great sorrow,
+great passion, and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding
+over joy itself as over a problem.  And the drink circulates, and faces
+change; and there are gabbling and babbling; and Burley's head sinks in
+his bosom, and he is silent.  And up starts a wild, dissolute,
+bacchanalian glee for seven voices.  And the smoke-reek grows denser and
+thicker, and the gaslight looks dizzy through the haze.  And John
+Burley's eyes reel.
+
+Look again at the Dutch clock.  Two hours have gone.  John Burley has
+broken out again from his silence, his voice thick and husky, and his
+laugh cracked; and he talks, O ye gods!  such rubbish and ribaldry; and
+the listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before.  And Leonard,
+who had hitherto been measuring himself in his mind against the giant,
+and saying inly, "He soars out of my reach," finds the giant shrink
+smaller and smaller, and saith to himself, "He is but of man's common
+standard after all!"
+
+Look again at the Dutch clock.  Three hours have passed.  Is John Burley
+now of man's common standard?  Man himself seems to have vanished from
+the scene,--his soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes
+of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl.  And Leonard
+looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe,--some on the floor, some
+staggering against the walls, some hugging each other on the tables, some
+fighting, some bawling, some weeping.  The divine spark had fled from the
+human face; the Beast is everywhere growing more and snore out of the
+thing that had been Man.  And John Burley, still unconquered, but clean
+lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth the most
+lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever beard,
+accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of
+balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have
+envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric of a
+Muggletonian.  And the waiters choked up the doorway, listening and
+laughing, and prepared to call cabs and coaches; and suddenly some one
+turned off the gaslight, and all was dark as pitch,--howls and laughter,
+as of the damned, ringing through the Pandemonium.  Out from the black
+atmosphere stepped the boy-poet; and the still stars rushed on his sight,
+as they looked over the grimy roof-tops.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Well, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown that thou hast in
+thee the iron out of which true manhood is forged and shaped.  Thou hast
+the power to resist.  Forth, unebriate, unpolluted, he came from the
+orgy, as yon star above him came from the cloud.
+
+He had a latch-key to his lodgings.  He let himself in and walked
+noiselessly up the creaking wooden stair.  It was dawn.  He passed on to
+his window and threw it open.  The green elm-tree from the carpenter's
+yard looked as fresh and fair as if rooted in solitude, leagues away from
+the smoke of Babylon.
+
+"Nature, Nature!" murmured Leonard, "I hear thy voice now.  This stills,
+this strengthens.  But the struggle is very dread.  Here, despair of
+life,--there, faith in life.  Nature thinks of neither, and lives
+serenely on."
+
+By and by a bird slid softly from the heart of the tree, and dropped on
+the ground below out of sight.  But Leonard heard its carol.  It awoke
+its companions; wings began to glance in the air, and the clouds grew red
+towards the east.
+
+Leonard sighed and left the window.  On the table, near Helen's rose-
+tree, which he bent over wistfully, lay a letter.  He had not observed it
+before.  It was in Helen's hand.  He took it to the light, and read it by
+the pure, healthful gleams of morn:--
+
+     IVY LODGE.
+
+     Oh, my dear brother Leonard, will this find you well, and (more
+     happy I dare not say, but) less sad than when we parted?  I write
+     kneeling, so that it seems to me as if I wrote and prayed at the
+     same time.  You may come and see me to-morrow evening, Leonard.  Do
+     come, do,--we shall walk together in this pretty garden; and there
+     is an arbour all covered with jessamine and honeysuckle, from which
+     we can look down on London.  I have looked from it so many times,--
+     so many--trying if I can guess the roofs in our poor little street,
+     and fancying that I do see the dear elm-tree.
+
+     Miss Starke is very kind to me; and I think after I have seen you,
+     that I shall be happy here,--that is, if you are happy.
+
+     Your own grateful sister,
+
+     HELEN.
+
+     P. S.--Any one will direct you to our house; it lies to the left
+     near the top of the hill, a little way down a lane that is overhung
+     on one side with chestnut-trees and lilacs.  I shall be watching for
+     you at the gate.
+
+Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his former self.  Up from
+the dark sea at his heart smiled the meek face of a child, and the waves
+lay still as at the charm of a spirit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+"And what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" asked Leonard of Mr.
+Prickett, when he returned to the shop.
+
+Let us reply to that question in our own words, for we know more about
+Mr. Burley than Mr. Prickett does.
+
+John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a village near
+Ealing, who had scraped and saved and pinched, to send his son to an
+excellent provincial school in a northern county, and thence to college.
+At the latter, during his first year, young Burley was remarked by the
+undergraduates for his thick shoes and coarse linen, and remarkable to
+the authorities for his assiduity and learning.  The highest hopes were
+entertained of him by the tutors and examiners.  At the beginning of the
+second year his high animal spirits, before kept down by study, broke
+out.  Reading had become easy to him.  He knocked off his tasks with a
+facile stroke, as it were.  He gave up his leisure hours to Symposia by
+no means Socratical.  He fell into an idle, hard-drinking set.  He got
+into all kinds of scrapes.  The authorities were at first kind and
+forbearing in their admonitions, for they respected his abilities, and
+still hoped he might become an honour to the University.  But at last he
+went drunk into a formal examination, and sent in papers, after the
+manner of Aristophanes, containing capital jokes upon the Dons and Big-
+wigs themselves.  The offence was the greater and seemed the more
+premeditated for being clothed in Greek.  John Burley was expelled.  He
+went home to his father's a miserable man, for, with all his follies, he
+had a good heart.  Removed from ill example, his life for a year was
+blameless.  He got admitted as usher into the school in which he had
+received instruction as a pupil.  This school was in a large town.  John
+Burley became member of a club formed among the tradesmen, and spent
+three evenings a week there.  His astonishing convivial and
+conversational powers began to declare themselves.  He grew the oracle of
+the club; and, from being the most sober, peaceful assembly in which
+grave fathers of a family ever smoked a pipe or sipped a glass, it grew
+under Mr. Burley's auspices the parent of revels as frolicking and
+frantic as those out of which the old Greek Goat Song ever tipsily rose.
+This would not do.  There was a great riot in the streets one night, and
+the next morning the usher was dismissed.  Fortunately for John Burley's
+conscience, his father had died before this happened,--died believing in
+the reform of his son.  During his ushership Mr. Burley had scraped
+acquaintance with the editor of the county newspaper, and given him some
+capital political articles; for Burley was, like Parr and Porson, a
+notable politician.  The editor furnished him with letters to the
+journalists in London, and John came to the metropolis and got employed
+on a very respectable newspaper.  At college he had known Audley Egerton,
+though but slightly: that gentleman was then just rising into repute in
+parliament.  Burley sympathized with some question on which Audley had
+distinguished himself, and wrote a very good article thereon,--an article
+so good that Egerton inquired into the authorship, found out Burley, and
+resolved in his own mind to provide for him whenever he himself came into
+office.  But Burley was a man whom it was impossible to provide for.  He
+soon lost his connection with the news paper.  First, he was so irregular
+that he could never be depended upon.  Secondly, he had strange, honest,
+eccentric twists of thinking, that could coalesce with the thoughts of no
+party in the long run.  An article of his, inadvertently admitted, had
+horrified all the proprietors, staff, and readers of the paper.  It was
+diametrically opposite to the principles the paper advocated, and
+compared its pet politician to Catiline.  Then John Burley shut himself
+up and wrote books.  He wrote two or three books, very clever, but not at
+all to the popular taste,--abstract and learned, full of whims that were
+caviare to the multitude, and larded with Greek.  Nevertheless they
+obtained for him a little money, and among literary men some reputation.
+Now Audley Egerton came into power, and got him, though with great
+difficulty,--for there were many prejudices against this scampish,
+harum-scarum son of the Muses,--a place in a public office.  He kept it
+about a month, and then voluntarily resigned it.  "My crust of bread and
+liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished into a garret.  From that
+time to the present he lived--Heaven knows how!  Literature is a
+business, like everything else; John Burley grew more and more incapable
+of business.  "He could not do task-work," he said; he wrote when the
+whim seized him, or when the last penny was in his pouch, or when he was
+actually in the spunging-house or the Fleet,--migrations which occurred
+to him, on an average, twice a year.  He could generally sell what he had
+actually written, but no one would engage him beforehand.  Editors of
+magazines and other periodicals were very glad to have his articles, on
+the condition that they were anonymous; and his style was not necessarily
+detected, for he could vary it with the facility of a practised pen.
+Audley Egerton continued his best supporter, for there were certain
+questions on which no one wrote with such force as John Burley,--
+questions connected with the metaphysics of politics, such as law reform
+and economical science.  And Audley Egerton was the only man John Burley
+put himself out of the way to serve, and for whom he would give up a
+drinking bout and do task-work; for John Burley was grateful by nature,
+and he felt that Egerton had really tried to befriend him.  Indeed, it
+was true, as he had stated to Leonard by the Brent, that even after he
+had resigned his desk in the London office, he had had the offer of an
+appointment in Jamaica, and a place in India, from the minister.  But
+probably there were other charms then than those exercised by the one-
+eyed perch that kept him to the neighbourhood of London.  With all his
+grave faults of character and conduct, John Burley was not without the
+fine qualities of a large nature.  He was most resolutely his own enemy,
+it is true, but he could hardly be said to be any one else's.  Even when
+he criticised some more fortunate writer, he was good-humoured in his
+very satire: he had no bile, no envy.  And as for freedom from malignant
+personalities, he might have been a model to all critics.  I must except
+politics, however, for in these he could be rabid and savage.  He had a
+passion for independence, which, though pushed to excess, was not without
+grandeur.  No lick-platter, no parasite, no toad-eater, no literary
+beggar, no hunter after patronage and subscriptions; even in his dealings
+with Audley Egerton, he insisted on naming the price for his labours.  He
+took a price, because, as the papers required by Audley demanded much
+reading and detail, which was not at all to his taste, he considered
+himself entitled fairly to something more than the editor of the journal
+wherein the papers appeared was in the habit of giving.  But he assessed
+this extra price himself, and as he would have done to a bookseller.  And
+when in debt and in prison, though he knew a line to Egerton would have
+extricated him, he never wrote that line.  He would depend alone on his
+pen,--dipped it hastily in the ink, and scrawled himself free.  The most
+debased point about him was certainly the incorrigible vice of drinking,
+and with it the usual concomitant of that vice,--the love of low company.
+To be King of the Bohemians, to dazzle by his wild humour, and sometimes
+to exalt by his fanciful eloquence, the rude, gross natures that gathered
+round him,--this was a royalty that repaid him for all sacrifice of solid
+dignity; a foolscap crown that he would not have changed for an emperor's
+diadem.  Indeed, to appreciate rightly the talents of John Burley, it was
+necessary to hear him talk on such occasions.  As a writer, after all, he
+was now only capable of unequal desultory efforts; but as a talker, in
+his own wild way, he was original and matchless.  And the gift of talk is
+one of the most dangerous gifts a man can possess for his own sake,--the
+applause is so immediate, and gained with so little labour.  Lower and
+lower and lower had sunk John Burley, not only in the opinion of all who
+knew his name, but in the habitual exercise of his talents.  And this
+seemed wilfully--from choice.  He would write for some unstamped journal
+of the populace, out of the pale of the law, for pence, when he could
+have got pounds from journals of high repute.  He was very fond of
+scribbling off penny ballads, and then standing in the street to hear
+them sung.  He actually once made himself the poet of an advertising
+tailor, and enjoyed it excessively.  But that did not last long, for John
+Burley was a Pittite,--not a Tory, he used to say, but a Pittite.  And if
+you had heard him talk of Pitt, you would never have known what to make
+of that great statesman.  He treated him as the German commentators do
+Shakspeare, and invested him with all imaginary meanings and objects,
+that would have turned the grand practical man into a sibyl.  Well, he
+was a Pittite; the tailor a fanatic for Thelwall and Cobbett.  Mr. Burley
+wrote a poem wherein Britannia appeared to the tailor, complimented him
+highly on the art he exhibited in adorning the persons of her sons; and
+bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said that he, and he alone, might
+be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of living men.  The rest of the
+poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's unavailing attempts to adjust this mantle
+to the eminent politicians of the day, when, just as he had sunk down in
+despair, Britannia reappeared to him, and consoled him with the
+information that he had done all mortal man could do, and that she had
+only desired to convince pigmies that no human art could adjust to THEIR
+proportions the mantle of William Pitt. /Sic itur ad astra/,--she went
+back to the stars, mantle and all!  Mr. Snip was exceedingly indignant at
+this allegorical effusion, and with wrathful shears cut the tie between
+himself and his poet.
+
+Thus, then, the reader has, we trust, a pretty good idea of John Burley,
+--a specimen of his genus not very common in any age, and now happily
+almost extinct, since authors of all degrees share in the general
+improvement in order, economy, and sober decorum, which has obtained in
+the national manners.  Mr. Prickett, though entering into less historical
+detail than we have done, conveyed to Leonard a tolerably accurate notion
+of the man, representing him as a person of great powers and learning,
+who had thoroughly thrown himself away.
+
+Leonard did not, however, see how much Mr. Burley himself was to be
+blamed for his waste of life; he could not conceive a man of genius
+voluntarily seating himself at the lowest step in the social ladder.  He
+rather supposed he had been thrust down there by Necessity.
+
+And when Mr. Prickett, concluding, said, "Well, I should think Burley
+would cure you of the desire to be an author even more than Chatterton,"
+the young man answered gloomily, "Perhaps," and turned to the book-
+shelves.
+
+With Mr. Prickett's consent, Leonard was released earlier than usual from
+his task, and a little before sunset he took his way to Highgate.  He was
+fortunately directed to take the new road by the Regent's Park, and so on
+through a very green and smiling country.  The walk, the freshness of the
+air, the songs of the birds, and, above all, when he had got half-way,
+the solitude of the road, served to rouse him from his stern and sombre
+meditations.  And when he came into the lane overhung with chestnut-
+trees, and suddenly caught sight of Helen's watchful and then brightening
+face, as she stood by the wicket, and under the shadow of cool, murmurous
+boughs, the blood rushed gayly through his veins, and his heart beat loud
+and gratefully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy.  Now behold
+them seated in the arbour,--a perfect bower of sweets and blossoms; the
+wilderness of roof-tops and spires stretching below, broad and far;
+London seen dim and silent, as in a dream.
+
+She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him in the face with
+tearful penetrating eyes.
+
+She did not say, "You are changed."  She said, "Why, why did I leave
+you?" and then turned away.
+
+"Never mind me, Helen.  I am man, and rudely born; speak of yourself.
+This lady is kind to you, then?"
+
+"Does she not let me see you?  Oh, very kind,--and look here."
+
+Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table.  "A feast,
+brother."
+
+And she began to press her hospitality with pretty winning ways, more
+playful than was usual to her, and talking very fast, and with forced,
+but silvery, laughter.
+
+By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve; and though he could
+not reveal to her the cause of his bitterest sorrow, he owned that he had
+suffered much.  He would not have owned that to another living being.
+And then, quickly turning from this brief confession, with assurances
+that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by speaking of his new
+acquaintance with the perch-fisher.  But when he spoke of this man with a
+kind of reluctant admiration, mixed with compassionate yet gloomy
+interest, and drew a grotesque, though subdued, sketch of the wild scene
+in which he had been spectator, Helen grew alarmed and grave.
+
+"Oh, brother, do not go there again,--do not see more of this bad man."
+
+"Bad!--no!  Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to stimulants and
+oblivion--but you cannot understand these things, my pretty preacher."
+
+"Yes, I do, Leonard.  What is the difference between being good and bad?
+The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do."
+
+The definition was so simple and so wise that Leonard was more struck
+with it than he might have been by the most elaborate sermon by Parson
+Dale.
+
+"I have often murmured to myself since I lost you, 'Helen was my good
+angel; '--say on.  For my heart is dark to myself, and while you speak
+light seems to dawn on it."
+
+This praise so confused Helen that she was long before she could obey the
+command annexed to it.  But, by little and little, words came to both
+more frankly.  And then he told her the sad tale of Chatterton, and
+waited, anxious to hear her comments.
+
+"Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how can I hope, when
+this mighty genius laboured and despaired?  What did he want, save birth
+and fortune and friends and human justice?"
+
+"Did he pray to God?" asked Helen, drying her tears.  Again Leonard was
+startled.  In reading the life of Chatterton he had not much noted the
+scepticism, assumed or real, of the ill-fated aspirer to earthly
+immortality.  At Helen's question, that scepticism struck him forcibly.
+"Why do you ask that, Helen?"
+
+"Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very patient," answered
+the child.  "Perhaps, had he been patient a few months more, all would
+have been won by him, as it will be by you, brother, for you pray, and
+you will be patient."
+
+Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time the thought was not
+gloomy.  Then out from that awful life there glowed another passage,
+which before he had not heeded duly, but regarded rather as one of the
+darkest mysteries in the fate of Chatterton.
+
+At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself up in his garret,
+to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, his genius had just found
+its way into the light of renown.  Good and learned and powerful men were
+preparing to serve and save him.  Another year--nay, perchance another
+month--and he might have stood acknowledged sublime in the foremost ranks
+of his age.
+
+"Oh, Helen!" cried Leonard, raising his brows, from which the cloud had
+passed, "why, indeed, did you leave me?"
+
+Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and in her turn
+grew thoughtful.  At length she asked him if he had written for the box
+which had belonged to her father and been left at the inn.
+
+And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought a childish
+interruption to themes of graver interest, owned, with self-reproach,
+that he had forgotten to do so.  Should he not write now to order the box
+to be sent to her at Miss Starke's?
+
+"No; let it be sent to you.  Take care of it.  I should like to know that
+something of mine is with you; and perhaps I may not stay here long."
+
+"Not stay here?  That you must, my dear Helen,--at least as long as Miss
+Starke will keep you, and is kind.  By and by" (added Leonard, with
+something of his former sanguine tone) "I may yet make my way, and we
+shall have our cottage to ourselves.  But--oh, Helen!--I forgot--you
+wounded me; you left your money with me.  I only found it in my drawers
+the other day.  Fie!  I have brought it back."
+
+"It was not mine,--it is yours.  We were to share together,--you paid
+all; and how can I want it here, too?" But Leonard was obstinate; and as
+Helen mournfully received back all that of fortune her father had
+bequeathed to her, a tall female figure stood at the entrance of the
+arbour, and said, in a voice that scattered all sentiment to the winds,
+"Young man, it is time to go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"Already?" said Helen, with faltering accents, as she crept to Miss
+Starke's side while Leonard rose and bowed.  "I am very grateful to you,
+madam," said he, with the grace that comes from all refinement of idea,
+"for allowing me to see Miss Helen.  Do not let me abuse your kindness."
+
+Miss Starke seemed struck with his look and manner, and made a stiff half
+courtesy.
+
+A form more rigid than Miss Starke's it was hard to conceive.  She was
+like the Grim White Woman in the nursery ballads.  Yet, apparently, there
+was a good-nature in allowing the stranger to enter her trim garden, and
+providing for him and her little charge those fruits and cakes which
+belied her aspect.  "May I go with him to the gate?" whispered Helen, as
+Leonard had already passed up the path.
+
+"You may, child; but do not loiter.  And then come back, and lock up the
+cakes and cherries, or Patty will get at them."
+
+Helen ran after Leonard.
+
+"Write to me, brother,--write to me; and do not, do not be friends with
+this man, who took you to that wicked, wicked place."
+
+"Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave worse dangers than
+that," said Leonard, almost gayly.
+
+They kissed each other at the little wicket gate, and parted.
+
+Leonard walked home under the summer moonlight, and on entering his
+chamber looked first at his rose-tree.  The leaves of yesterday's flowers
+lay strewn around it; but the tree had put forth new buds.
+
+"Nature ever restores," said the young man.  He paused a moment, and
+added, "Is it that Nature is very patient?"  His sleep that night was not
+broken by the fearful dreams he had lately known.  He rose refreshed, and
+went his way to his day's work,--not stealing along the less crowded
+paths, but with a firm step, through the throng of men.  Be bold,
+adventurer,--thou hast more to suffer!  Wilt thou sink?  I look into thy
+heart, and I cannot answer.
+
+
+
+
+
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