and agitation on hearing of this match. He ran home: he awaited his father's return. When Dr. Firmin came home and betook himself to his study, Philip confronted him there. "This must be a lie, sir, which I have heard to-day," the young man said fiercely. "A lie! what lie, Philip?" asked the father. They were both very resolute and courageous men.

"That you are going to marry Miss Benson."

"Do you make my house so happy, that I don't need any other companion?" asked the father.

"That's not the question," said Philip hotly. "You can't and mustn't marry that lady, sir!".

"And why not, sir?"

"Because in the eyes of God and Heaven you are married already, sir. And I swear I will tell Miss Benson the story tomorrow, if you persist in your plan."

"So you know that story?" groaned the father.

"It was a fault of my youth that has been bitterly repented." "A fault!-a crime!" said Philip.

Enough, sir! Whatever my fault, it is not for you to charge me with it."

"If you won't guard your own honour, I must. I shall go to Miss Benson now."

"If you go out of this house you don't pretend to return to it." "Be it so. Let us settle our accounts and part, sir."

Philip, Philip! you break my heart," cried the father. "You don't suppose mine is very light, sir," said the son. Philip never had Miss Benson for a mother-in-law.

and son loved each other no better after their dispute.

But father

Τ

CHAPTER VI

BRANDON'S

HORNHAUGH STREET is but a poor place now, and the

houses look as if they had seen better days: but that house with the cut centre drawing-room window, which has the name of Brandon on the door, is as neat as any house in the quarter, and the brass plate always shines like burnished gold. About Easter time many fine carriages stop at that door, and splendid people walk in, introduced by a tidy little maid, or else by an athletic Italian, with a glossy black beard and gold earrings, who conducts them to the drawing-room floor, where Mr. Ridley, the painter, lives, and where his pictures are privately exhibited before they go to the Royal Academy.

As the carriages drive up, you will often see a red-faced man, in an olive-green wig, smiling blandly over the blinds of the parlour, on the ground-floor. That is Captain Gann, the father of the lady who keeps the house. I don't know how he came by the rank of captain, but he has borne it so long and gallantly that there is no use in any longer questioning the title. He does not claim it, neither does he deny it. But the wags who call upon Mrs. Brandon can always, as the phrase is, "draw" her father, by speaking of Prussia, France, Waterloo, or battles in general, until the Little Sister says, "Now, never mind about the battle of Waterloo, papa (she says pa-her h's are irregular-I can't help it)" Never mind about Waterloo, papa; you've told them all about it. And don't go on, Mr. Beans, don't, please, go on in that way."

Young Beans has already drawn "Captain Gann (assisted by Shaw, the Life-Guardsman) killing twenty-four French cuirassiers at Waterloo." "Captain Gann defending Hougoumont." "Captain Gann, called upon by Napoleon Bonaparte to lay down his arms, saying, 'A captain of militia dies, but never surrenders.' "The Duke of Wellington pointing to the advancing Old Guard, and saying, 'Up, Gann, and at them." And these sketches are so droll, that even the Little Sister, Gann's own daughter, can't help laughing at them. To be sure, she loves fun, the Little

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Sister; laughs over droll books; laughs to herself, in her little quiet corner at work; laughs over pictures; and, at the right place, laughs and sympathises too. Ridley says, he knows few better critics of pictures than Mrs. Brandon. She has a sweet temper, a merry sense of humour, that makes the cheeks dimple and the eyes shine; and a kind heart, that has been sorely tried and wounded, but is still soft and gentle. Fortunate are they whose hearts, so tried by suffering, yet recover their health. Some have illnesses from which there is no recovery, and drag through life afterwards, maimed and invalided.

But this Little Sister, having been subjected in youth to a dreadful trial and sorrow, was saved out of them by a kind Providence, and is now so thoroughly restored as to own that she is happy, and to thank God that she can be grateful and useful. When poor Montfitchet died, she nursed him through his illness as tenderly as his good wife herself. In the days of her own chief grief and misfortune, her father, who was under the domination of his wife, a cruel and blundering woman, thrust out poor little Caroline from his door, when she returned to it the broken-hearted victim of a scoundrel's seduction; and when the old Captain was himself in want and houseless, she had found him, sheltered and fed him. And it was from that day her wounds had begun to heal, and, from gratitude for this immense piece of good fortune vouchsafed to her, that her happiness and cheerfulness returned. Returned? There was an old servant of the family, who could not stay in the house because she was so abominably disrespectful to the Captain, and this woman said she had never known Miss Caroline so cheerful, nor so happy, nor so good-looking, as she was now.

So Captain Gann came to live with his daughter, and patronised her with much dignity. He had a very few yearly pounds, which served to pay his club expenses, and a portion of his clothes. His club, I need not say, was at the "Admiral Byng," Tottenham Court Road, and here the Captain met frequently a pleasant little society, and bragged unceasingly about his former prosperity.

I have heard that the country-house in Kent, of which he boasted, was a shabby little lodging-house at Margate, of which the furniture was sold in execution; but if it had been a palace the Captain would not have been out of place there, one or two people still rather fondly thought. His daughter, amongst others, had tried to fancy all sorts of good of her father, and especially that he was a man of remarkably good manners. But she had seen one or two gentlemen since she knew the poor old father-gentlemen with rough coats and good hearts, like Dr. Goodenough; gentlemen

with superfine coats and superfine double-milled manners, like Dr. Firmin, and hearts—well, never mind about that point; gentlemen of no h's, like the good dear faithful benefactor who had rescued her at the brink of despair; men of genius, like Ridley; great hearty generous honest gentlemen, like Philip ;-and this illusion about pa, I suppose, had vanished along with some other fancies of her poor little maiden youth. The truth is, she had an understanding with the "Admiral Byng": the landlady was instructed as to the supplies to be furnished to the Captain; and as for his stories, poor Caroline knew them a great deal too well to believe in them any more.

I would not be understood to accuse the Captain of habitual inebriety. He was a generous officer, and his delight was, when in cash, to order "glasses round" for the company at the club, to whom he narrated the history of his brilliant early days, when he lived in some of the tip-top society of this city, sir-a society in which, we need not say, the custom always is for gentlemen to treat other gentlemen to rum-and-water. Never mind—I wish we were all as happy as the Captain. I see his jolly face now before me as it blooms through the window in Thornhaugh Street, and the wave of the somewhat dingy hand which sweeps me a gracious recognition.

The clergyman of the neighbouring chapel was a very good friend of the Little Sister, and has taken tea in her parlour; to which circumstance the Captain frequently alluded, pointing out the very chair on which the divine sat. Mr. Gann attended his ministrations regularly every Sunday, and brought a rich, though somewhat worn, bass voice to bear upon the anthems and hymns at the chapel. His style was more florid than is general now among church singers, and, indeed, had been acquired in a former age and in the performance of rich Bacchanalian chants, such as delighted the contemporaries of our Incledons and Brahams. With a very little entreaty the Captain could be induced to sing at the club; and I must own that Phil Firmin would draw the Captain out, and extract from him a song of ancient days; but this must be in the absence of his daughter, whose little face wore an air of such extreme terror and disturbance when her father sang, that he presently ceased from exercising his musical talents in her hearing. He hung up his lyre, whereof it must be owned that time had broken many of the once resounding chords.

With a sketch or two contributed by her lodgers-with a few gimcracks from the neighbouring Wardour Street presented by others of her friends with the chairs, tables, and bureaux as bright as bees'-wax and rubbing could make them-the Little

Sister's room was a cheery little place, and received not a little company. She allowed pa's pipe. "It's company to him,” she said. "A man can't be doing much harm when he is smoking his pipe." And she allowed Phil's cigar. Anything was allowed to Phil, the other lodgers declared, who professed to be quite jealous of Philip Firmin. She had a very few books. "When I was a girl I used to be always reading novels," she said; "but la, they're mostly nonsense. There's Mr. Pendennis, who comes to see Mr. Ridley. I wonder how a married man can go on writing about love, and all that stuff!" And, indeed, it is rather absurd for elderly fingers to be still twanging Dan Cupid's toy bow and arrows. Yesterday is gone-yes, but very well remembered; and we think of it the more now we know that To-morrow is not going to bring us much.

Into Mrs. Brandon's parlour Mr. Ridley's old father would sometimes enter of evenings, and share the bit of bread and cheese, or the modest supper of Mrs. Brandon and the Captain. The homely little meal has almost vanished out of our life now, but in former days it assembled many a family round its kindly board. A little modest supper-tray- -a little quiet prattle-a little kindly glass that cheered and never inebriated. I can see friendly faces smiling round such a meal, at a period not far gone, but how distant! I wonder whether there are any old folks now, in old quarters of old country towns, who come to each other's houses in sedan-chairs, at six o'clock, and play at quadrille until supper-tray time? Of evenings Ridley and the Captain, I say, would have a solemn game at cribbage, and the Little Sister would make up a jug of something good for the two oldsters. She liked Mr. Ridley to come, for he always treated her father so respectful, and was quite the gentleman. And as for Mrs. Ridley, Mr. R.'s "good lady," was she not also grateful to the Little Sister for having nursed her son during his malady? Through their connection they were enabled to procure Mrs. Brandon many valuable friends; and always were pleased to pass an evening with the Captain, and were as civil to him as they could have been had he been at the very height of his prosperity and splendour. My private opinion of the old Captain, you see, is that he was a worthless old Captain, but most fortunate in his early ruin, after which he had lived very much admired and comfortable, sufficient whisky being almost always provided for him.

Old Mr. Ridley's respect for her father afforded a most precious consolation to the Little Sister. Ridley liked to have the paper read to him. He was never quite easy with print, and to his last days many words to be met with in newspapers and elsewhere used to occasion the good butler much intellectual trouble. The Little