heart and his honesty had been ruined by it, that is to say; and he had received, in return for them, a small quantity of classics and mathematics-pretty compensation for all he had lost in gaining them! But I am wandering most absurdly from the point; right or wrong, so nature and education had formed Mr. Brandon, who is one of a considerable class. Well, this young gentleman was established at Mrs. Gann's house; and we are obliged to enter into all these explanations concerning him, because they are necessary to the right understanding of our story-Brandon not being altogether a bad man, nor much worse than many a one who goes through a course of regular selfish swindling all his life long, and dies religious, resigned, proud of himself, and universally respected by others; for this eminent advantage has the gettingand-keeping scoundrel over the extravagant and careless one. One day, then, as he was gazing from the window of his lodginghouse, a cart, containing a vast number of easels, portfolios, wooden cases of pictures, and a small carpet-bag that might hold a change of clothes, stopped at the door. The vehicle was accompanied by a remarkable young fellow-dressed in a frock-coat covered over with frogs, a dirty turned-down shirt-collar, with a blue satin cravat, and a cap placed wonderfully on one ear-who had evidently hired apartments at Mr. Gann's. This new lodger was no other than Mr. Andrew Fitch; or, as he wrote on his cards, without the prefix, ANDREA FITCH. Preparations had been made at Gann's for the reception of Mr. Fitch, whose aunt (an auctioneer's lady in the town) had made arrangements that he should board and lodge with the Gann family, and have the apartments on the second floor as his private rooms. In these, then, young Andrea was installed. He was a youth of a poetic temperament, loving solitude; and where is such to be found more easily than on the storm-washed shores of Margate in winter? Then the boarding-house keepers have shut up their houses and gone away in anguish; then the taverns take their carpets up, and you can have your choice of a hundred and twenty beds in any one of them; then but one dismal waiter remains to superintend this vast echoing pile of loneliness, and the landlord pines for summer; then the flies for Ramsgate stand tenantless beside the pier; and about four sailors, in pea-jackets, are to be seen in the three principal streets; in the rest, silence, closed shutters, torpid chimneys enjoying their unnatural winter sinecure -not the clack of a patten echoing over the cold dry flags ! This solitude had been chosen by Mr. Brandon for good reasons of his own; Gann and his family would have fled, but that they had no other house wherein to take refuge; and Mrs. Hammerton, the auctioneer's lady, felt so keenly the kindness which she was doing to Mrs. Gann, in providing her with a lodger at such a period, that she considered herself fully justified in extracting from the latter a bonus of two guineas, threatening on refusal to send her darling nephew to a rival establishment over the way. Andrea was here then, in the loneliness that he loved,—a fantastic youth, who lived but for his art; to whom the world was like the Coburg Theatre, and he in a magnificent costume acting a principal part. His art, and his beard and whiskers, were the darlings of his heart. His long pale hair fell over a high polished brow, which looked wonderfully thoughtful; and yet no man was more guiltless of thinking. He was always putting himself into attitudes; he never spoke the truth; and was so entirely affected and absurd, as to be quite honest at last for it is my belief that the man did not know truth from falsehood any longer, and was when he was alone, when he was in company, nay, when he was unconscious and sound asleep snoring in bed, one complete lump of affectation. When his apartments on the second floor were arranged according to his fancy, they made a tremendous show. He had a large Gothic chest, in which he put his wardrobe (namely, two velvet waistcoats, four varied satin under ditto, two pairs braided trousers, two shirts, half-a-dozen false collars, and a couple of pairs of dreadfully dilapidated Blucher boots). He had some pieces of armour; some China jugs and Venetian glasses; some bits of old damask rags, to drape his doors and windows: and a rickety lay figure, in a Spanish hat and cloak, over which slung a long Toledo rapier, and a guitar, with a riband of dirty sky-blue. Such was our poor fellow's stock in trade. He had some volumes of poems-"Lalla Rookh," and the sterner compositions of Byron; for, to do him justice, he hated "Don Juan," and a woman was in his eyes an angel; a hangel, alas! he would call her, for nature and the circumstances of his family had taken sad Cockney advantages over Andrea's pronunciation. The Misses Wellesley Macarty were not, however, very squeamish with regard to grammar, and, in this dull season, voted Mr. Fitch an elegant young fellow. His immense beard and whiskers gave them the highest opinion of his genius; and before long the intimacy between the young people was considerable, for Mr. Fitch insisted upon drawing the portraits of the whole family. He painted Mrs. Gann in her rouge and ribands, as described by Mr. Brandon; Mr. Gann, who said that his picture would be very useful to the artist, as every soul in Margate knew him; and the Misses Macarty (a neat group, representing Miss Bella embracing Miss Linda, who was pointing to a pianoforte). "I suppose you'll do my Carry next?" said Mr. Gann, expressing his approbation of the last picture. 66 Law, sir," said Miss Linda, "Carry with her red hair!-it would be ojus." "Mr. Fitch might as well paint Becky, our maid," said Miss Bella. "Carry is quite impossible, Gann," said Mrs. Gann; "she hasn't a gown fit to be seen in. She's not been at church for thirteen Sundays in consequence." "And more shame for you, ma'am," said Mr. Gann, who liked his child; "Carry shall have a gown, and the best of gowns." And jingling three-and-twenty shillings in his pocket, Mr. Gann determined to spend them all in the purchase of a robe for Carry. But alas! the gown never came; half the money was spent that very evening at the "Bag of Nails." "Is that that young lady your daughter?" said Mr. Fitch, surprised, for he fancied Carry was a humble companion of the family. "Yes, she is, and a very good daughter too, sir," answered Mr. Gann. "Fetch and Carry I call her, or else Carryvan-she's so useful. Ain't you, Carry?" "I'm very glad if I am, papa," said the young lady, who was blushing violently, and in whose presence all this conversation had been carried on. "Hold your tongue, miss," said her mother; "you are very expensive to us, that you are, and need not brag about the work you do. You would not live on charity, would you, like some folks?" (here she looked fiercely at Mr. Gann); "and if your sisters and me starve to keep you and some folks, I presume you are bound to make us some return." When any allusion was made to Mr. Gann's idleness and extravagance, or his lady showed herself in any way inclined to be angry, it was honest James's habit not to answer, but to take his hat and walk abroad to the public-house; or if haply she .scolded him at night, he would turn his back and fall a-snoring. These were the only remedies he found for Mrs. James's bad temper, and the first of them he adopted on hearing these words of his lady, which we have just now transcribed. Poor Caroline had not her father's refuge of flight, but was obliged to stay and listen; and a wondrous eloquence, God wot! had Mrs. Gann upon the subject of her daughter's ill-conduct. The first lecture Mr. Fitch heard, he set down Caroline for a monster. Was she not idle, sulky, scornful, and a sloven? For these and many more of her daughter's vices Mrs. Gann vouched, declaring that Caroline's misbehaviour was hastening her own death, and finishing by a fainting-fit. In the presence of all these charges, there stood Miss Caroline, dumb, stupid, and careless; nay, when the fainting-fit came on, and Mrs. Gann fell back on the sofa, the unfeeling girl took the opportunity to retire, and never offered to smack her mamma's hands, to give her the smellingbottle, or to restore her with a glass of water. One stood close at hand; for Mr. Fitch, when this first fit occurred, was sitting in the Gann parlour, painting that lady's portrait; and he was making towards her with his tumbler, when Miss Linda cried out, "Stop, the water's full of paint;" and straightway burst out laughing. Mrs. Gann jumped up at this, cured suddenly, and left the room, looking somewhat foolish. "You don't know ma," said Miss Linda, still giggling; "she's always fainting." "Poor thing!" cried Fitch; "very nervous, I suppose?" "Oh, very!" answered the lady, exchanging arch glances with Miss Bella. "Poor dear lady!" continued the artist; "I pity her from my hinmost soul. Doesn't the himmortal bard of Havon observe, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child? And is it true, ma'am, that that young woman has been the ruin of her family?" "Ruin of her fiddlestick!" replied Miss Bella. "Law, Mr. Fitch, you don't know ma yet; she is in one of her tantrums." What, then, it isn't true?" cried simple-minded Fitch. To which neither of the young ladies made any answer in words, nor could the little artist comprehend why they looked at each other, and burst out laughing. But he retired pondering on what he had seen and heard; and being a very soft young fellow, most implicitly believed the accusations of poor dear Mrs. Gann, and thought her daughter Caroline was no better than a Regan or Goneril. A time, however, was to come when he should believe her to be a most pure and gentle Cordelia; and of this change in Fitch's opinions we shall speak in Chapter III. CHAPTER III A SHABBY GENTEEL DINNER, AND OTHER INCIDENTS M' R. BRANDON'S letter to Lord Cinqbars produced, as we have said, a great impression upon the family of Gann; an impression which was considerably increased by their lodger's subsequent behaviour: for although the persons with whom he now associated were of a very vulgar ridiculous kind, they were by no means so low or ridiculous that Mr. Brandon should not wish to appear before them in the most advantageous light; and, accordingly, he gave himself the greatest airs when in their company, and bragged incessantly of his acquaintance and familiarity with the nobility. Mr. Brandon was a tuft-hunter of the genteel sort; his pride being quite as slavish, and his haughtiness as mean and cringing, in fact, as poor Mrs. Gann's stupid wonder and respect for all the persons whose names are written with titles before them. O free and happy Britons, what a miserable, truckling, cringing race ye are ! The reader has no doubt encountered a number of such swaggerers in the course of his conversation with the world-men of a decent middle rank, who affect to despise it, and herd only with persons of the fashion. This is an offence in a man which none of us can forgive: we call him tuft-hunter, lickspittle, sneak, unmanly; we hate, and profess to despise him. I fear it is no such thing. We envy Lickspittle, that is the fact; and therefore hate him. Were he to plague us with the stories of Jones and Brown, our familiars, the man would be a simple bore, his stories heard patiently; but so soon as he talks of my Lord or the Duke, we are in arms against him. I have seen a whole merry party in Russell Square grow suddenly gloomy and dumb, because a pert barrister, in a loud shrill voice, told a story of Lord This, or the Marquis of That. We all hated that man; and I would lay a wager that every one of the fourteen persons assembled round the boiled turkey and saddle of mutton (not to mention side-dishes from the pastrycook's opposite the British Museum)-I would wager, I say, that everyone was muttering inwardly, "A plague on that fellow! he knows |