at the Tuileries or the Prefecture of the Seine; that the English were invited and respected everywhere; that the Ambassador was most hospitable; that the clergymen were admirable; and that at their boarding-house, kept by Madame la Générale Baronne de Smolensk, at the "Petit Château d'Espagne," Avenue de Valmy, Champs Elysées, they had balls twice a month, the most comfortable apartments, the most choice society, and every comfort and luxury at so many francs per month, with an allowance for children -I say Mrs. Baynes was very greatly moved. "It is not," she said, "in consequence of the balls at the Ambassador's or the Tuileries, for I am an old woman; and in spite of what you say, Colonel, I can't fancy, after Government House, anything more magnificent in any French palace. It is not for me, goodness knows, I speak: but the children should have education, and my Charlotte an entrée into the world; and what you say of the invaluable clergyman, Mr. X, I have been thinking of it all night; but above all, above all, of the chances of education for my darlings. Nothing should give way to that-nothing!" On this a long and delightful conversation and calculation took place. Bunch produced his bills at the Baroness de Smolensk's. The two gentlemen jotted up accounts, and made calculations all through the evening. It was hard even for Mrs. Baynes to force the figures into such a shape as to make them accord with the General's income; but, driven away by one calculation after another, she returned again and again to the charge, until she overcame the stubborn arithmetical difficulties, and the pounds, shillings, and pence lay prostrate before her. They could save upon this point; they could screw upon that; they must make a sacrifice to educate the children. "Sarah Bunch and her girls go to Court, indeed! Why shouldn't mine go?" she asked. On which her General said, "By George, Eliza, that's the point you are thinking of.” On which Eliza said, "No," and repeated "No" a score of times, growing more angry as she uttered each denial. And she declared before Heaven she did not want to go to any Court. Had she not refused to be presented at home, though Mrs. Colonel Flack went, because she did not choose to go to the wicked expense of a train? And it was base of the General, base and mean of him to say so. And there was a fine scene, as I am given to understand: not that I was present at this family fight: but my informant was Mr. Firmin; and Mr. Firmin had his information from a little person who, about this time, had got to prattle out all the secrets of her young heart to him; who would have jumped off the pier-head with her hand in his if he had said "Come," without his hand if he said "Go": a little person whose whole life had been changed changed for a month past-changed in one minute, that minute when she saw Philip's fiery whiskers and heard his great big voice saluting her father amongst the commissioners on the quai before the Custom-house. Tours was, at any rate, a hundred and fifty miles farther off than Paris from-from a city where a young gentleman lived in whom Miss Charlotte Baynes felt an interest; hence, I suppose, arose her delight that her parents had determined upon taking up their residence in the larger and nearer city. Besides, she owned, in the course of her artless confidences to my wife, that, when together, mamma and Aunt MacWhirter quarrelled unceasingly; and had once caused the old boys, the Major and the General, to call each other out. She preferred, then, to live away from Aunt Mac. She had never had such a friend as Laura, never. She had never been so happy as at Boulogne, never. She should always love everybody in our house, that she should, for ever and ever and so forth and so forth. The ladies meet; cling together; osculations are carried round the whole family circle, from our wondering eldest boy, who cries, "I say, hullo! what are you kissing me so about?" to darling baby, crowing and sputtering unconscious in the rapturous young girl's embraces. I tell you, these two women were making fools of themselves, and they were burning with enthusiasm for the "preserver" of the Baynes family, as they called that big fellow yonder, whose biographer I have aspired to be. The lazy rogue lay basking in the glorious warmth and sunshine of early love. He would stretch his big limbs out in our garden; pour out his feelings with endless volubility; call upon hominum divumque voluptas, alma Venus; vow that he had never lived or been happy until now; declare that he laughed poverty to scorn and all her ills; and fume against his masters of the Pall Mall Gazette, because they declined to insert certain love verses which Mr. Philip now composed almost every day. Poor little Charlotte! And didst thou receive those treasures of song; and wonder over them, not perhaps comprehending them altogether; and lock them up in thy heart's inmost casket as well as in thy little desk; and take them out in quiet hours, and kiss them, and bless Heaven for giving thee such jewels? I daresay. I can fancy all this, without seeing it. I can read the little letters in the little desk, without picking lock or breaking seal. Poor little letters! Sometimes they are not spelt right, quite; but I don't know that the style is worse for that. Poor little letters! You are flung to the winds sometimes and forgotten with all your sweet secrets and loving artless confessions; but not always-no, not always. As for Philip, who was the most careless creature alive, and left all his clothes and haberdashery sprawling on his bedroom floor, he had at this time a breast-pocket stuffed out with papers which crackled in the most ridiculous way. He was always looking down at this precious pocket, and putting one of his great hands over it as though he would guard it. The pocket did not contain bank-notes, you may be sure of that. It contained documents stating that mamma's cold is better; the Joneses came to tea, and Julia sang, &c. Ah, friend, however old you are now, however cold you are now, however tough, I hope you, too, remember how Julia sang, and the Joneses came to tea. Mr. Philip stayed on week after week, declaring to my wife that she was a perfect angel for keeping him so long. Bunch wrote from his boarding-house more and more enthusiastic reports about the comforts of the establishment. For his sake, Madame la Baronne de Smolensk would make unheard-of sacrifices, in order to accommodate the General and his distinguished party. The balls were going to be perfectly splendid that winter. There were several old Indians living near; in fact they could form a regular little club. It was agreed that Baynes should go and reconnoitre the ground. He did go. Madame de Smolensk, a most elegant woman, had a magnificent dinner for him-quite splendid, I give you my word, but only what they have every day. Soup, of course, my love; fish, capital wine, and, I should say, some five or six-and-thirty made dishes. The General was quite enraptured. Bunch had put his boys to a famous school, where they might "whop" the French boys, and learn all the modern languages. The little ones would dine early; the Baroness would take the whole family at an astonishingly cheap rate. In a word, the Baynes's column got the route for Paris shortly before our familyparty was crossing the seas to return to London fogs and duty. You have, no doubt, remarked how, under certain tender circumstances, women will help one another. They help where they ought not to help. When Mr. Darby ought to be separated from Miss Joan, and the best thing that could happen for both would be a lettre de cachet to whip off M. Darby to the Bastile for five years, and an order from her parents to lock up Mademoiselle Jeanne in a convent, some aunt, some relative, some pitying female friend is sure to be found, who will give the pair a chance of meeting, and turn her head away whilst those unhappy lovers are warbling endless good-byes close up to each other's ears. My wife, I have said, chose to feel this absurd sympathy for the young people about whom we have been just talking. As the days for Charlotte's departure drew near, this wretched misguiding matron would take the girl out walking into I know not what unfrequented bye-lanes, quiet streets, rampart-nooks, and the like; and la! by the most singular coincidence, Mr. Philip's hulking boots would assuredly come tramping after the women's little feet. What will you say, when I tell you, that I myself, the father of the family, the renter of the old-fashioned house, Rue Roucoule, Haute Ville, Boulogne-sur-Mer-as I am going into my own study -am met at the threshold by Helen, my eldest daughter, who puts her little arms before the glass door at which I was about to enter, and says, "You must not go in there, papa! mamma says we none of us are to go in there." "And why, pray?" I ask. "Because Uncle Philip and Charlotte are talking secrets there; and nobody is to disturb them-nobody!" Upon my word, wasn't this too monstrous? Am I Sir Pandarus of Troy become? Am I going to allow a penniless young man to steal away the heart of a young girl who has not twopence-halfpenny to her fortune? Shall I, I say, lend myself to this most unjustifiable intrigue? "Sir," says my wife (we happened to have been bred up from childhood together, and I own to have had one or two foolish initiatory flirtations before I settled down to matrimonial fidelity)— "Sir," says she, "when you were so wild-so spoony, I think is your elegant word--about Blanche, and used to put letters into a hollow tree for her at home, I used to see the letters, and I never disturbed them. These two people have much warmer hearts, and are a great deal fonder of each other, than you and Blanche used to be. I should not like to separate Charlotte from Philip now. It is too late, sir. She can never like anybody else as she likes him. If she lives to be a hundred, she will never forget him. Why should not the poor thing be happy a little, while she may?" An old house, with a green old courtyard and an ancient mossy wall, through breaks of which I can see the roofs and gables of the quaint old town, the city below, the shining sea, and the white English cliffs beyond; a green old courtyard, and a tall old stone house rising up in it, grown over with many a creeper on which the sun casts flickering shadows; and under the shadows, and through the glass of a tall grey window, I can just peep into a brown twilight parlour, and there I see two hazy figures by a table. One slim figure has brown hair, and one has flame-coloured whiskers. Look, a ray of sunshine has just peered into the room, and is lighting the whiskers up! "Poor little thing!" whispers my wife very gently. "They are going away to-morrow. Let them have their talk out. She is crying her little eyes out, I am sure. Poor little Charlotte!" Whilst my wife was pitying Miss Charlotte in this pathetic way, and was going, I daresay, to have recourse to her own pockethandkerchief, as I live there came a burst of laughter from the darkling chamber where the two lovers were billing and cooing. First came Mr. Philip's great boom (such a roar—such a haw-haw, or hee-haw, I never heard any other two-legged animal perform). Then follows Miss Charlotte's tinkling peal; and presently that young person comes out into the garden, with her round face not bedewed with tears at all, but perfectly rosy, fresh, dimpled, and good-humoured. Charlotte gives me a little curtsey, and my wife a hand and a kind glance. They retreat through the open casement, twining round each other, as the vine does round the window; though which is the vine and which is the window in this simile, I pretend not to say-I can't see through either of them, that is the truth. They pass through the parlour, and into the street beyond, doubtless; and as for Mr. Philip, I presently see his head popped out of his window in the upper floor with his great pipe in his mouth. He can't "work" without his pipe, he says; and my wife believes him. Work indeed! another little visit that evening, when The children were gone to bed. The Miss Charlotte paid us we happened to be alone. darlings! Charlotte must go up and kiss them. Mr. Philip Firmin was out. She did not seem to miss him in the least, nor did she make a single inquiry for him. We had been so good to her-so kind. How should she ever forget our great kindness? She had been so happy-oh! so happy! She had never been so happy before. She would write often and often, and Laura would write constantly wouldn't she? "Yes, dear child!" says my wife. And now a little more kissing, and it is time to go home to the Tintelleries. What a lovely night! Indeed the moon was blazing in full round in the purple heavens, and the stars were twinkling by myriads. 66 Good-bye, dear Charlotte; happiness go with you!" I seize her hand. I feel a paternal desire to kiss her fair round face. Her sweetness, her happiness, her artless good-humour, and gentleness has endeared her to us all. As for me, I love her with a fatherly affection. "Stay, my dear!" I cry, with a happy gallantry, “I'll go home with you to the Tintelleries." You should have seen the fair round face then! Such a piteous expression came over it! She looked at my wife; and as for that Mrs. Laura she pulled the tail of my coat. "What do you mean, my dear?" I ask. "Don't go out on such a dreadful night. You'll catch cold!” says Laura. |