Happy the man who can be so easily pleased!

Independent of her juxtaposition to John Gordon, which of itself was sufficient to make her a little pre-occupied, Bella was a young hostess, and unconsciously somewhat fidgety about the success of the entertainment. Consequently Gilbert's efforts to amuse her often fell short of the mark; and as he observed her eye and her attention equally fixed elsewhere, he had himself the more leisure to follow his own inclinations, and improve his acquaintance with the guest whose face and tones, he knew too well, possessed for him a peculiar fascination.

Gilbert! Gilbert! will you take no warning? What is this very instinct, but a placard, so to speak, advertising you that the ice is 'dangerous? On you skate recklessly, though it cracks and sways beneath you. In you will go overhead. What a ducking you will have! Perhaps you will never get your head above the surface again!

I have heard it affirmed by the vanity of man, that if you would make the agreeable to a fair neighbour at the dinner-table, it is judicious to abstain from hurrying her at first, and to give her plenty of time to settle before you commence operations. When she has pecked at her food, like some dainty bird, and sipped at her champagne, and had, moreover, leisure to look about her, and to think, 'Is he going to speak to me or not? it is time enough to hazard your first observation. This is probably a harmless platitude, provoking an equally harmless reply; but from that moment your boat is launched. You are afloat on the stream that leads -who knows where? Dieu vous garde! If you get capsized, you are more likely to sink than to swim.

Ada had stolen a good look at her neighbour whilst he was dutifully conversing with Miss Jones. In her heart she distinctly approved of what she saw. His exterior was sufficiently pleasing to the feminine eye. His manner had a charm in it that seldom failed to work its

285

way. It was far more refined, and at the same time more natural, than that of the men whom she was accustomed to meet, or of those who belonged to the dissipated set in which her husband used to live. The German blood, too, stirred within her, to sympathize with a certain leavening of ideality and romance, which all the conventionalities of society could not completely hide. His voice, too, was very taking and kindly. When he turned to her with the simplest observation about some dish on the table, she could not but feel and show that she was pleased, and she answered with more animation than was usual in the staid and retiring music-mistress.

They soon got deep into conversation. They talked of her mother's country and her mother's tongue. When Gilbert got rid of his dandyism he was worth listening to; and on the present occasion there was a tone of softness in his voice, a shade almost of embarrassment in his manner, such as women are very quick to detect, and which the haughtiest of them cannot but accept as an involuntary tribute of admiration. They liked the same places, the same books, the same flowers, the same music; and her eye sparkled and deepened, while her cheek glowed with the unwonted pleasure of a kindred spirit's converse, though only for an hour at a dinner-table.

'Do you know, Mrs. Latimer,' said he, looking straight in her face with frank honest eyes, that I have heard you sing? And he went on to tell her of his attendance at the concert, and the delight he had experienced (only he rather broke down in the confession) at her song; all this quite simply, and as if her singing in public was as much a matter of course as her being there. She liked him all the better. She was pleased to feel that he thought none the lower of her that she did not belong to his own sphere of society; and her own tact acknowledged the intuitive delicacy by which he was certain that she would shrink no more from the allusion than he did him

self. She thought she would like him to hear that song once again, not in public, but sung on purpose for him. Ada, too, was entering unawares into the stream. Already it was over her ankles. Let us hope her boots were waterproof, and her foothold firm.

She was quite sorry when it was time to retire to the drawing-room. When Bella, fitting on her gloves, telegraphed sailing orders to Mrs. Bullingdon, and that lady rising from amidst her draperies, shook out a cloud of canvas, and forged majestically a-head, she would have liked to indulge in one backward glance as she departed; but for that very reason be sure she avoided anything of the kind, or she would not have been Ada Latimer. Bella had no such scruples. Besides, she was the last of the convoy. So she shot a Parthian shaft at John Gordon, unfortunately lost on its object, who was at that moment reaching over for the grapes, and obeying his host's injunction to close in.'

Warned by Acteon's fate, we do not presume to follow the ladies to their bower. Rather let us remain and discuss the magnum of claret which circulates so rapidly under the Alderman's auspices. Fresh, fragrant, and blushing, like the cup of youth, to be quaffed as greedily, to ebb as quickly, and to leave at last nothing but an empty bottle!

Bullingdon liked good claret: so do I. He drank it in large quantities, and expatiated between-whiles on his preserves at Bullingdon Butts, and the different projectiles with which he made war upon the feathered race. He mentioned from what a small particle of shot a woodcock might meet its death; and the conversation becoming general, turned upon the tenacity of life in different natures, and at last upon the easiest method of quitting it for the human subject. Hitherto the one-eyed man had preserved unbroken silence, sticking like a leech, nevertheless, to a bottle of rare old port. This, however, was a topic with which he was familiar, and he stated his opinion without hesitation.

'Bleeding's easiest for grown men and women,' observed the old gentleman, filling his glass. 'I've bled a dozen and more to death whilst the men were at dinner. They scarce seemed to feel it after the first gash.'

Bullingdon pushed his chair three feet farther off, with a look at his neighbour which it is impossible to convey. There was a pause of astonishment, and the old gentleman proceeded with the utmost sang froid.

'I was running a cargo-that's a black cargo-from the Gold Coast. Got driven by bad weather to the southward, and found myself becalmed in the Bight of Benin. Water short, schooner over-manned, and the cargo bad off for stowage, though we had a third on deck, leghampered, day and night. It was warm down in the hold; for though she was a sweet craft, d'ye see, she hadn't been built for the trade, and I'd altered her run myself, when I ought to have known better., My first mate was a long-winded chap, I think he never left off whistling for a week; but the schooner headed all round the compass just the same. I thought I should never see a cat's-paw again. Well, the cargo suffered horrible. It's bad to be thirsty in these low latitudes when there is nothing to drink. I was obliged to make away with some of them to save the rest. I divided them into watches, and put the weakest of the men and the oldest of the women into the condemned watch, giving each a chance by lot, according as the weather should hold. First I took and hove them overboard one by one, thinking it was a cool and merciful death for the poor thirsty creatures; but I'm a humane man, sir, and I couldn't bear to see their eyes-'specially the women-as they went over the side. Have you ever watched a face, sir, just when the last chance is up? It's an ugly sight, a very ugly sight,' said the old gentleman, with a retrospective sigh, filling his glass the while.

Bullingdon, to whom this ghastly narrative was especially addressed,

1861.]

could not find a voice to reply. He set his wine down untasted, and looked as if he was going to be sick.

66

'Well, sir,' resumed the slaveowner, I'd a surgeon's mate aboard, a sharpish fellow enough he was hanged afterwards at Porto Rico, says he to me, Skipper," says he, "it's cruel work to frighten these poor devils to death before you put 'em to death," says he. "If you'll give me leave, and a couple of hands to swab, I'll just 'tice 'em in here, in the cook's galley, and finish them off on the quiet, as nice as possible." So I went in with him, as in duty bound-for a man's not fit to command a ship, I say, unless he knows all that's going on in that ship, and I kept a bright look out, though I let him use his own tools in his own way. He was a neat workman, a very neat workman, to be sure. He just slipped a lancet into the jugular, here, you see, under the ear, and they bled to death a baker's dozen of 'em-as easy as I could crack a biscuit. The breeze got up after this, and I'd a rare good run to the Cape de Verde Islands; but I never had a chance afterwards. It was a bad speculation was that; a bad speculation from one end of the log to the other.'

'Gracious heavens!' burst out Bullingdon, in a white heat; 'can you bear to talk of such horrors? Can you bear to think of your victims ? Shall you ever forget them till your dying day?

The old gentleman shook his head, and emptied the bottle.

I can bear most things,' he said; 'I've had such a many ups and downs; but I don't think I ever shall forget that calm.

It couldn't have cost me less than seventy-five dollars a head, even for the weakest of them. Seventyfive dollars a-head,' he repeated, thoughtfully. 'No, I don't think I ever shall forget it!'

Nobody seemed to care about any more wine after this. Even the Madeira remained untouched, and Bullingdon was as near having a fit as a man can be. The only

287

clear idea that remained in his head was an earnest wish to get away from his neighbour; and excellent as were its dinners, hospitable as was its owner, I think the one-eyed old gentleman might have starved ten times over before he would be asked to place his legs under the mahogany at Bullingdon Butts.

In the drawing-room people breathed more freely. There being nothing more to drink, the oneeyed man took his departure, and the indefinite youth unguardedly answering in the affirmative to the Alderman's question about 'cutting in,' found himself set down to the abstruse science of whist for the rest of the evening, with Mrs. Bullingdon for a partner-an arrangement not tending to mitigate the alarm with which he already regarded that excellent lady.

Blanche Bullingdon, still hankering slightly after the conquest of Mr. Orme, was of course asked to play. Equally of course she did play, accurately, conscientiously, in excellent time, and without a particle of feeling; the rest of the party, with the exception of the quartett at the whist-table, hovering round the piano-forte, and expressing their approval with much

6

cor

diality. So Miss Blanche put on her bracelets once more, assumed her handkerchief, said 'Thank you, Mr. Orme,' for her gloves, and looked as if she thought she had acquitted herself very creditably. Then it was time for Bella to ask 'dear Mrs. Latimer' to sing, 'if she didn't mind, she was always so good-natured; and dear Mrs. Latimer' took her seat on the music-stool, and hesitated for a moment, and burst forth into the song, with just one instantly averted glance at Gilbert as she did so. It caught his eye, nevertheless; and Ada felt herself blushing painfully, and thought that never in her life had she sung with so little grace and self-command. If one of her listeners agreed with her, his countenance very much belied him; yet was he the only one who did not ask for it again-the only one who did not speak a syllable when she had done.

now

Pending all this music, Polly had necessarily been banished to the billiard-room, and he was heard enlivening his exile with such shameless volubility, that Bella was forced to go and remonstrate with him.

'Miss Bullingdon, you play billiards? asked Bella, with polite attention to her guest; and Blanche, who could use a mace as ineffectively as any other lady, answered in the affirmative, with an appealing look at Mr. Orme. Gilbert seemed lost in contemplation of a landscape on the wall; so Miss Blanche's glance was wasted on the parting of his back hair.

John Gordon good-naturedly proposed a match with the young lady, if Miss Jones would come and 'mark.'

'Of course I will,' said Bella. 'But let us go through the windows, it is such a beautiful night, and there's such a moon.'

Now the villa, like an Indian bungalow, was built with all its principal rooms on the ground floor; consequently it was as easy, besides being infinitely pleasanter, to step out by a French window into the garden, and so by the terrace in again at the glass door of the billiard-room, as to walk through a second drawing-room and a library in order to reach the same apartment. Leaving the whist-players engrossed with their rubbers, the remaining five strolled out into the lovely summer night, flooded with moonshine, and even here, almost in London, fragrant with perfume. As Mrs. Latimer followed the billiard-players along the terrace, her dress caught in some trellis-work through which a creeper wound its snake-like growth. Gilbert stopped to extricate it a process which takes considerable time if you would not tear the fabric, and which is prone to call up ideas totally irrelevant to the task itself, originating in the relative position of the individuals, the one generally on his knees, and the other necessarily stooping over him. In the present instance, the enlargement occupied several seconds, told very distinctly one by

one on a couple of living timepieces, which people wear inside their breasts; and there was a flush on Gilbert's brow when he raised it the result probably of stooping so soon after dinner. It was natural surely that the couple thus isolated should linger a few minutes longer out of doors to enjoy the air; equally natural that they should have very little to say to each other, and should consequently preserve an unbroken taciturnity. I have watched the progress and development of some few flirtations that have been thrust upon my observation. I think the talking ones are the safest. A full heart does not discharge itself through the organs of speech; and a very imperceptible tremor on a very commonplace remark, may tell a tale that three volumes octavo would fail to convey. Gilbert lost the precious moments in silence. He who could find plenty of small-talk to amuse the smartest ladies in London, was baffled like the veriest clown by the presence of one who would scarcely be considered a gentlewoman in the set to which he belonged. This worldly polish doubtless hardens while it brightens; and the burnished breastplate is impervious to ninety-nine out of a hundred weapons in the mêlée, but wait till the charmed lance comes: deep, deep into the bosom it runs through mail and plate, and the knight's dazzling harness shields him no safer than the yeoman's homespun weed.

I am constrained to admit that long as this pair lingered out of doors, neither of them spoke a syllable beyond Ada's faint acknowledgment of the preservation of her dress, till they were on the steps of the billiard-room, when Gilbert took heart of grace, and managed to get out what he wanted to say.

Thank you, Mrs. Latimer, for singing that song. It has haunted me for a week. Thank you so very much.'

She looked up at him once more as she passed in, but did not repeat the experiment during the rest of the evening. Only she shook hands