The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Park and the Paddock.
• Chapter I.: Pride of Patrimony.
• Chapter II.: Patrimonial Appendages.
• Chapter III.: Clerical Duty.
• Chapter IV.: Clerical Recreations.
• Chapter V.: Vowed Sisterhood.
• Chapter VI.: Battles At Navarino.
• Chapter VII.: Lounging and Listening.
• Chapter VIII.: Characteristics.
• The Tenth Haycock.
• Chapter I.: Perambulation.
• Chapter II.: Interlocutory Decrees.
• Chapter III.: Intrusion.
• Chapter IV.: Heresy.
• Chapter V.: Extortion.
• Chapter VI.: Commutation.
• Chapter VII.: Dimission.
• Chapter VIII.: Benefit of Clergy.
• The Jerseymen Meeting.
• Chapter I.: A Phenomenon.
• Chapter II.: A Legacy.
• Chapter III.: Life In Lambeth.
• Chapter IV.: The Phenomenon Again.
• Chapter V.: An Economical Project.
• Chapter VI.: Lessons In Loyalty.
• Chapter VII.: Harder Lessons In Loyalty.
• The Jerseymen Parting.
• Chapter I.: A Busy Man At Leisure.
• Chapter II.: Knitting and Unravelling.
• Chapter III.: A Mate For Mother Hubbard.
• Chapter IV.: Friend Or Foe?
• Chapter V.: The Darkening Hour.
• Chapter VI.: The Land of Signals.
• Chapter VII.: Welcome to Supper.
• Chapter VIII.: A Wanderer Still.
• The Scholars of Arneside.: Preface.
• Chapter I.: The Mysteries of Wisdom.
• Chapter II.: Maternal Anticipations.
• Chapter III.: Lessons On the Hills.
• Chapter IV.: Signs In the Sky.
• Chapter V.: Owen and X.Y.Z.
• Chapter VI.: Press and Post-office.
• Chapter VII.: The Policy of Mps.
• Chapter VIII.: Family Secrets.
• Chapter IX.: The Mysteries Laid Open.

Chapter II.

A LEGACY.

When Aaron stole to the bedside of his guest, early the next morning, to rouse him for his journey, he was surprised to find nobody there. Not only had the guest disappeared, but half the bedding,—the whole of which would not much encumber a strong man. The only supposition that could be entertained was that Stephen had gone out, with a blanket in addition to his scanty clothing, to please himself with the morning sunshine; an amusement to which there was no impediment of locks and bolts, in this any more than in the neighbouring farmhouses. But Stephen was not to be found in orchard or field; nor did he answer when his name was called, though everybody in the house was wakened by the shout. Louise appeared with her milk-pails, and Anna tripped down to the brook. Mrs. Le Brocq appeared at the window, knitting, and the farmer came out to harness his team, while Victorine swept the kitchen, and prepared to light the fire. Everybody appeared but Stephen. A general admiration of his talents prevailed when it was remarked as a singular thing that a blind man should be able to find the door, and pursue his way over ground that he had traversed but once. The fear was lest he should have lost himself, got entangled in the copse, or soused in the brook;—or,—suppose he should have fallen down the quarry! If he had escaped all these dangers, he must be as acute about finding his way as he had shown himself about taxation, and love and marriage. While this admiration was being expressed, up came Anna from the brook, with a gentle reproof prepared for Victorine, for carrying away the bleaching linen from the place where they had been left the evening before. There was no place where they could bleach more favourably, and Victorine had received no orders to remove them. It was not long before the conviction was forced upon everybody that the linen was stolen. The most valuable part of the clothing of the family was gone. Nearly eighty of the best caps belonging to the four women of the household were carried off, and so many other useful things that the maidens might do nothing but spin, knit, and sew, from this time till Christmas, and yet be obliged to have three or four extra washes. It was a dreadful misfortune. Louise leaned her head against the cow she was milking when the tidings were brought to her. Let Charles be as fortunate as he might, her wedding might be considered as deferred for an indefinite period. Anna hoped against hope that some happy explanation would arise. It seemed impossible that any one should be so wicked as to take, without payment, what did not belong to him. Father and son and Victorine were off in different directions to look for traces of thieves in the fields and highways. Not a cap was to be seen dropped on the grass, nor any shirt frolicking by itself on any bush. Victorine turned back panic-struck, only too well convinced of what she now thought she had suspected all along,—that the guest of the last night had arrived from a far more distant place than England, and that he needed no ship to bring him over the sea. She trembled to think what sort of feet might have been enclosed in her young master’s shoes, and what might have been the effects of his eyes, if he had not happily chosen to keep them shut. Aaron did not know that he could do better than pursue his way to St. Heliers, where it was possible that he might meet with either Stephen or the thief, if they should, after all, not happen to be the same person. So he harnessed a strong little horse of his father’s to the cart, drove to his rope-walk, wished that Malet would not be so late in the mornings, but would be at his business in time to help people with advice when they were in a hurry, and drove off. He had not gone far when his sister’s voice hailed him. She was running after him with a list of messages from his mother about articles that he was to purchase in the market at St. Heliers, and with a request that if he should be able to learn anything about the lost property, he would take particular care to recover Louise’s share first, as poor Louise was in sadder distress than anybody else.

“You will go to Gorey,” she suggested. “Some of the English may think there is no harm in taking our caps, and will give you them back again.”

“Ask Charles to go there. It will be as much as I can do to make this harness hold out, if I go as straight as an arrow and back again. I had better have kept the last coil of cord I sold to young François; this is as rotten as if the tow had never been twisted.”

It was provoking that the harness should break at this moment; and Aaron showed that it was. He twitched the horse’s head in its straw collar, knotted the rope rein with some very petulant gestures, told his sister that she deserved to be run over for coming in the way of the long axle of the cart, and finally urged on his rumbling vehicle without a word of farewell.

His haste did not, however, prevent his pausing on some high ground, where an opening in the ridge of hills afforded him a glimpse of the sea, and a distant view of the pier at Gorey. The English oyster-boats were departing for the season. A little fleet of them was standing out from the bay; and in one of them might have been found, as Aaron suspected, the lost property and the blind thief,—if blind he were. The sight of such means of escape stimulated the youth to his pursuit, if indeed it were yet possible to hunt out the guilty from any retreat between Grosnez and La Roque, and bring him to justice.

No person in the least resembling Stephen was to be seen on any of the quays of St. Heliers, nor in the pretty market-place. Mr. De la Mare had not heard of any blind stranger being in the neighbourhood. The vessel from the Baltic was in the harbour,—all safe, and bringing hemp, as Aaron desired. As it was still too early in the morning for the transaction of business on the quay, he thought it best to make his purchases in the market-place, telling every person he met of the family loss. Several people from the country had already taken their places under the piazzas, and had set out their butter, eggs, and vegetables; and the butchers’ carts were being unpacked in the centre. Every one was soon in possession of the story. While the early housewife was arguing with the butcher whether she should pay 3d. or 3½d. per lb. for his prime beef, she stopped to shake her head over the depravity of the age, in which an open theft had come to be committed in return for hospitality. The maid-servant, who took in the tale with open mouth, while the market-woman counted eggs at 4d. a dozen into her basket, promised to mention the circumstance wherever she went. The townsman who had risen early that he might have the first choice of fish, spoke of alarming the magistracy and rousing justice.—Then, when Aaron stepped to a shop or two within sight, to buy two pounds of three shilling tea (his mother made a point of having the best tea), and a supply of fine sugar at 4d., half the little boys that were abroad followed him, as if expecting that the thief would be found under the counter or in one of the canisters; and the shopman put on a countenance of concern; and the head of the firm looked mysterious; and altogether the impression was very profound.

All was known at the custom-house before Aaron betook himself thither to inquire about the arrival and departure of vessels. Every man in the establishment,—the principal, the comptroller, and the two subordinates,—was eager to question Aaron as he approached with an air of peculiar gravity. The unlading of Christiana deals upon the quay had proceeded without their notice, while engrossed with the tale of the Le Brocqs’ misfortunes;—not that it was any part of their duty to watch the unlading of Baltic timber; for here the people were allowed to get their timber from any part of the world they pleased, and to give no more than the natural price. They were neither compelled to pay the King for the liberty of using foreign timber at all; nor obliged, by the high duty put upon Christiana deals, to take up with the inferior wood of Canada. The custom-house officers looked upon the landing and sale of timber with their hands in their pockets, and as if they had no more concern in the matter than in a bargain about a bunch of asparagus.

Equally indifferent were they about the proceedings of the vessel which brought hemp and tallow. Indeed, the bustle of the port of St. Heliers,—a bustle which increases from year to year,—takes place altogether among the buyers and sellers. Tax-gatherers have little concern in the matter. When the harbour-master has collected the harbour dues, and the custom-house officers have ascertained that no wine or spirits are on board, or have levied that single tax, the government is satisfied, and no further impediments exist. The Jersey people could not possibly stand more in need of hemp than the English. Without rigging for her merchant-ships, England is impoverished: without cables and sails for her vessels of war, she is defenceless. How did she then supply this great necessity? But little hemp is grown at home; and, in order to obtain more, government adopted the means precisely adapted to defeat the end. Instead of facilitating to the utmost the obtaining of an article from abroad which is deficient at home, difficulties were thrown in the way of getting it from abroad, in order to force the production at home: a very high duty was laid on imported hemp. This made it less expensive to buy sail-cloth and ropes ready made from abroad than to manufacture them at home; and thus our manufacturers were ruined. It also stimulated the use of iron cables, so that the government found that there is a slip between the cup and the lip,—between laying on this tax and receiving the produce. The result of the whole was that government derived little from the tax; our manufacturers could not make their business answer; and we employed foreigners to prepare our ropes for us, while those at home, who would do the work cheaper, were standing idle. If government would have admitted hemp free, the multitude who were standing idle, and the larger multitude who paid for the collecting of the tax and for the dearness of the article, would have been thankful to subscribe the 70,000l. which was all that found its way into the Treasury. It is but lately that the consequences of such a policy have been recognised by the government and the country, and the duty on undressed hemp repealed; but it is now fully acknowledged that the country need never have paid the high prices demanded for hemp manufactures from 1808 to 1814, or any of the burdens which this absurd tax has imposed till now. It is to be hoped that this conviction will lead to the repeal of other taxes as bad in principle, and almost as mischievous in practice: but custom-house officers still interfere between the English builder and the timber of the Baltic, and demand so heavy a tax upon every cask of tallow or oil that is on its way to the soap-boiler as to involve hundreds or thousands in the factitious guilt of a breach of the revenue laws.

Aaron had a favourite phrase at his tongue’s end, whenever he was out of his father’s sight. Le Brocq had carried his authority over his son a great deal too far:—so far that Aaron was in a state of unremitting bondage to one person, while he was apt to carry his freedom to an extreme in every other presence. ‘What is that to you?’ was his invariable reply when questioned by sister, friend or stranger;—an expression which would never have occurred to him, if he had not been racked with questions by the only person whom he could not refuse to answer. His sisters were so well aware of his sensitiveness to the tone of interrogation that whatever was uncertain was put by them into a form of conjecture; and even Victorine appeared to be thinking aloud whenever she wanted to know anything which she believed her young master could tell. Custom-house officers cannot be expected to show such consideration for individual peculiarities, and it would have been scarcely safe to have allowed Aaron to go down to an English port to transact business about hemp or tallow. Ladies going to France now find it vexatious to be asked, “What have you in that bag?” “What do you carry in this little box;” and gentlemen turn restive under the inquiry what fills out their pockets, and whether they carry anything in their boots. Such inquisition, intolerable as it is, is less vexatious by half than that which the English merchant, priding himself on the dignity of his vocation, has to undergo when the amount of his purchases, and the value of his merchandise have to be investigated, and made known to those who ought to have no concern in the matter, that they may watch whether he discharges his duty to the state. These sufferers may not say (what they are incessantly prompted to exclaim,)—“What is that to you?” they may not make as free as Aaron did on the quays of St. Heliers.

The comptroller accosted him with,

“Your concern is with her,—yonder,—I see.”

“What’s that to you?”

“Why, no more than that I can tell you, within a minute and a half, how soon she will be alongside the wharf. You won’t have to wait long, I fancy; for there are half a score of people come in from the country at the first news of her being moored off the old castle. You must have found it a great vexation to be waiting for hemp when the time of the fishery was passing away.”

“What’s she?” inquired Aaron, pointing to a vessel which was making her way out of the harbour, before the anxious eyes of a group of men, now resting from the toil of putting the finishing stroke to her lading.

“What’s that to you?” replied the comptroller, smiling. “I see you do not like other people to take a fancy to your words. Well, then, she carries stone to the port of London; and a fine voyage she is likely to have with this wind:—a better one than the Riga vessels that have been in the Channel this fortnight, I fancy, and cannot get here. They will be all coming at once when you will want them less than you have done. But you have always a good market for cordage in England, I suppose.”

Aaron muttered that whether he sent his ropes to England or anywhere else, people in all places wanted cordage, and always would want it, he supposed.

“No doubt; and when one hears of young men’s sisters being seen turning the wheel in the rope-walk, and of young men themselves standing every evening by the poquelaye to look for ships that bring hemp, one can’t help, if one cares for the island, hoping that the manufacture is prospering.”

“Certainly; if one is thinking of the island. But what is to become of the island, if it is to be overrun with thieves? You heard of our being robbed last night.”

“Yes. Some London rogue that came by an oyster-boat, no doubt. What have you lost by him?”

“What’s that to you?”

“Why, really, Mr. Aaron, I don’t see how you are to find your property again, if you have an objection to say what you have lost. I must leave you to find the thief in your own way, and wish you good morning.”

“Well; but that is not what I meant to say,—if you think you can help me to the thief.”

“Nobody could, if many were to take up your way of speaking. Only conceive, now! ‘Pray, sir, have you any knowledge of the people that came by the Medway boats?’—‘What’s that to you?’ ‘Have you happened to see a blind man pass your way, Mr. So-and-so?’—‘What’s that to you?’ ‘Where was it — ?’ ”

Aaron half-laughed, and wished people would never be tiresome with their questions, and then —

“And then you would not make it a great mystery whether the thief took two pairs of stockings or six. Well, if I find Mr. Stephen and his booty in an empty wine-cask, I will make bold to let you know, if you will only allow me to ask whether the property belongs to you.”

Aaron gravely thanked him, when the comptroller began saying one thing more before they separated.

“Just bear this hint in mind, Mr. Aaron. Don’t be tempted to go and follow any business in England, till you have taken as great a fancy for being questioned as you have now taken against it. This is the country for you,—where nobody fingers your tow, or counts your strands, or measures your cables. Don’t be persuaded to go and live in England.”

Aaron stared. He had never had a thought of even crossing to England for a week’s pleasure. Had his companion heard of any scheme — ? What could put it into his head to offer such a caution?

“What’s that to you?” answered the comptroller, laughing as he retreated. “Only mind what I say.”

Aaron was not fond of minding what anybody said. He had had enough of that kind of observance enforced by his father. He looked dogged; and if any one had on the spot offered him a passage to England, he would probably have gone, at all hazards.

The fancy possessed him all day. While engaged in the purchase of his hemp, he made inquiries of the Russians whether they had been in England, and how they were treated there, and after what fashion purchases of hemp were made in the ports. He was in the midst of a reverie, deciding that it could be no more really necessary to answer impertinent questions in England than anywhere else, when he was stopped on his way out of town by an officer of justice who wanted a description of Stephen’s costume; and then by a housewife who had a mysteriously-obtained cap to show, which she supposed might be one of the missing stock. Over hill and over dale he jogged and jolted, letting his horse carry the cart after its own fancy, while he reviewed in his mind all the trades and professions he had heard of as being practised in England; and recalled the countenances of two Isle of Wight men who had looked far from being harassed to death. He was pretty sure it must be very possible for him to live in England: and what the comptroller could mean by so earnest a caution, given at this very time, he could not imagine.

The first person he saw on his arrival in the neighbourhood of home was Victorine. She was awaiting him on the orchard bank; and very sorry she was that she could venture no further on the road by which he was to approach; but the thief of the preceding night was as a lion in the path. No one of the women had this day gone out of screaming distance; and it was rather a stretch of boldness to have attained the orchard bank. There had been terrors to be sustained;—a toad had made the grass move in one place; and a large black bird, (Victorine did not look again to see of what species,) had rustled in the hedge, and flown out before her eyes; and a gruff voice had been overheard in the ditch on the other side;—a voice which made her heart beat so that she could hear nothing else, or she would soon have discovered that it was the grunting old sow. The greatness of the occasion alone enabled her to take her stand, notwithstanding all these alarms.

“Mr. Aaron,” cried she, “there is news at home. Mr. Aaron, the uncle is dead.”

“What uncle? Whose uncle? Our uncle? What uncle?”

“Uncle Anthony is dead. I thought I would tell you, sir; lest you should see the mother first, and fear something worse. Have you got news of our caps?”

Aaron did not answer the last question, he was so busy trying to remember who uncle Anthony was. He remembered having heard the name in childhood, and believed that the person it belonged to lived somewhere a great way off; but no passing thought of either name or person had been in his mind for so many years, that he was ill-prepared to take the news as it seemed to be expected that he should.

He found his mother moving about with a countenance of the deepest solemnity, and the same step that she would have used in a sickroom. Le Brocq was quiet and thoughtful, and Malet evidently in gay spirits.

“We have had a great loss, Aaron,” declared the mother. “You remember our uncle Anthony.”

“Did I ever see him, mother?”

He was told that this was a very ungrateful question, for that uncle Anthony had been his godfather. When it pleased God to send afflictions, it became people to be more sensible of them than Aaron seemed to be. By way of setting an example, Mrs. Le Brocq gave all the house-business in charge to Victorine, and sat down with her knitting to sigh very heavily, and look up reproachfully as often as any one spoke. Anna saw Aaron’s perplexity, and its near approach to a sulky fit, and found an opportunity of whispering a little desirable information.

“Uncle Anthony was father’s uncle, and he gave mother a tea-chest when she married; and he was your godfather, and lived near London; and he wants us to go and live there now.”

“But I thought he was dead.”

“So he is: but he left a letter, which I suppose father will tell you about. I am afraid we do not know how to take this dispensation as we ought: but pray God those may be supported that will miss him more than we can!”

“What does father look so grave for? Is it sorrow? or is he thinking of London?”

“Charles let drop that he should like to go to London; and he says ’tis like a providence, after what passed last night. Such a business offered! and so pressing! Father is turning it over, perhaps.”

“Why for Charles more than me? Everybody is thought of before me.”

“You would not have thought so if you had known how father was calling for you, three or four times before you came home. Whatever he may be thinking, he is not forgetting you.—But, Aaron, don’t be eager after changes. We are over-apt to like changes; but see the grave faces that we have had since this time yesterday, when our changes began!”

A change was meanwhile working to which Anna could not object, any more than her brother. Her father’s heart was opening towards Aaron under the influence of a strong excitement. He held out the letter at arm’s length, with the encouraging command, “Read that.” Aaron read as follows:—

“Dear Nephew—The reason why you have never heard from me for these seventeen years past is because I had a son and daughter of my own, as you know, to care for; and you were too far off to do me any good in the way of attention, which I always remembered in your favour when in want of it when my son turned disobedient. Also I remembered the overalls your wife knitted for me, and always determined you should hear of them again, sooner or later. But I had no mind to give up my business to anybody else before I had done with it myself; and for this same reason, though I am writing this letter now, I don’t mean that you should have it till after my death. Never mind my missing being thanked by you! I can fancy all you would say very well, and set it down to your credit.

“You are to come and take my business, instead of living in your outlandish place any longer, which is only a place for such as are half French in their hearts,—confound them! You have nothing like this Lambeth neighbourhood, let me tell you; and the sooner you come and see, the better. Indeed, the business can’t wait long for a master, though Studley will do very well to take care of it for the few weeks after my burial till you come. But make haste, lest you miss more than you think for. There is little in the pottery business that you may not learn, and teach your little boy after you, with Studley to help you: and it is a very pretty concern, and one which it is a mystery to me that my son should have sneezed at, and gone abroad, I do believe to get away from me, where he is doing very well, they say, with his wife and family in America; and so nobody can allege I do an unkind thing in showing my displeasure against him by leaving my business to one who never disobeyed me. My daughter, I should have said, died twelve years ago, and is buried in the same churchyard with my wife.

“You may be thankful that I have lived to this time to get up a pretty business for you. The stone pottery is a very different affair now from what it was when I first came into it, forty years ago. Not but that it was in one respect more flourishing twenty years ago than it is now;—viz., in soda-water bottles, of which we used to send out a great number till cut out in that respect by the glass, which is more secure of being clean, they say, and does not sweat, as stone used to do, though we have now cured the sweating. It is a pity, too, that glass is preferred for beer that is sent abroad. I don’t mean ginger beer or spruce beer, both which are bottled in stone, as being less apt to burst; and the people in Van Diemen’s Land and other foreign parts are very fond of such brisk drinks, as you will find to your profit. We made 130 cwt. with E X upon them last year. But this is a poor test, since a bare twelfth of our article is dutypaid. We send as many figured jugs to Ireland as ever; and what we make for ink and blacking is prodigious. There is an increase in spirit casks and large oil bottles; and the state of chemicals has improved in our favour since I took the business; so that I should scarcely have believed then what I should some time sell to chemists, and also for filtering. So here, you see, is a pretty sort of business, and only, I assure you, ten or eleven to divide it among them in London, and only sixty-nine in all England: and if prices have come down somewhat, it is quite as much because the clay can be got cheaper, and coals are lower, as on account of the meddling of the glass-bottle makers,—which you will perhaps wonder at my owning, considering what a grudge we owe these last: but I am for fair play on all occasions. So now you know what you have to expect, except about the house. It is a pretty pleasant house, joining the pottery, and opening into the yard: and there being only outhouses behind for some way, it is what I call airy; and the furniture you will find just as I leave it. So all will be ready for you to come directly.

“I think this is all at present. You may expect me to say something serious, as people generally do when they are settling their affairs to leave the world. But I am not particularly ill, though I have taken this opportunity of writing this letter, and finished my 75th year yesterday; and those things come time enough when the time comes: and my business now is, being of sound mind, to arrange matters for you, in case of my being cut off suddenly. So I shall just leave this open, in case of having anything to add at any future time.”

It appeared that nothing had occurred to be added in any future time, for this was all. Anna was sorry for it. While her father was talking about the letter being that of a good, kind, old soul, she was turning it round to find in some of its odd corners some word of relenting towards his disobedient son. Aaron waited in silence an intimation that Malet was to be presented with this “pretty business” in a country where people paid the merest trifles in taxes, and without being aware of it. The idea had even struck him that he would work upon Malet to let him become a partner, and thus free himself from his father’s strict rule, and settle himself where, as he grew older, no one would make him pay down money for the use of the State.

Malet looked blank when Le Brocq announced his intention of going to St. Heliers to-morrow, to inquire about a passage for England. The young man was asked the cause of his surprise. Why should any time be lost?

“Do you mean to go?” asked all the family.

Certainly. What else should he do? Malet should rent the farm, and take Aaron’s rope-walk, if he would. Aaron would be wanted at the pottery. Malet would fain have discovered that he should be wanted too. No one who had seen and heard Stephen thought anything so hard as to have to live in Jersey, when there was such a place as England to go to. Even with the certainty before them of being able to marry immediately, Malet and Louise looked grave. Any one would have thought that their marriage had been put off for a twelvemonth at least.

“You shall have the farm at a reasonable rate, in consideration of its being a place for my wife and Anna to come back to, if anything should happen to me before I have settled well in this business in London. You shall have the six acres for 40l., and no other charges but for the orchard; and you shall be married directly, that we may be gone. We will settle about Aaron’s rope-walk to-morrow, when I have questioned him a little more about it.”

Aaron did not slip away, as he usually did when there was talk of questioning. He was too happy in the prospect of living in England to throw any impediment in the way of getting rid of his rope-walk.

“And what are we to pay for the orchard, pray?” asked Louise, repiningly. “I’m sure I shall have no time to make cider, if you all go away and leave me.”

“Victorine will stay; and that will be just so much more help than your mother had when we married,” replied Le Brocq. “I shall not ask above 3l. an acre for the orchards, and cider enough for our own drinking, which I expect you will send us every year.”

“Anna and I shall make our own cider, I suppose,” declared Mrs. Le Brocq, forgetting her solemnity in the interest of the topic. “It will be a long way to send cider.”

Not farther than cider was sent every season, her husband replied; and he doubted whether it would be quite convenient to make cider on the premises of a Lambeth pottery; but as Mrs. Le Brocq was sure that, wherever she went, she should have an orchard at the back of the house, the point was left to be determined after their arrival.

There must now be entire silence, for the farmer was about to study over again the letter from uncle Anthony’s lawyer in which the foregoing epistle was enclosed. Louise therefore withdrew to meditate over her milk-pail, and Anna to take in the linen from the green bank, lest there should be a further theft this night. As she passed the hydrangeas at the door, and the flowering myrtles that half-concealed the paling, she felt sad at the prospect of leaving them;—at the prospect of leaving these particular hydrangeas and myrtles, not of quitting the region of flowers; for she never doubted there being a green path to the house in Lambeth, and a vine growing up to the thatch, and blossoming shrubs clustering on every side. She hoped they should all be happier when they were rich; but she could scarcely see how; for Louise must be left behind, and Victorine; and her mother’s head-ach and pain in the shoulder might perhaps continue, however rich they might be. But if Aaron should look lighter, and father be as kind to him as to Louise and herself, they should certainly be all much happier; and perhaps the being rich might bring this about. At any rate, it was God that raised up as well as brought low; and so all must be right: but this was a dear place to be obliged to leave. Aaron silently devoured his mess of conger eel, stewed with milk and young green peas, and grew in his own estimation every moment. When Victorine had done serving him, she placed herself where she might watch the family party, and perhaps discover what made her mistress sigh as she had never heard her sigh since the late king died.