a I E) RARY OF THL UN IVER.SITY or ILLINOIS e^3 pc7ab V.I THE BANKER-LORD A NOVEL. Were all things plain, then all sides must agree. And faith itself be lost in certainty j To live uprightlf , then, is sore the best : To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest." — Drydev. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1840. T. C. SaviU, Printer, 107, St. Mwtin's Lane, Charing Cross. f^3 THE BANKER-LORD. CHAPTER I. It was dancing day at Ellistone House — that J x-5 " fashionable establishment where young ladies were ■^ ^ educated on the system of a private family ; morals ;$ ;>^ and manners making the first objects of attention ; >^ while the foundation of all was laid on the only S true basis — viz., Christian principles," So said ^ the ornamented card which Mrs. Ellistone found ^ no difficulty in interpreting to the satisfaction of 3 the various applicants, to whose dense, matter-of- r^ fact minds a doubt might occur as to the limits of k its meaning. " I trust, Mrs. Ellistone," so commenced a black-browed, pale-faced, solemn-looking father, " we may rely on the assurance that all is realli/ founded on true Christian principles; for I confess Mrs. L. and I consider all sublunary matters " VOL. I. B 2 THE BANKER-LORD. But Mrs. Ellistone interrupted him with — " Oh dear ! Sir, make your mind perfectly easy on that subject!" and an eloquent sigh formed a satisfactory comment on the somewhat equivocal answer. " I hope not methodistical, Mrs. Ellistone ?" inquired a gay and fashionable mother, who held a beautiful child by the hand ; and she accom- panied the question by a meaning smile. " Oh dear, no, Ma'am — by no means," Mrs. Ellistone returned, with a corresponding smile, which satisfied the mother's heart. *' I don't much approve of dancing, Mrs. Ellis- tone," insinuated a maiden aunt, who had danced all her partners to death, and who intended to make the amende in the person of a fair young orphan niece who had fallen to her charge. " Oh, Miss S , believe me, you need not feel the least uneasiness on that subject ; dancing is here taught solely to give the young ladies an up- right carriage — so essential to health — and as a healthful exercise on rainy days, while it is my study to divest it of the levity that — however, if you prefer gymnastics — " " Gymnastics ! oh dear, Mrs. Ellistone, how could you name such a thing to me ? I protest, I think the march of intellect has driven people mad, and instead of strength of mind, they are only acquiring strength of body ! In my childhood, THE BANKER-LORD. 3 young girls were not allowed to move beyond what was necessary for the purposes of life itself, and a ladylike education ; while strength, agility, or even too much health, were considered vulgar misfor- tunes. But now I expect we shall have our young ladies knocking down their footmen, or challenging their maids to a boxing match. Oh, no I dancing in preference to gymnastics! But, pray do guard her mind from vanity, Mrs. Ellistone." " I hope your seriousness does not extend to dancing, Mrs. Ellistone ?" inquired a young widowed father ; " for if so, we part at once ; as I confess I consider eleoant dancing one of the most captivating accomplishments a young female can possess." " I only trust, Sir Edward, I shall be as fortu- nate in seconding your wishes on every other point, as I flatter myself I shall in this. Perhaps it will be enough to tell you I am so very happy as to procure the attendance of Monsieur him- self, when he can be spared from the Opera House, at what expense you may form some ideal" " I am satisfied," said the father. And notwith- standing two mishaps, one lady having eloped with the dancing-master, and another having become " serious," the establishment flourished ; for the events were supposed to neutralize each other. To none of these classes of parents, however, did the little girl belong, to whom this dancing-day was a B 2 4 THE BANKER-LORD. sort of crisis. She was the only daughter of Mr. L'Estrange, who had succeeded his ftither, the Hon. Hubert L'Estrange, younger son of an Irish earl, as sole proprietor of an extensive banking establish- ment in London. The little girl had had the mis- fortune to lose her mother while yet almost an infant, and she was sent to the " fashionable esta- blishment" of Ellistone House with no other condi- tions annexed, than that no expense should be spared in her education ; but what that education was to comprise, was left to the consciences of those who were to direct it. It was, as we have said, '* dancing-day," and the pupils were seated round the handsome apartment, bearing but little similitude to an ordinary ''school- room," waiting the arrival of that important per- sonage, Monsieur , the opera-dancer ; while Mrs. Ellistone, from her chair of state, cast her cold, dignified eye critically over the coiffure and chaussure of the little assembly. " What detains Madame ?" she asked at last, " and where is Miss L'Estrange ?" but before it was decided to whom these questions were addressed, or who was con- demned to answer them, a slight bustle was heard at the door of the apartment, and " Madame," the French governess, entered ; dragging after her a beautiful little girl, whose dress, both in material and arrangement, together with her dishevelled tresses, formed a striking contrast to those of her THE BANKER-LORD. 5 companions. Had Massena appeared on the field of battle in the costume of the saloon, Buonaparte himself could not have looked upon him with more astonishment, nor called into his countenance a stronger expression of insulted majesty than did Mrs. Ellistone as this group approached her ; the French governess chattering all the way up the long apartment with a volubility that might have defied even Parisian ears. Mrs. Ellistone coldly asked, " What is the meaning of all this ?" as if not a word had been uttered. She did not choose to say, " speak English," but the governess endea- voured to take the hint. '* Ma foi, den je vous dirai, Madame — I will tell you den, Ma'am, — Ma'amselle was missin* ven de young demoiselles did come for to dress pour la danse — high, low, up, down, here, dere, I did — vat you call chercher? — to seekafor her, and no find her, till a my very 'art did jomp out of me, vat you call palpitation, — tump ! tump ! tump ! — he went on a my side ! and, at last, au desespoir, I vas a coming for to tell you, Madame, that she vas gone, lost, vat you call mislaid, — ven, aah ! I peep, peep under de bed, and dere, assurement, je I'ai trouvee. Ah, oui !" she continued, shaking her hand threateningly and triumphantly at the child, "je Tai trouvee ! But who did you tink, Madame, I did find widher?" " For Heaven's sake ! who?" exclaimed the lady. 6 THE BANKER-LORD. turning pale, and startled at last out of cold pro- priety. '« Ah, non ! non ! mon Dieu ! non !" said the troverness, eagerly ; " it vash no ivlio, no persone ; but a — a — a livre — a book ! So I pull, pull her out, and say, ' Pourquoi ne t' habilles tu pour la danse, Ma'amselle ?' ven she tell me, God a forbid, and dat she find it in this book ; and ven I would bonder les cheveux, and put on her frock, she pull and pull on me, et se plie, comment le direz vous? tiwist ote o' my hand, 'till I no could dress her — and drag her doen to you, Madame." Mrs. Ellistone's first movement was to hold out her hand slowly for the offending volume, the companion of the culprit's guilt ; a single glance only was necessary to convince her that it was a copy of the New Testament, fancifully bound, and sent as a Christmas-present by the maiden aunt to the orphan niece, and by her lent to her young companion, our future heroine. " What were you doing with this book ?" Mrs. EUistone inquired, as might a judge on being handed the instrument with which a murder had been committed. •« Reading it. Ma'am," the child replied, with bewildering naivete. «« Was there not a portion of it read to you this morning ?" "There was. Ma'am." THE BANKER-LORD. 7 '• And was that not sufficient ?" " I did not understand it then, Ma'am, and was reading it again." " And who gave you leave to read it again ?" " God, I thought, did, Ma'am." " And what made you think so, pray ?" '' Because he gave little children leave to come to him." This again was a troublesome answer, to one at least who mistook the real point wherein the child's fault lay, so Mrs. Ellistone shifted her posi- tion. " And do you understand it any better now, pray ?" *' I think I do. Ma'am." " What may it be then ? let me hear." And this, besides being a vague question in itself, was said with an air of such mocking and ironical con- tempt, that the child began to think she really must have been guilty of some wild absurdity in supposing she could have understood it. Her pre- ceptress saw the advantage she had obtained. *' Come, come," she said, "let us have no more of this. I'm sure you will never do so again ; there, go my love, and dress yourself as quickly as pos- sible. Monsieur will be here immediately, and would faint if he saw you such a figure." But this threat, by recalling to the child, whose under- standing and conscience had just begun to dawn 8 THE BANKER-LORD. on this unpropitious morning, a recollection of her own motives and feelings, restored to her a mo- mentary courage, and she stood blushing and im- movable. " Why don't you go?** Mrs. Ellistone repeated ; "you will scarcely have time to plait your hair properly, even with Madame's kind assistance." *' But that's just what I thought was forbidden, Ma'am," the child ventured to remonstrate. '' Forbidden ! by whom ?" asked Mrs. Ellis- tone, again unaffectedly startled out of her cold, sarcastic dignity. " By God, in that book, Ma'am," pointing her little rosy-tipped finger towards the Testament. The French governess nodded her frizzled head at Mrs. Ellistone, thereby saying, as plainly as nod could speak, 'Uhere lies the root of the disease;" while Mrs. Ellistone, with that petulance with which tottering dignity is apt to prop itself, ex- claimed, *' Don't point, Miss L' Estrange. How often have you been forbidden that f and then resuming her inquisitorial manner, she asked, " and do you mean to say that this was the only reason for your hiding, and. not suffering yourself to be dressed ?" " It was. Ma'am." For a moment even Mrs. Ellistone's ill-temper gave way before this ingenuous simplicity, but she soon recovered it, as the difficulty of refuting it returned; THE BANKER-LORD. 9 and lookinof anjain towards the child with an ac- cession of coldness and dignity, she said, '' Let me hear no more of such ridiculous nonsense, I desire; little girls are not expected to understand books for themselves, especially the Bible; even grown people are told they may wrest it to their own destruction. Little girls are only to do as they are desired; so go directly and dress yourself as quickly and as nicely as you can. I expect com- pany to-day ; so put on your blue crape frock that suits so well with your pretty eyes, and let not one of those tears fall to dim them. GJome and kiss me — there's a love, — go, and let me hear the visitors ask again, as they did before, who that sweet happy- looking child is, and trust to me for making you good — allez ;" and the child smiled and suffered herself to be drawn away, practically, if not theo- retically, convinced that little girls could not have been comprehended in the bible-command re- specting little children. B 3 10 THE BANKER-LORD. CHAPTER II. "Any news this morning, papa?" asked the beautiful daughter of Mr. L'Estrange, as together they lounged over the splendidly-appointed break- fast table in the breakfast room of one of the hand- somest and best appointed houses in Belgrave Square, the one studying the morning papers, the other tracincr fiorures on the cloth with her fork. " News, eh ? no, I can't say much news," an- swered Mr. L'Estrange, without seeming to know what he answered, or scarcely that he answered at all ; but as the question happened to reach his ear at the moment that his eye had reached the end of the page, while he turned the paper and folded it down, he had time to cast a glance on his daugh- ter ; and, as if something in her exquisite counte- nance, and Hebe-like appearance, arrested his attention, and forced his mind to take note of the THE BANKER- LORD. 11 sounds which had been transmitted from a being so lovely, he repeated, in a less absent tone, " News, love, did you ask ? what sort of news could interest a young lady, except ' the fashions,' and them I shall leave to your own perusal this moment. Even the births, deaths, and marriages can have no interest for you as yet, born, as I may say, but yesterday." For such was the period elapsed since Miss L' Estrange had left the " fashionable establishment" for young ladies' education, where she had spent the last nine years of her life, to preside, as sole mistress, over the house of her widower-father, reputed one of the wealthiest bankers in England. " 1 assure you, papa, it was not of either I in- quired," she replied. " I asked if there is any fresh cause for alarm from the disaffected ?" " What do you mean, my love ?" he asked ; " I do not understand you." " I mean the papists — die rebels — the Irish, in short," she answered. Her father stared at her a moment in unaffected astonishment, before he exclaimed — ** Why, you little goose, what have you to do with such subjects ?" " What have I to do with them, my dear papa ? surely every one liable to suffer by them has a right to feel interested in them." Her father laughed aloud. 12 THE BANKER'LORD. " Well done, iny little petticoat politician ! — my agitator of eighteen !'* he exclaimed. " Nay, sir, not agitator, at least ; let us usurp nothing from our adversaries — not even their names/' " But how on earth have you acquired this violence, child?" Mr. L' Estrange asked again, still highly amused. " I suppose it is the effects of the papers I have been sending you to Ellis- tone House, when I should have left you to your French Grammar?" "No, papa; long before I ever read a news- paper my feelings were the same. The papers have only served to shew me that the evils are in- creasing, and that we may look to the end as not far off." " Why, God bless my soul, child, are you mad ? what end are you talking of? or what stuff have you been filling your brains with, instead of caps and flowers ? For heaven's sake, get rid of this ti-ash as soon as you can ; and — but what the deuce ails the girl now? why, you are absolutely going to cry or faint, I believe !'' " No, no, my dear papa," his daughter gasped out ; " but allow me to ask you one question, Sir," and she clasped her hands and looked tremblingly into his face, " Are you not — surely it cannot be that you have changed your principles ?" Mr. L'Estrange's amusement seemed now about THE BANKER-LORD. 13 to be converted into alarm ; he laid the newspaper out of his hand, and looked seriously, almost anxiously on his daughter, as he said — " Rosa, what is the meaning of this ? I request you will explain what you mean by such strange questions?" " Are they indeed so strange, papa ?" the youn^r lady asked, as the colour deepened on her beautiful cheek. " I meant only to ask if it is possible vou are not still a Tory ?" " A Tory ? to be sure I am a Tory ; what else should I be but a Tory, as all my family have been before me? but I am no great politician; and if Mrs. Ellistone has made you one she can scarcely have taught you anything that will make amends fork." " My dear papa, Mrs. Ellistone no more taught us fK)litical principles than any other natural in- stinct; but surely it would have been impossible that /, at least, could be deficient in them." " Why you particularly ? oh, I suppose because the rebels sacked the old family castle in 98 — ha ! ha ! ha ! — is that it, Rosa ? But what have you to do with that now, child ? Time was, indeed, when we might have had an interest in it; but you know since my old uncle took it into his head to marry and have a son, there is an end of Ireland for us." And thus lightly did the father treat a subject 14 THE BANKER-LORD. on which the daughter had expended all the en- thusiasm of an ardent heart, debarred, by the cir- cumstances of her education, from all the more natural, more usual channels for its expenditure. She was the only daughter of her father, who was the grandson of the Irish Earl of Lisbrian. His father, the younger son of the Earl, had married an English lady, daughter of an eminent banker, and, subduing the Irish pride that prefers poverty and idleness to industry and wealth, joined the concern, and in time became its sole proprietor ; a position which he bequeathed to his son, in whom, however, as some diseases are said to do, the national propensities which slumbered in the father seemed to break out with double force; and, although the bank still maintained its character for o wealth and security, many shook their heads, and wondered how it was so under the sole manage- ment of the gayest and most expensive widower of his circle. For years, indeed, Mr. L' Estrange had believed himself certain of succeeding to the title and estates of his Irish uncle; and with more apparent plausi- bility than such expectations can always plead, as the superannuated roue, who had spent his life on the Continent, had never given any one cause to doubt the sincerity of his protestations against the holy state of wedlock. On the strength of these expectations, Mr. L' Estrange felt he had a right THE BANKER-LORD. J 5 to be idle; and when the account of the Irish rebel- lion, and the total sack of his deserted, but magni- ficent castle, furnished the old Earl with an excuse, which he had for some time past wished for, to re- turn to his native land ; and when domestic associa- tions rewakened by this return, as he said, but as others said, the necessity of a kind nurse-tender, induced him to marry, and Mr. L' Estrange found his expectations blasted, the habits of idleness and expense seemed too deeply rooted, or else his affairs were too prosperous for him to make any change ; so, after the first exclamation of surprise and disappointment, the event seemed almost to pass from his mind, and he went on his way, gay and good-humoured, as before. There was one, however, on whom these events in her family made a deeper impression — it was his gentle daughter. Not born for many years after what is called the Irish rebellion, par excellence, and never having seen the land of her forefathers, it might have been supposed that the sack of the castle, and the marriage of her grand-uncle, would have passed from her mind when they ceased to be topics of conversation with her father; but such was not the case. Those events, which to him had been some of the common, passing disappointments of life, had fallen "upon her infant spirit with enduring intensity, because they had first come to her connected with 16 THE BANKER-LORD. the sorrow of her parents ; and who cannot look back with shuddering, however far advanced they may be in life, upon the moment when they first knew sorrow through the person they loved best? Mr. L'Estrange indeed felt most for his uncle's marriage, but he spoke most of the castle — and the heart of his child echoed his words, believing them to be his feelings, and treasured in its depths a mingled sensation of hatred and dread of the Catholic party, which he had pronounced to be the perpetrators of the outrage. Separated almost in her infancy, in consequence of her mother's death, from all the endearing ties and interests of home, these recollections served her as something upon which to hang all her su- perfluous emotions ; and she grew up in a sort of visionary world, persuaded not only that the church and state, which she honoured and adored, were crumbling before the machinations of the same party that had destroyed the castle of her ancestors, and her father's happiness — but that, of that party, each and all were wantonly and irre- deemably wicked, while all of the other were good and upright. Nor was there aught in the circum- stances of her education to correct this delusion, even if it had been known. Mrs. Ellistone re- ceived no pupils of the dreaded sect — probably from not feeling the capability of instructing them ; and while this exclusion had its share in fostering THE BANKER-LORD. 17 the prejudices of the enthusiastic girl, some of the more violent newspapers of the opposite party, which were the only ones she had happened to see, she re- ceived as the oracles of impartial veracity. It is true, Mr. L' Estrange himself had lived to laugh at the sack of the old castle, and even to curse the folly of his uncle — between whom and himself all direct com- munication had ceased since the marriageof thelatter — for rebuilding it in a style of magnificence which combined much of its former feudal grandeur with all of modern elegance and — let it not be consi- dered an anti-climax to add — comfort^ since he was no longer to inherit it ; but his daughter had gone to school before these heresies were broached ; and as her two brothers, both older than herself, had gone to Eton, where domestic prejudices must be strong indeed if they survive the first few months, it seemed as if her innocent little heart was in- tended to concentrate within itself all the feelings that such events were calculated to produce. Still, emotion of almost any sort is not unhap- piness to the young ; it is only in after-life, when experience has taught us to dread the consequences, or the reaction, that we shrink from emotion ; and Rosa L' Estrange, feeling no ill effects from these phantoms of her imagination, grew up a happy, joyous, beautiful girl, loving those with and by whom she was brought up, because she was brought up by them — and loving the recollection of her heedless 18 THE BANKER-LORD. but indulgent father, and her two brothers, more than children, or sisters generally love fathers and brothers — but still believing that she had one grand object beyond them all, approved by her judgment and cherished by her feelings. It v^^as in this pa- roxysm of romance that she left her school, and, returning to her father's house, catechised him in the manner that we have seen. They had both been silent some minutes, when Mr. L' Estrange suddenly said, "You have re- turned home at an unfortunate moment for your- self, my dearest girl ; there is not a soul of my ac- quaintance remaining in London at this sultry season, — of ladies, I mean, — and I am tied more closely than usual to the desk. However, the mo- ment Steen returns, we shall take a trip to Chel- tenham ; I have promised some friends of mine to introduce you to them there." ** Who is Steen, papa ?" " Steen — why, Steen is, — I believe I may as well say with a good grace that Steen is my head clerk ; at least, he is acting as such ever since poor old Groveside, my father's trusty man of business, died. I never intended to promote this young fellow so rapidly ; but, somehow, he was on the spot, and seemed intelligent, and so he hung on from time to time ; though, now that I have seen more of both, I think I like Kelly better of the two." " Kelly ? is he another clerk ?" THE BANKER-LORD. 19 " Yes ; a clear-headed, upright fellow." «* But Irish, by the name ?" " Why do you say, hut Irish ? I hope you don't mean to disown the country of your forefathers? However, from the ridiculous state your mind seems in, I suppose it would be useless for me to make a proposal which I had intended making before I knew your sentiments. This young man, this Kelly, met with a severe accident some time since, and his mother hurried over from the wilds of Ireland, whence she had never emerged before, to attend him ; and, as they are tenants of my uncle's, who sent this lad over to me to provide for, I thought it would be taken as a great kind- ness if you were to call upon Mrs. Kelly, and shew her some attention ; for, although I never expect to see or hear from my uncle again, much less to inherit a sous from him, still he is the head of the family; and his children and mine may be ac- quainted hereafter, so it is well to oblige him in any trifling matter ; but, as I said before, I suppose I need not think of it in this instance, as Mrs. Kelly is not only an Irishwoman, but a Papist." The unmanageable blood rushed over Miss L'Estrange's cheek, and her eyes were invo- luntarily cast down, as her father paused for an answer ; perceiving her silent, the very extreme of her prejudice struck him as ludicrous, and once more he burst into a fit of genuine laughter. 20 THE BANKER-LORD. " 'Pon my soul, child, I begin to fear you are mad !" he exclaimed, at last. *' Tis so ridiculous to see a pretty graceful creature, with shining hair and soft blue eyes, a violent ultra-politician and bigot ! If you had even black eyes, or a less feminine complexion, it would be less inconceivable! What ! suppose, Rosa, a Whig or a Papist — for with you they seem to be one and the same thing — were to propose for you ?" " 1 would rather die than accept him," was the answer, pronounced with such cool decision as convinced her father that it was sincere. Again he laughed aloud. " Well, you might perhaps find some to bear you out in that," he said ; " but few, even of the ultras, carry it to the extreme of avoiding ac- quaintance with a lady for her religion. And what, suppose, my fair daughter, I were to act the papa in good earnest, and command you to visit this lady, instead of requesting you ?" Miss L'Estrange looked in her father's face inquiringly for a moment, — he caught the look, and smiling good-humouredly, said — "Nay, don't be alarmed ; I don't mean to do so. You have come home to be mistress of my house and of yourself; so do as you please, child; only, for your own sake, I advise you to endeavour to get rid of someof that unfeminine stuff and nonsense." And as he said so he rose from the breakfast THE BANKER-LORD. 21 table, and was about to leave the room ; but his daughter rose also, and more quickly, and hasten- ing towards him, she put one arm pleadingly round his neck, and looking in his face, with eyes liquid with emotion, and a varying cheek, seemed to ask if she might embrace him, — he caught her to his heart; and, as she sobbed on his bosom, she said — '* God forbid, my dearest papa, that your wishes should ever cease to be commands to me; and although I hope 1 may die before I relax in my prin- ciples, and so take one more, atom though it be, from our falling church and constitution, I shall not only subdue my feelings so far as to call upon this lady, but sincerely trust I may find something in her to excuse — I mean," she added, with a deprecating smile, " to deprive my obedience of the crown of martyrdom." " 1 trust so too, my love, for your own sake," her father said, once more fondly embracing her; "and indeed I have no doubt but that you will. Young Kelly, I assure you, is quite presentable — to be sure, he has been educated in Dublin, and is a Protestant," he added, smiling, " as his father is; But I hear they are altogether very respectable people, and almost the only family with which my uncle associates now; so I really hope you will find her, if not a radical cure for your preju- dices, at least an acquisition in your present soli- "22 THE BANKER LORD." tude ; here is her address, which I got this morn- ing from her son. I'm afraid it is in some very out-of-the-way place ; for strangers, like her, coming to London, never know where to go, and her son seemed rather ashamed of it, and mut- tered something about the people of the house having some claim on her — I did not attend to him, as I don't think you will mind the length of the drive much." " At least, I shall be able to control my impa- tience for this meeting," she answered, with a playful smile. " Well, here is the direction, love, and here is what may please you better," opening his pocket- book and looking through its folds ; but finding it empty, he added, " I see 1 have no money about me ; however, it is not the least matter ; you will find the people only too ready to trust you, and there must be a thousand little things you want on coming from school, not but that I like your mode of dressing of all things — that pale green silk is particularly becoming to you ; and you do right to brush the hair back from your fair forehead. God bless you, my child," he said, kissing that same fair forehead, as he left the room, "you'll do very well, in spite of your politics." THE BANKER LORD. 23 CHAPTER III. On her father's leaving the room, Miss L'Es- trange resumed her chair, as if mechanically ; and deliberately brushing away the crumbs, cleared a place for her elbow on the table, and then leaned her lovely cheek upon her not less lovely hand, and fell into a reverie. " What can my father mean by ' doing well enough in spite of my politics' ?" was the first de- finite question that presented itself to her mind. She was for some moments really unable to reply to it ; but, by degrees, those who had watched her attentively might have seen the soft colour grow deeper and deeper upon her cheek, until it ended in a vivid blush, as she recollected, that, in the last visit her elder brother had paid her, on his way to join the foreign embassy, to which he had been 24 THE BANKER-LORD, appointed attache, through the interest of an Ox- ford friend, whose father, the Marquis of Halli- more, was the ambassador, he had held her from him at arm's-length, and scanning her from head to foot with an eye so critical that she shrank abashed beneath it, had finally nodded his head approvingly, declared she would "do, "and, lament- ing that there was not then an opportunity for exhibiting her to his young friend, who intended accompanying the embassy, charged her to keep her heart disengaged until their return ; and as she now, by some delicate link of association, coupled these observations with her father's speech, they served to throw light upon each other. But as her father seemed to intimate that " her politics" would be a drawback upon her fortunes, and as she, in her enthusiasm, could suppose this only to be because of their being obnoxious to those on whom such fortunes might depend, she became but the more determined to preserve them inviolate, and to die a maiden rather than a Whig. Still she was but eighteen — and a lovely, beautiful girl — accustomed to find herself the fa- vourite of a large, though select, assemblage of young persons of her own age and habits; and although she had been but one day at home, the greater part of that day having been spent ut- terly alone, — for her younger brother was still at Oxford — she felt not at all sorry at finding her con- THE BA^^KER-LORD. 25 science seared, if not satisfied, by his request to her to go to seek even a papist acquaintance. " I know, of course," she said to herself, " that there is nothing in the Catholic religion actually incon- sistent with polish and refinement ; for there is the Duchess of , Lady , and others, whom I must suppose are all lady-like persons ; but then they are English. Still, as my father says that these people are ' highly respectable,' this Mrs. Kelly must be something superior to what I had imagined her class and country to produce ; and as Lord Lisbrian associates with so few, it would seem as if he were fastidious. Perhaps they may have lived very much on the Continent when he was there, though I think papa said she had never been out of Ireland before. So much the better. I shall see a true and real specimen ; and I should be far from sorry if, in everything not touching prin- ciples, I could conform to dear papa's wishes, who, after all, is and must be stanch at heart." And with these sentiments the young lady stepped into her carriage, and magnanimously gave the order — « to No. 8, Milk Street." " Milk Street, Ma'am ?" the footman repeated, dubiously; and looking up to the coachman, asked, " Do you know Milk Street ?" " No," was the response, in a low voice; "ask in the house." And, after the delay of a few minutes, the footman returned; and, while taking VOL. I. c 26 THE BANKER-LORD. his place behind the carriage, gave to the coachman some directions wholly unintelligible to Miss L'Estrange, and away they drove. Still, neither the ignorance of the servants respecting the loca- lity, nor her father's previous intimation, had at all prepared her for the length of the drive, or the appearance of the streets they passed through ; and she would at last have become seriously alarmed, but that she consoled herself with the belief that they were driving into the country, and should find the lady had, for the sake of fresh air, taken up her abode in one of those isolated houses outside cities, which call themselves streets, that others may make good their words. Exactly as she came to this conclusion, the carriage stopped short in one of the closest and dirtiest streets she had yet been in ; and while she looked out impa- tiently to see what had impeded their hasty escape from it, the footman once more appeared at the window, and, with a countenance in which inquiry and remonstrance were curiously blended, an- nounced that they were arrived in Milk Street. " This ?'' Miss L'Estrange exclaimed, looking round her in dismay, and putting her perfumed handkerchief to her nose. '* There must surely be some mistake. Inquire, pray, if there is not another Milk-street." But no other Milk-street could be heard of; and an Irishman would have pointed to the sewer of white puddle running along the path- THE BANKER-LORD. 27 way as a proof that they were in the right place. " There must certainly be some mistake," Miss L'Estrange still repeated, in perplexity, half- tempted to turn back, yet unwilling to disappoint her father, or, if the truth must be told, to lose making the only acquaintance within her reach, when she had proceeded both morally and physi- cally so far upon her way. After a moment's pause, partly between the hope of escape altogether, and the wish to let her dignity down by gentle degrees, she desired the servant to see whether there were any numbers on the doors. " Yes, Ma'am ; there's number eight," he said, pointing to a door a short distance from them, but making no attempt to go towards it. " Perhaps, then, it would be as well to inquire there," Miss L'Esti'ange faltered out, absolutely ashamed to admit the possibility that to him seemed impossible. The man was proceeding to obey, when she ventured to say, " The carriage may as well move on there; it could scarcely turn here, I suppose." The order was given ; and the carriage moved on, and again drew up at the door of a house, so squalid in its appearance that Miss L'Estrange's ideas suddenly underwent a total revolution, and she, being not at all unscathed by romance — as, what ardent, innocent girl, brought up in seclusion, ever is ? — came at once to the conclusion that, if c 2 28 THE BANKER-LORD. this was Mrs. Kelly's abode, there was some gentle mystery connected with it, and that she was some pale, delicate, interesting being, steeped to the very lips in poverty, who, too refined to make it known, had concealed herself here to watch over the health of a favourite son, on whom their hopes depended. ''And if it be so," whispered Miss L'Estrange's kind heart, forgetting the party prejudice of years, in the partial kindness of a moment, — " if it be so, her errors of doctrine, religious or political, shall be no impediment to my sympathy. " Knock, William, and ask if they could direct us where Mrs. Kelly is to be found." The servant turned to obey ; but ere he had, on tiptoes, reached the dingy door, it was suddenly opened, and a damsel, whose fresh and healthful colour and pro- portions formed a strange contrast to all around her, both animate and inanimate, had launched herself almost against him ere she was able, with a look of terror and astonishment, to control the impetus with which she had been hurrying out to catch a glimpse of the equipage, the close and aristocratic roll of which had shaken the house to its foundations, without conveying the monstrous idea to its inhabitants that it could intend to stop at their door. No sooner, however, did this fact force itself on the fair maiden's comprehension, than she flung herself back as quickly as she had dashed forwards, and would, in her horrid amaze- THE BANKER-LORD. 29 ment, have clapped the said door in the man's face if he had not gently put his hand against it; upon which, preparing to dive again into the unfathom- able darkness of the prolonged cell, by courtesy called a hall, she was only arrested by his calling out, " Pray, can you tell me where Mrs. Kelly lodges in this direction ?" After a bewildered stare, in which she seemed endeavouring to collect at once her senses and her breath, the girl answered in an accent such as caused even him, who had occasionally made pur- chases in Covent Garden market, to start — " Is it Mrs. Kelly ? a fhare would she lodge but wid Mrs. Coghlan ?" *' And where, pray, does Mrs. Coghlan live ?" " Fhare ? here to be sure ; fhare else ?^ " Is Mrs. Kelly at home at present, then ?" ** At home? sure she isn't, shur; sure she's here still, plase your — that is, I mane, shur ;" for although the man's air and accent had tempted the wild Irish girl, after her first alarm, to dub him "an honourable man," the damning sign of livery saved her from falling into the snare of confounding ranks, which all of her class and country are so tenacious to avoid. " But is she in the house ? will she see com- pany ? will she admit Miss L'Estrange?" he asked. " L'Esthrange ! Miss L'Esthrange ! admit Miss 30 THE BANKER-LORD. L'Esthrange ! by Japers !" and without further reply, she darted into the dark abyss, and, as the man could hear, up a flight of stairs with un- measured strides. He returned to the carriage to report progress ; and after a fierce struggle between romance and reality in the young lady's breast, romance once more gained the victory, and she determined to await the event; for in proportion as appear- ances became desperate, imagination poured out its generous aids, until at last, as she thought of the poor papist lady, she actually conjured up in her mind a sort of temporary oratoire, poorly appointed indeed as to materials, but rich in ideality, in which knelt or reclined a faded form, in a cheap, but ex- quisitely white muslin wrapping gown, her pale cheek at that moment mantling with a sensitive blush as she heard a stranger inquiring for her ; perhaps even pressing the ebony crucifix to her lips as a token of her resignation, or casting her eves upon an image of the Virgin for protection ; for, knowing them only as historical or fabulous characters, never once in the course of her life had Miss L' Estrange thought of a Roman catholic apart from crucifixes, images, or rosaries. But, although theoretically, and as a body, she had taught herself to hate them, her heart refused to reduce her theory to practice or to individuality; and she had actually applied the handkerchief to her eyes at THE BANKER-LORD. 31 her own fancy-sketch, when the words, " How do you do, my dear young lady ? how are you. Miss L'Estrange, my dear ?" poured into the carriage, in hearty, cordial, joyous accents, but with such a brogue as even imagination refused to recognise, gave the palm once more to reality, and she re- moved her handkerchief from her eyes with a per- ceptible start. The image that took its place was not that of her fancy ; it was a woman at the unromantic age of fifty-five or sixty, in all the rotundity and red- ness that health, happiness, and good-humour generally produce in such a lapse of time upon their votaries. Neither was she clad in unpretending white muslin — but, although the day and situation were oppressive, in one of the heaviest and most showy of Irish tabinets, considerably the worse for the dense smoke of London ; while, over her grey hair, simply combed upon her broad forehead, she wore a muslin cap of such scanty dimensions and unusual form, as, joined to the expansive good- humour of the face it did not shade, might have led one to suppose she considered it a sin to con- ceal the liberality of nature; an idea which the display of her broad, fat, and still smooth and white throat was calculated to confirm. Miss L* Estrange had gazed upon this image for a moment before she perceived that the straining of the fingers belonging to the massive arm that 32 THE BANKER-LORD. hung over the door into the carriage towards her, was for the purpose of shaking hands with her; and although, when she did become aware of the alarming fact, her natural impulse was to move hastily to the other side, she checked herself with an effort, and desperately immolating the tips of her fingers on the altar of politeness, she stammered forth, «'My father — Mr. L' Estrange, of Belgrave Square, sent me to wait upon Mrs. Kelly, an Irish lady; but, I believe — I suppose — I have mistaken the direction." « Suppose no such thing, then, my dear,'* the lady heartily responded ; " for here I am, as large as life, at your service ; and, indeed, my very heart is glad to see the old livery once more. And how is your papa, my dear ? You're not a bit like your granduncle yourself! but no matter for that; you, or any of your name, are heartily welcome to Mary Kelly. And now wont you walk in?" and she proceeded herself to tug at the handle of the door in a manner much more likely to wrench it off its hinges than to effect her object. The footman hastened to the rescue ; but having got it safe into his hand, he looked to his young lady for direc- tions how to proceed. Miss L'Estrange, in the meantime, was more be- wildered than ever. Perfectly shocked, if not fright- ened, by the predicament in which she found herself, and convinced either that her father must have been THE BANKER-LORD. o3 under some entire misconception with respect to the person to whom he had sent her, or that still she had arrived at a wrong destination, she was con- sidering what excuse she could make for driving away at once, when Mrs. Kelly again popped her head into the carriage, with the same expression of honest, hearty, unsuspecting good-humour, to ask what was the cause of the delay; adding, in a whisper, and with a sort of backward nod towards the Irish girl who, her eye '' in a fine frenzy rolling," still stood at the door — " Not, indeed, that my lodgins is by any manes all I could wish ; but, you see, they're kept by a poor widah, a counthry woman of my own, and you know, of course, I couldn't go past her ; so I hope you'll be so good as to put up with them, as you were so kind as to come so far to see me." Miss L' Estrange felt it impossible to resist this appeal without positive incivility; but still, as drown- ing persons grasp at straws, she hesitatingly said — " The lady I mean has a son who is " " Clerk to your papa, — the very thing, my dear, — who but my poor John ? Many thanks to your papa and his uncle, both. Come — come your ways in, dear ; there's a crowd gaiherin, for it's not often such a sight is seen in these sthreets." This intimation decided Miss L' Estrange — for youth ever seeks the momentary escape — and, al- though not without a slight palpitation of the c3 34 THE BANKER-LORD. heart, she desired to have the carriage opened, and sprang within the shelter of the door. Had Miss L' Estrange been even an occasional visitor during her vacations at her father's house, it is probable she would have only felt amused at the novelty of her present position ; but the neces- sary seclusion of a school aiming at aristocratic exclusiveness, from which, since nine years of age, she had scarcely been absent for a whole day, while it perfected her in all that was considered desirable or ornamental to the high-born lady, had taught her fastidiousness as a duty, and left her to cultivate bigotry as a principle. Arrived inside the door, she paused once more ; for although the fair mountaineer, either unversed in the signs of a lady leaving her carriage, which Miss L'Estrange's rapid movements did not give her time to learn then, or else unable to tear her- self from the scene of attraction, crushed herself back against the side wall of the hall, holding back her drapery — albeit, not too ample — with her hands at either side, to permit the young lady to pass intact ; still, the darkness was so visible, and the stairs partook of it so largely, that the gentle image of the oratoire and its delicately faded lady being long since dispelled, nothing less than the gun- powder plot succeeded it in Miss L*Estrange*s imagination ; and she almost expected to see Guy Fawkes and his lanthorn making their appearance. THE BANKER-LORD. 35 Mrs. Kelly, in the meantime, had recrossed the gutter, and whispering to the damsel as she passed — " What are you stanin' gapin' there for, you unmannerly being ? And so I see you with- out your shoes and stockins again, after all I said to you ! — never heed it a while !" — she seized Miss L'Estrange*s hand, and tucking it under her capable arm, she proceeded to lead her sideways through the hall, informing her, in a low, confidential tone as she did so, " that poor girl, that Sibby, is my own counthry woman too, that I sent over lately to Mrs. Coghlan ; for her heart was broke with the London girls — one worse than an other. This is an innocent crachur as can be, if she'd wear shoes and stockins. She thought all London was lookin' at her the first day she put them on — it was very natural." By this time they had arrived at the foot of the stairs ; and Mrs. Kelly, in the weight of her argu- ment forgetting the weight of her person, caused Miss L'Estrange!s slight form a smart concussion by attempting to ascend them by her side. At another moment, Miss L'Estrange would certainly have suppressed any indication of inconvenience from the little accident ; but in the present excited state of her nerves, she involuntarily uttered a shriek, much more attributable to her anticipations than her actual sufferings, which startled the good 36 THE BANKER-LORD. woman so effectually that she would have caught her in her arms to apply the stimulus of friction to the aggrieved side, if the young lady had not eluded her grasp by springing up the stairs, and taking shelter in the first room, the door of which she found open. And thankful now would she have been to have found it an oratoire. Whatever pity crucifixes, images, or beads might excite in her mind, for their superstition — or whatever abhorrence of idolatry — they would, at least, not have endangered her personal safety ; while, without losing the re- membrance that her hostess was guilty of all the superstition and idolatry though without its symbols, she was tempted almost to utter a prayer for safe deliverance from the soiled and squalid refuse of lumber sale-rooms with which she found herself surrounded in Mrs. Kelly's " sitting room." In a moment or two Mrs. Kelly rejoined her, breathing heavily from the exertion of following her so fast. " Wont you be sated, my dear ?" she asked, dragging from a corner, where it had been sedu- lously stowed, the only arm-chair the room con- tained, and placing it behind her. But no sooner had Miss L' Estrange accepted her offer than every creaking joint gave way at once, and had she been a particle less agile or more heavy, she must have fallen to the ground amidst the debris of the fabric. THE BANKER-LORD. 37 As it was, she uttered another piercing shriek ; nor was it this time confined to herself alone, — Mrs. * Kelly responded to it in a fine contr'alto — " Aough ! Powers of goodness !" she shouted, as she hustled over, with her arms extended, appa- rently to complete the overthrow of her guest, who, however, once more eluded her by springing aside. '' What is this for, at all, at all ? I know the manin' now,'* she said, as she picked up the fragments of the chair, and curiously examined them one by one, — " I know the manin' now, why this chair was ever and always stuck behind backs in that comer. And what did I think but it was to spare it, as bein' the grandest in the room ; and I, not carin' a pin for arm-chairs, never heeded it, till just now, that I thought you had a right to the best. Well, upon my word, I don't think that altogether right of Mrs. Coghlan, considerin' I'm a friend, and might have broke my back. Will you try the sofa, jewel ?" and she soused up and down on it herself two or three times by way of experiment. Miss L' Estrange accepted the test, and sat down, literally trembling with terror and agitation ; and being unable even to make an attempt at con- versation, an awkward pause of some moments ensued. Mrs. Kelly's Irish habits of hospitality, however, did not suffer it to continue long. Rising hastily 38 THE BANKER-LORD. from the sofa where she had placed herself beside Miss L'Estrange, with the feeling that propinquity is civility, she began to fumble in her pocket for a key, waddling across the room as she did so towards a buffet cunningly coloured the same as the walls, as if to conceal its existence, and applying the key thereunto, she drew forth a large white delf jar, or crock, covered with the coarsest brown paper, and tied with cord that might have secured a crazy trunk, which placing between her arm and side, she proceeded to take out a dingy ci-devant ja- panned bread-basket, containing part of a stale loaf and a desert-spoon. Placing these articles on the table, without even looking towards Miss L' Estrange, she went to the room door, which, in Irish fashion, she had not thought of shutting, and uplifting her voice, as if to prove that her lungs were worthy of their casket, she shouted, " Sibby ! Sibby, I say ! do you hear ? bring up a plate and knife in one minute !" then returning to the sofa, as if refreshed by her happy recollection, she insti- tuted inquiries as to Mr. L'Estrange's health, when his daughter had returned from school, and such interesting topics. In the midst of them she was interrupted by the entrance of Sibby, who, bearing the desired articles on a tray that seemed parent to the bread-basket, moved towards Mrs. Kelly as lightly as her now shackled feet would admit, and whispered, *« Will THE BANKER-LORD. 39 I bring the cheese, ma'am ? — the misthis bid me offer you the double Gloucesther." Mrs. Kelly hesitated a moment between her hospitable feelings, and reluctance to incur so great an obligation, when the former partly overpowering the latter, she turned to Miss L' Estrange, and asked, " My dear Miss L'Estrange, would you like a bit of cheese ? — raal double Gloucester?" Miss L' Estrange, to whom this was the first intimation that the preparations she saw going for- ward had reference to her, hastily declined the offer, and Mrs. Kelly repeated the refusal to the maid, adding, as she left the room, " Poor Mrs. Coghlan thinks her cheese as great a trate to you, born and bred in England, as it is to me that never set foot in it before. But here's what I flatter my- self will be a trate to a Londoner ;" and not having dreamt of the young lady's declared disinclination to eat extending beyond the cheese, she proceeded only the more vigorously to ladle out, upon the solitary plate, spoonful after spoonful of black cur- rant jam from the white crock; and having cut a thick slice of bread from the stale loaf, and laid it on the edge of the same plate, she said, " Here now ! sit over, jewel, and take a mouthful of bread and jam after your long drive ; for a long drive it is through them weary streets." Miss L'Estrange shudderingly declined ; where- upon Mrs. Kelly, who excelled in the arts of 40 THE BANKER-LORD. pressing, repeated in a tone of high and ironical interrogation, " No ? but I say i/es. What should ail you but you could ate a slice of nice bread and jam ? or any one of your age ? Ra'al, right, homade jam ; not the thrash you get here in your pastry shops. And will I tell you how I come to have it here ? Whethen, I brought it, thinking it id be pleasant for John ; but he's better, and doesn't want it now ; and you're as welcome to it as the flowers in May. There's plenty more where it came from ; so come — come over like a dear, and take a bite." Miss L'Estrange again declared she had had luncheon before she set out. *' Luncheon !" exclaimed the hospitable lady ; " but you don*t call this luncheon ? I'll be bound, you had no such jam as this at your luncheon ? Don't I know the kind of jam they buy in towns ? Do take a spoonful or two, even without bread ! It's the wholesomest jam there is !" And in her zeal, she not only brought the plate over towards her guest, but proceeded to hold some of the vaunted jam to her lips. Miss L'Estrange's hitherto vague, wavering apprehensions now assumed a more definite form, and she began to fear that she was shut up, not only with a papist, but a mad one, and while she palpitated and hesitated under this fresh alarm, Mrs. Kelly, encouraged by her silence to press THE BANKER-LORD. 41 the spoon more closely upon her as she leaned back, suddenly lost her balance, and lady, plate, spoon, and all, were precipitated into the lap of the victim of hospitable thoughts. Of course, another and more piercing shriek than either of the two former was the immediate consequence; and as Mrs. Kelly, whose foot had become entan- gled in the rusty carpet in her efforts to rise with- out relinquishing her grasp of the viands, continued to flounder upon her, the shrieks were reiterated in terrifying succession, with the decided object of procuring help. " Whist ! whist ! my dear, for God's sake !" were Mrs. Kelly's first words on recovering her- self; *' if you schreech that way, they'll think somethin' ails you !" And as Miss L'Estrange, finding herself now released, forgot every other consideration in her wish to escape, she suddenly made a spring towards the door, hastily muttering " good morning" as she did so. Mrs. Kelly, how- ever, caught her by her dress as she passed. '' What's the matter, now ? where are you flyin' to in such a hurry, my dear ? But, indeed, I am afraid things are not to your likin' here ; nor to my own, aither, for that matter; and if I thought that, I'd be sorry to press you to ate or to stay ; but still, as I've kept you so long, I'm not going to let you go back through all them dirty, dark streets alone, and it almost night already. So here. 42 THE BANKER-LORD. just step in here with me for one weeshy moment, and I wont keep you." And without giving Miss L' Estrange time for an answer, she again seized her hand, and drew her into a small bed-room close by, where, snatching at a bonnet and shawl, she was again hurrying out, even while huddling them on with one hand, when Miss L'Estrange, now posi- tively gasping with terror, drew back, and glancing at her watch, said — " I think. Ma'am, you have mistaken the hour, and — and — I should be sorry — " '^Ah! what! sorry, child? — fiddle-faddle! — what harm will the drive do me? or the walk home afterwards ?'* " But it will be so much later then," murmured Miss L'Estrange. " So it will ; but there's all the difference in the world between a beautiful young lady — and that you are, all the world over — and an old hag, who, whatever she may have been, has seen her best days. So come your ways, my dear, if you are for going ; and, indeed, I don't wish to press you to stay and dine with me, seeing how things are." The very mention of such an infliction as this would be, made all else appear trifling to Miss L'Es- trange ; and hastening down stairs, she contented herself with whispering to the servant to be particu- larly attentive to the slightest touch of the check string, or a call from her, and stood back to allow THE BANKER-LORD. 43 Mrs. Kelly to get into the carriage. After some re- monstrance, Mrs. Kelly obeyed ; but no sooner had she soused down on the seat in a manner that caused the servant to glance at the springs, than she scrambled out again much more quickly, and, begging Miss L'Estrange's pardon " for one mo- ment," she again hurried up the stairs, and dis- appeared. Never was poor girl more strongly beset with temptation than now was Miss L'Es- trange to drive away and leave her to her imagin- ings ; but before she could resolve upon what would have been her first attempt at rudeness, Mrs. Kelly re-appeared with a small bundle under her shawl ; which, carefully though furtively cram- ming into the side-pocket of the carriage next her- self, she turned towards Miss L' Estrange to announce that she was ready — and away they drove at last. 44 THE BANKER- LORD. CHAPTER IV. Miss L'Estrange and her unwelcome compa- nion had not proceeded through many streets on their return towards Belgrave Square, when, in one of the poorest and narrowest, their progress was interrupted by a collection of people round some object of temporary interest or curiosity. No sooner did Mrs. Kelly become aware of it, than, leaning as much of her person as possible out of the carriage, she called out in her strong, national accent, '' What's the matter ? what's the matter? my man ! good woman ! (as either happened to pass,) has any accident happened? is anybody hurt?" In a moment Miss L' Estrange 's servant was at the window, and Mrs. Kelly requested him to inquire what was the cause of the crowd. The servant was already able to answer that it was some poor man who had fainted, but that the people THE BANKER-LORD. 45 were now passing on, and the carriage could pro- ceed." <^ But what's come o' the poor man? stop ! stop ! one minute, if you plase, Sir, — I see the crachur now, and I dont see any one stoppin* with him, but one poor wretched-looking woman, as bad as himself. Dont go on, if you plase, till we see what they're goin' to do with him." A kinder heart never beat in human bosom than had been bestowed on Rosa L'Estrange ; but, while a considerable portion of the pocket- money of the pupils at Ellistone House was regu- larly sequestrated for charitable purposes, such sequestration was not more imperatively impressed on them as a duty, than was the avoidance of all inquiries into its appropriation; and contact or con- versation with paupers was foremost in their cata- logue of crimes. Miss L'Estrange's docility had caused her to yield in this, as in all else, to those she had been brought up to love, honour, and obey ; she had her lesson, accordingly, ready on the instant. " My dear Madam," she said to Mrs. Kelly, " you may depend upon it, the man will be taken proper care of by the proper persons. Had you not better suffer us to proceed ?" " Who are they, my dear ? for if I thought that, of course what call for me to meddle? Who are they, dear ?" 46 THE BANKER-LORD. " Oh, why really I do not exactly know ; but I know — at least, I'm sure there are such. However, if you choose, I will send the man a shilling by the servant.'* And she drew out her purse for the purpose. " Stop one minute, my dear," Mrs. Kelly said, holding down her hand with her own. " If there raally are people to take proper care of this poor man, what need to throw away your money ? but vou seem not sure. Are there, or are there not, honey ?" she earnestly repeated. " For I see no one near him like to do him any good — do, dear, if you plase, let me just step out myself and see how it is with them." Had Mrs. Kelly proposed to take the coachman's place on the box, and drive the carriage home, Miss U Estrange could not have looked more asto- nished than by this proposal. " Go to him ! crush your way through that mob !" she exclaimed. Then recalling her doubts of the lady's sanity, she said soothingly, though tremulously, " Nay, you are certainly jesting now. May we drive home ?" Before answering, Mrs. Kelly again leaned out of the carriage to reconnoitre, and then returning, " You may drive home, my dear," she said ; "I see you'll be in the fair open streets in a minute now, and your men seem quiet, proper people ; but not THE BANKER-LORD. 47 a wink would come on my eyes this night if I left that pale, hungry-looking crachur there, and every one passing by without asking him if he has a mouth.* So here, Misther William, — isn't it Wil- liam you call him, dear? — just let me out, if you plase, and shut the door, and take your young lady home as fast as you can." But it was on some points only that Miss L'Estrange's compassion had been taught to slum- ber ; and that which she had restrained towards the pauper, now found what she considered a legitimate vent towards Mrs. Kelly herself; and however strongly she might have been tempted by the prospect of her own release being thus at once effected, she again resisted the temptation rather than suffer one in the situation she considered Mrs. Kelly to be in, to take such a proceeding. Accordingly, in her turn, seizing hold of her dress in the extremity of her anxiety, she said, " My dear Madam, excuse me, but you do not perhaps know the customs of London ; you have no idea how remarkable such conduct would be — how you would be stared at, to say no worse, if you attempted it. " Stared at! and what harm would that do * A common form in some parts of Ireland of expressing remissness in offering food. 48 THE BANKER- LORD. me, jewel ? and more shame for them that would think it a staring matter to do my common duty !" " But how is it your duty, Ma'am ? Do you know anything of these people ?" " I know they're God's crachurs, and that's enough. And why is it my duty ? just for no rason, but because it seems to be no one else's ; and if that be the case, it must be mine. But if I find it's anybody else's business, I'll engage I wont take it out of their hands ; for though we've enough, and to spare, I never wish to deprive others of their right to give also ; so let me go, dear ! for though I don't know much of the ways of London , they can't be altogether so different from Christians all the world over." " Hen[i !" thought Miss L'Estrange ; « out peeps the papist bigotry at last !" and deeming it better not to exasperate her on that point, she determined to try another, and accordingly said, " But suppose this man should be an im- postor ?" " And suppose he should not, my dear ?" re- torted Mrs.. Kelly. As this was uttered with the most perfect sim- plicity and desire for explanation, and as Miss L'Estrange had none ready at the moment, Mrs. Kelly took advantage of her silence to request the THE BANKER-LORD. 49 servant once more to open the door ; and as, even before rising from her seat, she had, in her haste, stretched one leg a considerable way down the steps, Miss L'Estrange saw the necessity of relin- quishing the grasp she had taken of her clothes, and away she immediately waddled, only looking back to give a good-humoured nod and smile, dragging her shawl up on her shoulders, and searching for a pin for it with as much composure as if she had been crossing her own bofj at Lisanore. The crowd gave way before her air of quiet deter- mination, and she was presently lost to sight in the midst of it. Still, Miss L'Estrange could not resolve to abandon her in a situation so perilous. " Follow her, Wil- liam ; follow Mrs. Kelly," she said, '' and see that nothing annoys her, and ask if I can be of any further assistance." In about five minutes Mrs. Kelly reappeared, apparently in a most triumphant state ; and coming up to the carriage window, was about to relate the cause of it to Miss L'Estranore- when the latter besought her to step in, as otherwise she would have the whole street for an audience. To this she assented, only making it a condition that she was not to be detained. " Well, then ; what do you think 1 found out, my dear, by going ?" she exclaimed, as soon as she VOL. I. D 50 THE BANKER-LORD. was reseated ; '' and I'm sure it ought to be a lesson to every one never to pass any one by ; for I had no more notion, from Adam down, who this poor man was — no more than you have this minute — but thought it was an Englishman, to be sure, and by coorse a protestant. Well, well !" And as she paused to philosophize, Miss L'Es- trange could only suppose it was some near relative, whom she had found in temporary dis- tress. Not thinking it civil, however, to express this supposition, she merely inquired who it was. Mrs. Kelly, however, requested her to guess; but then, unable to wait for so tedious a process, she exclaimed, " Why, then, he's a poor Irishman ! — a poor countryman of my own, and a catholic !" " And is that all ?" Miss L'Estrange coldly asked. " All ! — all !" Mrs. Kelly repeated, staring on her with features working with astonishment; *' and is that what you say to such a meetin' ? To be sure, I know, or I remember, how you're of a different way of thinkin' yourself; but still I thought that there were some feelings that are not of any parti- cular country or religion. But good morning now, my dear, my story's done, and I'm going back to my poor man !" THE BANKER-LORD. 51 Miss L*Estrange's principles and feelings once more struggled, for a moment, within her, but again the latter obtained the victory. '* Excuse me, Mrs. Kelly, — I trust you will ?*' she said, with an earnest and ingenuous blush, — " but may I ask if you really know nothing more of this man than what you mention, and this only from himself?" Mrs. Kelly laughed heartily. " And do you ra'ally tliink," she exclaimed, *' that any one could put on the sweet Irish tongue, so as to desave Mary Kelly, that wasn't born and bred in it ? — No, no ! the English can do much, but they can't do that r This Miss L'Estrange admitted; but having always heard that the poor Irish about London were not only the refuse of their own nation, but of human nature, the more certain it became that this person was one of them, the more incumbent did she feel it to be to put her simple companion on her guard. The task she felt to be a diflScult and delicate one ; she attempted it, however, by asking what story the man had told, or how he had accounted for his destitution. Mrs. Kelly hesitated ; and finally said, she would rather not tell, as it might not sound pleasing to Miss L' Estrange. *' To me !" Miss L'Estrange repeated, in great d2 !JW)iS 52 THE BANKER-I.ORD. surprise. "Pray do tell me, for now you excite my curiosity, as well as my anxiety." Mrs. Kelly then proceeded to inform her that he was a poor man, originally from the north of Ireland, who of late years had held a farm under a gentleman in England, but that, having refused to vote with his landlord against his conscience, he and his family had been turned out to want and starvation, and had begged their way to London, where the man believed he had a brother in toler- able business, but who he found, on arriving, had been dead for some months, and all trace of him lost ; that since then, the wanderer's children had all died except two, and that he had himself had a severe fit of illness, from which he was only that day sufficiently recovered to crawl out, with his wife's assistance, to beg for some relief to keep them from actual starvation ; that the effort had been too much for him, and he had fainted. " And you believe this story ?" Miss L' Estrange asked, with a look as nearly approaching to indig- nation as her sweet features could express; for much more readily could she have believed that she should herself set out to rob on the highway than that the party she approved could be guilty of such wickedness. " Believe it ?" Mrs. Kelly repeated ; " why THE BANKER-LORD. 53 wouldn't I believe it, dear ? He told it all to me in Irish ; and, to my sorrow, I know it often happens on both sides." Again Miss L' Estrange smiled a cold, but meaning smile ; she v/as much too gentle and polite to say, " You judge others by yourselves;" but not the very smallest doubt crossed her mind of such being the sole foundation for the assertion. " Well now, my dear, I've no use in keeping you any longer," Mrs. Kelly resumed. " I found the people as mannerly as I could wish ; for it was natural for them to lauo^h a little at a stranore lan- guage, — sure often and often I laughed myself, when I came over first, at theirs ;" and having again, at the recollection, laughed away any little chill that might have extended itself to her from Miss L'Estrange's manner, she said, " And so you needn't be one bit afraid of me, dear ; you'll see I'll do well enough with my poor man ; once, in- deed, for a minute, I was frightened, when he told me it was in a cellar he lived, for fear it was a drunkard he was ; but the people explained to me that a cellar here is the same as a garret, and no more food or drink to be got in it ; so I was satis- fied. And now, my dear, good morning to you !" And as Miss L'Estrange made no further oppo- sition, the leg was once more stretched out ; when 54 THE BANKER-LORD. hastily pulling it back a second time, with a sudden, uncertain, but animated expression of countenance, she exclaimed, " Well, Tve a great mind to do a very quare thing !" Miss L'Estrange instantly let down the window, and caught at the check-string. Mrs. Kelly, how- ever, was too intent on her own scheme to observe her. ^' I will r she determinately repeated ; and Miss L'Estrange only refrained from screaming, by per- ceiving that, as she said so, she turned from her, and began tugging at the pocket in which she had made her secret deposit. Politeness now induced Miss L'Estrange to turn away her head ; but it was unnecessary ; for no sooner had she done so, than, round the poke of her summer bonnet, and close up to her face, once more appeared the identical white black-currant-jam-pot of hideous memory. She now really uttered a faint shriek, as she started back fi'om this apparition. Mrs. Kelly contemplated her and it alternately for a moment in silence, and then said, " You'll think me the quarest being that ever lived when I tell you what Pm about ! As I couldn't get you to ate a bit of my nice jam to-day, I just put it up for a surprise for you when you'd get home ; and now do you know, but what, as it's the last I have in town, I have a mind to ask you to let me give it THE BANKER-LORD. 55 to that poor man instead ; for be he liar or true, protestant or catholic, its beyond all doubt that he has a wheezin* in his chest !" It is scarcely too much to say that Miss L'Es- trange mentally returned thanks when she heard this proposal ; and giving her consent with a cheer- fulness that left no doubt of her sincerity, Mrs. Kelly shook her hand affectionately, and saying — " We don't altogether understand aitch other, I'm afraid ; but there's something about you makes me think we would," finally took her departure, and Miss L' Estrange, with the strongest sense of relief she had ever experienced, drove away. Although the alarms and annoyances which Miss L'Estrange had experienced in the course of her unpropitious visit had left her little inclination to put her father's assurances of unlimited credit to the test, having left a brooch at a jeweller's for some trifling repair, with a request to have it done immediately, she felt bound to call for it on her way home ; and the man, being accomplished in his call- ing, although Miss L'Estrange did not leave her car- riage, succeeded in persuading her to carry home a case of tasteful, but intrinsically valueless orna- ments, amounting to about a hundred pounds in price, for which sum, notwithstanding all his assur- ances of wishinor to have her " in his books," and 56 THE BANKER-LORD. SO forth, she determined to ask her father on arriving at home, and to pay for them at once; for as Mrs. EUistone, for obvious reasons, never permitted her young ladies to run in debt, Miss L' Estrange had still in full force the unsophisti- cated feeling, that while you keep any one's goods without remuneration, so long you are under obli- gation to them ; and she was very proud, as every romantic person is. It happened that just as she drove up to the door in Belgrave Square, her father arrived there too; and such was the sensation of perfect exemp- tion, at last, from all further adventures, which the sight of him occasioned her, that she felt inclined to spring into his arms. Recollecting the case of trinkets, however, which the jeweller had officiously placed in one of the pockets of the carriage, she hastily put in her hand to take it out, when, not the most piercing of all the shrieks she had uttered that day could be compared to that which now es- caped her, as, on hearing a sort of sharp, crumpling crash, she snatched back her hand, and found it streaming with broken eggs ! Her spirits were at last wholly overcome ; and feeling as if subjected to some Proteus-like persecution from Mrs. Kelly for evermore, her father carried her into the house in a fit of hysteric sobbing. It was some time before she could compose her- THE BANKER-LORD. 57. self sufficiently to give him any account of what bad befallen her; and when she did, it was one so wholly though unconsciously exaggerated, as in- duced him to join in her supposition of Mrs. Kelly's insanity ; and expressing a hope that her son, his clerk, might not inherit the disease, he was leaving the room, after thanking her for her compliance with his wishes, and regretting that the visit had not, as he hoped, tended to remove her prejudices, when she earnestly besought him to tell her if no steps could be taken to prevent Mrs. Kelly's pauper friend from spreading stories so injurious to the party to which she had taken it for granted he alluded. He laughed at her anxiety, and as- sured her that every party was accustomed to such stories, and that everything was fair in love or war. " War !" she repeated, in horror. " Are we, then, engaged in a civil and religious war so fierce that truth and Christian forbearance are openly rejected ?" " Pooh ! my dear ; I really cannot undertake to answer you such ridiculous questions," her father said. " I wish you would have done thinking on subjects so unsuitable to you; but, by-the-bye, there is one much more to the purpose on which I must caution you ; it is that of those pests of society denominated ' genteel beggars,' who hope to pur- d3 58 THE BANKER-LORD. chase heaven for themselves with other people's money. This poor mad-woman, indeed, does not seem to come under the denomination in any sense of the word ; but, depend upon it, plenty of them will gather about you ; and I assure you, my love, that though it is necessary I should keep up ap- pearances, I have not a single sous to spare at pre- sent;" and he left the room. « THE BANKER-LORD. 59 CHAPTER V. It is impossible to express the astonishment which the concluding words of the" last chapter, apparently so carelessly uttered, excited in her to whom they were addressed. It might almost be said that money, as a simple element, had never in her life been thought of by Miss L'Estrange ; and as a necessary means for supplying wants, which she only understood as wishes, she had believed it to be inexhaustible ; or rather, she had done more, she had thought of it no more than the air she breathed — the light which she enjoyed. Distresses for want of money she had indeed both read and heard of; but so she had of pulmonary complaints, and of persons deprived of sight; but as none of them had ever fallen under her own immediate observation, she considered them alike as painful abstractions with which she, individually, had no 60 THE BANKER-LORD. further concern than to relieve those afflicted with them as far as might fall within her power. What, then, must her astonishment, her horror, have been to hear that her father was one of those afflicted beings ; for such was, to her, the meaning of his assurance, that, however compelled to keep up ap- pearances, he had not one sous to spare even upon charity ! To her unpractised ear and unsophisti- cated heart this sounded as the confession of the last stage of destitution ; not, be it observed, from pure and instinctive compassion, nor yet from cul- tivated principles of self-denying charity; for the one had been kept dormant by the systematic with- holding of objects calculated to excite it, and the other, though preached as a theory, was never permitted as a practice; no, it was solely and simply that, in her natural and habitual high-mindedness, she sin- cerely believed that the last prerogative the wealthy would resign was the pleasure of giving ; and the greatest sacrifice which she herself had ever yet been called upon to make to her political principles, was to refrain from offering her purse to Mrs. Kelly, even for her pauper papist. In her agitated escape from the carriage, and the subsequent explanations, her new purchase, the case of trinkets, had been entirely forgotten ; but now the words of her father recalled it to her mind ; and, in her acceptation of those words, it seemed to her that she had committed an act which THE BANKER-LORD. 61 might deprive him of the means of purchasing food. How to repair it was her immediate consi- deration ; and as the jeweller was one who had grown to ** respectability" under the patronage of the pupils of Ellistone House, she doubted not, that, by a small sacrifice, she could prevail on him to take back the purchase ; and on this course she determined without a moment's hesitation. Con- ceiving, however, that the transaction required a personal interview, she was obliged to defer it until next day; and, in the meantime, determined to avoid, as much as possible, wounding her father's feelings by any betrayal of the shock she had received. " How well he bears up under it himself !" she sighed; " poor dear papa ! and how much he must be respected, to have his credit still so good ! Yet, surely," and she glanced round the magnificently furnished apartment, peopled by splendid mirrors and valuable paintings, " to my silly eyes, there appears a fortune in this room alone ! But it seems he cannot help that. Heigho ! I must go and take off my hat." And so well did she keep her resolution, that if any pensiveness did appear, now and then, in the course of the evening, Mr. L'Estrange attributed it to the exhaustion her spirits had suffered that day, or the want of more society; and he offered to teach her chess. 62 THE BANKER-LORD. It would perhaps be impossible to find, in Great Britain at least, a more amiably-selfish man than Mr. L' Estrange. The consequence was, that he was uni- versally popular, without ever exciting or bestowing any deep or lasting friendship. The only hint he had ever received that sorrow or annoyance could ex- tend to him was by the death of his young wife, and his uncle's marriage ; but to both events he reconciled himself with nearly equal promptitude, as he found, without reasoning upon it, that neither materially interfered with his immediate enjoy- ment. Then a young man, and still scarcely past his prime, many wondered he did not marry again ; and some even tried to convince him that he ought : but gay, heedless, and good-humoured, he did not see how a wife would add to his enjoyments enough to counterbalance the fuss and trouble she would occasion, and the probable injury to his children, whom he really did love, though he banished them all on system, until they should be grown enough to become his companions, telling himself and the world, however, that it was solely for their good ; and obtaining credit for the asser- tion both from the world and himself, because he sent them each to the most expensive establish- ments the country afforded, with unlimited orders for education and pocket-money. For the last year he had really anticipated pleasure from his daughter's return home, and he could not conceive THE BANKER-LORD. 63 why he now felt disappointed. Unused to think much upon the subject of a young lady's dignity, some fatherly instinct yet whispered him that to bring a set of gentlemen round her as her only society on her return from school would not be taking the best means to support it ; and he had, therefore, for two days, magnanimously refrained from asking any to dinner, saying to himself, that surely he could not miss their society when he loved Rosa so much better; besides that, he was '' rather fond of women's society," and he wondered why the second evening had proved even heavier than the first. " Rosa is perfectly lovely," he said to himself, as he laid his head upon his pillow; "she has her poor mother's exquisite complexion, and the same delicate symmetry of figure and limbs— and the little crea- ture has features like mine, only softened and re- fined, and a thousand times handsomer — and -as for her countenance, 1 believe she has it from hea- ven itself, so playful, and sweet, and intelligent — and she sings delightfully, too, and sang at once whenever I asked her, and chattered away, too, about her school, and her politics, and nonsense. I wonder how it is I am not more amused ! I almost thought when she came home I should never care to see any one else ; but though I really love her more every hour I see her, I don't find that effect follow, somehow. I trust in Heaven I may be able 64 THE BANKER-LORD. to get the dear child eligibly settled soon ; she will have fortune enough herself, I suppose, not to make one throw away happiness in search of it, alone, in a husband ; and she would be far happier in a house of her own than in a sort of bachelor's house like this. Heigho ! Women, elegant, high- bred women, must be a restraint in any house, I see ; and a daughter, after all, is not much less trouble in an establishment than a wife !" THE BANKER-LORD. 65 CHAPTER VI. '' Rosa, my love, this will never do !" exclaimed Mr. L'Estrange, as he and his daughter again met at breakfast, the morning after the soliloquy with which we closed the last chapter. " Upon my soul, I feel for j'ou !" His dausjhter, whose imaijination was still run- ning on the subject of poverty, was about to offer to resign her egg and toast, and to live on more frugal fare. '* It was very inconsiderate of me,'' he went on, " to bring you home until I was just setting off for Cheltenham ; in fact, to have taken you up on my way would have been best of all ; but I really did expect to have got off before this, — it must be so horribly dull for you here, after all your merry companions. What, suppose, as you are such a favourite with Mrs. Ellistone, vou were to return 66 THE BANKER-LORD. to her for a few days, until this Steen makes his appearance ?" " My dear papa, what can you possibly mean ?" his daughter exclaimed in reply; and feeling really hurt ; for although not unconscious of the change he spoke of, she had not yet even whispered to herself that her father's house, her " home," could be other than paradise to her. Mr. L' Estrange again explained his meaning. She cast down her eyes, and the colour of her cheek faded into a paler shade as a new idea struck her ; she hesitated a moment, and then said, '' Surely dear papa — I cannot — be much more expense to you here than there — now that your establishment is formed — unless — unless indeed you intend — *' But before she could proceed further she was struck by the amazement expressed in her father's countenance, as he exclaimed, " Why, what upon earth, girl, are you talking or thinking of? Upon my soul, Rosa, you occasionally startle and astonish me so that I know not what to think. In general, you are as lady-like and refined as a little queen, and then out pops something that sounds so incon- sistent and extraordinary, that I'm half tempted to think you are as mad as that poor Mrs. Kelly. What can you possibly mean about saving expense, or not saving it, by your spending a few days with Mrs. Ellistone till I can take you to Cheltenham? I thought, from all I saw, and from the sort of per- THE BANKER-LORD. 67 sons who sent their daughters to ElHstone House, that, at least, you would be sure to escape all mean, or grovelling ideas unbecoming your ancestry !" " A note from Mrs. Kelly, Ma'am," said a ser- vant, entering at the moment, and presenting one to Miss L' Estrange. She felt thankful for the in- terruption, and hastened to break a large, elaborate, red seal, and to read aloud these lines, written in a fine, bold, round, clerklike, but still female, hand, on a sheet of large-sized letter-paper : — ** My Dear Miss L'Estrange, — After I got home last night, and about the time I thought you would be getting there yourself, and finding the few fresh eggs I took the liberty of laying in one of the pockets of the carriage to surprise you, I began to think I had done a very foolish thing, and that there they might stay till the day of judgment, and you never be the wiser ; or if the servants found them, might eat them without ever telling you, — fresh eggs being such a treat in any town of size, and of course especially in London, — so I thought I would just send a little runner with a line, to tell you that you will find every one of them as sound as a bell, aUhough laid in poor old Ireland ; for I have a knack of keeping them that never fails, and which I would give you the receipt of, only for your never having any chance of getting a new- laid egg in London to try it on. Still, as no one 68 THE BANKER-LORD. ever knows the chances and changes of this life, and it might come in your way sometime or other; the whole secret is, never to let one whiff of air get into them — if you do, you may go whistle for them, — for all the buttering hands could butter would not save them, once the poison entered ; that is the reason why you so often see huckster's buttered eggs no better than they should be. But the way is, to seize the egg warm from the hen,— ivarm, mind ; for whatever is the reason, while the natural heat lasts the air does not get in, — and while they are safe that way, rub your butter over every bit of them, — for one weeshy pore left open would do all the mischief, — and you have your eggs till dooms- day. I buttered these with my own hands, so you need not be afraid to set them down before your grandest friends, if you want to make a show ; but indeed I would rather you kept them for yourself, and took one every morning, beat up, fasting, for I think you are too slight for your height. God bless you, my dear. Make my respects and thanks to your father, and excuse all liberties from "Your obedient servant, " Mary Kelly." " P.S. — If the little blackguard I send with this should offer to stay, or look for anything, just get 3'our servants to wring his ear, and turn him out, for I gave him his breakfast, and promised him his THE BANKER-LORD. 69 dinner, for bis trouble. Excuse me giving you one little hint as you are a young bousekeeper, — don't let your cook be smashing these real country eggs into puddings or pies, — bought eggs are every bit as good for that purpose." " Now, Sir," said Miss L'Estrange, laying down this document, " I am glad you have an oppor- tunity of judging for yourself, for I dare say you had a lingering suspicion, until now, that I had ex- aoroperated matters." Mr. L'Estrange admitted himself convinced, and took up the letter as if to realize its contents by ocular demonstration. '* Is it not curious," he said, " that there is not a word ill spelt?" " You would think so if you heard her pronun- ciation," his daughter answered. *' But, Rosa, to resume what we were inter- rupted in by this arrival — " but it was never des- tined to be resunvjd; for at that moment a knock at the hall door announced visitors ; and the interim between their being shewn to the drawing-room, and the servants coming to say that two young ladies had begged to see Miss L'Estrange, but did not give their names, was fully occupied in conjec- tures as to who could think of calling at an hour so unusual. " They are some of those begging bores I spoke 70 THE BANKER-LORD. of, Rosa, depend upon it !" Mr. L'Estrange ex- claimed, immediately on hearing the announcement. " Now, pray, remember what I told you, — not a single sous, by Heavens, can I command just now ! I never was so hard up before, — so be decisive at once, and they'll report accordingly to their gang, — but once yield, and you're in for it. Go now and get them out of the house as quickly as you can ; one interview is better than fifty messages through servants. By the way, William must get a hint that it is not his business to announce a letter, like a visitor, by the name it bears, as if you were not capable of ascertaining who it is from. I'm rather afraid we must change him for one not capable of such gaucherie ; though I had the highest cha- racter of him, and indeed did not observe any deficiency like that before." '' My dear papa, I really think it was merely that William, having been my squire through my adventures of yesterday, thought any missive from Mrs. Kelly required preparation.*' "William with you yesterday? — and where, then, was Leeson ? — or who remained in the bouse?" " I really don't know. William muttered some- thing: about Leeson beinjj sent somewhere out of town by you, and that he would come with the carriage." " True ; so he was. But what a real mercy that THE BANKER-LORD. 71 there was no one in town to call while you were out ! You are aware, Rosa, that it would be a disorrace never to be obliterated if a maid servant o were obliged to appear. We must see about this ; and if another footman is necessary, hire one im- mediately," and he left his daughter more mystified than she had ever been by the most abstruse pro- blem she had ever studied in astronomy. " But it is keeping up appearances still, I sup- pose/' she sighed, as she left the room ; just as she had sometimes been in former days, reduced to repeat by rote that which she could not compre- hend. The servant stopped her as she was running up stairs, to tell her that Mrs. Kelly's messenger waited to know if there was an answer. " An answer !" she exclaimed, in all the horror such an undertaking was calculated to inspire. ** I did not know the messenger was waiting. I thought Mrs Kelly bid him not wait. No, there's no answer, except that I am very much obliged." But ashamed to resist what she considered a hint for a donation, she desired the servant to give the boy a shilling, though reproaching herself for her weak- ness as she did so. Before she had got to the drawing-room door, however, the servant followed her, and informed her that the boy refused to take it, saying he had been already paid by Mrs. Kelly ; and added, that 72 THE BANKER-LORD. he believed he was nearly blind, for he had queer white specks on both eyes, and seemed to grope his way, and to jostle people as he passed. Miss L'Estrange's self-reproach took a new direction, and mingled with it was a sudden, an unwonted, an agonizing pang of compassion. '' Oh, follow him ! — follow him, William," she said, "and make him take this half-crown. Tell him it is not for the message, but for his blind- ness, — or, stay, better not say that, perhaps, if he did not speak of it, — say for — for a reward for his honesty," and she stood on the stairs awaiting the man's return with such anxiety as one more accus- tomed to see and to relieve human sufferings sys- tematically, might not have felt ; and then hearing, with deep disappointment, that all trace of the boy was lost, with a heavy heart she turned towards the drawing-room to fulfil her ungracious, and, to her, unaccountable task. THE BANKER-LORD. 73 CHAPTER VII. Had Miss L' Estrange been a few years older, or a little more practised in the world, she would, doubtless, have entered the drawing-room, to meet the beggar bores, with that cold, but determined civility of manner which is instinctively assumed when conscious of determined incivility in sub- stance; but, as she was only eighteen, and more- over, particularly unhackneyed, she felt so like a criminal in her intentions, that she had advanced half way up the room without raising lier eyes from the carpet, and anxiously wondering in what form her visitors would commence operations, when she suddenly heard a rush towards her, and felt herself clasped in the arms of one, while the other kept softly, but sentimentally, pressing her hand. In a moment she underwent a total revulsion of feelings and ideas, and almost of physical sensations. VOL. I. E 74 THE BANKER-LOKD. «^ Frances ! Susan !" " Beloved Rosa !" were the sounds that seemed alone capable of expressing the sensations of each as they exchanged embraces, and contrived to get to the sofa almost without untwining their arms. " And so here you really are, Rosa, at last ! and queen of a perfect palace I" exclaimed the elder, though shorter, of the two sisters, glancing with critical, but admiring eyes round the room. *« Yes," she answered, faintly ; <* but when did you return from the Continent ? — and how did you find me out?'' " Why, to find out Mr. L' Estrange, of Belgrave Square, was not an Herculean labour ; nor did it require any magical exertion of intellect afterwards to ascertain whether his fair daughter was at his house," answered the young lady, who seemed, either by the consent of her sister, or in right of seniority, to take all the active parts both of con- versation and embracing on herself. " For our humble selves," she continued, " we only arrived last night ; so you see we have lost no time, love." And another embrace claimed and acknowledged gratitude for this promptitude. « How long will you stay ? Where are you going ? — not, I hope, immediately to the north ?" Miss L'Estrange asked. " Why, as to what we are going to do, we scarcely know ourselves; and, I may say, have THE BANKER-LORD. 75 waited to form any plans for the summer, until we should know yours ; but I should say we are cer- tainly not going to the north ; — you know, of course, that poor papa is dead ?" " No !" Miss L' Estrange exclaimed, in a tone of much more interest than the manner of the an- nouncement seemed to claim. " Oh, yes/' the young lady said, now casting down her eyes, " for more than six months. How is it possible you did not see it in the papers?" and she fixed a penetrating, an anxious glance upon her young friend. " I really don't know — it must have escaped me by some accident.'' " But you are as great a politician as ever ?" she asked, and with the same look of intense in- quiry. " Not a politician — you must not call me so any more — papa thinks it quite a term of reproach, but I trust " " What, then, is Mr. L' Estrange not a Tory himself?" she exclaimed, interrupting Miss L' Es- trange, in her eagerness. " Oh, yes, certainly ; but he seems to think ladies — young ones, at least — have nothing to do with the subject." " I must say, so far I agree with him." " Frances ! you who were so stanch ! — so much beyond even me ! — for while I would only keep E 2 76 THE BANKER-LORD. the papists from political power, you would exter- minate them by fire and sword !" A slight blush passed over the young lady's cheek, and, with the slightest degree of hesitation, she answered— " Oh, so I am still, perfectly stanch ; but really the subject is so abstruse — " " Not more so than religion." " Why, no — perhaps not." And again the same faint shade was visible in her cheek, and the same glance of furtive, but intense inquiry cast from her eyes. " Maisrevenons," she said, abruptly resuming her gay tone and manner. " I wrote to you my- self at the time poor papa died, and my letter must have been lost. He died at Naples, and we have been wandering about with Charles ever since." " And where are you staying now?" " Why, I blush to say, at the Clarendon !" "W^hy blush?" " Because, my dear, we are as poor as paupers — that is, Sue and I ; but you need not tell the world so, till it tells you. Papa left every penny he possibly could to Charles, who is as magnificent as a prince, and franks us everywhere, but still you know it does not do to encroach too far." Miss L'Estrange involuntarily cast down her eyes with the most painful feeling she had ever ex- perienced in her life. It seemed to her as if poverty had, all at once, beset her in every most THE BANKER-LORD. 77 frightful form. What would she not have given lo have assured her friend, at this moment, that her fortune was at her disposal ; however, she only sighed and remained silent. " Nay, never sigh for it, my fair friend," cried the lively lady. " It never costs me a sigh, I assure you ! You'll see we shall do very well ; we have kind friends, accomplishments, and, tant soit peu of prettiness, though I grant it profanation to name it in such a presence. Still, happily, there are eyes in the world which, too weak to gaze on the brilliancy of the sun, admire the humble satellites. Such be our acknowledged position henceforth, for to say simple truth, Rosa, you have turned out the very loveliest creature I ever beheld." A deep, ingenuous blush, and almost a start of astonishment, with a muttered disclaimer, was the reply to this speech. " Xay, my dear, you know young ladies don't often flatter each other; and, although I am some six or seven years your elder, still I am not hors de combat, so may be supposed not wholly indifferent on the subject. De plus, I may assume to be capable of judging a little in this matter, having seen the belles of many countries ; but come, I see you are as free from vanity as when we left you in your school-room two years ago." " I fear not," Miss L'Estrange answered, inge- 73 TR£ BAKKER-LORD. nuouslj, and with the scrapolousDess of perfect troth, that test of genius as of Turtue. Miss L'Estrange, wh&a her iiiend pronooncetl her iree firom vani^, dbdaimed the praise, Cor she was consdoos that three times hi her life her little heart had fluttered perceptibly at prabes of her beau^. The first was when her brother had nodded approTin^ j ; the second when her &ther had said she ^ would do;» in spite erf* her politics,^* at least, as soon as she understood him; and the third was, when her friend just now pronounced her the loveliest of aU the lovdy creatures she had seen ; for one of the penalties which perfect truth must pa^r in a corrupted world is, to be £reqoentlj too kte in doubting it in others. ^ No? — not quite so free from vanity, eh ? And who, then, has had the happiness of wakening it? How long have you Idl Ellistone House, Rosa?^ asked her friend ; and again there was an earnest- ness, an anxiety, in the manner of the in- quiries that evinced a deeper interest than the subject seemed to call for. To Iftiss L*£s- trange, however, it onfy bore the semblance of alfectkxi. ** Only two days since,'* she answered. ^ And can you, FVanoes, ask who has wakoied my vanity ? Had it been dead, instead of sleeping, was not your voice alone -suffident to kindle the Pro> THE BANKER-LORD. 79 methean spark ? — but, as yoa said, let us drop the subject for ever." "What, then, dearest, are your own plans ? Do you remain in London all the summer?" " Why, no — I believe not ; {>apa talks at least of going to Cheltenham, but really *' " To Cheltenham ? — happy mortal ! * When pleasure begins to grow doU id the east. Yon Irat order joax wings, and fly off to the west/ " Again Miss L'Estrange's eyes were cast apon the ground. Her impulse was to say to her impo- verished friends, " Come with as P but this she be- lieved she durst not venture, so she changed the conversation, and a series of questions and answers, such as usually pass between young ladies who have been separated after years of intimacy, ensued; and Miss L'Estrange related, in undiminbhed vividness, her adventure of the day before, and received all the sympathy she expected, with sundry cautions against promiscuous acquaint- ances ; and at last the visitors seemed to think it time to move. " If you must go now," Miss L'Estrange said, " I can set you down at your hotel ; for I am going out, and had ordered the carriage before you came." " Oh, thank you, that will just do ; for though we crept here in the early morning, I know it is 80 . THE BANKER-LORD. not comme il faut for ladies to walk the streets of London ; and alas ! alas ! for our carriage !" Miss L'Estrange hastily left the room ; and having equipped herself for her drive, she returned with the doomed case of trinkets in her hand, more than ever confirmed in her determination to repair the- error she had committed. " What pretty things are those, Rosa ?" asked her friend, the moment she appeared, and, taking them from her hand, fell into ecstasies at their beauty and style. " What are you going to do with them ? — not to change them, I hope ? You cannot, surely, find anything prettier, or more be- coming to you — they are quite foreign ! What are you going to do with them ?" Miss L'Estrange hesitated for a single moment, and then said, firmly, " To return them." " To return them ! — are they imperfect, then ? W^hat a shame ! — Who did you get them from?" " There is no shame, except to myself; I threw away a hundred pounds uselessly yesterday, and I am going to endeavour to recover it to-day." " Ho ! ho ! — so, then, * papa,^ that rara avis, that prince of peres, turns out no better than other people's papas after all?" and again the penetrating glance appeared. " Papa is as kind and indulgent to me as he ever was," his daughter replied, with earnestness ; " he never saw or heard of these ; but you must THE BANKER-LORD. 81 learn to give me credit for a little common sense, now I have left school. I remember," she added, smiling, " you used to consider me a fool." " A child, — a dear, intelligent, innocent child, perhaps," replied her friend, colouring ; " and I would rather see you so still, than — than — but it is impossible Rosa L'Estrange can have become stingy T' " I hope so." *' Nay, then, surely, I trust, still less a saint P' « I fear so." '* Come, come ! what is it, then ? You used to have no reserves when you were the dear child you spoke of." " But, then, you know the proverb," Miss L'Estrange said, smiling. " What? some stuff about woman and reserve? but that does not mean to one's intimate female friend." " But as I have no other yet, and wish to prove myself a woman still," she said, endeavouring to parry, by playfulness, the inquisitorial examination which yet she excused in consideration of the inti- macy of friendship. And it was a relief to her therefore when, at that moment, a servant sum- moned her from the room, by the emphatic whis- per, that " there was a person who wished to see her immediately ;" and, outside the door, she found her father standing, in evident impatience. e3 82 THE BANKER-LORD. " Why, who upon the face of the earth are these people, Rosa ?" he cried, the moment she ap- peared. " Are they those cursed bores I spoke of? and if so, why do you suffer them to hang on in the house so that I cannot get into the room ?" " My dear papa, they are the Miss Wiltons, daughters of Sir Gustavus Wilton, and my most intimate friends. They are just returned from the Continent with their only brother, Sir Charles Wilton." " That, indeed, is another story !" Mr. L'Estrange pronounced slowly, and almost bowing, with pleased surprise ; for, although a gentlemanly man, he en- couraged in himself, if not affected, too much of a certain nationality for perfect polish. '^ I heartily congratulate you, my dear child ; I really do," he said, in a more natural tone. " I pitied you from my soul, and was just coming in to tell you I had got a box at the opera for this evening ; there's some- thing worth hearing there still ; better at least than sitting alone at home ; and now perhaps your young friends will join you. Come in and present me. But I say, Rosa !" as she was opening the door, " is Sir Charles Wilton a married man ?" " No," she answered, and entered the room with a heightened colour. Mr. L'Estrange was presented ; and no trace was visible of his late de- sire to have the ladies turned out of the house. On the contrary, although he had intended leaving THE BANKER-LORD. 83 to his daughter to make the proposal of their accompanying her to the opera, there was some- thing so encouraging in Miss Wilton's manner that he felt no fear of offending in presuming so far himself; and, being made bold by success, he pro- ceeded even to invite them to join an early dinner with Rosa. To this, however, they demurred. Sir Charles Wilton had, they said, promised to decline every invitation for that day, rather than leave them to dine at the hotel without him, and it would be but tin ungracious return to leave him to dine there alone. The remedy was obvious. Mr. L'Estrange said, if that was, indeed, the only obstacle, he would wait on Sir Charles immediately, leave an invitation for him to join the party, and trust to Miss Wilton for making his excuses for the liberty. Although apparently shocked at the blunder she had committed. Miss Wilton laughed frankly, and said, *' Since you are so kind, then, I know I can promise for Charles, his highest ambition being to make yours and Rosa's acquaintance," and an arch, expressive glance towards the latter again summoned the heightened colour to her cheek, by recalling some fairy castles openly dis- cussed in the days of girlish intimacy and child- like innocence. Mr. L'Estrange was then leaving the room, highly satisfied with his guests, his daughter, and 84 THE BANKER-LORD. himself, when, in taking his hat from the table, his eye was attracted by the case of sparkling bijouterie which lay open. " What very pretty things ! — who is the happy owner?'* he asked, probably conceiving them a continental souvenir to his daughter. No one answered for a moment; and then Miss Wilton, looking from the daughter to the father, said, " Why, I believe, it is uncertain who may claim them in the end ; at present they are like the tomb of Mahomet, wavering between heaven and earth." " How do you mean ?" '* Why, yesterday they were destined for an angel, to-day they seem doomed again to some mere mortal. How puzzled he looks ! Nay, then, in simple phrase, Rosa purchased them yesterday to adorn her very fair self, and to-day she has determined to return them to the hapless wight who has been dreaming all night that he had sold them." '* W^hy are you going to return them, Rosa?" her father asked, carelessly, still contemplating them. " Do you not like them ? — to me they look exceed- ingly pretty.*' *' Oh, so they do to her, and to us all," Miss Wilton answered; "but Rosa thinks them too dear." '* Oh ! I am no judge whatever in that way. — how much did they cost ?" THE BANKER-LORD. 85 His daughter cast down her eyes in self-con- demnation, as in a low voice she stammered out, " A hundred pounds. But it was before — " and she stopped, and, raising her eyes to her father's face, endeavoured to make him understand her apology. Mr. L' Estrange, however, at all times unskilled in reading countenances, did not take any particu- lar notice of hers at that moment, but went on, ap- pealing to Miss Wilton, in the same heedless tone. " Do you know, they don't strike me as dear. However, as I said, I really am no judge further than of what pleases my eye, and these do particu- larly ; however, do as you please, love ; I give you carte blanche in such matters, you know," and he was again leaving the room, when Miss Wilton, who, at a glance, understood the characters of both father and daughter infinitely better than either of them did of the other, and who was laudably desirous to guard her young friend from acquiring habits of unbecoming economy or self-denial, hastened to inform him that it was not that Rosa thought the articles not worth the price, but merely too dear for her ideas of prudence. Mr. L'Estrange unaffectedly said, " I really do not understand you." His daughter again endeavoured to fix his eyes : — this time she succeeded so far as that he ex- claimed aloud, '' What is it, Rosa ? I see you are 86 THE BAjMKER-LORD. trying to convey something to me, but, for my soul, I don't understand your looks." The poor girl now, once more, cast her eyes on the ground, as if afraid others might, and changed colour rapidly. Her father's attention became ar- rested ; he also cast down his eyes for a moment, in deep consideration ; and then, as an idea suddenly occurred to him, his whole countenance lightened up with glee, and, as if afraid to trust to his guess, he exclaimed — *' Is it possible, Rosa, I have made out what you are at ? Can it possibly be what I said to you yesterday and to-day about beggars ?" " My dear papa !" '' Nay, it is, then !" he exclaimed, joyously ; and laughing in a manner of which no one could doubt the sincerity, he turned to Miss Wilton, and related what had passed, adding, however, •' Since she is such a baby, we must only manage her ac- cordingly, until she gets more accustomed to life, — therefore, my fair daughter, I command you to v^^ear these to-night as a present from me; and if your friends the Miss Wiltons would honour us so far, I should beg to commit you to thefi* guidance for all such matters in future, assuring you that my credit is good enough to support my daughter!" and he smiled, bowed, and withdrew, while Miss L'Estrange came to the conclusion that, amongst THE BANKER LORD. 87 the variety of languages she had learned at Ellis- tone House, fashionable English phraseology was not included. In the meantime, the moment the door closed behind Mr. L*Estrange, Miss Wilton exclaimed, ** My dearest Rosa, what a delightful man is your father ! Why did you never tell us he was young, handsome, and agreeable ?" ** Young f his daughter repeated, laughingly. " Yes ; positively young, for a father, and a widower ! — Why he looks little above forty, don't you think so, Susan ?" " Decidedly,^^ replied the silent young lady ; and there was something in the cool but emphatic manner in which the decision was given that fixed her sister's keen glance on her face for half a minute. " Perhaps you think him like his son ?" she asked, in a low expressive tone, and with the slightest possible approach to a sneer on her lip. There seemed but little in the words, yet the young lady darted back a quick indignant glance, as she answered, " Not the very least." " You knew my brother, then ? — you met Wil- liam ?" Miss L'Estrange inquired. " Oh, yes ; at Florence we met him several times," Miss Wilton answered. " He was quite run after there. But if we are to return to an early dinner, I fear we must fly now, being still un- 88 THE BANKER-LORD. packed. Perhaps, as you are condemned by 'a tyrant father to wear these golden fetters, you will not now choose to drive out ?" " Oh, yes ; the carriage is at the door. I shall set you down, and, giving you 'time to dress, shall call and take you up again, if you will then wait here for my hasty toilet." '^ And Charles ?" '« Oh true; I forgot Sir Charles Wilton at the moment. Then I must only beg you to return to me as quickly as you can." And even Miss Wilton did not venture further. THE BANKER-LORD. 89 CHAPTER VIII. The two young ladies, acknowledged as the dearest and most intimate friends of Miss L'Es- trange, were, as she had said, the daughters of Sir Gustavus Wilton, a Roman-catholic baronet, whose property lay in the north of England. Having lived almost entirely abroad during the early part of his life, and spending the remainder of it in low dissipation on his retired estate, his religion, being of consequence to no one but himself, was little known, and less cared for, by the world at large ; consequently, when his sister, who had conformed to the established church of her husband, seeing that their father's house was no longer a proper home for her nieces, growing into womanhood, took the motherless girls under her own charge, and placed them at Ellistone House as a sort of "parlor boarders," to acquire, late as it might be, some of PO THE BANKER-LORD. those accomplishments of which they had been hitherto cruelly deprived, no difficulties were made about receiving them, and the young ladies themselves found their advantage in concealing that they Were not of the religion of all around them ; and when, soon after their aunt died, and their father coldly commanded them to continue where they were, they felt it still more incumbent on them to make themselves friends of whom- soever fell in their wav. Miss L'Estranfj^e, the lovely, innocent, highminded, and enthusiastic daughter of the wealthy widower banker seemed the most promising of all the varieties they met, and on her shrine, accordingly, they bowed them- selves. Nothing, however, could be more different than were the two sisters in almost every point, both of character and personal appearance. The eldest, Frances, quick and intelligent by nature, and ren- dered shrewd, keen, and unprincipled by circum- stances, possessed j>assions so strong as to be sup- posed incapable of any, because she laughed at the trifles that ruffled those of others, and left no trace behind ; while she felt that if hers were moved, it must be by the fierce hurricane, which, in searching the depths of the ocean, overthrows everything in its course. Friendship she had never felt, and never could feel. If capable of it by nature, cir- cumstances had so degraded her feelings that, to THE BANKER-LORD. 91 maintain, or to attain, a place in society, and to cling to whoever might assist her to it, was the only interest she could feel in a female friend. And with this view she caressed and flattered the lovely, innocent child on whom she fixed as proper to that object, and, for two years, contrived to per- suade her that no one ever did, or ever could, love her as well; and, moreover, that she herself never did, and never ought, to love any one else as well. Love, in its usual acceptation. Miss Wilton had felt once ; and it was, as her character promised, deep, lasting, and concentrated ; and with this passion as an object, a gay and animated temper, practised self-control, a slight touch of talent, which just preserved her from vulgarity — a person, mince, debonaire, and, as she said herself, tant soit peu, pretty, with admirable taste in dress, en- sured her as much admiration as served her ulte- rior purposes. Miss Susan Wilton's portrait will require fewer touches. Shallow alike in mind and feeling, she could conceive no means of seconding her sister's views of settling themselves in life at once so sim- ple and agreeable as marriage ; and this became, therefore, the sole occupation of her thoughts and existence. Utterly unambitious herself, however, she would have occasionally committed sad blun- ders, but for the vigilance of that shrewder sister, in whose hands she was only prevented from being 92 THE BANKER-LORD. a perfect puppet by a peevish discontented temper, which, now and then prompting her to rebel and seek happiness in her own way, without giving her energy to persevere, had hitherto served no other end than to give her sister the trouble of some- times managing, and always despising her. At a first glance the younger sister might have been pronounced to possess personal attractions of a higher class than those of the elder, being tall, slight, and rather elegant-looking, with regular features of a sentimental cast, to which the inanity of her countenance, and indolence of her manner, seemed to correspond ; but while they were com- mended and forgotten, her elder sister's were criticized and admired. At the time that Miss Wilton was weaving her webs around the widower banker's little daughter, accepting expensive proofs of her childish affection, encouraging her in her silly enthusiasm about an- cestral castles and Irish rebels, and patiently looking forward to the reward of her labours in the removal of her " dear little protegee" to become mistress of one of the handsomest houses in Bel- grave Square, her only brother, Mr. Charles Wil- ton, a year or two older than herself, was finishing his college-course at Oxford. Selfishly vain of his only son. Sir Gustavus had yielded to the boy's entreaties to be sent to Eton ; and, depending on his family pride, confirmed by a knowing look THE BANKER-LORD. 93 and smile from the boy, to preserve him in, or res- tore him to, the ancient faith when desirable, he troubled himself but little which he affected in the meantime ; and Mr. Charles Wilton, like his sis- ters, passed for a protestant with the few who troubled their heads about the matter. Although but little intercourse had hitherto ex- isted between the sisters and their brother, Miss Wilton, in her perspective sagacity, knew that the time must come, and might not be far distant, when they must look to him either as their friend or enemy. Ready-money they knew their father had not to leave them ; and as Mr. Wilton's habits were expensive, it was as well to conciliate as compel him to pay them whatever portions their father might bequeath. Besides, Miss Wilton was far above all trifling family huffs and piques ; she was not hurt, as sisters in general might be, at her brother's estrangement and indifference. His af- fection, hitherto, could have availed her litde ; and she was perfectly aware that, let brothers and sisters feel towards each other as they may, nature has linked them so closely together, that, unless still closer links are formed, they rise or fall, more or less, by each other's respectability or want of it. Considering matters in this rational point of view, it occurred to her that it would be no bad speculation to bring about a match between the banker's only daughter and the baronet's extra- 94 THE BANKER-LORD. vagant son ; and she went so far as not only to im- part her wishes to the smiling, blushing girl, as the impulse of sisterly affection and devoted friendship, but wrote to her brother to consider them as the dictates of worldly prudence. For a long time she received no more answer from the one than froiii the other. At length she received a laconic epistle from her brother, informing her that he should be in London on a certain day, when he would drive down to Ellistone House; and that she might exercise her ingenuity or discretion in bringing about a meeting between him and the young lady she spoke of. But he had demurred too long. Before the appointed day arrived he was sum- moned to attend what was supposed to be the death-bed of his father; and, although the old gentleman partially recovered, it was only to gather his family around him, and betake himself, with them, to the Continent, — he said, for the benefit of his health ; but others said, not less for the benefit of his purse ; an opinion which appeared to receive confirmation from his son's consenting to be of the party, and disposing of his stud and fashionable tilbury. From that time forth Miss L' Estrange had lost sight of her self-constituted friends until the meet- ing we have commemorated ; but her grateful, guileless heart had remained constant to the por- traits they had imprinted in it ; and no effort of THE BANKER LORD. 95 expanding judgment was sufficient to counteract the effect of absence in maintaining her in the undoubting confidence of their being faithful sketches. " Well, Susan, give me credit for having judged rightly for once, at least !" Miss Wilton exclaimed, in a high state of exultation, as, having been set down by Miss L'Estrange, she and her sister shut themselves into the same dressing-room at the Clarendon Hotel. " Nay, don't ring for Celine, for a moment. I have a thousand things to say ; and one or two cautions to give you." " Cautions ! — why, one would suppose I did not know how to eat my dinner without your cautions." " No, no; but do just listen to me. You will admit, yourself, that I hit off to a nicety the time for our return ? — one week more, and it might have been too late — Rosa might have been lost to us for ever." "How?— or why?" " I mean as a sister-in-law ; and, let me tell you, the more I see, the more I am convinced it would have been an irreparable loss." " Sister-in-law ! — what is it you mean ?" " Simply that she will be Charles's wife as surely as I shall not ; she blushes already at the recollec- tion of former visions, and nothing could tend more to realize them." " Former visions ?" 96 THE BANKER-LORD. " Yes ; but I forgot you were not in that little secret between her and me." " A Vordinaire." " Nay, now, dear Susan, you know that is not a true charge. But what I want to caution you about is this : you see Rosa is as mad as ever about rebels and papists ; so, for Heaven's sake, as you value the happiness or respectability of the whole family, do not drop a hint of our religion !" " What is it?" Susan drily asked. " Oh — why — in fact, you know, there is really very little difference, except in forms ; and although on the Continent, and especially while poor papa lived, it was better to do in Rome as Rome does, here, where almost all the better class are of the Established Church, and where we were ourselves supposed to be so formerly, we had — don't you think — better continue so?" " I always did ; but yo\i know you thought dif- ferently." " Oh ! that was because Charles was a little un- certain how his tenants' interest would go, and one or two things about the government; but he has, I think, decided ; and, at all events, Rosa's prin- ciples and nonsense will turn the scale." "To what?" " Oh ! Toryism and Protestant ascendancy, to be sure ; but take care, now, Susan, for our lives are in your hands, — we are literally on the very THE BANKER LORD. 97 brink of a precipice — the crisis of a fever — we have, I may say, risked all on one cast, and as we win or lose, we go forth into the world as gentle- women or paupers." " Nay, not quite so bad as that, I flatter my- self." " No ! what less, or more ?" A cold sneer was the only answer to this ques- tion. " What ! harping still on your having wanted a few weeks of being of age when you signed that deed of acquittal ? Depend upon it, Susan, you are misinformed about that ; and even if you were not, the world would cry shame on you for availing yourself of it." " And, if I am misinformed, why has Charles since endeavoured to prevail on me to repeat my signature? and why have you always prevented my doing so ?" " Because it was unnecessary." " Nay, fool as you treat me, that answer will not do for both my questions ; and as to the world crying shame upon me, I think it would be much more likely to cry shame on Charles, for prevailing on his sisters to sign a deed of acquittal to him for fortunes of which they never received a penny." " Yes; but you know the reason, my dear Susan ; — you know that the estate was so dipped that the creditors would instantly have seized and VOL. I. F 98 THE BANKER-LORD. sold it for so little that we certainly should never receive a penny, had not those deeds of ours enabled him to raise money to satisfy the most pressing claims, on papa's death ; and you know how generously he has behaved to us ever since." " That just depends on whether he thinks I have power over him or not ; you know very well he wanted to leave us on a miserable pension in Italy, while he returned to England, and would have done so only for your making me insist on coming; and to me, whom he treats with such contempt at other times, he yielded then, against his own judgment ! Nay, Frances, you need never again seek to persuade me I cannot recover my fortune." '•' Recover your fortune ! why, you speak as if Charles were a swindler, and you an heiress of four or five thousand a-year, instead of a pittance of three thousand pounds, which he has, we may say, borrowed from you." " Yes, borrowed, if you will, without bond, or interest, or acknowledgment of any sort ! Frances, even I know the whole transaction to be so odd that it is not possible but that you, who are so shrewd and worldly, and think so ill of Charles yourself, must have had some object in submitting to it." " Hah ! what do you mean by that ? Those are neither your own words nor ideas, Susan. Has THE BANKER-LORD. 99 that wretch — that villain — that attorney-parson — dared to " " I know not whom you are pleased to so desig- nate," Susan said, interrupting the impetuous burst that might have given her the information she sought. " I mean," Miss Wilton continued, still vehe- mently, but now more collectedly ; ** I meant the man whom, his lordly father, not allowing him to bear his name, bound as a petty scrivener, and when he proved himself too bad for that, crammed into orders and a curacy, from which, also, being ex- pelled in disgrace, he now seeks to live by doing jobs upon the Continent that no one else will do ! Do you not yet recognise the likeness ? I mean, then," she said, with an ironical bow, " your late admirer, Mr. Joseph Phelan /" Miss Susan Wilton, without answering a word, rose and left the room ; for a moment her sister could not command herself sufficiently to follow her, for it was only towards her that she occasion- ally gave vent to her well-restrained, but impetuous temper. The occasion, however, was, as she had said, critical; and, suddenly subduing herself, she sprang towards the bed-room door, in time to pre- vent her from closing it, and strugglmg to take the hand that was withheld in cold and sullen indig- nation — F 2 100 THE BANKER-LORD. " Come, come, Susan," she said, " how very trifling, how very silly is this quarrelling ! I beg your pardon if I have said anything to offend you ; but you know I could not guess it would. I thought that affair not only over, but that Charles, in pointing out to you its disadvantages, — its ruin, I will say, — made you fully acquainted with the gen- tleman's position in society, and familiar with the epithets I applied to him." " I equally despise and disbelieve the insinua- tions of each," was the cold reply. "Why, Susan?" '' Because I saw you both, for some time, most intimate with Mr. Phelan ; and then, when you became afraid of losing my fortune between you, it was convenient to carry me off, and revile him into the bargain." " When the deeds he drew up in virtue of his first profession were signed, we had no further oc- casion for his services." " Pardon me ; it was not till after that that I became even acquainted with him. You should re- member, fools have good memories. And when Charles found him the disgraceful character you speak of, why did he not forbid him his house at once, and denounce him openly, instead of cau- tioning me in deep mystery? and then, because I did not at once swallow all he told me, carry us THE BANKER-LORD. 101 off from Naples at a moment's notice I 1 know, perfectly, you are one, or both, afraid of him for some reason or other." Miss Wilton sank back on her seat ; for a mo- ment overwhelmed with this random shot; she rallied instantly, however, and fixing her pene- trating eyes on her sister's countenance, asked, in a tone of tremulous anxiety — " Did he tell you so, Susan ?" but added, quickly, " did he add calumny and falsehood to his other crimes ?** " No, he did not; but I think it myself," Susan replied at once ; and her sister was satisfied with the tone and manner. " Then you really regret the termination of that affair, Susan ?" Miss Wilton asked. Susan hesitated for a moment, and then answered, sullenly, as if unwilling to give her sister the satisfaction — ** No, I cannot say I do, particularly." " Why, as you so readily recovered your love for William L' Estrange, who, at least, was a gen- tleman, I should hope this wound would not be more lasting! But tell me, now, Susan," she con- tinued, endeavouring to subdue a certain ironical tone in which she could not, at all times, prevent herself from indulging, even when doubtful of in- dulging it with impunity, " would not Mr. L'Es- 102 THE BANKER-LORD. trange, senior, be a better parti than either of them?" " Mr. L'Estrange ?" " Yes ! I suppose such an idea never occurred to you ? — Decidedly /" and she imitated, with ad- mirable precision, the tone in which Susan had given her verdict'on him in the morning. Susan pouted for a moment, turned away her face, and then said — " I thought you intended him for yourself; you have often said so — laughingly, I confess, — but half jest and whole earnest, I suspect." " And yet you would seek to rival me ? Naughty, treacherous sister ! No !" she said, more seriously, " marriage is not my role ; — I intend to trust to you and Charles for making the fortunes of the family in that way ; and, in catering for you both, I have no time to look about for myself in return. When I succeed, you will each give me a seat in the chimney-nook !" " Ah ! I know why ! — you are certainly more constant than I am, Frances !" Miss Wilton's countenance instantly underwent a change it had not yet exhibited, and indignation and contempt shot in one short but furious glance from her eye; once more, however, gulping down whatever feelings agitated her, she rose hastily, and said — THE BANKER-LORD, 103 " Come ! ring for Celine ! it is qnite lime we should dress !'* " Yes, the moment you have satisfied your own curiosity. But I will be put off no longer; and now that I have you in my power " " How do you mean in your power ?" ** Nay, don't look so terrified ; I- only mean, to pop you over the brink of the precipice you spoke of; but I vow I will cross myself publicly after dinner to- day, and ask why you and Charles do not also, unless you tell me what happened between you and your beloved, which nearly cost you your life at the time, and has made you indifferent to all mankind ever since. By-the-bye, now I recollect, he is an Irishman, and a college friend of the two L'Es- tranges; and I am convinced that is the true secret of your anxiety to return, ever since papa's death set you free !'* Perhaps there is not in nature a more exquisitely torturing sensation than that of having the tender spot of the soul, round which one has carefully woven the thread of secrecy, gradually laid bare by the wanton bungling of an idiot. Miss Wilton, with all her self-command, winced so sensitively under the infliction, that she was unable even to attempt any defence, and would have seemed al- most converted into marble, but for a severe twitching of a nerve just over her left eye. Her sister perceived her situation, and although 104 THE BANKER-LORD. she never laughed, approached as near to it as she ever did, vv^hile she cried out, " I vow I am right ! I have touched the Stoic J Well, tell me all about it, Frances ; what you quarrelled about, and how you mean to make it up, and I will drop the sub- ject." Miss Wilton remained silent for a moment longer ; then quietly, but energetically, grasping her sister's arm, she said, " Susan, answer me once for all ! Have you entered upon any plan for yourself in defiance of Charles and me ? Is Mr. Phelan coming to England ? or have you had any communication with him since you parted at Naples ?" " None ; no, none !" Susan said, decidedly, terrified, at once, from her unwonted animation, by the solemnity of her sister's manner, and the pale rigidity of her features and countenance. " Then you are willing to act with us as we agreed upon ? — indeed, pledged ourselves to ?" '* I deny that I pledged myself to anything par- ticular," Susan said again, relapsing into sulkiness ; " but I do intend to act with you as long as I think you treat me fairly ; and I promise you to do nothing rash about Charles and my fortune, until I see how he intends to act by me.'* " Then listen to me ; never again goad me on the subject you have just alluded to. You see your- self I cannot bear it ; nor could I answer for the THE BANKER LORD. 105 consequences it might entail ; and yet, a thousand, and ten thousand times would I prefer your inflicting this agony upon me every moment of my existence, than that you should give the remotest hint of it to others ; it would, in fact, alter our whole position with the L'Estranges, and defeat every object we have in view. I utterly deny your absurd con- jecture ; but others might believe it, and it would, as I said before, effectually ruin all, as well Charles with Rosa, as you with Mr. L'Estrange. And now, once more, ring for Celine. We have not even heard yet whether Charles is come in ; he was not, when we arrived, for I saw Mr. L'Estrange*s note and card upon the table. Hand me the eau-de- Cologne ; — my head aches sadly." And although Miss Susan Wilton did not ex- actly perceive how such serious consequences as her sister threatened were to ensue to all the family from its being known that she had been in love, it being no unusual affair for her to be mystified and overpowered by her sister's eloquence and impe- tuosity, she mechanically did as she was desired ; and the appearance of Celine prevented further inquiries or explanations for the present. F 3 106 THE BANKER-LORD. CHAPTER IX. Sir Charles Wilton, in personal appearance, might be considered to resemble both his sisters, but far to excel either in pretensions to beauty ; for, with the animation of his elder sister, he had the proportional height, grace, and regular features of the younger. Of his character some idea may be, perhaps, collected from the preceding conversa- tion, and its further developments will appear as we proceed. As the trio seated themselves in the carriage, to repair to Belgrave Square, the first words uttered amongst them were by him. ** So you tell me this little girl is a furious Tory ? Well, we must see if she is the divinity to deserve to dictate doctrines." " Yes ; but remember, Charles, she is romantic besides — enthusiastic, indeed, — and thinks levity on serious subjects very bad taste," said his elder sister. THE BANKER-LORD. 107 " Why, you make me fancy a Gorgon frowning and shaking its hideous head, instead of a lovely young girl of eighteen ; and were it not for your assurance of her blushing at my name, I should almost give up the undertaking in despair. How- ever, here we are. Now, fair Rosa — * Thou for my sake at Hymen's shrine, And I at any god's for thine !' " And so saying, he sprang into the hall ; and while waiting for his sisters to follow, glanced at a mirror, to ascertain that the short drive had not in any de- gree deranged his recherche, but seemingly simple, toilet. Satisfied with the glance, he dismissed the subject from his mind, and followed his sisters into the drawinor-room, where Mr. L'Estranore and his daughter waited to receive them, as if incapable of any thought at the moment, but of the privi- lege thus accorded him. Nor was the seemin but you are aware that you have a right to look much higher now as an earl's daughter, than you had as a mere banker's daughter. We must see and have you properly presented at court/' Again Lady Rosa coloured deeply, with the same feelings she had experienced when Miss Wilton suggested the same idea ; but the mortification was no longer new to her, so she framed her answer somewhat differently. *< I trust, my dear papa, you do not think me ca- pable of being influenced by the accession of a title to any change of sentiments in so important an affair as that to which you allude ?" '' Oh, no ; not of sentiments and all that, if you really have any particular ones; but, somehow, I never fancied you in love with Sir Charles. Do you mean that you really are ?" 158 THE BANKER-LORD. *' I hope so ; at least, as far as is necessary and proper." Lord Lisbrian laughed. " Well, my love, I told you before I only wish for your happiness, and I say so still ; however, I agree with you now, that we need not be in any violent hurry. Your mourning and all that has hap- pened will afford a better excuse than we had be- fore for delay, until we have time to look about us; and if you still continue of the same way of think- ing, when you see something of the advantages of your new position, why, the only thing will be to get Sir Charles into Parliament. The Lisbrian in- terest ought to be very extensive. And, by-the- bye, Rosa, do you know I have been thinking that you and the Wiltons might as well come over to L'eland with me. What do you say ? I fear I cannot get to Cheltenham this summer, what with the election and one thing or another; and it would be dull for you remaining in London, and, perhaps, rather odd in your circumstances, as I can form no idea of how long I may be detained. Be- sides, seriously, if we are to set up Sir Charles, your presence would be of material service ; and I am certain that Frances Wilton would be a capital hand at electioneering." '* I should have thought you might have found Susan more skilled in that respect," his daughter said, playfully. THE BANKER- LORD. 159 "Oh I indeed I should you so?*' he answered in the same strain, "No!" he continued more seriously. " Do you know, I am half sick of her sentimental nonsense already ? No, Rosa ; if I give you a mamma, it shall be a nice one ; and don't be surprised if I should, since you choose to leave me alone so soon. I shall want some one to keep me company in the old Irish castle. Nay, you need not look so inquiringly, for I give you my word that I have not seen the fair lady yet ; so, in the meantime, I must put up with you, if you will honour me with your company so far." At the first mention of visiting Ireland, — going to reside amongst Whigs and Papists, — the blood forsook the cheeks of Lady Rosa, and she remained overwhelmed with terrified astonishment. As her father proceeded, however, she had time to collect her senses ; and seeing fully the force of his objec- tions to leaving her in London, and feeling that if there really should be danger in going, she ought to share it with him, in a few moments she was able to give her consent to his proposal in a manner per- fectly satisfactory to him ; but, in return, she re- quired his solemn promise that her engagement with Sir Charles Wilton should be kept a profound secret, as it was repugnant to all her principles and feelings to endeavour to procure for him what she considered a trust so important as the representa- tion of a county's interests by such an influence. 160 THE BANKER-LORD* " Then, we shall lose your assistance in canvass- ing," he said ; " and I assure you, strangers as we all are there, both to men and women, you could be of essential service, if you would exert yourself." *« On the contrary, dear papa ; if I felt that they had reason to suppose I was canvassing for my own sake instead of for theirs — which, I trust I may say, no earthly advantage could tempt me to do — I should be utterly paralyzed, and that is chiefly why I request your silence ; but if I go merely as their liege lady," she said, smiling, ** anxious for their welfare, and all that, you shall have the full benefit of my senatorial eloquence, and * true blue' prin- ciples." " Yes ; but you must not give offence by violence of party-spirit ; for we may require the support of some moderate men." " My dearest papa," she said, clasping her arms fondly and playfully about him, " do not say you 'must notion such subjects, nor mingle the expedient with the right. There is, there can be, no medium in politics or religion ; and nothing, I trust, shall ever bribe me to temporize or conceal my prin- ciples ; they really are my household gods." Lord Lisbrian was not skilled to ask her why there was to be no medium in politics or religion, or who was to declare what was medium, or which were the extremes; so he only pinched her chin, and saying, '' I expect much more from your smiles THE BANKER-LORD. 161 than your principles," was leaving the room, when, hastily turning back, he said, " Well, now that this Irish excursion is fixed on, Rosa, I think the sooner we can get off the better. If Sir Charles returns in time to accompany us, well and good ; if not, he can follow us. But there is one thing I wish to mention to you, I shall not take over a single one of the servants from here. You see, that cursed run upon the bank got wind in spite of me ; and, al- though the rumour of this inheritance stopped it just in the nick of time, that is all the solid bene- fit I have derived from it yet ; and, to tell you a secret, we could not stand an hour's run this moment. I don't know how it is, for my part. Steen declares it was I and Kelly who threw every- thing into confusion ; but I don't know. I thought I was clear-headed enough when I could lay my mind to anything ; and it seemed to me that nothing could be worse than the state in which he left matters ; although I should never have discovered it but for that accidental run. However, he declares it's a method of his own which has always succeeded, — certainly, so far as that goes, it has ; and at all events one thing is clear, that no one else can set them to rights now; and my best plan, he thinks, is, to hasten to Ireland, and raise as much money as I possibly can ; so you see, my love, there's not a moment to be lost. And what I was saying about 162 THE BANKER-LORD. the servants is, that I don't want them to come over, blabbing about the run ; because, some idiot might take fright and set up another, before we were half prepared ; so, as Hubert has done with Oxford this term, and wrote to say he should like to visit Ire- land, I intended to have gone by Oxford and taken him up, and his servant could attend us home; and this, I think, might still be managed. We could send our own men back from thence; and, if my poor uncle retained any of his former propensities, or, indeed I believe I may say, those of his family, we shall find an establishment ready formed when we arrive." '' But our women, papa ?" inquired his daughter; " may we not take our women ? for I am inclined to think the Miss Wiltons would give up the ex- pedition altogether, even if they consent to it otherwise, rather than go without Celine."