No More Learning

At
last I began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his
mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it.

One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I
strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there were no
debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like
our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old,
unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind.

It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming
out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife,
helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with
someone in his study; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs.
Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. We went into the
drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. There was
never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours
as we were.

We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually
contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her
newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, 'My goodness gracious,
Annie, why didn't you tell me there was someone in the Study! '

'My dear mama,' she quietly returned, 'how could I know that you desired
the information? '

'Desired the information! ' said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. 'I
never had such a turn in all my life! '

'Have you been to the Study, then, mama? ' asked Annie.

'BEEN to the Study, my dear! ' she returned emphatically. 'Indeed I have!
I came upon the amiable creature--if you'll imagine my feelings, Miss
Trotwood and David--in the act of making his will. '

Her daughter looked round from the window quickly.

'In the act, my dear Annie,' repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the
newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it,
'of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of
the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the
darling--for he is nothing less! --tell you how it was. Perhaps you know,
Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until
one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head with being stretched
to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which
a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me
to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with
the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with
the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the
darling Doctor pen in hand. "This simply expresses then," said the
Doctor--Annie, my love, attend to the very words--"this simply expresses
then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all
unconditionally? " One of the professional people replied, "And gives her
all unconditionally. " Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother,
I said, "Good God, I beg your pardon! " fell over the door-step, and came
away through the little back passage where the pantry is. '

Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she
stood leaning against a pillar.

'But now isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invigorating,' said
Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, 'to find a man
at Doctor Strong's time of life, with the strength of mind to do this
kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when
Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the
subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, "My dear, there is no
doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision
for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to do. "'

Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as they
went out.

'It's all over, no doubt,' said the Old Soldier, after listening; 'the
dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind's at rest.
Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study
with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trotwood,
David, pray come and see the Doctor. '

I was conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of the room,
shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my
aunt's rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her
intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the Study, or
how Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy-chair, or how
my aunt and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes
were quicker than mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I
ever knew. But this I know,--that we saw the Doctor before he saw us,
sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted,
resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw
Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on
his arm. That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him
to look up with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head,
his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands
imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look I had never
forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper,
and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The
Astonishment, than anything else I can think of.

The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that
mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern
of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself,
'That man mad! ' (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she
had saved him)--I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about
it.

'Doctor! ' said Mr. Dick. 'What is it that's amiss? Look here! '

'Annie! ' cried the Doctor. 'Not at my feet, my dear! '

'Yes! ' she said. 'I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! Oh, my
husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know what it is
that has come between us! '

Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming
to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed,
'Annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to
you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of
my mind on the spot! '

'Mama! ' returned Annie. 'Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my
husband, and even you are nothing here. '

'Nothing! ' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. 'Me, nothing! The child has taken
leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water! '

I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this
request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham
panted, stared, and fanned herself.

'Annie! ' said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. 'My dear!
If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our
married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine.
There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to
make you happy. I truly love and honour you. Rise, Annie, pray! '

But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank
down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head
upon it, said:

'If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my
husband in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice
to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have
any friend here, who honours my husband, or has ever cared for me, and
has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help
to mediate between us, I implore that friend to speak! '

There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation,
I broke the silence.

'Mrs. Strong,' I said, 'there is something within my knowledge, which
I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have
concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come when it would
be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your
appeal absolves me from his injunction. '

She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was
right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it
gave me had been less convincing.

'Our future peace,' she said, 'may be in your hands. I trust it
confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that
nothing you, or anyone, can tell me, will show my husband's noble heart
in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me,
disregard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before God
afterwards. '

Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his
permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little
softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had
passed in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham
during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with
which she occasionally interrupted it, defy description.

When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with
her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor's
hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the
room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly
raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and
looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes.

'All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,' she said in a
low, submissive, tender voice, 'I will lay bare before you. I could not
live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now. '

'Nay, Annie,' said the Doctor, mildly, 'I have never doubted you, my
child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear. '

'There is great need,' she answered, in the same way, 'that I should
open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year
by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as
Heaven knows! '

'Really,' interrupted Mrs. Markleham, 'if I have any discretion at
all--'

('Which you haven't, you Marplot,' observed my aunt, in an indignant
whisper. ) --'I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite
to enter into these details. '

'No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,' said Annie without
removing her eyes from his face, 'and he will hear me. If I say anything
to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and
long, myself. '

'Upon my word! ' gasped Mrs. Markleham.

'When I was very young,' said Annie, 'quite a little child, my first
associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient
friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear
to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He
stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon
them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been
to me, if I had taken them from any other hands. '

'Makes her mother nothing! ' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham.

'Not so mama,' said Annie; 'but I make him what he was. I must do that.
As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his
interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to
him, I can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose
praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have
trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama,
how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of
a sudden, as a lover. '

'I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here! '
said Mrs. Markleham.

('Then hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't mention it any
more! ' muttered my aunt. )

'It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,' said
Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, 'that I was agitated
and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the
character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry.
But nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was
proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married. ' '--At
Saint Alphage, Canterbury,' observed Mrs. Markleham.

('Confound the woman! ' said my aunt, 'she WON'T be quiet! ')

'I never thought,' proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, 'of any
worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no
room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when
I say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that
anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion. '

'Me! ' cried Mrs. Markleham.

('Ah! You, to be sure! ' observed my aunt, 'and you can't fan it away, my
military friend! ')

'It was the first unhappiness of my new life,' said Annie. 'It was the
first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These moments have
been more, of late, than I can count; but not--my generous husband! --not
for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a
recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you! '

She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and
true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as
steadfastly as she on him.

'Mama is blameless,' she went on, 'of having ever urged you for herself,
and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure,--but when I saw
how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you
were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield,
who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense
of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought--and
sold to you, of all men on earth--fell upon me like unmerited disgrace,
in which I forced you to participate. I cannot tell you what it
was--mama cannot imagine what it was--to have this dread and trouble
always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I
crowned the love and honour of my life! '

'A specimen of the thanks one gets,' cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears,
'for taking care of one's family! I wish I was a Turk! '

('I wish you were, with all my heart--and in your native country! ' said
my aunt. )

'It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin
Maldon. I had liked him': she spoke softly, but without any hesitation:
'very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had not
happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really
loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. There can
be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. '

I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to
what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange
application that I could not divine. 'There can be no disparity in
marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose'--'no disparity in
marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. '

'There is nothing,' said Annie, 'that we have in common. I have long
found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no
more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having
saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart. '

She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness
that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before.

'When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely
bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape
I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have
worked his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would have
tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship.
But I thought no
worse of him, until the night of his departure for India. That night I
knew he had a false and thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then,
in Mr. Wickfield's scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the
dark suspicion that shadowed my life. '

'Suspicion, Annie! ' said the Doctor. 'No, no, no! '

'In your mind there was none, I know, my husband! ' she returned. 'And
when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and
grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my
own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had
spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had
been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me--my mind revolted from
the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that
hour till now has never passed them. '

Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; and
retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more.

'I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from
that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of
this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his
situation here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his
advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure,
have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and
burden of my secret. '

She sunk down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost to
prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face:

'Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if
this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. You never
can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations;
to find that anyone could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my
heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming
that belief. I was very young, and had no adviser. Between mama and
me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into
myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honoured
you so much, and so much wished that you should honour me! '

'Annie, my pure heart! ' said the Doctor, 'my dear girl! '

'A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so
many whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge
and trouble on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. I
used to be afraid that I had better have remained your pupil, and almost
your child. I used to fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and
wisdom. If all this made me shrink within myself (as indeed it did),
when I had that to tell, it was still because I honoured you so much,
and hoped that you might one day honour me. '

'That day has shone this long time, Annie,' said the Doctor, and can
have but one long night, my dear. '

'Another word! I afterwards meant--steadfastly meant, and purposed to
myself--to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one
to whom you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of
friends! The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with
so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old
apprehension--at other times to lingering suppositions nearer to the
truth--has been made clear tonight; and by an accident I have also come
to know, tonight, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even
under that mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in
return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with
all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear
face, revered as a father's, loved as a husband's, sacred to me in
my childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest
thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the
fidelity I owe you! '

She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head down
over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses.

'Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think
or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my
many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I
have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband,
for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures! '

In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick,
without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss.
And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so;
for I am confident that I detected him at that moment in the act of
making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of
delight.

'You are a very remarkable man, Dick! ' said my aunt, with an air of
unqualified approbation; 'and never pretend to be anything else, for I
know better! '

With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we
three stole quietly out of the room, and came away.

'That's a settler for our military friend, at any rate,' said my aunt,
on the way home. 'I should sleep the better for that, if there was
nothing else to be glad of! '

'She was quite overcome, I am afraid,' said Mr. Dick, with great
commiseration.

'What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome? ' inquired my aunt.

'I don't think I ever saw a crocodile,' returned Mr. Dick, mildly.

'There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been for
that old Animal,' said my aunt, with strong emphasis. 'It's very much
to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after
marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think the
only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young
woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought,
or wanted to come! --is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What
are you thinking of, Trot? '

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on
some of the expressions used. 'There can be no disparity in marriage
like unsuitability of mind and purpose. ' 'The first mistaken impulse of
an undisciplined heart. ' 'My love was founded on a rock. ' But we were at
home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind
was blowing.



CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE


I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a
solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success
had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at
that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth's
house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that
neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit,
it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without
making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole,
pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a
quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best
rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned
windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal,
close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered
way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and
there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the
only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look.
I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had
been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some
childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge
of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not
go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long
train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that
I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies,
the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments
dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination,
incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it
was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked
on, and a voice at my side made me start.

It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs.
Steerforth's little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in
her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to
the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate
bows of sober brown.

'If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak
to Miss Dartle? '

'Has Miss Dartle sent you for me? ' I inquired.

'Not tonight, sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a
night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I
saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her. '

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs.
Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room
a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the
garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was
sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great
city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as
I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some
larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no
inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought
her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last;
the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion;
and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to
conceal.

'I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,' said I, standing near
her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture
of invitation to sit down.

'If you please,' said she. 'Pray has this girl been found? '

'No. '

'And yet she has run away! '

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were
eager to load her with reproaches.

'Run away? ' I repeated.

'Yes! From him,' she said, with a laugh. 'If she is not found, perhaps
she never will be found. She may be dead! '

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed
in any other face that ever I have seen.

'To wish her dead,' said I, 'may be the kindest wish that one of her own
sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much,
Miss Dartle. '

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another
scornful laugh, said:

'The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends
of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish
to know what is known of her? '

'Yes,' said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards
a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a
kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, 'Come here! '--as if she were
calling to some unclean beast.

'You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this
place, of course, Mr. Copperfield? ' said she, looking over her shoulder
at me with the same expression.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, 'Come
here! ' again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer,
who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his
position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which,
strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with
which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was
worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend.

'Now,' said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching
the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure
rather than pain. 'Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight. '

'Mr. James and myself, ma'am--'

'Don't address yourself to me! ' she interrupted with a frown.

'Mr. James and myself, sir--'

'Nor to me, if you please,' said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight
obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most
agreeable to him; and began again.

'Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever
since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James's protection. We have been in a
variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in
France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts. '

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to
that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking
chords upon a dumb piano.

'Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more
settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have
been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the
languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same country-person. I
noticed that she was much admired wherever we went. '

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her,
and slightly smile to himself.

'Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress;
what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with
this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice. '

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant
prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the
other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with
his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a
little on one side:

'The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being
occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr.
James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and
things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again.
The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself,
that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still
matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again;
and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could
have expected. '

Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with
her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a
respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on:

'At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and
reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of
Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to
the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in
charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all
concerned, he was'--here an interruption of the short cough--'gone. But
Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for
he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person,
who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as
good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way:
her connexions being very common. '

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the
scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss
Dartle's face.

'This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do
anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore
harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone
so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The
young woman's violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his
departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to
be held by force; or, if she couldn't have got to a knife, or got to the
sea, she'd have beaten her head against the marble floor. '

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in
her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered.

'But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me,'
said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, 'which anybody might
have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind
intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more
outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She
had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason
in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am
convinced she would have had my blood. '

'I think the better of her for it,' said I, indignantly.

Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, 'Indeed, sir? But you're
young! ' and resumed his narrative.

'It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh
her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and
to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night;
forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on
a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to
my knowledge, since. '

'She is dead, perhaps,' said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could
have spurned the body of the ruined girl.

'She may have drowned herself, miss,' returned Mr. Littimer, catching at
an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. 'It's very possible. Or,
she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives
and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the
habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their
boats. I have known her do it, when Mr.