The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 3 of 3), by Frederick William Robinson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 3 of 3) Author: Frederick William Robinson Release Date: February 14, 2011 [EBook #35278] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 3 OF 3) *** Produced by Louise Davies, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) MATTIE:—A STRAY. BY F. W. ROBINSON THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN:-A WAIF," &c., &c. "By bestowing blessings upon others, we entail them on ourselves." Horace Smith. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1864. The right of Translation is reserved. LONDON: PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME. BOOK VI. SIDNEY'S FRIENDS. CHAPTER I. Mattie's Choice CHAPTER II. Mattie's Adviser CHAPTER III. The Old Lovers CHAPTER IV. A New Decision CHAPTER V. Ann Packet expresses an opinion CHAPTER VI. Mr. Gray's Scheme BOOK VII. SIDNEY'S GRATITUDE. CHAPTER I. Maurice Hinchford in search of his Cousin CHAPTER II. Maurice receives plenty of Advice CHAPTER III. A Declaration CHAPTER IV. More talk of Marriage and Giving in Marriage CHAPTER V. Mattie's Answer BOOK VIII. MORE LIGHT. CHAPTER I. A New Hope CHAPTER II. Mattie is taken into Confidence CHAPTER III. Half the Truth CHAPTER IV. All the Truth CHAPTER V. Struggling CHAPTER VI. Signs of Change CHAPTER VII. Returned CHAPTER VIII. Declined with Thanks CHAPTER IX. Mattie, Mediatrix CHAPTER X. Conclusion MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S LIST OF NEW WORKS THE NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS, PUBLISHED BY HURST & BLACKETT. BOOK VI. SIDNEY'S FRIENDS. CHAPTER I. MATTIE'S CHOICE. There are epochs in some lives when the heart cracks or hardens. When humanity, wrung to its utmost, gives way, or ossifies. Both are dangerous crises, and require more than ordinary care; the physician must be skilful and understand human nature, or his efforts at cure will only kill the patient who submits to his remedies. Man—we speak literally of the masculine gender at this point—though born unto trouble, finds it hard to support in a philosophical way. A great trouble that in nine cases out of ten shows woman at her best, transforms man to his worst; if he be a man of the world, worldly, he is dumbfounded by the calamity which has fallen upon him. It is incomprehensible why he should suffer—he of all men—and he wraps himself in his egotism—his wounded self-love—and thinks of the injustice and hardness that have shut him out from his labours. Such men, heavily oppressed, do not give in to the axiom, that it is well for them to be afflicted; they will not bow to God's will, or resign themselves to it—their outward calmness is assumed, and they chafe at the Great Hand which has arrested them midway. Such men will turn misanthropes and atheists, at times. Sidney Hinchford after all was a man of the world. In the world he had lived and fought upwards. There had been a charm in making his way in it, and the obstacles ahead had but nerved his arm to resist, and his heart to endure. He had talents for success in the commercial world—even a genius for making money. With time before him, possibly Sidney Hinchford would have risen to greatness. To make money—and to keep it when made—requires as much genius as to make poetry, rather more, perhaps. A genius of a different order, but a very fine one notwithstanding, and one which we can admire at a distance—on the kerb stones with our manuscripts under our arms, waiting for the genius's carriage to pass, before we cross to our publishers'. Is not that man a genius who in these latter days rises to wealth by his own exertions, in lieu of having wealth thrust upon him? A genius, with wondrous powers of discrimination, not to be led into a bad thing, but seeing before other people the advantages to accrue from a good one, and making his investments accordingly. A man who peers into the future and beholds his own advancement, not the step before him, but the apex in the clouds, lost to less keen- sighted folk fighting away at the base—therefore, a wonderful man. We believe that Sidney Hinchford, like his uncle before him, would have risen in the world; he believed it also, and throughout his past career—though we have seen him anxious—he never lost his hope of ultimate success. When he knew that there must come a period of tribulation and darkness for him, he had trusted to have time left him for position; and not till time was denied him, and the darkness set in suddenly, did he give up the battle. And then he did not give way; he hardened. Sidney had never been a religious man, therefore he sought no consolation in his affliction, and believed not in the power of religion to console. He had been pure-minded, honourable, earnest, everything that makes the good worldly man, but he had never been grateful to God for his endowments, and he bore God's affliction badly in consequence. He felt balked in his endeavour to prosper, therefore, aggrieved, and the darkness that had stolen over his senses seemed to find its way to his heart and transform him. The clergyman, who had attended his father, attempted consolation with him, but he would have "none of it." He did not complain, he said; he had faced the worst—it was with him, and there was an end of it. Do not weary him with trite bible-texts, but leave him to himself. And by himself he sat down to brood over the inevitable wrong that had been done him; he, in the vigour of life and thought, shut apart from action! Once he had looked forward to a consolation even in distress, but that was to have been a long day hence. Now his day had been shortened, and the consolation was denied him. He knew that that was lost, and he had thought of a fight with the world to benumb the thoughts of the future; and then the world was shut away from him also, and he was broken down, inactive and lost. He and his uncle were the only attendants at the funeral; he was informed afterwards that Mattie had stood at the grave's edge, and seen the last of her old friend and first patron; then his uncle had left him, failing in all efforts to console him. Geoffry Hinchford offered his nephew money, all the influence at his disposal in any way or shape, but Sidney declined all coldly. He did not require help yet awhile, he had saved money; he preferred being left to himself in that desolate home; presently, when he had grown reconciled to these changes, he should find courage to think what was best; meanwhile, those who loved him—he even told Mattie that—would leave him to himself. Mattie made no effort to intrude upon him in the early days following the double loss; she was perplexed as to her future course, her method of fulfilling that promise made to Sidney's father on his death-bed. Her common sense assured her that in the first moments of sorrow, intrusion would be not only unavailing, but irritating—and her belief in becoming of service to Sidney was but a small one at the best. In the good, far-away time she might be a humble agent in bringing Harriet Wesden and him together; Harriet who must love him out of very pity now, and forget that wounded pride which had followed the annulment of engagement. Meanwhile, she remained quiet and watchful; busy at her dress-making, busy in her father's home, attentive to that new father whom she had found, and who was very kind to her, though he scarcely seemed to understand her. Still, they agreed well together, for Mattie was submissive, and Mr. Gray had more than a fair share of his own way; and he was a man who liked his own way, and with whom it agreed vastly. But we have seen that he was a jealous man, and that Mattie's interest in Mr. Wesden had discomfited him. He was a good man we know, but jealousy got the upper hand of him at times, when he was scarcely aware of it himself, for he attributed his excitement, perhaps his envy, to very different feelings. He was even jealous of a local preacher of his own denomination, a man who had made a convert of a most vicious article—an article that he had been seeking all his life, and had never found in full perfection. Mr. Gray over his work said little concerning Ann Packet's occasional visits to his domicile, but he objected to them notwithstanding, for they drew his daughter's attention away from himself. He liked still less Mattie's visits to Chesterfield Terrace—flying visits, when she saw Ann Packet for an hour and Sidney Hinchford for a minute, looking in at the last moment, and heralded by Ann exclaiming, "Here's Mattie come to see you, sir." "Ah, Mattie!" Sid would answer, turning his face towards the door whence the voice issued, and attempting the feeblest of smiles. "Is there anything that I can do, sir, for you?" "No, girl, thank you." He would quickly relapse into that thought again, from which her presence had aroused him—and it was a depth of thought upon which the fugitive efforts of Mattie had no effect. Standing in the shadowy doorway she would watch him for awhile, then draw the door to after her and go away grieving at the change in him. The thought occurred to her that Harriet Wesden might even at that early stage work some amount of good until she heard from Ann Packet that Harriet and her father had called one day, and that Sidney had refused an interview. He was unwell; some other day when he was better; it was kind to call, but he could not be seen then, had been his excuses sent out by the servant maid. Mattie, who had always found time do good, and work many changes, left the result to time, until honest Ann one evening, when Mr. Gray was at work at his old post, asserted her fears that Sidney was getting worse instead of better. "I think he'll go melancholic mad like, poor dear," she said; "and it's no good my trying to brighten him a bit—he's wus at that, which is nat'ral, not being in my line, and wanting brightening up myself. He does nothing but brood, brood, brood, sitting of a heap all day in that chair!" "A month since his father died now," said Mattie, musing. "To the very day, Mattie." "He goes to church—you read the Bible to him?" asked Mr. Gray, suddenly. "He can't go by hisself—he's not very handy with his blindness, like those who have been brought up to it with a dog and a tin mug," said Ann in reply; "but let's hope he'll get used to it, and find it a comfort to him, sir." "I asked you also, young woman, if you ever read the Bible to him?" "Lor bless you, sir! I can't read fit enough for him—I take a blessed lot of spelling with it, and it aggravates him. All the larning I've ever had, has come from this dear gal of ours, and he taught her first of all!" "I think that I could do this young man good," said Mr. Gray, suddenly; "I might impress him with the force of the truth —convert him." "I would not attempt to preach to him yet," suggested Mattie; "besides, his is a strange character—you will never understand it." "You cannot tell what I may be able to understand," he replied, "and I see that my duty lies in that direction. I have been seeking amongst the poor and wretched for a convert, and perhaps it is nearer home—your friend!" "I would not worry him in his distress," suggested Mattie anew. "Worry him!—Mattie, you shock me! Where's my Bible?—I'll go at once!" "We've got Bibles in the house, sir—we're not cannibals," snapped Ann. Cannibals and heathens were of the same species to Ann Packet. "Come on, then!" Mattie half rose, as if with the intention of accompanying her father, but he checked the movement. "I hope you will remain at home to-night, Mattie," he said; "I never like the house entirely left. It's not business." Mattie sat down again. She was fidgety at the result of this impromptu movement on her father's part, but saw no way to hinder it. Her father was a man who meant well, but well-meaning men would not do for Sidney Hinchford. Sidney had been well educated; his father was self-taught, and brusque, and Sidney had grown very irritable. In her own little conceited heart she believed that no one could manage Sidney Hinchford save herself. Late in the evening, Mr. Gray returned in excellent spirits, rubbing one hand over the other complacently. He had found a new specimen worthy of his powers of conversion. "Have you seen him?" asked Mattie. "To be sure—I went to see him, and he could not keep me out of the room, if I chose to enter. An obstinate young man —as obstinate a young man as I ever remember to have met with in all my life!" "Did he speak to you?" "Only twice, once to ask how you were. The second time to tell me that he did not require any preaching to. After that, I read the Bible to him for an hour, locking the door first, to make sure that he did not run for it, blind as he was. Then I gave him the best advice in my power, bade him good night, and came away. He is as hard as the nether millstone; it will be a glorious victory over the devil to touch his heart and soften it!" "You are going the wrong way to work. You do not know him!" "My dear, I know that he's a miserable sinner." Mattie said no more on the question; she was not a good hand at argument. At argument, sword's point to sword's point, possibly Mr. Gray would have beaten most men; his ideas were always in order, and he could pounce upon the right word, reason, or text, in an instant; but Mattie was certain that her father's zeal very often outran his discretion. She shuddered as she pictured Sidney Hinchford a victim to her father's obtrusiveness—her father, oblivious to suffering, and full of belief in the conversion he was attempting. She knew that her father was wrong, and she felt vexed that Sidney had been intruded upon at a time wherein she had not found the courage to face him herself. Things must be altered, and her promise to Sid's father must not become a dead letter. In all the world her heart told her she loved Sidney Hinchford best, and that she could make any sacrifice for his sake; and yet Sidney was not getting better, but worse, and her own father would make her hateful to him. The next evening, Mr. Gray came home later than usual. He had been sent for by his employers, had received their commissions, and then, fraught with his new idea, had started for Chesterfield Terrace, to strike a second moral blow at his new specimen. He came home late, as we have intimated, and began arranging his chimney ornaments, and putting things a little straight, in his usual nervous fashion. "Mattie, I shall have a job with that young man. He has forbidden me the house; he actually—actually swore at me this evening, for praying for his better heart and moral regeneration." Mattie compressed her lips, and looked thoughtfully before her for a while. Then the dark eyes turned suddenly and unflinchingly upon her father. "I have been thinking lately that if I were with him in that house—I, who know him so well—I might do much good." "You, Mattie!—you?" "He is without a friend in the world. I knew his father, who was my first friend, and I feel that I am neglecting the son." "You call there often enough, goodness knows!" Mr. Gray said, a little sharply. "He is alone—he is blind. What are a few minutes in a long day to him?" "All this is very ridiculous, Mattie—speaks well for your kind heart, and so on, but, of course, can't be——" "Of course, must be!" Mattie had a will of her own when it was needed. A little did not disturb her, but a great deal of opposition could never shake that will when once made up. She had resolved upon her next step, and would proceed with it; we do not say that she was in the right; we will not profess to constitute her a model heroine in the sight of our readers, who have had enough of model heroines for awhile, and may accept our stray for a change. We are even inclined to believe that Mattie was, in this instance, just a little in the wrong—but then her early training had been defective, and allowance must be made for it. All the evil seeds that neglect has sown in the soil are never entirely eradicated—ask the farmers of land, and the farmers of souls. "Must be!" repeated Mr. Gray, looking in a dreamy manner at his daughter. "I promised his father to think of him—to study him by all the means in my power. I see that no one understands him but me, and I hear that he is sinking away from all that made him good and noble. I will do my best for him, and there is no one who can stop me here." "Your father!" "—Is a new friend, who has been kind to me, and whom I love—but he hasn't the power to make me break my promise to the dead. That man is desolate, and heavily afflicted, and I will go to him!" "Against MY wish?" "Yes—against the wishes of all in the world—if they were uttered in opposition to me!" cried Mattie. "Then," looking very firm and white, "you will choose between him and me. He will be a friend the more, and I a daughter the less." "It cannot be helped." "You never loved me, or you would never thus defy me. Girl, you are going into danger—the world will talk, and rob you of your good name." "Let it," said Mattie, proudly. "It has spoken ill before of me, and I have lived it down. I shall not study it, when the interest and happiness of a dear friend are at stake. He is being killed by all you!" she cried, with a comprehensive gesture of her hand; "now let me try!" "Mattie, you are mad—wrong—wicked!—I have no patience with you—I have done with you, if you defy me thus." "I am doing right—you cannot stop me. I have done wrong to remain idle here so long; I will go at once." "At once!—breaking up this home—you will, then?" "If I remain here longer, you will set him against me—me, who would have him look upon me as his sister, his one friend left to pray for him, slave for him, and keep his enemies away!" "I won't hear any more of this rhodomontade—this voice of the devil on the lips of my child," he said, snatching up his hat again. "Stay here till I return, or go away for ever." Mr. Gray was in a passion, and, like most men in a passion, went the wrong way to work. He was jealous of this new rival to his daughter's love that had sprung up, and angered with Mattie's attempt to justify her new determination. He believed in Mattie's obedience, and his own power over her yet; and he was an obstinate man, whom it took a long while to subdue. He went out of the room wildly gesticulating, and Mattie sat panting for awhile, and trying to still the heaving of her bosom. She had gone beyond herself—perhaps betrayed herself—but she had expressed her intention, and nothing that had happened since had induced her to swerve. If it were a choice between her father and Sidney, why, it must be Sidney, if he would have her for his friend and companion in the future. "I must go—I must go at once!" she whispered to herself; and then hurriedly put on her bonnet and shawl, and made for the staircase. She thought that she was doing right, and that good would come of it; and she did not hesitate. Before her, in the distance, sat the solitary figure of him she loved, friendless, alone, and benighted; and her woman's heart yearned to go to him, and forgot all else. Thus forgetting, thus yearning to do good, Mattie made a false step, and turned her back upon her father's home. CHAPTER II. MATTIE'S ADVISER. Mattie reached Chesterfield Terrace as the clock was striking nine. Ann Packet almost shouted with alarm at the sight of the new visitor, and then looked intently over Mattie's shoulder. "He hasn't come back again, has he? Mr. Sidney's been in such a dreadful way about him, Mattie. Blind as he is, I think he'll try to murder him." "I have come instead. He will see me, I hope." She did not wait to be announced, but turned the handle of the parlour-door and entered. Sidney Hinchford, in a harsh voice, cried out, "Who's there?" "Only Mattie. May I come in?" "Mattie here at this hour! Come in, if you will. What is it?" He was seated in the great leathern arm-chair, that had been his father's favourite seat, in the old attitude that Mattie knew so well now. She shuddered at the change in him—the wreck of manhood that one affliction had reduced him to, and the impulse that had brought her there was strengthened. "Mr. Sidney," she said, approaching, "I have come to ask a favour of you." "I am past dispensing favours, Mattie. Unless—unless it's to listen patiently to that horrible father of yours. Then I say No—for he drives me mad with his monotony." "I have come to defend you from him, if he call again—to live here, and take care of you as a dear brother who requires care, and must not be left entirely to strangers." "I am better by myself, Mattie—fit company only for myself." "No, the worst of company for that." "It must not be." "I can earn my own living; I shall be no burden to you; I have a hope—such a grand hope, sir!—of making this home a different place to you. Why, I can always make the best of it, I think—he thought so, too, before he died." "Who—my father?" asked Sidney, wondering. "Yes—he wished that I should come here, and I promised him. Oh! Mr. Sidney, for a little while, before you have become resigned to this great trouble, let me stay!" He might have read the truth—the whole truth—in that urgent pleading, but he was shut away from light, and sceptical of any love for him abiding anywhere throughout the world. "If he wished it, Mattie—stay. If your father says not No to this, why, stay until you tire of me, and the utter wretchedness of such a life as mine." "Why utterly wretched?" "I don't know—don't ask again." "Others have been afflicted like you before, sir, and borne their heavy burden well." "Why do you 'sir' me? That's new." "I called your father sir,—you take your father's place," said Mattie, hastily. "A strange reason—I wonder if it's true." Mattie coloured, but he could not see her blushes, and whether true or false, mattered little to him then. A new suspicion seized him after awhile, when he had thought more deeply of Mattie's presence there. "If this is a new trick of your father's to preach to me through you, I warn you, Mattie." "I have told you why I am here." "No other reason but that promise to my father?" "Yes, one promise more—to myself. Mr. Hinchford," she said, noticing his sudden start, "I promised my heart, when I was very young—when I was a stray!—that it should never swerve from those who had befriended me. It will not—it beats the faster with the hope of doing service to all who helped me in my wilful girlhood." "I told a lie, and said you did not steal my brooch!" "That was not all, but that taught me gratitude. Say a lie, but it was a lie that saved me from the prison—from the new life, worse, a thousand times worse than the first." "You are a strange girl—you were always strange. I am curious to know how soon you will tire of me, or I shall tire of you and this new freak. When I confess you weary me—you will go?" "Yes." "Then stay—and God help you with your charge." His lip curled again, but it was with an effort. He was no true stoic, and Mattie's earnestness had moved him more than he cared to evince. He was curious to note the effect of Mattie's efforts to make the dull world anything better than it was—he who knew how simple-minded and ingenuous Mattie was, and how little she could fathom his thoughts, or understand them. He had spent a month of horrible isolation, and it had seemed long years to him—years in which he had aged and grown grey perhaps, it was more likely than not. He felt like an old man, with whom the world was a weary resting-place; and he was despondent enough to wish to die, and end the tragedy that had befallen him. He had not believed in any sacrifice for his sake, and Mattie had surprised him by stealing in upon his solitude, and offering her help. He was more surprised to think that he had accepted her services in lieu of turning contemptuously away. It was something new to think of, and it did him good. The next day life began anew under Mattie's supervision. She was the old Mattie of Great Suffolk Street days—a brisk step and a cheerful voice, an air of bustle and business about her, which it was pleasant to hear in the distance. When the house duties were arranged for the day, Mattie began her needlework in the parlour where Sidney sat; and though Sidney spoke but little, and replied only in monosyllables to her, yet she could see the change was telling upon him, and she felt that there would come a time when he would be his dear old self again. When the day was over, her own troubles began. In her own room, she thought of the father whom she had abandoned—of his loneliness, left behind at his work in that front top room, which had been home to her. She was not sorry that she had left him, for there was an old promise, an old love for Sidney, to buoy her up; but she was very, very sorry that they had parted in anger, and that her father had resented a step in which his Christian charity should have at once encouraged her. By and bye it would all come right; her father would understand her and her motives; by and bye, when Sidney had become reconciled to his lot in life, and there were no more duties to fulfil, she would return home, unasked even, and offer to be again the daughter whom her father had professed to love. For the present, life in Sidney's home, doing her duty by him whom she loved best in the world; she could not let him suffer, and not do her best to work a change in him. Mattie worked a change—a great one. The instinct that assured her she possessed that power had not deceived her; and Sidney, though he became never again his former self, altered for the better. This change strengthened Mattie in her resolves, and made amends for her father's silence. She had written to Mr. Gray a long letter a few days after she had left his home, explaining her conduct more fully, entering more completely into the details of her former relations to the Hinchfords and the friends she had found in them; trusting that her father would believe that she loved him none the less for the step which she had taken—she who would have been more happy had he consented thereto—and hoping for the better days when she could return and take once more her place beside him. She had also asked in her letter that her box might be sent her, and he had considered that request as the one object of her writing, and responded to it by the transmission of the box and its contents, keeping back all evidence of his own trouble and anger. She had chosen her lot in life, he thought; she had preferred a stranger's home to her own flesh and blood; in the face of the world's opinion she had gone to nurse a man of three and twenty years of age. After all, she had never loved her father; he had come too late in life before her, and it was his fate never to gain affection from those on whose kind feelings he had a claim. He had been unlucky in his loves, and he must think no more of them. His troubles were earthly, and on earthly affections he must not dwell too much—he must teach himself to soar above them all. He read the Bible more frequently than ever, attended less to his work, and more to his district society and local preaching; by all the means in his power he turned his thoughts away from Mattie. When the thought was too strong for him, he connected her with the wrong that she had done him, and so thought uncharitably of her, as good men have done before and since his time—good people being fallible and liable to err. Mattie knew nothing of her father's trouble, and judged him as she had seen him last—angry and uncharitable and jealous! That is a bad habit of connecting friends whom we have given up with the stormy scene which cut the friendship adrift; of stereotyping the last impression—generally the false one—and connecting that with him and her for ever afterwards. Think of the virtues that first drew us towards them, and not of the angry frown and the bitter word that set us apart; in the long run we shall find it answered, and have less wherewith to accuse ourselves. Sidney Hinchford, whom we are forgetting, altered then for the better slowly but surely—even imperceptibly to himself. Still, when Mattie had been a month with him, and he looked back upon the feelings which had beset him before she took her place in his home, the change struck him at last. He could appreciate the kindness and self-denial that had brought her there, gladdened his home, and made his heart lighter. He could take pleasure in speaking with her of the old times, of his father, of his early days in Suffolk Street—in hearing her read to him, in being led into an argument with her, which promoted a healthy excitation of the mind, in walking with her when the days were fine. He was grateful for her services, and touched by them—she was his sister, whom he loved very dearly, and whom to part with would be another trial in store for him some day—and he had thought his trials were at an end long since! Sidney Hinchford, be it observed here, made but a clumsy blind man; he had little of that concentrativeness of the remaining senses, which make amends for the deprivation of one faculty. He neither heard better, nor was more sensitive to touch—and of this he complained a little peevishly, as though he had been unfairly dealt with. "I haven't even been served like other blind folk," he said; "your voice startles me at times as though it were strange to me." On one topic he would never dwell upon—the Wesdens. Mattie, true to the dying wish of the old man, attempted to bring the subject round to Harriet—Harriet, who was true to him yet, she believed—but the subject vexed him, and evinced at once all that new irritability which had been born with his affliction. "Let the past die—it is a bitter memory, and I dislike it," he would say; "now let us talk of the business which you think of setting me up in, and seeing me off in, before all the money is spent on housekeeping." Mattie turned to that subject at his request—it was one that pleased and diverted him. He was glad to speak of business; it sounded as if he were not quite dead yet. Mattie and he had spent many an hour in dilating upon the chances of opening a shop with the residue of the money which Sidney had saved before his illness—what shop it should be, and how it should be attended! He had only one reason for delaying the prosecution of the scheme—Mattie had implied more than once that when a shopkeeper was found, she should give up constant attendance upon him, and only call now and then to make sure that he was well, and not being imposed upon. "To think of turning shopkeeper in my old age!" he said one day, with quite a cheerful laugh at his downfall; "I, Sidney Hinchford, bank clerk, who had hoped to make a great name in the city. Well, it is commerce still, and I shall have a fair claim to respectability, as the wholesalers say, if I don't give short weight, or false measure, Mattie." "To be sure you will. But why do you not settle your mind to one business? Every day, Mr. Sidney, you think of a new one!" "You must not blame me for that, Mattie," he replied; "I want to make sure of the most suitable, to find one in which I could take part myself." "What do you think of the old business in which Mr. Wesden made money?—think of that whilst I am gone." "Where are you going now?" he asked a little irritably. "To scold the butcher for yesterday's tough joint," said Mattie. "Butchers make money, but how the deuce could I chop up a sheep without personal damage?" he said, rambling off to a new idea. Mattie hurried to the door. The butcher was certainly there; but, crossing the road in the direction of the house, Mattie had seen Harriet Wesden. The butcher was dismissed, and Harriet admitted silently into the passage. "How long have you been here?" Harriet exclaimed. "A month now. I promised his father that I would do my best for him left behind in trouble. You—you don't blame me?" "Blame you!—no. Why should I?" "My father thought that I was wrong to come here—exceeding my duty to my neighbour, and outraging my duty towards him. But I am not sorry." "And Sid—how is he now? Why does he bear so much malice in his heart against me, as to refuse me admittance to his house?" she asked. "He bears no malice, Harriet; but the past is painful to him. Presently he will come round, and judge all things truly. Every day he is less morbid—more resigned." "I am glad of that." "After all, everything has turned out for the best, Harriet," said Mattie. "Prove that," was her quick answer. Mattie was attempting the difficult task of deciphering the real thoughts of Harriet Wesden;—what she regretted, and what she rejoiced at, now the picture was finished, and all its deep shadowing elaborated. "For the best that the engagement was ended, Harriet. Think of the affliction that has befallen him, and which would have parted him and you at last." "Why parted us?—do you think, had it befallen me, that he would have turned away with horror—that he would not have loved me all the better, and striven all the harder to render my trouble less heavy to be borne? Mattie, I knew that this would come upon him years ago, and I did not shrink from my engagement." "You could never have married him—he is a poor man, and may be poorer yet; it is impossible to say." "It is all over now, and this is idle talk, Mattie. I have given up all thought of him, as he has given up all thought of me— and perhaps it is for the best," she added. "We will hope so, Harriet." "I was always a foolish and vain girl, prone to change my mind, and scarcely knowing what that mind was," she said bitterly. "It is easy enough to forget." Mattie scarcely understood her. She shook her head in dissent, and would have turned the conversation by asking after her father's health—Harriet's own health, which was not very evident on her pale cheeks just then. Harriet darted away from the subject. "Well—all well," she said; "and how is Sidney in health, you have not told me that?" "Better in health. I have said that his mind is more at ease." "Mattie, though I have given him up for ever, though I know that I am nothing to him now, and deserve to be nothing, let me see him again! I am going into the country with father for a week or two, and should like to see him once more before I go." "Harriet, you love him still! You are not glad that it is all ended between you!" "I should have been here in your place—I have a right to be here!" she said, evasively. "Tell him so." Mattie had turned pale, but she pointed to the parlour with an imperious hand. Harriet shrank from the boldness of the step, and turned pale also. "I—I—" "This is no time for false delicacy between you and him," said Mattie; "he loves you in his heart—he is only saddened by the past belief that you loved Maurice Darcy—if you do not shrink to unite your fate with his, and make his life new and bright again, ask him to be your husband. In his night of life he dare not ask you now." "I cannot do that," murmured Harriet; "that is beyond my strength." "You and your father with him in his affliction, taking care of him and rendering him happy! All in your hands, and you shrink back from him!" "Not from him, but from the bitterness of his reply to me," said Harriet. "Would you dare so much in my place?" "I—I think so. But then," she added, "I do not understand what true love is—you said so once, if you remember." Harriet detected something strange and new in Mattie's reply; she looked at Mattie, who was flushed and agitated. For the first time in her life, a vague far-off suspicion seemed to be approaching her. "I will go in and see him—I will be ruled by what he says to me. Leave me with him, Mattie." With her own impulsiveness, which had led her right and wrong, she turned the handle of the parlour door, and entered the room, where the old lover, blind and helpless, sat. CHAPTER III. THE OLD LOVERS. Yes, there he was, the old lover! The man whom she had once believed she should marry and make happy—whom she had valued at his just worth when he cast her off as unworthy of the love he had borne her. She had not seen him since that time; he had held himself aloof from her, although he had talked of remaining still her friend, and the change in him was pitiable to witness. It was the same handsome face, for all its pallor, and deep intensity of thought; the same intellectuality expressed therein, for all the blindness which had come there, and given that strange unearthly look to eyes still clear and bright, and which turned towards her, and startled her with their expression yet. But he was thin and wasted, and his hand, which rested on the table by his side, was an old man's hand, seared by age, and trembling as with palsy. "What a time you have been, Mattie! Ah! you are growing tired of me at last," he said, with the querulousness characteristic of illness, but before then ever so uncharacteristic of him. "Miss—Miss Wesden called to ask how you were," said Harriet, in a low voice. "Indeed!" he said, after a moment's deliberation of that piece of information; "and you answered her, and let her go away, sparing me the pain of replying for myself. That's well and kind of you, Mattie. We are better by ourselves now." "Yes." Harriet dropped into a chair by the door, and clasped her hands together; he spoke firmly; he spoke the truth as he thought, and she accepted it for truth, and said no more. Sidney Hinchford, oblivious of the visitor facing him, and composed in his blindness, detected no difference in the voice. Mattie's voice, we have remarked at an earlier stage of this narrative, closely resembled Harriet's, and acuteness of ear had not been acquired yet by the old lover. "Mattie, I have been thinking of a new business for us, since you have been gone." "For us?" gasped Harriet. "Ah! for us, if I can persuade you to remain my housekeeper, and induce your father to extend his consent. I have no other friend—I look to you, girl—you must not desert me yet!" "No." "I fancy the stationery business, with you to help me, Mattie, would be best, after all. You are used to it, and I could sit in the parlour and take stock, and help you with the figures in the accounts. I was always clever at mental arithmetic, and it don't strike me that I shall be quite a dummy. And then when I am used to the place—when I can find the drawers, and know what is in them, I shall be an able custodian of the new home, capable of minding shop while you go to your friends for awhile. Upon my honour, Mattie, I'm quite high-spirited about this—say it's a bargain, girl?" Harriet answered in the affirmative for Mattie. She had assumed her character and could not escape. She had resolved to go away, and make no sign to him of her propinquity; he cared not for her now; he dismissed her with a passing nod; it was all Mattie—Mattie in whom he believed and trusted, and on whose support in the future he built upon from that day! She knew how the story would end for him and Mattie—a peaceful and happy ending, and what both had already thought of, perhaps—let it be so, she was powerless to act, and it was not her place to interfere. Mattie had deceived her; it was natural—but she saw no longer darkly through the glass; beyond there was the successful rival, whom Sidney Hinchford would marry out of gratitude! Sidney continued to dilate upon the prospects in life before him. Harriet had risen, and was standing with her hand upon the door, watching her opportunity to escape. "Who would have dreamed of a man becoming resigned to an utter darkness, Mattie? Who would have thought of me in particular, cut out for a man of action, with no great love for books, or for anything that fastened me down to the domesticities?" "You are resigned, then?" "Well—almost." "I am very glad." "Why are you standing by the door, Mattie? Why don't you sit down and talk a little of this business of ours?" "Presently." "Now—just for a little while. Leave Ann Packet to the lower regions—I'm as talkative to-day as an old woman of sixty. Why, you will not balk me, Mattie?" "No." "Read this for me—I have been trying if I can write in the dark—my first attempt at a benighted penmanship." He held a paper towards her, and Harriet left her post by the door to receive it from his hands. The writing was large and irregular, but distinct. She shivered as she read the words. The story she had seen so plainly, was more evident than ever. "Sidney Hinchford," she read, "saved from shipwreck by Mattie Gray!" "And Mattie Gray here at my side accounts for my resignation," said he, laying his hand upon Harriet's. "Mattie, the old friend—after all, the best and truest!" Harriet did not reply; she shrank more and more, cowering from him as though he saw her there, the unwelcome guest who had forced herself upon him. "You are going out," he said, noticing the glove upon the hand he had relinquished now. "Yes, for a little while." "Don't be long. Where are you going that I cannot accompany you?" "On business—I shall be back in an instant." "Very well," he said, with a half-sigh; "but remember that you have chosen yourself to be my protector, sister, friend, and that I cannot bear you too long away from me. I wish I were more worthy of your notice—that I could return it in some way or fashion not distasteful to you. Sometimes I wish——" "Say no more!" cried Harriet, with a vehemence that startled him; "I am going away." The door clanged to and left him alone. She had hurried from the room, shocked at the folly, the mockery of affection which had risen to his lips. Ah! he was a fool still, he thought; he had frightened Mattie by hovering on the verge of that proposal, which he had considered himself bound to make perhaps, out of gratitude for the life of servitude Mattie had chosen for herself. He had been wrong; he had taken a mean advantage, and rendered Mattie's presence there embarrassing; his desire to be grateful had scared her from him, as well it might—he, a blind man, prating of affection! He had been a fool and coward; he would seal his lips from that day forth, and be all that was wished of him—nothing more. Harriet had made her escape into the narrow passage, had contrived to open the street-door, and was preparing to hurry away, when Mattie came towards her. "Going away without a good-bye, Harriet!" "I had forgotten," she said coldly. "What have you said to him?—have you—have you——" "I have said nothing at which you have reason to feel alarmed," said Harriet; "I have not taken your advice. He thinks and speaks only of you, and I did not break upon his thoughts by any harsh reminiscences." "You are excited, Harriet; don't go away yet, with that look. What does it mean?" "Nothing." "Has he offended you?" "No." "Have I?" "No," was the cold reiteration. "I am not well. I ought not to have intruded here. I see my mistake, and will not come again." "I hope you will, many, many times. I build upon you assisting me in the good work I have begun here. You and I together, in the future, striving for the old friend, Sidney Hinchford." "I am going away to-morrow—it is doubtful when I shall return, or what use I shall be to either you or him. You understand him better than I." "I do not understand you this afternoon," said Mattie, surveying her more intently; "what have I done? Don't you," she added, as a new thought of hers seemed to give a clue to Harriet's, "think it right that I should be here!" "If you think so, Mattie, it cannot matter what my opinion is." "Yes—to me." "You came hither with the hope of befriending him, as a sister might come? On your honour, with no other motive?" "On my honour, with none other." "Why deceive him, then?" was the quick rejoinder; "why tell him that your father gave his consent for your stay here, when he was so opposed to it?" "He thought so from the first, and I did not undeceive him, lest he should send me away. Have you seen my father?" "He called last night at our house. He is anxious and distressed about you." "I am sorry." "He thinks that you have no right to be here—I think you have now." "Oh! Harriet, you do not think——" "Hush! say nothing. You are your own mistress, and I am not angry with you. You have been too good a friend of mine, for me to envy any act of kindness towards him I loved once. I don't love him now." "You said you did." "A romantic fancy—I have been romantic from a child. It is all passed away now—remember that when he——" "When he—what?" "Asks you to be his wife, to become his natural protector; you alone can save him now from desolation—never my task —never now my wish. Good-bye." She swept away coldly and proudly, leaving the amazed Mattie watching her departure. What did she mean?—what had Sidney said to her that she should go away like that, distrusting her and the motives which had brought her there— she, of all women in the world! Mattie went back to Sidney's room excited and trembling. Close to his side before she startled him by her voice. "Mr. Sidney, long ago you were proud of being straightforward in your speech—of telling the plain truth, without prevarication." "Time has not changed me, I hope, Mattie." "What have you said to Harriet Wesden?" "To whom!" The horror on his face expressed the facts of the case at once, before the next words escaped him. "It was—Harriet Wesden then!" "Yes." "And she came in to see me, and assumed your character, Mattie?" he said; "why did you let her in?" "I don't know," murmured Mattie; "she was anxious about you, and she had come hither to make inquiries without intruding upon you, until I—I advised her to come." "For what reason?" he asked in a low tone. "I thought that you two might become better friends again, and——" "Ah! no more of that," he interrupted; "that was like my good sister Mattie, striving for everybody's happiness, except her own, perhaps. Mattie, you talk as if I had my sight, and were strong enough to win my way in life yet. You so quick of perception, and with such a knowledge of the world—you!" he reiterated. "Misfortune will never turn Harriet Wesden away from any one whom she has loved—it would not stand in the way of any true woman. And oh! sir, if I may speak of her once again—just this once—" "You may not," was his fierce outcry; "Mattie, I ask you not, in mercy to me!" "Why?" persisted Mattie. "I don't know—let me be in peace." It was his old sullenness—his old gloom. Back from the past, into which Mattie's efforts had driven it, stole forth that morbid despondency which had kept him weak and hopeless. The remainder of that day the old enemy was too strong for any effort of Sidney's strange companion, and Mattie felt disheartened by her ill success. CHAPTER IV. A NEW DECISION. Sidney Hinchford rose the next morning in better spirits, and Mattie in worse. Half the night in his own room Sidney had reflected on his vexatious sullenness of the preceding day, and on the effect it most have had on Mattie; half the night, Mattie in her room had pondered on the strangeness of the incidents of the last four-and-twenty hours—on that new demeanour of Harriet Wesden, which implied so much, and yet explained so little. After all, Mattie thought, was she right in staying there? Had she treated her father well in leaving him without a fair confession of that truth which she had breathed into the ears of a dying man, and scarcely owned till then unto herself? She had not come there with any sinister design of winning, by force as it were, a place in Sidney Hinchford's heart; she had never dreamed for an instant—she did not dream then!—of ever becoming his wife, with a right to take her place at his side and fight his battles for him. She had been actuated by motives the purest and the best—but who believed her? Had not her father mistrusted her? Had not Harriet, who understood her so well she thought, regarded her as one scheming for herself?—she whose only scheme was to bring two lovers together once more, and see them happy at each other's side. For an instant she had not thought that she was "good enough" for Sidney Hinchford; she who had been an outcast from society, an object of suspicion to the police, a beggar, and a thief! No matter that she had been saved from destruction and was now living an exemplary life, or that misfortune had altered Sidney and rendered him dependent on another's help, he was still the being above her by birth, education, position, and she could but offer him disgrace. With that conviction impressed upon her, conscious that Sidney had improved and would continue to improve, an object of distrust to her best friends—why not to the neighbours who watched them about the streets and talked about them?—only judged fairly and honourably by him she served, was it right to stop—was there any need for further stay there? She was thinking of this over breakfast—afterwards in her little business round, during which period another visitor had forced himself into Sidney's presence, without exercising much courtesy in the effort. Ann Packet had opened the street-door, and looked inclined to...