1861.]

GOOD FOR

NOTHING;

HEIGH-HO!' sighed the parrot,

coming down the inside of his cage backwards, like a sailor descending the rigging of a ship, holding on with beak and claws the while. Heigh-ho!' repeated the bird, and the sigh was so like Bella's that Alderman Jones turned round, startled to find that he was alone in the room.

"The devil's in the bird,' quoth the alderman, testily, going back to the money article in the Times. 'Dear, dear, Consols down again, and Slopes failed in Philadelphia for two hundred thousand dollars. I've a good mind to wring his neck,' meaning the parrot's, not Slopes's, whose failure, though it struck Jones and Co. a pretty smart blow, had not been entirely unexpected or unprovided for.

'I'd be a butterfly,' sang the parrot in discordant and unearthly notes, 'born in a-,' and he cut the tune short with another sigh that set the alderman a-thinking.

It was a new trick this, and he had caught it from Bella. Yes, now that he came to think of it, Bella was always sighing of late. What could be the matter with the girl? Surely she must have got all she wanted. Surely she didn't know anything about these hideous rents and fissures in the business. Surely she couldn't suspect; and yet, if he didn't weather the storm (and things were looking very bad just at present; neither he nor John saw their way very clearly a-head), if he couldn't weather the storm, Bella must be told at last. The alderman pushed away his untasted plate, and took a great gulp of his strong green tea.

The windows were open and the birds singing blithely out of doors, the sunshine flickering cheerily through the green Venetian blinds.

There were fresh flowers in the room, and glittering plate and delicate china on the breakfasttable. Must it all go-the fruit of how many years of calculation and energy and honest mercantile enterprise? It would be hard to begin life again now. The alderman glanced at a portrait that hung over against his seat. 'My own,' he said, half aloud, 'I never thought to be glad that you were at rest in your grave out yonder'— and even while he spoke a tear came to his eye, and his heart thrilled to feel that, old, fat, wornout as he was, he would have worked thankfully like the veriest helot for his daily bread, only to clasp that lady's hand in his own once more. The parrot sighed again profoundly, and Bella came down to breakfast, bright and comely from her toilet, and gave her old father his morning kiss with a pleasant smile.

He put the paper down, and half resolved to make his daughter the confidant of his difficulties; but then John Gordon was to be with him at twelve o'clock, for a twinge of his old enemy, the gout, had confined him to the house, and it would be better, he thought, at any rate, to wait till he had seen his partner and taken his opinion on the matter. Bella, too, who had discovered (as people do find out other people's movements) that Mr. Gordon was coming, had resolved to ask him privately on her own account why papa was anxious and ill-at-ease. John Gordon had great influence, you see, with the whole family at the villa.

SO

Breakfast progressed uncomfortably. The parrot heaved a succession of deep sighs, after each of which the alderman started and

looked searchingly at Bella, who poured out the tea with an absent and preoccupied air, which seemed to justify papa's suspicions that she was not altogether 'fancy free.' It seems to me one of the hardest lessons that has to be learned in life thus to conceal from one nearest and dearest those vital matters of which our thoughts are full, to talk perforce of the cook or the carpet, when the question is really whether we shall to-morrow have a roof over our heads or bread to eat; to discuss yesterday's dinner or last night's farce, while there is a tragedy enacting in our own hearts on which our only desire is that the curtain may fall at once and for ever.

It was a relief to father and daughter alike when a servant came in and announced 'Mr. Gordon and a gentleman' as waiting in the alderman's sitting-room. The latter rose with an inward thanksgiving, and hobbled off with considerable alacrity; while Bella, sitting over her cold tea, proceeded all unconsciously to give the parrot another lesson in suspiration.

Her father was right. The girl was not altogether 'fancy free.' She had allowed her silly little head to dwell upon the manifold excellences of a certain gentleman whom she was in the constant habit of meeting, until she fancied her heart had not escaped altogether scathless; and indeed, truth to tell, that organ had sustained a slight scratch or two, which smarted pretty sharply-such scratches as warn young ladies it is time to betake them to their defensive armour ere it be too late, and which in their innocence they take to be far more serious than they really are. There is but little irritation about a death-wound: when the arterial blood comes welling up throb by throb, agony gives place to exhaustion, and there is more peace than pain.

The certain gentleman took a large roll of papers from his pocket, and proceeded very methodically to untie the string. Had John Gordon been going to undergo decapitation, it was his nature to

have turned his shirt-collar down, so as to crease it as little as possible. A tall man with moustachios, whom the alderman recognised as Lord Holyhead, had already upset an inkstand, and was mopping up the stains with blotting-paper.

The alderman begged him to sit down, rang for sherry, and turned to John with his business face on.

The junior partner was about to state matters in his clearest manner, when the nobleman interposed. It was Holyhead's disposition to take the initiative in everything with which he had to do.

'Look ye here, Mr. Jones,' said he, with another plunge at the inkstand, which John quietly removed beyond his reach, 'I've come on purpose to say three words-you've had "a facer." I don't know what the trade call it, but I call it "a facer." You want time, of course; you must get your wind, and go in again. Now, I've a strong claim upon you. I don't mean to urge it. I don't want it. I won't take a shilling. My bills are as good as bank-notes. You stood by me five years ago, when I wanted money; I mean to stand by you now so long as a plank holds; and if worst comes to worst, we'll go down together all standing, and so "bon soir la compagnie !" May I ring for my hack?

This is not business,' gasped the alderman.

This is not business,' argued John Gordon.

'I shall never forget your offer, but I cannot accept it,' continued the former.

'If you'll go through these papers with me,' interposed the latter.

'I can show you all the securities. We can weather the gale yet if Newman and Hope ride through; but we want a man out there sadly. See, I've got it all down in black and white.'

'I have always been able to pay as I go,' said the alderman, and a strange troubled expression came over that jolly face-to pay as I go, and owe no man anything. I never thought it would come to this, my good friends (for friends, and true ones, you are both of you).

You're young and sanguine. Now, my advice is this-Wind up the accounts; lump in everything I have of my own, and I can pay twenty shillings in the pound yet, and shut up shop altogether. To think that Jones and Co. should go out like this-Jones and Co., Jones and Co.'

Bother!' exclaimed Lord Holyhead. 'Never say die till your dead! Mr. Gordon has my instructions. I mean what I say. We settled everything this morning. You two must have plenty to talk about. Yes, I'll have a glass of sherry, if you please, and then my hack.

Good bye, alderman. We'll pull through yet; never say die, I tell you,' and his lordship bustled out of the room with even more noise than usual, to mask as it were his own consciousness of the stanch friendship he had shown and the munificent offer of assistance he had made.

It was not, however, in his nature to pass through the hall without rectifying all and any arrangements which his critical eye should deem amiss, and it so chanced that the parrot, undergoing temporary banishment in this airy locality, had got entangled with his chain in the performance of his usual gymnastics, and was now showing no little wrath in his endeavours to extricate himself. It would not have been Holyhead could he have gone by without interference. Ere the footman could open the house-door his hand was in the cage, and with equal rapidity the parrot had bitten it to the bone. Bella, coming pensively down-stairs, was startled to hear a good deal of fluttering and disturbance below, and a smothered oath, accompanied by expressions of impatience and pain; nor was her equanimity restored by encountering a military-looking gentleman binding his fingers with a blood-stained handkerchief, and eyeing Polly, who swelled and sulked behind the bars with suppressed resentment. The lady could not but stop to express her concern and apologize for the misbehaviour of her favourite. The cavalier, though he bled like a pig,

547

could not but make light of the adventure in terms of fitting courtesy. The knight was wounded, and shrewdly too. It was the damsel's part to succour and to heal. The result was that Lord Holyhead's hack was sent round to the stable, a basin of warm water and some lint were produced, and John Gordon coming into the drawing-room for a missing letter some ten minutes after the catastrophe, found Bella bandaging Lord Holyhead's hand, and the two laughing merrily over the operation as if they had been friends from childhood.

It seemed to take a long time, and indeed all bandaging is a process requiring patience and dexterity. Lord Holyhead thought that was a very artless, pleasing face that looked up so kindly in his own, and hoped it didn't hurt him;' also that a man might have a worse attendant, if he was really in a bad way, than a fresh-hearted, good-natured girl, helpful and unaffected, and comely, too, besides. It came across him more than once as he rode back into London how neatly she had bandaged him up, how prettily she had behaved, how 'that daughter of Jones was a deuced nice girl.'

What Bella thought I cannot take upon me to say. She certainly did not scold the parrot for his outbreak, but rather caressed and coaxed him, venturing her own pretty fingers without compunction; but Bella had a good many other matters just then to distract her attention from Polly and its misdemeanors.

She was no blinder than the rest of her sex. What physical powers of vision are theirs as compared to ours! Muffle up the keenesteyed detective of the force, in a widow's bonnet with a double crape veil, and he will blunder about like an owl in the daylight; but watch the bereaved one herself in the same head-dress, her eyesight seems to be rather stimulated than impaired by that impervious material, and she is as well aware of your glances of curiosity, perhaps admiration, as though her brow were

bared in shameless defiance, rather than masked in the dense draperies of insidious design. Their moral sense is equally acute. Try to deceive a woman about your feelings, your likes and dislikes, your little prejudices and foolish whims. She looks through you at a glance. She detects your secret ere you have hardly told it to yourself; well for you if she do not abuse her power, and make it public to the whole circle of her acquaintance. Therefore, it is a wholesome maxim to have no secrets from a woman; or if the former be indispensable, to determine that the latter is not. Bella knew there was something wrong; so she counter-ordered the carriage, and waited all the morning, resolved to have some explanation before Mr. Gordon went. It would be so much easier, she thought, to ask him than papa; and Mr. Gordon of course would satisfy her curiosity: he was so frank and honest, and always so kind to her. Nothing could be easier than to get it all out of John Gordon !

Luncheon was announced, and suffered to get cold. What a long confabulation that seemed to be in papa's room; would it never be over? At last a door opened, ominous sound to nerves strained with expectation; a footstep crossed the hall towards the drawing-room. John Gordon entered with his usual cold and unembarrassed air. It did not seem half so easy to cross-question him now.

Bella rose from her chair, felt her knees trembling, and sat down again. John stood Anglice with his back to the empty fireplace; Anglice also he broached the important subject in the most indifferent tones.

'Miss Jones,' he began, 'is there anything I can do for you at Sydney?

I don't believe she knew where

Sydney was. From his manner she might have inferred it was a little farther off than Regentstreet.

'At Sydney!' she gasped. 'What! are you going away? I don't understand.'

'I am going across to Australia, said John, as a man would observe he was going to step ‘over the way.' 'It's a little matter of business, Miss Jones, and wont take long to settle. What shall I bring you back? A couple of kangaroos would be very nice pets. I shall be home in a year or eighteen months at farthest.'

A year or eighteen months! And Bella was barely twenty. It seemed a life-time. She snatched up some needlework and stooped busily over it to conceal the tears that were falling thick and fast upon her hands.

John observed her emotion, and somewhat wilfully ignored its cause. At any rate, he thought it advisable to place it on some other score than his own departure; so he resumed his conversation in a kind and brotherly tone.

'You ought to know, Miss Jones, that mercantile people like ourselves are subject to certain ups and downs which no amount of attention or probity can entirely control. Your father's business has been much neglected in Australia. It is possible that everything might be lost in consequence of a failure there' (John had a discretionary power from the alderman, who dreaded breaking the matter to his daughter himself 'Some one who is intimately acquainted with our affairs should be on the spot; and that is why I am going over at such short notice. If worst come to the worst, Bella,' he added, taking her hand, there will still be enough saved to live upon; and you will have your father left. You don't know how fond he is of you, Bella.'

The tears were falling unconcealed now. Mingled feelings were forcing them to her eyes. She loved her father very dearly; and it was dreadful to hear worldly ruin thus spoken of as no improbable contingency. How touching, too, was John Gordon's sympathy and brotherly kindness; he had never spoken to her in such a tone as this before; and yet her woman's instinct told her that it was a tone of protection rather

than attachment; that it was not thus he would have alluded to his departure, had he been exactly what she wished. What did she wish him to be? Poor girl! she hardly knew herself. So she had no resource but to go on crying; and having no more pertinent remark to make, only sobbed out—

'Such a long way off!-such a long way off!'

John Gordon was not easily softened. He was sorry for her, but that was all.

'Bella,' said he, still retaining her hand, 'you have a duty to perform. We have all our different tasks in a difficulty like the present. Yours is to comfort your father, to keep up his spirits, and attend to his health. Mine is to lose no time in making preparations. I shall scarcely be able to see you again. God bless you, Bella, and goodbye.'

They were cold words, though they were so kind. In honest truth, they were the kinder for being cold; but each by each sank very chill upon the girl's heart. Yet even then her thoughts were less for her own disappointment and loneliness than for his coming Voyage. She seized his hand in both of hers and pressed it affectionately.

'Goodbye,' she said, looking up with a face all blurred with tears. 'You'll sail in a safe ship; and promise me, Mr. Gordon, promise me you won't go without a lifebelt!'

d known

lived long enough to lear value of rents and cons moters of happiness; though they have discovered that 'non ebur neque aurum' overlaying the roof of a palace, is to be compared to the humble 'heartsease' that can flourish well enough beneath a cottage wall; though they have seen the rich weary and dissatisfied, the poor hopeful and contented; they should still covet for their dearest that which they are too well aware has never profited themselves. The alderman could have lived on two hundred a year in perfect comfort for his own part, but he had dreaded breaking to Bella that they might have to manage between them on something less than thrice that income. Now they could talk it over unrestrained. Now he could tell her of Lord Holyhead's magnanimity and John Gordon's good management, and the business, and the losses, and their past mistakes, and their prospects for the future.

Bella cared very little for poverty. Like other women, she had been lavish enough of money when it was abundant. Like them, too, she would be sparing of it when it was scarce. Affairs brightened considerably, as they generally do when people look them in the face. And before they had sat together for an hour, Bella was already loud in Lord Holyhead's praises, and had made her father laugh at her description of his encounter with the parrot; but of John Gordon and his coming voyage, uppermost as the subject was in her mind, poor Bella could not yet bring herself to speak.

CHAPTER XVIII.

'BON VOYAGE.'

'Tis a grand study of perspective, that long straight vista of wide, substantial, respectable, Portlandplace. Every time I look down it I wonder anew at the spire in Langham-place, speculating whether it does really run up to a point as sharp as a needle, and admiring hugely the while that architectural